While the three Punchkins on their southward journey were fleeing from deadly pursuers, Swin and Melohtar rode northwards in pursuit of love and redemption. Swin was mounted on the noble black horse which had formerly been in the possession of Ayarg’s band, and which he had named Colwine. Melohtar was riding his own favourite, Stirnelach, a chestnut stallion with a white blaze down the middle of his face and brow. And Melohtar had chosen his three best hounds for the chase. Their names were Mithuan, Dalb and Sedro. The latter was an ill-favoured mongrel beast, most resembling a bloodhound: his paws were large, the silken flaps of his ears hung down low and his whole body was covered with smooth black hair. All black he was, from his nose to his shaggy tail, save for his glowing red eyes. The other dogs knew his strength and his rank, and they would yield to him.
In that dim and damp hour before dawn, while the Punchkins were waiting for permission to leave the City, Swin and Melohtar roused themselves to depart from the clearing where they had spent the night. They lashed up their packs, leapt into the saddles and urged their horses after the dogs, who were already running on Gauriel’s trail. Here, in the hills north of the Aduchel, the trees were mostly pines, the undergrowth a mixture of heather and bilberry; narrow tracks, often fading into mires or ending suddenly at steep crags, wove through the bushes. The two riders skirted the chins or the crowns of the granite faces, or leapt over young torrents, or led their horses along precipitous ledges overhung with beautiful streams like silver garlands, or probed narrow fissures overhung with ivy-stems and the tangles roots of yet higher trees; and always their way led upwards. The dogs, often running far ahead, often returning with impatient barks, continued confidently to lead the way. Here there had been little rain or hail since before the previous day, and the trail, though cold, was easy to follow. She had wandered from side to side, as she must when some obstacle intervened, but her track pressed on steadily north-west, the deviations tending to cancel each other out, as if neither rest nor food had mattered beside the shame, or rage, or fear, that had impelled the transformed Princess to hasten deep into the wilderness, as fast and as far as she could possibly go.
An hour later the two friends struggled free of a patch of forest-thicket and emerged in a place where short smooth-nibbled grass ran up to and then between the higher peaks of two adjoining hills – a green blanket thrown over a rocky saddle. The horizon was close; beyond it the sky was blue; the dogs raced up, dwindled into the distance and vanished over the ridge. Cantering after them, Swin and Melohtar rose into the sunlight of a brilliant morning. Filtered and reduced to long misty rays by the dark branches and foliage of the trees that marched up the valley’s right-hand side, the light aimed levelly along the slope and the grassy ride, sliding and angling around the edges of sight, sparkling red and blue and green through a million dew-drops, glittering and flashing off helm, shield and headstall-rings, and lighting up the glorious prospect of mountain-woods and waterfalls that lay to the left. The voices of the birds were music after the hubbub of the City, the sweet pure air as heady as wine. Melohtar drew in a deep, deep breath, and as he let it out a surge of joy flooded into his breast, so that his cares and anxious thoughts became of no more account than the white tails of the scampering little grey rabbits. The two friends reached the top of the ridge, and Melohtar turned and beamed at Swin, who was just then galloping close beside him; Swin grinned back, and each reached out a hand and took the other’s hand, and thus hand in hand they pounded down the sparkling track, until a tall stand of furze forced them to ride apart.
Melohtar was now happier than he had been for a long time. He was with Swin. Nothing else mattered. He was with his friend, intent on their shared quest, but all that day and for the next few days he felt as free as when the two lads had roamed the slopes of Garholt years before. In the evenings they cooked their supper and then slept back to back, sharing their blankets in the cool rainless nights, then waking to ride onward through the next of the warm days of the rapidly advancing spring.
‘Something’s come back to me,’ said Swin, while they were having supper at the end of the fourth day of their journey. He put down the haunch of venison he was gnawing. That afternoon the dogs had been allowed to run down a small deer; they now lay in the firelight, chewing what Melohtar called the ‘umbles’. ‘Yes,’ said Melohtar encouragingly. ‘That old witch,’ said Swin. ‘She wanted me to pay her a visit and I clean forgot.’
‘Not like you, that!’ said Melohtar, pouring out the last of the wine. ‘I remembered afterwards, but I didn’t particularly feel like reminding you.’
‘Oh, why not?’ Melohtar made no answer, and Swin prompted him with: ‘You agreed with me that she might have some advice for us? Or what about taking the spell off?’
