The Red Wyvern: Book One of the Dragon Mage (34 page)

With his honor salved, Daeryc could sit down and leave the task to his vassal. Nevyn was quite willing to wager that Daeryc would have proven more hindrance than help, but he found himself wondering why Peddyc had volunteered.

When the council broke up, Nevyn caught the tieryn’s attention. They walked a few steps away from the others where they could talk in reasonable privacy.

“I’m a bit surprised,” Nevyn said, “that you’re going with Caradoc’s lads and not young Anasyn.”

“Anasyn is my clan’s future. I’d not squander it.”

“You do know, then, how dangerous this will be.”

“Of course.” Peddyc gave him the ghost of a smile. “But I feel like a silver dagger myself these days. I believe with all my heart that Maryn’s the true king, mind. But the Rams have fought on the Cantrae side of this battle ever since the wars started, however long ago it was.”

“I see. I didn’t think that you’d change allegiance lightly.”

“My thanks. Some clans are like autumn leaves. They fall whichever way the winds of victory are blowing. But it was a hard thing for me.” Peddyc paused for a long time, staring into the darkened camp. “The prince may have pardoned me, but I still feel like a dishonored man.”

“For having fought against him? Or for having gone over to him?”

“Both.”

“Well, I’d count neither to your shame.”

“My thanks.” He smiled, briefly. “It’s getting late, Councillor. We’d best be getting ourselves to our rest.”

Peddyc walked off without another word. Nevyn watched him go and wondered if there was a thing he could say to the tieryn to ease this crisis of honor. He doubted very much if there was.

None of the silver daggers took part in the assault on the third ring of walls. Branoic felt ashamed at how glad he was of it, but from what Caradoc had told them, they had the hardest job of all ahead of them, anyway. When the dawn was still more a promise than first light, the assault men began readying the rams and the ladders. Caradoc gathered his men and, much to Branoic’s surprise, Tieryn Peddyc and Lady Lillorigga, and led them off away from the noise.

“Now then,” Caradoc said. “The lady has graciously deigned to tell us where this bolthole comes out, like, in the dun. And the tieryn will be coming with us when we go through to make sure we don’t get ourselves lost. My lady, if you’ll tell us what you know?”

Branoic was impressed with the way Lilli spoke. She described the bolthole’s debouchment so well that he formed a picture of the place immediately. When other men asked, she went over the information several times, each time presenting it in a slightly different way, until at the end they all felt they knew the place. With a stick she drew a diagram in the dirt, as well, which Peddyc pronounced accurate.

“I was just a lad when that section of the dun burned,” Peddyc said. “My father told me that they weren’t going to stand the expense of rebuilding, because it was deserted and held nothing of value.”

“What I wonder, my lord,” Caradoc said, “is why no one even remembered that a bolthole existed.”

“I don’t know that myself, Captain, but I can guess. The kings have never trusted anyone much, and probably rightly so. I doubt if anyone knew of the bolthole but them. When my father was a lad, a king and his eldest son were killed in the same battle. I’d guess they hadn’t told the younger son the family secrets yet.”

“Likely, indeed.” Caradoc turned to Lilli and bowed. “Here, my lady, you have my humble thanks. There’s no need to keep you standing around with the likes of us.”

Branoic stepped forward and made her a bow.

“I’ll be glad to escort the lady to her tent,” he said.

“Indeed?” Peddyc turned and looked him over so coldly that Branoic stepped back. “I’ll take my foster-daughter back myself.”

Branoic managed a smile and faded back into the crowd of silver daggers, but not before he caught the expression on Caradoc’s face—laughing at him, curse him! Fortunately, no one in the troop ragged him about it, not even when the tieryn and his foster-daughter were well out of earshot.

“I wish we could do without Peddyc’s aid,” Caradoc said. “This isn’t going to be a fight for the noble-born, mucking about on foot in the dark.”

“If you think he’ll get in the way,” Owaen said, “talk to the prince about it.”

“That’s not it.” Caradoc looked around at the troop. “Lads, listen. We’re going to have to find our way through a dun we’ve never seen, and then pray the gates aren’t guarded. Do you think the gods will answer that prayer? Neither do I. Some of us are going to end up fighting a rearguard action so a few of us can win through. Do you understand what I mean?”

