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Eleven

Wilum took a seat at the base of the Threadneedle Rock near the centre of the sheltered upland glen. Beside him, the Skell babbled cheerily to itself, sparkling in the bright spring sunlight as it ran the course of a gentle fall in the lie of the Coomb. Head bent, he pondered all that had happened, wondering how the whole group of them would ever be able to keep one step ahead of the Boar. His mind kept turning over and over, as it had done all morning, countless lines from Hedric's Master Legendary that seemed to presage this disastrous attack on Wuldor's Howe and the Stoneholding. Sullen survivors, shepherded by Narasin and Frysan, gathered around him. He broke from his reverie and exchanged light banter with the tired folk, spent from the dread flight up to the Coomb and the pervasive grief that held the remnant few in its grip.

"Briacoil, Master Hordanu," Rindamant greeted Wilum as she approached with her husband Athmas.

"Aye, briacoil," the man added. "Just wanted to let you know I'm glad you told them two rotters from Broadmeadows what's what."

"Briacoil to the both of you, and you too, Manaton, briacoil! Good to see you!"

"Briacoil, Master Wilum. Gara and I want you to know that we throw our lot in with you. We'll do whatever we can to help you."

"Yes, we stand behind you four-square," added Gara herself. On her shoulder lay a sleeping baby, while two older children, a brother and sister, clutched at her skirts. "Have you had anything to eat yet, Master Wilum? We've got oatcakes here and some elderberry wine, more than enough."

It was fortunate that, with the coming of unsettled times in Arvon, most Holdsmen kept a codynnos or night bag always ready and provisioned, in the event that the men were called out to waylay one of Gawmage's forays into the highlands. Even in their haste they had been able to bring a goodly stock of provisions.

Manaton rummaged through the haversack he had swung from his shoulder until he produced a biscuit which he proffered. "Here, have one."

At the sight of the cake, Wilum, who had not eaten since the previous evening, became conscious of a gnawing hunger. The urgency of their flight had, until now, made him unmindful of it. He took the oatcake with a bow of his head and did not demur when Manaton offered him another and handed him a flagon of wine.

"My deepest thanks to you both. You're most kind. Already my spirits feel restored. Narasin, are we all here now?"

"Aye, Master Wilum. Here comes Galli with those sons of mine. We'll need Artun for the stretcher."

"Who's the boy on the stretcher?"

"Devved's son, Chandaris, the only one left of his family, apart from Devved, of course. Riandra tells me the lad's no worse, which is a small comfort. On the run like this, it's not the time to be tending to him. We need a safe place, somewhere to rest and recover our strength."

"That's what I hope we'll attain by climbing to the Seven Springs. Here, let me take a closer look at the boy." Wilum walked to join Devved, who stared blindly at his unconscious child. Wilum stooped down to feel the boy's forehead with his hand and lifted the covers to look at the shoulder wound, which had been cleaned and dressed with a herbal poultice. Wilum covered the boy and tightened again the bonds which held him securely to the stretcher. He stood and placed a hand on the blacksmith's broad chest.

"Your son will recover, Devved. His wound has been well tended and doesn't seem to be festering. I'll look at it more closely myself, once we've reached safety."

"Thank you, Master Wilum. I'd give anything to get back at the dogs."

"Peace, Devved. Rest assured that in the end justice will be done. 'Til then it will serve neither you nor your boy nor any of the rest of us the tiniest bit of good to focus on revenge. Take courage, man. Tomorrow's another day. Things may seem dark now, but there's your son, wonderfully alive, and soon enough he'll thrive again."

"Words, words . . . Idle, empty words from an old fool." Wilum turned to see the diminutive form of the cobbler. Relzor glowered at the Hordanu and the clutch of folk around the injured child. He snorted derisively, drew his cape around himself and turned tail, slinking in the direction of the river's tumbling waters.

"Hold, Relzor! Come back and say what you've got to say to my face!" commanded Wilum, but Relzor ambled on.

