"My lord-" Caryl began, but Orain gave a slight, warning shake of his head, and said quickly, "If you would be more comfortable riding behind me, you may, when we have gotten through this path; this is no place to stop and change horses. Or if you will give me the word of a Hastur that you will not try to flee from us, I will arrange it that one of the pack-animals can carry you, and you may ride alone."
"Thank you," the boy said, "but I would rather stay with-" he paused and swallowed and said, "with Rumal." She was astonished at his presence of mind; no other youngster, she was sure, could have remembered, even in this extremity, not to blurt out her secret.
"Ride carefully, then," Orain said, "and guard him well, Rumal." He turned back to his own riding, and Romilly, settling Caryl as comfortably as she could in front of her - it would indeed be easier if he could sit behind her and hang on, but there was no way to stop and change now - reflected that he had protected her even when he had nothing to gain by keeping her secret, and when he might have made trouble among his captors. An unusual youngster indeed, and cleverer than Rael, disloyal as she felt to her own little brother to think so.
He knew she was a woman. Though, she had thought sometimes that Dom Carlo knew and kept his counsel for his own reasons, whatever they were. And then, for the first time - so swiftly had affairs moved since she was awakened - she remembered Orain's exact words when he came seeking her. Is Carlo with you? This is no time for modesty! Had Carlo, then, confided to Orain - or been told by him, perhaps? - that he knew her a woman, and, knowing that, did he think her such a woman as might be free of her favors, so that he might have found Carlo in her bed? Even in the bitter cold, Romilly felt the hot flush of shame on her cheeks. Well, riding with them in men's clothes, what sort of woman could he think her?
Well, if he knew, he knew, and if he thought that of her, he must think what he liked. At least he had been gentleman enough not to spread it among these roughnecks. But she had begun to like Orain so much!
Again from the crags above them came the eerie scream of a banshee; it was closer now, and Romilly felt the throbbing, eldritch wail going all through her, as if her very bones were shuddering at the sound. She knew how the natural prey of the bird must feel; it seemed to stop her in her tracks, to wipe out the world around so that there was nothing except that dreadful vibration, which seemed to make her eyes blur and the world go dark around her. Caryl moaned and dug his hands over his ears with an agonized shiver, and she could see the men ahead of them fighting to control their terrified horses while the sentry-birds flapped, and the chervines made their odd bawling cry and stepped around, almost prancing with terror, on the icy path. One of them stumbled and went down and the rider fell, sliding some way before he could dig his heels into the ice and stand up, scrambling to catch his riding-animal; another beast piled into him and there was a clumsy sprawling collision. Swearing, they fought with the reins. The screaming of the hooded sentry-birds, their bating wings, added to the dismay, and again the eerie terror-filled banshee scream shuddered out from the crags above, and was answered by yet another.
Romilly gave Caryl a little shake. "Stop that!" she demanded furiously. "Help me, help me quiet the birds!" Her own breath was coming ragged, she could see it steaming in the icy air, but she put her mind swiftly to reaching out with that special sense of hers, and sending thoughts of calm, peace, food, affection. She could reach them still; as she felt Caryl's thoughts join with hers, one after another the great birds quieted, were still on their blocks on the saddles, and Carlo and his men could get the riding-animals under control again. Carlo gestured to them to gather close - the path widened here just enough that three or four of the animals could stand abreast, and they gathered in a little bunch.
The crags above them were beginning to stand out stark against the paling sky; pink and purple clouds outlined the blackness of the rocks of the pass. Dawn was near. The trail above them narrowed and led across the glacier; and even as they looked, a clumsy shadow moved on the face of the rocks, and again there came the terrible wailing scream, answered by another from higher up. Orain compressed his narrow lips and said wryly, "Just what we needed; two of the damned things! And daylight still a good hour away - and even when the sun comes up, we might not escape them. And we can't wait anyway; if there's pursuit we should be away and across the path before full daylight, and well to the other side where the woods will conceal our traces! A blind man would be able to read our tracks on ice, and Lyondri's sure to have half a dozen of his damned leroni with him!"
