Darkspell

by Katharine Kerr

“Ye gods! The next time you ride into hopeless odds, at least take me with you! You little dolt! I never thought I’d see you alive again. I mean … well, uh … my lady.”

  “I knew you’d have the sense to follow, and you did, didn’t you?”

  The warband clustered round to stare at her in awe.

  “Look at that,” Dagwyn said. “Her horse doesn’t even have a scratch on him.”

  The men whispered among themselves, a superstitious ripple that was as much fear as awe.

  “It was the Goddess,” she said. “She rode with me.”

  In a flurry of whispered oaths, the men edged their horses back—but only a little way, because her god-touched power seemed to spread warmth like a fire. Ricyn had never seen a smile like hers, as tight and cold as if it were a smile carved on the face of a statue of a god. Yet at a familiar shout from behind them, her smile disappeared. The men parted to let Lord Dannyn through to the lady’s side.

  “So your men saw a bit of sport, did they?” he said. “Did you lead that charge, Ricco? I hope to all the hells that she had the sense to stay out of it!”

  The entire warband wheeled around, eyes flashing in rage, and mobbed him. When Dannyn’s hand went to his sword hilt, Ricyn drew.

  “Get back!” Gweniver yelled. “Leave him be!”

  Swearing under their breaths, they edged their horses back, except for Ricyn, who rode up to the lord’s side and made him a half bow, though his sword was still in hand.

  “His lordship forgets that he speaks to a priestess. Me and my men most humbly beg that his lordship remember it from now on. My lady led that charge, my lord. We all saw her hold off four men before we reached her, and she killed two of them.”

  White-faced, Dannyn swung Gweniver’s way.

  “I wasn’t truly riding at your orders,” she said. “You may quibble with the Moon over questions of command if you wish. And as for you, Ricco, you fought like a fiend from hell yourself. I swear you’re half-a-berserker.”

  When he realized that she spoke the truth, Ricyn felt caught by feelings he couldn’t sort out. He’d never been that kind of fighter before, preferring to mark his man well and pay strict attention to the strategy of things. It seemed to him that her Goddess had reached out and laid Her hands upon him, and he shuddered, suddenly cold.

  A slender blond, as much of a grown boy as a man, Tieryn Cavydd laughed more than he talked, half-hysterical with his unexpected rescue. Over a hasty meal in his great hall, he told Gweniver and Dannyn the story at his table of honor, while the Cerrmor army sat on the floor for want of enough benches. His pregnant young wife sat beside him and listened, her food untouched before her.

  “I’ve never known them to be so blasted bold,” Cavydd said. “We always have raids, well, you know that, but never this many. By the Lord of Hell, there were three hundred of them at my gates, at least, maybe four, and all at once. Then they left part of the army to keep me pinned and rode off. I was sure as sure they were heading for Morlyn, but if I’d sallied with only fifty men, we never would have lived to reach the town. I’ve been praying that some of my allies would get wind of it and come relieve me.”

  “They’ve doubtless got their hands full,” Dannyn said. “Well, we’ll be riding north after them tomorrow.”

  “I’ll have to leave men behind on fort guard, but I’ll ride with you myself, of course.”

  “Not necessary and most unwise. They might swing back here to pick up the men they left on siege. I’ll leave fifty men to reinforce you.”

  “It’s not going to be me and my warband,” Gweniver broke in. “Lord Dannyn may banish the idea from his mind.”

  When he turned her way with an icy stare, Gweniver smiled, remembering the way her men had mobbed him on the field. Dannyn seemed to remember it as well.

  “As my lady wishes,” he said. “Well, this bodes ill, Your Grace. Looks like Eldidd’s planning on pushing the western border hard from now on.”

  The wife rose and fled the hall.

  “How far away are your nearest vassals?” Dannyn remarked.

  “Fifteen miles north, and then there’s another one sixteen miles to the west—or should I say, there was. Who knows if his dun still stands?”

  When Dannyn swore aloud, Cavydd’s mouth twisted in what might have been a smile.

  “When you return to court,” he said levelly, “tell our liege somewhat for me, will you? I don’t know how much longer we can hold out. When you ride north, my lord, look around you. Once there were demesnes all the way between here and the Eldidd border, all the way north along the Aver Vic. Just look round and see how many Deverry lords are left.”

