They climbed into the saddle and Dapplegrim was away in a rush of air. The walk in the ruins had allowed him some rest, and was able to tear uphill with speed. They passed one thick tangle of bracken and hazel, startling from it a small deer. It was a young fallow hart and it jinked confusedly downhill towards the fog, before turning around and bounding back uphill madly. The deer was running so fast that it was almost keeping pace with them, though it was now a good stone’s throw behind. The fog swelled faster and faster. It curled uphill with uncanny speed, swelling and growing outwards. It had half-filled the valley already, and they were still perhaps as much as a third of the way from the ring of boundary stones.
Dapplegrim ran yet faster. The earth and the air seemed to blur around them.
The boy could barely breath.
Finally, they neared the lip of the valley. Behind them, the fog took on its own desperate speed. It churned up the slope, but then, almost unexpectedly, they were atop the hill and past the line of stones. Dapplegrim stopped, staggering a little from the effort. They all looked back, afraid that the mist would not stop. They watched as the fog swallowed the deer and kept roiling onwards, engulfing the grass and heather and gorse. The fog speed right up to the stones and it certainly seemed it like it would keep moving. But, there at the edge of the valley, it washed to a stop, forming a wall of inscrutable white water droplets, churning and blowing on faint air currents.
They waited a minute, but the deer never emerged. The boy realised that as soon as the beast had been engulfed, the pattering sound of its hooves on the soil had stopped. There were no noises to indicate what might have happened to it. The creature had simply been swallowed up by the fog, and now there was only a thin, wary silence left behind.
“Let’s go,” said Caewen.
They rode along a ridge to a point where the stone road reappeared. They discovered a deep plummeting hole that devoured the wandering stream, and took it deep underground, beneath the ruinous city. On the other side the stream foamed and rushed in the thin, white light of the sun. It seemed that the water must go below ground at the city, and emerge on the other side of the valley of the gathered bones? Maybe there were lakes or rivers underground? Maybe that was where the king and queen of the Ablach lived most of their time? There must have been some sort of caves under the ruins.
They took to the road, and followed the stream. It ran beside them, almost playfully, burbling over the earth’s surface, tumbling over rocks and lazing through mountain pools.
They pressed on, following what was soon an increasingly vague road where it ran along the stream banks. Tussock and cracked earth was claiming the shape of the road, and returning it to wilderness.
Slowly, the ground grew steeper. By late afternoon, they were approaching the feet of the Great Grey Mountain. It rose above them as a solitary peak, high enough and sharp enough to rake the clouds and chip the moon, or so thought the boy. It was dizzying to look at.
The road grew back some of its solidity, and returned to being a set of broad, shallow steps, running uphill. The way became slippery from stream-foam and a passing light rain that left them all damp but not soaked. Though they didn’t dismount, they had to move slower again.
Dapplegrim clambered up one final long set of stairs carved into the solid rock, and at the top they came upon an open space. Ahead of them was a wide flat area where the road took a more level line beside the stream–in the near distance the road struck the bottom of a cliff, and ran up the cliffside, switching back and forth and forming stairs. The stream fell like a white veil from the top of that same cliff and pooled and fell again, making several waterfalls. There must have been space for nests behind the final waterfall because it was just possible to see swallows were flying in and out of the water.
Dapplegrim settled into a rather leisurely trot towards the place where the road started up the cliff, although the boy noticed that Caewen had taken her bow out, and was looking left and right hawkishly. A few low trees shrouded the view in both directions, full of dark glens and hollows. There were plenty of places to hide and wait.
“Warth!” yelled Caewen. “White warth!”
Dapplegrim bolted.
The ghaist had come up out of a dark hollow to their right and it had clearly been lurking in ambush. The pallid thing was close enough that the boy could see her face–young and beautiful– and her long, streaming hair. Her eyes had a terrible grey light in them, but all the same, she was undeniably beautiful: that is, until she threw her head back and gave a keening cry. Then her whole face grew wretchedly thin as she shrieked, as if the effort of screaming tore the substance out of her. Other cries resounded in answer, all around.
Dapplegrim put on more speed.
As they neared the place where the road ran up the cliff, three more of the white women rose out of shadowed hollows and started towards them. They were not far from the foot of the cliff when another of the ghaists shrieked.
Caewen pointed. “They’re atop the cliff. We have to turn back.”
“There’s no going back! Hurm.” Dapplegrim stopped, and wheeled about in place. They were at the bottom of the steps, but with ghostly things atop they cliff, they couldn’t risk dashing headlong into them.
