“Fionnghuala!” she called. “Fionnghuala! Aodhan!”

The breeze fled back again, laden with the green glamor of Eald, with sweet grass and shade, with summer warmth. It fled away, and the air grew still.

Then a wind began to blow returning, softly at first; and with greater and greater force in its coming, rattling the branches and making Airgiod’s waters shiver, flattening the grasses and sweeping like storm into the grove, where the stones blazed with sudden light. The sky was clear, the stars pure, the moon undimmed, but storm crackled in the air, whipped the leaves, and Arafel sprang to her feet, holding the sword in her two hands. The force of lightnings stood about, shivered in her blowing hair and played about the swords in the trees. Thunder began, far away and growing in the wind, stirring like deepest song to the lighter chiming of the stones and the rush of leaves.

And with the wind came brightness in the night, one and the other, like moons coursing close to earth, with thunder in their hooves and moonlight for their manes . . . above the earth they ran, together, as they had always coursed side by side.

“ Fionnghuala!” Arafel hailed them. “Aodhan!”

The elven horses came to her in a skirling of wind, and the thunders bated as they circled her, as pale Fionnghuala stepped close and breathed in her presence with velvet nostrils shot with fire, gazed at her with eyes like the deer, wide and wonderful. Aodhan snuffed the breeze and shook his head in a scattering of light, stamped the ground and shook it.

“No,” said Arafel sadly. “He is not here. But Iask, Aodhan.”

The bright head bowed and lifted. She belted her sword at her side and took up the arms which had been Liosliath’s. Fionnghuala came to her, whickering. She seized the bright mane in one hand and swung up, and Fionnghuala stamped and turned, with Aodhan beside. The pace quickened and the wind scoured the trees, swept the grass, a flicker of lightnings crackling in the manes and in her hair.

“Caer Wiell,” Arafel said to them, and Fionnghuala ran, easily above the ground. The mist lay before them, but the wind swept into it, and lightnings lit it, making clear the shapes long lost there, the upper course of Airgiod, the shapes of faded trees. Shadows were caught by surprise and fled in terror, wailing down the wind as thunder took a steady beat and mists were scattered.

Lightning blazed in Caer Wiell’s court, danced there, with thunder-mutterings . . . stood still, and horses and rider looked on chaos, a gateway near to yielding, a scattering of men in flight from the terror which had broken in their midst. “Ciaran!” she called. “I am here!”

And Ciaran rose from his place beside the fire, no more there, no more holding the hand of Branwyn, whose voice wailed after him in grief.

He stood in the courtyard, with the stone burning like fire against his heart, with lightnings crackling about him and above him . . . and the dreams were true.

Arafel slid down, a gleam of silver armor, and held out such armor to him in both her arms. He took it and put it on, buckled on the elvish sword, and all the while his heart was chilled, for the cold went from it to the center of him, and the lightnings surrounded them. The human day was murky, clouded; but they stood in otherwhere, and elven moonlight was cast on them, pale green; night went about them, an aura of storm, and of the two horses, he knew one for his.

“Aodhan,” he named him. “Aodhan. Aodhan.” And the horse came to him, stood waiting.

“Not yet,” said Arafel, for there were others about them, human folk, who huddled against the wind, faces stark and frightened in the reflected glow, women and children and wounded men. They had no word to say to her; there were none from her to them. She walked toward the gate with Ciaran at her side and the elvish horses walked after.

“Scaga,” Ciaran said, lifting his hand toward the wall. “Scaga,” she repeated, and the old warrior looked down from the chaos on the walls, his face distraught.

“What you can do,” Scaga said, “we beg you do.”

“Beware, Scaga, what you have already asked. You have horsemen; ready them to ride with us, if they will.”

The old warrior stood still several beatings of a mortal heart. He was wise, and feared them. But he called men to him, and came down the stairs, shouted orders at boys, and commanded the horses saddled. Arafel stood still, thoughtfully took her bow from off her shoulder, and strung it. She might, she thought, go to the wall, might aid them there. But iron arrows flew in plenty, and there was time enough for that.

“Mind,” she said to Ciaran, “when you ride the shadow-ways, you are safe from iron—but you cannot strike at Men. Shift in and out of them; that is wisest”

“We can die,” he said, “—can we not?”

“No,” she said. “Not while you wear the stone. There is the fading. And there are other fates, Ciaran. Death is out there. Step into the shadow-ways and you will see him. Leave Men to me, where Men want killing. I am kinder than you know how to be. The arrows—save them: they are too dire for Men.”

“Then what shall I do?”

“Ride with me,” she said softly. “When one can do much—wisdom must guide the hand, or folly will.—Hist, they are ready.”

Boys and men brought the horses of the keep, handled, a clattering in the yard, and men ran from the defense of the walls and the gate to take them. Aodhan whickered softly and Fionnghuala saluted them too, and the mortal steeds herded together, ears pricked, nostrils straining. But Arafel walked among them, touched one and the other, named them their true names, and calmed them. “He is Whitetip,” she told a rider; “and she if Jumper. Call them true and they are yours.” The Men stared at her, but none durst question, not even Scaga, Whitetip’s rider.

She looked toward the gate, which tottered beneath the ram. Fionnghuala stepped closer to her, dipped her head and shook it impatiently.

“Do not leave me,” she bade Ciaran. “You have compelled my help. I do not compel: I ask.”

“I am by you,” he said.

“Scaga,” she said. “Bid them open the gates.” And quietly, to Ciaran: “Oftenest, Men see what they will, and cannot truly see us. Even these. Well for them they do not.”

“Do I,” he asked, “see you as you are?”

“I cannot know,” she said. “But I know you. And you had power to call my name. One must see to do that.”

He said nothing. She seized Fionnghuala’s mane and swung to her back. He mounted Aodhan, and the horse suffered it with a shiver, a flaring and quivering of the nostrils, for it was not his rider, but Ciaran knew the dream about his neck, of which Aodhan was part. Fionnghuala tossed her head, and the wind rose.

EIGHTEEN

The Battle before the Gates

The gates yielded, a groaning and splintering of wood as the braces which held them were let go and the gates grated inward. Ciaran felt the horse dance aside, light as thistledown, ears still pricked toward the enemy: no need of harness, no need of holding. Aodhan picked up his feet and began to move as effortlessly as the wind which stirred about them, and his feet came down in the boom of thunder. Lightnings cracked, making hair and mane fly. Arafel rode beside him, as the white mare, tinted with the elven moon, paced stride for stride with Aodhan.

And the enemy who had rushed against the gate saw them, mirrored terror in lightning-lit faces, a soundless, horrid screaming. They brandished weapons, and still came on, impelled by hordes behind.

“Follow me!” said Arafel, and Fionnghuala flickered into shadow as she drew the silver sword. Ciaran clung to Aodhan and the horse strode into the shadow-ways.

Horror followed. A sickness passed him near: that was iron, a blade which passed through his substance, harmless in shadow-shape. Arafel thrust at that man; she flickered out of otherwhere in the midst of that thrust and back again: the silver blade had killed. The movements of Men and mortal horses were slow, and slowing still, as the elven horses strode their gliding and fearsome way, seeming to gallop but gaining less ground than speed. Ciaran had the sword in hand, but skill failed him—he struck, and failed his mark and struck again. The stone sang in his mind and something far colder than himself seized his heart; Aodhan sprang forward feeling it, and the thunder grew. There were other shapes with them, low, loping shapes of hounds, the taller blackness of horse and rider, which raced with them. Ciaran reached for his bow, overcome with horror.