  “I have no doubt our liege will remedy the situation.”

  “He’d better. I swore I’d die for our king, and I will if it comes to that, but there are some who are ready enough to make their peace with Eldidd if it’ll put a stop to these raids.”

  Dannyn slammed both hands palms down on the table and leaned forward.

  “Then let me tell you somewhat,” he growled. “If anyone turns traitor, then he’ll have me and my men raiding his lands. Ask your grumbling friends which would be worse.”

  He swung himself free of the bench, turned on his heel, and stalked off without another word. Cavydd sighed and picked up his tankard of ale.

  “Do you know Dannyn well, Lady Gweniver?” he said.

  “Not truly, Your Grace. I’ve never met him before this spring.”

  “Then you have a very interesting time ahead of you.”

  On the morrow the army rode north through deserted farms, stripped of food, that were as good as the tracks in the road for tracing the Eldidd raiders. At sunset they came to a village burnt to the ground. A tangle of charred timbers, still smoking, lay among black trees and a tumble of cracked stone from the village well.

  “Looks like the folk escaped in time, my lady,” Ricyn said.

  “So it does. There! Look!”

  Next to the ruins stretched the village commons, lined with a thick stand of poplars. Among the trees stood women with children huddled against them, men with flails, pitchforks, sticks, whatever impromptu weapons they’d managed to grab when the raiders swept over them. Gweniver dismounted and joined Dannyn as two old men came to meet them. They stared at Gweniver’s tattoo, then knelt.

  “You be Cerrmor men,” one stated.

  “We are,” Dannyn said. “When were you raided? How many men were there?”

  “Two days ago now, your lordship.” The old man sucked his teeth in thought. “And as to how many, well, it’s hard to say, because they just comes riding out of nowhere. Young Molyc was out with the cows, you see, and if it weren’t for him, we’d be dead, but he sees them coming, so he runs back.”

  “And how did Molyc know they were enemies?”

  “They had these blue shields, with these silver dragons on them, and Molyc’s never seen any such thing in his life, so he figures it means no good.”

  “He was right enough.” Dannyn glanced at Gweniver. “Do you know what those shields mean? These raiders are part of the king’s own men, and they never ride unless a prince of the realm is with them.”

  “A prince?” The old man spat on the ground. “He must be a poor kind of prince if he needs our cows that bad. They took everything we had, my lord. Our cows, our chickens, every miserable scrap of food we had.”

  “No doubt. Well, you’ll eat well for a while. We’ll leave you all the food we can spare, and a packhorse or two that maybe you can trade for seed grain.”

  The old man kissed his hand, then began to sob in convulsive shudders. Gweniver stared in amazement, because she’d expected Dannyn to care even less about peasants than most lords would, which was cursed little. The captain turned to her with a twisted smile.

  “I know what it’s like to have naught,” he said. “I remember it every day of my life. That’s somewhat you wouldn’t understand, is it? My most noble lady.”

  In embarrassment Gweniver strode away, b
ut the first order she gave was for the carters to unload food for the villagers.

  Once the army was settled in for the night and the guard posted, Gweniver joined Dannyn at his fire for a council of war. In the dancing light of the fire, his face was grim with shadows as he drew a plan of the river valley in the dirt.

  “Sooner or later they have to turn south to meet their ships,” he said. “Then we have them, if not before.”

  “So we do. Here, if we take this prince alive, we’re going to have a nice prize to take home.”

  “What? I’d rather have his head on a pike.”

  “Don’t be a dolt. If we hold a prince of the realm hostage, we can stop these raids without swinging a sword.”

  Dannyn whistled under his breath and looked up.

  “Well, my lady, whatever I may have thought of your skill with a sword, there’s no doubt you understand war. Done, then. We’ll do our best to snare this prince like a rabbit.”

  On the morrow scouts on the best horses rode ahead, wheeling and circling in front of the army like seagulls round a ship entering harbor. Just past noon they found the place where the raiders had camped the night before. Amid the flattened grass and the usual detritus of a big warband lay two fire pits and the scattered remains of beef bones. Two of the village cows would never come home again, but the tracks made it clear that the raiders were still traveling with about fifty head of cattle.

