"Silver," he repeated. "Do you not know that silver is the metal esteemed by the Old Learning, that it is said at times to obey laws we do not understand? And who was your father?"
Sarita shrugged. "It does not matter to a guildwoman. I heard once from a maid that he was a far traveler, a man from overseas who dealt in pearls and came to the guildhouse to sell. It does not matter. I am Sarita Magasdaughter, of that I can be proud."
"However, what you have just done, Sarita Magasdaughter, is a power search. Where your silver-headed tool touched —there is a source of power. And it touched on the keep. Thus we can now be sure that Sanghail has other weapons beside steel and arrows."
Sarita hastily plucked the awl free. She was almost inclined to throw it from her. She did not want ever again to be so used by something she could not understand. But no, it was her mother's and it would continue to hang at her belt. But to use it—she would be of two minds over that.
Rhys was studying the map. "An arrow point—stone circles set up in the old days — "
"Perhaps." She got up. "It is a warning. In that way danger lies."
She hoped he would accept that and think no more of LodenKail.
"We shall see. I am for another look around." It was as if her experience with the awl had made him wary again. "Keep close — bring Valoris in."
"But food —it is time — "
To her surprise he shook his head. "I shall eat when I return. Hold to your mind warning, mistress. We may have need of all such talents before long."
Talents he called them, she thought resentfully. Her talent was with thread and needle and she wanted none other to plague her. A shiver ran through her. She raised her hand and worked the fingers which had held the awl in that painfully tight grip. She wanted none of that again.
Having made a circle about the lodge, Rhys headed resolutely eastward. That sewing girl might not believe in talents, but he did — at least enough to want to look at the valley and see what was going on there. The performance of her awl suggested a new deadliness which they might have to face.
He was well along when he crossed a wide, open trail. Those who made the trail were assuredly not woodsmen, and it was very plain to read. There was one ridden horse in the party and he was able to puzzle out footprints of some half-dozen men.
They were not heading west but rather in a northerly direction, and he followed, wishing to make sure they did not double back. The trail was more than a day old, and at length he came to a small glade where they had camped for the night.
Wolfheads, unless they were rich with plunder, would not go shod in hide boots. The prints he followed were uniform, therefore he deduced they were a party of soldiers, though ones that were not well disciplined. Flies buzzed above a pile of offal from some small kills, as well as above even more noisome leavings.
Still, he decided to keep on for a space, eager to know who and what these invaders were.
He almost stumbled over a body shoved half under a bush. The sight of the green-dyed jerkin and the darker green of the breeches made his breath catch for a moment. Then he forced himself down on one knee to roll the limp form over. The face had been battered nearly to a pulp, and there were stains elsewhere. He had died hard.
Tufts of blood-soaked hair led Rhys to an identification. Shamus had been noted for his hair—as white as that of a grandsire when he was not yet into his twenties. He had been stationed at the Lookout—what was he doing here?
There were rope burns on his wrists, though those were now free. His jerkin had been torn from its hooks to show blood marks across his shirt; some of those stains were older than the others.
Had Shamus been trying to reach the keep and been gathered in by a Sanghail scouting party? Or had he been taken prisoner at the Lookout and, for some reason, brought along? His badly battered head suggested that his captors must have lost patience with him for some reason.
Something reflected the sun's light from inside one of the dead man's hands, now balled into fists. Rhys worked patiently to open the stiffened fingers. At last he held up a broken chain. Attached to one of its links was a night-black stone. The thing had either been carved by some inept hand or perhaps rudely shaped by time and nature itself.
As he held it closer, Rhys stiffened. It was in the form of a monster's head, and the longer he stared at it the sharper its features grew. When his hand inadvertently touched it, he felt as if he had fingered loathsome slime. With an oath he threw it from him.
It had the guise of an amulet. Many men wore such fortune charms —but this was not meant to attract any good luck. And he was sure that this was no possession of Shamus. Perhaps in his death struggle he had torn it from one of his captors. Rhys took a sudden chance and loosed his warning talent. Nothing answered him, save that he knew this thing was a danger worse than a bared sword or an expert archer's shaft.
He drew his knife to cut a small branch from the bush and used the tip of it to hook the chain. With that lump of nastiness a-swing, he went back to the abandoned camp, plunging the stone into the ashes of their fire, dropping bits of charred wood on top.
As for Shamus —he had no way of burying the ranger. To do so would awaken suspicion if those murderers returned this way. But he went to stand over the body and fitted an arrow into the torn shirt across the now stilled heart.
"Wide and smooth the trail.
Fair the day, still the night.
Duty's son, this be thine
Pass swiftly beyond all time."
His voice was strained, but he was sure he had correctly remembered the proper words of farewell, though he had heard them only once before.
There was a rage rising in him. He wanted to follow this trail, perhaps lay an ambush of his own to bring down those who had slain his comrade. Shamus had not been a close friend, but he was a ranger and by the old truth his blood debt now rested on Rhys.
But he dared not be so reckless. There was the young lordling and the girl. Let him be taken as Shamus was and sooner or later their portion would also be death. Duty turned him back though he deliberately struck farther east as he went.
