The Weirdstone of Brisingamen Read online

  “Nor was there aught worse than the morthbrood here. That is good. But yonder is what I do not like. Cousin Fenodyree, what make you of those clouds to the north? How is it they have not changed since I saw them under the moon? The wind should have carried them to us long ago.”

  “Hm,” said the dwarf. “Fimbulwinter?”

  “Ay. They do not mean to lose. First, they drive us out with the threat of the mara. We dare not bide. Next, they watch us through the day, and when we reach some lonely place, they pen us close under the fimbulwinter till night comes, and they can take us as they wish.”

  “Wait on,” said Gowther; “what’s all this ‘fimbulwinter’ business? And you’ve not told us yet …”

  “I know,” broke in Fenodyree. “But there are some things better left untold. It will be time enough to fear the mara when we see them; and I hope we shall not do that. Meanwhile you will rest happier for your ignorance.”

  “That makes me a lot easier, I must say!”

  Fenodyree smiled, and inclined his head politely.

  “You’re a supercilious little feller when you want to be, anner you?” said Gowther testily. He was a direct, open man, who liked everything to be clearly defined. He could not tolerate haziness or uncertainty; and he had not quite overcome the countryman’s natural distrust of strangers – such strangers, too!

  “I do not mean to give offence,” said the dwarf. “But I must ask you to lean on our judgement in this venture. You are in our world now, and without us you will not regain your own, even though it lies at your feet.”

  Gowther looked down at Highmost Redmanhey, then back at the dwarf. There was a long pause.

  “Ay. I spoke out of turn. You’re reet, and I’m wrong. I’m sorry.”

  “It is of no matter,” said Fenodyree.

  “Oh, look!” said Colin, anxious to change the subject. “We’re not the only people out early this morning. There are two hikers down by Mr Carter’s: can you see them?”

  In the lane below, a man and a woman, both rucksacked, and wearing anoraks, ski-trousers, and heavy boots, were leaning over a field gate, apparently absorbed in a map.

  “There are two more behind us on Clinton hill,” said Susan.

  Sure enough, a quarter of a mile away, not much higher than where they were standing, two hikers gazed at the wide plain and its rim of hills.

  “Happen it’s a rally,” said Gowther.

  “Ha! It is indeed!” laughed Durathror shortly. “Those are witches and warlocks, or I am not my father’s son!”

  “What?” said Colin. “Are they the morthbrood?”

  “There is the danger,” said Fenodyree. “They mingle with others unnoticed, and can be detected only by certain marks, and that not always. For this reason must we shun all contact with men: the lonely places are dangerous, but to be surrounded by a crowd would be a greater risk.”

  Gowther shook his head, and pointed his ash stick at the “hikers”.

  “You mean to tell me it’s the likes of them as we’ve to run from? I was thinking more of broomsticks and tall hats!”

  The whale-backed Pennines, in their southern reaches, crumble into separate hills which join up with the Staffordshire moors, and from the Cheshire plain two hills stand out above all the rest. One is Bosley Cloud, its north face sheer, and southwards a graceful sweep to the feet of the Old Man of Mow, but, for all that, a brooding, sinister mountain, for ever changing shape when seen from meandering Cheshire lanes.

  The other is Shuttlingslow. It is a cone in outline, but with the top of the cone sliced off, leaving a flat, narrow, exposed ridge for a summit. And three days hence, on that ridge, eight miles from where they now were, Firefrost would be given into safe hands – if the morthbrood could be kept at bay for so long.

  “Ay, and that’s another thing,” said Gowther. “What are we going to do between now and Friday? It’s nobbut half a day’s tramp to Shuttingslow from here.”

  “Hush!” said Fenodyree. “There are keen ears listening. The where and the when are all they do not know of our plans. If we can shake off these bloodhounds and lie hidden until nearer the time, we may reach the hill. Trees and running water will shield us best; and for a start we must try to lose the morthbrood spies in the wood that fringes Radnor mere. We shall keep to this lane until we come opposite the middle of the wood: there we shall enter and, with luck, come out at the far side alone.”

  “But we shall need more luck to remain alone,” said Durathror, “for I fear that little escapes those eyes.”