"You'll never get him to come at your bidding, Master Wilum," said Devved. "He's an odd fish, that one is. Has no truck with anybody. You just leave your shoes as need mending under the ash tree in front of his cottage with a couple of coins and he'll fix them as good as new. It's amazing what he can do! There's some swear it's deviltry. Enbarr, now, Relzor's right friendly with him. Many a day I've seen Enbarr heading off to Relzor's place past my smithy. Passing odd it seemed to me. Queer cards, both of them, most 'specially Relzor, the way he creeps and slinks around. Won't go into the Glence for anything, keeps to the shadows in the forecourt, and he won't take part in the Candle Festival. Passing strange, I say, passing strange."

"Aye, Devved. He's an odd little man. Keep a close watch on him. I'm afraid there's a reason why he hasn't gone off with Enbarr and Kenulf," answered Wilum, turning now to meet Galli, returning from his errand.

"Briacoil," Galli hailed both Wilum and the group. "Everybody's here. We're ready to push on."

"Excellent. You've got our satchel. Good. We mustn't forget that. You did have a chance to see your family, I hope?"

"Yes. It's sad, Master Wilum. I had two sets of aunts and uncles in Wrenhaven. All sorts of cousins too, and friends. If they're not here, I suppose they're dead."

"Very likely, I'm afraid." Wilum's eyes lifted to meet Galli's. The young man broke the gaze, casting his to the ground, where he kicked at a half-buried pebble with his toe.

"As you'd expect, Gammer and Diggory are pretty shaken up about it, especially Gammer. Kal's mother too. I tried to reassure her about Kal, told her he's safer than we are here in the Coomb. That was all I told her, of course."

"I do hope you're right about Kal being in less danger than we are," said Wilum. "And did you get to satisfy that hearty appetite of yours?"

"Yes, Gammer made sure I was well-fed."

"I'm quite certain you didn't shame her efforts. You don't look any the worse for wear. I want you to stay here with me. We'll lead the way together. Hello there, Frysan. Everybody's ready, don't you think? Let's be off then. Why don't you and Narasin bring up the rear and keep an eye out for stragglers?"

With an exuberance that was almost youthful, Wilum stepped through the scattered group of survivors, offering words of encouragement as he passed. One little boy was crying at his mother's side. The reassuring touch of Wilum's hand on his head and the soothing timbre of his voice served to calm him.

Galli followed close behind as the people made way for him and Wilum. They passed the Threadneedle Rock and set foot to a path that cut through a broad expanse of water meadow, aflame with orange hawkweed that grew in profusion right up to the steep wall of the escarpment that overhung the Coomb. As they proceeded upstream, the rapids at the Threadneedle Rock subsided again into a placid fillet of water that flowed from a ravine which broke the looming walls. They entered the gorge that steadily climbed the mountainside, but the path proved too narrow to allow more than three people to walk abreast. The survivors were strung out in a column, at the end of which lay Chandaris on a stretcher, carried by his father and Artun, who had fallen behind the group. Two children, both infants, were crying. There was little conversation. Everyone knew the pressing need to cover ground in spite of the encumbrances of baggage and wailing children. Still, their progress was painfully slow, and Wilum and Galli found they had to slacken their pace.

Ahead of them, the sheer bulk of Mount Thyus soared, near enough now for them to make out Skell Force, a ribbon scoring its leeward face. The early-afternoon sun shone bright in the heavens, bearded by tufts of cloud. Daylight, however, had abandoned the area around Thyus. Up the gorge, the narrow horizon, crowded by jagged mountains, was louring, sullen and black, emblazoned by blue-white forks of lightning that etched the sky like darting vipers' tongues. An eerie phosphorescent light suffused the darkened sky, imparting an unnatural clarity of line and feature to the peaks. Striving against the sun, darkling cloud banks now filled the firmament like islands in an inky blue sea. It was a beguiling display of darkness and light that for some moments had every eye fixed on it. Only Artun, carrying the upper end of Chandaris's stretcher, chanced to look back downstream once, as Devved stumbled over a rock.

