A Hawk In Silver Part 15

"They're on the beach, over the Gallows Hill side of the marsh."

Where is that?

The realisation hit her hard. He doesn't know, and it's too complicated for me to explain- You must show me. Come. I will carry you.

She opened her mouth, shut it again, not sure that she had taken his meaning. He couldn't mean... "Ride you?"

You will not be riding me, you have not the look of a rider-I will be carrying you. You will be safe. Now, hurry! Which way?

"West almost all the way, then south."

She reached up and put her arms over his white s.h.a.ggy back, heaved herself up, threw one leg over his rump and was sitting high and steady and amazed.

Hold on!

My G.o.d! Holly grabbed two fistfuls of flying mane and clung on. Churned snow flew past her, black shadows swal-lowed them in and spat them out into bright moonlight again. The Unicorn galloped for the gate, gathering himself together like asteel spring, and soared clear over it. One stride; over the Park fence into a private field, racing west like a sea-gale. Holly clung to his back, feeling the powerful muscles bunching and the drumming of the hooves beating down the earth. Cold air whipped hair into her eyes and mouth, her wet clothes were clinging to her; but she held on, shouting wordless encouragement until her mouth was dry.

They cleared another fence effortlessly, scattered plants throughout a row of gardens, and clattered out on to the tarmac of Birchdale Junction. Street lamps shut them in under a tent of white light; traffic lights gleamed red, red-amber, green.

Fyraire checked. Which way?

"There-the second one-" Holly picked the Combe Marish road, the route unrolling in her head. He didn't need roads.

Take it cross-country, direct, go up the back of Hallows Hill- He exploded into movement again. Hooves rang on the slushy road. They wheeled into the Combe Marish turning, and were suddenly blinded by headlights. Holly felt her throat sore with a scream. The powerful body under her surged up and forward-she glimpsed a white blurred face behind the windscreen-heard his hooves spang off metal, clipping the roof-they were gone into the night.

"Faster!" They'll never explain that one, never! She shook, nearly lost her grip, half-hysterical.

They swung right, cleared a low garden fence, scattered gravel, another fence; and they were in the long field sloping down to the railway line at the back of Hallows Hill.

She had thought him fast before, but now he could see a clear way he stretched out into a full gallop. The white world floated past in moonlight. She had to put her head down on the Unicorn's neck to be out of the wind and to breathe.

How far now?

"Up the hill, under the railway bridge. Round the edge of the marshes. The beach."

A ring on metal; a scatter of gravel; the railway line. He did not pause or slow going up the hill. They came out under the bridge, and in front of them the marshes lay pallid under snow.

They halted. Holly sat up, aching. It was here that she and Chris had met Fletcher one summer morning, before they knew anything of the Hills. The Hills' entrance was drowned in mist that stretched westward, hiding Gallows Hill and Combe Marish. Sea mist? Holly frowned. Can't see anything. No knowing if they're fighting on the beach-but it's a fair bet they are.

Don't let anything happen to them!

"Stay on this side of the hill-you can get down round the marsh to the sea road."

Her head ached from the mental pressure; and she still found herself, if she wasn't careful, looking at things with his vision-brighter and stranger and splendid.

A storm of snow went up behind them. The shoulder of the hill loomed on the left in black shadow. They burst into clear light again and swung west on the little road; six inches deep in snow and no tyre tracks. Holly saw little of it, hunched forward and trying to s.n.a.t.c.h air. Pebbles flew past her face, she realised they were on the beach. The moonlight dimmed and was gone. They entered the bank of sea fog and the hard-packed sand echoed to their pa.s.sing.

Holly heard the elukoi and morkani before she saw them: a great shout of alarm and terror as Fyraire came down on them. She tightened her fists in his mane and peered over his shoulder. In this mist she could just make out a crowd separating-one group fled towards the marshes, the other to the sea.

We made it-but what's he going to do?

Fyraire was on them like a lightning bolt, his speed driving them apart like a spear splitting wood. They ran. Elukoi and morkani both, they ran in panic, and what had been two armies became a demoralised mob. The Unicorn checked, wheeled- Holly lost her grip and fell and hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of her, stinging all over; feeling she might shatter into small pieces if she moved. The night was full of shouting and the drumming of hooves. Shrill and angry the Unicorn bugled his challenge across the beach, and they fled before him. But Holly could make out from where she lay that, though he beat the two sides apart, he hurt neither; the pearl-silver horn was unstained.

She had fallen by a knot of people who were not running but standing, as if thunderstruck. Two broke away, coming towards her; then there was a hand under each arm, hauling her upright.

