SILVERLODE
It was early morning, and the mist had not lifted. Gael had cho
sen an old trail with good cover, which would bring the troop out a few miles south of the road to Silverlode. They rode swiftly from tree to tree and took advantage of two small hills, old burial mounds.
Captain Maddoc was not too displeased with her troop—what they lacked in polish they made up for in quickness. Everyone had learned well: Bress and Shim had shown skill in the riding practice in the inn yard; the two kedran picked up the searching and holding cleanly and well. Wennle was strong and levelheaded, eager for the rescue. They even had a name: at supper, the two lads had sung a verse of their jesting song and translated it for Ensign From, who had only a smattering of Chyrian:
Here comes an escort
Fit for a King
In motley shirts and britches.
Are they all out hunting swine
Or are they hounding witches?
So now they were the Hounds, or the Witch-Hounds, and signaled to each other with soft barks and howls as they made their way through the scrub and the wind-twisted trees of the plateau.
The main highway over the plateau, called the King’s Way farther north, was a well-made road in the manner of Mel’Nir, paved with stone, wide enough for six “giant warriors” riding abreast on large horses. Lesser roads and tracks led off to east and west. In the south, the rescue party could see the place where Tusker Lovill had been waiting for the Malms, and the Larch Road, running west, down from the plateau.
To the north, beyond Silverlode and its slag hills, was a wider road that descended directly to Hackestell. The riders were all keyed up, underslept; when a grouse flew up from the thick grass, they shied like their horses. Gael got down and crawled with Ensign Bruhl to the top of the second mound—they looked toward the crossroads and made a summoning.
Gwil Cluny, acting as their scout, appeared beside the horse trough with his brown pony. He made a sign meaning “all clear” to the south, but then he signaled urgently to his left along the misty reaches of the highroad. A party of travelers were approaching from the north: Gael and the ensign could just pick them out beyond the turn off to Silverlode. Gael stood up and signaled “Come in, Scout.”
“What’ll we do with them, Captain?” asked Ilse Bruhl.
“We must ride out to meet them!” said Gael. “We must see them safely on the road to the Halfway House or at least past the turn-off to Silverlode. It would do no good for our plan if the Boar and his men held these folk for worth robbing and came out some way to seize them or lure them in.”
“Captain,” said Bruhl, “do you suppose the Young Boar knew that your party, with Eildon nobles, was on the way?”
Gael Maddoc had thought about this possibility.
“We were in plain view on the high ground, and we were not alone,” she said. “I saw riders on the Larch Road. The Malms were richly dressed, and they rode with an escort, a servant, and a packhorse.”
“That road is a good way off,” said Bruhl. “Do you suppose they used magic to spy out travelers? The art of farseeing?”
“A seaman’s glass would have done it,” said Gael smiling.
She reached into an outer pocket of her saddlebag and brought out a small brassbound glass that she had purchased in the bazaar at Seph-al-Ara, the town of the Zebbecks.
“We must not turn everything to magic,” she said.
They took turns observing the party approaching from the north: a small covered cart or traveling wagon and two riders. They were not easy to identify, though at least one could see what they were
not.
“No men of Mel’Nir,” said Bruhl. “No Giant Warriors.”
They scrambled down to the others and remounted. Gael gave the news of the travelers and then gave orders.
“We will ride out upon the high road,” she said, “and pass the turn off to Silverlode. Ensign From and I will ride ahead and speak with these travelers. Remember the story, Ensign?”
“Yes, Captain! We’re awaiting a party from the Eastern Rift.”
“Captain,” asked Shim Rhodd, “does this spoil our cover for the secret action?”
“It does indeed,” said Gael, “but we cannot risk an attack on these travelers just as we intend to make our play.”
She led the Witch-Hounds out of cover, and they set out in good style to the north on the broad road, through the mist clouds. The road to Silverlode that they had all seen in their dreams came closer; looking back, they saw that Gwil Cluny was catching up. Nothing stirred as they passed the way to Silverlode: Gael concentrated furiously, comparing the countryside, the grass thick with dew, the twisted trees, the nearer slag heaps and old diggings, with the map they had studied.
Then they were past the mouth of the road; Gwil rode up beside her and said:
“One sentinel, I think, Captain!”
“Where?” she asked. “Thank the Goddess for a good scout, Master Gwil! I saw none!”
He tilted his head to one side and stared clear up into the whiteness of the sky: a solitary hawk or buzzard twirled overhead.
“Is that one of the witches?” she asked. “Or is it some fetch, some watching device?”
“It is both,” said Gwil. “Not many folk, light or half-light, turn themselves into birds—like the famed Messengers of the
Eildon Falconers. Mostly they send out their spirit in a bird’s guise.”
“What can we do against the watcher?”
Gwil Cluny had a small crossbow on the front of his saddle, and he patted it with a smile.
“No use taking a shot!” he smiled. “We must behave like travelers.”
They went a little way farther along the road. The vehicle approaching was now clearly a carriage, with a hood of grey fabric; the outriders were soldiers, guards, with grey cloaks. Gael was suddenly full of mistrust.
“I will have Master Wennle look over these travelers,” she said. “Fall back and send him up, Scout Cluny.”
“Aye, Captain!”
Presently, as the carriage drew close, Wennle came to her side. It was part of the plan for him to take a good look at any they met on the roads of the plateau. He was “disguised” in clothes from the Halfway House, a cotton padded jacket of Mel’Nir, with a hood, and he rode a fresh horse.
“I’ll pass the time of day,” said Gael. “Master Wennle, take a keen look at all the travelers and see if any were in Huarikson’s monster pack.”
“I will do my best, Captain,” he said firmly.