"They've seen us, they're onto us! Look, there, back on the ridge!" he cried. Down the talus, where the Saddlebow towered over the lower end of Tarlynn's Coomb, marched a double line of Black Scorpions, headed by a soldier who bore the standard, its dread insignia drooping limply in the dead calm that had descended. On top of the ridge two men had stopped. Galli, peering into the distance, descried that one of the men was Enbarr shading his eyes with one hand and pointing with the other back up the slope to where the fleeing Holdsfolk were straggling in a line by the banks of the Skell. They were a mere bow's shot from the side path that rose to Fearney Hey across a heather-covered slope which broke the precipitous steepness of the escarpment. They could see the forested brow of the Hey, which overlooked the ravine of the Skell. As it was, the hapless group had been caught out in the open. They had been seen by Ferabek's own, a full company of them, now hard set on the scent of their struggling quarry.

"What should we do? We haven't got much leeway here," said Narasin, who had jostled his way up to Wilum's side. "I say we forge on ahead to Fearney Hey," he continued. "We're almost there anyway. That way we'll command the heights and can keep them pinned down in the Coomb with our bows. If we can stall them 'til sundown, we might still be able to slip away in the night and make it to Skell Force—"

A sudden shaft of lightning split the air above them, its crack booming up the walls of the gorge.

"A harbinger of destruction," thought Wilum aloud, gazing at the turbid sky looming over them. The farmer's frank clean-shaven face darkened into a frown. "Oh no, not our destruction, I trust, Narasin. We're close enough to safety, but I can't say as much for the horde below us. Look at the frogs. Do you see? They're leaving their streamside burrows. They're clambering up, trying to move higher above the river. It's strange how animals can sense things where we can't."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean a flood of rainwater's about to come rushing down this rift, sweeping away anything and everything in its path. In the many years that have flung their snows on my head, I haven't seen such a marvel of nature but once. Look, Narasin, look at the storm raging around the crest of Thyus. It's loosing a load of rain that's going to rid us of our pursuers. Those Black Scorpions don't have the slightest notion yet that the waters of the Skell are going to be their burial shroud and the river bottom their grave." Wilum tamped the ground with his staff. "Aye, your plan is excellent. We'd better be quick off the mark, though, since those floodwaters may come heaving down on us at any moment. Narasin, go spread the word. Tell our people they need not fear the Black Scorpions at their backs as much as the gathering headwaters of the Skell that lie before us. We've got to reach higher ground. Galli, you and I will set the pace."

Anxiety seemed to give wings to the feet of the fugitives, so that, with words of stern encouragement from Narasin and Frysan, they kept on the heels of Wilum and Galli. Soon they were climbing the last stretch of the sidepath leading to Fearney Hey.

"Skell Force has broadened out. Unbelievable!" exclaimed Galli, casting an eye upstream.

"That means we'll soon be in for it," added Galli's uncle, who had come up alongside. Diggory began to recite a thunderstorm rhyme that was a part of the weather lore of countless generations of Holdsmen.

 
"If it sinks from the north, it will double its worth.
If it sinks from the south, it will open its mouth.
If it sinks from the west, it is never at rest.
If it sinks from the east, it will leave us in peace."
 

"One thing's for certain, Digg, this storm ain't sinking from the east," Narasin said with a wry chuckle.

"Least we know as much, which is miles more than I can say for those rug-headed kernes of Ferabek's," answered Diggory.

The sky above them blackened, as the storm moved down the Saddle from the heights of the Seven Springs. Fat drops of rain began to fall, thudding into the ground around them, each kicking up a little cloud of dust where it hit. Another hundred paces or so and they would be out from the Skell's ravine. Behind them the dragoons had cleared the ridge and had filed into the bottom of the Coomb like a thick black snake winding its way up the Skellside.

A rumble filled the air, like a low unbroken peal of thunder, but deeper and earth-born, shaking the ground under their feet.