"Talk about an ace in the hole!" Chris was jubilant, pound-ing her back. "How'd you swing that one, girl?"

"Are you all right?" Fletcher, bow over his shoulder.

"I'm OK-Christ, I ache!" She clutched her ribs; then her legs, that seemed to have gone to water at the joints.

She hung on to Chris as they rejoined the group. Oberon stood remote, his eyes on small huddled darknesses on the sand. Bodies, Holly realised, staring with horrified fascination through the mist. There were few, and she could see no details.

Elathan and Mathurin were there, and Eilunieth, girt with a sword; and two more at a distance. They were morkani, dark-haired, in s.h.i.+ning mail; a man and a woman. As Holly came closer she recognised the woman's face.

I saw that on the Hawk-sigil! And the tapestries in Orione -no, this is younger. Tanaquil's daughter, Tanaquil Seahawk.

They had the same expression on their faces-sheer surprise, and something else; remembrance and wonder and hunger.

The morkani woman tore her gaze from the Unicorn and swung round angrily: "You told me the Harp was broken! You swore the sum-moning had failed!"

"Tanaquil, I tried!"

Holly knew that desperate voice, but she refused to accept what his reply meant.

"Harper?" Elathan stared at him disbelievingly. His hand dropped to his sword but Eilunieth stopped him, the same shock showing on her face.

"Stop. It is not for you to judge."

"I thought-anybody. But not him. Not him." Fletcher's voice was no more than a whisper, he did not take his eyes from the Harper. "All the time trusting him, and he was doing that to us."

Holly thought, I don't believe it. But he's not denying it. Oh I wish it had been anybody but him, I liked him.

The Harper was quiet, not defending himself. He turned away as the Unicorn's call rang out again, but this time not in anger, and watched Fyraire come cantering through the mist to them. The elukoi and morkani began to draw together again, but with no thought of battle, forming a ring round the Starlord and their leaders. Torches were lit. Holly saw Sandys carrying one-he bore no weapon, but a healer's satchel of herbs-and Silverleaf also; she carried a longbow.The sea-people were beautiful.

Holly stared at them, great numbers gathering, most of the crowd hidden by the fog. She had expected monsters. Seeing them she knew them for people of Faerie, even though their ages under the sea had changed them. Gleamingly pearl-skinned where the elukoi were tanned brown, hair shading from Tanaquil's emerald green to Fiorin's blue-black instead of red and gold; p.r.i.c.k-eared and slim and tall and strong-part of Faerie, despite web-fingers, and beautiful.

Their eyes gleamed gold.

People of Faerie, do you know me?

A muttering; a whisper from mouth to mouth: yes. Holly knew they heard as she did; a bell-voice that was no voice, but images behind the eyes.

Fyraire's horn glanced on Oberon's shoulder, and he stood taller, and they embraced.

"We thought you'd not come, Lord."

I was called. Who called me?

"I did," Mathurin answered, and met the Unicorn's green-gold eyes.

You are not Math, but you have the look of him.

"I am his son."

Down the beach the sea roared blackly. The tide was turning, coming in. Holly huddled into her anorak.

We have little enough time. People of the House of the Hawk, it is long and long that you have been in bondage to the Mother of Bitter Waters. Say: shall that be ended?

"We have served Rak-Domnu since the days of my mother." Tanaquil glanced nervously at Fiorin. "You were but a legend, Lord of Stars. Yet do I now renounce and utterly abhor the Mother of the Abyss and all her works. I will speak the truth: it has been weary, that bondage."

Fiorin's face twisted bitterly. Holly saw he had a knife in his hand, dull-coloured, flint. He said, "Will you betray us all, and Her too?"

"Fiorin, be silent. Even you cannot say we should give battle now; it is sure we cannot defeat the elukoi with the Lord of Stars fighting on their side."

I am not on the elukoi side.

"What?" Elathan barked.

"Still; I will not fight, even though that be true. I have worked against this war for a long time now-I and one other."

The look she gave Mathurin was unmistakable. Holly couldn't say she liked Tanaquil, but she thought the woman had courage. She was beginning to be scared again-that Fyraire might be on the side of the sea-people was some-thing she had never considered.

"You have the soul of a wh.o.r.e and a traitress. Starlord, if you are with us-"

I am not for the morkani, Fiorin of the Bitter Waters.

"Then who?"

I am for the people of Faerie.

That took a moment to sink in, but Holly saw Mathurin's face light up and realised what he had seen-no more fighting.

Chris dug her in the ribs; and she heard Fletcher's fierce whis-per: "Good!"

"Then there is not to be a battle?"

There is not.

