Dark Magic (47 page)

Calandryll followed their progress, seeing a group of dogs break off the pursuit to fall upon a foundering youngster, this one less fortunate than the mare, soon hamstrung, soon after dead. He turned from the dog’s bloody gorging to watch the herd, seeing it turn from the direction of the ridge to run westward, toward the
columns of windblown smoke that marked the ni Larrhyn encampment. That was too far distant that he could make out anything more than a vague smudging on the grass, a hint of sizable tents, but in time he saw horsemen coming out, presumably alerted by the crying of the horses and the howling of their pursuers. He crouched closer to the ground, confident that over such a distance he could not be seen, but still urged by caution to avoid the chance.

Herd and horsemen came together, the one turning northward, the riders going past, loosing arrows at the dogs. Faintly now, Calandryll heard the yowling that announced a hit, and then the pack was gone, faded back into the grass, and the Lykard warriors turned after the herd. Where the foal had gone down birds circled, black against the early morning sky, waiting for the dogs to finish their feasting that theirs might begin. Calandryll sighed, mourning the foal’s demise even as he acknowledged the inexorable cycle. He ran his hands through the dew-wet grass and rubbed them over his face, murmuring a prayer to Dera, and then, for good measure, one to Ahrd, reminded by the drama how close death stood in this wide and open country.

When the sun had risen higher he woke Bracht, pointing out the Lykard camp.

The Kern nodded, grunting, and said, “Best we sleep the day out with them so close, and travel by night again.”

“Shall I unsaddle the horses?” Calandryll asked.

“I think not.” Bracht stared to where the smoke rose, his face solemn. “It might be we need to move out fast.”

Calandryll shrugged and left the Kern to his watch, going down the slope to stretch out on his blanket, tired now.

Warmed pleasantly by the sun he slept soon and sound, waking slowly, at first not sure where he was, then starting as he heard the sound of scraping on steel. His right hand was locked firm about the hilt of
his sword before he recalled he lay on the ground below a ridge in Cuan na’For, a group of hostile ni Larrhyn not far away. That remembrance brought the straightsword smooth from the scabbard as he rolled, coming to a crouch even as the remnants of sleep quit his eyes. He saw Bracht grinning, looking up from the honing of his falchion, and slid the blade home into the sheath.

“All’s well,” Bracht said. “Katya holds the watch and you’ve slept the better part of the day.”

Calandryll peered skyward, seeing the sun moved across the blue, closing on the western horizon. Katya was squatted on the ridge crest, her bow across her knees, and the horses grazed contentedly a little way off. He found his water bottle and took a long drink, then his stomach rumbled and Bracht chuckled, pointing to the saddlebags lying nearby.

“Cold food again. And more until we find some safer place.”

It was sufficient for Calandryll: the dried meat and hard biscuit seemed a luxury, eaten without immediate threat of belligerent interruption.

His hunger sated, he went in search of what privacy the terrain offered to attend another need, and that done, returned to squat by Bracht, tending his own blades with the whetstone.

“Shall we travel always by night?” he asked, answered with a shaking of Bracht’s head.

“For a while, perhaps, but in a day or two we’ll be clear of this grazing and go by day again.”

“Shall there not be more ni Larrhyn, then?” he wondered.

“Not soon,” Bracht said. “The families are scattered in spring—once we’re clear of this group, our way will be open awhile.”

Calandryll nodded, thinking a moment, then: “Do they not join?”

“Not yet,” Bracht replied. “Not until the foaling is done. Then they’ll mass—at summer’s start—close on the Cuan na’Dru to thank Ahrd for his bounty and
ask his blessing. Again toward winter, but not yet: now they’re spread thin. Luck was with us, that we came into Cuan na’For at this time of year,”

“Luck?” Calandryll murmured. “Or some design?”

“Whichever.” Bracht shrugged. “It’s our good fortune.”

“I wonder if the Younger Gods had a hand in it,” Calandryll said thoughtfully. “Had Burash not carried us so swift over the Narrow Sea . . .”

Bracht grunted and said, “Perhaps. But then perhaps if the Chaipaku had not taken us, Burash would not have taken a hand. Did the Brotherhood then act their part?”

“Perhaps they did,” Calandryll said. “Albeit unwittingly.”

“Theirs was—is!—aid I’d do without.” Bracht chuckled.

