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Six

 
"Blackthorn, blackthorn,
Bar the Pass and sound the horn,
The Fell One's come to Lammermorn!

Blackthorn, blackthorn,
Bar the Pass and sound the horn,
The Fell One's come . . ."

 

The doggerel lines were battering Wilum's sleep with the rhythmic ebb and flow of waves, flooding his mind like a powerful tide and then receding—again and again. In a sudden convulsion of fear he jerked awake in the chair in which he had dozed off and made as if to shield himself from a furious onrush of threshing horns and gnashing teeth. Still beguiled by sleep, he recoiled, convinced that he was sharing his chamber with the feral face that glowered at him from the arras hanging on the wall over the wooden chest. By degrees, he regained some of his waking senses, enough of them to realize that he had been having a nightmare, dreaming of a game he had played decades ago when he was just a boy like any other in the Holding.

In the murky half-light his memories turned to "Horned One in the Dark"—one of those magic boyhood games. It took place in the woods at night only under the spectral illumination of a moon at its full. The moment dusk began to shroud the valley, all the boys would slip out of their homes. Most times, as they assembled on the village green, Deepmere lay still and recumbent before them, as if its waters had been hushed by the westering sun. There was a deep peace that fell on the valley with the coming of twilight. Funny how when you're an old man it's the peace and the stillness you remember most, the aspect of the whole thing you cherish more than anything else.

Wilum's thoughts turned now to that one night, decades ago, when the boys had gathered together and he had been chosen to play Hircomet, the horned he-goat. This unpleasant role was normally reserved for one of the older boys. The rest drew lots to decide who, on the other hand, would be awarded the brave heroic role of Tobar, chief and mightiest of the anagoroi, who were the scourge of the dreosan, the Fallen Ones.

Even now the old man winced, remembering his reluctance and dismay—the desertion he felt in being Hircomet, as all the boys scattered into Darran Wood, a small beechwood copse that adjoined the deerpark close by Broadmeadows Manor, while Tobar watched with diligence that all remained in bounds.

Wilum pictured the scene again in his mind's eye. After counting to a hundred, equipped with a willow switch and disguised in a black goat's-head mask with horns and a pelt that draped his back and trailed along the ground, he began to stalk the other boys. Tied to the belt around his waist he carried a pouch of red paint made so he could dip his switch into it with a minimum of fuss. One by one he caught the boys in hiding, tagging them with the stain, having each of his captives cry out:

 
"Blackthorn, Blackthorn,
Bar the Pass and sound the horn,
The Fell One's come to Lammermorn!"
 

With this he touched the snout of his mask to his victim's throat, making the captured innocent the Horned One's thrall and duty-bound to help him run the others to ground. Once he had snared a couple of accomplices, it did not take very long to capture all of the boys in Darran Wood. This done, he trooped his conquered subjects to a meadow in the heart of the forest, where he ensconced himself in a chair hewn out of stone atop a hillock. Looking down on the boys he had captured, he demanded they prostrate themselves before him and shout, "Hail Hircomet," cuffing anyone who showed himself slow to render acclaim.

The sound of the acclaiming voices became the cue for Tobar, lingering watchfully just outside the wood. That night, Sarmel's younger brother, Hacnoris, had been chosen to be Tobar. Clad in a white tunic drawn together in the middle by a leather belt with a silver buckle, embossed with the figure of a great heron, Tobar strode into Darran Wood. Brandishing the wooden sword that he had pulled from a scabbard at his side, he skirted the prone bodies strewn along the moonlit sward. Wilum remembered rising from the stone chair and recoiling in a mock gesture of fear, letting Tobar cut him down with a furious volley of sword strokes, as he wailed miserably and slumped to the ground, feigning death. The wooden sword could be a bruising cudgel. Hacnoris had wielded it with great gusto and none too gently. Wilum felt sore for days, even with all the padding he had worn under his costume.

