Lore of Witch World (Witch World Collection of Stories) (Witch World Series) (23 page)

“I'm for bed.” He arose and reached for his bow. “The road this day was long—”

Urre might not have heard him at all; his attention was fixed on the tray of tankards. Onsway nodded absently; he was watching Urre as he always did. But the mistress was alert to the hint of more profit.

“Bed, good master? Three bits—and a fire on the hearth, too.”

“Good enough.” He nodded, and she screeched for the pot boy who came at a limping waddle, wiping his grimed hands On the black rags of an apron knotted about him.

It seemed that while the inn gave the impression of space below, on the second floor it was much more cramped. At least the room into which Trystan tramped was a narrow slit of space with a single window covered by a shutter heavily barred. There was a litter of dried rushes on the floor and a rough bed frame on which lay a pile of bedding as if tossed. The hearth fire promised did not exist. But there was a legged brazier with some glowing coals which gave off a little heat, and a stool beside a warp-sided chest which did service as a table. The pot boy set the candle down on that and was ready-to scuttle away when Trystan, who had gone to the window, hailed him.

“What manner of siege have you had here, boy? This shutter has been so long barred it is rusted tight.”

The boy cringed back against the edge of the door, his slack mouth hanging open. He was an ugly lout, and looked half-witted into the bargain, Trystan thought, surely there was something more than just stupidity in his face, when he looked to the window there was surely fear also.

“Thhheee tooods—” His speech was thick. He had lifted his hands breast high, was clasping them so tightly together that his knuckles stood out as bony knobs.

Trystan had heard the enemy called many things, but never toads, nor had he believed they had raided Grimmerdale.

“Toads?” He made a question of the word. The boy turned his head away so that he looked neither to the window nor Trystan. It was very evident he planned escape. The man crossed the narrow room with an effortless and noiseless stride, caught him by the shoulder.

“What manner of toads?” He shook the boy slightly.

“Toodss—Thhheee toods—” The boy seemed to think Trystan should know of what he spoke. “They—that sit ‘mong the Standing Stones—that what do men evil.” His voice, while thick no longer sputtered so. “All men know the Toods o’ Grimmerdale!” Then, with a twist which showed he had had long experience in escaping, he broke from Trystan's hold and was gone. The man did not pursue him.

Rather he stood frowning in the light of the single candle. Toads—and Grimmerdale—together they had a faintly familiar sound. Now he set memory to work. Toads and Grimmerdale—what did he know of either?

The dale was of importance, more so now than in the days before the war when men favored a more southern route to the port. That highway had fallen almost at once into invader hands, and they had kept it fortified and patroled. The answer then had been this secondary road, which heretofore had been used mainly by shepherds and herdsmen. Three different trails from up country united at the western mouth of Grimmerdale.

However had he not once heard of yet a fourth way, one which ran the ridges, yet was mainly shunned, a very old way, antedating the coming of his own people? Now—he nodded as memory supplied answers. The Toads of Grimmerdale! One of the many stories about the remnants of those other people, or things, which had already mostly faded from this land so that the coming of man did not dislodge them, for the land had been largely deserted before the first settlement ship arrived.

Still there were places in plenty where certain powers and presences were felt this day, where things could be invoked—by men who were crazed enough to summon them. Had the lords of High Hallack not been driven at the last to make such a bargain with the unknown when they signed the solemn treaty with the Were Riders? All men knew that it had been the aid of those strange outlanders which had broken the invaders at the last.

Some of the presences were beneficial, others neutral, the third dangerous. Perhaps not actively so in these days. Men were not hunted, harried or attacked by them. But they had their own places, and the man who was rash enough to trespass there did so at risk.

Among such were the Standing Stones of the Toads of Grimmerdale. The story went that they would answer appeals, but that the manner of answer sometimes did not please the petitioner. For years now men had avoided their place.

But why a shuttered window? If, as according to legend the toads (people were not sure now if they really
were
toads) did not roam from their portion of the Dale, had they once? Making it necessary to bolt and bar against them? And why a second-story window in this fusty room?

