Days of Air and Darkness

by Katharine Kerr

  Jill forced herself to breathe calmly, slowly, to gather power from the Light and to focus her mind as Alshandra drifted over the apex of the dome and looked down at the seal set there. Jill was expecting this powerful being to banish the thing with ease, and she knew she’d have but a bare moment to set it back before an attack, but Alshandra moved on with a toss of her honey-blond mane. She drifted round the dome widdershins, moving slowly and deliberately, pausing every now and again to study one of the lesser sigils or the seal of a quadrant.

  Moving slowly herself, Jill got up and turned to follow her as the Guardian—or so the elves called Alshandra’s and Evandar’s race—made her survey of Cengarn’s magical defenses. She was unsure if Alshandra even saw her until the Guardian stared in her direction and sneered with a curl of her lip before turning away and resuming her slow drift round.

  Well and good, then, Jill thought. This gives me a moment to arm myself.

  Slowly, casually, glancing round as if she were interested in naught more than the weather, Jill walked over to one of the bundles of arrows, all tipped with good steel points, and slowly crouched down to pick one up. The thong round the oiled hides had soaked up oil. Swearing under her breath, Jill drew her silver dagger and slashed the thong, but the flash of magical metal caught Alshandra’s attention. With a howl of rage, the Guardian swung round and rushed over the top of the dome, sliding down to stand facing Jill and just a bit above her. Jill thrust the bundle of arrows up, holding it like a two-handed torch, right through the dome—which, of course, remained unharmed.

  With another shriek, this one of pain, Alshandra flung herself backward, but she stopped her inelegant tumble to hover some twenty feet away. The touch of iron, and its magnetism, only worked against her kind at close quarters. For a long moment, they faced off, Jill on her side of the dome, Alshandra on hers. Alshandra sneered, tossing her head again, then turned and drifted off through the sky. The mist began to form round her, a few wisps at first, then a streak here, a puff there, until the egg-shaped cloud hung huge in the sky. For a few beats of a heart, it drifted, then began to sink earthward and eastward, heading for the red-bannered tents upon the ridge. As it moved, it changed, growing solid and steady, gleaming with the silver touch of real water drops as it swelled and billowed into fog.

  Jill dropped her sight to the physical plane. Sure enough, the mist now hung visible, and every man on town walls and out among the Horsekin camp to the east had seen it, too. In Cengarn, the alarum went up—men yelled, temple bells clanged, silver horns blared. Armed men poured out of the dun below Jill’s perch and rushed for the walls. The Horsekin began to cheer, or at least, to make a sound that seemed to be their version of cheering. Halfway between a wail and bark, the sound could perhaps be best written as “Hai! Hai!” over and over. More and more took up the cry; some drew daggers and raised them in salute. Down in the besieging army, a vast swell of movement began, as the Kin began turning and surging toward the mist in a roar of their barking cheer.

  Out of the mist and some forty feet above the ground, Alshandra appeared, hovering in the air, her arms flung high in benediction. The Kin within sight of her began to scream and stamp their feet; the Kin round the other side of the town began to moan, as if they knew what vision was being denied them, but their discipline held, and they kept to their posts. Alshandra called out three words in their language, then disappeared as suddenly as she’d come. The Kin began to moan and sway, holding their hands up high in imitation of her gesture.

  Yet, nearly forgotten, the mist continued to billow and swell up on the east ridge. It drifted this way and that, touching the tents, then pulling back, until at last it came to rest on a long and level spit of land. Jill could only swear helplessly as out of that mist poured warriors, men of the Horsekin all, rank after rank of them upon their enormous horses, the riders glittering with mail and waving their long swords aloft as their allies below began to cheer again, surging back from the ridge to make room for the muster. All over Cengarn, silence fell. No horns, no yells of defiance rang out; only silence as deep as if the very walls held their breath.

