“Ha, now, where’s the little man?” asked Carahue. “Did he run?”

  “Nay.” It was only a whisper, the remnant of a bass growl. “Nay, I gave what I got.”

  Alianora shrieked and ran over to Hugi. He was lying on the ground, and blood was pulsing from his side. She bent over him, and he reached strengthless hands up to her.

  “Hugi,” she wept. “Hugi, Hugi, Hugi!”

  “Nay, lass, dinna fash yersel’,” he mumbled. “Yon great galoons paid top price for me.”

  Holger stooped above the little form where Alianora cradled it in her arms. The dwarf’s face was wrinkled, like a rough carving in dark old wood. There was nothing he could do for the wound; it was too big for so small a frame.

  Hugi patted Alianora’s hand. “Nay, ’tis no ye wha’ should be mournful,” he sighed. “ ’Tis aboot 50 lasses o’ ma own race. Yet ’tis ye who all o’ us ha’ loved.”

  Holger knell and prayed. It seemed the right thing to do. here on this windy cold mountain where there was no tree for shelter and no blossoms to strew. He asked that there be gentleness for the soul of Hugi. And when the dwarf was dead, Holger closed his eyes and signed him with the cross.

  They hid the grave well. By then, dawn was breaking, thin and chill and gray behind flying clouds. After they had bound Alianora’s arm, she went off by herself, and Holger turned to Carahue.

  “This is my task,” he said tonelessly. “It isn’t right that anyone else should die in it.”

  The Saracen regarded him steadily. “Methinks ’tis the task of all free men,” he answered. Then, practically: “This is a grievous loss for us, though. Not only the dwarf, but Alianora’s horse; and she cannot fly till that wing—that arm heals.”

  Holger looked out over the tumbled gray land. “The hillmen may come back,” he agreed. “Or what’s worse—Look, Carahue, I may as well tell you that Morgan le Fay gathered those tribesmen. And now, if I’m not much mistaken, she’s off to the Middle World to get their whole host and stop us.”

  “They travel fast, the Middle Worlders,” said Carahue. “We’d best not stay to rest. But when we get to the church, what then?”

  “Then my search is ended—perhaps—and it may be we’ll be safe. Or it may not be. I don’t know.”

  It was on Holger’s tongue to tell Carahue the whole story, but the Saracen had already swung about and caught his horse. No time, no time.

  Alianora came running back and sprang up behind him on Papillon. Her arms closed about his waist with a desperate tightness. As they rode from the meadow, she turned once to look back. “Goodbye, Hugi,” she whispered. “Sleep well in the earth, my friend.”

  The horses trotted rapidly over the hills, across rattling scree and ringing stone and hard sallow grass. Now and then a raven flapped overhead, cawing into the wind. At a distance, Holger could see the cold green blink of glaciers, and he shivered in his armor.

  When he explained the need for haste, Alianora was quiet a while, then asked slowly: “Wha’ did she really say to ye, yon witch?”

  “She—Nothing. She wanted me to give up trying.”

  “I think she hankered after more,” said the girl. “She was your leman once, was she no?”

  “Yes,” said Holger dully.

  “She could gi’ ye a proud life.”

  “I told her—I told her I’d rather be with you,” said Holger.

  She put her hands on his shoulders and reached up to kiss his cheek. “Now we’ll gabble no more o’ that,” she said firmly. “But if ever I catch ye pawing at some wench again, Holger, ’twill go ill with ye.”

  In spite of fear and grief and unsureness, Holger could not resist looking across at Carahue with a certain smugness. The Indian grinned wryly and shrugged.

  On and on. They wouldn’t dare stop tonight, Holger realized, even if night was the time of greatest danger. Among the enemy there were races which did not fear iron or silver or the great name of God. They would probably come riding after as soon as the sun was down, and immortal horses went like a gale.

  Or if they get to the church before us, they’ll steal the sword again. I do not know why that would he ruin for us, but so it is.

  It was near noon when they emerged from a rocky defile and saw the hillmen once more. Then Holger reined in with a curse.

  It was an army this time, there must be a thousand of them, loping down the mountainside. They were painted for war, and they carried weapons and moved with little barking cries. Lean and swift and armed they came, and when they saw the knights below them they let out a whoop.

