Andre Norton - Web of the Witch World

• Название: Web of the Witch World
• Автор: Andre Norton
• Жанр: Фэнтези

---

“Simon!”

He did not need Jaelithe’s alerting whisper for he had seen that movement behind a ruined wall. Something alive, large enough to be formidable, perhaps on the stalk, was moving in the general direction of the hideout Jaelithe’s hand went to her belt where sword and knife still hung. Simon looked for the weapon he had found on the floor.

Its similarity to a rifle, in spite of its light weight, made him consider it seriously. But the narrow opening in the barrel puzzled him—too small to emit even the needle darts of the Estcarpian sidearms. What had been the purpose of that slender tube? Simon held it in firing position. There was no trigger, merely a flat button. And, without believing there would be any result, Simon pressed that.

The bush on which he had sighted the alien weapon shivered, rain water shaking from the leaves. The whole plant quivered and it continued to quiver while Simon watched, hardly believing what he saw. Now the limbs bent earthward, the growth was withering, the leaves shriveling up, the stems twisting visibly. He heard a gasp from Jaelithe as the mass was at last still, a seared and wrinkled lump on the ground. There had been no sound, no visible ray—nothing, save that result of his firing the alien gun.

“Simon! Something coming—” Jaelithe looked beyond the withered bush.

He could see nothing; but feeling—that was different The sense of danger grew acute. Her hand touched the arm which still supported the weapon.

“Be ready.” On the words came another sound from her throat, low—no words—just a murmur.

Cover—three good patches of cover out there. Whatever lurked could hide in all or any. Jaelithe’s purring call was louder. He had once seen her spill a Kolder ambush out of hiding; was she trying the same tactics now?

The alert in him was reaching a climax. Then—From all three covers they came, running silently. One from behind a wall, another from a thick brush, the last from behind a half-fallen building. They were men—or, Simon corrected that as they came into plain sight—they had the general appearance of men. Rags of clothing still covered parts of their bodies, but that only added to the horror, rather than made them more human. For those bodies were thin, arms and legs showing as bone covered with skin, no flesh or muscle underneath. The heads they held high on stick necks were skulls. It was as if the ruins had given up the long dead to stalk the living.

Simon swung up the alien rifle, swept it across that trio. For some heart-choking seconds he thought that the first firing had exhausted whatever strange ammunition that weapon held. Then they halted their silent rush, stumbling only a step or two farther. Their bodies jerked as the bush had quivered.

They were no longer silent, instead there came a thin, high, squealing unlike any human speech, as they jerked and danced, until they toppled to lie still. Simon fought down the nausea which was a bitter taste in his mouth. He heard Jaelithe cry out, and he put his arm about her, drawing her close so they clung together.

“So—”

Both of them were startled by the voice from behind. Aldis, on her feet, one hand steadying her against the cracked wall, came to the door of the building. The smile on her face, as she looked out at the row of doubly dead added to Simon’s sickness. It accepted that scene and was pleased by it.

“They still live then—the last garrison?” She paid no attention to either Jaelithe or Simon; they might not have existed. “Well, their vigil is about to end.”

Jaelithe moved out of Simon’s hold. “Who were these?” She asked in a voice which demanded an answer.

Aldis did not turn her head. Still smiling, she continued to study the dead.

“The garrison—those left to hold the last barrier. Of course, they did not know that that was their only duty—just to hold while the Command reached safety. They believed, poor fools, that it was only a withdrawal to re-form, that help would reach them. But the Command had other problems.” She laughed. “However, this is a surprise for the Masters, for it seems they have held longer than was expected.”

How could she know all this? Aldis was not Kolder born. In fact, as far as any knew, there were no women at all among the Kolder. But somehow Simon did not doubt that it had happened just as she said. Jaelithe made a small gesture with her hand as a scout might wave caution.

“There are more—”

Again he did not need her warning. The sense of danger had not greatly lessened. But he could sight no movement about the stretch of open ground before them. And this time Jaelithe did not strive to bring them out. Instead, she turned to gaze at the cut from which they had climbed.

“They gather—but not against us—”

There was a sound from Aldis—not a laugh, but a titter which scaled past the bounds of sanity.

