They climbed down, then hid behind a gnarled scrub of old blackthorns. Dapplegrim got down on his haunches, as low as he could. He looked rather comically like a very big dog trying to hide against the ground. He shuffled forward a bit, and was just able to crawl beneath the clustered shadow of the leaves, then lay there, blinking and snorting softly.
Caewen was focused on the road above them. Her eyes were intent. “There,” she whispered. There seemed to be a person–or something that looked like a person–walking along the wild track above. It moved in silence.
The boy leaned forward to see better–it was a tall thin figure in white, a woman with a tattered cloak around her shoulders. Her features were so pale, almost translucent, that the whole of her hair and skin and wind-fluttering clothing looked the same chalky colour. Though the expression of her face was difficult to see clearly, there was a feeling of overwhelming sadness, coldness and fear all about her. “What is she?” he said, voice low.
Caewen only shook her head and frowned as if to say: I don’t know.
The white-cloaked woman seemed to be looking around, as if searching for something. But after a few seconds passed she gave up, threw her head back and keened as if she were grief-struck. It was the most sad, miserable sound the boy had ever heard. He felt himself wanting to go up to her and reach for her–to comfort her–just hearing it. And yet, at the same moment, every fibre of his bone and gut told him that to touch her would not go well for him.
As the woman’s voice dwindled, and echoed around the rocky walls of the mountains two or maybe three other voices arose in wailing keens to answer.
His voice was a bare whisper as he spoke. “There’s a whole gang of them.” He was terrified that the woman was going to walk–or in his mind he imagined her gliding on the air–towards them down the slope, but she didn’t. She turned and moved away. Though she didn’t seem to actually flit through the air, her movements were waterlike, almost flowing in a way that things of clayey flesh ought not move.
“I think we should keep on downhill and find a track through the trees and scrub at the bottom of the cliffs. We can find a path out of the gully at the far end, and make our way to the House of the Seeress from there. I don’t think we want to be out in the open. Not with those things about.”
“Agreed,” said Dapplegrim. “And there might be running water at the bottom of the valley, too. That might help. Things that are dead do not like to cross running water. It reminds them too much of flowing blood and life. Hurm.”
“You think they are restless spirits?”
“Hur. Yes. Something of that kin.”
“Are they keening ghaists?” asked the boy.
“Banshee?” Caewen shrugged. “Maybe. Or some manner of enspelled spirit sent out of Sortheland to spy? A native ghaist haunting these hills? A dwindled power or earth-goddess? I don’t know. We should avoid them whatever they are. They’ve an ill boding to them. Nothing that gives off such a lifeless chill is good for the living.”
They didn’t remount Dapplegrim because of the sheer slopes, the muddy, crumbling scree and the slippery rock. Caewen lead, the boy picked a way after her, and Dapplegrim followed them both. After several long hard hours of descent they entered a thick canopy of pines and the ground turned to a matted carpet of brown needles. It was less steep here, so that although the ground wasn’t much more solid, putting a foot wrong became less dangerous. The air was resinous, bright-smelling and tacky from pine-gum.
After following the slope of the ground for a while they heard the rush and foaming of a river, and were able to close in on this. This was how they found the hidden road that ran along the streamside. It was narrow, but paved with fitted pieces of slate, and had enough clear space on either side that it was not completely buried under brown pine-needles.
As they stood at the road’s edge, Aneself drank in the thick smell of the pine resin.
“We can follow this,” said Caewen. “It leads roughly in the right direction.”
“I don’t know if I like the ‘roughly’ in those words,” said Dapplegrim, but he shook his mane and added, “Well, you might as well get up on my back again and ride. The way is flat enough.” He paused then, and sniffed the road. “This road is dweough-work, though it hasn’t been used in years, by the smell of it. Centuries, maybe.” He looked up, and peered along it. “I wonder where it leads? I’ve never heard of any dweough houses or holds hereabouts.”
They climbed into the saddle and Dapplegrim started walking. Although the weird horse could run much faster than a slow walk, the path was twisting and turning, and often crossed the little torrent of a river so that it was wet with spray. The boy guessed it would have been dangerous to gallop.
Caewen remained alert despite the smudges of dark forming under her eyes from tiredness. She kept fingering the arrow-feathers in the quiver she kept on the saddle, or testing the draw of her sword, and looking left and right, up and down the steep valley sides. Before long they were passing through a landscape of decayed bridges, dark holes and gloomy holloways. Along one stretch of the path, the road rose up a little and there was a thick, twisted swamp of thrawn-hazel on either side. The boy was watching a swamp-wren singing, perched on one thin branch, when he saw something else moving in the dim light beyond. A light, like a bright red ember lit up, and then another and another joined it. He looked about and saw they were on the other side too. As he watched them, he found himself growing oddly curious, wanting to go see what they were. There even seemed to be shadowy-shapes moving behind the lights. “What are they?” he said at last.
Caewen and Dapplegrim had also noticed the lights and were watching them warily.
“Just gobelin-gledes,” said Caewen. “Best not to look at them. They’ll only lead you astray and get you lost.”
“Hur,” said Dapplegrim. “If they found you asleep beside their swamp they’d do worse than just lead you astray.”
“True enough. We should keep moving and we shouldn’t camp near here. That’s certain.”
“This is an uncanny land,” said the boy, almost to himself, hunching his shoulders in as he did. “Are there no villages or towns? No people?”
Caewen frowned. “A few people, but they are lonely sorts, woodsmen or herb-witches who like to live by themselves. There were towns once, but they were raided so often and so badly by the Sorthelandfolk that the people fled south. Your little home village must be one of the last farmed places between Daggens Cross and the Gates of the Dragon Rocks.”
“That’s the southern boundary of Sortheland? The Dragon Gates?”
“Aye. That’s right.”
The road climbed out of the murky swampland, and they left the fiery wildlights behind them. After some time longer they found a place where there were moss-grown heaps of rocks on the ground and a few remnant walls standing. The sun was just visible over the peaks of the mountains to their west, but it was only a circlet of red-hot light and it would soon be dusk, then dark.
Caewen looked about the green mounds as they passed among the ruins. “This place was a village once. If folk thought it was safe enough to live here, we’re probably far enough from the walking-lights to make a camp.”
“Unless the gobelin-gledes moved in lately,” said Dapplegrim. “Unless they forced the villagers out…”
“We’ll have to take that chance. We need to make a fire, set up a bit of our canvas for cover maybe. We can’t do that in the dark.”
They dismounted. The boy found that he had to walk around to get some feeling back into his legs and rump-end. He’d never ridden before. It was surprising how tiring it was, and how sore he felt. He wandered about and found some old apple trees at the far end of the village. They still had some withered, dried-out apples on them, so he climbed the trees and took a few. Out of childhood habit he asked the apple tree’s permission first, and although it was a silly little ritual, here in this weird place he half-imagined the trees might actually reply. They didn’t, so he took that as a sign that they were not in fact witched trees or talking trees–if such things existed–and he took a big armful of apples, then wandered back.
“Are those fruit?” said Dapplegrim when Aneself returned. The saddle was off, and Caewen was brushing him down.
“Yes? Do you eat apples?”
“Half of me is horse through and through,” said Dapplegrim. “I like a bit of apple as much as I like a bit of meat. Hur.”
“You are a very strange and worrying creature,” replied the boy as he held out some fruit. “I mean that only in the friendliest way of course.”
“Of course,” said Dapplegrim as he munched on a handful of shrivelled apples. “Delicious.”