  “Back!” yelled Carahue. “Back, we’ll have to flee!”

  “We can’t escape them,” groaned Holger. “Men can run down horses. And we have to get to St. Grimmin’s soon.”

  A flung spear clattered yards before him. What to do, what to do? He was still stiff and sore from the last battle, they were two men and a girl against a tribe, and—

  “Holger!” cried Alianora. “Holger, what is’t ye do?”

  “Strike me a light,” he gasped. “I can’t work that damned flint and steel now. Light, quickly, girl!”

  His fingers shook as he stuffed his pipe, and he inhaled raggedly. The nearest hillmen were horribly close, he saw eyes gleam, their mouths were open and he could hear the hoarse breathing of them. He wondered how Morgan had bribed or frightened them to this.

  He filled his mouth and began to blow smoke.

  The savages skidded to a halt. Holger fumed till his eyes smarted. God be praised, there was no wind just now! Slowly, then, he rode toward them. They wavered, their own eyes bulging.

  Holger flapped his aims. “Boo!” he shouted.

  In the next minute, they had panicked, and in the minute after that they were out of sight. The slope was littered with weapons they had dropped. Their screams drilled back lor a long while.

  Carahue was holding his sides, and the echoes yelled his laughter. “Genius!” he cried. “Sheer genius! Oh, Roger, I love you for this!”

  Holger smiled shakily. It was another crib from literature—the Connecticut Yankee—but there was no reason to discuss that point. It was enough that it had worked.

  “Let’s get going,” he said.

  Carahue edged his mount closer. “I thought I heard the fair lady call you by a strange name,” he remarked casually.

  “Ye must ha’ misheard,” said Alianora.

  “Well, then I did.” The Indian gave them a peculiar look but returned to a position some yards off.

  Sunset smoldered red over a gaunt waste of cliffs and peaks, stark against a sky like clotted blood.

  “We’ll soon be out on the wold,” said Alianora. “ ’Twill be easier ganging.”

  “Helpful, if we have to travel in the dark,” agreed Holger. He thought, not for the first time, that there was too much luck in this journey for coincidence. Fate—well, yes. Only his success was not predetermined. There were forces working on his side, but other forces opposed, and it looked very much as if the enemy was riding a crest.

  Night came. The clouds had blown away, and the stars were cruelly bright overhead. They gave just enough light to see the upland wold as a dim shadow, everywhere around them. The horses stumbled, slithering over thick, tufted grass and striking fire from rocks. It went with maddening slowness.

  Hours later, it must have been, Carahue pulled over close again. His armor was a vague sheen of metal, his face a nighted blur. “My mare is near falling with weariness,” he said. “I think we’ll make better speed if we rest a while.”

  Holger scowled, but it was good sense. Even Papillon was breathing hard. If they had to gallop in their present condition, the mounts might simply keel over.

  “All right,” he said reluctantly. “A short while.”

  They slid to the grass. The horses stood trembling. An enormous moon, almost full, was lifting over the mountains. Carahue stretched himself full length, sighing.

  Holger was about to do likewise when he felt Alianora’s gentle tug at his hand. He turned mutely and went off a ways with her.

  Moonlight flowed over the wold, gray and shadow barred, glittering on rime. It was utterly still here, under the high cold wheeling of the stars. The light washed down over Alianora, turning her into a quicksilver fay, sliding shadow and cool white light. Dew-drops glistened in her tangled locks, and there was moonlight in her eyes.

  “We may no ha’ a chance to talk again,” she said, very quietly.

  “Maybe not,” he answered.

  “I wanted but to say I love ye.”

  “And I love you—”

  “Oh, my dearest—” She came to him, and he held her close.

  “I’ve been a fool,” he said, wishing he could find better words. “I didn’t know what I wanted, I thought I could go off and forget you when this is done. I was wrong.”

  She forgave him with her hands and lips and eyes.

  “If we come through this, somehow,” he said, “we’ll never be apart. This is where I belong, here with you.”

  There were tears on her face, they caught the moonlight, but she laughed, low and happy. “ ’Tis enough,” she said.

  He kissed her again.

  Carahue’s shout pulled them away. It flew back and forth between high boulders, harsh with urgency, ringing and dying away across that lake of moonlight. “Quickly, come quickly, I hear the huntsmen!”