Branoic felt ice run down his spine. When he glanced around the troop, he saw some men smiling in a tight and twisted way, some nodding their heads, others merely grim. Very few of them were going to live through this expedition. Ah well, Branoic thought. I always knew this day would come, when I died for our prince. Maddyn stepped forward, one hand on the hilt of his dagger.

“I’m going with you when the time comes.”

“You’re not,” Caradoc snapped. “I want someone left to keep our name alive.”

From far up the hill came the call of silver horns and a sudden shouting, drifting like thunder on the wind. The silver daggers turned toward the sound and to a man they smiled. The assault on the third wall had begun.

Taking the third wall went better than could be expected, Nevyn supposed. Although the regent had posted guards along it, still the attack seemed to come as a surprise. After a hundred years, the civil wars had become as predictable as a ritual in a temple. Everyone knew that Dun Deverry could never fall to assault; everyone knew that Dun Deverry could only be taken by siege. The exhausted leaders and their ever-smaller armies had conformed to these ritual beliefs—until Maryn.

Surprise in war is one of the seven great delights, or so the Gel da’Thae say. By the time the regent could muster enough men for a proper defense, the rams had started pounding at the only pair of gates in the third wall. As one ram fell back, the second rushed forward, one after the other in a constant rhythm.

“It wasn’t long at all before we had our breach,” Maryn said. “And Burcan couldn’t muster enough men fast enough to keep us off the wall.”

“I see, my liege,” Nevyn said. “Well, I’m glad it was over quickly.”

“So am I. But the next time he’ll be ready. I’ll pray to every god that Caradoc can get those gates open. We’ll never take the fourth wall if he can’t.”

A page came out of the pavilion and handed the prince a goblet—mead, Nevyn noticed. He drank half of it straight off like water, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

“But the third wall’s ours now?” Nevyn said.

“Well and truly. The assault men have already stripped the old catwalks and moved the winch.” Maryn glanced at the sky, where the sun hung low in the west. “I’d say the turning point came at noon.”

“Good. If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness? Caradoc wanted a word with me.”

Nevyn met Caradoc outside his tent. The captain wasted no time in pleasantries.

“Nevyn, my lord, I’ve somewhat to ask you. I’ve been thinking about that mysterious rain that fell on Burcan’s army, just before the battle of Camrydd Bridge, it would be.”

“Are you now? And I suppose you remember that I had somewhat to do with it.”

Caradoc merely grinned.

“And?” Nevyn said.

“It would be a grand thing if no one could see us silver daggers creeping through the dun from the bolthole. There’s naught like a good hard rain to drive men indoors.”

“Just so. But how are the silver daggers proposing to see through a rain hard enough to hide them?”

Caradoc opened his mouth and shut it again.

“Indeed,” Nevyn said, grinning. “Didn’t think of that, did you? And before you waste the breath asking, I cannot turn men invisible.” He let the smile fade. “Truly, if I can help you with sorcery, I will, but I need to think. Every idea I’ve come up with so far would hinder you more than them.”

“I see.” Caradoc reached up and rubbed the back of his head with one hand. “Curse it all!”

On the other side of the tents, someone cheered. Distantly Nevyn heard more cheers, and then laughter, ringing out closer and louder.

“Let’s just see what the lads are up to,” Caradoc said.

They walked through the tents to a sort of road, mostly an open strip of mud, that wound through the entire camp. Trotting toward them were a gaggle of men with the Cerrmor three ships blazon on their shirts. One of them carried a Boar banner, tied to a long spear. He was waving it about and laughing, while all along his route men stopped what they were doing and turned to jeer.

“It’s a fine piglet now, isn’t it? All ready to be roasted and sliced, isn’t it?”

Others suggested a number of obscene things that the regent could do with a boar if he were even man enough to catch one. Caradoc merely grinned with a shake of his head.

“Let them gloat,” he remarked to Nevyn. “The gods all know they’ve earned it.”

Lilli was walking with Anasyn when the captured Boar pennant passed them. By then it had gathered a pack of escorts, all of them laughing and jeering, and it seemed likely that a good ration of ale had gone round among them as well. Anasyn put an arm around her shoulders and drew her off the path as the improvised parade went by. No one noticed them. Lilli felt herself tremble. Once that blazon had summed up her clan’s honor, its pride, its very identity. Soon the information she’d brought the prince would tear it down from every wall until the name itself became a word fit to jest with it.

