Authors: Katharine Kerr
For a moment the lady’s careful calm nearly deserted her. With shaking hands she wiped tears from her eyes, then composed herself with a long sigh that came close to being a gasp. Dallandra looked round the great hall, empty
and echoing with silence. Aside from a handful of male servants, the only guards the lady had were three wounded men.
“Well, my lady, before I ride on, I’ll see what I can do for these men here.”
“My thanks, but I’d be most grateful if you did catch up with the army. You see, my husband doesn’t have a proper chirurgeon with his warband, so your aid would be most welcome.”
“In the morning, then, I’ll be on my way. No doubt they’ve left an easy trail to follow.”
Since it had been some years since Dallandra had tended wounds, she was dreading the job, but once she got the clumsy bandages off her first patient’s injuries, her old professional detachment set in. The man’s gashed and bloody flesh became merely a problem for her to solve with the medicinals and other means she had at hand, rather than an object of disgust, and his gratitude made the effort well worth it. By the time she finished with the wounded, it was late in the day. She washed up, then joined the lady and her serving women at the table of honor. As they tried to make conversation about something other than the war and the lady’s fears for her husband, Dallandra found herself oppressed by a sense of dread so sharp and miserable that she knew it must be a dweomer-warning of sorts. Of what, she couldn’t say.
Just at sunset, the answer came in a shout of alarm from the servants who were watching the gates. Dallandra ran after Melynda when the lady rushed outside and saw the stableboys and the aged chamberlain swinging the gates shut. The two women scrambled up the ladder to the ramparts and leaned over. Down below on the dusty road, Lord Tewdyr was leading forty armed men up to the walls.
“And what do you want with me and my maidservants?” Melynda called down. “My husband and his men are long gone.”
“I’m well aware of that, my lady,” Tewdyr shouted back. “And I swear to every god and goddess as well that no harm will come to you and your women while you’re under my protection.”
“His lordship is most honorable, but we aren’t under his protection, and I see no reason to ask for it.”
“Indeed?” Tewdyr gave her a thin-lipped smile. “I fear me it’s yours whether you want it or not, because I’m going to take you back to my dun with me and hold you there until your husband quits the war and ransoms you back.”
“Oh, indeed?” Melynda tossed her head. “I should have known that spending all that coin would ache your heart, but never did I think it would drive you to dishonor, just to get it back.”
“There is no need for my lady to be insulting, especially when she can’t have more than a handful of men in her dun.”
Melynda bit her lip sharply and went a bit pale. Dallandra stepped forward and leaned over the rampart.
“The lady has all the men she needs,” Dallandra called. “This is an impious, dishonorable, and wretched move you’re making, my lord. Every bard in Deverry will satirize your name for it down the long years.”
“Oh, will they now?” Tewdyr laughed. “And do you claim to be a bard, old woman?”
His voice dripped cold contempt for all things old and female both. In an icy rage Dallandra swept up her hands and invoked elemental spirits, the Wildfolk of Air and Fire. In a swarming, glittering mob they answered her call and rushed among the men and horses in a surge of raw life. Although the men couldn’t see them, they could feel them indirectly, just as when a cloud darkens the sun outside and the light in a chamber dims. The riders shifted uneasily in their saddles; the horses danced and snorted; Tewdyr looked wildly around him.
“We have no need of armed men,” Dallandra said. “Are you stupid enough to match steel against the laws of honor and the gods?”
The Wildfolk chattered among the men and pinched the horses, pulled at the men’s clothes, and rattled their swords in their scabbards until the entire warband shook in fear. Turning this way and that, they cursed and swatted at enemies they couldn’t see. Dallandra held up her right hand and called forth blue fire—a perfectly harmless etheric light, but it looked like it would burn hot. She fashioned the fire into a long streaming torch and made it blaze brightly in the fading sunlight. Tewdyr yelped and began edging his horse backward.
“Begone!” Dallandra called out.
With a wave of her hand, she sent the bolt of light down like a javelin. When it struck the ground in front of Tewdyr’s horse, it shattered into a hundred darts and sparks of illusionary fire. Dallandra hurled bolt after bolt, smashing them into the ground among the warband while the Wildfolk pinched the horses viciously and clawed the men. Screaming, cursing, the warband broke and galloped shamelessly down the hill. Tewdyr spurred his horse as hard as any of them and never even tried to stop the retreat.