"We're in the very mouth of the trap," Carlo muttered, his face going silent and distant. He said at last, into the silence, "No pursuit, at least not yet - I need no leronis to tell me so
much. You were a damned fool to bring the boy, Alaric - with him to follow, Lyondri will follow us though the track led through all nine of Zandru's hells! Now he has a second and personal grudge!"
"If the boy's with us," Alaric said, his teeth set tight, "we can buy our lives, at least!"
Caryl drew himself upright on the saddle and said angrily, "My father would not compromise his honor for his son's life, and I would not want him to!"
"Lyondri's honor?" growled one of the men, "The sweet breath of the banshee, the welcoming climate of Zandru's ninth hell!"
"I will not hear you say-" Caryl began, but Romilly caught him around the waist before he could physically climb down the saddle and attack the speaker, and Carlo said quietly, "Enough, Caryl. A sentiment seemly for Lyondri's son, lad, but we have no time for babble. Somehow we must get across the path, and though I have no will to hurt you, if you can't keep your tongue behind your teeth, I fear you must be gagged; my men are in no mood to hear a defense of one who has set a price on our heads. And you, Garan, and you, Alaric, you shut your faces too; it's not well done to mock a child about his father's honor, and there's harder work ahead of us than quarreling with a little boy!" He looked up again as the. shrilling shriek of the banshee drowned their voices, and Romilly saw his whole body tense in the effort to conquer the purely physical fear that screaming cry created in their minds. Romilly hugged Caryl tight, not sure whether it was to comfort the child or to still her own fears, whispering, "Help me quiet the animals." It was well to give him something to think about except his own terror.
Again the soothing vibration spread out, and she knew her own talent, laran or whatever they called it, enhanced by the already-powerful gift of the young Hastur child. As it died into silence, Alaric said, his hand on his dagger, "I have hunted banshees before this, vai dom, and slain them too."
"I doubt not your courage, man," said Carlo, "but your wit, if you think we can face two banshees in a narrow pass, without losing man or horse. We have no deaf-hounds, nor nets and ropes. Perhaps, if we keep between the horses and chervines, we may manage to escape with a horse for each, but then would we be afoot in the worst country in the Hellers! And if we stand here, we will be taken in the jaws of the trap."
"Better the beak of the banshee than the tender mercies of Lyondri's men," said one of the riders, edging uneasily away from his place at the head of the little cavalcade. "I'll face what you face, my lord."
"Too bad your skill with birds extends not to such creatures as those" said Orain, looking at Romilly with a wry grin, "Could you but calm those birds as you worked with hawk and sentry-bird, then should we be as well off as any Hastur-lord with his pet leronis!"
Romilly shuddered at the thought ... to enter into the minds of those cruel carnivores, prowling the heights? She said weakly "I hope you are joking, vai dom."
"Why should that laran not be as workable against banshee as against sentry-bird, or for that matter, barnyard fowl?" asked Caryl, sitting upright on the saddle, "They are all creatures of Nature, and if Rom - Rumal's Gift can quiet the sentry-birds, with my own laran to help, why, perhaps we can reach the banshees too, and perhaps convince them that we are not destined for their breakfast."
Romilly felt again a perceptible sh
udder run through her. But before young Caryl's eager eyes, she was ashamed to confess her fear.
Carlo said quietly, "I am reluctant to leave our safety in the hands of two children, when grown men are helpless. Yet if you can help us - there seems no other way, and if we delay here, we are dead men, all of us. Your father would not harm you, my young Carolin, but I fear the rest of us would die, and not too quickly or easily."
Caryl was blinking hard. He said, "I do not want any harm to come to you, sir. I do not think my father understands that you are a good man; perhaps Dom Rakhal has poisoned his mind against you. If I can do anything to help, so that he may have time to think more sensibly about all this quarrel, I will be very glad to do what I can." But Romilly noticed that he too looked a little frightened. And as they moved slowly forward he whispered, "I am afraid, Rumal - they look so fierce it is hard to remember that they too are the creations of God. But I will try to remember that the blessed Valentine-of-the-Snows had a pact of friendship with them and called them little brothers."