  On and on the line marched, five abreast, the horses setting down their tufted feet with fine precision as they negotiated the slope and strode down the side of the ridge. Jill lost count quick enough—some hundreds of riders, maybe even a thousand in all, riding into camp, while the sun sank a fair degree lower in the sky, and Cengarn neither spoke nor cursed. At last, the final rank reached the flat, but something that was perhaps worse came after—wagons rumbling through, laden with supplies, to pull up behind the tents on the ridge, and scrawny packhorses after that, bringing bundles of provisions down to the waiting warriors. At the very end came lowing, bleating herds of frightened animals—cows, sheep, a few goats—chased along by human-looking herdsmen. So. This detachment had been plundering farms. Jill felt sick, wondering where the steadings lay. She could guess that the farm folk were long past her help.

  Twilight began to turn the east gray while the sun sank to touch the western horizon. At last, at long last, the final cow and herder came through. The mist blew away, breaking into long tendrils, touched pink by the dying light, and disappeared. From the remnants flew one last figure—an enormous raven, circling round the tents once with a flap of its wings, then settling to disappear among them.

  “Jill?”

  Jill yelped and spun round to find Dallandra standing some feet behind her.

  “My apologies!” Dalla said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “It’s all right. Have you been here long?”

  “I have. Too long. I saw the whole thing. Jill, answer me honestly, will you? What kind of omens have you received? Are we all doomed?”

  “No omens at all. Things still must hang in some balance.”

  Dallandra walked to the edge of the roof and stood looking down. Far below, the town was beginning to come out of its enchantment. A vast susurrus of talk and cursing and tears rose round the hill, as a few at a time, the men began returning to the dun. Most walked head down and silent.

  “If Alshandra can bring her men through on the mothers of all roads,” Jill said at last, “can’t Evandar help us the same way?”

  “I’m sure he could, if he would. To tell you the truth, I’ve been trying to contact him, but I can’t seem to reach his mind.” Dallandra’s voice shook badly. “I hope she hasn’t—well, got the better of him.”

  “Could she? I thought he was much the stronger of the pair.”

  “Of the pair, truly. But she has allies.”

  “I see. But can’t you open roads?”

  “Of course, but not on that scale. I can open a gate, like, for a few brief moments, long enough for a few people to slip through. I could never bring in an army or lead the town folk out. And I don’t dare leave you alone for long, anyway. It’ll take more than one dweomermaster to defend Cengarn against—” Dallandra waved her hand in the direction of the tents—“that.”

  In the growing darkness, they picked their way downstairs, shutting the trap after them. Jill sent Dallandra off to the great hall to talk with the gwerbret and, with luck, reassure him and his men both. She herself went to consult with Meer, the Gel da’Thae bard, who knew lore as valuable as another warband. Although the Gel da’Thae came from the same racial stock as the Horsekin tribes, they were a civilized people, living in the towns they’d made for themselves near the ruins of the elven cities in the Westlands.

  Jill had just come out on the landing near his chamber when she met Jahdo, the bard’s servant and guide. He was a skinny little lad who couldn’t have been more than ten summers old, and messy at that, with his torn and dirty clothes and shaggy dark hair.

  “Oh, my lady!” Jahdo blurted. “You must have seen. The dweomer cloud! All those men and horses!”

  “I certainly did. I’m coming to talk with your master about it.”

  “That gladdens my heart. He’s truly troubled, and I’m dreadful a-scared.”

/>   Apparently, the boy had lit the candles in the wall sconces before leaving the chamber, because the wedge-shaped room danced with pale light. Meer was sitting on a carved chest near the window. When Meer was standing, he towered at seven feet tall, but now he sat slumped, his long arms lying heavy across his lap. His skin was as pale as milk in contrast to his black hair, as coarse and bristling-straight as a boar’s. At the bridge of his enormous nose his eyebrows grew together in a sharp V and merged into his hairline. His hair itself plumed up, then swept back and down over his long skull to cascade to his waist. Here and there in this mane hung tiny braids, tied off with thongs and little charms and amulets. The backs of his enormous hands were furred with stubby black hair, too, and wisps showed at the neck of his loose Deverry shirt. His face, however, was hairless, merely tattooed all over in a complex blue and purple pattern of lines and circles. When the door slipped out of Jahdo’s grasp and slammed, the bard didn’t even bother to turn his head toward the sound.

