Darkspell (33 page)

“That’s all well and good, Ynryc,” Gwivan called back. “But what about Lord Degwyc?”

“He’s not riding with us, and I’ll give you my solemn word of honor that you’ll be safe from him while you’re under my charge.”

Gwivan considered for so long that Rhodry wanted to curse in frustration. His life was hanging in a web of other men’s feuds, and he didn’t even know who they were.

“Done,” Gwivan said at last. “I’ll take your pledge.”

Rhodry sighed sharply in relief.

Slowly the waiting enemies rode forward and surrounded them. Ynryc took up a position by one cart and watched as, one at a time, Gwivan and his men rode up and disarmed. Rhodry came at the very end. He threw his javelins into the cart first, then slowly and reluctantly drew his sword, a beautiful blade of the finest steel, with a hand guard worked in the shape of the dragon of Aberwyn. It was the one thing he loved as much as Jill, and laying it down on the pile hurt.

“That’s a fine sword, silver dagger,” Ynryc remarked. “Battle loot?”

“It wasn’t, my lord, but a gift from a man I served well.” Rhodry was thinking of his father, who had given it to him.

“You must have fought like a fiend from hell to have earned a blade like that.” Ynryc turned to Gwivan, sitting sullenly on horseback beside him. “Your father must be serious about his obligations if he’d actually part with coin to hire a silver dagger.”

Gwivan set his mouth in a tight line.

“Ah, it’s no fault of yours that your da’s a cursed miser,” Ynryc went on. “Think he’ll pay the ransom for this lad?”

“My father is an honorable man,” Gwivan snarled. “And he’s
not
a miser.”

“Merely a bit careful with his coin, eh?”

When Ynryc roared with laughter, Gwivan’s face went scarlet with shame. Rhodry felt a cold, sinking dread. If his lordship didn’t pay over the ransom, Rhodry would be reduced to little better than a bondsman, Ynryc’s virtual property for years until he worked off the debt.

Lord Marclew was in such a rage that everyone in the great hall heard the news. With a flustered scribe and chamberlain trailing after him, he strode back and forth and bellowed out curses on Ynryc’s name, clan, and masculinity. In the curve of the wall, Jill stood with a cluster of serving
lasses and watched the lord, an enormous man, still hard-muscled for all the gray in his hair. He clutched Ynryc’s message in one massive fist and shook it at the scribe as if the poor man were responsible for writing, not merely reading, it.

“The gall!” Marclew snarled. “Taking my son on the road by a sneaking piss-proud bastard’s trick, and then mocking
me
for a miser!” He threw the parchment back at the scribe, who caught it and ducked back out of reach. “What was that bit again, the whoreson?”

The scribe cleared his throat and smoothed out the message.

“I know his lordship values his coin, hugging it tight the way most men prefer to hug a wench, but doubtless his own son means enough to him that he will part with some of his treasures. We have set his price at twenty Deverry silvers, ten silvers each for his men, five for the silver dagger, and for the servants, one.”

“The gall!” Marclew howled. “Do they truly expect me to pay ransom for a stinking silver dagger? They’re doing it to mock me, and cursed if I will.”

With a growl Marclew went back to his pacing. The chamberlain turned Jill’s way and beckoned, inviting her to come plead with the lord, but Jill shook her head no and stalked out of the great hall. One of the serving lasses followed and caught her by the arm.

“What are you doing? Why won’t you plead?”

“Because I’ve got the coin to ransom Rhodry myself. In all my years on the long road, I’ve never been treated so shabbily by a lord, and cursed if I’ll stand for it anymore. If I were a bard, I’d make a satire about Marclew.”

“Oh, plenty of bards already have, but it hasn’t done any good.”

Jill went down to the stables, where she’d been sleeping in an empty stall next to her horse. A groom helped her saddle up and told her how to get to Ynryc’s dun, about a day and a half’s ride away.

“Now, be careful, lass,” he said. “There’s going to be as many warbands in the hills as fleas on a hound.”

“I will. Can you spare me some oats for my horse, or will your tightfisted lord beat you for it?”

“He’ll never know. You want to take good care of a horse like that one, you do.”