“Oh, they wait,” she agreed. “They have waited, a long time they have waited. And now come those who would hunt for us—only there will be a second hunt.” Again that titter which was worse than any cry of pain or terror.

But what she said was not insane; it made sense. The Kolder could be coming through the gate to hunt for the three of them. And these—these things—which lingered here were gathering to meet them. Did the Kolder know what they faced?

Simon gave a hasty glance along the edge of the drop. To go out might make them the quarry for those who were moving in. but only so could they see the gate in action. And the nagging fear which had ridden him since they had crashed through had been that return might be denied.

There was a solid-looking base out there, perhaps it had once supported a superstructure of which only a single rod pointing skyward remained. With their backs to that base they would have a vantage point from which to watch the gate. Cradling the rifle in his arm, Simon caught at Aldis and pulled her along, Jaelithe following fleetly.

What Simon had believed during the storm to be a stream bed now showed as the remnants of a paved road, half covered by falls of debris from the heights. A stream still ran down its middle. A little to the right of their present stand, but down on the level of the road, the wall of the cut, on either side, had blocks of green metal set as pillars.

“The gate,” Simon said.

“And its defenders,” Jaelithe added in a half whisper. Those were to be seen now, moving along the cut. For all their unearthly, unhuman aspect, they were setting up an ambush with the cunning of intelligence, or what had been born from intelligence which had once existed. Here and there Simon marked such weapons as the one he held in his own hands.

“They are coming through!”

There was no change in the metal pillars, no sign that the gate was in use, until those men suddenly appeared as if from the air itself. Possessed fighting men, yet they showed caution as they fanned out, moved up the break. There was no hint from those in hiding. And the controlled warriors of the Kolder advanced without facing attack. A full company of them came through, were well along the cut from which every sign of those in ambush had vanished. Now the nose of one of the crawlers appeared, followed by the rest of its ponderously moving bulk. One of the possessed at the controls, but beside him a Kolder agent.

Around, from below, from across the cut, Simon sensed that upsurge—an emotion in the air, dark and heavy. “They hate—” Jaelithe whispered. “How they hate!”

“They hate,” Aldis mimicked her tone. “But still they wait. They have learned to wait, for that is what they have lived to do.”

A second truck crawled out of nothingness. Now the invaders’ foot force was well down the old road. This second vehicle had a larger cabin on its body, the top of which was a transparent dome. And in that sat true Kolder, two of them—one wearing a metal cap.

The smoldering cloud of emotion was so strong now Simon expected it to rise as a visible fog. But still those in ambush made no move. A smaller party of possessed, marched stolidly along—labor ready for the need.

Then—nothing more.

“Now!”

Sound, lower than thunder but with a bestial hate which made it one with elements, which owed nothing to intelligence or human understanding. The fury which had been building boiled into action as the possessed shivered, jerked, fell.

There was not enough room in the cut for the trucks to turn. But the one bearing the Kolder officers reversed, crawled backward, so that the possessed who followed it were crushed and broken beneath its treads. Then the driver jerked and quivered in turn. He fell out of sight in the cabin, yet still the truck retreated, or strove to withdraw, though its backward run was now far more unsteady. At last it crashed into one of the piles of debris and slowly tilted, as the treads clawed vainly to keep it upright.

The Kolder wearing the cap had not moved, even his eyes remained closed. Perhaps it was his will which had kept the truck going, even protected him and his fellows now as neither seemed affected by the attack which withered and slew those about them.

His companion turned his head from side to side, studying the route. But no expression Simon could read crossed his white face.

“They have what they want now,” Aldis again with that tittering laugh. “They have caught a Master to give them a key to the gate.”

They had come out of hiding, those skeletons—the bait of the Kolders drawing them free of caution. Many of them were bare-handed as they swarmed about the truck, strove to climb to the bubble-topped cabin.

Mewling cries—half that company fell back, their bodies blackened, their limbs moving spasmodically. But still more gathered, not quite as unwary now. Until several came together, bearing with them a loop of metallic chain. Three flings before it fell into position about the bubble. Then fire ran around it in a spitting line. When that was pulled away and they climbed again, there was no trouble. The bubble shattered and they were at their prey.

Jaelithe covered her eyes. She had seen the sacking of cities and the things done in Karsten when the Old Race had been horned into outlawry. But this was something she could not watch.

