Under Camelot's Banner (41 page)

Sorrow.

It rode the wind, thick and choking. It came down in the soft rain and soaked through her skin, until Lynet could barely draw breath.

There were shapes in the mists. No. She looked again. The mist formed the shapes — the white women in their gowns of pale grey. Here in the world of flesh, what little color they had was gone. Their unbound hair was white and hung loose down to their feet. The daughters of the moor came forth from the fog as a great and solemn parade of beauties with the sorrowful wind blowing before them. Some of them carried torches that flickered white in the white world that cut them off from all creation. At the end of their slow, sad procession came the one who had taken the oath from Gareth and given him her kiss in return. Lynet knew her by the plain band binding her ivory brow. She held a sword in her perfect hands now. Its blade was dove-grey and the milky lights of the torches played along its length.

The dogs paced beside them. Of all this ghostly procession, only the beasts had color. They were solid black. The water beaded on their coarse fur and bristling hackles and the mists swirled reflected in their bright eyes.

You must stand yourself between him and the daughters. Gareth is sworn first to you, and as long as you do not release him, they cannot take him.

Lynet rose from her knees. She swallowed hard against the lump that filled her throat and blinked back her tears. She rounded the stone, putting her back to Gareth so that she faced the moorland's daughters and their black hounds.

One of the lead dogs growled a warning, and the daughters halted their stately progress. Only then did the sword-bearer look toward Lynet. Her eyes were as hollow and indistinct as they had been when Lynet saw them in the mirror, and yet that gaze seemed to pin her down with its weight. The sorrow grew still more keen, as if this woman breathed it out from herself.

Frozen, frightened, and with anger swelling inside her, Lynet drew herself up to her full height. With an effort, she shook the sorrow off. She knew the touch of such feelings by now. She knew they could be taken up or allowed to pass. She would not let it distract her.

“I am Lynet of Cambryn,” she declared. “Daughter of the Lady Morwenna of the sea. I am come to take this man back to his people.”

A low, rippling growl passed among the hounds. One stepped forward, baring its white teeth as it pressed next to the woman who carried the sword. She did not make a move or speak a word to control the animal.

The man is ours.

The words sounded within her thoughts rather than in her ears, passing straight to the center of her in the same the way that the sadness did.

“He is not yours. He belongs to his own people who search for him even now.”

The sword bearer did not stir, but the shadows hiding her eyes deepened and the sorrows grew stronger, turned colder.
He made his vow to us.

Lynet remained unmoved. “He made his vow to me first. I have the prior claim.”

He gave his word willingly.

It cannot be I must stand here and argue over Gareth like a fish at market,
Lynet thought, half-despairing, half ready to laugh at the absurdity of it. But that thought led to one other. An argument at market led to a bargain, but many such a bargainer resorted to deception.

“You lied to him,” she assayed this softly. It was a guess and nothing more. But when the sword-bearer made no answer to this, and Lynet felt a spark of triumph catch. “You did. Whatever you said to him, you lied.” For the first time that whole cold, shrouded morning, Lynet felt herself smile. “A vow made to falsehood cannot bind. The only reason you can hold him is that you have made him too weak to move.”

The woman stepped forward. She was fully as tall as Lynet. Her face was lean and sharp, as distinctly formed as the sword she carried, and Lynet still could not see her eyes.

Do not do this thing, sister. Do not invite death where it is not needed. The man has given his life freely.

Lynet did not back away. She stood against the voice in her mind, against this strange woman with her shadowed eyes, and all her sisters and the great black dogs crowding close to those silent maidens and she knew down to her marrow she was right. “I am no sister of yours,” she said. “I am a steward's daughter. What you may be I know not, but I know the law. If you lied, he was coerced and you may not justly claim him, and you did
lie
!” The last word burst from her as a shout.

One of the black dogs barked, a single commanding noise, and the woman before Lynet flinched. Lynet frowned, confused. The dog growled, and the sword-bearer's perfect face grew taught.