  Above their heads wheeled a cloud of ragged-winged birds. Out over the plain other flocks were sweeping in what, from the height of the Riddings, could be seen to form a very definite pattern, an interwoven net of such efficiency that any one section of the ground of, say, a mile square, was rarely left uncovered by any one flock for more than a minute at a time. And they flew in silence, the only living things in all the sky. The hikers continued to pore over the map, and to admire the view.

  Fenodyree led the way back to the crossroads, where the old Macclesfield road, Hocker Lane, ran left to Highmost Redmanhey, and right to Nether Alderley. To Alderley they turned, and walked beneath the round shoulder of Clinton hill. Below, across the fields, was Radnor Wood.

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Gowther. “Tom Henshaw seems to be as mithered with these birds as much as we are: he’s getten enough scarecrows anyroad.”

  “Ay,” said Durathror, “and can you tell me, farmer Mossock, what need he may have of them on pasture land?”

  It was as Durathror said. Every field within sight held a tattered figure with outstretched arms – even those under grass, and with cows in them.

  “Now I wonder what’s up with owd Tom! He did say as how he’d been having queer turns off and on since before Christmas, but this is …”

  “No time to linger,” said Fenodyree. “You will embarrass our companions.”

  They looked round, and saw that the two hikers who had been leaning over John Carter’s gate were now walking casually along some distance behind, to all appearances engaged in nothing more sinister than knocking off the tops of dead fool’s-parsley with their sticks. A flock of thirteen birds closed in and began to glide in circles overhead.

  “Are they scarecrows?” asked Colin as they continued down the lane.

  “Mostly,” said Fenodyree: “but eyes for the morthbrood, every one.”

  The road gradually converged on Radnor Wood until the two were running together, with only a low stone wall between them, and at a bend in the road Fenodyree said:

  “When the morthdoers round this corner, we must be hidden.

  “Now! Over the wall!”

  Brambles were waiting for them on the other side, but they tore themselves free, and ran as best they could through the scrub and undergrowth of the matted fringe of the wood after Fenodyree, who was dodging nimbly over the rough ground and heading for the thickest patch of timber in sight.

  At once the birds began to raise a great rumpus, but Durathror, bringing up the rear as usual, saw nothing of the hikers before the trees closed around him.

  As soon as they were in the shade of the beeches the prickly undergrowth thinned out, and they made good speed, zigzagging through the lessening gaps between the trees and the masses of rhododendron. For a short time the birds screamed overhead and then they dropped through the branches and circled in and out among the trees, calling assuredly, deliberately, as though relaying information.

  Fenodyree relaxed the pace to a quick walk.

  “There is no need to hurry,” he said resignedly. “I hoped to find cover while they pondered. This wood did not favour the morthbrood in the elder days, and I thought the memory of it would hold them long enough for …”

  His words were drowned by an outbreak of screeching above their heads. Instinctively they drew together, back to back, and the dwarfs’ hands flew to their swords. All round them birds were crashing heavily to earth: for ten seconds it might have be
en raining crows. Then the woods were still.

  Gowther bent to pick up a tumbled mass of black feathers that had landed at his feet, but Durathror stopped him.

  “Do not touch it!” he said. “They are evil even in death.”

  He turned the bird over with the point of his sword. Imbedded under the heart was a small, white-feathered arrow; and at the sight of it all colour fled from Durathror’s cheeks.

  “The lios-alfar,” he whispered. “The lios-alfar!”

  Trembling, he put away his sword, and looked to the sky.

  “Endil! Atlendor! It is I, Durathror! This is well met!”

  “Peace!” said Fenodyree. “They are not here.”

  “Are they not?” cried Durathror. “Ho! I tell you, cousin Wineskin, that our journey will be happier from this hour. If the lios-alfar are come from exile there is little we need fear between now and Friday’s dawn, do you not see?

  “Atlendor, welcome! Airmid! Grannos!”

  But for all Durathror’s shouting, nothing happened. He ran hither and thither calling, calling, but echoes and the hollow voice of the north wind in the tree-tops were his only reply.

  “Thrurin! Skandar!”

