“They certainly seem most strange in the midst of a wood,” Cordelia agreed.
Quicksilver shook off the mood and said, “We forget betimes that there are farms all ’round every wood. Simply because ogres have come out of a mist over a field does not undo all the building folk have done over the years.”
“But so high here in the mountains . . .”
“The mountaineers are not wild beasts, no matter their conduct to me,” Allouette said. “Like as not they have fields planted wherever the ground is level enough—and where there are fields, they must build lanes for wagons. Let us follow this path and see where it goes.”
They rode onward as the twilight failed. Finally Allouette scowled, concentrating, and a globe of light glimmered into life before them, casting just enough light to show them the next ten feet of road, albeit dimly.
Quicksilver gave her a sharp look. “Is that fox-fire yours, or a spirit’s?”
“Only mine,” Allouette assured her. “ ’Tis only necessary to excite the molecules of air until they heat enough to give light.”
“It will take some effort to keep it glowing, will it not?” Cordelia asked.
“Only a little.” Allouette turned to her. “I can brighten it, if you wish.”
“That would take more effort,” Cordelia said, “and we may have hours yet to ride. We can see well enough.”
They rode onward. Cordelia didn’t tell the others that she had learned the same spell from her mother years before. She was quite content to let Allouette do her part.
Suddenly Quicksilver pulled up. “Hark!”
Allouette and Cordelia stopped their horses, listening. “Only nightbirds and crickets,” Cordelia said. “What should I hear?”
“It has stopped now,” Quicksilver said, frowning. “I heard a sort of brushing noise behind us.”
“I heard nothing,” Cordelia said, but doubtfully.
“Nor I.” Allouette felt the first pricklings of fright, and her old response came instantly—simmering anger that anyone should beset her. “Let us ride on and listen as we go.”
They rode ahead for several minutes until finally Allouette said, voice low, “I hear it! A brushing sound indeed, as though something scrapes against the stone wall behind us!”
“I hear with it the rattle of chains,” Cordelia said, “but very faintly.”
“Whoa.” Quicksilver reined her horse to a stop as she spun to look behind her. Cordelia turned to look, too, but Allouette kept watch ahead, well aware that the sound could be a diversion. “What do you see, ladies?”
“Naught.” Quicksilver turned back to the front. “Only shadowed trees and stone walls stretching behind us into deeper darkness. Let us ride on but hearken well.”
They shook the reins and touched their horses’ flanks with their heels, moving ahead—and behind them, the sound began again: the whisk, whisk, whisk of something huge brushing against stone and, beneath it, the padding of great unseen bare feet.
CHAPTER 6
Quicksilver spun in her saddle as though to catch whatever followed them by surprise. This time Allouette darted a quick glance backward too, but saw only blackness with the faint glimmering of stone walls at either side.
“It stops when we stop,” Quicksilver reported.
“Ride on,” Cordelia said, face hard.
They started forward again, and behind them, the brushing sound began once more—and the clanking of chains was clearly audible now. Faint it was indeed, but all three could hear it.
“Stalking is all well and good—as long as I am the stalker,” Quicksilver said between her teeth. She pulled up, spinning in her saddle—and the sound, of course, also halted. “Whoever you are, avaunt and begone! Know that I am redoubtable in my own right and will as soon run you through as look upon you!”
“Therefore will it not be seen,” Allouette said, her voice trembling. “What monster is this that comes upon us?” She turned to Cordelia. “You, who were reared by a wizard and a witch and have hobnobbed with elves and brownies all your life—can you not say what follows us?”
“I have heard of a presence like this, that makes sounds but is seen not,” Cordelia said, her voice shaking. “ ’Tis called a barguest.”
Allouette’s breath hissed in, and Quicksilver drew her sword. “What harm is in it?”
Cordelia said, “None in itself—but it is a forecaster of death.”
“Then let it forecast someone else’s!” Quicksilver scowled into the darkness behind her and cried, “Avaunt thee, barguest! Get thee gone!”
“Hold, I pray!” Allouette said in alarm. “It gives us no hurt.”
“No hurt!” Quicksilver rounded on her. “How can it forecast death and do no harm? Nay, I can forecast death, too—with this omen here.” She hefted her sword. “If the spirit predicts our dying, it can only be because it causes death!”
“Not so,” Allouette protested. “It has something of the precognitive gift, that is all. We need only pay it no heed.”
“No heed!” Quicksilver cried. “Perhaps you can walk a nighttime road and truly ignore those sounds of chains, of padding feet and furry sides brushing against stone—but I cannot!”
“It will be unnerving,” Cordelia agreed and turned to call to the darkness behind them, “Show yourself, whatever you are! Shame upon you for so frightening three weak young women—and know that we are not so weak as we might seem, for two of us can turn you completely to jelly! Appear or be gone!”
Her concentration was so intense that it rocked Allouette and even made Quicksilver’s head snap back as though she’d been slapped—so they should not have been surprised when the darkness seemed to coalesce into a huge wooly black dog the size of a calf with eyes like saucers, with triple irises—a pupil inside a white ring, inside a blue ring which was inside a red ring. Those eyes glowed balefully at the three women as its lips writhed up in a snarl, revealing sharply pointed teeth that glowed in the night.
“Do not dare to challenge me!” Quicksilver snapped, brandishing her sword. “We’ll have none of your dealing here! All three of us shall live many a year yet, and if you dare to contradict me, barguest, I shall prove it upon your body! Go on, get away, get you gone—or I shall loose my friends to tear you apart, nay, to make war between the cells of your body, so that your whole substance falls apart and oozes down into a puddle in the roadway, a heap of gelatinous quivering fungus that shall never again stalk poor travelers at night, let alone foretell the death of any being!”
Cordelia and Allouette stared at her, appalled. Her face was distorted with anger, bright red, her bosom heaving and her whole body trembling with the intensity of her rage as she stared furiously into the darkness.
The night was very quiet. Even the crickets seemed stunned to silence by Quicksilver’s anger.
Then, almost furtively, the sounds began again—the brushing, the jingling of chains, the padding of huge feet—but moving away.
Cordelia and Allouette turned to stare into the darkness in shock.
The sounds faded and were gone. Quicksilver relaxed, sheathing her sword with a single nod of her head. “It knows better than to strive against Cold Iron in the hands of one determined.”
Cordelia let out a long, shuddering breath. “I would not have believed it if I had not seen it—but I think, bold chieftain, that it was the sheer intensity of your anger that affrighted the beast. Certainly I felt you battering at my mind like a ram, and I was not even your target!”
“It knew I spoke no more than I was willing to do—or that you were,” Quicksilver said evenly. “Oh, it was a fine game when it could pace behind us unseen and fill us with terror, but there is no pleasure in it when the prey becomes the hunter!”