Having vanquished Hircomet, Tobar pulled out a rowan-wood sceptre, which he wore tucked into his belt. He stooped to touch each boy with it while intoning in the Old Tongue: "In the name of Wuldor, I free thee from thy bondage."

When all the prostrate figures had been revived and were standing upright again, Tobar himself occupied the stone chair amid a rousing chorus of lusty acclamation:

 
"Hail Tobar, Mighty One, be by our side!
Scourge of Evil! Destroyer of Darkness!
King of Freedom! Wuldor's Pride!"
 

How relieved Wilum had been that night at the third repetition of these words, which signalled the end of the game. The boys dispersed and trudged home, most of them reluctant to leave the ghostly spectacle of light and shadow that had fed their imaginations in the forest depths, where stock and stone were changed by a lunar alchemy into thrillingly sinister forms. In their hearts the boys knew that the game symbolized something that was as real as real could be, as real as anything else in their lives—an event of timeless significance, part of the ultimate victory of good over evil. A victory Wilum found it hard to appreciate at the moment, even now that he had wiped the veil of sleep from his eyes and had regained a measure of waking consciousness.

Nagging at him was a feeling of pervasive dread, all the more acute because neither Kal nor Galli had returned to his keeil that day. He had waited for them until even his anxiety was not enough to hold his drooping eyelids open a minute longer, and he had fallen asleep where he sat near the window waiting, watching. The folkmoot would have to wait a day. Strange, though, for the two not to have come back to the keeil with news. Perhaps they'd been sidetracked by other things. Wilum allowed himself a wry smile. They were young lads, after all. Who knew but that they had not been casting for trout on Deepmere, even as he cradled his reeling head, fighting sleep? It was doubtful the lowlanders could've caught them. Not only had Kal and Galli bested them when they'd had the aid of a Telessarian tracker, but a mountain goat would have a hard time keeping up with those two lads when they took to the wilds. Besides, he recognized with chill clarity, the men were here to watch his movements, hoping he'd lead them to the missing heir. The fact remained that the Sacred Fire had been snuffed out, and that there were strange and ominous things afoot—more than ominous. He could feel it in his heart—a deep unease.

Again the face leered at him from the tapestry with its predatory grin and distended features, all the more horrific for being part human and part animal. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear away the shrouds of sleep.

"There we are. It was all just a nightmare, thank goodness," he murmured to himself, looking again more closely at the moonlit wall hanging. Nothing now—only the scene that had always been depicted on it, a stirring episode in the tale of Ardiel's voyage from the court of Undenor, the forgeland king who had given him Vali's harp. Pursued by the raven-beaked longboats of Tardroch, Ardiel and his companions, the Seven Champions of Ruah, scuttled their vessel and hid for two days and two nights in the echoing chambers of Dorla's Cave, a sea cave set into the chalk cliffs of coastal Thrysvarshold. On the tapestry before him stood Ardiel locked in deadly combat with Dorla, the scaly many-tentacled monster who inhabited the cave. The goatish face of Wilum's dream had filled a space beside the flailing figure of Dorla, in one of the recesses of the cave. It had disappeared now, but its distorted malignity hung over him yet like a pollution.

He shuddered, his body still knotted with nervous tension. Some evil power loomed close at hand. He could feel it in the marrow of his weary bones with an intensity that he had never before experienced.

Heaving a deep sigh, he rose from the chair and reached for his staff. Clutching it, he stood by the window.

The pale light of the moon in its last quarter spilled through the window, broken by a crosshatched pattern of glazed lozenges, which were surmounted by the figure of a rampant white hind that was cut into the spandrel. Wilum stepped into the silver light. He lifted the latch and pulled the window open to let the night breeze cool his uneasy sweat-soaked body, half thinking that the gloom and oppression that hung over him like a poisonous vapour might be dissipated by an infusion of fresh air.

