Deverry - A Time Of War Part 37

'I don't like this,' she burst out. 'Mallo, are the men on alert?'

'They are, my lady.' He patted a silver horn hanging at his belt. 'All I have to do is signal, like.'

Jill walked on, a little faster. The dweomer-traces out in the ma.s.sed enemy camp grew brighter, more cl.u.s.tered. At the towers over the main gates, the southern pair, she found four of the gwerbret's men, mailed and armed with hunting bows, leaning over the merlons and arguing among themselves about something they saw outside. Jill brought her sight down and stared with them. In the Horsekin camp some sort of activity was stirring up dust.

'Mallo!' Jill yelled. 'Sound the alarum!'

Like birds the silver notes swooped over Cengarn. Down in the streets men shouted, town guards came rushing to scale ladders, women shrieked and ran, grabbing children and dragging them back from the walls into the relative safety of the centre of town. Up in the dun another horn called in answer. As soon as they could grab weapons, the gwerbret's men would be reinforcing the guard on the outer walls.

'Gavry, get down!' Jill shouted. 'You'll only be in the way.'

The elderly lord was more than glad to follow her order, scrabbling down a ladder to hurry back to the dun. Jill found a spot where she could wedge herself next to a tower and out of everyone's way, then brought her sight back to the etheric. The pillars of black light were moving closer.

'Siege towers,' she yelled. 'Hidden by dweomer, but they have them.'

She heard Mallo yelling orders about fire, and in a few moments she could smell wood smoke and the sickening odour of melting pitch. For a moment she debated trying a banishing against those towers of blackness, but if she could simply guide the archers? Better yet! Let their enemies wonder how their dweorner defence had been pierced! She switched her sight down and noted the lie of the land, then returned it up to mark the towers of black light. From auras and the traces of talismanic magic, she could easily keep track of the various squads of men.

'Directly behind the five mounted lords,' she called out. 'Sight over those ranked foot soldiers in front, sight some five feet behind the horses, now lift your aim to about ten feet above the ground.'

With a whoosh and a stink of smoke the first course of flaming arrows flew. Jill could hear the Horsekin screaming in rage, but she kept her sight focused on the etheric plane - the higher ground in this peculiar battle.

'Just a little to the left!' she screamed.

The second flight whistled out. One of the black shafts of light exploded and vanished in a rush of pure elemental energy, the red and gold of natural fire. As the rest of the arrows fell into the army, shrieks of pain howled up with the battle cries. Taken off-guard the enemy squads were milling round, trying to form into some kind of order for a charge.

'A strike! A strike!' the guards cried.

'There's two more,' Jill called. 'Swing to your right. Over the men holding that - ye G.o.ds, they've got a ram! Behind the ram, then, and just five feet behind and the same height as your last volley.'

This time the first flight struck home, and another black shaft vanished into fire. Down below the enemy charged; from the walls a single flurry of stones greeted them. This early in the siege the defenders would have to trust in their walls and gates rather than depleting their supply of weapons. Jill sighted on the third siege tower, called down the flaming arrows again, and again, they struck home, .setting the engine alight.

Cengarn's walls rang with jeers and cat-calls as the soldiers carrying the ram tried one feeble bounce, then retreated fast under a covering fire of arrows that stilled the defenders' laughter. Jill dropped below a merlon just in time, and a curse next to her told her that one of the guards had lingered too long.

She brought her physical sight back fast, and kneeling, she crawled over to him, but he was already dead, pierced through the neck by sheer luck and little else. All Jill could do for him was close his eyes.

Mallo came crawling to join her and swore when he saw the corpse.

'We've driven the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds off,' he said to the dead man. 'You didn't die in vain, lad.' He glanced at Jill.

'He's our first, is he? I'm not fool enough to think he'll be our last.'

Nodding agreement Jill rose, risking a look through two merlons. The enemy had withdrawn, leaving their siege towers burning like huge torches in the neutral ground while they dragged their dead and wounded away. Black smoke rose to defile the sky.

'Well and good,' Jill said. "We got a claw into them, did we? And now they'll have to think for a while before they risk feeling the whole paw.'

At the same time as the Horsekin were mounting their abortive attack, up in his own country Evandar was listening to the harpers sing a pair of songs and not particularly long ones at that. Sweet though the music was he grew distracted, suddenly leaping to his feet with an oath.

