22
CARAHUE LED THE WAY, with Hugi for guide. The mare took off in a clatter. For a moment Holger was aware of the red and-blue ribbons twined into her flowing tail. Then Papillon’s muscles surged between his knees.
Headed east along the scarp, they must pass the enemy. A howl arose. Holger saw a spear fly from the left. As its head caught what firelight there was, he saw it turn in the air and arch downward. He raised his shield. The spear rebounded. An instant later, three arrows thunked solidly into the wooden frame.
He rushed on into the gloom beyond. The white mare and the loose white clothes of her rider were a blob, scarcely to be told from shadows. Papillon stumbled. Sparks showered where horseshoes chipped flint. Perforce, the animals slowed to an even trot. On both sides and overhead Holger was blind. He didn’t know if his imagination or his senses told him of the cliffs to the left. He felt their weight loom above him, crushingly, as if he were already buried beneath.
A glance behind etched the heathen leader on his vision. The gaunt man in the badger mantle had snatched a brand from the campfire. He whirled it over his head till flames blossomed and he stood forth startlingly red and yellow. With a cry to his warriors he raised his ax and bounded in chase.
Swiftly he overtook the horses. Holger glimpsed others following, not quite so eager. But his attention was on this man. The chief approached on the left side, where the knight’s sword couldn’t reach. He darted in and chopped at Papillon’s fetlock. The stallion skittered away, nearly throwing his riders. Holger whirled him about to face the next attack.
If I’m delayed here longer than a minute, the bunch of ’em will surround me
, the Dane realized. “Hang on, Alianora!” He leaned far over and slashed at his opponent. His blow was parried by the ax. Nimbler than any charger, the cannibal moved back. The painted face with the braided beard mocked at Holger.
But the torch in his left hand remained in sword range. Holger swatted it against the hillman’s breast. The savage barked with pain. Before he could recover, Holger was close enough to chop once more. This time the steel met flesh. The chief went down.
You poor, brave bastard
, Holger thought. He spurred Papillon after Carahue. The encounter had only taken seconds.
They moved on through endlessness. The enemy trailed them, not venturing to rush. Arrows zipped through the dark. Whoops ululated. “They’ll rally themselves soon enough and close in on us,” Carahue said over his shoulder.
“I think no,” said Alianora “Canna ye whiff?”
Holger strained his nostrils. The wind was more or less in his face. He heard it go
whoo-oo
and shake his plume and cloak; he felt how chill it was. Nothing more.
“Ugh!” said Carahue a minute later. “Is that what I smell?”
Someone wailed in the night behind. Holger’s tobacco-dulled nose was the last to catch the odor. By that time the cannibals had given up the pursuit. They’d doubtless stick around to make sure next morning that their foes had not doubled back downhill; but they were going no farther in this direction.
If a smell could be called thick and cold, one might describe the troll’s. When Holger reached the cave mouth, he gagged.
He drew rein. Alianora leaped to the ground. “We must gather stuff for faggots, to licht our way,” she explained. “I feel dry twigs lying about, belike dropped from armfuls the beast carried hither to make his nest.” Presently she had a bundle to which Hugi set flint and steel. As the flames grew, Holger saw a ten-foot hole in the cliff wall. Lightlessness gaped beyond.
He and Carahue had dismounted. They gave Alianora their horses to lead at the rear. They themselves went in the forefront, with Hugi for torchbearer. “Well,” said the Dane uselessly, “here we go.” His tongue was dry.
“I would we micht see the stars once more,” Alianora said. The wind blew her words away. Hugi squeezed her hand.
“Oh, come now,” said Carahue. “Suppose we do meet the troll? Our swords will cut him to flitches. Methinks we’re funking at an old wives’ tale.” He strode briskly to the cave entrance, and through.
Holger went along. The sword in his right fist, the shield on his left arm, were heavy. He felt sweat trickling under his mail, itches he couldn’t scratch, dull aches where blows had landed. The air in the cave was full of troll and carrion smells. The faggot flames danced, sank low, flickered high again, so that shadows bobbed across the rough walls. Holger could have sworn some of the formations were faces that mouthed at him. Underfoot were stones on which he stubbed his toes. Alianora foresightedly continued to pick up bits of wood and straw, among the animal bones scattered along the way. The loudest noise was of horseshoes, a sharp clopping followed by hollow echoes. More and more, Holger had a sense of walls that pressed inward.