Scarcely had he breathed in one full draught of evening air before his nostrils curled back at the odour—the strong and unmistakable smell of blackthorn, the warm heavy scent of its blossoms as pungent as rotting meat, a harbinger of death. Wilum resisted the impulse to close the window. His squinting eyes swept the dimly lit landscape, framed in the distance by the silent mass of the Radolan Mountains. On the surface, the scene which he took in seemed wholesome and peaceful. In the middle distance, dominated by the Haltadans and Ram's Knap, everything appeared as calm and tranquil as always. The snowy peaks of the mountains, faint bands of white in the weak half-light, seemed as ethereal and insubstantial as the nimbus of misty clouds that enshrouded them. Wilum always found the scene to be hypnotically evocative. It made his spirit long to be liberated from its bonds of clay and to take flight on airy pinions to the heavens.

Tonight, however, no such idle musings distracted him into reverie. Not even the passionate liquid melodies of the nightingale perched on the oak tree outside his window could break the spell of nameless fear. Rather its soft tremolo "jug, jug, tereu" seemed desperately sad and poignant, full of tears and pain beyond words.

"Take hold of yourself, Wilum. Come now! You've only had a nightmare, for goodness' sake," the old man muttered, as he retreated into the room, shutting the windows against the night. "Enough of your petty fears. After all, you're the Hordanu, the High Bard, and this is Wuldor's Howe. Your predecessors all lived in peace and tranquillity in this valley and are buried right here in Stillfields. Come now, you're being ridiculous, like a rabbit afraid of its own shadow. Take hold of yourself, man."

All the same, Wilum tried not to dwell on the fact that never before since its kindling had the Sacred Fire been extinguished. And now its ashes lay cold. And try as he might, he could not help worrying about the young men. "I've been a silly doddering old fool," he chided himself. "I should have had the two young rascals promise they'd make straight for the nearest farmstead to get help. No detours through the woods. I should have been more careful . . . more careful . . ."

Wilum decided to get changed from his sweat-sodden clothing and ready himself for what would no doubt be a long day ahead. It would prove to be of small good to anyone, least of all himself, if he dozed in the chair again, or tossed and turned on his bed until morning. Better to get up. He left unlit the cresset torches that lined the room. Instead he turned to a panelled walnut chest carved with rosettes that lay by the wall beside the window. He laid down his staff and opened the chest. He lifted out a long brown robe and an undergarment and changed into these and then put on his sandals.

From the same chest he took out the Talamadh, the golden harp, the binder together of earth and sky, handed down through the ages from Hordanu to Hordanu. Intricately worked and fitted with an ornate leather strap, it was an object of exquisite craftsmanship and consummate grace, chased with patterns and runic inscriptions that a person could marvel at for hours on end. It was to the accompaniment of the Talamadh that Ardiel of the Long Arm sang "The Lay of the Velinthian Bridge" to reharmonize the discordant elements of Ahn Norvys after Tardroch's long convulsive reign of terror.

Wilum closed the chest and took up his staff again. Pushing aside a curtain, he left the modest bedchamber and entered his study and scriptorium, where a huge oaken door, set into a high arch, led to the Great Glence. Holding the harp, he slowly swung the door open, pushing it with his staff. He passed through a chamber beneath the bell tower and stepped into the half-darkness of the Great Glence itself, dappled with lunar shadows all along its windowed circumference. Here the Stones of the Four Seasons, each marking one of the four cardinal points of the compass, rose like ghostly ships from their plinths. At the centre of this circular building stood the Glence Stone, a massive rock fenced in with a screen, where the High Bard recited the orrthon on the great festival days of the year. The most important of these in the cult of Wuldor was the Candle Festival, the night of the second full moon after the vernal equinox, celebrating the cosmic victory won at the Battle of the Velinthian Bridge by Ardiel. In the silence the old stone walls seemed to resonate still with the ritual measures of the orrthon.

