Nancy Springer - Book of the Isle 03, page 18
who started through the Forest on horseback and never finished their journey.. Robbers, folk had concluded at the time, though robbers had not troubled those parts for many years. But then rumors began of shadows, of gray, stalking forms seen amid the Forest trees at the approach of night, glimpsed by the, cottage wife as she stooped for fuel or by the tenant gathering the rabbit from his snare. Fanciful talk, many said, for wolves were not likely to show themselves so boldly early in the season, when food was still plentiful. But when Rafe of Lee heard the reports of wolves, he frowned and arranged for extra patrols of the Forest purlieus.
It was the patrol, Brock Woodsby said, that saved his family and himself. Rafe’s men heard the goodwife scream as they rode near the cottage and rushed in to find Brock, torn and bleeding, battling half a dozen gray brutes with the poker. The goodwife, shrieking, flung brands from the fire, and Megan wielded a table plank with a fierce abandon that had kept her thus far untouched. Meg had not screamed; this was the first time since Trevyn’s departure that she had found good reason to be violent, and she was rather enjoying herself.
The wolves chose not to face swords. They scattered quickly, bursting through the windows, streaking toward the Forest. The patrollers could not follow; they were busy stamping out the flaming firewood that threatened to burn down the cottage. Moreover, their horses had bolted, and they were obliged to make their way back to barracks on foot. Brock left his family behind barred doors and went along, for doctoring and to speak to his lord.
“It was the lass they wanted,” he told Rafe. “Right in at the door they came, and went for her with scarcely a glance at the wife or me. By good chance, Meg had a pot of scalding milk in her hand, and she threw it at them, kettle and all; that blinded them for a bit. But then they went at her again as bad as ever. They weren’t starved wretches, my lord; they were as sleek and strong as pit dogs fed for the fight. I don’t like it.”
“Nor do I, no whit!” Rafe gulped. “Do you think the girl would be safe here at the manor fortress?”
“I’ll send her up at once. Thank ‘ee.” Brock departed, and Rafe went straight to his table to write to Alan.
To my Dear Friend and Golden Protector, Alan, Liege King in Laueroc, Greeting,
t, the missive ran, for Rafe loved a courtly flourish.
I sorely crave your presence and advice in this matter of the wolves, of which my young lord the Prince may have told you. They have become bolder now, even entering in at the cottage door, seeking to rend the maiden Megan, which must be on the Prince’s account, whom she holds dear. My mind is at pains to know the meaning of this thing, of which question the Prince could offer no answer. Now others remark it; the land is rife with talk of the daring of the beasts; my men fear them, though they will not say it; and my heart is full of unreasoning distress, though I feel the fool even to write it! Pray commend me to your lady, and pray counsel me in this matter as swiftly as you may see-fit. In love and service, Rafe, from Lee, the second week of December, the twentieth year of reign.
A messenger took this swiftly to Laueroc, to the King. Alan puzzled over it for some time before he heavily climbed the stairs to Lysse’s sunlit tower chamber and handed it to her. “Did he say anything to you?” he asked her.
“Trevyn?” She wondered why he would not speak their son’s name.
Alan only nodded.
“Nay, he said nothing to me of wolves,” Lysse replied. “Rafe seems disconcerted.”
“Ay, I must go to him, I suppose. Rafe was always one to shout at a pinprick, but still …” Alan eyed his wife, frowning. “You told me we would have hard times. Did you see any trouble of this kind?”
“Nay. And the Sight is lost to me these days; I cannot advise you, my lord.” Lysse spoke without self-pity, and kept her eyes on her hands so as not to accuse him, for she knew
quite well that the cause of her loss was that he withheld his love from her. Alan knew it also, and knew she would hot judge him, and found himself irked by her fineness even as he longed to comfort her. The leaden lump that was his heart had no comfort to offer. After standing awhile and finding nothing to say, he turned and left her without a word.
Within the hour he took horse toward Lee and kissed her ceremoniously from the saddle. It was the first kiss she had received from him since his return from Nemeton. She wondered if she would ever see him again; her loss was so great that she could not tell. Still, she noted that the green Elfstone she had given him shone proudly on his chest. And as he turned from her, the rayed emblem at its heart blazed back at her with sudden brilliance. Lysse thankfully accepted this sign for her sustaining, and felt it warm her as she watched her husband ride away.
When Alan came to Lee, Rafe greeted him with fervent relief. There had been more attacks: a peddler dragged from his cart, a young wife torn as she searched for her cow. The wolves struck in the evening hours, and, except in Meg’s case, in the open. The patrols saw them often, grinning from twilight shadows, but then darkness and the Forest would swallow them up. Hunts had been organized to no good effect; twice Rafe’s men had located wolves, but their horses shied from the attack and their quarry mocked them.
“And Meg has gone off somewhere, confound the girl ” Rafe added.