Dallandra sent the Wildfolk chasing them, then allowed herself a good laugh, but a pale and feverishly shaking Lady Melynda knelt at her feet. Behind her the servants huddled together as if they feared Dallandra would attack them simply for the fun of it. Only then did Dallandra remember that she was among human beings, not the People, who took dweomer and its powers as a given thing.
“Now, now, my lady, do get up,” Dallandra said. “The honor is mine to be allowed to be of service to you. It was naught but a few cheap tricks, but I doubt me very much that they’ll return to trouble you.”
“Most likely not, but I can’t call them cowards for it.”
All that evening the lady and her women waited upon Dallandra as if she were the queen herself, but none of them presumed to make conversation with her. As soon as she could, Dallandra went up to the chamber that they’d readied for her. Although she tried to scry, the whistle stayed hidden and Rhodry with it, giving her a few bitter thoughts on the limits of the dweomer that had so impressed the lady and her household.
In the meadows behind Lord Comerr’s dun, the allies had camped their hastily pulled together army of two hundred thirty-six men. For that first day after Erddyr’s dawn arrival, the men rested while the lords conferred over the various scraps of news that scouts and messengers brought them. Rhodry spent the day in rueful amusement, mocking himself for how badly he wanted to be included in those conferences. He was used to command, and even more, he knew that he was good at it, better, certainly, than the overly cautious Comerr and the entirely too daring Erddyr.
Yet there was nothing for him to do but sit around and remind himself that he was a silver dagger and nothing more. He was also more than a little worried about Yraen, who’d made his first kills by blind luck. The lad himself seemed dazed, saying little to anyone. Finally, when they received their scant rations for the evening meal, Rhodry led him away from the other men for a talk.
“Now listen, you know enough about war to know that you’re not ready to lead charges or suchlike. Every rider goes through a time when he’s just learning how to handle himself, like, and there’s no shame in an untried man staying on the edge of things. Everyone seems to have figured out that this is your first ride.”
“Oh, true spoken,” Yraen said. “But is there going to be any edge to stay on? It sounds cursed desperate to me. That last scout said that Adry’s scraped up almost three hundred men.”
“You’ve got a point. Unfortunately. Well, there’s still one thing you can do, and that’s think before you go charging right into the thick of things. More men have been saved by a good look round them than by the best sword work in the world.”
On the morrow, when the army saddled up and rode out, Lord Erddyr told Yraen to ride just behind the noble-born as a way of honoring the lad for saving his life and allowed Rhodry to join him there. They were heading back east in the hopes of making their stand on ground of their own choosing. Logic foretold that Adry would be riding for Comerr’s dun, but the scouts who circled ahead of the main body brought back no news of him. Finally, toward noon, scouts came back to report that they’d found Adry’s camp of the night before, but that the tracks of his army led south, away from Comerr’s dun and toward Tewdyr’s. The noble lords held a quick conference surrounded by their anxious warbands.
“Now why by the hells would he circle when he’s got the numbers on his side?” Erddyr said.
“A couple of reasons,” Comerr said. “Maybe to draw us into a trap for one. But I wonder—he’s heading back to Tewdyr’s dun, is he? Here, you don’t suppose Tewdyr rode away from the war, and Adry’s after him?”
“He’d never withdraw now. He’s too cursed furious with
me for that. He—oh, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell! What if the old miser’s making a strike on my dun?”
“I wouldn’t put it past the bastard,” Comerr snarled. “I say we ride back for a look.”
When the warband rode on, they left the wagon train behind to follow as best it could at its own slow pace. Lord Erddyr rode in a cold grim silence that told everyone he feared for his lady’s life. For two hours they kept up a cavalry pace, walking and trotting with the emphasis on the trot, and they left the road and went as straight as an arrow, plowing through field and meadow, climbing up the wild brushy hills. Finally a scout galloped back, grinning like a child with a copper to spend at the market fair.
“My lords!” the scout yelled. “Tewdyr’s not far ahead, and the stupid bastard’s only got forty men with him!”
Both lords and riders cheered.