Wilum made for the Stone across a floor still strewn with rushes from the Candle Festival. Had his two attendants been with him today, he would have had them clean it. The latch on a door was scarcely distinguishable from the rest of the wrought-iron grillework that made up the glence screen. He lifted it and stepped with sandalled feet onto the mosaic stone floor of the temen. Within the sacred enclosure, the Glence Stone bulked large before him, its whiteness just barely visible in the gloom. A couple of the windows were thrown open, allowing for a cross-draught. Wilum noticed among the windows that the Aeolian Aperture stood open as well.

He leaned his staff against the inside of the glence screen and wearily mounted the flight of steps that had been chiselled into the Stone. At its top was a shallow flat depression on which was positioned a simple board stool from which the Hordanu would pluck the Talamadh and recite the orrthon. On the night of the Candle Festival the ritual called for him to place the Talamadh on the embrasure of the Aeolian Aperture and wait for a breath of wind to arouse the inborn melody of the Talamadh, turning it into a marvellous wind harp.

For scores of years now, extending back even to before Wilum's time, the Hordanu had waited in vain for the wind music. Even this year, despite the battering winds that had racked the whole valley that evening, there was not even the faintest stirring of a breeze that entered through the Aperture to caress the pliant strings of the golden harp. For some reason its powers as a wind harp lay dormant.

These days, as the water level of Deepmere had begun to decline, even the light of the sun and moon which streamed in through the Aperture seemed weak and pallid. With the inexplicable lowering of Deepmere's waters, the Great Glence itself had sunk. What light did shine through the Aperture was no longer able to touch any of the four Stones. Instead the light of sun and moon would miss the Stones altogether, causing yet another sundering of the link that bound the solid earth with the harmonies of the heavens. The visible sinking of the building had thrown the Aeolian Aperture off for the Loosening, the ceremony that ushered in each of the four seasons.

Wilum sat on the stool atop the Glence Stone and began to strum the golden harp, not having any particular lay or ballad in mind at first, but letting the dulcet sounds of the strings arise spontaneously, almost unbidden. At once his spirit was soothed. Rejoicing in the balm of the harp's voice, Wilum ceased his random thrumming and entered into the first notes of "The Lair of the Lyrebird," which described Ardiel's toilsome quest for the marvellous lyrebird amid the Ocean Isles of the West, the utmost boundaries of Ahn Norvys. The music of the ballad echoed through the empty glence, filling it with reflected tremulous sound that seemed at times to trail off, absorbed at length by the dark concavity of the timbered vault that held the roof above him. Wilum was immersed now in the ballad, surrendering himself to its re-created atmosphere of wind and wave and island promontories.

As he approached the end of a canto, Wilum could have sworn he heard his name being called. He paused, brushing back a stray strand of hair from his eyes, then launched himself into a fresh new canto. There it was again—a voice. No mistaking it. Unbowing his head and looking up from the Talamadh, he stopped his singing and squinted into the darkness. He was startled. At the door of the glence screen loomed a dim figure motioning frantically to him and calling.

"Master Wilum, Master Wilum!"

Slowly Wilum recognized a familiar voice and frame.

"Galli, is that you?"

"Aye, it's me, Master Wilum."

"What's the matter? Where have you been?"

"The Black Scorpions, they're here. They mean to kill everyone in the valley. And it's you Kal said they're really keen on getting their hands on. You can't stay here. We've got to leave right now. We're to meet at Tarlynn's Coomb. We have to get to Tarlynn's Coomb. Come now, please Master Wilum."

Galli, haggard and dishevelled, had a longbow slung around his shoulder and a scabbarded shortsword hanging from the belt at his hip. He had still not quieted his breathing and was plainly overcome by dread.

Wilum left his board stool and, still clutching the Talamadh, slowly descended the Stone. Galli stood just outside the temen, his eyes narrowed, his forehead creased. Meeting the younger man's gaze, Wilum ran a frail hand through his hoary mane and stroked his beard, as white as the wood doves nesting in the cupola of the Great Glence. He retrieved his staff and opened the door to the glence screen. Leaving the temen, the Hordanu rested a paternal arm on Galli's shoulder. Together they made their way toward the keeil.