Do not make us take you as well,
she repeated and a new note sounded in her voice.

Fear.

On instinct alone, Lynet lifted her hand. She passed it between them, the gesture she had seen Ryol make so many times to change and wipe away the shadows of his garden.

Let me see you,
she willed the woman before her.
Let me truly see you.

For a moment, the veil cleared. For a single heartbeat, Lynet looked into the sword-bearer's eyes. They were pale blue and ancient, and exhausted from looking out on all those years without rest or respite. Those eyes were wracked with a sorrow that cut so deeply Lynet could not begin to comprehend it. The sorrow she felt around her was but the smallest fraction of what was contained within this pale lady.

In that moment she understood these were not like the sea-women. These were not the free and heartless fae. They had no wish to make this sacrifice. They were trapped here, even as Gareth was. For how long, for how many lifetimes, it was impossible to say, nor was it possible to guess how much blood they had shed.

“God forgive you,” she whispered. “Whatever your sins. God and Mary and Jesus Christ grant you rest, but I cannot let you pass.”

She had the briefest hope the holy names would bring some aid or succor, but the veil closed again over the woman's ravaged eyes, and once more a dog barked. The beast nearest to Lynet raised its hackles impatiently, and the low growl it gave trembled through the earth.

Belatedly, the true source of her danger finally becoming clear to Lynet.

They will be able to touch you, but not hold you,
Ryol said.
You are stronger than they.
But he had spoken of the daughters of the mist, not their great dogs. They were living creatures, massive and fierce and she stood there with nothing but her bare hands.

The nearest dog bared its teeth and stepped forward another pace.

Bow down,
said the sword-bearer.
Bow down and accept judgment for interrupting the holy rite.

The sorrow blew away on the wind and in its place came outrage, towering and terrible. Lynet was small and alone, weak and far from home. She was an ignorant child who knew nothing and could know nothing of the glory she had challenged, of the importance of what the man behind her did.

Lynet felt it all, and she trembled, and she let it pass. But it would not do to let these maidens, and their masters know that. So, she forced her tremors to grow, and bowed her head as if in the gravest of shame. She made her hands shake and slowly, she knelt onto the sodden ground.

The very air around her sang. She did right. Surrender was the only right course. The sword-bearer came another step closer, to accept her surrender and bring relief to her for her repentance.

In a single, swift motion, Lynet leapt to her feet and snatched the sword from those white hands. The hilt was solid and heavy. Holding the gleaming silver blade in front of her, she backed away until she felt Gareth's stone at her heels.

“Hear me,” she said, her heart beating so hard it caused her hands to shake. “None of you shall pass here.”

The lead hound lifted its head and howled. In answer, the daughters wailed. It was a sound like the ending of the world. It beat against Lynet, robbing her of breath and sense. The daughters surged forward, throwing themselves against her, battering her with sorrow and the terrible, terrible sound of their weeping. She could barely feel their blows but the confusion of their crowding, the deafening noise of their weeping threatened to bear her down.

You are stronger than they. You are stone.

Gritting her teeth, Lynet moved. She shoved her way forward and all the maidens fell back until she face the lead hound in front of her. The creature snarled, unleashing a burst of fear, and Lynet raised the sword, and swung it down onto the dog's neck.

The blade jarred her arms as it contacted flesh and bone with a strangely dull thud. All other sound ceased to be.

The hound gave a rough bark that sounded disconcertingly like laughter and fell back until it stood beside its fellows. The entire pack faced her now, all burning eyes and white fangs and the maidens cowered behind them.

The dogs began to stalk forward, coming together in a mass. Lynet retreated, circling to draw them off Gareth. They wanted her. They would come toward her. She must hold them off somehow, lead them away, give him a chance to come to himself. She could not even see him anymore, but she had no time to spare a thought for that. She must not be distracted from the pack.

