In the Moons of Borea (14 page)

Moreen . .

At Darkhour, as was her wont, she had lain in the mouth of her cave on a comfortable bed of bracken covered with soft skins, her body bathed in the glow of a fire that burned ruddily in a hearth of piled stones. She had absently listened to the rustle of great wings from the rear of her cave where her bats hung together from the stalactite ceiling like a cluster of strange fruit; and she had watched the reflective surface of the still lake far below for the ripple and wash of auroral
,
heavens and the images of pale stars which only ever showed at Darkhour.

She had observed, too, the campfires of the watchers on the peaks across the lake. Such fires told of the presence of men from the great cavern; and she had shuddered at the
thought of that vast and (to her) tomblike subterranean grotto.

Oh, periodically they would come to her, those younger men of the cavern, boasting and strutting and attempting her seduction, to no avail. Though loneliness hurt her more and more, she would not go with them; not to their cavern world, to the smoky, airless pits of darkness where they hid like pallid cockroaches from a giant's tread — from the wrath of Ithaqua.

Yet their campfires at Darkhour comforted her, making her feel less lonely. And on those rare occasions when she recalled how some of her suitors had been fairly handsome men, for all their pallor, then she would remember Annahilde's promise: that one day a real 'man would come to her — a man, not some stooped, burrowing mole in man's guise.

Well, her witch-wife aunt's prophesy had best reveal itself soon, for the warming powders were four-fifths used up. Without the powder, given her by Annahilde, Moreen were long since dead; or at least gone from here to seek warmth at the fires of the cavern, which to her seemed worse than death. She knew this all too well and constantly wore the precious packet about her neck, fingering it now and then for reassurance. She wore very little else, for their seemed nothing of value in false modesty (who was there to see her near-nakedness here?), and the warming powder turned even the chillest wind to a balmy breeze. But when the last of the powder was gone, which it would be before she was very much older, what then?

Perhaps her man would find her before then. Annahilde had said it would be so.

With these thoughts in her mind and lulled by the soft glow of the distant fires and the whirl of pastel reflections in the lake, Moreen had slept, only waking when it was lighter and the weirdly streaming orb of the sun was visible as a glowing bulge on Borea's grey flank.

She had noticed at once that the bats were active again with an unaccustomed agitation and wondered why. They had been acting this way on and off for some time now, and their excitement puzzled her. If only she could read their minds, as she knew they read hers. Then, for no apparent reason, one of the bats had left in great haste, flitting hugely across the lake toward the opposite shore. Something was in the wind, that was plain, and Moreen guessed that it must somehow concern her.

Normally she might have gone down to the lake to bathe, picking her way down the steep path she knew so well, but on this occasion she had not done so, being satisfied merely to splash her face and breasts with the chill waters of a streamlet cascading from on high. Up here she could keep watch over the entire lake and its surrounding inner slopes, though she knew not what she expected to see.

Then, after a long time, she had grown bored and thought to make her way down to the trees that grew tall and dense where the slope was less steep not too far below and to one side of her lofty aerie. There she could play with the smaller animals that lived in the trees, and with the tiny coloured birds, all of which came to her as household dogs answered the calls of their masters in the Viking village she had known as a girl.

It was as she was putting on knee-length trousers made from the pelt of a white fox, with a halter to match, that she noted increasing activity in the four bats within the cave. Suddenly they fell in rapid succession from the shadowy ceiling and glided out of the cave on still wings, barely disturbing the air. Outside in the wan Numinosian light, they circled overhead before heading out over the lake. Gazing after them, Moreen frowned — until she picked out the oncoming form of the fifth creature.

So, they had gone to welcome their brother on his return: four forms converging on a fifth high over the grey lake. Five of them now, her five familiars, who had
followed after her like faithful watchdogs when she left the great cavern to come and live here. Five monstrous bats that loved her as —

Five?

No, six!

Six of them? Moreen's eyes narrowed and her frown deepened. The single bone button of her halter slipped unfastened, forgotten, from her fingers as the flying figures drew closer. They wheeled high overhead, almost level with the rocky saddle between the two nearest peaks, then began to descend.

At last Moreen could see all six figures quite clearly. Now her mouth fell open and she froze where she stood, trembling in every limb, close to the mouth of her cave. The blood had seemed to drain from her in a moment.

The sixth flier was ... a man?

Moreen's hand flew to her mouth. A man — or a monster! Her experience of man-shapes that walked on the wind in no way concerned human beings. Only Ithaqua to her knowledge could do that. But this could hardly be the Wind-Walker, neither him nor any manifestation of him. No, for a bat — one of
her
bats — had brought him here; and while all of the huge creatures were excited, none of them seemed afraid or concerned for her safety.

