Deverry - A Time Of War Part 36

Yraen nodded and trotted off to follow orders.

Jill had a peculiar sort of battlement to build round the dun and the town. Even though it was broad daylight, and the ward and the walls were filled with people, she decided that she had no time to waste in waiting for darkness, and that the dun had seen enough dweomer by now to put up with her standing on the tops of towers and doing odd things. She puffed up the spiral staircase to the roof of the main broch, where she'd taught Rhodry how to intone a magical formula, and found tidy little pyramids of round stones, stacked at the edge at regular intervals, ready for some desperate defence of the dun. Jill walked into the centre of this circle and stood for a moment, catching her breath.

When she was ready, she focused her mind on the blue light of the etheric. Slowly it seemed that the bright sunlight round her faded and a different light rose, dim and silvery, though through it she could clearly see the physical world around her. In this bluish flux she raised her arms high and called upon the power of the Holy Light that stands behind all the shadowy figures and personified forces that men call G.o.ds. Its visible symbol came to her in a glowing spear that pierced her from head to foot. For a moment she stood motionless, paying it homage, then stretched her arms out shoulder-high, bringing the light with them to form a shaft across her chest. As she stood within the cross, the light swelled, strengthening her, then slowly faded of its own will. When it was gone, she lowered her arms, then visualized a sword of glowing light m her right hand. Once the image lived apart from her will, she circled the roof, walking deosil, and used the sword to draw a huge ring of golden light in the sky.

As the ring settled to earth, it sheeted out, forming a burning wall round the entire town of Cengarn.

Three times round she went, until the wall lived on the etheric of its own will. At each ordinal point, she put a seal in the shape of a five-pointed star made of blue fire. Once the sigils of the kings of the elements blazed at the four directions, she spread the light until it was not a ring but an enormous sphere of gold, roofing over the dun and the town both and extending down under them as well. Two last seals at zenith and nadir, and Cengarn hung in the many-layered worlds like a bubble in gla.s.s.

At the end of the working, she withdrew the force from the image of the sword, dissolving it, then stamped three times on the roof. Sunlight brightened round her, and she could hear the sounds of the dun, shut out earlier by sheer concentration. The portion of the sphere above the earth, however, remained visible-that is, visible to someone with dweomer sight. Although she would have to renew the seals five times a day at the changing of the astral tides, everyone inside the sphere would be safe from prying eyes as well as spirits sent by their enemies.

'And we'll see,' she said aloud, 'how our fine Alshandra likes that.'

Yet she knew that she was as guilty as any green warrior of sheer braggadocio. For all she knew, Alshandra would be able to brush the seals away like so many eobwebs. If only Dalla would return! Jill had that thought a hundred times a day. But a useless sort of thought it was, she reminded herself just as often. Rather than stand round wishing, she hurried down to try and convince the arms master to help her salt the entire dun with whatever bits of old iron they could find.

After Meer pledged himself to sorcerer and gwerbret both, Jahdo led him over to the servitors' table where the young bard and his lady were sitting together. Meer sat himself down across from them and bellowed for ale.

'Be it so that you have need of me?' Jahdo said.

'Not for some while, lad. Run off and find your friends if you'd like.'

Instead, Jahdo hurried up the spiral staircase after Yraen and Ocradda. On the landing, by the door into the women's hall, Ocradda told Yraen to wait while she broke the evil news to Carramaena as gently as could ever be possible. Jahdo lingered, half-hidden on the stairs, till the lady was well inside, but Yraen's sharp eyes spotted him, 'What do you want, lad?'

'Oh, naught, truly. I did but cr well . . .'

'Out with it!'

'I be so scared, Yraen, that they'll harm the princess.'

Yraen made an attempt at a smile that failed.

'You know somewhat, Jahdo? So am I, but by every G.o.d in the sky, before they can get at her, they'll have to kill me, and that's not such an easy thing to do.'

'Truly, that be so.' Jahdo climbed the last few stairs up to stand beside him. 'But I did think, well, there be dweomer here, and what may we do gainst that? So I did come up with a plan. I do have these talismans that Meer did give me, long ago now, and I want the princess to wear them. Great sorcerers aren't going to come a-bothering the likes of me.'

'Now, that's a n.o.ble thought you've had, truly, and I'm proud of you.' Yraen paused to listen at the closed door. 'Whist, here they come! You kneel and get ready to ask her, like.'

Jahdo got down on one knee and hurriedly ran his hands through his hair, lifted off the charms, rumpling his hair in the process, and was just smoothing it again when the door opened. Flanked by Lady Ocradda, Princess Carramaena stepped out, her head held high, her mouth set hard in a tight line like a warrior's. Jahdo thought that he'd never seen her so beautiful, but still fierce and defiant, like a white eagle, dressed as she was all in white linen, broidered with rich colour at neck and sleeves.

