As we climbed, the air got colder. But when the woods closed around me at last, I forgot about the discomfort. I was breathing the scents of home again, the indefinable combination of loam and moss and wood and fern that I had loved all my life.
And I sensed presence.
The woods were quiet, except for the tapping of raindrops on leaves and, once or twice, the sudden crash and scamper of hidden animals breaking cover and retreating. No birds, no great beasts. Yet I felt watchers.
And so, tired as I was, I tipped back my head and began to sing.
At the best of times I don't have the kind of voice anyone would want to hear mangling their favorite songs. Now my throat was dry and scratchy, but I did what I could, singing wordlessly some of the old, strange patterns, not quite melodies, that I'd heard in my childhood. I sang my loudest, and at first echoes rang off stones and trees and down into hollows. After a time my voice dropped to a husky squeak, but as the light bent west and turned golden, I heard a rustle, and suddenly I was surrounded by Hill Folk, more of them than I had ever seen at once before.
They did not speak. Somewhere in the distance I heard the breathy, slightly sinister cry of a reed pipe.
I began to talk, not knowing if they understood words, such as "Marquise" and "mercenary," or if they somehow took the images from my thoughts. I told them about the Merindars, and Flauvic, and the Renselaeuses, ending with what Azmus had told me. I described the wagons on the road behind me. I finally exhorted them to go north and hide, and that we--Shevraeth and his people and I--would first get rid of the kinthus, then find a way to keep the Covenant.
When I ran out of words, for a long moment there was that eerie stillness, so soundless yet full of presence. Then they moved, their barky hides dappling with shadows, until they disappeared with a rustling sound like wind through the trees.
I was alone again, but I felt no sense of danger. My pony lifted her head and blinked at me. She hadn't reacted at all to being surrounded by Hill Folk.
"All right," I said to her. "First thing, water. And then we have some wagons to try to halt. Or I do. I suppose your part will be to reappear at the inn as mute testimony to the fallen heroine."
We stopped at a stream. I drank deeply of the sweet, cold water and splashed my face until it was numb. Then we started on the long ride down. From time to time quick flutings of reed pipes echoed from peak to peak, and from very far away, the rich chordal hum of the distant windharps answered. Somehow these sounds lifted my spirits.
I remained cheery, too, as if the universe had slipped into a kind of dream existence. I was by now far beyond mere tiredness, so that nothing seemed real. In fact, until I topped a rise and saw the twenty wagons stretched out in a formidable line directly below me, the worst reaction I had to rain, to stumbles, to my burning eyes, was a tendency to snicker.
The wagons sobered me.
And I sensed presence.
The woods were quiet, except for the tapping of raindrops on leaves and, once or twice, the sudden crash and scamper of hidden animals breaking cover and retreating. No birds, no great beasts. Yet I felt watchers.
And so, tired as I was, I tipped back my head and began to sing.
At the best of times I don't have the kind of voice anyone would want to hear mangling their favorite songs. Now my throat was dry and scratchy, but I did what I could, singing wordlessly some of the old, strange patterns, not quite melodies, that I'd heard in my childhood. I sang my loudest, and at first echoes rang off stones and trees and down into hollows. After a time my voice dropped to a husky squeak, but as the light bent west and turned golden, I heard a rustle, and suddenly I was surrounded by Hill Folk, more of them than I had ever seen at once before.
They did not speak. Somewhere in the distance I heard the breathy, slightly sinister cry of a reed pipe.
I began to talk, not knowing if they understood words, such as "Marquise" and "mercenary," or if they somehow took the images from my thoughts. I told them about the Merindars, and Flauvic, and the Renselaeuses, ending with what Azmus had told me. I described the wagons on the road behind me. I finally exhorted them to go north and hide, and that we--Shevraeth and his people and I--would first get rid of the kinthus, then find a way to keep the Covenant.
When I ran out of words, for a long moment there was that eerie stillness, so soundless yet full of presence. Then they moved, their barky hides dappling with shadows, until they disappeared with a rustling sound like wind through the trees.
I was alone again, but I felt no sense of danger. My pony lifted her head and blinked at me. She hadn't reacted at all to being surrounded by Hill Folk.
"All right," I said to her. "First thing, water. And then we have some wagons to try to halt. Or I do. I suppose your part will be to reappear at the inn as mute testimony to the fallen heroine."
We stopped at a stream. I drank deeply of the sweet, cold water and splashed my face until it was numb. Then we started on the long ride down. From time to time quick flutings of reed pipes echoed from peak to peak, and from very far away, the rich chordal hum of the distant windharps answered. Somehow these sounds lifted my spirits.
I remained cheery, too, as if the universe had slipped into a kind of dream existence. I was by now far beyond mere tiredness, so that nothing seemed real. In fact, until I topped a rise and saw the twenty wagons stretched out in a formidable line directly below me, the worst reaction I had to rain, to stumbles, to my burning eyes, was a tendency to snicker.
The wagons sobered me.
( Sherwood Smith )
[ Court Duel ]
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