Aoz Roon marched round the table, clouting their shoulders as he issued an order to each.
‘Tanth Ein, alert everyone and turn out the hunters. God’s eddre, why aren’t we properly guarded? Mount sentries on all towers, report when all’s done. Faralin Ferd, fetch in all women and children. Lock them in the women’s house for safety. Dol, Oyre, you two remain here, and you other women. Eline Tal, you have the loudest voice — you stay on top of this tower and relay any messages needed… Raynil Layan, you’re in charge of all corps men. Have them paraded at once, go.’
After this rapid fire of orders, he shouted them into action, himself pacing about furiously. Then he turned to Vry, ‘All right, woman, I want to see the lie of the land for myself. Yours is the northernmost tower — I’ll look from there. Move, everyone, and let’s hope this is a false alarm.’
He set off rapidly down to the door, his great hound bursting past him. With a last glance at the stuffed geese, Vry followed. Soon, shouts resounded among the leprous old buildings. The rain was tapering off. Yellow flowers, abloom in the lanes, unbent their heads and stood erect again.
Oyie ran after Aoz Roon and fell in by his side, smiling despite his growled dismissal. She sprang along in her dark blue and light blue hoxney with something like glee.
‘It’s not often I see you unprepared, Father.’
He shot her one of his black looks. She thought merely, he has grown older of late.
At Vry’s tower, he gestured to his daughter to stay, and entered the pile at a run. As he climbed the crumbling steps, Shay Tal emerged on her landing. He spared her only a nod and continued upwards. She followed him to the top, catching his scent.
He stood by the parapet, scrutinising the darkening land. He set his hands in a platform across his eyebrows, elbows out, legs apart. Freyr was low, its light spilling through rifts of western cloud. The cowbird was still circling, and not far distant. No movement could be observed in the bushes beneath its wings.
Shay Tal said from behind his broad back, ‘There’s only the one bird.’
He gave no answer.
‘And so perhaps no phagors.’
Without turning or changing his attitude, he said, ‘How the place is altered since we were children.’
‘Yes. Sometimes I miss all the whiteness.’
When he did turn, it was with an expression of bitterness on his face, which he seemed to remove with an effort.
‘Well, there’s evidently little danger. Come and see, if you wish.’
He then went down without hesitation, as if regretting his invitation. Curd stayed close as ever. She followed to where the others waited.
Laintal Ay came up, spear in hand, summoned by the shouting.
He and Aoz Roon glared at each other. Neither spoke. Then Aoz Roon drew out his sword and marched down the path in the direction of the cowbird.
The vegetation was thick. It scattered water over them. The women got the worst of it as the men pressed back boughs which showered in the faces of those who followed.
They turned a bend where young damson trees were growing, trunks thinner than a man’s arm. There was a ruined tower, reduced to two floors and swamped by vegetation. Beside it, under the leprous stone, in a tunnel of sullen green gloom, a phagor sat astride a kaidaw.
The cowbird could be seen through branches overhead, croaking a warning.
The humans halted, the women instinctively drawing together. Curd crouched, snarling.
Horny hands resting together on the pommel of its saddle, the phagor sat its tall mount. Its spears trailed behind it in an unprepared way. It widened its cerise eyes and twitched an ear. Otherwise, it made no move.
The rain had soaked the phagor’s fur, which clung about it in heavy grey clumps. A bead of water hung and twinkled at the tip of one forward-curving horn. The kaidaw was also immobile, its head outstretched, its furled horns twisting below its jaws and then up. Its ribs showed, and it was spattered with mud and gashes on which its yellow blood had caked.
The unreal tableau was broken, unexpectedly, by Shay Tal. She pushed past Aoz Roon and Laintal Ay, to stand alone on the path in front of them. She raised her right hand above her head in a commanding gesture. No response came from the phagor; it certainly did not turn to ice.
‘Come back, ma’am,’ called Vry, knowing the magic would not work.
As if under compulsion, Shay Tal moved forward, bringing all her attention to bear on the hostile figure of mount and rider. Twilight was encroaching, light dying: that would be to the advantage of the adversary, whose eyes saw in the dark.
Taking pace after pace forward, she had to raise her eyes to watch the phagor for any unexpected movement. The stillness of the creature was uncanny. Drawing nearer, she saw that this was a female. Heavy brownish dugs showed beneath the soaked fur.
‘Shay Tal, get back!’ As he spoke, Aoz Roon ran forward, passing her, his sword ready.
The gillot moved at last. She raised a weapon with a curved blade and spurred her mount.
The kaidaw came on with extraordinary speed. At one moment it was still, at the next charging towards the humans down the narrow path, horns first. Screaming, the women dived into the dripping undergrowth. Curd, without being told, raced in, dodging under the kaidaw’s prognathous jaw to nip it in the fetlock.
Baring her gums and incisors, the gillot leaned from her saddle and struck at Aoz Roon. Ducking backwards, he felt the crescent slice by his nose. Farther back down the path, Laintal Ay stuck the butt of his spear in the ground, fell on one knee, and pointed the weapon at the chest of the kaidaw. He crouched before its charge.
But Aoz Roon reached out for the leather girth that was strapped around the animal’s body, clasping it as the brute thundered by. Before the phagor could get in a second swipe, he worked with the momentum of the charge and swung himself up on the kaidaw’s back, behind its mount.
For a second it seemed that he would fall over on the far side. But he hooked his left arm about the gillot’s throat and stayed in place, head well out of reach of the deadly sharp horns.
She swung her head about. Her skull was as heavy as a club. One blow would have knocked the man senseless, but he ducked under her shoulder and tightened his stranglehold on her neck.
The kaidaw halted as suddenly as it had started into action, missing Laintal Ay’s point by inches. Beset by Curd, it sheered about, furiously trying to toss the great hound with its horns. As it plunged, Aoz Roon brought up his sword with all the force he could muster, and thrust it between the ribs of the gillot, into her knotted intestines.
She stood up in her leather stirrups and screamed, a harsh, rending noise. She threw up her arms and her curved sword went flying into the nearest branches. Terrified, the kaidaw pranced on its hind legs. The phagor fell free, and Aoz Roon with her. He twisted as they fell, so that she bore the brunt of the tumble. Her left shoulder struck the ground jarringly.
From the dusky sky, the cowbird came swooping in, screeching, to defend its mistress. It dived at Aoz Roon’s face. Curd leapt high and caught it by a leg. It slashed at him with curved beak, it battered his head with furious wings, but he tightened his grip and dragged it to the ground. A quick change of grip and he had its throat. In no time, the great white bird was dead, its pinions sprawled without motion across the muddy path.
The gillot also was dead. Aoz Roon stood over it, panting.
‘By the boulder, I’m too fat for this kind of activity,’ he gasped. Shay Tal stood apart and wept. Vry and Oyre inspected the dead brute, regarding its open mouth, from which a yellow ichor seeped.