"It's coming. The waters are coming down on us!" shouted Galli, who had an unbroken line of sight a mile or so up the valley, which was shut in by sheer bluffs on either side, towering above the strip of marsh and green sward bordering the Skell. It was only the branching shoulder of ground on which they were standing that broke the canyon walls and offered them an avenue of escape from the mounting onrush of crushing water. In that moment, light was extinguished. A pall of darkness, as close as a night clouded and moonless, fell over the landscape. The sky opened. Rain, whipped by frenzied gusts of wind, slanted down on them in torrential sheets. The fugitives scrambled in the murk by touch as much as by sight along the rain-slick path, falling and stumbling over one another amid screams of horror and the wail of terrified children.

Encumbered as they were with Chandaris bound to the stretcher, Artun and Devved trailed behind the rest. In a moment it was too late. The wall of water had reached them, fierce and foaming. Almost all of them had climbed far enough along the path to Fearney Hey to be safe from the roiling flood. It was only Artun, last of the escaping Holdsfolk, who was given a swingeing blow by the swollen waters full on the chest. His legs swept out from under him, he cried for help and clung to one of the poles of the stretcher.

"Hold on, man, hold on tight. I've got it," Devved bellowed above the storm. "Help! Somebody! To Artun quickly!" His powerful arms, thick from years of toil in the smithy, anchored the upper end of the stretcher. Lashed to the stretcher, Chandaris groaned. It was Garis who raced first to his brother's aid. Leaping down to where Artun's hands kept a ferocious grip on the stretcher pole, Garis called out, appealing for more help, as he grabbed hold of his brother's wrist and wrestled him against the flood, leaving himself teetering over the turbid spate of waters. Devved could now pull his son on the stretcher up out of harm's way. Passing the makeshift litter on to the safety of others farther up the path, he sprang down to aid in the rescue. The great man seized Artun's other arm and pulled him out of the swirling torrent. The young man lay sodden on the path for a moment, heaving to catch his breath, then pushed himself to his knees. He sought out the blacksmith with his gaze and nodded his thanks.

"Are you all right, son?" asked Narasin.

"As right as rain, Father, you might say," Artun said, mustering a pained grin. "No more than a bruised ankle. I must have hit it against a rock."

"Can you walk?"

"Yes, I dare say I can." Artun stood up, favouring his injured ankle. "Here we are. Devved, I'm ready whenever you are."

"Let me take your end," Garis offered.

"No, I'll be fine. Devved? Shall we?"

The blacksmith nodded, looking back at the seething floodwaters that raced down the side of the mountain and pooled in the Coomb below.

"All right then," Narisin said, laying a hand on Artun's back, "we'd best get moving again."

"The waters . . ." Devved said as if to himself, still standing at the edge of the surge, staring down the ravine. "They've met the Saddlebow and are being pushed back. It's like a washtub. Can't empty fast enough. Look, the Coomb's filling." Like rag dolls discarded by some neglectful child, black bodies, small in the distance, surfaced, gyrated, and disappeared again in the churning water that filled the hollow. A muscle flexed in the blacksmith's jaw, and his eyes narrowed. "By the Stone, they got what was coming to them. May they rot, every one of them, unburied and unmourned."

"As cursed as they may have been in life, Devved, do not you curse them in death as well." Wilum drew near the blacksmith and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Be at peace with yourself. Come, we must move on."

The blacksmith turned away from Wilum's touch, stepped to his son's stretcher and seized the poles. "Let's be on with it then, Artun," he said, and lifted the stretcher.

The winds had died down and the rain had slackened off. The storm's force was spent. A few feeble rays of sunlight had broken the tossed mantle of black overcast. Soon the whole group had reached the wooded area above the Coomb. Yet the waters in the hollow were still rising, and they could not rest, but continued to struggle, damp and tired, to the top of a grassy knoll. This was Fearney Hey, a round woodland clearing, banked along its sides by a majestic grove of hardwoods growing straight and true, like the fluted columns of some great castle. By now the day's light had vanquished the storm's cloud, filtering through the rain-glazed foliage above them. The men, women, and children sat and stood along the Hey's meadowed crest in the blissful light and warmth of the sun. Yet they whispered to one another, casting furtive glances about the stand of oak, ash, hornbeam, and maple surrounding them. It was believed that this was a fairy mound. Few had ever come this high up the Skell before. They were approaching the sacred ground of the Hordanu's Enclosure.