Megan had responded to her father’s arrangements on her behalf with silence and a tense whiteness at the tip of her pointed nose. She had obediently gone to pack her things, then slipped out of the cottage and disappeared before her parents knew she was missing. Not for any peril would she be sent to the manor town, where people would stare at her and whisper behind her back! She had not been seen since. It was hard to believe that she would have been so foolhardy as to venture into the Forest, much as she loved it. And yet… Still, Alan could not say where the girl might be, and he was far more concerned with the wolves then.
“How many are there, do you think?” he asked.
“I cannot tell. We know there were six at goodman Brock’s. My men see them in twos and threes… . Travelers say that folk are in fear of them as far north as the Waste. But I hope they may not be many, only roaming far afield. They run tirelessly, as fast as a horse.”
“Many or few, they will not be easily come upon,” Alan grumbled. “The Forest is large.”
“Vast,” Rafe agreed quietly, “and few know the inwardness of it as well as you, of the place or its creatures. I have heard there are strange things deep within.”
“Haunts, and hot steams, and grottos, and moss-men, and soft voices in the night.” Alan eyed Rafe pensively. “All that is wild and wonderful. But no such evil as this.”
“Then you know nothing of it?” Rafe was crestfallen.
“Nothing. Not even as much as you. I had heard no news of wolves before I received your letter.”
“What! The lad didn’t tell you—”
“Not a whisper.” Alan’s face darkened, but he tried to make light of Trevyn’s omission. “On account of the lass, I dare say.”
Rafe grinned at that, then told the tale quickly enough. Alan heard it in heavy-hearted s ilence, envisioning a glittering ship with a leaping wolf for figurehead and a sunburst brooch lodged in the pebbles of the Long Beaches. “I must go to Nemeton,” he said abruptly when Rafe was done.
“What!” Rafe was taken aback.
“It is there that the true peril will strike. From the east; I am sure of it. I must warn Corin. And I will send for Ket, though I know he will be sorry to leave Laueroc. Perhaps his woodsmanship can help you. And I will get you men to aid you in your patrols, and I will go myself to Whitewater, to see Craig. There is one who knows the Forest, Rafe, though I expect his old bones would rather bide by the fire.”
“To Nemeton!” Rafe still floundered.
“Ay!” Alan clapped him on the shoulder, as if to awaken him. “But I will return within the month, if I can. Celydon also should increase the guard. If I write some orders, will you send them for me?”
“Of course,” muttered Rafe, then burst out, “There is no Forest within miles of Nemeton!”
“Those creatures are in the Forest, but not of it. Nor do I
judge that we can hunt them down, though of course we must
try… . But for now, and unless Ket advises otherwise, I
think you will do well enough if you just keep them within the
Forest and your folk unharmed. Waste no men in pursuing
them.” *
Alan went off to write his letters. The hardest was the one to Lysse, appointing her his second-in-command and telling her to send Ket to await him at Lee. He knew he had treated her badly, and his warrior spirit drove him to give her what he could, if only honesty. He wrote:
I feel a foreboding beyond all measure of reason that these wolves may put an end to us, Love. So if I do not see you again, shall you still know that I love you? It is true, my heart had gone as dead as a stone within me, but that changes nothing. The sun shines even when the clouds cover it; pray trust in that, as I must. Keep Rosemary by you there, to comfort you, and do not let her come to Celydon, as I know she will long to do; it is too perilous. Tell her that I charge her to stay with you. Now I must hasten to Nemeton, to warn Cory of a danger I can scarcely describe.
He traveled to Nemeton as fast as his retainers could follow him, skirting the Forest, though the precaution galled him. After spending only one evening with Corin he pressed onward, up the Eastern Way, to take counsel with Craig, former leader of all the outlaws in the southern Forest. Even as he traveled he heard rumors of wolves. They stalked the Forest’s fringes in broad daylight now, folk said, and attacked children sent to gather sticks for the hearth. People were beginning to suffer for-lack of fuel, for no one dared now to go near the Forest unless in the safety of a large group. When he came to Whitewater, Alan found that Craig had already organized patrols and expeditions for the gathering of wood. The old outlaw could not explain the strange behavior of the wolves. He had never seen anything like it, not in all the years he had dwelt in the wilds.
“Surely it cannot be all the wolves,” Craig offered in his cautious way.
“It could be a dozen, perhaps a score, and those very industrious in their perversity, hah? But there will be more, and worse trouble to come, Craig; I feel it.”
“For half my life I fought brutes in men’s clothing,” Craig shrugged. “It will be no worse to fight brutes that wear hair and go on all fours.”
“That is very true,” Alan murmured. “I have never met such brutes except in human form. … I must make the acquaintance of these wolves.”
And the next day he rode straight into the Forest, though his retainers followed him nervously and Craig creased his brow in protest. They wound their way through the wilderness in the half-light of a gray winter’s day, glancing over their shoulders at the gloomy distances beneath the trees. But it was not in a shadowy assault that Alan met his adversary. While the day was still young, the company came up against a big wolf sitting on its haunches squarely in the path, as indolent as a dog on a doorstep, with its long tongue lolling from its grinning mouth. Alan motioned his men to hold.