'Leave me! Take those squalling strings and go!'

With little shrieks of fear they clutched their harps to their chests and fled, rushing out of the pavilion.

Evandar began to pace back and forth. What was taking Dallandra so much time? Normally she felt his moods and rushed to his side whenever he wanted her. Why was she dallying in the world of men? She had promised him a quick return, and he wanted a quick return.

Evandar strode outside to the long green lawns. These normally soothed him; he'd modelled them upon the royal taste in gardens from the long-dead elven city of Rinbaladelan, and they reminded him of happier times. Even there, however, he was distracted, in this case by a sudden rush of wings and the shrieking of birds. He looked up to see a brilliantly-coloured flock wheeling toward the pavilion, c.o.c.katoos, macaws, parrots with emerald wings. As they settled in the gra.s.s they transformed themselves into women, dressed in flowing silk. Shrieking and calling out, the night princess and her ladies rushed across the gra.s.s.

'Here, here,, what's all this?' Evandar snapped. 'What's so wrong?'

'We saw her, we saw her,' they all cried at once. 'And then the men came, all hairy and cruel, with iron strapped to their bodies, and they led horses, horses, stinking of iron.'

'Saw whom?'

'Alshandra, Alshandra.'

They shrieked, dancing round and gabbling until Evandar yelled them into silence. The night princess composed herself and curtsied.

'My lord,' she said, calm at last. 'As we danced among the lilacs we heard a great rumbling, as if the earth would split open. We turned ourselves feathered and flew up into the sky just as an army began to ride out of the mist. At their head flew a huge raven. When it saw us, it screeched and attacked, pecking and striking, till we flew away. But we circled back, because the army was like a river, flowing and flowing, marching and marching, and they marched and led their horses for ever so long a time, and so we saw them after the raven had flown away.'

'These were not my brother's men?'

'No, my lord, because they carried iron. Nor were they men or elves, but ugly and hairy and huge, with strange designs bitten into the skin on their faces. Never have we seen the like. Their horses too were huge and ponderous, with fringed hooves.'

'Are they still here, violating our borders, raping my lands with their very pa.s.sing?'

'They are not, my lord, for they marched into another mist and were gone.'

Evandar stood stunned for a long moment. He had absolutely no idea what all this might mean.

'Ye G.o.ds,' he snapped. 'Just when I need her more than ever, she's gone! Dalla, I mean, off frivolling her time away in the lands of men!'

"She's not there, my lord. We saw her, just before the army marched.'

'What? Where?'

'Here, my lord.' The night princess waved a slender dark arm in the vague direction of the hill and Dalla's garden. 'She said she was waiting for you.'

For a second time Evandar found himself speechless. A few at a time the women wandered away, flickering and reforming, melding and separating out again, as they drifted into the pavilion nearby. Only the night princess remained whole and steady, waiting for his answer. Evandar raised his hand and summoned his silver horn.

'One more thing before we ride,' he said to the night princess. 'This raven. Are you sure it hid Alshandra? Never has she taken that form before.'

'Then I know not who it was. And another strange thing, my lord. So much iron did these monsters carry that the lands turned all strange and gla.s.sy round them, and the trees did seem to burn and the gra.s.s to melt away, but the raven flew with them and above them, and never a cry of pain did it give.'

'Not Alshandra, then. By those h.e.l.ls men speak of! I wonder if my hag of a wife has gone and worked Dallandra harm? I think me I'd best look into this. At the lilacs, you say? Well and good, then.'

He plucked the horn from the air and blew. In answer his Court came flooding round him, swordsmen and archers, leading horses, donning armour, shouting their warcries, in a flood of rage like a winter river, cold and killing both.

'To the border!' Evandar cried. 'And if my b.a.s.t.a.r.d-born brother tries to forbid me pa.s.sage, then this day I'll have his head on a pike.'

In a howl of laughter the Bright Court rode out. Their silver weapons and armour flashed and jingled as they sang of vengeance for old wrongs. As they pa.s.sed through the green gra.s.sy lands, Evandar visualized a huge and towering silver drinking horn that rose from him and above him. Through this channel light and life-stuff poured down, and through him as well it spread out to the Lands, turning them solid, filling their forms with energy and the illusion of life -the trees, the flowers, the rivers, even the images of distant towns, all sprung from his mind and vivified by his effort alone. Yet, when he saw the dark forest that straddled the border, he stopped working dweomer and concentrated only on the task ahead.