It must then be a man, a man in a cloak with wings almost as big as those of the bats themselves. A handsome man, more young than old, who smiled at her now as he made an expert landing a half-dozen paces away.

The bats, hovering nervously, thrust the air this way and that with their throbbing wings. Facing the stranger, still frozen in amazement, Moreen saw his lips form her name, heard him say it as a question:

`Moreen?'

She shook off her paralysis. `Yes, I am. Moreen.'

A gust of disturbed air tugged aside her halter, which she automatically trapped with her elbow before it could blow away altogether. For a moment, caught unawares, de Marigny stared at her. Then, colouring, he averted his gaze.

Moreen, seeing his confusion and knowing its cause, laughed and finally managed to button her halter. She said: 'You know me — and yet you are a stranger.'

`Yes,' he nodded, stepping closer. 'I'm a stranger — but I'm a friend, too.'

'You're no. Viking,' she stated with certainty. 'Nor are you of the cavern folk. Your back is too straight, and your skin's not pale like theirs. Do you have a name? Who are you?'

`I'm called Henri,' he answered. 'And no, I'm not a man of Numinos. It's a long story, one we've really no time for now, but I hail from the Motherworld. Annahilde sent me to — '

'Annahilde?' In a moment the look on her face went from puzzlement through astonishment to sheer joy. Annahilde sent you?' She breathed the words.

A moment more and she had flown into his arms, almost throwing him from his feet. 'Then you must be the one!'

'I must?' de Marigny repeated, not quite knowing what to do with his hands. Then, from nowhere; certain words of the witch-wife, forgotten until now, came back to him:

`You will surely fall in love with her; it can hardly be otherwise!'

`You are the one, aren't you?' the girl asked, her wide eyes anxiously searching his face.

'Why, I — ' He paused, lost for words, brain whirling, before finally wrapping his arms firmly about her suddenly snuggling form.

'Yes?' she pressed him, sweet breath fanning his neck, the smell of everything good filling his nostrils, his heart.

And de Marigny knew then what Annahilde had meant, and that seer or none she had been absolutely right.

`Oh, I'm the one, all right,' he answered at last. 'It could hardly be otherwise . .

Long before Hank Silberhutte and his ten men of the cavern had reached the seaward entrance to the fissure, the Warlord knew the worst: that the Vikings were closer than he had believed and that there would be no time to build further defences against them.

This bad news came to him first from the lips of the lone watchkeeper from the mouth of the tunnel, racing back to the cavern with the grim news; secondly, it was relayed to him via the minds of a pair of wounded bats limping home from a fight aboard one of the longships. The bats were the sole survivors of a party of six of the great, intelligent creatures, and they were able to tell Silberhutte much.

The enemy fleet was closing rapidly with the island (the bats informed), ringing it about and sailing in from all sides. Furthermore, while -there were those aboard the ships who knew of the tunnel entrance to the cavern and while doubtless many of the Vikings would land there, the tunnel could only accommodate so many. The invaders appreciated this fact too; thousands of them, believing that the ridges between the peaks would be mainly unguarded, intended to scale them and thus make their way to the inner slopes. By now there would be many defenders in the mountainous heights, and many more climbing the inner slopes from the volcanic vents, but there could never be enough.

Quite simply, the men of the cavern were outnumbered by at least thirty to one! Therefore, while the main shaft from the sea could probably be held for a very long time, plainly the crucial battles must in the end be fought on the heights and in the volcanic vents. To place too much emphasis in the main tunnel would therefore be a waste of time and manpower. Instead it would be better if that tunnel were blocked completely, and the way to do this was readily at hand.

Years ago the cavern folk had prepared for just such an emergency, propping up the unstable and rotting ceiling of the fissure at its entrance. The Warlord recalled having seen the evidence of this operation when first arriving on the island with de Marigny - the massive beams and props that held up the slimy, nitrous ceiling. Now those supports must be removed, allowing gravity, nature, and thousands of tons of rock and ocean-rotted debris to seal the fissure forever. Once that was done, then the party could return to the cavern, and pass through the volcanic vents climbing the inner slopes to reinforce the defenders of the saddles between the five peaks.

Less than one hundred yards from the tunnel's mouth, however, with the sound of the ocean loud in their ears, they knew that before they could destroy the entrance, they must first clear it of invaders. For a handful of Vikings were already in the tunnel and more were climbing the sea cliff from their longships. Waiting in the gloom, invisible to the silhouetted, helmeted Vikings, the Warlord and his party listened for a moment to the loud, boastful conversation of the-invaders - and to the frightened voices of more than a few whose dread of the Isle of Mountains was obviously a terror within them - before making a hurried, whispered plan of campaign.

