The Moon of Gomrath Read online

  “Do you know where we are?” said Susan. “There’s a road below us.”

  “Ay, that much I can tell. This is Shining Tor. Between your feet the Mothan grew, and here the Hunter slept.”

  “What? Here? Do you mean here?” She was so surprised that she took her eyes off the bodachs, and looked round at the jagged tor, her thought full of the light that had stared at her in the dying flames of the Beacon. And then a pain, cold as a razor, struck across her arm deep into the bone. “Oh! I’ve been hit!” Susan grabbed at her wrist; yet when she looked there was neither blood nor wound, but the Mark of Fohla shone with white fire, and the black characters engraved on it appeared to hover above the face of the metal, and now she could see the word of power.

  “Uthecar! I can read what’s on my bracelet!”

  “Speak it, then!”

  He had stepped across to cover Susan when she dropped her spear, and his eye could not leave the bodachs, who were edging closer, waiting for the first chance.

  “It says ‘TROMADOR’.”

  The hill shook at the word. The air pulsed as at a note below the range of hearing, and the web of heaven trembled, making the stars dance, and their glittering echoed, “tromador, tromador,” down the night, and out of the sound came a wind.

  It was a wind that was never imagined: it leapt on Susan’s back, and crushed her to the rock: her fingers grew into every crack, and she pressed her body so close that the rock spun. For it was a wind that would take hair from a horse, and moorgrass from the ground: it would take heather from the hill, and willow from the root: it would take the limpet from the crag, and the eagle from its young: and it came over the gritstone peaks, howling and raging, in blazing sparks of fire.

  The bodachs and palugs were rolled in a heap against the wall, and held there by the wind. The grass moved like a scalp on the hill.

  Then as it came, the wind died. Susan and Uthecar lifted their faces, and groped for their spears: the shields had gone faster than leaves in autumn. But they never touched their weapons, for twelve horsemen were close to where they lay. They sat as still as death, and in front of them was a man with seven-branched antlers sweeping from his head, cruel against the sky.

  The foremost rider was red, and carried a spear. He lifted it, and his voice cut like a blade.

  There is a cry in the valley;

  Is it not He that pierces?

  There is a cry on the mountain;

  Is it not He that is wounding?

  There is a cry in the woodland;

  Is it not He that conquers?

  A cry of a journey over the plain!

  A cry in every wandering vale!

  The three red riders, the Horsemen of Donn, levelled their spears; the white cloaks of the sons of Argatron parted, and three curled whips were seen; dark Fiorn, north-king, mound-king, poised his iron flail behind his shoulder, and the seven chains rang together, softly, baleful; Fallowman son of Melimbor drew his black sword; it hissed in its sheath like an adder; the sword of Bagda was drawn; the sons of Ormar couched their javelins behind their silver shields, and the hoofs of their horses were brazen moons.

  Garanhir, the Hunter, tossed his head; his voice belled, wild as a stag.

  “Ride, Einheriar of the Herlathing!”

  “We ride! We ride!”

  The palugs had started to slink backwards, ears flat, eyes narrow with fear, when the horseman spoke, but when the voice of Garanhir blared over them they were driven mad, as though the note of his voice had spoken to them and loosed their reason. They bounded over the heather, fleeing. But the bodachs scrambled from the pile the wind had made of them, and knelt closely together behind their shields, holding their spear butts to the ground, the blades pointing for the horses’ chests. Yet javelin and flail, whip, sword, and spear were among them before they could strike, as the Einheriar swept them like a wave, rolling their heads as shingle.

  Garanhir strode through the bodachs’ ranks: he took them by the necks, and drove their heads together.

  “Ride, Einheriar of the Herlathing!”

  “We ride! We ride!”

  The broken ranks scattered, and the Herlathing charged across the hill, cutting, flaying, harrying the goblins and cats back to the valley.

  Susan stood in wonder, appalled at the vigour of bloodshed that the riders showed: Garanhir was dark to the waist, and strips hung from his antlers. But Uthecar pulled her off the rock, and started towards the end of the cliff.

