Darkover: First Contact (33 page)

The servant who rode to attend on the officers had made a small third camp for them, apart from the others. Bard went to taste the food cooked for the men—he had learned never to eat his own meal until horses and men were safely settled for the night—and to inspect the picket lines of the horses, then came back to find Beltran awaiting him.

“You look ill-tempered, Bard. What ails you?”

“Damned old bird of prey,” Bard growled. “Afraid I should touch his precious maiden
leroni,
when I did no more than offer the young one a bit of tinder!”

Beltran chuckled. “Well, it’s a compliment, Bard. He knows you have a way with the women! Your reputation, after all, has simply preceded you, that is all, and he is afraid no maiden could resist you, nor retain her maidenhood in your presence!”

Put like that, Bard began to recover a little of his self-esteem, to feel less like a reprimanded schoolboy.

“As for me,” Beltran said, “I feel it’s wrong to bring women on campaign—good women, that is. I suppose any army should have camp followers, though I’ve no taste for them myself. If I must have women about, I prefer the kind who look as if they washed more often than when they got caught out of doors during the fall rains! But good women with a campaign are a temptation to the unchaste, and an annoyance to the chaste whose mind is on their business of fighting!”

Bard nodded, admitting the justice of what Beltran said. “And what’s more, if they’re available, the men will fight over ’em; and if they’re not, they’ll moon about over them,” he said.

Beltran said, “Should the day come when I command my father’s armies, I will forbid any
leronis
to ride with the army; there are
laranzu’in
enough, and myself I think men better at that kind of skill; women are too squeamish and have no place with an army, no more than Carlina or one of our baby brothers ! How old is your little brother now?”

“He must be eight now,” Bard said. “Nine at midwinter. I wonder if he has forgotten me? I have not been home since my father sent me here for fostering.”

Beltran patted his shoulder in sympathy. He said, “Well, well, no doubt you can have leave to go home before midwinter.”

“If the fighting in Hammerfell is over before the snow closes the roads,” Bard said, “I will do so. My foster mother does not love me, but she cannot keep me from home. It would be good to see if Alaric still holds me in affection.” To himself he thought that perhaps he would ask his father to come to his wedding. It was not every one of the king’s fosterlings who would be joined in
catenas
marriage by King Ardrin himself!

They sat late talking, and when at last they slept, Bard was well content. He thought briefly and with regret, of the pretty Mirella, but after all, what Master Gareth had said was true: he had Carlina, and soon enough they would be married. Beltran was right, after all. Virtuous women had no place with the king’s armies.

 

The next morning, after a brief conference with Master Gareth and Beltran, they turned their steps toward the ford of Moray’s Mills. No one now alive knew who Moray might have been, though stories in the countryside made him everything from a giant to a dragon keeper: but there was still a ruined mill near the ford, and a little upstream from it another mill still in operation. A toll gate closed the road, and as Bard’s men came toward it, the toll-keeper, a fat and graying man, came out to say, “By order of the Lord of Dalereuth, this road is closed, my lords. I have sworn not to open for anyone who does not pay him tribute, or have his safe-conduct within his borders.”

“Now, by all of Zandru’s hells—” Bard began, but Prince Beltran rode forward, looming over the little man in his miller’s apron.

“I am very willing to pay a head tax to the Lord of Dalereuth.” he said. “I am sure he would appreciate the head of an insolent fellow like you. Rannvil—” he gestured, and one of the horsemen drew his sword. “Open the gates, man; don’t be a fool.”

The toll-keeper, his teeth chattering, went to the mechanism that trundled the great toll gate aside. Beltran contemptuously flung the man a few coins. “Here’s your tribute. But if this gate is barred against us when we come back, take my word for it, I’ll have my men tear it out of the ground and set your head on top of it to scare away crows!”

As they passed through, Bard heard the man grumbling and leaned down from his horse to grab him by the shoulder.

“Whatever you said, say it aloud to our faces, you!”