'What's all this?' Ocradda said, waving vaguely at Jahdo.

'He has a gift to offer Her Highness, Your Grace,' Yraen said. 'Jahdo, go ahead.'

For a moment, though, Jahdo's heart pounded so hard that he simply couldn't speak, Carra encouraged him with a little nod.

'Your Highness,' he managed the words at last. 'My master did give me these talismans that the High Priestess made. The High Priestess in Meer's own city, I mean, and she does know Gel da'Thae dweomer better than anyone. So I did think that you should have the wearing of them, because the Ilorsekin sorcerers, they be trying to work you harm, but never would they care about a lad like me.'

'Jahdo, how kind of you.' For a moment Carra's voice wavered, but only a moment. 'But never could I take your safety away,'

'Your Highness?' Yraen spoke rather bluntly, Jahdo thought, considering he was speaking to royalty.

'You need them, lie doesn't.'

'Just so, Your Highness,' Jahdo said. 'Oh please, if it were that you were wearing them, I would be sleeping so much better.'

Carra smiled, a sudden burst of grat.i.tude like sun through clouds, and took the thong-full of charms.

When she slipped them over her head, when he saw them lying against the pale skin of her neck, Jahdo felt abruptly giddy. He simply couldn't understand why he'd turned so warm and shy all of a sudden, though his heart pounded harder than ever.

'You have my undying thanks, Jahdo,' Carra said. 'I'll wear them always and think of you.'

Although Jahdo felt himself grinning and gaping like a fool, he couldn't force out another word. When, guarded between Ocradda and Yraen, Carra went downstairs, Jahdo stayed kneeling on the landing for a long time, wondering if he'd ever been so happy in his life, siege or no siege. In his mind he could still see the memory picture of the thongs nestling at the hollow of her throat, the bound feathers, the silver disk - 'Oh! That other disk!'

He leapt to his feet just as a memory leapt into his mind, the peculiar sigil on the pewter disk that Jill had shown him out in the stablcyard, He rushed downstairs dangerously fast, tore through the great hall, and burst out into the ward just in time to see Jill climbing down from her warding ritual.

'Jill. Jill,' he shouted. 'I remember, I remember!'

Laughing, she took his arm and led him away from the puzzled crowd of warriors standing round the ward.

'Remember what, lad?'

'The squiggly thing on Thavrae's amulets. Remember you it? You did show me when you'd taken them from the old jailor, and there were this squiggly thing on the pewter disk.'

'I do remember, indeed. You said you'd seen it before?'

'And I know where. I did find one just like it, lying in the gra.s.s outside the gates of Cerr Cawnen.'

'Ah.' Jill let our her breath in a burst. 'Did you now? And what did you do with the thing?'

'I did give it to Tek-Tek for her h.o.a.rd. She be one of our ferrets, you see, and they do love to magpie away shiny bits and other such that catch their fancy. She took it thong and all into her treasure ball among the straw, though truly, Ambo, our big hob I mean, it may be that Ambo did steal it from her later.'

'But it's among the weasels still?'

'It be so, for truly, I see no reason why Mam or Da would have taken it. It be a fair bit mucky by now, I wager.'

Jill laughed, a quick peal quickly over.

'Well and good, lad, well and good. Then I doubt me if our enemies will go a-hunting for it, and if we ever get you home again, there it'll be, waiting for us to have a look at it.'

During those long days pa.s.sing in the world of men, for Dallandra, Time's wheel had turned little more than an afternoon's hour. She'd occupied herself in alternately fuming at her captor and laying plans. If only she could get out of her prison and reach the page before he or his men could, grab him somehow and put him behind her, then they could both take their chances together in a fight. The question was how. Often in Evandar's country things that seemed solid were nothing but illusion, and in the spirit of experiment she focused her mind on one of the cage bars nearby. If it didn't exist, her mere sceptical attempt to put her hand through that bar would dissolve it, but when she tried, she got a solid b.u.mp for her trouble. It had proved hard-woven astral substance, perhaps even of Evandar's making, if he'd created the trees her captors had destroyed to imprison her.

Although any piece of physical matter, if it had been possible to transport such to this plane of existence, would have gone right through the cage, her own illusion of a body was woven of the same stuff. Thus it behaved in relation to the 'things' of Evandar's country the same way as real flesh would behave in the physical world. Her body was also real enough to ache, or rather, to register the sense impressions of her etheric double as pain, modelling that feeling, most likely, on her memories of actual physical pain. From her rough capture she still hurt, a constant, distracting gnaw. She found herself rubbing the amethyst figurine round her neck to ease her bruises, just as she might rub a sore shoulder back on the physical plane.

