Free The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn) by Morgan Llywelyn Page B

chose to have a voice in his affairs. The men of the people, Kelti and Marcomanni together, equipped themselves with weapons and torches and prepared to search for Epona. The slopes were slippery with ice and the way was treacherous; the interior of the Salt Mountain was unknown territory to the Marcomanni, fabled but forbidding. Still, what member of the people could resist such a challenge to prove his valor?
    Toutorix would lead the way. He had spent most of his life in the mines; there was not a corridor he did not know, a gallery he had not worked at one time. He almost jigged with impatience, waiting for the rest of them to get ready. It was not a job for one man alone, not in this weather.
    Wrapped in furs, the three gutuiters accompanied the search party as far as the valley of the Kelti and waited there to care for the girl if she was brought, injured, out of the mine.
    Below, in the magic house, Kernunnos once more retired to his bedshelf. His ribs stood up like lodgetimbers, pushing through his flesh, and he could see the hammering of his own heart beneath the taut skin. It would take him a long time to recover. He closed his eyes and sank wearily into the dreamworld, where nothing was demanded of him.
    The Kelti led the way into the mine with their lit torches, calling out to one another at frequent intervals. The priest had not been able to identify the exact corridor where Epona lay
but had described its general size and shape, the turnings that led to it, and the approximate distance to the surface. Three or four areas might answer to those specifications, so Toutorix ordered the men to divide into groups and he took the most promising direction himself. He was not walking cautiously, as men learned to do underground, but trotting as if he ran in open air, careless of where he put his feet. “Epona!” he called again and again. “Answer me, girl. Where are you?”
    His voice and the others, calling, echoed eerily through the salt caverns, distorting sound itself. Soon it was impossible to tell who was where.
    Toutorix headed for the lowest level of the mine. His party could feel the oppressive weight of the mountain over them. The Marcomanni began to hang back, physically uncomfortable and emotionally uneasy. It seemed to them that they had entered a monster’s belly and the open mouth might close behind them, swallowing them up. If this was the price for working the Salt Mountain, let the Kelti pay it! Brave warriors though they were, the Marcomanni were out of their element now, and their thoughts yearned back toward light and air. The girl seemed unimportant, even if she was of the chief’s family. Proving themselves was less necessary than it had been. This was one of the otherworlds, and they liked no part of it.
    “Come on, you!” Toutorix thundered at them. “Are you cowards? Hurry and we will find her soon.”
    The accusation of cowardice, the epithet no man of the people would willingly suffer, forced them on, but they were muttering among themselves and making extravagant secret promises to their tribal spirits.
    Suddenly Toutorix stopped, holding up his hand. “I thought I heard something.”
    The men with him listened, but they heard only the blood roaring in their own ears and the faint crunching underfoot as they shifted weight on the salt.
    “I hear nothing,” said Bellenos of the Marcomanni. “It may be we have come too deep and missed her; I think she is somewhere above us, if she is here at all.”
    Toutorix gritted his teeth. “She is here. Follow me.” He plunged on ahead.
    This time he was certain he heard a faint moan, a little animal whimper of pain in one of the dark tunnels off to the side. He had to stoop to enter, for it was lower than the central corridor, and his torch smoked against the salt. Without hesitation he made his way down the tunnel until his light revealed a salt-fall as white as a hill of snow blocking his way, crystals sparkling in the flickering light of