The man looked up, his jaw set and wrathful. He said, “I have no part in the quarrels of my betters,
vai dom.
Why should I suffer because you noblemen can’t keep your borders? All I care about is running my mill. But you won’t come back this way, or at all. I have nothing to do with what waits for you at the ford yonder. Now, if you wish, win honor by killing an unarmed man!”

Bard let him go and straightened up. He said, “Kill you? Why? Thanks for your warning; you’ve been well paid.” He watched the man go off toward his mill, and although he had been a soldier since his fourteenth year, he frowned and suddenly wondered why it should be this way. Why should every nobleman who chose demand that he be sovereign over his own land? That only made more work for mercenaries.

Perhaps,
he thought,
all this land should be under one rule, with peace at the borders, from the Hellers to the sea. . . and little men like this could grow their crops and turn their mills in peace. . . and I could live on the estates the king has given me, with Carlina. . . .

But there was no leisure to think of that now. He called urgently to Master Gareth, raising his hand to halt the men.

“I have had a warning,” he said, “that something waits for us at that ford; but I see nothing. Does your bird give you warning, or has either of your women seen anything by their spells?”

Master Gareth beckoned to Mirella, shrouded in her cloak, and spoke to her, softly. She took her starstone from about her throat and gazed into it.

After a moment she said, in a low, neutral voice, “There is neither man nor beast at the ford to wait for us; but there is darkness there, and a barrier we may not be able to pass. We must go with great care, kinsman.”

Master Gareth raised his eyes and met Bard’s. He said, “She has the Sight; if there is a darkness that she cannot penetrate, we must indeed go with the greatest of care, sir.”

But the ford lay calm and peaceful in the sunlight, shallow ripples swirling with glints of crimson. Bard frowned, trying to assess what lay before them. He could see nothing, no signs of ambush, no twig or branch stirring on the far side of the ford, where a path led up between overgrown trees. That would, indeed, be a good place for ambush.

“If you cannot see beyond the ford by sorcery or the Sight,” he said, “can the sentry bird pass and see if there is any ambush hidden beyond?”

Master Gareth nodded. “To be sure; the bird is only a beast and has nothing to do with sorcery or the magic of the trained mind. The only magic about the bird is the skill Melora and I have to remain in rapport with the creature. Melora,” he called, “child, let the sentry bird go.”

Bard watched as the fierce bird rose high over the ford, circling. After a time, Master Gareth shook himself, waked, beckoned to Melora, who reached out her hand and took the bird as it came circling back, stroking its feathers and feeding it tidbits before slipping the hood over its head. Master Gareth said, “There is no one, man or beast, hidden beyond the ford; no living creature for many leagues except a girl herding a flock of rabbithorns. Whatever waits here at the ford,
vai dom,
it is not an ambush of armed men.”

Bard and Beltran exchanged glances. Finally Beltran said, “We cannot wait here all day for a terror no one can see. I think we must ride to the ford; but Master Gareth, stay back, for we must keep you in reserve if you are needed. I have known sorcerers to set a forest or a field ablaze in the path of armies on the march; and I suppose there could be something like that beyond the ford. We must be wary of that. Bard, will you order the men to ride?”

Bard’s skin prickled. He had had this reaction once or twice before in the presence of
laran;
he had little enough of it himself, but somehow he could scent it. There was, he knew, a talent which could sniff out the use of
laran;
perhaps, if he had been trained in its use, he would have had that. It might have been useful after all. He had always thought that Geremy, training as a
laranzu
, was somehow less a man, less a soldier, than Beltran and himself. Now, watching Master Gareth, he began to realize that this work might have its own dangers and terrors, even though a
laranzu
rode unarmed into battle.
That, in itself, might be frightening enough,
Bard thought, laying his hand for reassurance on his sword.

He turned to the men and commanded, “Count off by fours!” He could not order any man to be first to ride into some unknown terror. When they had done so, he said, “Group two, ride forward,” and took lead of them.

His skin prickled again as he rode forward, and his horse tossed her head in protest as she set a fastidious foot within the ford; but the water was quiet, and he gave the order.