She lay down on her stomach on the cage floor and pretended to sleep, but she was actually studying the layout of the camp. The herald had wandered off into the forest, perhaps to nurse his sense of dishonour at his lord's conduct. The ursine fellows had fallen asleep and snoring from their lord's - Dalla had taken to calling him Lord Vulpine for want of a better name - from Lord Vulpine's magically created mead, but the wolf warrior, the other fox-like creature, the distorted human, and the lord himself all sat alert and chatting by their fire.

If only she could get out of the cage, she could use that fire against them, make it flare and explode with salamanders, tossing flames all over the clearing. Nothing would truly burn, but she doubted if they'd realize that in time, and their astral bodies would register the raw energies of elemental fire as pain. In the panic she perhaps could get the boy out of his prison. Making a great show of yawning, she rolled over on her back and flung one arm over her face, peering out from under it to study the lashed branches. If it were dark, she could probably unpick knots, but when or even if night would fall in this magical country was problematic. She rolled over again, carefully and slowly, so as not to attract their attention, and considered what weapons might lie to hand if she eould gain the ground.

All of a sudden, from the forest edge, the herald shrieked and howled. Dallandra sat bolt upright as down below the bear warriors woke with a grunt, and Lord Vulpine and his other men sprang to their feet. Waving his staff and moaning the herald waddled out of the forest with a black-mailed warrior striding behind. Like his lord he was mostly human, with only his red roach of hair and clawed hands to betray him.

'Our borders!' the herald called out. 'A breach, a breach.'

Dallandra nearly laughed aloud, thinking they meant Evandar. In his cage on the ground the pageboy leapt up, too, and leaned against the bars to listen. Whiie the herald moaned and dithered, the armoured fox warrior knelt at Lord Vulpine's feet.

'My lord! The rebels have marched across our land, hundreds and hundreds of them, and they had an army with them, strange horrible beasts with horses and manes like horses on their own heads.'

Lord Vulpine swore and raised his hand. A silver sword manifested within his grasp.

'That b.i.t.c.h Alshandra!' the kneeling warrior said. 'She was at their head in the form of a huge raven.

They travelled into Evandar's country, where we dared not follow, so I know not where they went.'

Dalla clutched the bars of her cage so hard the structure swayed on its ropes. She could guess the ultimate destination of that army. They were marching on Jill, Cengarn, and the child and her mother.

Images of slaughter and terror flashed into her mind beyond her power to stop them.

'Where were our guards?' Lord Vulpine snapped.

'Overrun. These creatures - they carried iron.'

His lord threw back his head and howled, a long wail of rage and frustration. All at once Dallandra realized that he could be a weapon in her hand, if she could seize it without cutting herself.

'Oho!' she called out. 'You! Dog Nose! Some fine lord you are.'

He spun round, peering up, flicking the sword point in her direction.

'Hold your tongue, elven b.i.t.c.h, or I'll cut it out.'

'Huh, no doubt you would. That's an easy thing, torturing a helpless woman and a child.' She gestured at the page. 'A good way to forget your defeat, I suppose.'

'Hold your tongue!'

Behind his lord's back the herald lifted wrung hands, as if imploring her to stop. She ignored him.

'You forgot one thing, didn't you now? That raven your man saw, that can't be Alshandra, not so close to all that iron. How could she travel with that army?'

He opened his mouth, then hesitated, thinking.

'Well, that's true,' he said at last. 'So?'

'Then where is. she? She's lurking round the Lands still, no doubt on your side of the border, because she's terrified of Evandar, as well she might be.'

He snarled, then kicked the warrior kneeling at his feet. The man whined but stayed where he was.

'You can't keep Alshandra out of your territory, can you?' Dallandra pitched her voice to an insolent'lilt.

'Oh, a fine border you keep! Even Evandar's cast-off woman can go strolling past your guards any time she has the fancy to.'

Lord Vulpine growled, clutching the sword in a hand suddenly become furred. She could see fangs, too, biting into his lower lip, as if he would transform into an animal in front of her.

'My lord!' the herald shrieked.

With a toss of his head the lord collected himself and became, again, mostly elven.

'You forget, s.l.u.t,' he snarled, 'that her warriors carried iron.'

'They did, certainly, but how could she do the same?'

He hesitated, caught. She laughed.

"You, herald!' she called out. 'How does it feel to serve a coward, one who can threaten a caged woman but not guard his own borders?'

The herald gaped his long slit of a toad's mouth and made a gurgling noise in his throat, as if he were swallowing prayers. With paws c.o.c.ked to noses the bear warriors looked back and forth between their lord and the others. Lord Vulpine swung backhanded and smacked the herald so hard he fell.

'Summon my men!' he snarled. 'We ride for the borders!'

His band cheered him.

'You!' Lord Vulpine spun round, pointing at each warrior in turn. 'Guard them well, the lad and the elven shrew. Once the army's on the way, the herald here will be keeping an eye on you. There will be no parley, old man, so I don't need you. You stay here, and if I return to find these prisoners gone, I'll slice those folds of flesh away from your neck while you beg me to let you die.'