  -17-

  Far and faint, at the very edge of hearing, the horns blew. They shrilled with the noise of wind and sea and great beating wings, a hawk-voice high in the mountains, and Holger knew that the Wild Hunt was out and after him.

  He vaulted up on Papillon, raising Alianora behind him as the stallion burst into movement. Carahue was already a-gallop, his white mare ghostly in the streaming, unreal light. Hoofs began to ring and thunder, air roared past them, and they bent down to the long fleeing.

  The moon was an argent dazzle in Holger’s eyes. The wold slid by him, blackness underfoot, flying stones and hissing grass and a rattle of echoes like laughter among the crags. He fell the horse’s muscles between his legs, stretching and swinging back, like hot steel, and he heard the heavy labor of the horse’s breathing. His iron clashed on him, leather groaned, and ever the wind of his passage shouted in his ears.

  High overhead were the stars, incredibly far, flashing and flashing in the huge black vault of heaven. The Milky Way rushed down a dim arch, spilling suns across the sky, and it was cold and still and watching. The moon swung higher, drenching the land, a shield of chill silver. Around the plateau, mountains lifted sword sharp peaks that glistened with snow. And behind the horses was an immense darkness.

  Gallop and gallop and gallop! Now Holger heard the wild horns closer, shrilling and screaming, he heard the boom of cloven air and the ring of metal and hoofs and the baying of immortal hounds. He leaned forward, swaying with the surge of Papillon’s haste, one hand loose on the arched neck and one clutched over Alianora’s. Behind him grew the noise of wings.

  Swiftly, swiftly, over the rime-cold world, under the hurrying moon, gallop, gallop, gallop. The horns were skirling in his head, vision blurred, he shook himself and spoke to his horse and strained to see his goal. There was only the moonlit plain and the ragged peaks beyond.

  Carahue was lagging, his mare stumbled and he nearly fell from the saddle. He jerked her head up, harshly, and roweled her, and she sped in the wake of Papillon. Holger thought he could now hear the bounding feet of the nightmare dogs, and there was a crazed yelling all about him as of loosened gales.

  He looked behind, but Alianora’s blowing hair hid those who followed. He thought he saw metal flash, high in heaven. And was that the dry rattle of dead men’s bones?

  “Oh, hasten, hasten, best of horses! Oh, run, my Papillon, my comrade, run as never horse did erenow, for surely the world of man rides with us. Haste thee, haste thee, my darling, gallop for life and more than life, for we ride against striding Time, we ride against marching Chaos. Oh, God be with thee, Papillon, God strengthen thee to run!”

  Loud and laughing, the horns shrilled through the winds, into his skull, and the hoofs and hounds and clashing bones drew near. Holger felt Papillon stumble. Almost, Alianora was torn loose. He hung to her wrist with a strength he had not thought he owned. She fell back against him, and again they rode.

  Now, up ahead there, what was that, stark and staring against the sky? The church of St. Grimmin’s— But the Wild Hunt roared about him, sweeping down in one great surge, he heard the shriek of huge winds and saw blackness before his eyes. “Jesu Kriste,” he groaned, “if ever Thou didst help man, then help me now.”

  A wall loomed before them like a lifted hand. Papillon gathered himself and sprang. Holger felt a cold, such as he had never dreamed could be, strike into him. He thought he heard a wind whistling between his bones. Then the black stallion hit earth with a crash that slammed him almost from the saddle.

  Carahue followed. His mare did not quite clear the wall, she hit it and fell back. The Indian leaped free, grasping the stones, hurling himself over to fall in the churchyard. Holger heard the mare cry out once, briefly and horribly, as the roaring and the darkness overwhelmed her.

  The yard was wide, a place of tall grass and crumbling headstones all around the ruinous pile of the church. Holger bent over and pulled Carahue up in front of him. The Wild Hunt screamed beyond the wall. Somehow, it couldn’t cross, but—

  He heard the sound coming from the shadows behind the church. It was the sound of a horse moving among the graves, a horse old and lame and weary unto death, stumbling among the graves as it sought for him, and he whimpered in his throat and struck spurs into Papillon. For he knew that this was the Hell Horse, and whoso looks upon it shall die.