  “Let us not stay,” he said. “The Wild Hunt has saved us – will you now await the Morrigan?”

  “But look,” said Susan. “They’re enjoying what they’re doing.”

  “Enjoy? You have called the Wild Hunt, Susan. This is no toy-magic! Be thankful that your head is not rolling in the dale.”

  They worked clear of the rocks, and down to the road, but Uthecar would not take it. He made a direct line for Alderley, avoiding open ground as much as possible, and he kept the pace unbroken through the night. The noise of slaughter soon died.

  When day came, Uthecar and Susan were in a field at the top of the Edge, on the border of a tongue of the woodland. The moon was low in the sky. Susan was breathless, very tired, but Uthecar looked more relaxed than he had been all night.

  “We are there,” he said. “Close in the wood, by the Goldenstone, an old elf-road goes to Fundindelve. It will be some shield to us, for even the Morrigan cannot walk an elf-road without pain, and lesser troubles cannot walk it at all.”

  “Come on, then,” said Susan. “Let’s run.”

  She was suddenly apprehensive: a shadow passed over her mind from the east. But before they could take another stride, they heard a voice call behind them.

  “Imorad! Imorad! Surater!”

  And at the voice, it was as though ice locked their muscles. Uthecar cried out, and after that stood still, but Susan, though there seemed to be crystals in every joint, could force her limbs to move. She turned her head, and saw the Morrigan on the fringe of some trees across the field. She held a long sword, and her right hand was stretched towards Susan and Uthecar, the fist clenched, and the little finger and forefinger extended.

  “Must – run,” whispered Susan.

  She was able to walk, but each stride was a heavy wade; her body was dead as lead; it was like trying to run in a nightmare. But all that Uthecar could move was his eye.

  “Try – run,” said Susan.

  Her throat was numb with cold. She pushed her hand out to the dwarf, and closed her fingers jerkily on his wrist to pull him along. But the moment she touched him, Uthecar felt the life flicker in his bones, and by turning all his heart to the effort, he could swing his legs, hips pushed forward, arms circling wide of the body, as though in water. So together Susan and Uthecar moved into the wood, which here was only a few yards deep, and the Morrigan came after them, her sword ready.

  “Road – road – there,” said Uthecar. He put his head to the left, and Susan saw a track, bordered with earth walls, running straight along the other side of the wood. They willed themselves on, for the Morrigan was so close that they could hear her breathing, and tumbled over the bank on to the elf-road, and the deadness fell from them.

  “Loose my arm, and give me your hand,” said Uthecar. “The power against her is in you, but I would have my sword free. She will not be held long.”

  They ran along the track, the Morrigan keeping pace with them on the other side of the bank. For all her bulk, she could move quickly. But they noticed that she was looking at the sky, and seemed to be anxious. They were close to the Goldenstone when she faltered, and stopped.

  “Stay,” said Uthecar. “She is not at ease: beware!”

  The Morrigan stood, panting, twenty yards away.

  “The wish of my heart to you, dwarf!” she screamed.

  Uthecar threw himself to the ground, dragging Susan with him, and shouted at the top of his voice:

  “The wish of your heart, carlin, be on yonder grey stone!”
r />   There was a swirl in the air over Susan’s head like the beat of a bird’s wing, and the Goldenstone rent from top to base. Flying chips of rock stung Susan’s skin, and when she looked again the Morrigan was not there.

  CHAPTER 15

  ERRWOOD

  “I f I had found them before they drank at the well,” said Cadellin, “they could have been forced to the mounds. But the water has confirmed them here, and this will last for seven nights, and in that time who can tell what they will not do?”

  “I would be taking less care for the Herlathing than for the Morrigan,” said Uthecar. “For the one I was glad to see, and the other can never be too far from my life. Ask the Goldenstone if I speak true!”

  “I can’t understand that,” said Susan. “She was right on top of us, and then she looked at the sky, broke the Goldenstone and disappeared.”

  “Where was the moon?” said Cadellin.

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “It was about to set,” said Uthecar. “Think you she was fearful of that?”

  “It may be,” said Cadellin. “Her power lies there. But she is not helpless when the moon is down. What special charge was on her that she could not stay?”

  “Look,” said Susan. “If she was going back to the house, Albanac could follow her on his horse – she can’t be half-way there yet – and we might see what’s wrong.”

  “Shape-shifting will take her, if she has need, faster than my horse,” said Albanac. “But I will go if Uthecar will ride with me to point the way.”

  “Nay!” said Uthecar. “Give me the head that stays hewn, or none at all! Two swords are no guard. Take Susan with you: then sword, hoof, and Mark may keep you in daylight.”

  “Surely you wouldn’t have gone without me?” said Susan, looking at Cadellin.

  “I think Angharad Goldenhand is wrong,” said the wizard, “but you are so far from your own world that I should do more harm to meddle now. Go with Albanac. But I beg you to take no risk.”

  Susan and Albanac went down to one of the lower caves, where Albanac’s horse was stabled with the horses of the lios-alfar. Then they left Fundindelve by the iron gates and rode away towards the Goldenstone. They were wary of every tree, but they saw no cats at all, and as soon as they were in the fields the horse leapt forward, and they sped towards Shining Tor. Farm dogs barked, men stared, but Albanac had no time for caution, and the land grew empty as they climbed into the hills.

  Carrion birds were fighting among the heather along the top of Shining Tor, and they rose as clouds when Susan and Albanac passed through them. The horse walked now, and Albanac was on his guard, searching both sky and moor, one hand easing his sword in its sheath.

  They rode beside the wall nearly as far as the saddle of the hill, then they turned right and went down towards the valley. The day was still. Nothing moved.

  They halted in the copse of dead trees, but there was no trace of the bodach, and the rhododendrons made the valley inscrutable.

  “You couldn’t see the house from here, anyway,” said Susan. “It’s on the other side of that round hill in the mouth of the valley.”

  “We must go close, then,” said Albanac. “But I do not like what I see, even at this distance.”

  When they came to the gateway, Albanac’s horse flattened its ears, but went on without hesitation, treading softly.

  In daylight the place was still forbidding. Bushes and decayed stonework, dank, green, and weeds on the path, the stream killing small noises so that the skin crept in fear of unheard approaches, and the valley narrowing in overhead.

  Susan pointed to the left-hand fork of the drive.

  “It’s just round that bend,” she whispered.

  Albanac nodded. They edged forward. The horse seemed to know the risk. Albanac drew his sword as they reached the corner – and Susan gave a shout that sent birds crashing through the trees in fright.

  For the terrace that held the lawn was strewn across the path; where Susan had seen an ornamental pond was now a little mound of rushes; the towered, glowing house was a pile of masonry and shattered walls, bracken and nettle showing through the rubble, gaunt with window arches.

  “This is long dead,” said Albanac.

  “But it was a house last night!” cried Susan. “The Morrigan was here. I saw her!”

  “I do not doubt you,” said Albanac. “There is witch-magic here. Come.”

  He spun the horse round, and set off back along the path at a gallop. There was an urgent need to be clear of the valley: it was as though the danger had yawned at their feet and they were jumping back by instinct while their minds raced to enclose it. But when they reached the open hillside again much of the dread slipped from their backs, and Albanac slowed the horse to a canter.

  “What made the house fall?” said Susan. Her voice broke.

  “No, Susan: what you saw last night was the work of the Morrigan,” said Albanac. “We must find Cadellin, for I think I see light in this, and we may have the advantage of her.”

  “How?”

  “Let us ask Cadellin first: he is a truer judge of these things. But I think that Colin is safer now than he was before, and that, wherever he is, the Morrigan can reach him no sooner than you or I.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No: but let us ask Cadellin.”

  He urged the horse to the hill, and it went over the flank of Shining Tor like a banner of the wind. For this was Melynlas, the foal of Caswallawn, and one of the Three High-mettled Horses of Prydein.

  They were across the hill, and going down towards Thursbitch below Cat’s Tor, when they saw a shepherd and his dog walking along a sheep track. The dog ran forward, barking, but a single whistle took him back to the man’s heel, and Albanac turned Melynlas aside, and halted.

  “There is a house in a valley beyond the hill,” he said. “It is fallen and overgrown. Can you say what it is?”

  The shepherd looked at Susan and Albanac with only a little curiosity.

  “Ay,” he said. “Yon’ll be Errwood hall.”

  “How long is it since anybody lived there?” said Susan.

  “I couldn’t tell you; but the hall was pulled down when I was a lad.”

  “That is what I thought it would be,” said Albanac. “Our thanks to you.”

  “You’re welcome,” said the shepherd. “Funny time of year for a procession, isn’t it? Where’s it at?”

  “Procession?” said Susan. “What procession?”

  “Good day to you,” said Albanac, and wheeled Melynlas round.

  “Well, it isn’t every week you see two folks in fancy dress up this way: I just thought there must be summat doing.”

  “But I’m not—” said Susan.

  “Two?” said Albanac, drawing rein sharply. “Who else is it you have seen?”

  “There was a woman passed me about half an hour since, by Thursbitch yonder,” said the shepherd, “making for Errwood. I’ve never seen anybody shift so fast! She was all dressed up in long skirts and that, but she was too far away to speak to.”

  “Half an hour?” said Albanac. “Can you be certain?”

  “Ay, well, say twenty minutes.”

  “Our thanks to you once more!” cried Albanac, and Melynlas sprang away towards Alderley, and the turf flew about their heads like swallows before rain.

  “I think we have her!” Albanac shouted through the noise of their running. “She was there not long before us, and that was too late for her, yet it was close enough for her to see us, but she did not attack – and that means she dared not. I think we have her!”

  The ride back to Alderley was faster than any Susan had known, faster even than that of the Herlathing from Broad hill to the Beacon, and the night red with wendfire. Nor did they pause to stable Melynlas, but they entered Fundindelve by the Holywell, straight to the wizard’s cave.

  “You must act now,” said Cadellin when they had told their story. “It seems that she is not yet strong enough of herself to attack
you without preparation, unless she can draw upon the moon. All this is moon magic. She has used it to build the memory of the house into stones of hardness, and it is there, I will say, only when the old moon looks on it. If she did not gain the house before moonset, then she is barred from it until the night, and if Colin is there he is safe for a while. You must put yourselves between her and the house while there is light, and at moonrise keep her from the house until Colin is freed.”

  “We shall need help, then,” said Albanac. “Three or four cannot guard that house. I think we must talk with Atlendor.”

  They all went together, in spite of Uthecar’s objections to relying on the elves in any way, to the deepest cave of Fundindelve, where the lios-alfar sat grouped in their cantrefs, orderly and silent. The only noise was a spasm of coughing that would break out from time to time in different parts of the cave. Susan could not help being frightened a little by the stillness.

  They came to Atlendor, alone at the far end of the cave, and they told him what they were going to do.

  “Will the lios-alfar lend their aid in this?” said Albanac. “It is for the one night, and among hills; the smoke-sickness cannot take hold in so short a time.”

  Atlendor stood up. His eyes shone.

  “Can it not?” he said. “But that is no matter. The liosalfar ride three nights from this. We have given aid to hunt the Brollachan. This moon magic concerns us not at all. And you are pledged to ride with us, though I see word-breaking in your heart.”

  “My lord Atlendor,” said Albanac, “is it to be said of the lios-alfar that they will not fight black trouble where they find it?”

  “Ay. When it deals with men. Too often they are the death of my people. We ride three nights from this, Albanac, and you with us.”

  He was turning away, as though the subject had been closed, when Susan’s voice halted him.

  “If you won’t help us get Colin out of that house,” she said, “we’ll see how much moon magic doesn’t concern you. What about my bracelet? Have you thought of that?”

  Alarm slid across Atlendor’s poise like the blink of an eyelid.