However, the four of them advanced with caution, hardly noting that the Keplian and Jasta, both showing ready teeth, followed. What they found as this too-tempting trail rounded an upstanding pinnacle of bare rock—
Keris had seen many horrors of the Dark. He was no green boy who had never yet blood-wet his blade. But this!
Trap it was, and they were not the first to meet with it. There stood a bulk nearly as tall as the roof of a landsman’s cottage. It had been fashioned—surely this thing had never really lived?—though of that they could not be sure. It was a monstrous head, something out of the deepest of nightmares. And the worst was that it was somehow a nauseating mingling of human and some reptilian species. Its jaws were well open to show a triple row of great fangs which had the appearance of rusted metal.
Lying on the ground about it were fragments of bodies, most clearly human. Keris swallowed—the stench was terrible, but not as bad as facing what caused it. And here the rus had been feasting.
A skull dislodged by the Keplian lay grinning up at them, plucked bare of all semblance of flesh.
Denever was circling to the left, attempting to avoid touching any of that terrible mass, and Romar was taking the right when they were both struck, as well as Keris, with the powerful mind-send of the two mounts who had followed them, uniting in one message.
“There is no one here.”
“This thing has no life of its own,” Romar said with authority. “I guess it is a device once given strong powers to entice prey within reach—as we see by its kills.” He stooped and picked up a sword, the blade snapped off close to the hilt but showing no signs of rust or weathering.
He turned the remains of the weapon around. The hilt was rough with a setting from which jewels must have been pried. Meanwhile Denever was poking gingerly into a noisome mass on the other side of that head. He jerked out, with the point of his lance, a club which rolled until it was stopped by a rack of bones.
“Outlaws,” was his judgment.
It was Jasta who cut in then: *Comrades, this thing is now harmless. Though if it can be activated again, who knows? There is evil here, but it is faded.*
Keris faced the bloodstained snout. “The Port of Dead Ships,” he said slowly. “That was also something set by those long gone but kept alive at times. A gate?” But already he knew that that guess was wrong. This was no gate, though it might once have been a defense for some place of evil, even a gate.
*The Witch.* That was the Keplian. *Perhaps it is her doing which broke the pattern. But do we leave this here perhaps to hunger and eat once more?*
There could be only one answer to that. They threaded their way downtrail and reported what they had found. Mouse was seated on one of the cushion mats, her jewel held tight between her hands, while the Lady Eleeri supported her. But as they came, she looked up. There was such a shadow on her small face that Keris was shaken. He could almost believe that she had witnessed that horror with them.
“It is as Jasta has said.” Her words came slowly. “The evil is no longer strong, but it may return. We cannot leave such a thing to work its will again.”
Farther downslope Liara regarded her heavy boots, a crinkle of pain between her white brows. To anyone who had worn for most of her life soft slippers in a keep, these thick-soled monsters were instruments of torture. Still, the Lady Mereth herself had overseen their making, and the girl had no doubt that the workmanship which passed that pair of falcon-sharp eyes was the best which could be provided.
The reins of her riding pony were looped over a nearby knuckle of rock. Riding, too, left her body sore in places she could not have believed. Whenever she could, she abandoned the saddle and walked beside the line of burden beasts.
To the surprise of all at Lormt, herself included, the wiry, mountain-bred, small beasts were their least troublesome under her control. She knew that most of the party could communicate with the various animals they accompanied. But they considered the pack ponies outside that range of influence.
She had certainly made no attempt at such a talent—it would be witchery. On the other hand, apparently in her presence the creatures could be loaded, herded, used without the vicious attempts at biting and kicking with which they greeted any others. She often caught them watching her as if she in herself were a menace they were afraid to challenge.
There was confusion up ahead. Save for an ever-present rearguard, often Denever (certainly a guard to depend upon if she had need, which she did not), Liara seldom rode closer than shouting distance to the rest of the party, except when they stopped at intervals in their twisting upward climb. When they did come to such halts, she kept with the ponies, suspecting that her presence was of less value than her absence as far as the others were concerned. Certainly she wanted no close contact with that witch whelp, and, though she would never have admitted it aloud, she was distrustful of the Lady Eleeri, who used trail craft like a trained hunter and who was always trailed by her Keplians.
The men, of course, were unapproachable, even though the females of this outer world were as frankly at ease with them as they would be with their own sex. She had first marveled at that openness and then somehow it made her angry inside, as if they had forced her into a kind of invisible prison.
However, she could use her eyes and her ears, and her life in Alizon had trained her to seek out nuances, weigh even the tone of a voice, the flick of an eyelid. Thus she tried to learn all she could without any questioning, making herself a slave laborer for this mixed band.
There came the sound of a scrambling run downtrail and she was on her feet in an instant, grasping for the reins of her pony.
She recognized the newcomer as that halfling Tregarth, enemy born to those of her blood.
“Off pack!” His order came breathlessly and he pushed past her to the foremost of the ponies. The small beast promptly snapped with yellow teeth and Keris barely avoided that vicious nip.
Liara smiled slyly. Then she returned the reins of her mount to the rocky tie and slipped past young Tregarth to the animal, who was prevented only by the length of its lead rope from savaging him as he backed hastily away. There was more sound upslope until one of the Falconers skidded on a mossed stone and fetched up again the rock which had supported her earlier. The hawk mask of his helm was in place and his bird circled overhead.
“Do we camp?” Liara asked. Her hand was now on the pack pony’s neck. It did not strike at her, but it began to sweat as if the climb this far had taxed its full strength.
Keris scowled at her. “We need the beasts—to clear our path.”
Her hands were busy with the ropes as the men stood watching, for if they ventured any nearer, the ponies rolled eyes and prepared to kick and buck. She was used to this job now, but it was clear that the others were impatient that she did not allow the loads to simply tumble to the ground.
Once the lashings on the ponies were freed, she nodded to the others. “There is need for this. Would you let it lie?” Liara had no thought herself of trying to lift or drag the packs.
However, the men did not protest. Already they pulled the supplies behind a tumble of storm-uprooted trees.
The rearguard was up with them now, short spear out of his shoulder sling, on the alert.
“What’s to do?” he demanded.
“There is that beyond which must be destroyed. We need the pack ponies to shift rocks.” Keris’s answer was immediate.
“Then”—the guard jerked a thumb at Liara—“best get her for the managing of them. No man is going to want to lose a hand or have his feet kicked from under him!”
Keris nodded. Then he spoke to Liara as he always did, aloofly, not meeting her eye to eye. “With your assistance, then, Lady. We need the strength of these beasts and you can best command them.”