  Fenodyree shook his head sadly.

  “Come away. The lios-alfar have been gone from the Long Wood of Radnor these two hundred years. They do not return. Come! They are not here; none but the morthbrood will answer your call.”

  Durathror walked slowly back to join the others.

  “But it can be only the lios-alfar.” There was complete bewilderment in his voice. “Why do they not know me?”

  Fenodyree crouched to examine the arrow more closely.

  “Well, whoever fired yon, conner be much of a size,” said Gowther. “If it’s eighteen inches long that’s all it is, and what sort of a body could use the bow to fit it?”

  “The elves of light,” said Fenodyree, “the lios-alfar. This is an elven shaft. Yet still I do not think they are with us. It is more like to be the work of stromkarls.”

  “Stromkarls?” cried Durathror. “Have you ever known the river-folk to take up arms? It is the lios-alfar!”

  “Eh up! What’s yon?” said Gowther, and pointed into the trees.

  Something white moved among the branches, though not even Gowther could say where it first appeared. It fell gently towards them, swinging backwards and forwards with a graceful, swooping, dipping motion, and landed at Durathror’s feet. A white eagle feather.

  The dwarf grabbed it, and flourished it under his cousin’s nose.

  “See! A token! And from an elven cloak! What say you now?”

  Fenodyree looked hard at the feather, and then at Durathror.

  “It is the lios-alfar,” he said.

  Fenodyree urged them on with all speed after the delay. No other sign from the elves, if they were elves, was forthcoming, and Durathror was prevailed upon to curb his excitement, and to turn his thoughts to their immediate problems.

  “But it is hard,” he said to Colin later in the day, when they were sharing the same cloak in an effort to stay alive, “it is hard to lose the companionships of elves. And if one has been dearer to you than your own kin, a more than brother right from earliest memory, the loss is nigh unbearable. When Atlendor took his people northwards I thought to renounce my heritage, and go with him, but he would not have me come. ‘You have a duty to discharge,’ he said, ‘one of great weight.’ The eyes of the lios-alfar see not only the present. By Goldenstone we said our farewells, and he gave to me Valham, and I parted with Tarnhelm, the greatest treasure of the huldrafolk.” Durathror smiled ruefully. “I exchanged the power of going unseen for the power of flight, and Gondemar, my father, cast me out in his anger. So have I wandered all these years, barred from my people and from the elves. Had not Cadellin pitied me, and opened to me the gates of Fundindelve, mine would have been a desolate lot.”

  But all this came much later in the day, and for the present the children and Gowther were left to make what sense they could of the dead birds and Durathror’s ravings.

  Not that there was time for thought. They were forcing their way down an almost extinct track of frozen, rutted leaf-mould, between rhododendrons of such size that the branches met over their heads as well as across their path, when Fenodyree held up his hand. They stopped; listened.

  “Footsteps! Into the bushes!”

  They forced their way through the glossy hide of leaves into the tangled, bare branches that comprised the main bulk of the growth.

  “Stay wherever you are, and do not move!” whispered Durathror fiercely. “He is close.”

  It was difficult to see through the bushes in the dappled light. They heard someone approach, but caught only a glimpse of dark clothing. Whoever it was, he was breathing heavily. Then, as he came level with where they were hiding, he stopped. Colin, Susan and Gowther prayed that the beating of their hearts was not as loud as it sounded. Durathror and Fenodyree exchanged glances.

  “Phew! Be hanged to old Place!” muttered a deep voice, and the owner of it sat himself down on the trunk of a fallen beech that lay across the path: and in that position his face could be seen. It was Mr Hodgkins, a local businessman.

  Every morning during the week, between the hours of eight and nine, he was to be found, with dozens like him, on the platform of Alderley Edge station, carrying his briefcase and tightly folded newspaper, and tightly rolled umbrella. But now, in place of the stiff white collar and formal, city clothes, James Henry Hodgkins’s frame was clad in thick ski-trousers, and a hooded anorak, above which protruded the neck of a sweater. A beret hid his thinning hair, round his lean neck were snow goggles, leather gauntlets hung by tapes from his wrist, nailed boots encumbered his feet, and down his lined, sallow, businessman’s face ran rivulets. He put his back against the roots of the tree, took out his handkerchief, and began to mop.