As the entourage came closer still, she saw that all the horses were very fine, with a matched pair of red roans for the carriage. This did not speak for any connection with the Wild Boar. The large crest on the carriage was in gold, red, and green, with three golden bells in one of the quarterings.
“Captain, I read the crest on the carriage!” exclaimed Ensign From.
She was alert and obedient, a good ensign, now that her interest in what they were doing had been aroused.
“Report!” said Gael.
“It is a noble family of Lien—Barry of Chantry,” said From.
“This will not be the duke, but the younger son, Lord Auric, or some of his household. Moon and Stars know what such folk are doing here in the wilderness of Mel’Nir!”
Gael signaled the others to clear the way, to move to the eastern edges of the road, then she rode forward, with From and
Wennle after her. The ensign carried a lance with a pennant for Nordlin, the crest of three birds; now Gael took it herself and dipped the lance politely. The two riders of the escort, men at arms in blue cloaks, spoke to the coachman and crossed to the western side of the road. The carriage drew to a halt.
“Good day to you!” Gael addressed the coachman.
She saw that he was middle aged, clean shaven, with a ruddy complexion and a city look about him. He stared at her, unsmiling, holding tight to the skittish roans.
“Where are you heading, Master?” she continued.
He shook his head, would not utter a word.
“I must speak with your liege,” she said in a loud voice.
The carriage was a fancy, light equipage, not entirely suitable for an autumn journey over the high ground. Now a curtain behind the coachman’s high seat was whisked back. She could look right into the carriage and see the man whom she could not doubt was its owner. She heard Ensign From’s excited whisper: “Lord Auric!”
He was not much older than herself and one of the most handsome men she had ever seen, though in a quite different style from Blayn of Pfolben. His features were aquiline; his full lips curled in a smile that brought boyish dimples to his cheeks. His eyes were a brilliant dark blue, the color picked up in the trimmings of his coat, in his sapphire jewelry. His hair was rich dark red, worn rather long, and it gave him the appearance of paleness.
He was not alone in the carriage: a woman in an enveloping blue cloak and hood sat on his left. On his right was an older man with a wisp of beard, who peered out through a single eyeglass on a long handle.
“Good day to you, kedran!” said Lord Auric Barry. “How is the way south?”
The voice was very smooth and resonant, almost a player’s voice.
“My lord,” said Gael, “the route south is not safe. May I ask where you are traveling?”
“Oh we are bound to the east, a little,” said the young lord. “To the great inn—what’s it called?”
“The Halfway House,” said Gael. “Here lies your way …”
The best paved road to the Halfway House lay only a few yards distant.
“Thanks, good kedran!” said the lord.
He raised a beribboned cane and poked the coachman in the back.
“On you go, Ned!”
Gael and the others drew away; Ned, the taciturn coachman, swung the carriage expertly, and the whole party moved off down the road to the inn. As they rode back to the rest of the Witch-Hounds, Ensign From said:
“I think Lord Auric has drawn up again, yonder by the trees …”
“Captain Maddoc,” said Wennle in a quavering voice, “I have never seen any of these men before, though the young lord himself seems strangely familiar to me. But what is one so finely dressed as this young duke’s son doing out in such an equipage in this place, so out of season?”
“This was a strange meeting,” Gael agreed. “Perhaps this mystery will later resolve itself to our satisfaction. Now we must go to our task with all possible speed!”
She glanced down at her right hand, resting upon Ebony’s neck: her magic ring still flashed and twinkled urgently as it had done all through the brief interchange with Lord Auric.
“Form up!” she ordered, as the troop came together. “This is the time! We will put on the shields at my word!”
She was deliberately hurrying them along, not giving time to be afraid. It was, she judged, about the third hour after sunrise, called nine by the Lienish clock at the Halfway House.
“They’re watching us from the carriage, yonder,” said Gwil Cluny.
“We cannot delay!” she said.
They were all in place, looking surprisingly well set up and keen.
“Remember,” said Gael Maddoc, “that we are in every way stronger than these brigands, because of our magic. We must not hesitate to use our power and to use the power of our arms to subdue them.”
Then she returned the lance with the Nordlin banner and
took from the hand of Bress her own lance, with the banner for Coombe. She raised it high and cried out:
“I ask the blessing of the Goddess and of the Eilif lords of the Shee upon our enterprise!”
Then she gave the words for the shields, and there was a crackling in the morning air: the troop gave the response. The horses nickered a little and clopped their feet upon the road. Gael led off at a good walking pace, no more, and they came quickly to the mouth of the road to Silverlode. She smartened the walking pace to a trot.
The road wound through low hillocks covered with greenish brown tussock grass: ancient slag heaps from Silverlode’s mining days. As they came within sight of the walls of the town, Gael saw that they had been patched up, here and there, with piled stone and wooden stakes, like a stockade.
Once there had been two gates into Silverlode, the main gate to the south and a smaller eastern gate facing the old road over the plateau, which had run in more or less the same place as the broad new road. The eastern gate had been closed, bricked up, and marked with heavy crossed beams. It had not been used since the bodies of the Rift Lords—Strett of Cloudhill, Paunce of Pauncehill, Keddar of Keddar Grove—had been carried through on their last journey to the Eastern Rift, for burial. As Gael watched, the main gate swung open, letting out two riders.
“On the walls …” said Ensign Bruhl.
“Come up!” ordered Gael. “We’ll meet these two and go in at the gate!”
She urged Ebony into a good canter, and the others picked it up; they bore down on the two riders. One was on a shaggy brown and white pony, a boy in green; the other was Badger Breckan, on his big troop horse. Gael raised her lance, feeling the magic run all through its length as she uttered the spell; she cried an order: