Alan Garner Classic Collection. Alan Garner
worked stone, kidney or dumb-bell shaped; there was a groove about the middle, round which was bent a withy lashed tight with rat-skin thongs.
Colin and Susan involuntarily shrank closer together, and the lamp trembled in Colin’s hand. The svarts halted; a deep sigh ran through them; and slowly they began to advance.
In spite of the knowledge that Durathror was close at hand, the children had to fight to stop themselves from running.
The svarts came on: the last of them was past Fenodyree. They held the torches high, and the other hand was poised to clutch. Colin flashed the lamp in their eyes, but they did no more than blink, and laugh hungrily. The children retreated a step. The svarts rushed forward. But at that moment Durathror stepped from behind the boulder, his sword Dyrnwyn in his hand, and bowed low before them, and addressed them in their own tongue.
“Hail, O eaters of toadstools! We are well met!”
The svarts fell back, mouths agape, and hissing after the fashion of giant lizards. But those to the rear of the pack had more courage.
“See!” they cried. “It is he whom we must kill! The men-children are of no matter, but our lords have long wanted his life, and for him was the moot held.”
“No! No!” screamed another. “There is the maid who tricked us, and see! see! she has the stone once more!!”
“The stone! The stone! The stone!”
“The morthbrood have played us false!”
“Or she has stolen it!”
“Seize them! We shall take the stone to ourselves!”
Their eyes glowed green and yellow as desire mastered their cowardice.
“Ho!” cried Durathror. “So there is courage in svart-alfarheim! This is a day of marvels, to be sure! Come, let my sword test the mettle of your new-grown backbones!”
“We come! We come!”
And they hurled themselves upon the dwarf.
“Gondemar!” bellowed Durathror, and he whirled Dyrnwyn above his head with both hands. Two svarts died under that stroke. They buckled at the knees, and crumbled into dust.
“Gondemar!”
Sparks flew as iron rang on stone, but there were now six svarts in the tunnel, and four torches guttering on the sand. Six to one: far too few for battle, whatever the prize. The svarts turned tail, and ran. Durathror rested on his sword.
“Cousin, it would seem Dyrnwyn is too bitter for their taste: let them then savour Widowmaker!”
Fenodyree came from hiding, and the svarts halted in dismay.
“It is the white one’s dog!”
“What does he here?”
“It is a trick!”
One of the svarts turned, and ran towards Durathror, but, seeing he was alone in this, he scuttled back to his comrades, who were by this time in distress. Fenodyree was laying about him in silence. He did not feel Durathror’s joy of battle: these creatures stood between him and his purpose, and must be killed: that was all. He was no born fighter.
The uproar grew less and less. Fenodyree’s round helmet spun under foot, and his mail shirt rang with the dint of blows: but not for long. Soon the two dwarfs stood gazing at each other across a litter of torches and stone hammers.
“I see Widowmaker is well named!” Durathror chuckled. “She has gained two upon me in this fight; I lead you now by one only. I must find me more svarts!”
“Nay, come away, cousin; we must not turn from the path, nor rest, till we are beyond their reach.”
Colin stooped to pick up a hammer. It was heavy, but balanced well.
“Shall we take a couple? They may be useful.”
“They would drag you to your death, where we are going,” said Fenodyree. “Leave them; we do not need such tainted things.”
“Durathror,” said Susan, as they journeyed on, “where do the svarts go when they disappear?”
“To dust, my Stonemaiden; to dust. They cannot endure the bite of iron: it has a virtue that dissolves their flesh – and would all creatures of Nastrond were as they!”
“Here is the first of our trials,” said Fenodyree, “but it is naught that a cool head will not overcome.”
Before them the tunnel ended in a drop: they were in the roof of a cave, and across the emptiness another tunnel lay. A broken ledge, no more than a few inches wide, and sloping outwards, ran to it along the overhanging wall.
“There are handholds,” said Fenodyree. “Give me your light, so that you may see, and have both hands free when you come.”
It looked so easy as they watched him go crabwise across the wall. He moved smoothly and surely, and in a matter of seconds he was there.
“Susan now, please. If your fingers have need of rest, halfway you will find an iron spike to grip: it is firm. I shall light you.”
It was easier than Susan expected, apart from the fact that the lamp could not light hands and feet at the same time, which was occasionally unsettling. Also, she would never have imagined how comforting an iron spike could be. When her hand closed round it, it was as though she had reached an island in a busy street. Susan was loath to leave that spike. She stretched out for the next hold, found it, and was transferring her weight, when something smashed into the wall close by her head, and splinters of rock seared her cheek. She was caught in mid-stride, and for two dreadful seconds she hung by one hand from the spike. The lamp’s beam never faltered, and Fenodyree’s calm voice checked her panic.
“A foot to the right, Susan. More; more. There. Now draw up your feet; another inch, good. You are safe. Come slowly; do not be afraid.”
Across from Fenodyree, Colin had seen the stone axe spin in the lamplight and crash against the rock; and, at the same time, he had heard behind him a sword being drawn.
“Cross as quickly as you may,” said Durathror’s voice in his ear. “Stay not for me. I go to teach this trollspawn manners.”
And, with a ringing cry, Durathror threw himself off the ledge into empty space. As he dropped beyond the light his cloak seemed to fold about him in a curious way.
“Are you ready?” called Fenodyree.
Colin looked across, and saw his sister and Fenodyree together on the other side.
“Yes, I’m ready … but Durathror!”
“He knows what he is about. He will not be long.”
Nor was he. Colin had just gained the safety of the tunnel mouth when he heard the dwarf’s voice right behind him.
“I lead you now, cousin! Three skulked below. They heard our coming and hid their torches: they died swiftly.”
He was a little breathless, or perhaps indignation had the better of him, for it was the first time he had ever been surprised in ambush.
“But how did you do it?” cried Colin. “I saw you jump off the ledge: weren’t you hurt?”
Durathror threw back his head and laughed.
“Woefully!”
He held out his sword hand: the knuckle of his little finger was skinned.
“Do not jest with them,” smiled Fenodyree. “They have not long been among us, and there is still much they do not know.”
They started along the tunnel. Fenodyree walked very slowly, and when he spoke his voice was grave.
“Listen to me now. We are about to leave West Mine. Were we to stay, we should certainly die, though we took twice four hundred svarts with