The Moon of Gomrath (14 page)

“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.

“You, too, have pledged yourself to our need,” he said coldly.

“And do you think I'm going to help you if Colin's not safe?”

“A promise not fulfilled is none at all,” said Atlendor.

“All right, then, it isn't. But what are you going to do about it?”

“You shall have fifty horse and myself to lead them, but not until the sun is down,” said Atlendor. “If all is not settled by the third night, the fifty and Albanac shall stay, and I shall take the rest of my people beyond Bannawg.”

Albanac spoke quickly: “That is noble, and will serve our need.”

“It is foolish, and the vote of force,” said Atlendor.

S
usan and Uthecar chose horses from among those of the lios-alfar, and Susan also took a sword and a shield. She had no other armour, since none of the linked mail the elves carried with them fitted her.

They led their horses up to the wizard's cave.

“Isn't there a horse for you?” said Susan.

“I shall not go with you,” said Cadellin.

“
Not go?
” cried Susan. “But you
must
!”

“I have thought of this,” said Cadellin. “My duty is here, guarding the Sleepers. Only I can wake them. If I were killed, I should have betrayed my trust, and only in Fundindelve can I be certain of life. And, Susan, though the Morrigan thrives, and Colin is in her power, the Sleepers wait for one whose shadow will quench the world, and I must not fail them.”

“That is true,” said Albanac. “We were too close to the threat to see it fairly. It is better that the Morrigan triumph now than that the Sleepers never wake.”

“But what about her magic?” said Susan. “We don't know any.”

“That is a chance you must take,” said Cadellin. “You are not helpless there. And if you were, Susan, you should not complain. Of your own will you sought this end. I have done what is in me to keep you from it.”

“I see no good in further talk,” said Uthecar. “There is little of the day left to us for doing what is to be done, unless we are to be a gift to the Morrigan.”

“Yes, come on,” said Susan.

It was an awkward leave-taking. Susan and Uthecar, while admitting the logic of Cadellin's words, had too much emotion in their own natures to have made such a decision themselves. As they went from Fundindelve, Albanac took Cadellin's hand, and so only he felt the wizard's grief, and saw the light that stood beyond his eyes.

They rode quickly but easily.

“The sword and shield are for palugs,” said Uthecar. “Do not be thinking to match them with a bodach's spear. That will be our work.”

“But didn't the Wild Hunt see to them?” said Susan.

“I dare not hope for that,” said Uthecar. “Some will have escaped, but how many? Let the sun go down, and we shall know.”

It was midday when they reached Errwood. They approached less cautiously than before, and Uthecar went about and through the ruins on his horse to decide how they could best prepare for the night.

“It will not be simple to guard the house,” he said when he returned. “These three sides are level and open, but at the back there is danger. The space between the walls and the hill is small, and the hill has been quarried sheer in parts, and bushes grow thickly. The Morrigan can be very close and we not know it. This is where we must start.”

He went to the back of the house, and began to cut the rhododendrons away from the rock face. Albanac started further along from him, and they worked towards each other, clearing the hill in a strip ten yards wide.

Susan pulled the fallen bushes into close piles along the edge of the shelf on which the house stood, between and above the two arms of the stream.

All this took four hours, and the remaining daylight was spent in hacking as much of the growth as possible on the steep banks below the shelf. The wood from here was made into one heap on the lawn.

Nothing happened at any time to make them think they were in danger. Once or twice Susan thought she heard a dog howling, far away, and Albanac seemed to
hear it, too; he would stop his work, and listen, and then go back to felling the bushes, his whole body swinging to the strokes as though he was fighting for his life.

“I would be clear of the valley until the lios-alfar come,” said Uthecar at sunset. “Now what bodachs and palugs there may be here will creep from under their rocks and out of their holes, and we should have little time for breath. In open ground they will not be so deadly.”

“What about the Morrigan?” said Susan. “I thought we were here to keep her out.”

“The moon will not rise yet; until then we shall see little of her,” said Uthecar. “But let us make fire quickly now before we go. There is enough wood to burn through the night, and neither bodach nor palug seeks fire.”

From under his cloak Albanac produced flint and tinder, and eventually they managed to spark some twists of dry grass into flames, and these by nursing were transferred to twigs and leaves, and so to the bush pile themselves. There were more than a dozen of them, and when they were all ablaze twilight had come.