Silberhutte measured and cut a length of heavy rope, knotted one end, and stood with it close to a wall of the tunnel. The heaviest of his colleagues did the same with the other end of the rope, taking up a like position by the opposite wall. Then, with the rope held taut between them and the remainder of the party following up behind,
uttering bloodthirsty shrieks and war cries which the tunnel magnified tenfold, they rushed forward upon the startled, unsuspecting Vikings.

Half a dozen of the invaders were speared where they stood; the rest became caught up in the rope and were hurled by it and the crush of men behind it from the mouth of the tunnel to fall into the sea. At once axes and spears were flying between the tunnel's mouth and the decks of the dragonships bobbing below, and the air became thick with curses, screams and shouts.

Moments later, avoiding the flying weapons that clattered all around them, the Warlord's party tossed the corpses of the slain Vikings down into the sea. Then Silberhutte was able to take stock. Two of his men had lost their lives, and one other had a bad wound. The Warlord quickly ordered that the injured man be helped back to the cavern, which left only himself and five others to attend to the sealing of the entrance.

While Silberhutte and two others collected shields and spears of fallen Vikings with which to guard the narrow ledge in front of the entrance, the remaining men formed a demolition team and began tying ropes to the bases of the lesser beams that supported the rotting ceiling. Throughout, heavy grappling irons continued to land on the ledge and in the entrance, several of which found purchase. The Warlord and his colleagues were responsible for disengaging these grapples, thus ensuring that no more of the raiders gained a foothold. This was in no way a simple task; every grapple that flashed into the wide entrance was accompanied by half a dozen spears and the occasional axe.

Just as the demolition party was completing its preparations, a hurled grapple struck the man on Silberhutte's left, one of its barbed tines hooking into his thigh. Before anything could be done, he had been yanked screaming into empty air, his shield and spear flying free. He landed half-in, half-out of a longship forty feet below, breaking his back and dying instantly.

Now the Vikings redoubled their efforts, and two of them actually struggled their way to the rim of the ledge before Silberhutte cut them down. The Warlord was completely dispassionate and efficient in his killing, ruthless as his early days on Borea had taught him to be; but he was just as ready to disengage when the toiling team behind him called for his assistance.

Drawing back into the entrance, he cursed as a spear flashed into view and skewered his right-hand man through the breast, killing him outright. Then, wasting no more time, he joined the remaining trio of cave dwellers where they strained at the heavy ropes. By the time Silberhutte was able to wrap a rope round his waist and add his weight to the effort, more of the invaders were clambering up onto the ledge. Their energies had been spent in vain, however, for no sooner were five or six established and moving cautiously, blindly into the dark interior of the tunnel than — with a snapping of timbers and a rumbling of fractured rock — the first section of the ceiling crashed down upon them, burying them beneath untold tons of boulders and rubble.

Deep within the tunnel, momentarily suffocated by complete darkness and billowing clouds of dust, the jubilant four moved quickly back as debris continued to rain down from the sagging ceiling. Finally a torch was struck and, as a second section of the tunnel collapsed behind them, Silberhutte and his small force hurried back the way they had come.

It was time now for the Warlord to seek out de Marigny. Pressure was building up far too rapidly in the cauldron that was Numinos, particularly on the Isle of the Five Mountains. The sooner the secret of Annahilde's runes was revealed — and the time-clock discovered and reclaimed — the better .. .

* * *

Silberhutte got back to the cavern minutes after de Marigny's own arrival. The latter, having flown up above the peaks on leaving Moreen (who still would not go down into the island's interior), had seen the longships in their hundreds where they were anchored about the island, their crews grimly preparing for their assault upon the arduous slopes. He had warned the cavern folk of the enormity of the peril and had then sent out the cavern's rear guard, a pitiful band of one hundred and fifty men, to strengthen the thin ranks of the three hundred already gone to defend the ring of mountain peaks.

While Moreen's own mountain — farthest from the cavern and unguarded when last de Marigny had seen it, though a stream of men from the cavern had been heading toward it along the high saddles — was also the tallest of the five peaks and the most sheer oceanward, nevertheless the Earthman was frantic with worry over the girl. He had promised to return for her, would not have left her in the first place but for the need to carry her translation of Annahilde's message to Silberhutte.

She had however assured him that she would be safe — that if the Vikings came in his absence, her bats would protect her — before wishing him well as he went reluctantly off again, once more in tandem behind the strongest of her retainers. The trip back through the volcanic blow-hole had been quicker this time, the way lighted by flaring flambeaux by whose light parties of the cavern's women worked to fortify the vents against attack; and de Marigny had reckoned not unreasonably that indeed this was where the final battles would be fought.