As if he knew he was being praised, Sunrise tossed his head and made his silvery mane ripple over his golden neck. Rhodry had given her this Western Hunter, back when he’d been a lord himself and able to bestow valuable gifts on those around him, and unlike Marclew, he’d been as generous as a lord should be.

Jill rode out without extending Marclew the courtesy of a farewell and galloped the first mile or so, just to put the dun far behind her. When she reached the broad, grassy banks of the River Lit, she slowed to a walk to let Sunrise cool down. Suddenly her gray gnome appeared on her saddle peak and perched there precariously.

“We’re going to get Rhodry and then get back on the long road,” she told him. “Marclew is a swine.”

Grinning, the gnome nodded agreement.

“I hope he’s being treated well. Did you go take a look at him?”

The gnome nodded a vigorous yes to both questions.

“You know, little brother, there’s one thing I don’t understand. Here’s Rhodry with his elven blood, but he can’t see you.”

The gnome picked his long blue teeth while he considered, then shrugged and disappeared. Apparently, he didn’t understand it, either.

The road wound through low hills, sometimes leaving the river when the water ran through a deep canyon, then rejoining it in the valleys. To either side stretched mile after mile of scrubby pastureland, rolling through the hills. Here and there Jill saw herds of white cattle with rusty-red ears, tended by a cowherd with a pair of big gray-and-white hounds. Late in the day Jill had just come round a large bend in the river road when she saw ravens off to the right. Out of the tall grass they suddenly broke to fly and circle, only to settle to their feeding again.

Jill assumed that the corpse was a dead calf, born too
weak to live, or even maybe a cow who’d gotten ill and died before the cowherd found her, but all at once the gray gnome reappeared. He grabbed a rein with bony fingers, shook it hard, then pointed at the ravens.

“Do you want me to take a look?”

He nodded yes in great excitement.

Jill tied Sunrise to a bush by the road, then followed the gnome over. At their approach the ravens flew up, squawking indignantly, and settled in a nearby tree to keep watch over their prize. In the tall grass lay the carcass of a horse, still carrying saddle and bridle, the leather straps cutting deep into the swollen flesh. Although she circled round it, the birds had eaten so much that she couldn’t tell how the horse had died. The saddle and bridle bothered her. If a horse belonging to a warband had merely broken a leg, the men would have taken the gear after they put the poor beast out of its misery.

Holding her breath, she moved in a little closer. Silver and gems winked and gleamed on the bridle.

“By every god and his wife! Who would have left gear like that behind?”

The gnome, however, wasn’t listening to her. He was rooting round in the grass, parting it with both hands to peer through it, his skinny little face screwed up in concentration. As Jill watched him, she realized that someone else had searched the area, because the grass was trampled and torn a good ways round the horse. When she walked toward the gnome, a wink of gold caught her eye. She picked up an arm bracelet, a semicylinder of pure gold, worked all over in an elaborate pattern of spirals and rosettes. Although she’d never seen anyone wear this sort of jewelry, she’d heard tales in which the great warriors of the Dawntime did. It had to be some family heirloom passed down for centuries, and doubtless worth twenty times the weight of its gold. Weight—she hefted the bracelet in her hand. No doubt about it, it seemed to weigh next to nothing at all, even though it looked like a solid mass of gold.

“Here, is this what you’re looking for?”

His eyes narrowed in confusion, the gnome came over.
He touched the bracelet with one finger, sniffed it with his long nose, then suddenly smiled and did a little jig of victory.

“Well and good, then. We’ll take it along.”

The gnome nodded and clapped its hands.

“But why is it so light? This is really strange. It feels more like wood than gold.”

The gnome looked puzzled, shrugged, and disappeared.

As Jill wrapped the arm bracelet in her spare socks and put it in her saddlebags, she was wondering who had killed the horse and what had happened to its rider. She should probably try to get the bridle off, she decided, if she could bear the stench. One of the local lords should be able to identify such a fancy piece of gear if she brought it in, and perhaps there’d be a reward.

All at once she felt a dweomer-warning, a cold shudder down her back as if someone had stroked it with a clammy hand. Something dangerous was at work here, something far beyond her understanding, but she could smell it as clearly as she could smell the dead horse. She decided against trying to cut the bridle free, mounted up, and rode out fast. That afternoon she rode on a good long ways before she made camp, and she barely slept that night, drowsing between sleep and keeping watch.

