The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes by Sterling E. Lanier Page A

But if I were no more than a pawn, at least I was a willing one, and I raced behind James at my best speed.
     
                  "The horses were wild with excitement when we reached the stables, plunging and rearing in their stalls. But James gentled two down in a most marvelous manner, speaking to them in some language I had never heard before. Where he had learned it, I had no idea. But this new James was not the man I knew, and strange tongues were a part of this whole nightmare.
     
                  "We saddled up quickly and in a few minutes had ridden out into the full force of the wind. We took the track which led south to the cottage on the cliff, our way marked out by the intermittent moonlight. James galloped in front, an extraordinary figure in his black dinner cloths with trousers stuffed into hunting boots. I wished that I had had time to get some, but my patent leathers were better on horseback than they would have been to walk in. Like him, I carried my sword across the saddle.
     
                  "We thundered on through the night, often in sight of the sea, which was beaten to a fury by the wild and howling wind. The gale actually seemed to be still rising, and had we wished to speak, it would have been quite impossible through its shrieking and raging. It tore at us, too, so that we had to crouch over the horses' necks, and they, poor beasts, had to angle themselves against it . But they bore us nobly and never faltered.
     
                  "Now on our right I glimpsed a single light. It was one of the windows of the cottage, gleaming through the dark. But our way did not lie there, I sensed, and James never drew rein. Our path was south, south to the grim ruin on the headland, which James had called the Fortress of the Dark. It was from this that all the portents had come, the threats and the wickednesses had been unleashed. It was in that nighted wreckage that some foul sorcery had been revived, and it was there that we must seek its sources, yes, and destroy them.
     
                  "I had lost my sense of direction by now, but James cantered on through the bracken and heath, and I simply followed him. Suddenly he put up his left hand, at the same time checking his mount. He gestured to me to draw rein beside him. When I came up, he leaned so close that his mouth was almost on my ear.
     
                  " 'We are very close now,' he shouted over the wind's howl. 'We must leave the horses and go to battle on foot . They are of no use to us and they have carried us bravely. We shall let them go and they will take no hurt. Dismount now and follow.'
     
                  "I did as he bade and gave my beast a pat on the flank, dismissing it . Both of them cantered back the way we had come, and we were left alone in the night and the storm. In silence we advanced, with me once more backing James. We angled into a gentle downward slope, and now the bellowing of the sea grew louder in front of us as we approached the coast . It had not yet rained through all this storm of wind, but now my face grew damp and I tasted salt . The spray of the Atlantic was being flung hundreds of feet up through the sheer force of the driven air.
     
                  "The moon broke through another cloud, and there, downslope, was the ancient fortalice, exposed in all its shattered and titanic wreckage before us. Nor was this all. Two squat shapes were crouched not a hundred feet away, staring in our direction as if awaiting us. As we stood mutually exposed, they rose to their feet and, with wild cries in their harsh speech, rushed at us. One carried a great ax, like a woodsman's but larger, while the other had a strange weapon, a thing like a great rounded hammer, large enough to need the strength of both arms to wield. Lord Lionel might have expected no danger, but he had, nonetheless, left his two guardians.