There was another unearthly scream, and another. This startled the swallows that the boy had been watching earlier. A whole flock, twenty or thirty or a hundred, too many to count, burst out from behind the waterfall, chittering madly. The boy realised suddenly what that meant: “The waterfall! The waterfall!”
“What?” said Caewen.
“Huh?” said Dapplegrim.
“Look at all the swallows. There must be a big cave. You said that the dead can’t pass over running water easily. What about passing through running water?”
“That would be very difficult for them, but we might find ourselves trapped in a blind cave,” said Dapplegrim.
“Do it. I’ll work a witching charm to get rid of them if I have to. It’ll buy us time at least.”
They swung away from the foot of the road and made for the stream instead. This seemed to surprise the ghaists, who had been closing in on the road. The boy looked up and caught a glimpse of two dead white faces looking down at them from above with beautiful angry rage. There were more of the ghaists waiting on the stairs as well. They were thoroughly trapped against the cliffside, hemmed from above and below.
Dapplegrim wasn’t desperate enough to leap blind into the tumbling curtain of water. He stopped just in time, and poked his head into it. They heard him say, “Not a cave! A tunnel! Good!” And they lurched through the water, soaked to their skin and sputtering. On the other side they stopped and Caewen got down at once. “They might still break through the water if they are desperate enough.” She fumbled about until she had one of her candles, an oil taper to catch the flame and a flint-and-steel. She worked furiously at it until she had the candle lit, then set it on the ground, jamming it between two loose rocks. The light filled up the mouth of the small cavern rendering eeriness into the splash and mist of the water. She murmured some words in a language that the boy didn’t recognise, and she slumped down to her knees in front of the candle. The candleflame turned bright green and the cave was lit with the glow of it. Caewen’s skin looked bloodless now and drained of all colour in the greenish light.
She gasped several times, then relaxed backwards, loosely.
“It’s alright. It’s alright.” She slumped, sitting hard on the cave floor, head sagging a little. “I cast a warding. Even if they get through the running water, they’ll not pass that until the candle burns down. But we should keep going,” her voice now almost in a whisper. “It won’t burn forever.”
“No. You rest first,” said Dapplegrim, matter of factly. “You shouldn’t be working magics that are beyond you. That was a potent spell. It could as well have killed you as keep them out! Are you mad?”
“I’m harder to kill than that.” She smiled, but the boy thought he could see a speck of blood gathering under one nostril. She had hurt herself with the charm-working. That was clear. She tried to stand and couldn’t.
“Alright. Yes,” she conceded. “I guess we are safe enough, for now.” She murmured her words. “Let’s rest for a bit. That’s a good idea. I can light another candle and then we’ll follow the tunnel. Is it large enough for you, good friend?”
“Yes,” said Dapplegrim, “At least so far as I can see. Another candle is fine, but no more spell-working. None! Hur! You will kill yourself and then I’ll be on my own again. Don’t you ever think of me?”
“Funny old horse,” said Caewen, and her eyelids drooped. She was asleep.
Dapplegrim stamped his front hooves and shook his tail. “Stupid young woman. Stupid.”
Outside there were wailing, keening voices.
“How many are there?” said the boy. He tried to keep the fear out of his voice, but he couldn’t.
“A dozen? More. I don’t know.”
“Why are they hunting us?”
“Who knows. I don’t think they are wild, hungry ghaists though. That’s clear enough. There’s sorcery yoking them and driving them after us, or I’m not half-a-demon. It’s as if they want to stop us reaching the house of the seeress… so that might be a part of it? But who would even know that’s where we are going? We’ve been so secretive.” He shook his head and mane. “Perhaps they don’t know our destination exactly. They might only know we’re sticking our noses into the Winter King’s business, and they don’t like it?”
“You think they might belong to the Winter King? How could he know anything about you and Caewen?”
Dapplegrim made a movement that looked very much like a human shrug. “We’ve been nosing around the Winter King’s doings for some time now. Could be we spoke to spies somewhere without realising it? Maybe Caewen said something incautious in a pub or inn? Maybe someone’s been scrying on us with a magician’s weatherglass? Maybe someone simply noticed us, and wondered what we were up to? After all, Caewen is a young woman armed with an old charmed sword, dressed up in armour and riding a half-demonic talking horse. One supposes we probably draw attention, now and then.”
“One supposes,” said the boy.