XXXVI: Closing a Gate
“I still don’t understand,” said Will Scathelock. “How do we know where this ring will appear?” In the dark, the outlaw camp of the Foukes lay a short distance behind them. The cooked pork scent still lingered.
Thomas paused to draw the pouch from around his neck. He took out the ördstone. “This will tell us.” Its blue gems glittered, their light edging Will, glistening in his wide eyes. “At least, I hope so. In Barnsdale Wood it led us straight to a spot John had seen. Let’s see how it works here. If they haven’t given up their terrorizing, it shouldn’t be long now.”
Will still stared, goggle-eyed. “What is that?”
“It’s called an ördstone. It’s how the Yvag slice open our world and step through from theirs.” He laid the stone on his palm, then slowly swept his arm across his body. At three different points in the arc, the stone emitted a whisper of a filament. The first and the third were insubstantial as smoke and extended farther than they could see among the trees. The middle line of gossamer ran straight to a point not far from them. The blue line there appeared to spread out like a spiderweb or a ball of mist, its surface rippling, pulsing.
“That is where the nearest gate will open. I suspect, should we follow the other two lines, they’d lead us to two others more distant. Let’s hope this one opens first.”
“You know, when you speak of their world, these elves, you’re like someone sharing stories of the Sidhe or the Fomóire.”
Thomas closed his hand over the stone and dropped it back into the pouch. “I imagine those stories are all about these same creatures. The stone can cut an opening in the side of a hill or in the air—anywhere you like really—but it seems that spots where their gates open repeatedly become weaker, like a door whose hinges are wearing out.”
As he spoke he took his bow in hand and drew three arrows. Will grabbed his bow and laid an arrow across it.
“There’s a tree just there you can stand behind.” He took a few steps away until he was standing behind a bush that came up above his waist. “Two things to remember. First, their armor can be almost impervious to our arrows. It offers small targets so try to aim for points where they aren’t covered.”
“And the other?”
“When they step across, some of them will likely have those clever swords of theirs, so be prepared to dive aside if they point anything at you. For all we know, those blades can pass right through trees.”
“You might have told me all that earlier so I could say no!”
Even as he objected, a spot in the darkness flared bright green, so bright it was painful to look at. The spot sank toward the ground on a diagonal, leaving behind it a duller green line that unfolded into two, curving, as the spot reached the ground, into a large circle that simply hovered in the air.
Thomas drew his bow. “Let them come all the way out,” he whispered.
Two foot soldiers emerged, their black articulated armor reflecting the green fire and the reddish darkness at their backs. Behind them, another two knights on black steeds were visible.
The first rider came out of the ring.
“Now,” Thomas said, and let fly with his first arrow. He struck the knight in the helm. The arrow stuck partway. The material flexed and withdrew, but with the arrow attached, its point cutting a line straight back over the creature’s skull. Black blood flowed in a sheet down its face. It wiped fiercely at the blood and grabbed for its sword.
Will’s arrow had hit its mark, puncturing a foot soldier’s throat. That knight stumbled back into the ring, hung for a moment upon the threshold, and then fell backward into the red-eyed black beast behind it, which stopped to let the body fall before proceeding around it. Thomas shot a second arrow at the remaining foot soldier. It went straight through its silvery white hair, penetrating from side to side. The Yvag dropped. Will fired at the second mounted knight, flummoxed when his arrow hit the threshold and seemed to hover in the air a moment before flying on. The knight caught it in one gloved hand, and kicked its mount into a gallop, charging. It flung the arrow away and reached for a sword at its hip. It did not seem to recognize that there were two enemies aimed at it.
Thomas tracked it carefully, and as the knight aimed the sword and Will dove behind the tree, Thomas shot the knight through the skull. The punch of the arrow knocked the creature sideways out of its saddle. The sword blade jumped, striking nothing before it returned, by which time it was falling from the knight’s grasp. The charging beast slammed its rider against the tree behind which Will crouched. The knight landed so hard that the ground seemed to shiver.
There was movement inside the gate. Another figure in black ran forward, knelt, and hastily sealed up the ring. Thomas watched in silence. The Yvag’s abandoned black mount stood as still as a statue, its form skeletal and only suggestive of a horse. The red eyes focused on Thomas. He drew his ördstone again to let the blue jewels guide him in the darkness. The gossamer line shot out into the depths of the woods again, but he wasn’t interested now in chasing the openings. He knelt beside the slain knight, and dug around in its flexible armor until he found its ördstone. As Will walked over, he held it out. “Here,” he said. “With this you can control that beast as well as cut open the world.”
Scathelock eyed the monster askance. “Why would I ever want to do either?”
“Point taken,” he answered, and withdrew the offered stone.
“I wouldn’t mind a suit of that armor, though.”
Without a word, Thomas rolled the body over and began stripping the flexible material off the Yvag. Will knelt to assist, but then sat back on his haunches as more and more of the creature’s physiognomy was exposed.
“Gills like some giant fish? Talons. And those legs—it looks as if it could spring into a treetop. The armor makes them all seem—what should I say?—normal.”
“They are anything but normal.” Thomas handed the armor to Will, who expressed amazement at its lightness.
They could climb up on the beast and pursue the other openings hinted at by the ördstone, or just take the mount back to the paddock. Thomas recalled the one he’d ridden out of Ailfion upon his first escape. It had proved to be surprisingly tractable. In the end he’d sent it through the Old Melrose gate to the elves before departing Ercildoun. Perhaps he should do the same with this one. An abandoned riderless steed certainly sent a message. For now, he concentrated, and the beast became a white stallion. Will Scathelock gasped.
By the lights of the ördstone, Thomas walked around, collecting his arrows that had remained on this side of the gate. He would need to acquire more of them soon. He wondered if there might be a fletcher in Clipstone or Edwinstowe. Otherwise, he must pay a visit to Mansfield. The need for arrows was about to become pressing.
With the Yvag sword, he decapitated each gray body. None of these were coming back to life to torture and kill someone else. He collected the ördstones of each as well, intending to sink them all in the pond.
From the armor of another corpse, he removed a sheathed dagger and gave that to Will Scathelock, laid the armor across the beast’s saddle. “For that you might find a use,” he said. “Especially as it clips into the armor.”
Will accepted it without comment.
They walked the riderless beast back through the woods. He thought he glimpsed Fouke III standing very still against the brambles and watching as they passed by. He suspected the lad had witnessed a good part of the fight. Whether or not the Foukes would join their cause, he would have to wait and see.