“I cannot think; unless it be that he is dead, or prisoner, and either way we are lost.”
“But if he’s coming from that direction,” cried Colin, pointing south, “we shouldn’t see him until he was right at the top!”
“Fool that I am! Quick! We may throw away all hope by standing here!”
Halfway along the ridge the birds attacked. In a cloud they fell, clawing and pecking, and buffeting with their wings. And their attentions were directed against Susan above all. In the first seconds of advantage they fastened upon her like leeches, and tangled thickly in her hair. And their strength was human. But before they could drag her from the hill Dyrnwyn and Widowmaker were among them.
Backwards and forwards along the crest the conflict raged, until the ground was red and black, and still they came. Not before fully a quarter of their number had been hewn from the air did they abandon the fight.
Durathror and Fenodyree leaned on their swords, heads hanging. All were torn and bleeding; but the wounds were not deep.
“It is well they broke,” panted Fenodyree, “for I was near spent.”
“Ay,” said Durathror, “it will go hard with us if they come again.”
Gowther reversed his grip on his ash stick, which he had been wielding with terrible effect, and pointed.
“And yon have not been idle, sithee. We’ll have to be thinking quick!”
The morthbrood were pouring in from all sides; only to the south-west was the land not thickly dotted with running figures. The near groups were not heading for the top of Shuttlingslow, but were moving to encircle it; and out of the valley of Wildboarclough, seven hundred feet below at the foot of the hill’s eastern slope, came a band of svarts, five hundred strong. There was no Cadellin.
“Can we stem this flood, cousin?” said Fenodyree.
Durathror shook his head.
“By weight of numbers they will conquer. But since it has come to this we must draw what teeth we may before we go down to rest. And it is how I would wish to die, for so have I lived.”
“Well, I’m not going to let them have the stone as easily as that!” cried Susan. “You stay if you like, but I’m off!”
And she started down the hill at a mad speed towards where the numbers of the morthbrood were thinnest.
“Come back, Sue!” shouted Colin.
“No!” said Gowther. “She’s the only one round here as is talking sense. Well, come on! Are you fain to let her go by herself?”
They sprang after Susan; floundering in the snow, leaping, bounding, falling, rolling, they hurtled after her, unmindful of bruises, caring nothing for safety, while the air clamoured with the shriek of birds.
Once off the escarpment their gait slackened, yet they were making every effort to hurry. The snow was knee-deep, and clogged the feet like a nightmare. Rocks, reed clumps, hummocks of grass sent them stumbling at every stride. The birds flew low but did not attack.
Over Piggford moor Susan ran, flanked by dwarfs with gleaming swords. A few stray svarts, and the loose-limbed scarecrow creatures barred the way from time to time, but they fell back at the sight of the hard blades. They preferred to join the crowd that was now sweeping round the sides of Shuttlingslow.
The moor curved down three hundred feet to a stream that Susan did not discover in time, and they all slithered into the water, and lost precious seconds there. Choking, they scrambled up the opposite hill. And that climb exhausted the last of their strength. It beat them mentally as well as physically, for it was a convex slope, and the skyline, the apparent top of the hill, was always receding. It was never far away, but they could never reach it. Soon it was nearly beyond them to climb the stone walls that blocked their path, and when they did totter to the crest, and saw that it was only a wide shelf, and that a further incline awaited them, all but Durathror collapsed as though their legs had been cut from under them.
Durathror looked behind him. Except for one or two stragglers, Piggford moor was bare. Yet the noise of the chase was loud: he heard it clearly, even through the bedlam of the milling birds. The morthbrood must have crossed the stream.
“Up!” he cried. But they were not at the top of the final rise when the pursuit came into sight. The svarts, with their snow-skimming feet, and the tireless, bobbing lyblacs had outstripped the morthbrood, and they had at their head one that was worse than all – a mara, grey and terrible. And before the mara ran the two hounds of the Morrigan, their blind heads low to the scent, and their mouths hanging red.
“Stay not for me!” shouted Durathror, facing about.
For a second Fenodyree wavered, then he nodded, and pushed the others on towards the crest of the hill.
The hounds were well ahead of the mara, and the first, drawing near, slowed to a walk, ears pricked forward.
“Ha!” cried Durathror.
The hound paused.
“Ha!”
And as it leapt he ducked, and thrust upwards with both hands to his sword, and the beast was dead before it hit the ground. But it wrenched Dyrnwyn from Durathror’s grasp in its fall, and then the other sprang. But Durathror was lightning itself in battle, and the teeth closed not on his throat, but on his forearm which he rammed between the wet jaws, and over he went, hurled on to his back by the weight of the monster. And while they wrestled the mara strode by unheedingly.
Durathror fumbled for the dagger at his waist: he found it, and the end was quick.
But he could do nothing to save the others. Already the mara towered over them. Bravely, rashly, Fenodyree launched himself upon it, but Widowmaker flew from his hands in a shower of sparks at the first blow, and, leaning down from its twenty feet of grim might, the troll grasped Susan by the wrist, and plucked her from the ground.
The scream that cut the air then stopped svarts and lyblacs in their tracks, and even the birds were hushed. Durathror hid his face, and groaned; tears flooded his cheeks. Again the piteous cry, but weaker now. And again. Shouting wildly, mad with grief, he rose, and snatched for his sword. But the sight that met him brought him straight to his knees. For, limp, in the snow, just as she had fallen, was Susan. Beside her was the mara, and it was shrinking! Like a statue of butter in a furnace heat it writhed and wasted. Its contours melted into formlessness as it dwindled. No sound did it utter again, save a drawn-out moan as movement finally ceased. And there on the moor-top stood a rough lump of rock.
Half-unconscious, Susan knew little of the mara’s fate. As the spiral-patterned clouds and flashing lights withdrew from before her eyes she could only stare at Angharad’s bracelet, dented and misshapen from the grip of the stone-cold hand that had fastened upon her wrist.
“Are you all reet, lass?”
“What did you do?”
“I’m not hurt. It was the bracelet, I think. What’s happened?”
The svarts and the lyblacs were in confusion, and, for the moment, lacked the united courage to advance. Durathror was quick