“What game is this, little brother?” he asked in the Old Language.
The wolf laughed, a shrill, yapping sound. “The sweetest game, O Crowned Head! Likely it will give you the soundest sleep you have ever known. Your heir has learned the game, O Fading Sun; ask him about it, when you see him! Where is the Princeling, O Majesty?”
Alan flushed hotly with inarticulate rage and signaled his men to the attack. But on the instant a dozen more wolves leaped to the side of the first, facing them with gleeful snarls. The horses reared back from the sight, plunging for escape, even the elwedeyn horse that Alan rode. He flung himself down from his unruly steed and snatched out his sword to attack the wolves on foot, heedless of his men’s frightened cries. But his enemies turned away and trotted off into the Forest, insolent in their leisure. When they were gone, Alan’s fury turned all at once into sick sorrow, making him so weak that he leaned on his sword for support with the blood of his
son swirling before his eyes. Shed to death by tearing teeth, Alan thought.
“If these are creatures of the One,” he groaned, “then we have all been betrayed.” His wrath and despair hardened within him into a cold, helpless knot of resolve.
He left the Forest, leading his retainers back to Whitewater for the night, then northward the next day onto the barren, stony expanse of the Waste. He did not tell Craig his plan. Alan did not like to speak of deeds until he had done them. And Craig would not have heard of Hau Ferddas anyway, except perhaps as the dimmest kind of legend, a children’s tale of a long-ago magical sword. Even scholars who had studied the ancient Great Books hardly knew more. But Alan had seen the magnificent golden sword one day of his youth, and Hal had touched it, and renounced it, and let it lie.
“Mine by right,” Alan muttered as he rode, for he traced his lineage to the ancient house of Lyrdion.
. He took his men for a hard journey, pressing the pace, riding long and late, sleeping short hours on the comfortless ground. Still, Winterfest had come and gone without their notice before they reached the place Alan remembered. A copse, a scar of brittle stone, a gentle rise, and a barrow on top ringed by man-size standing stones. Alan’s retainers, pallid and trembling, pulled their horses to a stop without his command. They sensed the haunt, he knew.
“Wait for me here, then,” he told them, and left his horse with them, and strode, businesslike, up the hill. But halfway to the barrow the fear of the unresting shades struck him-in his turn, brought him up short with astonishment that almost topped the terror: he had not felt such fear of the wakeful dead since the day, years ago, that Hal had taken his hand and led him gently through their cordon. Hal’s warm touch… . The memory, though mixed with pain, softened the fear somewhat, and he was able to push his way through it. Bent and panting, he reached the barrow. The fear left him at the circle of standing stones, but no warm welcome awaited him. He sensed the spirits’ dismay tingling through their bodiless presence all around him.
“Elwyndas,” spoke a deep voice, echoing through a void of
time and Otherness. The single word, Alan’s elfin name, seemed to be neither greeting nor question, but rather a reminder —of what? Prophecies and destinies? Mireldeyn had left; those days were over now.
“Culean,” Alan responded coolly. The last of the High Kings had been cut off in his youth, in the ruin of his realm, and by his own hand.
“You come here with anger and hatred in your heart,” the low voice of the dead King stated. “Why? You have always been full of loyalty and love.”
“I have enemies now,” Alan grimly replied, “and my loyalties have betrayed me. Aene, brother, wife, and son —they have all betrayed me.” He stooped and started tugging at the barrow stones, clawing himself an entrance.
“You come for the sword? But it was not offered to you, Elwyndas, worthy as you are of all our aid. We were told that an elf-man shall take it back to the sea. Your son, perhaps.”
“You will wait long for him!” Alan shouted, stung by sudden pain. He grappled furiously with the stones, then crawled into the barrow. The dim interior was much as he remembered: bones, dust, weapons, shreds of ancient finery. Centered under the dome lay a slab supporting the remains of High King Culean, his blackened crown, and his mighty sword. Stepping over skulls, Alan made his way to the skeleton’s side and reached for the sword, then hesitated with his hand poised to take it, feeling an eerie reluctance seize him.
“That sword could kill one whom you love,” breathed the deep, unearthly voice of the departed monarch. “It killed me.” But Alan felt stubborn resentment stir in him at the dead man’s interference.
“What, am I to surrender Isle to the wolves, then?” he mumbled, and grasped the golden sword ‘by its jewel-studded hilt, wrestled it from its place. The weapon hung heavily in his hand, its massive point dragging on the ground’. With an effort, Alan swung it clear and carried it outside. Strange —it had not seemed so unwieldy when Hal had lifted it, and he remembered its fair golden sheen. But now the precious metal glared coppery red in the cold daylight and the jewels
crouched sullenly, unblinking, on the hilt. Alan matched their stare for a moment, frowning, then suddenly pulled off his cloak and wrapped the sword in it, scorning the winter wind. Heaving Hau Ferddas up, he hoisted it with both hands, lancelike, and trudged back to the others. The reproachful presence of the spirits followed him far down the hill.