The Harper broke in: "There is more, is there not? The stars be right; as they were uncounted years ago when we asked of you that you lead us here. Lord, an we should ask now that you open the way back to Faerie, what say you to that?"

I say: who asks me? It is a difficult road back. I tell you this for certain sure, either all go, or none at all... There is little magic left in you, sea-people, hill-dwellers; you are each too weak alone. I say, come now before it is too late. There is no room for magic in this world any longer; they will hunt you down and drive you out. Come back now.

Elathan could scarcely speak for anger. "If you only knew all that they have done-!"

"We?" Fiorin spat. "You stealers of children, you roll in the muck with the rest of the beasts-"

"Murderers!"

"Animals!"

"It has gone on too long." Eilunieth, weary. "You see, Lord? Too long and too bitter have we waged this war. There is hatred between us."

"Listen-"

Elathan turned on the Harper. "Be silent!"

"I will not be silent! This is not your decision. And I crave your pardon, my Lord Oberon, my Lady Eilunieth; but it is not for you to say, either."

The crowd hemmed them in. The Harper faced away from the Starlord, in the island of torchlight. Beyond that circle the fog and the dark closed in. He spoke to the hundreds who waited. Holly saw that he too was unarmed.

"It is not for Oberon or Elathan or Tanaquil or Fiorin to say to you, you will do this or you will do that. That is the way of mortal men-and we be of Faerie. All of us, elukoi and morkani both; we are of Faerie, we, who of old were great... You know now that the Lady Tanaquil and I have striven against this fighting for a long time. I have done things it may be were ill done, but I did them in the belief that we are one people. It is for you to prove me liar, or not.

"But I speak not to hill-dweller or sea-born now, I speak to each of you alone. As with you, I was born in this world, I have never seen Faerie. But I want it, I ache for it; it is born in our blood that we want it-is it so with you?"

"Yes!" This from Silverleaf, and a few other scattered voices.

"So I speak to each of you alone. Stay if you wish; fight civil and b.l.o.o.d.y war as puppets of the Abyss; and-yes-one side will win. Which? I know not, and I care not. It will be such a hollow victory as was never seen before between here and the High Stars! Do you know why?

"I will tell you. We are the immortals-but not here! We are the undying-but only in Faerie, not on Earth! Whoever wins this battle, loses; because when they have won there is nothing for them to do but stay here, grow old, and die!"

He's getting to them, Holly thought. Now, Harper- finish it!"We have fought each other, we have killed. Whose fault is that? I say we do not know and it does not matter! It was too long ago that this began to put the blame on any but one, and that one-is Rak-Domnu. There is grievous fault on both sides, elukoi and morkani, there is much to be forgiven. What the elukoi have done to the morkani is not more nor less than that which the morkani have done to the elukoi. I say: let it all be forgot! We may start again. We can go home."

"Aye, aye; forget, you say-forget what murder has been done! My wife, my friend-"

"My sister," Tanaquil put in softly, "Master Elathan, sea-people have died too."

Now must I warn you-the Unicorn, urgent-we are close enough here for Domnu to reach us. If you abandon her, Seahawk, she will fight. We stand in danger.

The Harper glanced seaward, nodded, and turned back to the waiting crowd. He took Tanaquil's hand, and they went to stand by the Unicorn.

"We are for the elukoi, the morkani, for the Lord of Stars against Rak-Domnu. We are for freedom, for immortality, and for Faerie; to free ourselves from the Abyss if we may, and if not, to defy her as long as we can."

"Who is with us?"19 Rak-Domnu Silence; except for the sea's dull roar.

Come on... Holly held her breath, knowing then what Mathurin intended. They had come here to fight and he had cooled their hatred by putting Faerie into their heads; as bright and overwhelming as lightning. Immortality-the sweet reward held before them. Last, for those who still sought war, a common enemy-Domnu. It wouldn't work normally, but there's Fyraire-it must work!

"I forbid this!" Elathan cried in anguish. "I am of the Harper's mind-it is not for you to say. Think you that we wish to grow old and die? Sorry, Master Elathan." Silverleaf walked without faltering to stand with Mathurin. Westwind followed, and after a pause, Hawk-hunter.

A stir. One of the morkani pushed to the front of the crowd. He was tall, olive-haired and greying at the temples; clad in silver fish-mail and carrying a flint-tipped pike. The torchlight sent his shadow monstrously across the churned snow and sand.

"I am with you. Immortality is strong bait."

"Brionis. I might have guessed. You were ever a coward, Brionis. Well, I'll not have even a coward desert me. Get back!"

"Not I. Fiorin."

"I command you-"