Lyonesse

Carfilhiot and his troop clattered through Bloddywen, then turned away from the river and rode up to the moors. Gaining the ridge, Carfilhiot halted his troop, ranged them in a line and addressed them: "Today we hunt Cadwal of Kaber Keep; he is our quarry. We will meet him by the Dravenshaw. So as not to startle his vigilance, we will approach him around the side of Dinkin Tor. Listen now! Take Sir Cadwal alive, and any of his blood who may ride with him. Sir Cadwal must repent the harms he has done me in full measure: Later we will take Kaber Keep; we will drink his wine, bed his women and make free of his bounty. But today we ride to take Sir Cadwal!"

He swung his horse up and around in a fine caracole and galloped away across the moors.

On Hackberry Tor an observer, noting Carfilhiot's movements, ducked behind a crag and there signaled with a white flag until, from two quarters, his signals were acknowledged.

Carfilhiot and his troop rode confidently into the northwest. At Dinkin Tor they halted. One of the number dismounted and climbed to the top of a rock. He called down to Carfilhiot: "Riders, perhaps five or six, at most seven! They approach the Dravenshaw!"

"Quick then," called Carfilhiot, "we'll take them at the forest's edge!"

The column rode west, keeping to the cover of Dewny Swale; at an old road they swung to the north and galloped at full speed for the Dravenshaw.

The road skirted the tumbled stones of a prehistoric fane, then turned directly down toward the Dravenshaw. Across the moor the roan horses ridden by Sir Cadwal's troop glimmered like raw copper in the sunlight. Carfilhiot signaled his men. "Quietly now! A volley of arrows, if necessary, but take Cadwal alive!"

The troop rode beside a stream fringed with willow. Clicks and snaps! A sibilant whir! Arrows across space at flat trajectory! Needle points thrust through chain-mail. There were groans of surprise, cries of pain. Six of Carfilhiot's men sagged to the ground in silence; three others took arrows in leg or shoulder. Carfilhiot's horse, with arrows in its neck and haunches, reared, screamed and fell. No one had aimed directly at Carfilhiot: an act of forbearance, alarming rather than reassuring.

Carfilhiot ran crouching to a riderless horse, mounted, kicked home his spurs and bending low to the mane, pounded away, followed by the survivors of his troop.

At a safe distance Carfilhiot called a halt and turned to assess the situation. To his dismay a mounted troop of a dozen men burst from the shadows of Dravenshaw. They rode bay horses and wore Kaber orange.

Carfilhiot hissed in frustration. At least six archers would be leaving the ambush to join the enemy troop: he was outnumbered. "Away!" cried Carfilhiot and put his horse once more to flight: up past the ruined fane, with the Kaber warriors barely a hundred yards behind. Carfilhiot's horses were stronger than the Kaber bays, but Carfilhiot had ridden harder and his heavy horses had not been bred for stamina.

Carfilhiot turned off the road into Dewny Swale, only to find another company of mounted men charging upon him from up-slope with leveled lances. They were ten or a dozen, in the blue and dark blue of Nulness Castle. Carfilhiot yelled orders and veered away to the south. Five of Carfilhiot's men took lances in the chest, neck or head and lay in the road. Three tried to defend themselves with sword and axe; they were quickly cut down. Four managed to win to the brow of the swale along with Carfilhiot, and there paused to rest their winded horses.

But only for a moment. The Nulness company, with relatively fresh horses, already had almost gained the high ground. The Kaber troop would be circling west along the old road to intercept him before he could gain Vale Evander.

A copse of dark fir trees rose ahead, where perhaps he could take temporary cover. He spurred the flagging horse into motion. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed bright red. He screamed: "Down! Away!" Over and down into a gulch he plunged, while archers in the crimson of Castle Turgis jumped up from the gorse and shot two volleys. Two of Carfilhiot's four were struck; once again chain-mail was penetrated. The horse of the third was struck in the belly; it reared over backward and fell on its rider who was crushed but managed to stagger, wild and disoriented, to his feet. Six arrows killed him. The single remaining warrior rode pell-mell down into the swale, where the Kaber warriors cut off first his legs, then his arms, then rolled him into the ditch to ponder the sad estate to which his life had come. Carfilhiot rode alone through the forest of firs, to come out on a wasteland of stone. A sheepherder's trail led through the rocks. Ahead towered the crags known as the Eleven Sisters.

Carfilhiot looked over his shoulder, then spurred his horse to its ultimate effort, through the Eleven Sisters and down the slope beyond into a dim gully choked with alders, where he drew his horse under a ledge and out of sight from above. His pursuers searched the rocks, calling and hallooing in frustration that Carfilhiot had escaped their trap. Time and time again they looked into the gully, but Carfilhiot, only fifteen feet below, was not seen. Around and around in Carfilhiot's head went an obsessive question: how had the trap been established without his knowledge? The map had shown only Sir Cadwal riding abroad; yet surely Sir Cleone of Nulness Castle, Sir Dexter of Turgis had gone out with their troops! The simple strategy of the signal system never occurred to him.

Carfilhiot waited an hour until his horse ceased to tremble and heave; then cautiously he remounted and rode down the gully, keeping to such shelter as was offered by alders and willows, and presently he emerged into Vale Evander, a mile above Ys.

The time still was early afternoon. Carfilhiot rode on into Ys. On terraces to either side of the river the factors lived quietly in their white palaces, shaded under pencil cypress, yew, olive, flat-topped pines. Carfilhiot rode up the beach of white sand to Melancthe's palace. A yard-boy came to meet him. Carfilhiot slid off the horse with a groan of relief. He climbed three marble steps, crossed the terrace and entered a dim foyer, where a chamberlain silently helped him from his helmet, his jupon and his chain cuirass. A maid-servant appeared: a strange silver-ski

*Falloy: A slender halfling akin to fairies, but larger, less antic and lacking deft control of magic; creatures ever more rare in the Elder Isles.

"Thank you: I need nothing." Carfilhiot went out on the terrace and lowered himself into a cushioned chair and sat looking out over the sea. The air was mild, the sky cloudless. Swells slid up the sand to become a low surf, which created a somnolent rhythmic sound. Carfilhiot's eyes became heavy; he dozed.

He awoke to find that the sun had moved down the sky. Melancthe, wearing a sleeveless gown of soft white faniche,* stood leaning against the balustrade, oblivious to his presence.

*A fairy fabric woven from dandelion silk.

Carfilhiot sat up in his chair, vexed for reasons indefinable. Melancthe turned to look at him, then a moment later gave her attention back to the sea... Carfilhiot watched her under half-closed eyelids. Her self- possession—so it occurred to him—if sufficiently protracted, might well tend to scrape upon one's patience... Melancthe glanced at him over her shoulder, the corners of her mouth drooping, apparently with nothing to say: neither welcome nor wonder at his presence unattended, nor curiosity as to the course of his life.

Carfilhiot chose to break the silence. "Life here at Ys seems placid enough."