At the end of the cave a tunnel had been dug, nine feet high and not much wider, so that Holger and Carahue were crowded close. Holger tried not to wonder if the troll had dug it out barehanded. Once or twice he kicked recognizable pieces of human skulls. After the tunnel had dipped a few times his sense of balance quit and he
knew
they were headed downward, endlessly downward, into the guts of the earth. He strangled a wish to scream.
The passage debouched in a slightly larger cavern. Three other holes opened on the far side. Hugi waved his companions back and stumped around. The torchlight threw his face into craggy prominences but painted his shadow behind, like a black grotesque thing about to eat him.
He studied the flame, which had turned yellow and smoky; he wet his thumb and held it this way and that; he stooped to smell the ground. Finally he looked at the left-hand exit. “This ane,” he grunted.
“No,” Holger said. “Can’t you see the floor slants down in that direction?”
“Nay, it doesna. Mak’ no such muckle noise.”
“You’re nuts, I tell you!” Holger protested. “Any fool—”
Hugi stared through his brows at the man. “Any fool can follow his ain fancy,” the dwarf said. “Mayhap ye’re richt. I canna say for certain. But ’tis ma opinion that yon tunnel’s wha’ we want, and I ken a bit more to burrowing than ye do. So, are ye man eneugh to heed?”
Holger swallowed. “Okay,“ he said. “I’m sorry. Lead on.”
A ghost of a smile lifted Hugi’s whiskers. “Guid lad.” He trotted into the passage he had chosen. The rest followed.
Before long the way bent unmistakably upward. Holger said nothing when Hugi passed several holes without a glance. But when he came to another triple choice, the dwarf cast about for minutes.
In the end, troubled, he said, “By every token, we maun tak, the middle o’ those. Yet meseems the troll stink is strongest thither.”
“You can tell a difference?” said Carahue wryly.
“Mayhap his nest lies in yon direction,” Alianora whispered. A horse blew out its lips: in that narrow, resonant space, a gunshot noise. “Could ye no find us a roundabout way?”
“Mayhap,” said Hugi doubtfully. “’Twould tak’ a lang whiles.”
“And we’ve got to reach the church soon,” Holger said.
“Why?” asked Carahue.
“Never mind now,” said Holger. “Will you believe me on my word?”
This was no place to stop and explain the complicated truth, however trustworthy the Saracen had proven himself. But the obvious fact was, the sword Cortana was crucial. The enemy wouldn’t have striven so hard to block this quest, were it a wild goose chase.
Morgan could get to the church ahead of him without trouble. However, then she couldn’t shift the weapon elsewhere. Doubtless it was too heavy for her natural strength and too holy for her spells. She would need human assistance, as she had had when Cortana was first stolen. But by all accounts, the heathen were too frightened of St. Grimmin’s church to go near, even at her command; and her men elsewhere in the world were too busy preparing to march on the Empire.
Still, given time she could certainly find someone. Or... more likely... she could summon Powers that would intercept Holger on his route. He’d been luckier so far than he deserved; he knew damn well he couldn’t fight his way through her ultimate allies. Only a saint could do that, and he was a long way from sainthood.
Q.E.D.: he had to make haste.
Carahue’s gaze rested gravely on him before the Moor said, “As you wish, my friend. Let us take the straightest path, then.”
Hugi shrugged and led on. The burrow twisted, rose, dipped, rose again, cornered, writhed, widened and narrowed. Their footfalls sounded like drumbeats.
Here, here, here we are, troll. Here, here, here we are.
When the rock walls closed in so they almost brushed each shoulder Holger found himself behind Hugi, with Carahue at his back and Alianora guiding the horses in line to the Saracen’s rear. Before his eyes were only red-shot glooms as the torch sputtered. He heard Carahue murmur:
“The heaviest of my sins is that ever I let so sweet a maiden enter so foul a place. God will not forgive me this.”