Moved by a curiosity he did not wholly understand, Trystan drew his belt knife, pried at the fastenings. They were deeply bitten with rust, and he was sure that this had not been opened night or day for years. At last they yielded to his efforts; he was now stubborn about it, somehow even a little angry.

Even though he was at last able to withdraw the bar, be had a second struggle with the warped wood, finally using sword point to lever it. The shutters grated open, the chill of the night entered, making him aware at once of how very odorous and sour was the fug within.

Trystan looked out upon snow and a straggle of dark trees, with the upslope of the dale wall beyond. There were no other buildings set between the inn and that rise. And the thick vegetation showing dark above the sweep of white on the ground suggested that the land was uncultivated. The trees there were not tall, it was mainly brush alone, and he did not like it.

His war-trained instincts saw there a menace. Any enemy could creep in its cover to within a spear cast of the inn. Yet perhaps those of Grimmerdale did not have such fears and so saw no reason to grub out and burn bare.

The slope began gradually and shortly the tangled growth thinned out, as if someone had there taken the precautions Trystan thought right. Above was smooth snow, very white and unbroken in the moonlight. Then came outcrops of rock. But after he had studied those with an eye taught to take quick inventory of a countryside, he was sure they were not natural formations but had been set with a purpose.

They did not form a connected wall. There were wide spaces between as if they had served as posts for some stringing of fence. Yet for that purpose they were extra thick.

And that first row led to a series of five such lines, though more distantly they were close together. Trystan was aware of two things. One, bright as the moon was, it did not, be was sure, account for all the light among the stones. There was a radiance which seemed to rise either from them, or the ground about them. Second, no snow lay on the land from the point where the lines of rock pillar began. Above the stones also there was a misting, as if something there bewildered or hindered clear sight.

Trystan blinked, rubbed his hand across his eyes, looked again. The clouding was more pronounced when he did so, as if whatever lay there increased the longer he watched it.

That this was not of human Grimmerdale he was certain. It had all signs of being one of those strange places where old powers lingered. And that this was the refuge or stronghold of the “toads” he was now sure. That the shutter had been bolted against the weird sight he could also understand, and he rammed and pounded the warped wood back into place, though he could not reset the bar he had levered out.

Slowly he put aside mail and outer clothing, laying it across the chest. He spread out the bedding over the hide webbing. Surprisingly the rough sheets and the two woven covers were clean. They even (now that he had drawn lung-fuls of fresh air to awaken his sense of smell) were fragrant with some kind of herb.

Trystan stretched out, pulled the covers about his ears, drowsy and content, willing himself to sleep.

He awoke to a clatter at the door. At first he frowned up at the cobwebbed rafters above. What had he dreamed? Deep in his mind there was a troubled feeling, a sense that a message of some importance had been lost. He shook his head against such fancies and padded to the door, opened it for the entrance of the elder serving man, a dour-faced, skeleton-thin fellow who was more cleanly of person than the pot boy. He carried a covered kettle which he put down on the chest before he spoke.

“Water for washing, master. There be grain-mush, pig cheek and ale below.”

“Well enough.” Trystan slid the lid off the pot Steam curled up. He had not expected this small luxury and he took its arrival as an omen of fortune for the day.

Below, the long room was empty. The lame boy was washing off tabletops, splashing water on the floor in great scummy drollops. His mistress stood, hands on her hips, her elbows outspread like crooked wings, her sharp chin with its two haired warts outthrust as a spear to threaten the other woman before her, well cloaked against the outside winter, but with her hood thrown back to expose her face.

That face was thin with sharp features which were lacking in any claim to comeliness since the stretched skin was mottled with unsightly brown patches. But her cloak, Trystan saw, was good wool, certainly not that of a peasant wench. She carried a bundle in one hand, and in the other was a short-hafted hunting spear, its butt scarred as if it had served her more as a journey staff than a weapon.