I do not think I truly wish to be brother to the banshee, Romilly thought, urging her horse forward with a little cluck and the pressure of her knee, trying to throw out soothing thoughts to calm the animal's fear. But she must not think that way. She must remember that the same Force which created the dogs and horses she loved, and the beloved hawks, had created the banshee for its own purposes, even if she did not know what they were. And the sentry-birds, who looked so fierce, were gentle and loving as cagebirds, when she had gotten to know them; she truly loved Prudence, and even for Temperance and Diligence she felt a genuine affection.
If the banshee is my brother . . . and for a moment she felt an amusement bubbling up that she recognized as all but hysterical. Her gentle brother Ruyven, timid Darren, dear little Rael, in the same breath with the screaming horrors on the crag?
She heard Caryl whispering to himself; the only words she caught were, Bearer of Burdens and Blessed Valentine . . . and she knew the child was praying. She caught him tight against her, burying her face against his caped shoulder, closing her eyes. Was this true goodness, or a mad presumption, to think that somehow their minds could reach the mind of a banshee - if the banshees have any mind, she thought, and again forced the rising hysteria down. No one knew she was a girl, she could not cry and scream with terror! She thought, grimly, that both Orain and Dom Carlo looked frightened too; where they were afraid, she had no need to feel shame for her fear!
She shut her eyes again and tried to form a prayer, but could not remember any. Bearer of Burdens, you know what I want to pray, and now I have to try and do what I can to save us all, she said in a half-voiced whisper, then sighed and said, "We will try, Caryl. Come, link with me-"
Her mind reached out, just aware enough of her body to keep it upright in the saddle, moving with the horse's uneasy step. Reached out - she was aware of the horses, shuddering inwardly yet moving on, step by slow step, out of loyalty to their riders; of the sentry-birds, frightened at the noise, but calm because she and Caryl, whose mental voices they trusted, had bidden them be calm. She reached farther, felt something cold and terrifying, felt again the shrilling scream, shuddering through all creation, but, her hands clasped tightly in Caryl's, she stayed with it, moved into the alien mind.
At first she was conscious only of tremendous pressures, a hunger so fierce that it cramped her belly, a restless cold driving toward warmth, that seemed like light and home and satisfaction, the touch of warmth driving inward and flooding her whole body with a hunger almost sexual, and she knew, with a tiny fragment that was still Romilly, that she had reached the mind of the banshee. Poor hungry, cold thing, . . it is only seeking warmth and food, like the whole of Creation. . . . Her eyes blotted out, she could not see, only feel, she was the banshee and for a moment she fought a raging battle, her whole mind alive with the need to fling herself upon the warmth, to rend and tear and feel the exquisitely delicious feel of warm blood bursting ... she felt her own hands tighten on Caryl's warmth, and then with a leftover part of herself she knew she was human, a woman, with a child to protect, and others dependent on her skill.
Linked tightly to Caryl, she felt his soothing mental touch, like a soft murmur, Brother banshee, you are one with all life and one with me. The Gods created you to rend and tear at your prey, I praise and love you as the Gods made you, but there are beasts in this wilderness who know not fear because the Gods have given them no consciousness. Search for your prey among them, my little brothers, and let me pass. . . . In the name of the blessed Valentine, I bid you, bear your own burdens and seek not to end my life before the time appointed. Blessed is he who preys and blessed is he who gives life to another....
I mean you no harm, Romilly added her quiet mental appeal to the child's, seek elsewhere for your food.
And for a moment, in the great flooding awareness that she, and the horse she rode, and the child's soft body in her arms, and the banshee's wild hunger and seeking for warmth, were all one, a transcendent wave of joy spread through her; the red streaks of the rising sun filled her with heat and wonderful flooding happiness, Caryl's warmth against her breast was an overflow of tenderness and love, and for a dangerous moment she thought, even if the banshee takes me for its prey, I shall be even more one with its wonderful life-force. But I too want to live and rejoice in the sunlight. She had never known such happiness. She knew that there were tears on his face, but it did not matter, she was part of everything that lived and had breath, part of the sun and the rocks, even the cold of the glacier was somehow wonderful because it heightened her awareness of the heat of the rising sun.