“But I will,” she breathed.
He chuckled. “Heh! That suffices! And after all, my lady, who needs sun or moon or stars when you are present?”
“Nay, I beg ye, we must no talk.”
“So I shall think instead. Thoughts of beauty, grace, gentleness, and charm: in a word, thoughts of Alianora. “Och, Carahue—”
Holger bit his lip till the pain stabbed him.
“Quiet back there,” Hugi rapped. “We’ve come to his very nest.”
The tunnel ended. Torchlight would not reach far into the cavern beyond. Holger had confused glimpses of walls curving upward to lose themselves in a moving darkness. The floor was piled deep with branches, leaves, moldering straw, and bones: everywhere the gnawed bones. A stink of death overwhelmed him. He retched.
“Still, I say!” Hugi ordered. “Think ye I like this place? Noa, soft across yon space. There’ll be exits aplenty on t’ other side.”
The carpeting crackled underfoot, louder for each step. Holger swayed in its thick unevenness. He tripped over a log. A branch scratched his cheek, as if trying for his eyes. A human chine fell apart when he trod on it. He heard the horses sink under their weight, wallow about and whicker indignantly.
The torch brightened. At the same moment Holger felt a cold draft. “Ho, we’re na so far from the top!” Hugi exclaimed.
“Ho,” went the echo. “Ho-o-o.”
The troll crawled from beneath dead leaves.
Alianora screamed. Even then Holger thought he had never before heard real fear in her voice. “God have mercy,” Carahue choked. Hugi crouched and snarled. Holger dropped his sword, stooped to get it, dropped it again as sweat spurted out of him.
The troll shambled closer. He was perhaps eight feet tall, perhaps more. His forward stoop, with arms dangling past thick claw-footed legs to the ground, made it hard to tell. The hairless green skin moved upon his body. His head was a gash of a mouth, a yard-long nose, and two eyes which were black pools, without pupil or white, eyes which drank the feeble torchlight and never gave back a gleam.
“Ho-o-o,” he grinned, and reached out his hand.
Carahue shouted. The saber flared. It struck with a butcher sound. Smoke rose from the wound. The troll’s smirk did not change. He reached the other hand toward Carahue. Holger got his sword and attacked that arm.
The troll batted at him. Holger caught the blow on his shield. The wood cracked. He tumbled into the rotten heap on the floor. A moment he lay struggling for breath. Carahue’s mare shrieked in panic and plunged about. Alianora hung from the reins. That much Holger saw before he got back to his feet. Then his gaze focused on Carahue.
The Saracen danced over the nest. Incredibly, he kept his balance in that tangle. Each clumsy lunge he dodged, ducked, and never did his sword rest. It whistled and clamored, a blur, behind which he smiled. Each blow went far into green flesh. The troll only grunted. But Carahue continued to seek the right wrist, coldly and carefully.
Until with a final blow he lopped off that hand.
“Next!” he laughed aloud. “Give us some light, Hugi!” The dwarf had stuck the faggot upright between two branches and now tried to help Alianora control the mare. Papillon circled about looking for a chance to help.
The stallion got his chance as the troll made a left-handed swipe at Carahue. He rushed from behind. His front hoofs smote the broad back with a drumbeat fury. The troll went on his face, Papillon reared to his full terrifying height and came down again. The troll’s head was shattered.
“Merciful heaven,” gasped Carahue. He crossed himself. Turning to Holger, he called gaily, “That wasn’t too bad, though, was it?”
Holger looked at his own caved-in shield. “No,” he said in a rueful mood. “Except for my own performance.”
The mare still shivered, but had calmed enough for Alianora to stroke her neck. “Come, let’s gang on oot,” said Hugi. “The fetor here’s like to melt ma nase.”
Holger nodded. “Shouldn’t be far—
Jesu Kriste!
”
Like a huge green spider, the troll’s severed hand ran on its fingers. Across the mounded floor, up onto a log with one taloned forefinger to hook it over the bark, down again it scrambled, until it found the cut wrist. And there it grew fast. The troll’s smashed head seethed and knit together. He clambered back on his feet and grinned at them. The waning faggot cast red light over his fangs.