Gilden-Fire Read online

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  watched the leading Ranyhyn so that he would have an instant's warning of his fate - an instant in which to try to save himself for the sake of the mission. For the first time since the night when he had assumed his Vow, he left the Lords to their own fortunes. He expected Hyrim to fall. As old Brabha started into his own jump, the Lord wailed as if he were plunging from a precipice.

  Then the Ranyhyn carrying Runnik touched down safely on the far side of the ravine. Beside him, Tull and another Blood-guard also landed with ground to spare, followed by Cerrin, Shetra, Korik, Hyrim, and Sill in a line together. Lord Hyrim flopped forward and back as if his mount were bucking: his wail was broken off. But he did not lose his seat. Amid the wild yowling frustration of the wolves, the rest of the Bloodguard jumped the ravine. The Ranyhyn sprinted across the glade with clear ground at their heels.

  Behind them, the wolves rushed on, caught in the grip of a dementing passion. They piled into the dry watercourse, careless of what

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  happened to them, and scrambled furiously up the far side. But Korik was confident of escape now. The company had almost reached the

  edge of the glade when the first wolf clawed its way out of the ravine. Korik leaned forward to say a word of praise in Brabha's back-bent ears.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lord Hyrim tumble like a lifeless sack to the ground.

  Korik shouted to the company. Immediately, the leaders peeled around to return to Hyrim as fast as possible. But Pren, the rearmost Bloodguard, saw Hyrim's fall in time to leap down from his own mount. In a few steps, he reached the motionless Lord. While Korik and the others were turning, Pren reported that Hyrim was unconscious - stunned either by his fall or by the jolt of the jump over the ravine.

  Wheeling Brabha, Korik gauged the distances. The wolves surged out of the ravine in great numbers now: they howled rabidly toward the men on the ground. The company would barely have time to snatch up Hyrim and

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  take defensive positions around him before the pack struck.

  But as Korik pulled his comrades into formation, Lord Shetra ordered him back. She had a plan of her own. Driving her mount straight for Hyrim, she called to Pren, 'His staff! Hold it upright!'

  Pren obeyed swiftly. He caught up Hyrim's staff from the grass, gripped it with one metal-shod end planted on the ground between him and the charging wolves.

  As he did this, Shetra swung her Ranyhyn until she was running parallel to the line of the charge. When she flashed behind Pren, she cried, 'Melenkurion abatha!' and dealt Hyrim's staff a hammering blow with her own.

  A silent concussion shook the air: the ground seemed to heave momentarily under the hooves of the Ranyhyn. From Hyrim's staff a plane of power spread out on both sides, came like a wall between the wolves and the company across the whole eastern face of the glade. Seen through this barrier, the scrambling wolves appeared distorted, mad, wronged.

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  Then they smashed into the wall. In that instant, the area of impact flared like a sheet of blue lightning; and the wolves were thrown back. They charged it again as more of them reached it, hurled themselves against the rippling plane - howled and raved, assaulted the air. But wherever they hit the wall, it flared blue and cast them back. Soon they were crashing into it in such numbers that the whole plane across the length of the glade caught fire. Where the greatest weight of the pack pressed and fought against it, it scaled upward into dazzling brightness. Carefully, Shetra withdrew Hyrim's staff from the plane. It wavered as if it were about to break; but she sang to it softly, and it steadied, stood up firmly under the strain.

  It was too much for the wolves. In a wild excess of passion and frustration, they began to attack each other - venting their driven rage on the nearest flesh until the whole place was consumed in a boiling melee.

  Lord Shetra turned away as if the sight hurt her. She appeared suddenly weary: the

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  exertion of commanding two staffs had drained her. Dully, she said to Korik, 'We must go. If it is assailed again, my Word will not endure. And if there are ur-viles nearby, they will know how to Counter it. I am too worn to speak another.' Then she knelt to examine Hyrim.

  In a moment, she ascertained that he had no broken bones, no internal bleeding, no concussion. She left him to Korik and Sill. Working rapidly, they placed Hyrim on the back of his Ranyhyn and lashed him there with clingor thongs. When he was secured, the Bloodguard sprang to their own mounts, and the company hurried away into the covered darkness of Grimmerdhore.

  The Ranyhyn moved at a near gallop. Soon the intervening Forest quenched the tumult of the wolves, and the company was surrounded by a welcome silence. But still they ran: they did not stop or slow, even when Lord Hyrim returned to groaning consciousness. They left him alone until he was alert enough to free himself from the clingor . Then Lord Shetra

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  explained to him shortly, in a tired voice, what had happened.

  He took the news dumbly, nodded his comprehension of her words. Then he lay down on the Ranyhyn's neck as if he were hiding his head and clung there through the rest of the night.

  At dawn, Korik called a halt beside a stream to water the horses and allow the Lords to eat a few treasure-berries. But after that they moved on again at a fast canter. Korik did not want to spend another night in Grimmerdhore; and he could feel Brabha's eagerness to break out of the dark woods.

  The fatigue, the lack of rest, the unrelieved haste of their journey showed in both Lords: Hyrim's eyes, formerly so gay, had a grey angle of pain; and Shetra's lean face was lined and sharpened, as if some erosion had cut away the last softness of her features. But they endured. As time passed; they found deeper springs of strength to sustain them.

  Korik should have been reassured. But he was not. The Lords had proven themselves

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  equal to wolves and Grimmerdhore. But he had reason to know that what lay ahead would be worse.