“Well enough, wench. But here you work for the food in your mouth, the clothing on your back.” The mistress shot a single glance at Trystan before she centered her attention once more on the girl.

Girl, Trystan thought she was. Though by the Favor of Likerwolf certainly her face was not that of a dewy maid, being rather enough to turn a man's thoughts more quickly to other things when he looked upon her.

“Put your gear on the shelf yonder,” the mistress said. “Then to work, if you speak the truth on wanting that.”

She did not watch to see her orders obeyed, but came to the table where Trystan had seated himself.

“Grain-mush, master. And a slicing of pig jowl—ale fresh drawn—”

He nodded, sitting much as he had the night before, fingering the finely wrought guard about his wrist, his eyes half closed as if he were still wearied, or else turned his thoughts on things not about him.

The mistress stumped away. But he was not aware she had returned, until someone slid a tray onto the tabletop. It was the girl. Her shrouding of cloak was gone, so that the tight bodices, the pleated skirt could be seen. And he was right, she did not wear peasant clothes. That was a skirt divided for riding, though it had now been shortened enough to show boots, scuffed and worn, straw protruding from their tops. Her figure was thin, yet shapely enough to make a man wonder at the fate which wedded it to that horror of a face. She did not need her spear for protection, all she need do was show her face to any would-be ravisher and she would be as safe as the statue of Gunnora the farmers carried through their fields at first sowing.

“Your food, master.” She was deft, far more so than the mistress, as she slid the platter of crisp browned mush, the pink sliced thin meat, onto the board.

“Thanks given,” Trystan found himself making civil answer as he might in some keep were one of the damsels there noticing him in courtesy.

He reached for the tankard and at that moment saw her head sway, her eyes wide open rested on his hand. He thought, with a start of surprise, that her interest was no slight one. But when he looked again, she was moving away, her eyes downcast as any proper serving wench.

“There will be more, master?” she asked in a colorless voice. But her voice also betrayed her. No girl save one hold bred would have such an accent.

There had been many upsets in the dales. What was it to him if some keep woman had been flung out of her soft nest to tramp the roads, serve in an inn for bread and a roof? With her face she could not hope to catch a man to fend for her—unless he be struck blind before their meeting.

“No,” he told her. She walked away with the light and soundless step which might have equaled a forest hunter's, the grace of one who sat at high tables by right of blood.

Well, he, too, would sit at a high table come next year's end. Of that he was certain as if it had been laid upon him by some Power Master as an unbreakable geas. But it would be because of his own two hands, the cunning of his mind. As such his rise would be worth more than blood right. She had come down, he would go up. Seeing her made him just more confident of the need for moving on with his plan.

3

The road along the ridges was even harder footing after Nordendale. Hertha discovered. There were gaps where landslides had cut away sections, making the going very slow. However she kept on, certain this was the only way to approach what she sought.

As she climbed and slid, with caution, even in places had to leap recklessly with her spear as a vaulting pole, she considered what might lie ahead. In seeking Gunnora she had kept to the beliefs of her people. But if she continued to the shrine of the Toads she turned her back on what safety she knew.

Around her neck was hung a small bag of grain and dried herbs, Gunnora's talisman for home and hearth. Another such was sewn into the breast of her undersmock. And in the straw which lined each boot were other leaves with their protection for the wayfarer. Before she had set out on this journey she had marshaled all she knew of protective charms. But whether such held against alien powers, she could not tell. To each race its own magic. The Old Ones were not men and their beliefs and customs must have been far different. That being so, did she now tempt great evil?

Always when she reached that point she remembered. And memory was as sharp as any spur on a rider's heel. She had been going to the abbey in Lethendale, Kuno having suggested it. Perhaps that was why he had turned from her, feeling guilt in the matter.

Going to Lethendale, she must ever remember how that journey was, every dark part of it. For if she did not hold that in mind, then she would lose the booster of anger for her courage. A small party because Kuno was sure there was naught to fear from the fleeing invaders. But after all it was not the invaders she had had to fear.