‘Well, maybe, when we’ve captured her. Or got her back somehow. But in any case I don’t feel that I’m indebted to her. Calendis. I could be rather angry with her.’
The night was chilly. Stirnelach got up, stamped and whickered and then lay down again. Swin and Melohtar went on with their meal. When it was finished Swin picked up the thread of his thoughts:
‘And yet we’re falling behind in the quest. The last traces were two days old. She’s getting further and further away from us.’
‘And so?’
‘I’ve become uneasy. I feel as if I’ve gone out of my right path. As if the Gods disapprove, somehow.’
‘Oh, my friend, my dear fellow, why should they do that? I feel precisely the opposite! How’s your arm now?’
‘As it has been. The scar’s completely gone.’ Again he pulled back his sleeve, and turned the fore-arm over and back, letting the light play on his skin. Melohtar did the same. Both the scars had, indeed, completely vanished.
‘Any aching?’ asked Melohtar.
‘None.’
‘Me neither. It’s interesting – it’s as if the new Oath has superseded the first one. With such a clear token, who could doubt the will of the Gods, or, as I would prefer to say, of Lord Dru Himself? Don’t you remember the power of the Tree? We’re on the right track, my friend, the true course: of that I am certain.’
‘Yes,’ said Swin glumly.
One of the dogs got up and padded round to his master. It was Sedro. He thrust his nose under Melohtar’s arm, then pawed his sleeve and shot out a long tongue. Melohtar put his arm round Sedro’s shoulders and passed him a bone. The dog gripped it and cracked it, seeming to stare at Swin as he did so, his eyes glowing in the firelight.
‘So let’s go on,’ said Melohtar with quiet fervour. ‘What my heart desires is also what our Oath constrains us to do. And I trust the skill of this good beast.’
So on they went, and while the quest continued they never again thought of turning back. But the bloom and the joy of it faded. Next day the woods became sparser, the hills bleaker, and on the evening of the day after that, after cheerless hours of wet scrub and drizzling rain, the friends came down from the foothills and into the great plain of Forlad. As Melohtar said, this had once been a fertile grassland; the men of Turmal had settled it and tamed it, and the region had been merry and prosperous despite the long severe winters that had in former times prevailed. But then the Dragon came, and the whole strength of Thandor had been expended in a series of inconclusive battles with him, and during the reign of Kedrahil II (also known as the Years of Attrition) Forlad had been laid waste. And from then on the Northern Realm had been dependent on the Demesne for sustenance. And now, as Swin and Melohtar rode after the hounds, who still held their course clearly, almost unswervingly north-west, they found themselves in a land of dry gulleys, withered trees, leaning fences and stony fields which a few ancient, persistent peasants were still struggling to plough. These local people knew of the white wolf. It was as if the rumour of Swin’s and Melohtar’s quest had run ahead of them. One or two had actually seen the wolf rushing through the fallow fields, shining like a white flame as evening fell. Melohtar gave largesse, called the dogs and rode on.
‘Tell me more about the Dragon,’ said Swin.
‘What do you wish to know?’
‘Well, first, I suppose, why you hardly talk of him.’
At that moment a fierce barking and growling broke out from the dogs. They were a hundred yards away. The two men spurred their tired horses and hurried forward, wondering if the quarry had at last been overtaken. Through the gathering darkness a small grove of leafless trees could be seen. Swin drew his sword. But as they reached the trees it became apparent that the dogs were merely disputing among themselves. Dalb came limping up, muddy and torn along muzzle and flank. The other two were snapping and scuffling in a pit of stones and farmer’s refuse, or rather Mithuan was snarling from the bottom of the pit and Sedro was standing over him, refusing to let him leave it.
‘Sedro!’ commanded Melohtar. ‘Here!’
The black bloodhound looked up, showed his teeth for a moment, then obeyed. Mithuan scrambled out of the pit, and he and Dalb came up to Swin, on the other side of Melohtar, who was now talking affectionately to Sedro, rubbing his head and trying to understand what the matter was. Swin soothed the other two. Meanwhile the drizzle was becoming a downpour.