Then somehow the magical link shattered and was gone. They were on the downward side of the pass, and high above them, the lumbering form of a banshee was shambling toward a cavemouth in the rocks, without paying them the slightest heed. Caryl was crying in her arms, hugging her tight. "Oh, it was hungry and we cheated it out of its breakfast"
She patted him, too shaken to speak, still caught up in the experience. Carlo said huskily, "Thank you, lads. I don't really want to be the banshee's breakfast, even if the poor thing was hungry, it can take its breakfast elsewhere."
The men were looking at them in awe. Orain said shakily, trying to break the spell, "Ah, you're too big and tough a boy for a banshee's delicate appetite - it would rather have a tender young ice-rabbit, I'm sure," and they all guffawed. Romilly felt weak, still under the spell of the wide-ranging enchantment they had woven with their laran.
Dom Carlo rummaged in his saddle-bags. He said roughly, "I can't say what I owe you two. I remember the leroni were starving after they did such work - here." He thrust dried meat, dried fruit, wafers of journey-bread at them. Romilly began to sink her teeth into the meat, and then somehow her gorge rose.
Once this was living, breathing flesh, how can I make it my prey? Or I am no better than the banshee. Once this dried flesh was the living breath of all my brothers. She gagged, thrust the meat from her and thrust a dried fruit into her mouth.
This too is of the life of all things, but it had no breath and it does not sicken me with the consciousness of what once it was. The Bearer of Burdens created some life with no purpose but to give up its life that others might feed . . . and as she felt the sweetness of the fruit between her teeth, briefly, the ecstasy returned, that this fruit should give up its sweetness so that she might no longer hunger....
Caryl, too, was chewing ravenously at a hunk of the hard bread, but she noted that he, too, had put the meat away, though a piece had small sharp toothmarks in it. So he had shared her experience. Distantly, like something she might have dreamed a long time ago, she wondered how she could ever again eat meat.
Even when they made brief camp, with the sun high in the sky, to give grain to the horses and meat to the sentry-birds, she ate none of the dried meat, but only fruit and bread, and stirred some water into the dried porridge-powder, eating a bowlful. Yet, to her own surprise, it did not trouble her when the
sentry-birds tore greedily at the somewhat gamy meat they carried for them; it was their nature, and they were as they were meant to be.
She noticed that the men still kept a wary distance. She was not surprised. If she had seen two other people quiet an attacking banshee, she would have been silent in awe, too. She still could not believe she had done it.
As they finished their meal and resaddled the horses, she looked at Dom Carlo, standing straight and tall at the edge of the clearing, with his face distant and listening. She was now skilled enough in the use of laran to know that he was extending his mental awareness along the trail behind them, toward the pass.
"So far we are not pursued," he said at last, "And the paths are so many, unless Lyondri has a horde of leroni with him, I do not truly think he will be able to pick up our trail. We must keep ordinary caution; but I think we can ride for Caer Donn in safety now." He held out his arms to Caryl.
"Will you ride behind my saddle, kinsman?" he asked, as if he spoke to a grown man and his equal, "There are things I would say to you."
Caryl glanced at Romilly, then collected himself and said courteously, "As you wish, kinsman." He scrambled up into the saddle. As they rode away, she could see that they were talking together in low tones, and Romilly found that she missed the child's warm weight in front of her. Once she saw Caryl shaking his head, seriously, and a word or two reached her ears.
"... oh, no, kinsman, I give you my word of that...."
Suddenly jealous of this closeness, Romilly wished she could hear what they were saying. So near, now, was her laran to the surface, that it occurred to her; Perhaps I need only reach out and know.
And then she was shocked at herself. What was she thinking, she who had been reared in a Great House and taught proper courtesy toward both equals and inferiors? Why, that would be no worse than eavesdropping at doors, snooping like a nasty child, that would be completely unworthy of her.