“Ride, slowly, keep together!”

Above them, at the very edge of his vision, he saw a flicker of motion. He thought Master Gareth had recalled the sentry bird.... A quick glance showed him that Melora’s bird sat, hooded and quiet, on the woman’s saddle.
So, they were being watched from afar. Was there any defense against that?

They were in the center of the ford now, the water at its deepest swirling around the hocks of the horses; thigh-deep on a tall man. One of his soldiers said, “There’s nothing here, sir. We can call the others to come.”

Bard shook his head. Inwardly he felt that prickling that warned of danger, growing, so that he clamped his teeth, wondering if he would spew up his breakfast like a breeding woman....

He heard Master Gareth shouting, wheeled his horse in midstream. “Back,” he yelled. “Get back—”

The water swirled upward, rising around his horses’ withers, and suddenly the peaceful ford was a raging, foaming torrent, a racing undertow sucking, pulling. He felt his horse stumble under him as if he had ridden into a mountain stream swollen by spring thaw into furious rapids.
Witch-waters!
He tugged at the reins, trying to soothe his neighing, plunging horse, hold her steady, against the threat of being swept away downstream. Around him every one of the group was struggling with horses maddened with fear at the peaceful water suddenly gone wild. Cursing, fighting his terrified horse, Bard managed to get her under control, urge her back toward the water’s edge. He saw one of his men slip from his saddle, go down into the torrent. Another horse stumbled, and Bard reached over and grabbed the rein, trying to hold his own horse with one hand.

“Hold them! In the name of all the gods, hold them! Back to the bank!” he shouted. “Keep together!”

The surprise was the worst; his horse was used to mountain streams and fords. Warned in advance, he could perhaps have held her against this. Gripping with his knees, urging her carefully against the water that now raced up to her neck, he managed to get her back to dry land, stood grabbing the bridles of the others as they came up. One horse was down and had broken a leg; it lay kicking, screaming like a woman in the torrent, until it drowned. Bard swore, his throat tight. The poor creature had never harmed any living thing, and it had died a terrible death. Of the rider there was no sign. Another horse had gone down, and its rider, leaping off into the water, had managed to get it up, limping, and drag it back to the shore; he went down himself and floundered, half-drowned, until one of the men, leaping down the bank, grabbed him and hauled him out.

Bard saw the last man out of the water; then cried out in awe and dismay. For once again the water lay calm and shallow before them, the peaceful, normal ford of Moray’s Mill.

Grimly, they took stock of their losses. The horse that had broken a leg lay motionless now, lifeless; and of his rider there was no sign whatever. Either he lay dead beneath the waters of the ford or had been swept away on the torrent and his body would surface far downstream. Another man had gotten free but his horse was lamed and useless; still a third horse had thrown his rider and gotten to shore, but the man lay senseless, his body washing up and down at the edge of the water. Bard motioned to one of his fellows to go and drag him to dry land, ran his fingers briefly across the gaping wound in the skull. It was likely he would never waken.

Bard blessed whatever precognitive warning had prompted him to send only a quarter of the men into the stream. At that rate they would have lost half a dozen men, instead of two men and horses, and perhaps had more horses lamed or damaged. But he beckoned to Master Gareth and his voice was grim.

“So this is what lay in the darkness your girl could not read!”

The man shook his head, sighing. “I am sorry,
vai dom
. . . . We are psychics, not sorcerers, and our powers are not infinite. May I venture to say in our defense that without us your men would have ridden completely unwarned into the ford?”

“True,” Bard admitted, “but now what do we do? If the ford is spelled against us—have we sprung the trap, or will it rise again the moment we set foot within it?”

“I cannot say, my lord. But perhaps Mirella’s Sight will tell us,” he said, beckoning her forward. He spoke in a low voice, and again the girl gazed into her starstone, finally saying in her wandering, neutral, drugged spell-voice, “I can see nothing. . . there is a darkness on the water. . . .”

Bard swore, morosely. The spell was still there against them, then. He said to Beltran, “Do you think we can take the ford now we are warned?”