With one long note of his silver horn, he halted his army in the midst of a gra.s.sy plain. As they milled round him, those with true minds crowded close to listen and advise, urging their own horses up next to his golden stallion.

'And where do you think Alshandra will be?' Evandar called out.

'Always did she hate the deep woods, my lord.'

'And she scorned the cities as well.'

'She loved the streams and rivers, and the silver lakes.'

'And the flowers and thickets, where the lilacs blow.'

'None of these, my lord, but sheltering in your brother's country out of fear of you.'

This last was spoken by a warrior with yellow hair as bright as Evandar's own, though his eyes shone deep blue, and the shape of him was more human than elven.

'Have you a name?' Evandar said to him.

'I do not, my lord.'

'Then take one, for you've earned it this day. I think the same, my lords and va.s.sals. We ride to the battle plain.'

While the news of Alshandra's army was spreading across what had once been her homeland, Cengarn reached the seventh night of the siege. Long days of scattered rain and wind turned the town damp and miserable, though those caught camped in it could take some pleasure in knowing that their besiegers were a fair bit wetter still. From the safety of her alcove in the women's hall, Carra spent sleepless nights watching the rain pour down, or catching in those odd moments when the sky cleared glimpses of the new moon, swelling into its first quarter. Several times a day Jill would find her and tell her that she'd scried out Dar, riding south with his remaining men in safety, but glad as Carra was of the news, it always reminded her of the men who had died, Dar's own men, those handsome, laughing young archers of his escort. Although she hadn't known them well, the simple fact that they'd died because of her made her mourn them as bitterly as she would have a brother.

'Well, more bitterly than I would have mourned my brother,' she remarked to Yracn. 'I really did rather hate him. I meant less to him than one of his dogs.'

He merely nodded, which was often the only answer she got from him in these talks. They were sitting that morning in the herb garden behind the kitchen hut, simply because she'd felt that she had to get out in the sun or die, and it was the only reasonably private place they could find. Yraen had fetched her a wobbly bench and placed it up against the dun wall, so she could sit with her back against the stone, while he sat in the dirt at her feet, leaning back against the bench with his long arms clasped round his knees.

In the hot sun the rain-washed herbs smelled sharp and spicy and sweet all at once, and the drowsy air hummed with bees. She thought at moments that Yracn had fallen asleep, but whenever she looked his way, he would turn his head and look at her in return, as if waiting for some request or order. Often she'd considered asking Jill for another guard, but if she did, Jill would want to know why, and Yraen would end up humiliated. If Carra had truly been a princess from one of the great clans down in Deverry proper, the comfort and the feelings of her guard would have been of absolutely no moment to her, but as it was, she was always aware that she'd married a prince by accident and him without a throne at that.

Besides, if Otho's gossip were true, Yraen would be her equal in rank. Eventually, when she went to look at him, she found him studying her face, and before she could control herself, she blushed.

'You should get more sleep,' Yraen said abruptly. 'You're getting dark circles under your eyes.'

'Oh, and how can I sleep? Worrying about Dar, worrying about the whole town, really. Sometimes at night I walk round and round the women's hall, and if you look out this one window you can just see over the wall. I look at the little fires the army has going, and I think that, well, I really do think sometimes that I should just go hand myself over to those creatures and let them kill me. Then they'd ride away and everyone would be safe.'

Yraen swung round and grabbed her wrist in one huge hand so hard that she yelped.

'Don't even think of it. Don't. Oh ye G.o.ds, I'd tell Jill and have them lock you in your chamber if I thought you would.'

With a wrench she pulled her hand free.

'Do you think I've got no honour or shame of my own? Have you ever seen a town starve, Yraen?

Have you? Well, I have, and I'd rather die than have that on my head.'

He was staring open-mouthed. She choked back tears, surprised at how strongly the memories flooded back, beyond her power to wipe them away.

'It was a long time ago now, and I was but a child, but the winter came early that year and ruined the harvest. I mean, it wasn't even a siege or suchlike, just the will of the G.o.ds, but by snow melt there was barely a stored handful of rotten barley left, not for lord nor peasant, not for the High King himself if he'd ridden our way. I remember being hungry, we were all so hungry that all you could think of was food, every day, waiting for the wheat to grow and turn milk-ripe, at least, so we could make a porridge of it.