"It's all right Galli, everything's fine," he said. "Just tell me what's happening. From the beginning. Wait a moment, though!" Wilum commanded, turning to face Galli with a rising tremor in his voice that resonated through the bell tower. "Where's Kalaquinn? Tell me, is he safe?"

"He's fine. He rode into Wrenhaven to tell the Warden and then he's to meet us at the Coomb. Somehow the Black Scorpions got past our guards at the Pass. Kal's father would have gone himself, but his ankle was really acting up again. So he sent Kal." They passed from the bell tower back into the keeil.

"Wait a moment while I light a torch . . . Here we are . . . What are these Black Scorpions you speak of? It seems to me Frysan mentioned something about them to me just the other day. I'm old and tired. I've been Hordanu for over half a century, nearly sixty long years, lad, and things have been going from bad to worse. Malignant forces hold the upper hand now in Ahn Norvys. The reign of evil waxes with every passing moment. I'm past worrying how Ferabek is dotting his 'i's and crossing his 't's and getting his minions to do his evil work. But tonight there's something in the air that has my blood running cold . . . But I'm sorry, lad, I'm maundering now. Carry on." Wilum sensed Galli's restiveness.

"The Black Scorpions are Ferabek's crack troops, a new-formed cohort, his most disciplined soldiers. And he's brought them into the valley and he's come here himself too," Galli said in a breathless cascade of words. "They mean to kill everybody in the Holding. But he wants to take you alive. And he wants to get his hands on the Talamadh and on all the manor rolls so he can make sure all of us are dead and accounted for. Kal and I overheard him ourselves talking to Enbarr and to Kenulf too, but he's just a lapdog. Enbarr is his spy. We were up in the hills and then they spotted us and tried to kill us, and we ran for our lives. We just barely escaped them. I didn't think we were going to make it, Master Wilum, nor did Kal. One of their spears almost laid me out. Look at this hole in my jerkin." Galli lifted up the torn cloth of his jacket with a finger. "And then we were followed by his trackers, Telessarians. We couldn't shake them, so we lured them all the way up Scathe Fell. We led them right into a rockslide on the scree. But one of them survived and he came within an inch of snuffing Kal out. Well, after that we tried to get down from Scathe Fell and were crag-fast for a while. Finally, by late afternoon we managed to make our way back to raise the alarm. But we were held up by a couple of Black Scorpion patrols that were combing the mountainside for us. When we finally struggled into Mantling Moss, it was just after nightfall. There's no telling when the Boar will make his move and strike."

"And then what, lad?"

"Then Master Frysan, he decided Kal should go on up Edgemere Road, alerting the farmsteads on the way, telling everyone to meet at Tarlynn's Coomb. Then he was to go into Wrenhaven to the Warden's house and then straight on to the Coomb along the Westwynd Way. The Edgemere Road is probably none too safe anymore. For all we know it's already crawling with Black Scorpions. I was to go home to the Burrows, alert my folk, which I did, and after that come warn you, Master Wilum, sir, and then help you get on up to the Coomb yourself."

Wilum placed the Talamadh on a writing table. Closing his eyes, he leaned against his staff, his aged face creased with thought. Riddling lines from Hedric's Master Legendary sprung to his faltering lips, words which he knew by heart and had recited countless times before.

 
"When Wuldor's Howe is worsted by the brazen foe
And the Great Glence in utter ashbound ruin lies razed,
When the dark host of dreosan doth stain the Vale—"
 

"Can it be? In my time? Has the moment come . . . ?" Wilum muttered to himself, shaking his head slowly.

"What . . . What do you . . . What do you think? Master Wilum?"

The candle sputtered on the table. An awkward and discomfiting silence had cast a pall on the deeply shadowed room.

"How's that? What did you say? Oh, yes . . . They're coming for me. I must collect my things." Wilum stirred from his musings.

"Aye, Master Wilum, with all speed!"