“Still.” Calandryll shrugged, suddenly enjoying this enforced leisure that afforded him the time to muse on such philosophical considerations. “We’ve said before that it seems Tharn perhaps stirs in his limbo to affect the world. Why not Balatur, also? Perhaps he, too, plays some dreaming part.”

“Perhaps,” Bracht allowed, “or perhaps it was no more than chance that brought us back to Lysse, over the Gann Peaks, at a good time.”

Calandryll nodded. “Or the Younger Gods, or Balatur even, lend us what aid they may.”

“That so,” Bracht said doubtfully, “why do they not halt Rhythamun themselves?”

“The design denies it.” Calandryll shook his head. “Dera told us their aid is limited, that this is a thing of men—that men must play their part.”

“She spoke to you and Katya,” Bracht reminded him. “Not to me. If there’s some design here, I cannot see it. I see only we three, in pursuit of Rhythamun; with little enough help save what we make for ourselves.”

“I believe there’s more,” Calandryll declared firmly.

“Then pray Ahrd’s planted some woods in our way,” retorted Bracht, “for well encounter no Lykard there.”

“Why not?”

The Kern frowned a moment, his expression suggesting Calandryll had asked a question so foolish he had no ready answer. Then he smiled, his dark features warming. “I forget you know so little of Cuan na’For,” he said gently, friendship’s patience in his voice and eyes. “Cuan na’For is a land of horses, of horsemen, no? And horses live on the grass.” He gestured with the falchion, encompassing the prairie all around. “With so much, they’ve no taste for woodland—so animals and men, both, inhabit the open country, not the woods.”

Calandryll nodded, understanding. “So in woodland, we are safe,” he said.

“Aye,” said Bracht.

“But surely you use wood?”

“That’s true.” Bracht used a thumb to test the falchion’s edge, gingerly, grunting his satisfaction and sliding the blade home in its scabbard. “For the great carts, the lodge poles, saddles and such stuff . . . but taken from those coppices Ahrd allows may be touched. And never oak!”

“How do you know,” asked Calandryll, “which may be touched, and which not?”

“The drachomannii, the ghost-talkers, decide,” Bracht said. “They speak with Ahrd and he advises them.”

Again Calandryll nodded. “These ghost-talkers . . .” he began to ask, silenced by the swift raising of Bracht’s hand.

“Best not discuss them,” the Kern said quickly. “There’ll be one there.” He stabbed a finger in the direction of the ni Larrhyn camp. “And they have long ears. Did he hear you . . .”

He shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished. Calandryll ducked his head, accepting, thinking that there was much to learn of Cuan na’For and its ways;
much that was not mentioned in the works of Sarnium or Medith, or any of the scholars and historians he had once read so avidly. So long ago, it seemed. Perhaps someday he would scribe it all, all he learned on this quest . . . He smiled at the thought, reminded that it was one he had entertained before. And that before such bookish matters might be indulged, the quest must first be concluded; and successfully, for otherwise he and Bracht and Katya must surely all be fallen victim to Rhythamun’s insane ambition.

He finished the edging of his own weapons, aware that the sky darkened in the east and soon they would be on their way again.

Indeed, as the sun fell below the rim of the world and the sky to the west was banded with red light, Bracht called Katya down from the ridge and they ate a hurried meal, mounting as the last of the light faded and the constellations spread thick above. Again the night was bright with the light of moon and stars, and they were able to proceed near as fast as if they rode under the sun, the menacing glow of the ni Larrhyn campfires disappearing behind them, the prairie empty before.

Once, they came on a sleeping dog pack, lifting to a gallop as the canines yelped and snapped in alarm at the disturbance, but the beasts scattered rather than attacking them, and soon their outraged snarling faded into the silence of the night. Twice, they disturbed herds, though these did little more than whicker and watch, the stallions prancing, offering no more threat than the startled dogs. They forded a sizable river and rode through a coppice where hewn trunks and pollarding showed Lykard usage, though not, to judge by the fresh growth, of recent origin. Close on dawn, as the sky once more brightened, they halted, this time on flat country, devoid of ridges or hollows, or any other cover.

“Should we not go on?” Calandryll asked.

“In a while,” Bracht answered, dismounting. “The horses must rest, should they need to run.”

“Shall the ni Larrhyn range this far?” asked Katya, that met with a grim smile and a nod.

“Ahrd willing, they’ll not find us.” Bracht unsaddled his stallion, removed the packhorse’s load. “But if they do, well want rested animals—save you look to fight them.”

