The Forge in the Forest (35 page)

One day I shall hold this whole circle of the world in my hand. None are beyond my sway. I am the Keeper. I am Taoune.

The name fell upon Elof's ears like a blow, dizzying, sickening. This was disaster, this was ruin. He had spoken with Powers before, grown reckless, almost, in confronting them. But Raven seemed to be benign, and Tapiau believed himself to be. Not so this presence, this appalling sound of waste and desolation given voice. This was what he had been warned against, what he had striven against, what he had most feared. Perhaps they had strayed too far north; or perhaps, since the land was so underlaid with ice, they had been foolish ever to enter it. But whatever the truth of that, they had come directly under the eye of Tapiau's great adversary, one of the primal foes of life, betrayers of their trust, lords of the world's worst ills. In his arrogance he had dared to bandy words with one of the ancient Powers of the Ice.

But he remembered what Tapiau had told him, that this Taoune was a defeated Power, reduced to a shadow of his former majesty, a mere marchwarden for the greater Powers that had succeeded him. The greatest of these was Louhi, and had he not spoken to her, aye, and outfaced her in defeating the Mastersmith her servant? And as he had started, so he must go on; there was no turning aside. So, though every hair on his head bristled and lifted, he steadied his voice, and strove to copy in his deeper tones Kermorvan's proud ring. "Keeper? What have such as you ever kept, save a vigil over the woes of men?"

To his astonishment the voice sounded almost hurt.
I
?

/
wish men well, for they have minds. Am I not one of the loyal Powers, loyal to that which was first and has been corrupted, the rule of pure mind? It is only the delusions, the distractions, the wastefulness of the flesh we seek to counter. So it is that here in the Gray Lands I seek to preserve thought, to save all that is best in men. I gather the minds of men about me as they are purged of their gross bodies, their thoughts freed from the foolish lust for growth, for change
.

Elof swallowed. His mouth was dry, but he could feel the sweat trickling down and pooling in the folds of his shirt. But anger triumphed, and hotter than caution it flared, hotter than fear, a new rage added to the old as he looked upon the emptiness in the eyes of those who had been his comrades. He had had enough of the lies of Powers, that were as self-serving as those of men. "Then you gather nothing!" he shouted. "What is real in men, if it survives at all, has slipped through your grasp! Any live human can see that! These are toys you show us, cunningly contrived to copy the actions of life! No more!
Nothing
!"

"Nothing!" cried Ils, fired by his outrage. "Husks, shells, shadows, no more!"

The same anger kindled among all the travelers, sparking from one to another as a forest fire leaps from tree to tree, and made the fiercer by the terror they felt. "Did you not hear me, Taoune?" cried Kermorvan, shaking his hard fist in the empty faces of the dead. "Without the power to live, to grow, men are no more than the sum of their memories! That is all you capture! That is all we see in these miserable, hungry things you show us! Emptiness and falsehood, that is your domain!"

"Aye!" bellowed Roc harshly. "They've the shapes of folk, but where's the folk? Gone, anyone can see it! They're like empty gloves, these shapes!"

"Like toys!" spat Bure. "Toys, that's all you make of men!"

"Puppets to dance to your will!" yelled Tenvar. "Call yourself Keeper? Waster, despoiler, grave-defiler, bird of carrion, so I name you—"

With fearful speed, without any warning, the shape of Holvar launched itself upward from where it sat, seized Tenvar in its arms and bearing him backward to the ground it lunged open-mouthed at his neck. Even as Kermorvan, with a great cry, swung up his sword and sprang right across the fire, Holvar's shade sank its teeth into Tenvar's throat, tore and worried like a wolf. Kermorvan's blade, a fire-lit streak of gold, slashed once, twice, about the thing, and in the same heartbeat Bure's sword hewed its arm and Ils' axe rang against its skull. It rolled back, but Tenvar lay still, his hands outthrust, rigid, clawing at nothing, his wide eyes still and unseeing. Elof, frozen with horror, saw the other shapes rise up as one, and he seized Gorthawer singing from the scabbard. The giant shape of Eysdan loomed over him; half-sobbing, Elof slashed wildly, Gorthawer sang a great dark note and the creature was hurled back among the advance of the rest. They halted, stumbling, and the black blade snarled in the chill air as he wove it back and forth before them. Back they swayed as it passed, like dark reeds upon the marshes, but inched forward when it was furthest from them. Then he heard Roc cry out as if in disbelief, and could not help looking. The creature that was Holvar, hewn and slashed as it was, was on its feet once more and clawing out with its good arm at Kermorvan's throat.