"Father, do you think they mind us being here?" asked a little girl above the hushed voices of the adults.

"Who do you mean, Laloke?"

"You know, the hudori and the dendrils. Don't they live here? I thought they didn't like us coming here. You said, 'How would you like it if someone just walked into our house without knocking?' That's what you said, just the other day, when we were riding in the wagon on the way to the Candle Festival. I asked you why we didn't go anywhere near some places in the Holding, places like Fearney Hey. Remember?"

Wilum, standing nearby, had overheard the question. "You may rest without fear, little one. There's nothing to harm you or your father or anyone else here. When danger threatens, we don't worry about things like knocking on doors. Besides, Fearney Hey is part of the glencelands, which the Hordanu oversees." Wilum cupped the back of her silken head with a gentle hand.

"And that's you!" cried Laloke.

"Aye, that's me," said Wilum, nipping off the conspiracy of whispers.

"Look, Laloke, look at the rainbow," exclaimed a relieved father to the daughter snuggled up against him, pointing up at the splendid arch that bridged the jagged peaks of the mountains above. In a moment everyone else was gazing up into the sky. Heartened by Wilum's words and by the rain-washed bands of brilliant colour that the sun had knit together out of the fragments of the storm, they all fell to their ease. Wilum sat down with Frysan and Narasin. They discussed the next portion of their journey up to the Seven Springs, while Galli sat nearby in silence.

"I think we've had a long enough rest," said Wilum presently.

"Aye," Frysan stood to stretch, faltering on his weak ankle, sore again from their scramble up the Skellside. "I don't expect we've seen our last of Black Scorpions."

"How's that ankle of yours, Frysan?" inquired Wilum.

"Just the old injury. I'll be fine."

"Right enough. Let's be off," Narasin said, pushing himself to his feet. He and Frysan began to rouse the people from their rest and soon had them moving again in the direction of Skell Force, which every eye could make out now above the curtaining trees of Fearney Hey. Wilum led the way, accompanied once again by Galli, while Narasin brought up the rear with Artun, guarding the group's flanks and shepherding stragglers. Garis had taken over his brother's stretcher duty just ahead of them. Even Devved, who held the other end of his son's stretcher as before, seemed to have a lighter air about him after their stop for rest.

Frysan watched over the middle of the column, where he bantered with Diggory Clout who, in good humour, whistled a tune that put all his hearers in good heart. There seemed nothing, thought Wilum, that could put the shadow of a frown on Diggory's broad-beamed and sunny countenance. The man seemed to be perpetually jocund. "Must be infectious," he murmured to himself, noting that Galli shared a good measure of the same disposition.

The path from Fearney Hey took a steep turn into a dell that looked as if it might have been scooped out of the mountain slopes by a giant spoon. The way was twined with the sombre shadow of birch and aspen, ash and oak, that crowded them in the wide-spanning depths of the hollow. The smell of sweetbriar perfumed the still air, although every now and again a tree bough quaked at the breath of a vagrant breeze that drifted down from the heights above. Here and there a hulking rock broke the seamless wicker weave of the forest, affording space for a tangled undergrowth of hazel and hawthorn at its base. It seemed such a forgotten out-of-the-way spot, the haunt of bear and wild boar and fox, that even in broad daylight Galli clutched at the hilt of his sword and marvelled at Wilum's fearlessness in coming this way alone so many times on his way to the Enclosure.

They struggled up a thinly wooded ridge that enclosed the upper side of the hollow. The children became testy and petulant at the effort, and their whimpering broke the eerie calm. Above them on a too-narrow ledge stood a mountain sheep nibbling contentedly on some grass that had taken root in a bowered cleft of the rock face.