An evening breeze came wafting into the keeil from the Great Glence. It was heavy-laden with the fragrance of herbs. At once, the pair realized that the great doors which gave onto the entrance of the Great Glence had been opened, for the portico was strewn yet with marjoram, southernwood, and thyme from the Candle Festival.

"Someone's here. Quick, bar the door," urged Galli in a hoarse whisper, stepping forward to close the big oak door, while Wilum made to snatch up the Talamadh.

"Hold it, right there, both of you, unless you want to be gracing one of my trim little bolts. There's nothing I'd like better than some real live target practice. It would do my heart good, Skrobb, it would, to fine-tune the sights on this new twanger. Can't say what it would do for his heart, though," joked the shorter of the two men who had stepped into the faltering torchlight. The speaker, dark-haired and heavy-browed, had his crossbow trained right on Galli's chest. There was no mistaking him, nor his partner, the large-boned florid-faced man who had stepped up beside him.

"Now you, old man, you come here—while you, you lay that bow down. Nicely now. Yes, very nicely and you'll keep your skin for a while at least," ordered the man with the crossbow, bobbing the end of his weapon at Galli. "And your sword as well. This time we won't let him get away, will we, Skrobb? There'll be no mistakes this time. We'll make sure this hayseed don't escape us, won't we, Skrobb?" There was a deadly glint in the short man's dull eyes, as he spat out the words through clenched teeth.

"All right, all right! See?" Galli said, crouching, seeking the floor with his hands, his bow in one, the sword in his other. He kept his eyes locked warily on Grumm.

Wilum sidled towards the Talamadh.

"Oh, no you don't. No, you long-haired old billy goat, we want you to leave that right there. Yes, indeed we do. We wouldn't hear of it any other way, would we Skrobb?" He laughed a mirthless laugh. "What a fine reward we're sure to get for it, aren't we, Skrobb? A country estate on the Lake of the Swallows. Doesn't that just steady my aim."

"Aye, Grumm," said the taller man, brandishing a crude dirk that he had pulled from a sheath at his side.

"Do you see that, young sir?" His partner turned to Galli. "Do you think Skrobb wouldn't use it on your old friend? What a nice red gash it would make across his throat!"

"Aye, it would give him some colour, Grumm," Skrobb said, turning the blade in his hand. "The old man could use some colour."

"Come now, oldling, come gently now, and there'll be no harm done. Not by us anyhow. Now Skrobb," Grumm said, when Wilum had stepped forward. "Use that rope you brought to tie the young knave up—now all you need to do is just nice and gently give Skrobb your hands to tie. Place them behind your back and Skrobb'll take good care of them. There's a good fellow."

Galli had no choice. He did as he was bidden and grimaced as the coarse rope chafed and dug into his wrists.

"That's it. My knot'll hold him fast, as good as gyves." The big lowlander tied Wilum's hands as well.

"Now what shall we do with the two of them?"

"We'll keep them here. One of us'll sit and wait with them, while the other goes to fetch the Boar."

"But Enbarr said we should stay and wait."

"He didn't say we both ought to stay and wait. I don't see how it is we need both of us to guard them, not if we wrap them up really tight. It's dankish here, downright creepy somehow too. Let's shut the door." Grumm went to the door that opened into the bell tower and began to pull on the latch, swinging it shut, while Skrobb hovered near Galli with knife in hand.

Galli eyed the nearest window.

"If you're thinking of making a dash for it, you're sore mistaken, my young fitchew. You don't know Grumm. Why, he'd drop you before you got halfway, and then I'd make short work of you, believe me," warned Skrobb, as if reading his thoughts. Skrobb moved closer and jabbed the point of his knife into the small of Galli's back. He pulled a truncheon from his belt and hit him a vicious whack on the head. Galli slumped and fell with a thud onto the floor.

"There we are. We won't have to worry about that one for a while."

"You fatheaded idiot! What did you go and do that for? How do we know he ain't wanted by the Boar?" barked Grumm, who had bolted the door leading to the Great Glence and stood close on Skrobb's heels with Wilum now.