  Five pairs of eyes watched him in agony. Neither the children, Gowther, nor the dwarfs had had time to make themselves comfortable among the branches, even if that were possible, but were standing frozen in the most awkward attitudes, cramped, precariously balanced. Any movement would have set the leaves dancing at the end of their snakelike branches. It was as though they were dangling in a snarl of burglar alarms. However, James Henry was not one to waste time unduly, and as soon as he was restored to a more even temperature he pulled himself up and went on his way, cursing the unwieldy rucksack that chafed his shoulders and was always becoming entangled with the bushes.

  “Well!” said Gowther. “Owd Hodgkins! Ten years he’s been a customer of mine. It just shows, you con never tell.”

  “I didn’t breathe once the whole time!” said Susan.

  “I couldn’t!” said Colin. “There was a branch twisting my collar, and it nearly strangled me! It’s not much better now. Is it safe to move yet, Fenodyree?”

  “Ay, if we can,” said the dwarf.

  He was wrestling to free his leg, which was hooked round the knee by a thick branch. But the branch swung higher at every jerk, and Fenodyree was being tipped gradually backwards off his feet. He looked so ridiculous, his knee level with his ear, that the others would have been tempted to laugh at his plight, had not they found themselves in difficulties as soon as they tried to move.

  These were old bushes, and behind the green outer cover lay the growth and litter of a hundred years; tough, crooked boughs, inches across, stemming to long, pliant, wire-like shoots; skeins of dead branches which snapped at a touch, forming lancets of wood to goad and score the flesh; and everywhere the fine, black, bark dust with the bitter taste, that burnt throat and nostrils and was like fine sand in the eyes.

  “It’s as … bad … as walking … on an old … spring mattress!” puffed Susan.

  “It’s worse!” said Colin.

  They had to step on to the thicker branches to clear the snare at ground level, and once off the ground they were helpless. The bushes dictated the direction in which they could move, and movement was not easy. B
ranches would give beneath their feet, and spring back awkwardly, catching limbs, and making even Gowther, for all his weight, lurch drunkenly, and grab in desperation the nearest support, which was invariably a change for the worse. And always they seemed to be forced to climb, with the result that they were soon two or three feet from the ground. Sense of direction left them: they just took the line of least resistance. But they noticed, with growing concern, that the earth, or what they could see of it, was becoming less like earth and more like water. Ice-covered puddles were frequent; very frequent; broader; deeper; they joined each other; and then there was water tinkling the pendants of ice at the bush roots, and no earth at all. Ahead, the curtain was not so dense, and Fenodyree, with renewed enthusiasm, plunged, bounced, rolled, and squirmed, and his head broke free of the chaos. Before, on either side, beneath, lay Radnor. The rhododendrons spread for many yards out over the mere, their roots gripping deep in the mud; and at the point where they stretched farthest into the water, five faces bobbed among the leaves like exotic flowering buds.

  “Happen I’m nesh,” said Gowther, “but I dunner foncy a dip today. I’m fair sick of this here cake-walk, though; so what do we do, maister?”

  “Nay, do not ask me, my friend. I am past thought,” said Durathror.

  “We must go back,” said Fenodyree. “Cousin, we may have space to draw our swords here. If we can do that, we shall cut an easier road to the path.”

  Dyrnwyn and Widowmaker, after much effort, were drawn from their scabbards, and by leaning backwards over the water, the dwarfs gained room for the first, most difficult strokes. After that, in comparison with what had gone before, the progress was much easier. The dead growth, and the leaf-bearing tentacles fell to the keen temper of the swords, which left only the thicker limbs to be negotiated, and they were not the obstacles they had been when the all-smothering lesser branches were there to aid them. The real danger, and it was a risk that had to be taken, was that the dwarfs were carving a track that could not fail to be visible from the air.

  “Now we must run,” said Fenodyree as, hot, weary, smarting from a hundred pricks and scratches, they tumbled on to the path. “For the morthbrood know where we are.”