As the fugitives reached the top of the ridge, a view of the entire Holding opened up to them. Here there were few trees and these a pathetic collection of stunted pines on a thick purple carpet of freshly blooming heather, mingled with briars and thorns and hardy windswept wildflowers. They had climbed very high, close now to the towering bulk of the mountain, where Skell Force rushed headlong from the dusky mid-regions of Thyus. Below them lay Tarlynn's Coomb. The floodwaters had subsided, leaving a scattering of tiny figures, twisted and lifeless, on whom the carrion crows had already begun to feast. Closer to hand the Middle Skell babbled its way through a maze of rocks from the stony lip of Tarn Cromar, its clear alpine waters still too far above them to be visible. They were close enough, however, to hear the faint plash of Skell Force's leaping cataract resounding on the surface of the Tarn. Their pace had slackened.

"By my ten finger bones, lads, I must have a rest. 'Tis more walking and climbing than old Diggory has done in years. I'm fair near exhausted, I am."

"Ah, stop your carping, Digg. If it were off to the Bottle for a pot of ale you were going, you'd be spry as a gamecock. Of that I'm sure. You should be sore ashamed of yourself! Do you think it's easy for these here little ones? If we was all to stop for you, we'd all end up in the briars." Gammer Clout clucked at her husband as she bustled about, disentangling her skirt from a persistent patch of blackthorn.

"Ah, smash me, Gammer! You're pulling your old man about like fury. I ain't a young buck anymore. All this walking up hills—why, it'll shove me underground as sure as them Black Scorpions, that it will," replied Diggory, between wheezing breaths. This light banter provoked a laugh from the weary company gathered about.

"It's quite all right, Mother Clout," Wilum said. "We'll take a short break here. The little ones need it as much as Diggory, I'd wager, and the Hordanu's Enclosure is not that far—"

"Look, there's Kal and the Fletchers, up there, on that rise over there. He's waving, Master Wilum." It was young Garis who had spotted them.

"That's Headstone Edge. Not far," said Wilum. "I think we'd better move on. I'm truly sorry, my dear Diggory." Wilum nodded to the jolly Holdsman. "Don't worry. It's just a short hike to the Stairs of Tarn Cromar, about three middling bowshots by my reckoning. And it's best that we rejoin forces with Kal as soon as possible. I have a gut feeling there's more danger lurking for us in the shadows than we care to think." Wilum shook his head to quell Diggory's questioning look. "As I said, it's just a feeling. I don't rightly know myself. There's some evil brewing nearby, and we can't be too vigilant. I felt it on my last trip up to the Enclosure before the Candle Festival. Whatever it was, I felt its presence, but it kept a distance. We can rest for a bit by Tarn Cromar, although I won't feel safe 'til we've made it to the Seven Springs. We have been granted but a short respite in our flight. The Boar will be in a fury. He'll not be deprived of me and the Talamadh. He will bend his whole will on my capture, so we are none of us safe yet."

Wilum's words moved them with a new sense of urgency. Parents coaxed the last reserves of patience and obedience from their children and set off again. The river course rose out of its ravine, and soon they trudged again along its banks. Their path swung away from the Middle Skell to avoid a fetid peat bog and then veered back towards the stream right at the spot where it rushed headlong from Tarn Cromar down a boulder-strewn spillway.

In the throes of exhaustion, the few Holdsfolk laboured up the embankment that checked the flow of the Skell and emerged onto the grassy shores of a small lake which marked the boundary of the Hordanu's Enclosure. Here at Tarn Cromar, a clear mountain lake, long and narrow, the Middle Skell became the Upper Skell. To the rustle of astonished whisperings, the band waded into the lush alpine meadow, smitten by the beauty and stillness of Tarn Cromar and even more so by Skell Force, tumbling down from a lofty precipice. Fringing the Tarn was a wide walk of paved stone, laid out with intricate patterns—circles and whorls and labyrinthine mazes, woven together with cryptic skill. The grass on the verges of the path and lake lay flattened and still sodden from the floodwaters, now spent. Not far from the curtaining spray of Skell Force stood a huge oak tree, spread with countless branches reaching far over the surface of the water, rippled into cat's-paw by a freshening breeze. Against the background thrum of the cataract, a hush descended on the group, for they were well aware that, except for a succession of Hordanus down through the ages, they were the first since Ardiel's time to set foot in the Enclosure. Even the children sensed they were treading hallowed ground and fell silent.