"Run!" yelled Elof. "They fear my sword, it will hold them! Run to the far crossing while you can!" Then he whipped back to his own adversaries, and it was as well he did; he had the fraction of a heartbeat to duck aside as a long arm hooked at the air where he had been. In that instant's inattention Taoune's creatures had almost reached him. Gorthawer hissed out in their faces, and they dropped back, but only a little way. Elof heard crashing among the trees; at least the others were getting clear. As if in a dream, he noticed for the first time that his panting breath hung in silvered clouds before him, but that before these nightwalkers there was none. Another shape bounded up beside him, and in panic he almost cut at it before seeing Kermorvan. "I told you to run!" he shouted.

"The others have a start now! Come!"

Even as they glanced aside to speak, the wave of dark creatures leaped silently forward. Elof struck down the clutching thing that looked like Borhi, and Kermorvan, with a hoarse yell of fury, slashed at the thing that was Kasse, sending it crashing backward into the dying fire. "Run now!" he shouted, and seizing Elof by the arm he all but dragged him up the far side of the hollow. Out among the pines they charged, over the barren carpet of dead needles and out, out again into the open air, so cold now in the latter hours of the night that it was like breathing the starlight raining down on them; it turned to cold fire in their straining lungs.

They overtook Ils, Roc and Bure as they neared the crossing. They were the shortest of limb; Kermorvan had been right to win them a start.

"Should we stop again?" wheezed Elof. "Hold the pursuit back once more?"

"No!" gasped the tall man as they drew level with the others. "In the open they would only run past us… At the crossing-stones we may hold them…" But even as he spoke they saw dark shapes thrashing through the harsh bushes ahead, hastening to cut them off from the crossing. He set a faster pace, to take Elof and himself into the lead. "We may manage to cut our way through! There are not many…"

He was cut off by a sudden strangled shriek. A tall lean figure had come bounding up behind Bure, clawing and clutching at his trailing cloak, and even as they turned they saw it catch hold and spring upon him as he stumbled, sending them both sprawling among the thorny scrub. Kermorvan spat a curse, whirled about and sprang back with all his lithe speed. He struck out once, tearing the creature loose; it folded its limbs as it fell and sprang at him. His sword scythed in the air, and
clove the
figure in half as it leaped. At once Kermorvan stooped to Bure, but stood abruptly, shaking his head, and came running back to the others, swinging a pack in his hand.

"Run!" he shouted, and there was a wilder horror in his voice than they had yet heard. "That was Tenvar took him! Run, ere Bure comes after us in his turn! Run, for the last stretch!"

The horror of that thought, of being pursued by the friends they had seen slain a moment since, stampeded them all. But as they charged down the last slope Elof's heart sank in his breast; the instant's delay had cost them the crossing. Dark figures were massed there now, and some were already streaming up the slope toward them. But he saw Kermorvan raise his sword with set face, and copied him; here there was no retreating, and if they fought well enough, some at least might win through. He read the same knowledge on Roc's face, and on Ils', and wondered crazily if in minutes to come he might not be fighting her semblance, or she his. Together, without shout or war cry, they plunged into the last stand of bushes.

Then he almost fell over, as something huge and black shot up flapping before his face. A harsh scream tore his ears, and from far downriver he heard it answered. He looked wildly that way, toward the distant Forest where heavy rainclouds swept over the horizon, rising to envelop the sinking moon. Like winged daggers against the clouds he saw two black silhouettes rise to meet, wheeling, cawing and squawking in idiotic triumph at what they had found. The bushes blew and riffled into his path, snaring him, holding him; all through him there coursed a sudden thrill, an awareness of some vital change, and a thought that was almost too great for his mind to contain. Then he cupped his free hand skyward, and shouted to burst his lungs.