  “And that’s their death warrant,” Dannyn cheerfully remarked. “We can travel faster, even with the wretched carts, than they can if they’re driving stock. Once we get close, here’s our plan. We leave the carts behind and ride out early to catch them on the road. The prince is going to be at the head of the line, of course, so we send a wedge of my best men straight into the line behind him and cut him off while the rest of the lads shove the line of march into their baggage train. You, me, and a handful of picked men go right for the prince and mob him. Try not to knock him off his horse. If he’s trampled to death, so much for our hostage.”

  “Sounds splendid. It gladdens my heart that you’re including me and my men in this.”

  “We need every man we’ve got. Even if one of them’s a woman.”

  For the rest of the day Dannyn kept his army moving fast by riding in the rear and bullying the carters. Up in solitary splendor at the head of the line, Gweniver received the reports from the scouts and led the men where they suggested. By the time they camped, about an hour before sunset to let the horses graze, the scouts were sure that the Eldidd raiders were only some five miles ahead of them. Best of all, they hadn’t met any enemy scouts, a heart-warming bit of arrogance on the prince’s part.

  While Gweniver and Ricyn diced for splinters of firewood at their campfire, she told him the news.

  “Well, my lady, then we’ll have some proper sport on the morrow.”

  “So we will. You’ll be riding with me when we go after the prince.”

  He smiled and threw the dice, rolling a five that lost him the game. When he handed her two splinters, she remembered his handing her the first violets of spring, shyly, without ever saying a word, when he must have spent hours hunting for them. She wondered how she could have been so blind to never suspect that a common-born rider would love her for all these years.

  “Are you going to throw?” he said. “I’m too far behind to let you weasel out of the game now.”

  As she threw, she was thinking that she didn’t mind in the least when he forgot to call her “my lady” or when he yelled at her for doing something stupid. It was odd, considering that her brothers would have had him flogged for such impertinence. It made her wonder if, in her own way, she loved him too, but it was too late for such wondering. Now she belonged to the Goddess alone, and forever.

  On the morrow the army rose with the dawn. Dannyn sorted the men out, picked temporary captains, and gathered up the twenty-five who would ride with him and Gweniver for their strike on the prince. The bright summer sun lay on green meadows when they rode. Gweniver felt perfectly calm, as if she were floating through the air instead of wearing nearly thirty pounds of mail. As she made a long, silent prayer to the Goddess, she began to smile. Since she’d put long hours of work into the mirror-scrying, in her mind the image built up effortlessly of the night-dark eyes and terrible beauty of the Goddess, who trembled in lust for the bloodletting ahead. Gweniver heard chanting, a sobbing wail in quarter notes, so old, so strange, that she was sure she was remembering it from a very long time ago, when the worship of the Dark Moon flourished. The chant became so real and so loud that she was startled when Dannyn called out the order to halt.

  Dazed, she looked round to find the warband coming to a halt near a woodland. Once it must have been part of a lord’s hunting preserve, because it was open forest, mostly larches and maples, with little underbrush to hold the riders back. Calling orders, Dannyn broke his army’s line and led them scattered into the cover. On the other side lay the road, and far down to the north she saw a cloud of dust coming. The army settled shields and drew javelins as slowly the Eldidd raiders sauntered toward the ambush.

  They were only a quarter mile away before some sharp-eyed lad in their warband noticed something odd about the woodlands ahead. A cry spread like wildfire among the raiders as they pulled to a confused halt. Gweniver could see the cattle, lowing miserably at the rear of the line.

  “Now!” Dannyn yelled, forgetting his horn. “Get ‘em!”

  Like a sweep of arrows the ranks broke free of cover and charged the enemy line. Javelin points winked in the sun as they showered down on the Eldidd line—except at the front, where a lucky hit might rob them of the prince. As the raiders swirled to meet them, the first troop hit, swords in hand, near the vanguard. A whirling chaos of men and horses, the battle spread out on either side of the road.

  “For the prince!” Dannyn yelled.