The dogs came on, each pressing as close to his fellow to make a solid wall. Then, one-by-one, like inky shadows they melded into one another. Each remaining beast stretched and reformed as their flanks swallowed their fellows until there were only two the size of black elkhounds, grinning at her from their wide muzzles. Then in an impossible blurring of flesh, there was only one hulking, swollen monster towering over her. It no longer looked like a hound. This was a massive black bear, with a bear's clawed paws and heavy shoulders and blazing, beady eyes.

Absurdly, Lynet wished Colan were here. He knew how to hunt the bear. Holding the sword up and out before her, she retreated but her feet banged against the great stone behind her.

The demon bear before her gave a chuckling growl and lowered its head heavy head. Its teeth still gleamed as white as the mists, as white as the skin of the maidens behind it, and slowly, leisurely, ambled toward Lynet and her stolen blade.

“Hey!” cried another voice. “Hey!”

Gareth?

She'd forgotten Gareth as she faced the final monster, but Gareth had not forgotten himself. He had come to, as she hoped. He had at some moment gotten himself to his feet.

He had also circled behind the monster, and now he waved his arms, as ridiculous as any boy trying to chase a pig from the garden.

“Hey! You great black puppy! What are you doing there?” He reached down and grabbed up a muddy stone. “Are you only strong enough to attack a woman? Puppy! Coward!” He tossed the feeble missile at the monster. It thumped faintly against its pelt. “Face a man if you want a fight!” He scooped up more dirt clods and a handful of pebbles and hurled them to smack and clatter against the beast's muzzle. “Where's your bitch of a dam, puppy! Maybe she can fight! Where're your teeth?”

The monster snapped at the air, bristling and swelling to twice its size. Gareth dodged, putting a listing boulder between himself and the demon, but there were none big enough to shelter him, and for all the monster no longer heeded Lynet and the sword, his vulnerable throat and heart now faced Gareth. The sword shook in Lynet's hands.

You are stronger than they … But he meant the maidens. Did he? He did not say that.

“Come on, puppy!” cried Gareth. The tremor in his voice drove Lynet into action.

Lynet lunged. Her movement caught the monster's eye. It whirled around, and hurled itself forward, its fanged maw blocking out all other sights. Lynet brought up the blade and thrust it down the monster's throat. Its teeth grazed her arms as it jerked itself backwards, gagging and choking and ripped itself from off the sword, nearly tearing the blade from her hands, but Lynet hung on for grim life. She stumbled backward. The monster staggered after her, blood pouring from its muzzle, but it still did not fall. Gareth — she could see Gareth again — rounded the creature until he reached her side, and could take the sword that now dangled limp in her hands. He was still sickly white, and shaking at least as badly as she was. The beast clawed the ground and swung its body back and forth. Gareth lifted the sword so he held it by the hilts and the weapon made the shape of the cross before him. She thought he whispered the holy names as he drove the blade down into the monster's neck. More blood, an impossible fountain of blood, spurted up to the sky as if to color the mists themselves scarlet.

Finally, finally, the beast collapsed onto the waterlogged ground, and died.

Gareth took two trembling steps backwards. Lynet lurched forward two more so that they stood side-by-side.

As they stood, shaking and panting, fearing that the thing before them might move again, a new sound broke across their awareness. A wordless cry lifted up but not of horror this time. This shout was of unspeakable gladness. Lynet raised her blurring eyes and saw the daughters of the moor once more. They shone now, so white that to look at them was like looking at the sun. All of them lifted their hands to the heavens, the sound from their throats a single reverberating note of joy.

And they were gone, gone all of an instant, and Lynet knew without question that they were free, each and every one of them.

Lynet looked up into Gareth's face, and incredibly, not only did Gareth smile at her, but Lynet felt herself smile in return. Around them, the mists all melted away, and they could plainly see the honest shape of the world and how the land behind rose toward the height where the camp waited for them.

Gareth reached out his free hand and Lynet took it gratefully. But they could do no more. Slowly, almost gracefully, they collapsed together beside the hulking carcass of the monster they had slain. Blessed darkness took hold of Lynet then and she fell into it as easily as if Ryol waited at the end.