“I’d sooner not,” she replied, and set to rubbing down her mount. “But this is a very open place.”

“A little while only,” the Kern promised. “Until the horses have their wind. Then we’ll go on. Until then, our watch had best be alert.”

Calandryll had rather they continued, for this was—as Katya remarked—a mightily exposed spot, and though he followed Bracht’s example, stripping off the chestnut’s saddle and ministering to the beast, he felt very nervous. Too much so, he found, to sleep, for though Bracht took the first watch, advising his companions to rest themselves, when he stretched on his blanket and closed his eyes he could think of nothing save wandering Lykard happening upon them and his ears strained for sound of hoofbeats, cries of alarm. None came as the true dawn lit the sky, but still he could not sleep and after a while of tossing restlessly while Katya slumbered—seemingly able to relax at will, like Bracht—he gave up and rose, pacing to where the Kern squatted.

“I’ve not your knack for sleep,” he murmured when Bracht glanced his way. “Shall I take the watch?”

“We’ll share it.”

Bracht grinned briefly, and Calandryll saw that his expression was somber, abruptly realizing that the Kern’s apparent confidence was designed more to reassure, to grant his comrades a measure of rest, than from any genuine belief in their safety. “You think they’ll find us,” he said slowly.

“I think they may,” Bracht returned. “But still the horses need rest.”

“And if they do?”

“We run or fight; it depends.”

“On what?”

“On how many there are. On how eager they are for battle.”

Calandryll nodded, not much liking the options offered, accepting the impossibility of parley.

“They’ll know me for Asyth,” Bracht expanded, “and look, to slay me for that alone—I trespass on their grazing. Do they recognize me . . . Well”—he chuckled, softly and sourly—“then they’ll seek to bring me to Jehenne and her nails.”

Calandryll shuddered at the thought. “But if we can outrun them,” he said, “we’ll do that, no?”

Bracht paused a moment before replying. Then: “I say this once, and once only, lest those ears we spoke of hear—do they see us and take back word, then the ghost-talkers have ways of communicating and will doubtless alert every camp ’twixt here and the Cuan na’Dru to our presence. If but a few find us, then our safest course is to slay them. Leave their bodies for the dogs and turn their horses loose to join the wild herds; thus we may escape detection longer.”

“Even though they offer no fight?” Calandryll frowned. “Even if we may outrun them?”

“Even so,” Bracht said. “Save you’d have all the ni Larrhyn come hunting us.”

“And if they are many?” Calandryll demanded. “Too many to slay?”

“Then we run.” Bracht shrugged. “And pray Ahrd sees us safe.”

Calandryll sighed, staring into the brightening morning. It seemed likely his hands must be once more stained with innocent blood, albeit that of men who would halt their quest, but unknowing. It remained a dilemma for his conscience: still he could not accept that ends, no matter how lofty, justified means; but neither could he see any alternative, should it come to fighting. He could find no answer other than to say, “Ahrd grant we go unhindered.”

“Aye,” said Bracht, his voice flat.

They remained awhile longer and then the Kern declared the animals sufficiently rested. They woke Katya and readied the horses for departure, the sun a handspan now over the eastern skyline, cloud building there, dark, promising rain before nightfall. Still, the day was warm and bright, spring advancing steadily toward summer, and as they rode Calandryll began to hope his fears were unfounded, even though they crossed the widest expanse of flatland yet encountered.

By noon they had seen no one, only horses and wild dogs and birds, and they halted briefly to snatch hurried mouthfuls of food before continuing on, aware of the morning’s cloud drifting steadily closer, hammerheads lofting now, from time to time lit by great flashes of lightning, rain curtains hung beneath. Bracht led them at a canter, halting every so often to stand in his stirrups, or even climb precariously onto his saddle to survey the terrain. Toward midafternoon he sprang down cursing, shouting for them to ride hard.

They obeyed on the instant, lifting their mounts to a gallop, on a line westward of their chosen direction, the drumming of the hooves an urgent accompaniment to the rumble of the still distant thunder.

“Seven riders,” Bracht yelled over the pounding. “Ahead and to our right. Coming toward us!”

Calandryll looked to the east, willing the storm to come faster: rain and lightning would provide cover, perhaps enable them to avoid killing. Even as he thought it—prayed for it!—he knew that save for divine intervention it was a fruitless hope.