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But at last he reached the river himself, and forded it, choosing rather the hazards of the far shore than the ill repute of the southern one. He had been in the saddle so long he had forgotten when he had rested—his resting when he took it was only for the horse, and then he was back in the saddle again, sleeping little, aching with the weight of the mail and of his bruises from the battle. Now he kept the shield uncased on his arm, trusting none of this dark wooded way through the vale of the Caerbourne. He was in the dale now. There were no friends hereabouts. He watched about him, no longer hoping that Dryw was close. This was the darkest, the most dangerous portion of his ride. He had managed it so that he reckoned to pass An Beag in the dark, and hoped that he knew well enough where he was.
The day waned, and at times the horse faltered on the narrow trail, which ran over stone and through woods, along the black waters of the Caerbourne, which rushed and splashed over rock in its shallow places, frothing white in the gathering murk. The brush was too thick here for his liking though it offered him cover. He was a horseman; he preferred something less tangled than this thicket, which wore at the horse and in places made every step a risk, in which their moving sounded all too loud. Least of all did he like the whispering that filled the twilight here, rustlings not of the horse’s making, little movings which seemed wind alone, and might be something else. All this forest was a place of ill legend; and they did not love such legends in his hills, in Caer Do
Then two pale moths came flying, a whipping arrow-sound . . . Ciaran flung up the shield; and a blow jarred it, while the horse reared up and leaned leftward in a sudden loosening of life.
He sprawled clear of the dying horse, shield lifting, jarred by a second shaft thumping into the wood while others hissed through brush and his back hit the thicket. He scrambled desperately to cover himself and to run, tore his ungloved right hand on thorns, while the crash of brush warned him of enemies coming. His back met a tree and he braced himself there on his feet. He had his sword from sheath, and they came on him in a mass in the forest dark, with staves and knives. Blows battered at his shield, and he hewed at them with every stroke that his weary left arm could gain him room to take—the blade bit and there were screams. They tried to come at him from behind, and he swung with his shoulders still to the tree and killed one of them and another, rammed his shield under a bearded chin and hewed again, with ebbing strength, for there was a quick numbing pain in his side and he knew something had gotten through, in the joinings. An axe swung down on him, shivered the top of the shield and stuck fast. He let the shield go and swung the sword two-handed, clove ribs and wrenched the blade free in back-swing, while a staff came down on him. The blow dazed him; but he rammed the blade’s point into that one’s belly and slew him too . . . while brush crashed and cries were raised beyond— Help, ho! help, we have him!
He took to the brush and began to run, staggered across the thigh-deep rush of the Caerbourne, chilled and sodden, waded ashore and set out ru
But another breathing grew at his heels, the whuff of a ru
He spun about to face attack, but there was nothing there but the blackness, and the wind and a cold which settled about his heart. Then he feared as he had never feared in battle, and ran as if effort before this were nothing. The ache in his side was more than want of breath; he pressed his swordhand’s wrist there and felt the ebb of blood.
He was weakening. He heard a chuckling and now knew the name of that rider which followed him, and the name of the wood into which he had strayed. And when he was nigh to falling he set his back against an aged tree in a space clearer than the others, where it seemed that he might at least have the grace of seeing his enemy come on him.
Shadow came, and a spatter of rain, a rattle of thunder, and the baying of hounds. Shadows flooded among the trees, black bits of night which rushed and leaped for him. His sword swept through them, nothing hindering, and a coldness fastened and worried at his arm, numbing all the way to his heart.
He cried aloud and tore free, ran, leaving a fragment of himself in the jaws, and the sword was no longer in his hand. The shadows coursed behind him, and the hoofbeats rang like the pulse in his ears and the hoarse breathing was like his own. The enemy was not behind him, but lodged in his side, where the wound worked at his life. A part of his soul was theirs, and they would tear him to nothing when they came on him again, a rending far worse than the first. Rain spattered into his face and blinded him, dampened the leaves so that they clung to him and his armor was soaked so that he did not know now what was blood and what was rain. He stumbled yet again, in a crash of thunder, and of a sudden as surely as there was a horror behind him he conceived of safety in the trees ahead, where seemed a mound overgrown, a swelling of the land with life, where the trees grew vast, and strong, stretching out their limbs in sympathy.
He reached it, entered it, sped in strange freedom of limb where trees were gnarled and straight at once, barren and flowered with stars, and aglitter with jewels like hanging fruit, with treasure of silver laid upon the white branches, swords and shining mail, cloth like morning haze, spiderweb among pale green leaves.
A sword hung before him, offered to his hand . . . he tore it from the leaves in a scatter of bright foliage, and the brightness about him faded, leaving him alone with the dark and the swift loping shadows, with the dark rider, who burst upon him in a flickering of lightnings and yet absorbed no light himself, like a hole in the world through which he might fall forever, if the hounds did not have him first. He held the illusory blade trembling before him, and shuddered as its light drew detail from the dark, of jaws and eyes of hounds. He was drawn to look up, to lift his face unwilling, to face the rider—he saw something, which his dazed mind would not recall even in the instant of beholding it.