“Only one—” Aldis babbled, “he must be saved for the key—they must have their key!”

The metal-capped Kolder hung limply in his captors’ clutches, his eyes still closed. The skeletons were gathering along the cut, to form up as a grotesque demon army behind that captive and those who held him. There were the alien rifles among them, but others had armed themselves with the weapons of the possessed. And their hate was still high and hot. Then, holding the Kolder to the fore, they marched, as if a forgotten training was revived in their union of purpose—for the gate.

Simon moved as the first of them stepped between the pillars and vanished. The Kolder—now these—what evil would be loosed in the world he had come to consider his own?

“Yes, oh, yes!” Jaelithe cried. “A wind, then a whirlwind—and we must face the storm!”

18 KOLDER BESIEGED

ONLY THE DEAD lay in the cut, that sense of alien presence had accompanied that sinister army through the gate. How many had been in that force? Fifty. A hundred? Simon had not counted them, but he believed not over a hundred. And what could so few do against the entrenched might beyond? This was not to be a matter of laying an ambush.

But the Kolder should be too occupied now to remember the fugitives, and this was the time to return with the force before them.

“We go back—”

Aldis gave one of those eerie, tittering laughs. She had crept away from them, was moving along the edge of the ravine, looking at them over her shoulder, a sly grin on her lips. Almost she was coming to resemble the skeletal inhabitants of this land. The last vestiges of beauty had been bleached from her.

“How will you go?” she called. “Door without key, door you cannot batter down. How do you go, mighty warrior and lady witch?”

She was running in a zigzag, fleetly, back into the waste.

“After her!” Jaelithe scrambled by him. “Do you not see? That talisman—it is the key—for her—for us!”

If she were right—Simon followed. Light as it was to carry, the alien rifle was an awkward burden as they smashed through brush. But he clung to it. In spite of the veil of vegetation growing over the debris of the buildings, the ruins were impressive. This had been, if not a city, a fort or settlement of some size. And the number of hiding places among the broken walls were beyond counting. As he and Jaelithe burst into an open space, Simon stopped her with an outthrust arm.

“Where?” He made the one word into a demand and saw her gaze about with dawning comprehension. “She might be within arm’s distance or well away, but where?” He hammered home the hopelessness of their unthinking pursuit. This warren of ruins was made for endless hide and seek.

Jaelithe raised her hands and cupped them over her eyes, standing very still while her breathing quieted. Simon did not quite know what she would do, but in confidence he waited. She pivoted, part way around, and then dropped her hands to point.

“Thus!”

“How do—?”

“How do I know? By what is not there—Kolder barrier—and she wears the Kolder talisman.”

A thin clue—there could be other Kolder traces in this land. But it was the only one they had. Simon nodded and accepted her guidance. It was a crooked path Jaelithe set them, and it bored on into the mass of ruins away from the cleft. Simon marked a back trail as they went, blazing growths, or scratching stones. But the time this chase was taking he regretted.

They came out on a large paved space, ringed by buildings in a better state of repair than those nearer the cut. There was a different look to these structures—not quite the sealed appearance of the Kolder holds, yet with some of their stark rigidity of design. Grace and beauty in the sense his world knew them, Jaelithe’s people held, were totally foreign to the minds which had conceived and built these. And any one of them might provide Aldis with numerous hiding places.

“Where?” Simon asked.

Jaelithe put her hand on the top of a low wall which ran about that open space. Her breath came fast and the dark finger marks of fatigue under her eyes were plain.

They had drunk their fill of rain water in the storm, but there had been no food for a long time. Simon doubted if they could hold this pace much longer. And now Jaelithe shook her head slowly.

“I do . . . not . . . know. It has gone from me—” Her hurried breaths were close to sobs. Simon caught her, drew her against him, and she came willingly as if very grateful for his strength, his touch which held comfort.

“Listen,” he spoke softly, “do you think you could sing her out, as you did in those in ambush?”

“We must. We must!” Her voice was a husky whisper with an element of hysteria in it.

“And we can! Remember once—back in Kars when there was need of shape-changing and you said that you would call upon me for that which you needed to make the ceremony a swift one? Now it will be the same: call upon me for what you need.”