Having pacified the dogs, but not discovered what had made them fight, Swin and Melohtar led their horses along an uneven rutted lane and knocked on the door of the first cabin they came to. It happened to be somewhat larger and better-appointed than most of the other shacks and huts they had seen. The old man who opened the door looked at the travellers with dismay, but Melohtar, with masterful firmness, soon prevailed on him to let them in for the night. Inside the cabin the man’s wife and son, a hulking half-witted youth, had the same speechless unwelcoming look; but when the guests brought out their own provisions the mood became somewhat friendlier. Swin led the two horses to the farmer’s stable, rubbed them down well and saw to their needs. On his return he found Melohtar deep in talk with the old man, the housewife cooking up a stew and the young man playing with the dogs on the floor. Before he entered, however, Swin turned and looked back at the hills from which he and Melohtar had come. The sky was becoming clearer; a few stars twinkled amid the bars and patches of dark-grey cloud. The dark shadowy hills were like a single mass, with a single outline that sinuously rose and fell.
‘See the Woman,’ said a voice in his ear.
‘What’s that?’ Swin asked the young man.
‘Where it’s all shadowy-like. A lady lying on her side. See?’
‘I see,’ Swin answered. There was the high curve of the hip, sloping down and then rising on a straighter line to the shoulder, which plunged down to another smaller mass like a head pillowed on an arm, with the suggestion of an upturned ear, and flowing hair that descended gradually eastwards. On the other side the full haunches were formed by a high ridge shallowly descending. Swin felt a strange thrill, a mixture of fear and desire. He went inside, shaking his head. The evening passed with begrudged sociability. At bedtime the guests lay down on the hearthrug with the dogs, covered themselves with their blankets and resigned themselves to a lousy, not to say a flea-bitten night. Swin dozed on and off, still feeling uneasy and vaguely anxious, dipping through confused dreams. Towards morning the dream-images coalesced. Afterwards he told this dream or vision to his friend, describing it in full.
It seemed to Swin that he was lying awake where he was, and that the son of the peasant couple sat up, got out of bed, came over and took Swin by the hand. His face was all darkness, without even a gleam of eyes. Unwillingly Swin suffered the youth to lead him out of doors. Many stars were now shining in a rich blue sky. Again they stood looking at the form outlined by the range of hills.
Swin saw the Woman stir. She turned onto her back and raised her arms high – he saw the tall shapes of them, the hands and the spread fingers, unblurred and definite. She stretched, arched her back and sat up. The dark profile of the breasts jutted forth, with the nipples clearly outlined. She tossed back her long hair and put her hand to her mouth to yawn. And then she turned. She turned towards Swin: he at once knew that she was gazing down at him, seeing him. He stood silent and abashed, with a mysterious sense of guilt.
The Woman spoke in a low voice, mournful and awful. Not from the distance did it seem to come, but from close at hand, from out of the very ground he stood on:
‘Swin.’
He found his tongue. It could utter nothing more than a frightened whisper, but that seemed to be enough: ‘Lady. O Lady, who art thou?’
‘I am Yabeth. I claim thy service.’
‘How shall I serve thee, Lady Yabeth?’
‘That thou shalt be told. Now go no further. Return. Go not into perils that are greater than thou imaginest. Come. Return to me.’
‘Where art thou?’
The vast figure climbed to her feet. He had to tilt his head to keep her in full view. Standing, Yabeth appeared as a body rather than a flat shape. Gleams of reflected starlight suggested nakedness, the nude surfaces of enormous limbs. She lifted up her left hand and pointed far, far away: southward.
‘Yonder!’
Then Swin remembered his Oath, the blood-oath sworn on the Tree. A deadly thing it seemed now, small but fatal, asserting itself with vicious compelling power like a fishbone lodged in the throat. He fell down and began to writhe about on the ground. His chest and throat were in pain. He could not breathe.
‘Come!’
He squirmed desperately, and then his tongue and lips and teeth seemed to answer of their own accord, issuing a thin and wretched cry: ‘This I cannot do! I have sworn! I must go with my brother!’
And the mud that squelched around him and the blood that surged in his ears and the distant sighing of the wind and the deep groan of the earth all blended into a passionate cry, fiercer than the roaring of a wild beast yet still muted by sorrow and yearning:
‘Come!’
‘I cannot! I cannot!’
A cock crew, loud and close and shrill. There came a high scream, the furious neighing of horses and a great clamour of barking. The callings of birds were a din of overblown pipes and whistles, and cattle were lowing thunderously. It was a red and ominous dawn. He was lying amongst weeds and grass, yards away from the cabin. Not far off, the three dogs were again fighting among themselves.