He stiffened suddenly. Something had moved, softly, heavily, among the bushes behind him. Hand on sword hilt, he twisted about, crouching on his knee with the trunk as shelter. A bulky shadow stepped softly, hesitantly, among the undergrowth, away from the camp. He caught his breath as he recognized Ermahal; it had to be him, as broad as Eysdan or Gise but not so tall. What was he doing? His errand might be natural enough, yet he was stopping and looking about, as if searching, or listening. Cautiously Elof slipped out from behind the tree and followed. Over the low ridge of the island they went, Elof keeping low among the leaves lest he be seen. But the skipper did not look back once, only turned his head urgently, as one who seeks something lost. And gradually, as they went, Elof grew aware of a faint sound in the air, floating as it seemed high among the branches, then falling, rippling like laughter along the water. It was a sweet, soft sound, yet it plucked at his ear almost to the point of irritation, as the whine of some insistent insect. But that thought brought the shock of recognition with it, for that was no insect; it was a voice.
Ermahal changed his pace suddenly, went blundering swiftly down the slope to the bank, then halted, hesitant again as he emerged onto the shore. Elof followed more cautiously, for the moon was slipping down the sky, and his way was no longer so clear; he was crawling now on all fours to stay hidden among the low brush, straining his eyes to seek some trace of what held Ermahal in such thrall.
It was only when she moved that he saw. He had been looking at her for some time, perched in the crook of a great willow, without distinguishing her shape, so still had she sat. It was a pose of tense, crouching energy, knees to chin, so that her long hair fell draped about her legs; it was as she lowered her feet, to dangle beneath the branch, that Elof saw her in truth. There she sat, a slender figure of a girl, naked, her long legs hanging over the black water of the still pool beneath, playing, dancing with their reflection and that of the silvery moon beneath her feet. The song was hers, high and soft, a yearning, winsome song whose words he felt but could not understand.
In truth he understood nothing, and did not dare move, so still was the scene before him. Her beauty alone held him, as graceful as the deer and as fragile; almost he feared that she might vanish as they had. Yet some part of him remained aware, and perceived that this was not the girl Ermahal had described. Her legs were hardly plump, but long, slender, her toes pointing as if to dance on the very
water; her arms were lean and strong, enticing as they
beckoned. Her hair hung long, yes, to below her waist,
but straight, almost lank, not curling and blond; even by moonlight it had a strange sheen. And as for a bold blue eye… He shivered abruptly. They gleamed and glittered in the dying moonlight, those eyes, altogether too brightly, with the rainbow sheen of fresh-landed fish scale. Could Ermahal not see that, blundering forward thus to her beckoning arms?
It happened too easily, in the instant between Elof's foreseeing it and his shout of alarm. Ermahal plunged on with reckless abandon, right out along the sagging bough, his heavy face held up to her proffered lips which were poised not to kiss but curved in a strange sweet smile. In that instant her legs snapped straight, toes a downward spearpoint, and she slipped smoothly off her perch, all her weight bearing down into the corsair's straining arms. And as she slid down, so also the moon dropped behind the jagged summit of a tree. Utter shadow blotted out the pool.
Elof sprang up and rushed forward, but in the darkness he tripped among the damp vegetation and fell to his knees by the bank. The splash he awaited did not come, even to his keen ears. His swift eyes pierced the lingering moon-glow, but nowhere could he see another human shape, or any stirring save the faint tremor of leaf and blade in the night breeze. The pool's black surface showed him only himself, staring ashen into a mirror undisturbed by ripple or bubble. He flung himself at it, shattering the image, plunging his arms in to the shoulders. But his fingers raked only among slimy tangles of riverweed, and when he thrust his face beneath the surface he could see no more. Ermahal was gone.