"Step carefully, there's something amiss," admonished Wilum. "Yes, something quite out of the ordinary, though I can't say if it's for weal or woe, or both."

Wide-eyed and gazing about in bemused wonder, Laloke had let go of her father's hand and skipped ahead of the ragtag band of Holdsfolk, leading two or three other children in her wake down the flagged walk towards the towering Meeting Oak.

"Laloke! Stop, Laloke! Help, Manaton!" Gara's frenzied shriek broke the euphoric calm of the Enclosure. The little girl stood paralysed. A crouching sable wolf had appeared from nowhere and leaped onto a low stone along the sandy margin of the Tarn. Its teeth bared and hackles bristling, the wolf was poised to lunge. Even while the echo of her mother's cry yet resounded over the waters, and before any of the Holdsmen could draw an arrow, there came a sudden sweep of powerful wings. In that instant, the wolf was dashed to the ground, broken by the dagger talons of a great fellhawk, which wheeled up in a banking arc, weighed down by its limp prey.

"Well done, Dhu!" cried Kal, striding towards Wilum. Behind him, half a dozen figures had stepped into the meadow from a winding pathway not fifty paces distant.

"Briacoil, Kal. Aye, but you certainly have a gift of showing up at just the right time, lad!"

"Re'm ena, you saved our little Laloke. How can I ever thank you enough?" Manaton said, while Gara in tears clutched their daughter with joy and relief.

"It was Dhu's doing, not mine." Kal waved off the man's thanks. "He found it quite enjoyable too, I'm sure. Will you look at him." The great dark-plumed bird had settled on an outcrop of rock just clear of the spray of Skell Force to tear undisturbed at his prize.

"I don't understand," broke in Galli. "Isn't the valley supposed to be free of wolves? Since the time of Hedric?"

"Yes, quite so, Galli. Hedric drove them out of the Holding—"

"Many echobards kept them as familiars. Black wolves. Didn't they?" asked Kal.

"Aye, particularly some of the more unsavoury ones, as had haunted this area here." Wilum leaned on his staff. "Wolves in the Enclosure . . ." he muttered to himself, lost for a moment in thought. "But for Dhu—" Wilum broke off, straightened, and smiled at the little girl.

"Briacoil, Master Wilum!"

Wilum turned to see the small group that had arrived with Kal. "Briacoil, Thurfar, Fionna." Wilum greeted the armed Holdsman and his wife, who had drawn near with their three dark-haired daughters and a misshapen boy with a tousled thatch of fox-red hair. A clubfoot made him shamble, while his dangling arms gave him an awkward contorted look. Other children had called him Mommick—"scarecrow" in the dialect of the Holding. His face, however, was an open and unmarred page that revealed a depth of guilelessness. "I must say I'm glad you've managed to meet up with us all safe and sound. For a while there we were worried, seeing as you were headed right into the clutches of that company of Black Scorpions."

"Aye, thanks to Kal here we was saved from that fate," replied Thurfar, nodding towards Kal, who was too busy being embraced by his mother to take notice of anything else. "We'd have been at the Coomb with the rest of you if it hadn't been for Gwyn. We spent well nigh an hour looking for the lad. Found him at last out in the woods behind our barn. Pale as the moon the boy was, a flock of birds around him chirping away. There was squirrels, too, chattering and leaping from tree to tree. Looked like they was all busy telling him something. And there he is making a motion that we was to run away. I never seen the nipper so agitated. We was started up the trail towards the Saddle and we fair near had to drag him up, as if he knew we was headed into danger. I never seen the beat of it. And to cap it all, we was just about come level to the Tarn here, and he starts tugging at Kal, pulling him along, running, making mad with his arms. It must have been the wolf he was trying to let on about. Never been this way with him before. Sure he's always been a dreamy young lad living in a world all his own. I doubt me a little now if the boy be not somewhat more special than we thought he were," said Thurfar, running his fingers through Gwyn's hair and pulling the mute boy to himself.