Wilum shoved Skrobb aside and stooped over the fallen figure of Galli.

"Oh, don't get yourself all riled," Skrobb said, ignoring Wilum. "I just gave him a love tap, just a touch with me trusty little wooden protector here. Tell me now, old man, didn't I?"

Wilum remained silent, cradling the limp body of his young friend, his fingers gently exploring the back of Galli's head, where grew a goose-egg bump.

"A mild knock on the cap, just as I planned it. I've always told you I've got it down to a fine art. I know just how much a man's noggin'll take." Skrobb looked down his nose and nodded. "The tenderest, kindest cutpurse in Dinas Antrum. Relieving folks of their valuables without relieving them of their lives. The 'Caring Cutpurse' they calls me."

"You lying gallows-bird. We'll leave matters be now that they're done. Luck I call it, damnfool luck. One of these days you'll prove your own undoing, Skrobb, if not mine as well. Planned it indeed," snorted Grumm. "Here, let's have some light in this place." He took the solitary candle that burned on Wilum's writing desk to light the cresset torches fixed in brackets along the wall. "But first you tie up the old man to the chair there, nice and tight. And don't hit him."

After they had finished securing Wilum, they dragged Galli, bound and gagged, into a closet in the keeil. Wilum remained silent and self-possessed, lost in stupefied reverie, entirely absorbed in sifting through his memory reams upon reams of lines from Hedric's Master Legendary. His mind's eye shifted from phrases of prophetic word to scrap of legend, from ancient auguries to odd lines of bardic lore and ballads. As hard as he might, he tried somehow to find the larger meaning in the dramatic events that seemed now at long last to be overtaking the Holding, as Ferabek threatened to cast out the last traces of light and harmony that had clung to Wuldor's Howe—the last bastion of light in all Ahn Norvys.

"Snap out of it, you old goat!" Grumm gave Wilum the back of his hand across the mouth, drawing blood. Wilum's head bowed again to his chest. "I'm no fool. I don't believe them old wives' tales about this heap of stone. Wuldor's Howe? Wuldor's Hole! I hate this place."

"What if we leave these two here. They ain't going nowheres. We could go tell the Boar we bagged them. We can take the harp with us," suggested Skrobb.

"Don't be stupid! Not both of us. He'd have our heads. You stay back. It's for me to go. You know you can never explain things right. You're always getting the story wrong. Why, it was you as got the notion that Enbarr wanted us to jump the lad that helps the old man here. And you saw what a pile of trouble that got us into." Grumm laid his crossbow down on the writing table beside the Talamadh. "It was a good thing we had Enbarr pleading for us, begging for a second chance, or we'd be swinging from some makeshift gallows up in these forsaken hills a thousand leagues from home!" Grumm's voice had risen, as he paced about the room.

"What's more, are you certain you even know the way back through the forest up to the camp? What if you get lost? Do you know the forest hereabouts well enough to go rambling into it at night alone?" Grumm strode to the window of the keeil and stared outside, rubbing his empty hands together. "All alone, mind you, Skrobb, all alone with all them bears and boars and wild beasts. Nor much of a moon to see by neither, and you daren't take the high road along the lake." Grumm turned to face Skrobb again. "There's no telling how many of these here loutish snipes are on their mettle. Enough of them, I'll wager."

Skrobb's huge frame slumped in resignation to a chair by the door. He cast a defeated glance at his mate and said, "You go then, Grumm. I'll wait here for you."

At first, Grumm maintained he should take the Talamadh with him to present to Ferabek as the triumphant spoils of their capture of Wuldor's Howe. Skrobb would have none of this. What, he had said, and let Grumm get all the credit! So when Grumm took his leave, the golden harp remained on Wilum's writing table, its burnished yellow frame reflecting the shimmering flicker of the candle which played on the golden strings amid the sullen torch-limned shadows of the keeil.

 

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