11
Rhys neared the thinning edge of the woodland. The fields below were hedged and might provide some cover. He could see the roof of a farmhouse—only there was an odd slant to the roof. He realized a portion of it was missing. The building must have caught fire, while the fields showed no cut of a plow, grass growing over old furrows.
Sanghail must have laid waste widely, not attempting to preserve the keep holdings. Rhys accepted that roof as a warning and slipped back into cover.
It was very late afternoon as he fell into a trot. Still, he did not head toward the lodge but wove a pattern back and forth to throw off anyone who might chance upon his trail. Taking every short cut he knew, he moved at a steadily increasing pace.
As the hours passed, Sarita had lost none of her uneasiness. When the afternoon shadows lengthened she made sure Valoris was in the lodge, but she had no way of sheltering the donkeys and goats from observation. She could only trust that the animals might be considered strays by any lurker.
During their first day here Rhys had shown her the one hiding place. It had not been intended as such, though there was always the threat of an attack by wolfheads, especially in winter when the starving time came. Rather it was an extra storage arena
under the floor of the larger bedroom, to be found only by counting boards and inserting a knife point to raise the catch of a trapdoor.
Sarita closed and barred the lodge door, then struggled the inner shutters into place. Her hands were bruised and she lost a portion of a fingernail before that was done.
Valoris watched her, remaining quietly where she had put him down. It seemed almost as if her rising apprehension engulfed him also. She lit only one of the lanterns before she ladled out the stew which had been bubbling away for nearly an hour.
What if Rhys had been captured —or was dead? That he was gone so long was a bad por
tent. She fed the child, though she could not put her spoon into her bowl and finally emptied its contents back into the pot.
"Lady," she said, "oh, Lady! Be shield and sword for us this night!" She knew that she was voicing the plea not only for the child and herself but for Rhys.
Gathering Valoris into her arms she began to sing, softly to make sure her voice would not carry beyond the log and stone walls about her.
"Little lamb, day is done.
It is home we have come.
Safe we rest within Her arms,
Little lamb, close thy eyes,
Dream well of a fair morrow's skies."
Valoris nodded until his head rested against her shoulder, but she did not carry him to the large bed they shared.
She no longer mouthed words half remembered from Halda's crooning. No, somehow tonight she had no desire to seek a bed for herself. There was —
Just as it had struck at her in the meadow by the hut so did the dark warning come!
Around her the lodge room blurred. She blinked, and blinked again. What she saw was the great hall of the keep as plain as if she stood there, not far from the dais! There were two before her on that dais. One was small of stature, richly dressed and yet with something meager about him. However, the other beside him, standing with one hand on the high back of the seated lord's chair, bending forward as if he had been in low conversation, but now glancing up full at her.
"Lady!" She had not screamed that aloud, though her throat ached as if she had.
The sparse, bone-narrow figure raised a hand from which a large sleeve fell back—a near fleshless hand. The head was cowled and she could not see any feature —except—except eyes —eyes which held her captive.
It—it wanted her—no —the child!
Sarita knew that as well as if it had shouted an order. The child —she was to bring the child.
Then the vision wavered, and she was once again in the lodge. But holding her was that compulsion which the eyes had set upon her. Sarita wavered, feverishly seeking some help. She was on her feet, Valoris in a tight hold. He awoke with a cry of pure fear, twisting so that she had to fight to hold him.
"No!" Sarita swayed forward, but she did not take the step the force urged upon her, nor the next which would bring her to the door. "No she screamed to what she could no longer see, but which held her in bondage.
"Lady!" She tried to hold in mind that banner in the chapel — that wonderful tapestry of the Fair Power in all Her glory. "Lady!"
For one dazzling moment she did see —the tapestry—moving as if She who was pictured there was stepping down into Sarita's world.
"Lady!" She staggered back. The release from the pressure nearly took her from her feet. She laid the child down, kneeling over him, fumbling with the tools at her belt, drawing out the awl. Its silver knob blazed with more than the reflection of the dying fire. A cold radiance surrounded both of them.
This time no force compelled her, rather it was dawning knowledge, sudden and sure, as if a needle moved with perfect stitching along a guideline.
Still she sensed that other trying to reach her, to bind her will. Then, as suddenly as a sword could snap a thread, it was gone and a moment later the radiance flickered out.
Sarita continued to huddle where she was. This had been such a battle as she would not believe could have existed had she not fought it. What evil aid had Sanghail summoned to the taking and holding of Var-The-Outer?
Valoris was looking up at her wide-eyed. Tears welled in his eyes. Sarita gathered him close again. That—that thing had tried to make her its tool in order to secure the child!
"Lady!" Something she had never tried to reach before was filling her—belief in powers unseen which could help, be summoned!
Slowly she returned the awl to its belt loop. However, her thoughts had moved beyond the two of them here. If that thing had found their refuge, what of Rhys? She knew very little of men save what she had observed when they came and went at the guildhouse, and the few she had known at Var-The-Outer. She did not know how one measured the worth of a man. All she knew was that Rhys was now a part of her life, and if he were lost, she would feel the loss more than any she had known before.