  “Meer?” Jahdo said. “It be Jill.”

  At that he did move, growling a little as she walked over and raising his head. His eye sockets were empty pools of shadow in the uncertain light.

  “I take it,” Jill said, “that Jahdo described the nasty little show we had earlier.”

  “He did,” Meer rumbled. “I don’t mind telling you, good sorcerer, that my heart lies heavy and cold within me. Ah, ye gods, how could ye have deserted us, how could ye have handed us over to these impious hordes! Why, oh why, won’t you strike this false goddess dead, as justice and reason both demand?”

  It was a good question. Jill only wished she had an answer.

  “Well,” she said aloud, “the gods have minds that none of us can fathom, mortals that we are.”

  “True, true. Mayhap they test us, to find the strength of our devotion.” Meer shook his head with a jingle of charms and beads. “Alas for these wicked times, that a demoness should flaunt herself in the light of the holy sun!”

  “Er, well, true spoken. I’ve come to ask you about somewhat, good bard. There were a good two thousand men holding the siege before today, and Alshandra’s just added hundreds more to her army. How many more warriors can the Horsekin muster? Cadmar has allies, true, but we’re up here on the edge of the kingdom, and human settlements are sparse.”

  “Ill news, sorcerer, ill news indeed! What about this High King of yours?”

  “We sent messengers before the siege began, but who knows if they reached safety before Alshandra noticed them? If they’ve been captured, it’s up to Cadmar’s allies now, to send more, I mean. And the heart of the kingdom lies a long, long way away. The High King will come if need be, and he’ll bring plenty of men with him, but it could take months.”

  Jahdo whimpered, then stuffed the back of one hand in his mouth to keep himself silent.

  “I see.” Meer considered for a long time. “Well, the Horsekin are spread all over the northern plains. They can muster a horde of warriors, truly, ten, twenty times the number sieging us now.”

  Jill felt so faint that she had to sit down. She perched on the edge of the bed and clasped her hands between her knees. Meer smiled as if, blind or not, he knew perfectly well the effect he was making. He raised one hand in the air.

  “But fear not! The warriors can muster all they wish, but only a bare portion of them will ever attack us.” He paused, then dropped his oracular tone. “It’s the horses, Jill, not the men. No Horsekin warrior fights on foot unless he’s desperate and dying. You’ve seen our horses. Bred for war they are, and bred that way for hundreds, nay, for an aeon of years! Can a horse such as that eat grass alone and still carry his armored master into battle?”

  Jill laughed, just softly under her breath.

  “Up on the high plains?” she said. “Is grain easy to grow?”

  “Hah! Only on the southern borders. Besides, no Horsekin, nor Gel da’Thae either, would ever farm. Farming is for slaves. And slaves are what the Horsekin keep to raise what little grain they have. Another thousand horses, I’d say, and no more can these savages muster.”

  “Savages? That reminds me of somewhat I wanted to ask you. You keep calling them that, but they know siegecraft, they carry good weapons, and as far as I can tell, they’ve got the best organized army I’ve ever seen.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? Savages they are, who will not worship the true gods and who follow the false.”

  “Well, you see, among my people, the word savage means a poor sort of person, a brute, truly, someone who lives wild and roughly.”

  “Ah. I knew it not. Well, brutes they can be, cruel and loathsome, and given to whoring after strange gods, but poor they are not, exacting tribute everywhere they can, stealing from some, trading with others.”

  “And what about their armies?”

  “They live for war and study war and have given their hearts to war. Every man watches his nephews from birth to see which are fit for war and which will be gelded for other crafts.”

  “Gelded?” Jahdo burst out. “You mean like horses and steers?”