The herald squawked wordlessly. Lord Vulpine grabbed his arm and hauled him up.

'Summon my men, I said.'

He dragged the herald off into the forest while the warriors argued and swore, bewailing their guard duty and a lost chance to ride with the army. So far so good, Dallandra thought. She reminded herself that even if night lay close at hand for her, weeks might pa.s.s in the lands of men before the sky above her turned dark. She was going to have to scheme out some fast escape.

On the third day of the siege of Cengarn, Jill rose at dawn and climbed to the top of the main tower to renew the astral seals. After she finished her working, she stood for a moment looking out over the enemy army, ensconced now some hundred yards back, well out of a bow's range, from the city walls.

Beyond this neutral ground rode a few guards, ambling on their enormous horses in a lazy circle. Beyond them lay ground kept clear for possible fighting, and farther still, the tents. As the sun brightened, it glittered on armour and weapons as the soldiers strolled through the camp, getting their rations, probably, since just past the tents stood the wagons, extra horses and supplies.

At the outermost ring, the enemy had begun to dig trenches behind them and pile up earthworks to defend themselves from an army riding to relieve the town. Thanks to Cengarn's position, straddling hills on the edge of more hills, the Horsckin had a difficult emplacement to defend, broken in places by rising land, in others by valleys. It would take them a good long while to dig themselves in properly, Jill supposed, or so she could hope. Whether or not they had magical defences was the question that was truly vexing her. From her position in the dun, she could spot nothing but clouds of faint purplish glow, here and there, that indicated personal talismans of one sort or another - Horsekin magic, such as Meer and now Carra wore round their necks.

Even though the dun stood on the highest inner hill, thanks to the broken landscape not all of the enemy camp stood visible. Since Meer had told her that the Horsekin not only carried hunting bows but prided themselves on their skill, she had no desire to go flying over the camp in falcon form to scout. Later that morning, in the company of Lord Gavry, she went down to the town walls, which of course lay further out than those of the dun. With a yeoman captain, Mallo, to guide them, they climbed a ladder up to the wood catwalks. Although Mallo wore a stout iron pot helm, the rest of his accoutrements were made of boiled leather, studded here and there with bra.s.s. Jill could guess that most of the town defenders had no better.

As they walked their slow circuit of the walls, stopping now and then to peer out between the merlons, Jill let the two men fall a little ways behind. She opened up her etheric sight, turning the stone walls round her so black and dead that she felt as if they'd crawled into a cavern, and began a careful study of the enemy camp. Round the western side, right under the dun itself, she of course saw nothing new, and nor did she find any traces of magic up to the north, where the town looked out into the rising hills about a half-mile beyond the enemy camp.

The eastern quarter brought her better hunting. Here the northern hills circled round, coming closer to the town in a couple of low fingers of land, and here stood the East Gate, where Carra had tried to slip inside un.o.bserved after her brief jaunt some weeks earlier. Out on one of those fingers of land, about some five hundred yards from the town, Jill saw a bubble of pale gold light, dotted at the cardinal points with glowing specks that, at some closer distance, would probably prove themselves magical seals. She refocused her sight to the physical and saw white shapes much like distant tents, and the occasional flutter of a red banner.

'There we are!' she called out, pointing. 'Some rather eminent persons are camped in those tents, I'll wager. Their cadvridoc, perhaps, and their mazrak.'

Gavry and Mallo hurried to a s.p.a.ce between merlons and peered out, shading their eyes.

'Lord Gavry, when we get back, you'd best report this to His Grace,' Jill went on. 'Mallo, how well defended is this gate?'

'It isn't a gate no longer, good sorcerer. We've sealed her up and good. This was always the weak point of the whole town, and some of the dwarven gentlemen, what are sieged here with us, I mean, they supplied these sacks of greyish stuff. Magic, I suppose it be, but when you mix it with water to a porridge, like, and ladle it round your gates, then it dries as hard as stone. We did seal the gates, and pile up loose gravel and bits of rock behind it, and slop a fair bit of that magic stone round and over the pile, and I doubt me if a G.o.d could break his way through the East Gate now.'

'Splendid!' Jill said. 'Now that's the kind of magic we could use more of.'

The men laughed, but uneasily. Jill refocused her sight to the etheric and walked on, pausing every few steps to peer out at the enemy camp. In the quadrant that ran from the domed and sealed tents down to the South Gate, she found more and more magical traces, glimmers of purplish light, streaks of pale red from some different sort of talisman. They were nearly to the South Gate when Jill saw what seemed to be three shafts or slender towers of black light, unimaginable as that sounds, huge beams of light turned to perceptible darkness, glittering like obsidian from the fire mountains of the north and rising some thirty feet into the air. Down her back ran the ice touch of dweomer warning.