They mounted their horses, and galloped along the drive to the moor, where they halted, clear of sudden attack.

“How long will it be before the elves get here?” said Susan.

“Not long,” said Albanac. “They will have left Fundindelve as soon as the light grew poor, and their horses are fleet as Melynlas when there is need.”

They crossed the stream to a flat meadowland, where the horses would have better grazing. The sky was yellow, the black clouds of night drifting in, giving a stark quietness to the valley. But this was broken with a shock that made the horses rear, as a dog howled close by.

“Where is that?” cried Albanac.

“Yonder!” said Uthecar. “High on the hill!”

And there by the dead trees where Uthecar had killed the bodach loped the shape of a black dog. It was as big as a calf, and so indistinct against the trees, in that light, as to appear to be made of smoke. It put back its head, and the loneliness bayed again, and then the dog slipped through the wood, and they did not see it.

Albanac sat with his head bowed, unspeaking, for a long time after the voice had died. Uthecar looked at him, but did not move, and the weight that lay on both of them was felt by Susan.

Albanac drew a deep breath. “The Howl of Ossar,” he said. But even as he spoke they heard a drumming in the air, growing louder, and the skyline was broken with
movement as though an army was rising out of the heather, and down from Shining Tor rode the lios-alfar, with naked swords in their hands, and the blades like flame.

They halted in a swirling crowd after the momentum of the hill, but they did not speak, even among themselves.

“We are come,” said Atlendor to Albanac. “Where is the Morrigan?”

“We have not seen her, but she will be close,” said Albanac. “We did this minute leave the house: it is ringed with fires, and the ground is clear, though on one side there is much against us. Neither bodach nor palug has been found.”

“I smell them,” said Atlendor. “They will come. But let us go to the house, and there make ready for what we must; for I smell blood, too.”

They rode along the drive, three abreast. The horses walked, and shields were held at the ready, since by now the last light had gone.

It was impossible for so many to approach the house in silence, but no one talked or made any noise that could be prevented. The light of the elves' swords in the damp air made a nimbus which was reflected coldly in the leather of the rhododendron leaves.

When they came to the fork in the path, Albanac held up his hand to stop the column. Something was wrong; they could all sense it. Then the elves swept forward to take the bend at a gallop. The house was in darkness. The fires they had left a few minutes ago had been snuffed out: the mounds of wood stood black around the house, and the air was bitter with a charred and acrid smell.

T
he elves did not falter. They rode into line, and in a moment they had put a cordon round the house, facing inwards and outwards alternately.

“Quick now!” shouted Uthecar to Albanac. “We must have fire!”

He jumped from his horse, and snatched a handful of dead grass, but the air was so laden with moisture that the grass would not light easily, and the more they hurried, the more they fumbled, and the more the sense of danger crept over them. But when they did start a flame the wood was soon rekindled, for it was still warm.

“Wind would have fed, not killed,” said Albanac. “And water would have smoked. This wood is dry. The Morrigan does what she is able before the moon rises.”

“And that is enough,” said Uthecar. “We must have light, since not all here have the eyes of dwarfs, yet it leaves us no guard but our hands.”

“We gain more than we lose,” said Albanac. “Why else has the Morrigan starved the fire? Until the moon rises she has not the means to put more than fear and fright into us, and from the shepherd's tale I would guess that shape-shifting is beyond her skill now. She sits out there, and waits for the moon.”

“Ay, and what then?” said Atlendor, who had ridden over to join them. “We must show our strength: thus we may not be called to match it with hers. Come with me,” he said to Susan, and they rode to the middle of the lawn, where he stopped, and lifted Susan's wrist above her head.

This was the first time Susan had been conscious of her bracelet since the appearance of the Einheriar on Shining Tor, and she was puzzled to find that she could no longer read the word of power. The script which had stood out so clearly from the metal then was now as unintelligible as it had ever been.

One by one the elves came to Susan. They touched the bracelet with their arrows and with their swords, and then went back to the ring of fire. By the time the last elf had taken up his post Susan ached to the bone, but Atlendor still held her arm high, and when the circle was complete he spoke in a voice that went far beyond the light.

“Here is bale for you! Here is a plague to flesh! Come; we are ready!”