It was less than an hour later when the warband trotted down a little valley to see Tewdyr and his men, drawn up in battle order and waiting for them. Apparently Tewdyr had scouts of his own out and had realized that he was pretty well trapped. When Lord Erddyr yelled out orders to his men to surround the enemy, the warband broke up into a ragged line and trotted fast to encircle the waiting warband. Rhodry drew a javelin, yelled at Yraen to follow him, and circled with the others. When he glanced back, Yraen was right behind him.
Sullen and disgruntled, the enemy moved into a tight bunch behind Tewdyr and his son. Tewdyr sat straight in his saddle, a javelin his hand.
“Tewdyr!” Comerr called out. “Surrender! We’ve got the whole cursed army surrounding you.”
“I can see well enough,” Tewdyr snarled.
With a laugh, Comerr made the lord a mocking bow from the saddle.
“Doubtless the thought of paying more ransom aches your noble heart, but fear not—your withdrawal from the war will be sufficient. We all know that dishonor will be less painful to you than losing more coin.”
With a howl of rage, Tewdyr spurred his horse forward and threw the javelin straight at Comerr, who flung up his shield barely in time. The javelin cracked it through and stuck there dangling. Shouting, the entire warband sprang
forward to Comerr’s side as he flung his useless shield away and grabbed for his sword. Tewdyr’s men had no choice but to charge to meet them. Yelling, shouting, Erddyr tried to stop the unequal slaughter, but the field turned into a brawl. Like too many flies crawling on a piece of meat, the warband mobbed Tewdyr’s men with their swords flashing up red in the sunlight. Rhodry yelled at Yraen to get back, then trotted over to Erddyr, who was sitting on his horse and watching, his mouth slack in disbelief.
“At least the two of you followed my orders, eh?” the lord shouted. “Ah, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell!”
They sat there like spectators at a tournament as the dust plumed up thick over the battle, and this was no mock combat with blunted and gilded weapons down in the Deverry court. Horses reared up, blood running down their necks; Tewdyr’s men fell bleeding with barely a chance to defend themselves. Four and five at a time, the warband mobbed them, hacking and stabbing, while the fighting was so thick that half the men never got a chance to close. They rode round and round the edge, shrieking war cries over the shouts of pain and the trampling clanging sound of horses shoving against shields. When Rhodry looked at Yraen, he found the lad decidedly pale, but his mouth was set tight and his eyes wide-open, as if he were forcing himself to watch the way an apprentice watches his master’s lesson in some craft.
“It’s not pretty, is it?” Rhodry said.
Yraen shook his head no and went on watching. The fighting was down to a desperate clot around Tewdyr, bleeding in his saddle but still hacking in savage fury. Suddenly Yraen turned his horse and galloped down the valley. Rhodry started to follow, but he saw him dismount and take a few steps toward the stream, where he stood with his hands pressed over his face, merely stood and shook. He was crying, most like. Rhodry couldn’t hold it against the lad. He felt half-sick himself from the savagery of this slaughter. When he looked Erddyr’s way, his eyes met the lord’s, and he knew Erddyr felt the same.
Suddenly a distant noise broke into Rhodry’s mind and pulled him alert. Erddyr threw up his head and screamed out a warning as silver horns rang out on the crest of the
hill. Too late for rescue, but in time for revenge, Lord Adry’s army galloped down to join the battle. Shrieking orders, Erddyr circled the edge of the mob and managed to get a few men turned round and ready to face this new threat. Rhodry followed, howling with laughter, and spotted a rider who could only be one of the noble-born, a lean man carrying a beautifully worked shield and riding a fine black horse. Howling a challenge he charged straight for him. Only when it was too late to pull back did he remember Yraen, and much later still did he remember that he was a silver dagger again, no longer a noble lord to challenge one of his peers.
After he stopped crying, Yraen knelt by the stream and washed his face, but the shame he felt for what he saw as womanish weakness couldn’t be so easily dealt with. For a moment he lingered there alone, wondering if he could face Rhodry again, realizing that he had no choice. He was walking back to his horse when he heard the enemy horns and saw the enemy army pouring over the hill like water. He ran, grabbed the reins just before the animal bolted, and swung himself up into the saddle. None of his fancy lessons in war mattered now; all that counted was getting to the safety of his own pack of men. As he galloped down the valley, he saw the enemy army spreading out, trying to encircle his own. Just barely in time Yraen dodged through their van.