  The stallion could not gallop, here among the headstones which reached up out of weeds like fingers to pull him down. He stepped between them, shaking, and the sound of the old lame horse grew louder, slipping and staggering as it moved through shadow to meet them.

  Fog drifted in tendrils about the church of St. Grimmin’s. The tower was fallen, the roof was gone, the windows gaped sightless. It was very still here, all at once. Slowly, slowly, feeling his way through the mists that rose to hide the tombstones, Papillon neared it.

  The hoofs of the Hell Horse scrunched in ancient gravel. But now the church was before them, and Holger sprang down and took Alianora in his arms. “In there,” he said. His throat was burned out, he could hardly whisper. “We’re safe in there.” He carried the girl up the time-gnawed steps.

  “You too, my comrade,” said Carahue gently, and took Papillon’s bridle and led him inside.

  They stood in what had been the nave, looking toward the altar. Moonlight poured over it, turning it to radiance. The crucifix was still there, high above the fallen chancel, and Holger could see Christ’s face against the stars. He fell to his knees, and Alianora with him; and after a moment, Carahue joined them.

  They heard the Hell Horse going away, its clopping, limping hoofbeats dragged wearily into silence. And the howl of the Wild Hunt died, there was only stillness and moonlight. As the fog blew away, Holger thought that the church was not dead, not defiled; it stood roofed with sky and walled with the living world, it stood as the sign of peace.

  Slowly, he rose, and held Alianora to him. This, he knew, was the end of his search, and the knowing was somehow a pain in him. His eyes lay hungrily on her upturned face for a long time before he kissed her.

  Carahue spoke very softly: “What, have you come here to find?”

  Holger didn’t answer at once. He went up toward the altar. In front of it was a stone slab, and when he bent over that there was a remembered thrilling in him.

  “This,” he said. he slipped his sword blade under the stone and lifted. The slab was monstrously heavy, he felt the iron bending. “Help me!” he gasped. “Oh, help me!”

  Carahue knelt and got a purchase on the stone just as Holger’s sword broke. Together they turned it over. It fell on the floor with a huge hollow booming.

  Alianora bent to touch Holger. “List!” she said. “ ’Tis an army sweeping nigh.”

  Holger lifted his head. Yes, the mighty rolling of hoofs, uncounted hoofs raging over the world, the sound of shrieking and of blown horns, the death-like rattle of arms. “It is the hosts of Chaos,” he said. “All of them, riding forth to whelm the world of man.”

  He looked down into the narrow hole in the floor. Moonlight shone blue off the great blade which lay there, waiting.

  “We have nothing to fear,” he said. “In this sword is locked the charm against which they cannot stand. With this I can drive them back into the Middle World forever.”

  “Who be ye?” whispered Alianora. “Who is’t I love?”

  “I do not know,” he said. “But I shall know soon.”

  For a moment more he waited. There was a power in him, but it was something beyond happiness, beyond man and man’s hopes and dreams and loves. He dared not lift the glaive.

  He looked up to the figure on the cross. Bending, he took the sword Cortana in his hand.

  “I know that blade,” breathed Carahue. “I gave it to you once.”

  Holger felt his mask dissolve, and his memories returned and he knew himself.

  They gathered around him, Alianora in his arms, Carahue taking his hand, Papillon’s nose gentle against his check. He looked at them for a long while. “Whatever comes,” he said, “whatever happens to me, know that you will return safe and that you will always bear my love.”

  “I sought you, comrade,” said Carahue. “I sought you, Ogier.”

  “I love ye, Holger,” whispered Alianora.

  Holger Danske, whom the old Frankish chronicles know as Ogier le Danois, mounted into the saddle. And this was the prince of Denmark who in his cradle was given strength and luck and love by such of Faerie as wish man well. He it was who came to serve Carl the Great and rose to be among the finest of his knights, the defender of Christendie and mankind. He it was who smote Carahue of India in battle, and became his friend, and wandered far with him. He it was whom Morgan le Fay held dear; and when he grew old, she bore him to Avalon and gave him back his youth. There he dwelt until the Saracens again menaced France, a hundred years later, and thence he sallied forth to conquer them anew. Then in the hour of his triumph he was carried away from mortal men.