All of these things
de
Marigny told to Silberhutte in return for the Warlord's own news, but when he paused, there were several very important things left unsaid. Now Silberhutte pressed the other for additional information:

`And the time-clock? Did you find out where it is?'

'Dramas,' answered the other, seemingly surprised.

`Didn't I mention it?' He was visibly on edge and kept eyeing the shadowed mouths of the vents close to where they stood. 'The Ice-Priests of Dromos have it. But — '

`But what, my friend? I half-suspected that Ithaqua hadn't left the clock here on Numinos. What I didn't suspect was that Annahilde's prophesy would work out so well — that she'd get all her own way.'

`Her own way?' de Marigny repeated as the Warlord donned his part of the cloak's harness.

`She was hoping and praying that you'd fall for the girl,' Silberhutte explained his meaning. 'Well, it seems to me that you have. And you're the one who wanted "no complications?"'

`Listen,' de Marigny ignored his friend's knowing grin. 'I have it all worked out. We two weigh something less than normal here on Numinos, right?'

Three-quarters normal, yes.'

'Well then, that means — '

— That the cloak can probably manage all three of us? Yes, it probably can, at least here on Numinos. I'm way ahead of you, Henri, and it looks like have to go along with you. I only hope that this girl of yours doesn't slow us down, that's all. Dromos is different again from Numinos — but I'll tell you what I know about that when we're on our way. Right now we have to get out into the open air before I can start things moving.'

'How do you mean?' asked de Marigny, lifting the cloak up above the floor of the cavern and taking the other's weight, then flying slowly into the main vent. 'What's your plan?'

'My plan? Any plan I might have had would be changed beyond recognition by now. The idea was that if we found the clock here on Numinos, we'd pick it up and that would be that. But, having an idea that Ithaqua might have taken it to Dromos, I put it to Armandra, and she told me how we could go about getting there if we had to. Well, now
we have to — but it's going to be a hell of a job, that's a promise. And it won't be any easier now
we've
the girl to allow for.'

`About Moreen — ' de Marigny began.

`Don't tell me,' the Warlord cut him off. 'It's written all over your face. Anyway, if she's half what Annahilde described, a man would be a fool to leave her behind.'

`When you see her, you can judge for yourself,' de Marigny answered. 'As for now, I'll have to concentrate on what I'm doing, get us through this damned snake of a hole as fast as I can.'

`Yes. Well, I won't bother you,' the other grunted. 'I'll spend the time "chatting" with my better half, let her know what's going on.'

Now in silence the cloak flew rapidly between a string of flaring, shadow-casting torches, passing the occasional group of frantically toiling women along the way. Without exception the women wished them all speed, urging them onward with approving cries and gestures; and so they swept eerily on through the winding volcanic flue.

De Marigny's urgency was clearly visible in the way he took chances in the darker stretches of the vent, but his handling of the cloak was now inspired. Despite the fact that his hideous guide had long since deserted him to return to Moreen, he flew faster than he had on either of his previous trips. Even so, it seemed to take hours before they finally flew out into daylight.

And it was at once apparent that fighting was already in progress. Even in the dim light of Numinos the glint of metal could be seen in the saddles between the three lesser peaks, and the faint shouts and screams of furious contests echoed down to the fliers through the ominously still air.

Gaining height the better to see the action in the saddles, the pair were relieved to note that the cavern folk were getting the better of their adversaries. At present only small groups of Vikings were reaching the ridges, and that only after fighting their way through continual avalanches of boulders released by the defenders. Tired from the climb and bruised by flying rocks, they were easily picked off as soon as they attained the saddles; but greater numbers were not too far behind. It would not be long before they were too many for the defenders to handle.

Racing high over the lake, the adventurers felt a warm updraught from its still volcanic centre; then, ahead, Moreen's peak rose up before them; and -

- And on its uppermost slope there was a clouding of dust, the glitter of whirling weapons, and a vast and frenzied throbbing of bat wings!

Ten, a dozen Vikings engaged Moreen's monstrous protectors at not too great a height above her refuge; and two more, armed to the teeth, slid recklessly down a shale slope immediately above the low overhang that sheltered her cave. Then de Marigny saw the girl herself, hair streaming behind her as she plunged in a near-panic flight down the steep slope toward a green stand of tall, thickly grown pines.

They were after her, those two heathens, and their prime reason for being here seemed completely forgotten in the excitement of the chase. There was no saying what they would do to the girl when they caught her .. .