"It is useless, then," said Kermorvan wearily, glaring up at the bright sun of noon. "We must rest." He leaned against the willow, while the others slumped exhausted to the ground. Since Elof's first shout, in the dark hours before dawn, they had searched high and low for Ermahal, or the slightest sign of what had befallen him. Even in darkness they had taken grapnels and strong lines and dragged the pool below the willow, and a long way both downstream and up. But, like Elof, they found only weed and slime and small water creatures, and once the bones of some great beast sunk in the mud. They had crossed to both shores, but there was nowhere among the trees a man so big might have landed without leaving traces the foresters could pick up. With that against them, there was little point in searching deeper into the Forest; which way, after all, should they turn among such a trackless desert of trees?
"Had we had only some trail to follow, a mark even!" growled Dervhas painfully. "Then I'd tear up every bloody tree in our way to find him! Even if it took a year!" He shook his head. "But now, do we turn this way? That? Never dreamed a man might be lost on land as surely as at sea! Lost and gone to Amicac!"
Kermorvan nodded. "If I thought he lived, I would not now be resting. My heart tells me that he is far beyond any seeking of ours."
Elof sat sunk in misery, thinking of his first swift clash with Ermahal, his equally swift acceptance and their share in the seafight. He had liked the fat captain, for all his past misdeeds; a rogue, but a friendly one and capable, a loss to his land, a loss to the company. "As I told you," he said dully. "That was no human creature that enticed him. I saw her…"
"Then why did he not warn the man, or us?" growled Kasse, and spat in Elof's direction, with a curious averting gesture. His eyes were narrow with suspicion. "I don't like that. I don't like it at all."
"No more, Kasse!" said Kermorvan sharply. "That is fool's talk, or churl's. Elof's trust is past question."
The huntsman looked to the others for support, found none, and scowled. "Well, there's nothing in the Forest ever hurt me, that's all I'm saying. Me, I've walked in it half a hundred times. You've just got to do the right things…"
Kermorvan stood up, stretching, and shook his head. "Spare me your superstitions, Kasse. You were fortunate, perhaps. You know, as I do, that many others were not. No, you heard Elof; he warned me, he tried his best to help Ermahal at the last. But I wonder whether any of us could have saved poor Ermahal. For how could we have guessed what threatened him, till it showed itself? And then, as Elof found, it was too late."
Stehan nodded. "Wouldn't have thought he'd fall for a suchlike lure."
"I might have thought it of others," agreed Kermorvan. "But not of him." Elof fancied that Ils stole a glance at him, then, and perhaps also Roc. "Strange, what may linger within a man's heart. Well, he is gone, and we must live on. Ils, you have the skill; do you take his place on the second raft. We must be gone in haste." He turned to face the company, and they saw that with his long hunting knife he had graven deep in the willow's bark the day and year, and the name of the man who in adversity had been his friend. "Back to the rafts now and let us quit this unhallowed place! But henceforth let none of us be deceived by any vision of our past returned!"
There was a general growl of agreement. But as they returned to the rafts they spoke no more than was needful. Out into midstream they turned once more; the island slipped away behind them until it was no more than a fleck of darkness upon the waters, as lost to them as the years of their own youth.
Chapter Four
- Hunters and Hunted
The chronicles tell little more of that river journey till its end, though it lasted many days more, and bore them some hundred and fifty leagues at least into the heart of the Forest. Rapid and shallow they passed with no desperate troubles, for their rafts were strong and stable and brought them through where fleeter boats might have been lost. Their journey was swift, for now they seldom cared to moor, but sailed on throughout the nights as long as they had a glimmer of light to steer by. Only when moon and stars failed them were they driven to seek the land in the hours of darkness, and there they slept on the rafts, close together, with a strong watch set. But although for that time the travelers were assailed no more, care still lay heavy on their hearts.
"Wonder if all those lost folk didn't just starve!" grumbled Roc. "Could be hunger's the worst terror in this land."