  Howling a war cry, Dannyn charged for the head of the line, his picked men streaming after. When Gweniver tried to yell, her voice broke into laughter. This time it was so cold, so hollow, that she knew it was the Goddess, using her voice, using her body, speaking and fighting through Her priestess. Ahead, in the rising dust, ten Eldidd men were galloping to meet them. When she saw a dragon shield rimmed with silver and set with jewels, she knew that the prince’s gallantry was playing into their hands.

  “Ricco!” she yelled. “There he is!”

  The laughter grabbed her voice as the two packs broke into each other, spreading out and wheeling their horses round. She made a slash at an Eldidd horse, nicked it, and saw bright blood on her sword point. The entire world suddenly flared a hazy red. Laughing and howling, she slashed, pressed her horse forward, struck again, and parried a clumsy answering strike. Through the red haze she saw her enemy’s terror-struck face as he parried and struck in return while her laughter rose like the chant she’d heard in her mind. His very fear made her hate him. She feinted, got him to reach out too far, then risked a dangerous thrust and cut him across the face. Blood welled and wiped his fear from her sight. She let him fall, then thrust on forward to Ricyn’s side.

  Outnumbered as they were, the Eldidd men clustered round their prince and desperately tried to fend the Cerrmor squad away from him. Gweniver saw Dannyn pressing in from the rear, fighting a man who threw himself in the way to block his path to the prince. In two quick cuts Dannyn killed first the horse, then the rider, and surged farther in, yet all the time he fought he was silent, his mouth a little slack as if all this slaughter bored him. As the group round the prince tried to re-form, Gweniver had her chance. She slammed into an Eldidd man from the side and killed him through the joining of his mail at his armpit. Her laughter rose to a banshee shriek as she turned on the raider beside him.

  The silver shield swung to meet her as the pure-white horse carried its prince to the hopeless charge. Gweniver saw his cornflower-blue eyes, cold and determined, as he swung cleanly at her. The blow was so hard and so well placed that it cracked her shield in half
, but she swung from underneath and caught his gauntleted wrist with the flat of her blade. With a yelp he dropped the sword. His dead-white face told her that his wrist was broken. From the side Dannyn swung with his shield and smacked him on the side of the head. Stunned, gasping, the prince reeled in the saddle. Gweniver sheathed her sword and grabbed the silver rim of the shield, forcing him to swing around toward her. At that moment Ricyn grabbed the reins of the milk-white horse, and the prince was trapped.

  “Well played!” Dannyn yelled. “Get him away!”

  His eyes drunken with shock and pain, the prince suddenly grabbed at the dagger in his belt with his left hand, but Gweniver got it before him.

  “No suicides,” she said. “Ever have a fancy to see Cerrmor, lad?”

  Dannyn and the rest of his men wrenched their horses round and rode back to the battle, which was screaming and swirling behind them. Dagwyn falling in with them, Gweniver and Ricyn took the prince in the opposite direction down the road and paused in the shade of a tree.

  “Get that gauntlet off him, Ricco,” Gweniver said. “If his wrist swells in there, it’ll take a blacksmith to cut the wretched thing free.”

  The prince pulled off his helm with his left hand and threw it hard into the dirt. When he looked at her with tear-filled eyes, she realized that he was some years younger than she. As Ricyn pulled off the gauntlet, he grunted, biting his lower lip so hard that it bled. All at once Gweniver felt a cold shudder down her back: danger. With a yell she turned in the saddle and saw Eldidd men galloping straight for them, a squad of some ten riders with Cerrmor men right behind them, but Eldidd had the lead by a couple of lengths.

  “Ah, shit!” Dagwyn said. “They must have seen the prince’s cursed horse!”

  Gweniver wrenched her horse around, then drew her sword as she charged straight toward the oncoming riders. Howling with laughter, she saw the blood-red mist come down again. The two men in the lead swung right around her and headed toward the prince. She started to turn, but another dragon shield was riding straight for her. Her laughter rose to a wail as she threw every cautious lesson aside and lunged, leaning dangerously in her saddle, stabbing with no thought of parrying. Her cracked shield fell away under the man’s blow, but the Goddess guided her sword. She thrust so hard that his mail split. As he slid dead from the saddle, she turned her horse. All she could think of was Ricyn, back there outnumbered.