"You there! You searching sentinels! Tell your master! Tell him, ravens, with all speed! I call in my debt!
What is owed, I reclaim
!"

It was as if the world had stopped, a moment of breathless, prickling hush so profound that Elof held his breath, though his lungs labored with the effort. It seemed he must listen, listen hard. The wind was changing. That was what he had felt! From the southwest came a stirring in the air; the light flickered as a vanguard of the cloudbank touched the chill moon and passed across it, blotting it out. A cold droplet, heavy and wet, stung his upturned face, another, two more… But for a moment more the moonlight broke through, and in its brief gleam he was appalled to see the dead leap forward.

Then the moon might have come crashing down upon the earth, so great was the blast of white-violet light that shattered the night. Into the ground before them it struck. Elof reeled from the impact, and the downpour that crashed to the ground like a curtain of steel chain almost knocked the travelers off their feet. Elof recovered, staggering, soaked in an instant, and then, as abruptly as the lightning, something huge plunged out of the rain into the midst of them, and he and Kermorvan had to leap for their lives. It was a horse, an immense beast and white, and its shrill neighing rang louder than the wind, the stamp and trampling of its huge hooves louder than the thunder and the roaring rain which danced smoking from its flank. A rider it bore, Elof could see boots in the black stirrups, but all above was hidden by the blinding torrent. Across their path charged the beast, then it wheeled and reared up against the rain and came thundering back, so close to Elof that he had to jump once more, lost his balance and crashed down onto the hard wet earth, almost losing hold of Gorthawer. Strong hands seized him and dragged him up.

"
Run
!" screamed Ils in his ear, and Roc's voice echoed it.

"Run!"

"
Run
!" cried Kermorvan. "
They come
!"

His legs obeyed faster than his mind; he was running before he knew it, running blindly into the sheeting rain, his only guide Ils' hand on his arm. He glanced back, and saw shapes in the grayness bounding hard on their heels. Ils' grip slipped from him, and he whirled round, ready to fight. But then the great horse was among them again,

plunging, snorting, wheeling about as if to trample them all. Its huge flank slammed into him, sending him reeling off backward in the mud till he plowed into Roc, who had fallen to his knees. Elof hauled him up, and they staggered on after Ils' voice. The next few minutes were sheerest nightmare, of icy mud and drumming, stinging rain, of falling and being helped up, of helping others up, of losing hold of someone and screaming frantically to stay together, and, most of all, of fighting to stay out from under those maddening, terrifying hooves that came charging out of the storm at every turn or step, whenever they were least expected, making the travelers jump aside or be knocked off their feet. There might have been a thousand horses around them, yet Elof knew that there was only one. And always there was the rain, roaring in his ears, hammering on his head till his mind seemed malleable as any metal, his thoughts struck shapeless. Time lost its meaning. How long he had been running, or where to, he had no idea. There was only the mud, the endless ache of exhausted limbs, the hands that dragged him on, the others he dragged in turn, and always, always the white horse plunging, the cascading rain. But suddenly, as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped.

In the sudden blackness Elof tripped; he had no choice but to stop running. He risked a hesitant step forward, stumbled and barked his shin on some sharp straight edge of stone. Then he cried out in surprise as he was himself rammed in the back by a small but solid weight. "Ils?" he gasped.

"Here!" came her voice from behind him. "The others?"

"Here!" said Kermorvan, so close beside them that they both started. "And Roc?"

"Here!" they heard him say, but he was not so close, and his voice sounded strange, as if there was a faint echo behind it. "What in Hel's halls was that all about? And where are we now?"

"I guess," said Kermorvan carefully, "that on some trifling debt our mastersmith has been given full repayment, and an excellent rate of use! And that more than one Power found us when we quit the Forest. But to answer your second question, I fear we must stand quiet and await the dawn. Do not move till you can see! Who knows now where we might be…"