"Terror enough for me!" muttered Bure, eyeing the dwindling hummock under the awning. They were on half rations now, which must soon grow less. Kermorvan had intended that they live by hunting, such supplies as they carried serving chiefly to tide them over and provide some healthy variety. All the company could hunt, some with great skill, not least himself; but save for a few fish, even they had caught nothing. It was not that Aithen was empty of beasts; by day and by night they could be heard at a distance, living their lives among the trees, part of the vast cycle of growth and life that was the greater life of the Forest. But save for those first few deer, no living animal had shown itself. For two whole days the huntsmen had lain in wait by the bank, at what they all agreed was a well-frequented drinking place. They had chosen their hides well, disturbed little and covered track and scent with consummate skill, yet not so much as a sound of a living beast did they catch. But even as they took to the rafts again, angry and dejected, pinched with hunger, the murmur of the Forest reawoke around them as vigorous as before: small blue birds chased one another here and there, and a high whickering screech sounded mockingly from the bushes.
"It's not canny," grumbled Borhi. "All them beasts steering clear of us. Not natural, like. Evil."
"How'd you know what's natural and what's not?" grunted Kasse. He and Borhi were sitting dawn watch on the first raft, leaning across the steering oar. He spoke softly, but so still was the brightening air that Elof heard him clearly, lying half awake in the bows of the raft behind; evil dreams had hounded him from sleep. "I know these great woodlands, me," rasped the huntsman. "I've walked in Aithennec, remember? I
know
. They're not like the piddling little woods these Nordeney oafs are used to, or our high-and-mighty young lordling. You can't just go astroll in these glades and expect to make free of the hunting. There's a good many others dwell here. You've got to get the word from one of 'em, see? With their hand against us, our luck's turned, and no game'll come near us."
Borhi sounded very uneasy. Elof could hear him twisting this way and that on the logs, scanning the inscrutable trees. "Whose word? How? What do you tell me? That you know some evil's abrew?"
"Something, aye, but why evil? Not evil to demand your due, is it? There's the
Helgorhyon
, now, the Hunt; you want luck in the chase, stands to reason it's their leave you must ask. Get a good word said upon your weapons."
"You mean… there's other men here?" asked Borhi dubiously.
Kasse tapped his nose wisely with a finger. "Ah, I didn't say that, mind. There's some, but you don't want no truck with 'em. But the Hunt, they're… natural forces, no more: naught to fear, long as you know the right ways. Sound ways, old ways; I had them from my granddad, he from his uncle, and so on down a long line, great hunters all who never lacked kill and keep." He darted a look back
over
his shoulder at Elof, who kept his breathing slow and did not stir. "Listen, you're a bright lad, want to bring yourself a spot of hunting luck? Tell you a thing you could try, it's simple enough. Do you take two good arrows, another that's already struck its mark. Catch you a bird or some other beast alive, large or small, no matter long as it has eyes. Then at moonrise stand in a tall tree's shadow and lay the arrows crosswise, take your catch and a third arrow in hand and speak a hunter's blessing, thus…" He began to chant softly.
Watchers, that in darkness wake, Guardians of the shadow-brake, What be offered, hunters, take, On this sign I bid you slake Thirst for—
"That's an ill sound for a blessing!" Borhi broke in uneasily.
"Ach, don't be a damned whey-belly!" grunted Kasse. "Just trying to help a fellow Sothran, aren't I? With these Nordeney louts ready to spit on us! And my fine lordling, he just encourages them! One in the eye for the lot of 'em, it'd be, if—"
"Enough, Kasse!" The bark of Kermorvan's voice startled even Elof. He whom they had thought asleep was up and on his feet in a single movement, glaring down at the huntsman. "I numbered you in our company only for your boasted experience. And of that, the more I hear, the less I like! I know you for a grumbler and a superstitious fool: take great care I do not come to think you something worse. Upon your peril, Kasse!"
The huntsman growled, spat some word and himself surged to his feet, slipping on the uneven logs. "Comes to that, my dear young lordie. I've about had my bellyful of you! And you, Borhi, you'll suffer this pup to kick our faces, who rates his own folk lower'n a tinker and a duergar bitch?" Elof scrambled up, hand on sword, ready if need be to jump the gap; Kasse's hand rested too near his knife. Heads lifted from blankets, came awake in a flurry of movement, believing it was some new peril.