Where was he —was he still alive? She shrank from that thought. He must be alive, for she had a queer feeling now that if Rhys were dead she would somehow sense it, even if she never saw his body.
Now a calm began to enfold her like a warm cloak. Certain that the peril was gone for now, Sarita took up the child and, taking off his earth-dusted clothing, put him to bed.
He had relaxed and his eyes had closed peacefully when she drew the covers over him. Sarita returned to the outer room and swung the pot of stew back toward the fire. Sooner or later another would come to eat it, someone hungry for a long trail.
She could not settle back to her work of making another shirt for Valoris. Rather she stirred the stew now and then and listened — always listened.
What she waited for came at last: that low whistle he had taught her to listen for. Sarita moved quickly to draw the door bar.
Rhys did not open the door very far, but rather squeezed around its edge and shut it quickly, at once dropping the bar into its hooks. He had not uttered any greeting and Sarita watched him narrowly. The lantern light did not reveal his features too clearly, but she knew that something had happened to change him. Had he too been summoned?
The ranger drew a deep breath and the tension in him eased a little. Then he was staring at her and his demand came quickly.
"What has happened here?" His gaze shifted over her shoulder as if he expected someone to move out of the shadows to join them.
She had not meant to blurt it all out, but now the words escaped her and she told him of the vision of the keep and the compulsion laid upon her by that summoning hand.
"It wants Valoris! Rhys, what evil of the dark is against us now?"
"I can guess no more than you." He shook his head slowly. "This day I found death —and the tracks of those who dealt it. How much they may have learned from him —that I cannot guess either. But that you were discovered here!"
"Who was that I saw with Sanghail? Do you think it will try again to trap me —or send others?"
"Somehow they have learned where we are. We must move on."
"Tonight?" She was not sure they could do it. Rhys looked very tired —he must have food and some rest. And she must pack as much as she could to make the journey more endurable.
To her relief he shook his head as he turned to set his bow in the rack. Then he went to splash in the basin of water and make use of the coarse towel hung nearby before he settled at the table and spooned up the stew Sarita had waiting for him. She filled the bowl a second time before he shook his head.
"This one you saw with Sanghail. You have never seen his like at the keep?"
She shivered. "No, nor do I want to again."
"I know of the Lady." He was eyeing her intently. "Hers is not a creed we of the forest follow, though we agree that some purpose rules the life of men, animals, all growing things. What we take of life we must in time return. Perhaps that force is your Lady. I am willing to give thanks to Her this night. What walks this land now is more than just clean death. Here —give me one of your drawing sticks and a piece of bark. I have not your skill, but at least I can try."
Sarita supplied what he asked for. He used the charred twig with care, stopping many times to inspect the drawing, once or twice muttering a word of impatience or frustration. At last he pushed the bark in her direction.
"You are from the city, and cities often breed dabblers in things beyond the proper laws. Tell me, mistress, have you ever seen the like of this?"
It was certain he was no artist, but the longer she studied it the more she began to see what he had been trying to reproduce. It was— She felt a sickness rising in her. This was not only monstrous, but somehow it seemed as if a thread of evil spiraled up from it. The outline was a head, but of n
o human kind, yet somehow fouly akin.
"I have not—" she began, when memory stirred. There was a dim corner of the Great Fane in Raganfors into which she had once wandered while waiting for the Arch Deaconess to write an answer to a message from Dame Argalas. On the wall, half hidden by a standing screen, there had been a queer carving. She had found it while she was tracing the pattern on the screen and for the first time in her life had been frightened by something which had no life.
'There is a carving, like this, in the Great Fane. It was in the Chapel of Ungwine the Shaker—meant I think to represent one of the demons she drove back to the Deep Dark."
'Then there are those hereabouts who have hauled that demon out again." He told her of Shamus and the finding of the amulet. "They were heading north toward the pass, away from us. So far Fortune of the Lady favors us. But with the morning we must go — keep on the move lest we be caught in some trap. Get your rest, mistress, you shall be needing your full strength!"
Sarita went to the inner room. The sound of the child's even breathing was disturbing for a moment. It reminded her too strongly of what leaving the lodge might mean. Now she was sure Rhys would hold to his plan of going westward to LodenKail. Though why he would head toward such a territory when they were already threatened she could not understand. On the other hand, Rhys and his woods knowledge were the only hope for her and Valoris' survival.
Suddenly she caught up the awl from her belt and on impulse drove the point of it into the head of the bed so that it stood fast over where their two heads would be pillowed.
She feared sleep —could that beckoning thing reach her when she was so lost to defenses? However, she dared not go without rest when a long journey lay before them. Sighing, she crawled into bed and gathered Valoris against her. Sleep came swiftly.
They had left the shutters up and she had no way of telling how late it might be when a knock at the door awakened her. Valoris rolled across the bed, and she caught him just in time to make sure he had sandals and shirt on before she dressed herself. As she came into the great room, she smelled the heartening scent of frying meat. Rhys was wielding a long-handled fork to turn strips in the frying pan. On the table was a bowl of berries and a cup of goat’s milk. Sarita just had time to keep Valoris from grabbing that before he spilled it.