  “I do, lad, I mean just that. Savages I called them, and with some reason. And their women share out the best men, that their daughters may be fit to lead by the council fire and their sons to fight on the battlefield.” Meer tossed back his head and keened, a wail that rattled the bronze sconces. “Alas, that the gods have handed over our lives to such as this, to spill them or to enslave them as they will!”

  “The war’s not over yet, good bard. So far, we’ve still got our lives, and we’ll win yet.”

  “Ah, hold your tongue, mazrak! I know you lie only to spare my grief, but lie you do.”

  “About what?”

  “I know not our sins, for lo! what man can ever know the telling of his people’s sins, but the gods have deserted us, sure enough.”

  “As you wish, then.” Jill got up. “I’d best get down to the great hall and tell the gwerbret about the horses.”

  Before she went to bed that night, Jill went up on the roof and renewed the seals again, just as the astral tides were changing from those of Elemental Water to those of Elemental Earth. When she was done, she lingered for a few moments, staring out at the Horsekin camp, dark and silent under the stars. They would have set guards round, of course, but she couldn’t pick out a trace of movement from her distance until she looked east.

  At the end of the ridge, a long ways away from the pale shapes of the white tents, she saw a tiny point of light moving, back and forth, forth and back, as if it were a lantern held in someone’s hand as that hypothetical someone paced out of sheer nerves. Jill walked to the edge of the roof and watched the light while she sent her mind out, almost randomly, to see what traces of feeling she might pick up from the lantern-bearer. For a long time, nothing, and then it seemed she felt the touch of another mind on hers, nothing as strong as a greeting or a thought, just an awareness of a human being—and male, at that—as if she were in a room and had sensed someone enter from a door behind her.

  The man remained unaware of her. At moments, she lost the feel of his presence; at others it returned with a waft of emotion. He was troubled, disgusted even, by something—what it might be this primitive scrying could never tell her. The disgust, however, mingled itself with regret, a thoroughly human wishing that things were otherwise. Occasionally, the point of light would stop its restless traveling, and at those moments she would clearly perceive that he was looking up at the dun and longing to be inside it. Could he perhaps be a slave? It was unlikely that any slave would be wandering round by himself at night.

  Eventually, with one last sending of regret, the man walked away, the lantern swinging beside him. Briefly, a tent glowed as he carried his lantern inside; then he must have blown it out, because there was only darkness. Jill sighed, wondering if she’d ever know who he was. She doubted it.

  On a huge heap of cushions, made of purple-dyed leather and strapped together with golden, tasseled cords, Rakz
an Hir-li was lounging, his enormous body dressed only in a long tunic of rough brown cloth. Over a small pillow, his bleached mane of hair spread out, all braided and greased and studded throughout with beads and charms. His heavy blue eyes drooped under their furred brows, and now and then he yawned, exposing his long teeth, filed to points, but Lord Tren of Dun Mawrvelin knew better than to think him sincerely drowsy. While they finished the rations of bread that did them for a breakfast, the lord sat on a leather stool in front of the Horsekin warleader’s couch, while behind it stood two human slave-soldiers, each armed with a long spear. The long, narrow tent itself was draped with purple and gold hangings, once splendid war booty, now smoke-stained and as greasy as their owner. Morning light came through between them in dim slits.

  “The muster is now finished,” Hir-li pronounced, “and I can’t keep putting my captains off. They come to me and ask, is not the purpose of war to attack?” He paused for a sly smile. “What do you suggest that I tell them?”

  “That the purpose of a siege, my lord, is to wait and force terms.”

  Hir-li scowled, making the purple and blue tattoos covering his face ripple and swell.

  “So I see, so you see, but they do not see. I think me that we must have a little blood to satisfy them.”

  “As my lord wishes, of course, but Cengarn is a rock. If a man keeps kicking a rock, which breaks first? The rock or his foot?”

  Hir-li laughed, nodding agreement, sitting upright in a motion strikingly supple for one so large.

  “It’s a good saying, Lord Tren, a good saying. Among your own people, are you considered an eloquent man?”