There was no reason to refuse. In fact she was being sharply prodded by curiosity. Getting into her saddle and settling herself there gingerly, she picked up the lead rope and the three men stepped nimbly aside as she led her procession up toward the ridge top.
The wind was rising and it flowed downslope. Liara made a face. This was like the effluvia from a badly kept kennel—though she had never heard of a kennel neglected to such an appalling state.
The Lady Eleeri and the witch had moved aside from the trail and here was Denever, and the second Falconer. They were squatting, the archer busy with a stick, drawing on a patch of ground brushed clear.
Lord Romar stood there also looking down, and as Liara drew her train to a halt he said:
“Farwing and Swifttalon report that the length of the thing vanishes into the side of the cliff itself. It is like some monster entrapped.”
Denever nodded. “Entrapped even as it was set to trap. The evil is sped now, Lady Mouse has said. But it may still return even as fire flickers out of an ember when another stick is laid for its eating. We have here a trace way up—which only the ponies can take. The Torgians and Keplians and Jasta are all too large to attempt it. Even if it were widened, their greater weight and shod hooves would bring them down.”
The others were nodding and then the Falconer added: “Farwing reports broken land atop. Even the ponies will have to be surefooted there.”
Denever grunted. “Show me a pony that is not that and I shall shout it aloud to all of Karsten. These beasts are bred and born in such country and they are surefooted. So, Lady Liara”—he did not even turn his head to look at her—“if you can get these stubborn animals to climb, perhaps a good third of our job is done.”
“Lady Liara.” Mouse was standing now, though Eleeri hovered by her as if to offer instant support. “It is true that the Dark has withdrawn from this thing. The trap is very ancient and perhaps, if a will was set to move it once more to slaughter, it has withdrawn. For now your beasts have nothing to fear.”
Your beasts—not you and your beasts. Liara nodded but was surprised when Mouse continued:
“Though you see shadows where none walk, there is promise of more—by this.” Her hand cupped the jewel. “So do I swear it!”
Witchery! Liara tensed. Was this Mouse girl weaving some net about her, dooming her to everlasting service? Bur it would not matter, she had already doomed herself when she had taken the hidden ways of Krevanel keep.
“My thanks, Lady.” She tried to speak smoothly. “What we can do, these beasts and me, that we shall.”
However, when she saw the steep narrow trail up which they had to be urged, she began to doubt her own words. Dismounting, she tested the ropes which fastened the ponies in a chain.
“Here, take you this and test your way.” Lord Romar had moved to her side and pushed into her hand a stout shafted spear.
Nodding thanks but concentrating on the trail ahead, Liara looked for the best place to begin that climb. She thought she did not fear heights and certainly in the secret ways of Krevanel she had dared passages purposely made perilous. Slow but sure—that was what was to be kept in mind now.
Liara never afterward tried to guess how long that ascent took her. She kept small spurts of fear under tight control and the ponies did not balk when she tugged at the lead rope. As the climb continued, that stench grew the stronger and she knew what caused it—maggot-infested meat, crust of blood. The field of some battle might lie ahead.
Finally she and her charges reached a leveling off and she was sure they were on the crest. Around them was a tumble of shattered rock—such as might have existed after some stupendous hammer had given blow after blow here.
The ponies were puffing and moved of their own accord away from that near-impossible trail. This was like a shelf against the cliff and she could see no way they might stray. In fact, one moved purposefully to lip at a tuft of coarse gray-green grass.
She had no desire to see what lay below the edge of the drop to her left. The fetid odor was enough to warn off anyone. Yet she made herself go and gasped as she clung to one great rock and looked down.
A serpent—such a serpent as was reported in legend, killed by heroes in their time for the good of all. What showed in the open was the terrifying head, its monstrous jaws open. However, a little more than a hands-breath behind the backward slope was the cliff wall. Lord Romar had been right: The thing appeared to have been trapped in solid rock.
But—it was also rock, showing no sign of life save the grisly remains about its rigid jaws. Witchery past any imagination except in a nightmare.
“Not pretty, my lady!” The men of the party had climbed up now, crowding to the cliff wall for safety.
Her grasp on the rock beside her tightened. “What would you do?” She tried to keep the quaver of her answer to Lord Romar under control.
“We have the assurance of the Lady Mouse that it is now without peril. But the Light does not leave some trap of the Dark undestroyed. We shall use these”—with a sweep of his arm he indicated the sowing of rocks about them—“to bury that thing.”
So indeed did they labor, Liara with them, for she must see to the loading of every pony, accompany it to the verge where the men hurled the stones of each burden out and down.
They paused to eat and drink from supplies lifted in a net. Even the Falconers laid aside their proud helms and mail shirts as they worked. There were bruises and small cuts in plenty and Liara once felt the world whirl about her and might have fallen had not Ro-mar’s strong hand from behind steadied her.
“Lady, you have done much. It is because of our need that we must ask.”
Somehow she shaped her dusty lips into a grin. “My lord, I would give the full treasure of the Lord High Hound now, that some other of you could deal with these unruly beasts!”
He laughed. “Each of us has a talent.”
Her grin turned wry. “And this is mine? Well, we are making the most of it this day.”
Now the day was already fading into evening. Looking down, she could see that most of the horror below was hidden by stones. There were dark stains on the walls—where blood must have once splashed high. But the head, except for the tip of the high-held snout, was buried.
However, the sun which had seemed furnace-hot on them at times as they worked was fast disappearing westward. To take the downtrail even in dusk was something Liara knew that she could not attempt. The ponies were nickering, proving more and more difficult to handle. They needed water and forage and if they were forced to further work she doubted if even her “talent” could control them. She announced as much when the next burden of stones arrived.
“It is so,” Denever agreed.
The snout was hidden now. She was sure that they might go—but the loss of light trapped them there, unless the men were willing to risk descent. She was not, nor would she demand it of the now head-hanging beasts—one did not course a hound past its endurance.
She heard a call from the head of that trace trail. Two more coming up! First came the Lady Eleeri. She had left behind the bow which was her ever-ready weapon so that she could assist Mouse, though the girl scrambled ahead with a will.
Through the dusk they moved in a glow of light of their own, which emitted from the witch jewel. Lord Romar joined them as quickly as he could wend a way over that uneven surface. They spoke together, but in such low voices that Liara could not make out words.
Then the witchling moved apart from them, on toward the edge of the cliff and that hidden horror below. She held out her jewel and it flamed even higher. Lady Eleeri hurried after her to lay hand on her shoulder as the girl’s voice rang out, reaching them all now:
“Earth, air, fire, and water! By the dawn of the east, the moon-white of the south, the sun of the west, the black midnight of the north, by yew, and the hawthorne, Illbane, rowan, all the laws of knowledge—the law of Names, the law of True Falsehood, the law of even balance—may this thing now ever cease to be!” Her voice arose higher and higher, stronger and stronger, until the last words she uttered were like a trumpet call.