"You may speak more true than you know, Thurfar," said Wilum. "It seems there's some flaming spark of the prophet's gift in him for all his misshapen speechlessness. We mustn't scorn the gift though it be belied by its wrappings. Every now and again in the history of the Holding the fey mark resurges, like a spluttering flame fanned into a great devouring fire, or a trickle of water swollen by rain into a mighty watercourse. Metan, the tenth Hordanu after Hedric, enjoyed this gift. His writings show it in their wisdom and beauty. So I bless and thank you, Gwyn. You're a token sent to us in our trials, a token that only the wise and the humble can perceive."

At that Gwyn, who wore a blank look of bewilderment, drifted towards Kal with his noggling walk and pulled some marbles from his pocket, which he began to play with on the flat of a rock.

"Aye, the lad's sure keen on Kal. Always has been. His face as good as beams every time Kal comes around," remarked his father, who now turned to look to his wife and daughters. "Can we rest here awhile, Master Wilum? I'm fair moithered and I know Fionna, the girls, and Gwyn are too."

"Just a moment to catch your breath. We've got no way of telling how close on our heels the enemy is. Far better to push on up the Stairs of Tarn Cromar here. With a few stout men we could hold out against an army from the top of the Stairs as long as our food lasts. Go, Thurfar, take your rest, but be ready to leave soon." The old man looked tired and leaned more heavily on his staff, while the Talamadh seemed to bend him down even further under its burden.

Galli had turned to seek out Kal and his family. He found Frysan explaining how the sudden spate had saved them after the tense encounter between Wilum and Enbarr. Kal, in his turn, gave an account of his own perils and adventures, interrupted by the restless questions of his young brother. It was Bren who had let Dhu free from the mew at Mantling Moss where Kal kept him.

Having gorged on the wolf's carcass, the fellhawk alighted on the grass beside his master, casting a fierce eye around him.

"Well done, Dhu. How did you find me up here on this mountain?" Kal spoke to the great bird that stood to shoulder height, stroking its glossy dark plumage. "What's that? You're not saying? Fickle bird. I'm proud of you all the same."

Kal had found Dhu as an unfledged nestling two years ago lodged high on a cliff shelf after his mother had been killed. The fellhawk was a bird rare to the Holding and dread to its folk for its size and nature. Against the better judgement of many of his elders, the young Holdsman nursed the fellhawk to maturity. And yet, Dhu in turn became Kal's constant attendant, so much so that Kal had to leave him locked up in the mew whenever he preferred not to be burdened by him. On the occasions when Kal took him out into the forest, Dhu would rise with easy quickness from tree or rock to take his prey. Kal needed only to nod or motion with his arm ever so slightly for Dhu to know his quarry. Holdsmen never ceased to be amazed that he did not need to restrain the fellhawk with hood or jesses, so docile and understanding was he of his master's subtlest promptings.

For now the great bird remained beside Kal, surveying under its louring brow the gathered remnant of the Holding's populace, scattered about the wet grass, fretfully taking what rest their haste would allow them.

"Attention, all. I know you're tired, but we've got to push on. Do you hear me? Everybody? Attention, Master Wilum's saying it's time we left. We've got to get up them Stairs. This way now. This way, we'll gather at the waterfall." Narasin spoke above the soft drone of conversation and turned to the flagstone walk. "I never thought I'd see the day as I'd be up in these parts of the Holding." He lowered his voice, shaking his head and musing aloud to himself. "No, not in a thousand years."

 

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