My father and my brother caught fish, and what little birds they could snare, and I wept to eat little swallows and sparrows, but I ate them. And in our village there was an old woman who starved herself to give what she had to her little grandson. Not a week after she died he got a fever and died, too, so she'd starved herself all for naught.' All at once she was sobbing, remembering. 'And now there's this whole dun, and a town, and all the folk roundabout facing that or worse, and ye G.o.ds, don't you see? It would be better to hand me over than that. I'd rather die than have it on my head.'

She felt arms round her, drawing her close, holding her close to his chest while she sobbed. Yraen smelled so familiar, so like all the other men she'd ever known, of horses mostly and sweat and wood smoke, that she could pretend for a moment that he were Dar. She found herself wishing and praying that when she opened her eyes, some dweomer would have changed him for Dar, even as she forced herself to push him away, to shove away the comfort she so badly wanted.

'Yraen, I'm sorry,' she said, stammering. 'I shouldn't burden you with such black thoughts.'

She was shocked to find tears in his eyes. She fumbled in the folds of her kerchief, found a bit of rag, and blew her nose while he merely watched, unmoving on the bench, unspeaking.

'Well, don't you see?' she said for want of anything better.

'I do.' His voice cracked. 'I'm just - well, it - I've never known a woman more fit to be a princess than you.'

For a moment she was angry, that he would fish a compliment out of what she saw as merely her duty; then she realized that he meant it. She blushed and looked away.

'My thanks.' She rubbed her damp face on her sleeve. 'And I'm sorry I bawled like a calf.'

He smiled, again that bare twitch of his mouth, then rose to sit on the ground at her feet. Neither of them spoke until she decided that it was time to go in.

Late on the morrow, Jill was sitting in the great hall with Gwerbret Cadmar and Lord Gwinardd when Draudd came clattering in, wearing mail and carrying his helm from guard duty. He knelt so fast that he slid on the rushes almost into Cadmar's feet.

'Your Grace!' he stammered. 'We've spotted riders that looked like they might be from your allies.'

'Splendid, lad. Now suppose you start at the beginning of the tale, eh?'

'My apologies, Your Grace. I was on watch up on top of the main tower with two other men, and we saw two riders coming way off from the south. From the way the sun glittered on them we could guess they were wearing mail. And they crested a hill, paused for a moment, and then turned and rode back south like the h.e.l.ls were opening under them.'

'Did any of our enemies ride out after them?'

'They didn't, Your Grace. We waited to make sure before I came down, like, to tell you.'

'Good.' Cadmar glanced at Gwinardd. 'Sounds like messengers from Gwerbret Pedrys. The time's about right.'

'So it is, Your Grace.' Gwinardd allowed himself a brief smile. 'If it is, then our allies know what's facing them.'

Just so, just so, and it gladdens my heart to think so.' The gwerbret turned to Jill. 'When I sent out the messages, you see, I had no idea how big an army this was going to be. Things are more than half-wild, here on the border, and there's not a lot of men to spare for warbands and suchlike. It's going to take a long while, alas, for Pedrys and Madoc to raise an army to take this lot on.'

'I see, Your Grace. You have my apologies for not giving you better warning sooner.'

'Ye G.o.ds, will you stop feeling shamed?' Cadmar smiled to take the sting from his words. There's no fault to be laid at your door, Jill. It's thanks to you that our position's as strong as it is.'

Although Jill rationally knew that he was right, still she berated herself for not seeing the truth earlier and doing something, anything - though what it might have been she couldn't say - to stop Alshandra's army. That evening, she stood in the window of her tower room, looking out over the dark ward and the town beyond. She was considering ways to take the dweomer battle to the enemy, but it seemed that every manoeuvre she thought of was countermanded by prudence. She might set the enemy tents burning, for instance, but if the enemy dweomer worker should douse them, then the Horsekin morale would rise while Cengarn's would fall. What she truly wanted was to challenge the raven mazrak to combat, but again, if she should lose, then the town would have no magical defence at all. She was, she supposed, going to have to take her own advice to Carra and simply wait.

That idea pleased her so much that when someone knocked on her door, she whipped round and yelled.

'Who by all the h.e.l.ls is that?'

Looking round as if he feared flying daggers Yraen stepped in, staying near the door.

'My apologies. I was just wondering if you had any - er, well -news of Rhodry. If he was safe and suchlike.'