“You’re white as ghost,” Anasyn said. “Here, do you want to go back to your tent?”

“I don’t know. I feel so odd. Oh ye gods, I really am a traitor, aren’t I?”

“And what did you betray? A bunch of murdering fools!” His voice cracked and growled. “A regent who’s more of a usurper. Someone who’d kill women on the roads.”

Lilli felt the tearing again, as if hands had grabbed her soul and were trying to rip it apart. The sensation suddenly became physical, as if those hands were grasping her lungs.

“Let’s go back,” Anasyn said. “Here. Lean on me.”

Panting for breath, Lilli had no choice but to let him lead her back to her tent. She sank into her chair and let her maidservants fuss over her, but in her mind the words chanted with every pound of her heart: traitor, traitor, traitor to your clan.

In the day’s battle Burcan had been hit across the face with something. He neither remembered nor cared whether it was the flat of a sword, a gauntlet, or a pole. The blow had left him with a red and purple bruise marked with tiny cuts—splits in the skin, really—down the middle like a line of red embroidery. Merodda made him lie down on her bed, then brewed up a poultice of herbs at the hearth in the other room. When she came back into the bedchamber with her supplies, he’d fallen asleep, but he woke when she set the pots and cloths down on the chest under the window.

“What is that?” he said. “It smells foul.”

“No doubt, but it’ll draw any corrupted humors out of the wound.”

“It’s not a wound. Just a blasted bruise.”

But he made no objection when she put the warm cloth, wrapped round damp herbs, onto his cheek. She sat down on the edge of the bed and held it in place. In a draught from the window the candle flames danced in long shadows.

“It was a real setback today, wasn’t it?” Merodda said at last.

Burcan hesitated, staring up at the ceiling.

“It was, of course, but there’s some good in it. There are two rings left ’twixt us and them still, and now both are of a size we can hold.” He shifted uneasily. “That blasted thing is dripping down my neck.”

Merodda took the poultice, wrung it out, and put it back. He grunted when the cloth touched him but allowed her to settle it in place.

“Tomorrow when it’s light,” Burcan said, “I’ll have the villagers move inside the last wall. They’re too exposed where they are now. If the demon-spawn Usurper does take that fourth wall, he’ll take them with it and a lot of stored food, too. We’ll leave the cattle and swine out there, but the supplies and the people had best move inside.”

“Do you think he’ll try for the fourth wall?”

“Why not? He’s taken three of them, hasn’t he? But now we’re in a proper position, one we have enough men to hold. He won’t be taking the fourth wall, not unless some god helps him.”

Prince Maryn rested his army for two days, and in the interval Nevyn did conceive of a way to help the silver daggers. When the chosen night came, he called upon the Great Lords of the Elements, who sent a storm over dun and camp alike to put the regents’ men off their guard. After midnight the clouds began to clear in a fitful wind; the moon would shine through, then darken again. The silver daggers would be able to see intermittently, then hide when they needed the dark—or so they could hope. As the troop made their way through the dun, Nevyn would scry them out so that the prince would know the exact right moment to launch the attack on the fourth wall.

In the middle of the night Nevyn said farewell to Caradoc and his men down at the outermost wall, where they’d assembled with their horses to ride to the bolthole. The men had rolled their outer clothes in the mud, then rubbed dirt into their hair and onto their faces for good measure. Carrying shields would have been impossible. For armor they were wearing two shirts with a hauberk between them, no sleeves or hoods for fear of noise. Tieryn Peddyc stood among them, as filthy as anyone else. Around their waists they’d coiled ropes. Although they were wearing cloaks at the moment, Caradoc remarked that they’d send those back with the horses.

“We have to move fast, my lord, and we can’t have some bit of cloth getting in our way.”

“Just so. May you have the luck of the gods!”

“My thanks. We’ll need it.”

They clasped hands. Although Nevyn allowed himself a wondering if he’d ever see the captain again, he received no omens. Whether they succeeded or failed, whether they lived or died—how well the silver daggers carried out their mission would answer those questions, not a Wyrd. Everything depended now on them.