That same night Nevyn was staying in a small inn about a hundred miles west. For the fortnight past he’d been tracking down Camdel, ever since one of the spirits who vivified the Great Stone of the West had come to tell him of the theft. Since he rarely slept more than four hours a night, he was sitting up late, brooding over this appalling theft, when Jill’s gray gnome appeared in front of him.

“Well, good eve, little brother. Is Jill close by?”

The gnome shook his head no, then danced round, grinning from ear to ear.

“What’s this? Good news of some sort?”

It nodded yes, then did an elaborate pantomime, using its hands to describe some small round thing and staring into the shape as if it were scrying.

“Oh, ye gods! Do you mean the Great Stone of the West?”

It nodded agreement, then pantomimed searching for something and finding it.

“You’ve found it? Oh, here, do you mean Jill’s got it?”

The gnome nodded yes again. For a brief moment Nevyn felt sick with terror.

“Do you realize this means she’s in terrible danger? Those men who stole it want the thing bad enough to kill to get it.”

Its mouth opened wide, and it actually made a little whimper of sound, a difficult thing for one of the Wildfolk to do.

“You get back to her. At the first sign of danger, come tell me, do you hear?”

The gnome nodded, then disappeared. In something as close to panic as his disciplined mind could get, Nevyn turned to the charcoal brazier standing in the corner of the chamber. At a wave of his hand the Wildfolk of Fire set the coals to glowing. Nevyn stared into them and thought of Jill.

Almost immediately he saw her, keeping a lonely camp by a riverside amid rolling hills. Although she was asleep, she was sitting up with her back to a tree, and her sword was clasped in her hand. At least she seemed to realize that she was in danger, but he knew that the sword would do her little good against this kind of enemy. And where by all the gods was Rhodry? Irritably he switched his thoughts and saw the lad, lying on his blankets on the floor of a badly overcrowded barracks. All of the men packed in there looked sullen and shamed. Nevyn widened the focus, made his mind walk through the barracks door, and saw armed men on guard outside. So Rhodry had been captured while riding in some war or other. Jill was out on the road alone.

Nevyn swore so vilely that he nearly lost the vision, but he recaptured it and sent his mind back to Jill. What counted now was where she was. Using her camp as a starting point, he enlarged the vision and circled round in
ever-widening sweeps until he saw enough to know that she was in the central part of Yr Auddglyn. He broke the vision and resumed his restless pacing while he made plans. He had to travel fast. He would buy a second horse, he decided, because he could make more miles a day if he switched his weight between two mounts.

“I’ve got to reach her in time,” he said aloud. “And by every god I swear I will, even if I have to founder every horse I get my hands on.”

Yet his fear swelled, because the dark master behind the theft had to be closer to her than he was. He went back to the brazier and took up a watch over her through the fire.

The mirror lay upon a cloth of black velvet, embroidered with reversed pentagrams, that evil symbol of those who would tear down the very order of nature. Two candles stood to either side, their light caught and focused in the center of the curved surface. Alastyr knelt over it, bracing himself with his hands and wishing that he had a proper table. Since he had never actually seen the Great Stone of the West, he couldn’t scry for it in the normal, easy manner. He took a deep breath and called on the evil names of the Lords of Husks and Rinds. At the names he felt spirits gather, but just beyond his mental reach.

“Show me the stone,” he hissed.

In the center of the mirror shadowy shapes came and went, but nothing resolved itself into a clear image. No matter how hard he cursed the spirits, they fled from him, as they’d been doing all day.

“We need blood,” Alastyr said, looking up.

Sarcyn smiled and went to the corner of the kitchen, where Camdel sat crouched in terror. When Sarcyn hauled him to his feet, he began to whimper, but the apprentice slapped him into silence.

“You’re not going to die,” Sarcyn said. “You might even like this. You’re coming to see how well pain and pleasure blend, aren’t you, my fine lord?”

Slack-mouthed, Camdel half leaned against Sarcyn as
the apprentice dragged him to the mirror cloth. Hobbling and shuffling, Gan came up with the thin-bladed ritual knife. Sarcyn stood behind Camdel and began to fondle him. Chanting, Alastyr summoned those spirits that he had trained to do his will. Three black, twisted gnomes and a sprite with a huge mouth of blood-red teeth materialized in front of him.