Days of Air and Darkness

by Katharine Kerr

“Among my own people, my lord, I am considered exactly nothing.”

  The rakzan raised a furry eyebrow, then smiled.

  “And so you’ve joined with us.”

  “It’s one reason. My brother’s death weighs upon me, for another. He was killed in Cengarn by a stinking mercenary. I don’t care if they called it fair combat or not.”

  “Ah, of course. Rhodry. The famous silver dagger.”

  “I don’t care if he’s famous, either. I want him dead.”

  “The high priestess told me of this.” Hir-li considered, his scarred and patterned face unreadable. “I will warn you. There’s another thing my captains say, that you don’t worship her with all your soul.”

  Tren started to speak, but Hir-li held up a hand for silence.

  “I am not asking you for any answer or protest. I merely repeat what they say.”

  “For that, my lord, you have my sincere thanks. And has the high priestess said the same thing?”

  Hirli never answered, merely got up and turned toward the back of the tent, where a human eunuch crouched beside a battered wooden chest. The rakzan spoke in his own language; the slave scurried forward with a long sleeveless surcoat, crusted equally with gold thread and sweat, and helped his master into it. Over the coat Hir-li strapped a heavy leather belt with a bejeweled lunette at the front and his gold-hilted saber at his side. He sat again to allow the servant to pull on his high leather boots while Tren waited, saying nothing. At last, the rakzan spoke in Deverrian.

  “One of your men tried to desert last night.”

  Tren rose without thinking.

  “He will have to be turned over to the Keepers of Discipline. It would be best if you didn’t argue.”

  “I understand. Did my lord think I would argue?”

  Hir-li considered, sucking a long fang.

  “I don’t know what to think of you, Tren, except for two things. One, you’re valuable. Two, most men grovel around me. You look me in the eye and try to keep to your old ways.”

  “And is that a good thing or a bad?”

  The rakzan smiled, briefly.

  “Most men would never dare ask that, either. Come along.”

  They stepped out into the bright sunlight glaring off the welter of white tents and threaded their way through the captains’ camp, as the grouping on the ridge was called. Here and there they met a slave, carrying water or some such thing, who hurriedly dodged out of the warleader’s path before he could swing a massive paw their way. Although at well over six feet tall Tren towered among his own people, his head came only to Hir-li’s shoulder. Tren was a lean man, too, a dagger to the rakzan’s sword, with the long muscles of a swordsman, and a narrow face, narrow gray eyes, oddly slender ears, and short-cropped hair so pale it was close to white. Although no one had bothered to tell him why, the Horsekin considered his coloring a good omen.

  “One more thing,” the rakzan said abruptly. “Last night I looked out of my tent and saw you walking back and forth at the end of the ridge, carrying a lantern.”

  “So I was.”

  “Why?”

  “I couldn’t sleep, and the camp’s too crowded to walk in the dark.”

  Hir-li said nothing, leaving Tren to wonder if he believed what was, after all, the simple truth. Sleep, and particularly the act of falling asleep, had become a nightly torture, when he would lie alone in the dark of his tent with only his remorse for a companion. How had he been such a fool, to follow his brother Matyc into treachery? If only he had known just whom he was allying himself with, if only he’d seen more of the Horsekin than those few prophets, religious men all, talking of wise things, telling wonderful tales of a goddess who deigned to come into the world to meet her worshippers face to face. If only, if only—the words ate into his honor like burrowing worms.

  Slaves had smoothed a rough road and cut a few dirt stairs down the side of the ridge to give the captains an easy walk down into the main camp. At the foot of the ridge, on the east side of Cengarn in the level plain, lay a parade ground. In this vast circle of open land, the subordinate officers of the Horsekin’s minutely organized army came each morning to receive orders and to make their reports to the rakzanir or captains. As Tren and Hir-li made their way downhill, Tren could see those officers, the Keepers of Discipline, standing waiting, while all round the edge of the circle a crowd was gathering. In the long boredom of a siege, any show came welcome.

  Stripped naked and tied hand and foot like an animal ready for slaughter, there lay at the officers’ feet a human being, a blond fellow, young—Tren’s stomach wrenched when they came close enough for him to recognize Cadry, a man who’d ridden in his warband from the time he was little more than a lad. He was aware of Hir-li, watching him slantwise in appraisal.

  “That’s the man?” A life filled with secret hatreds and resentments kept Tren’s voice rock steady.

  “So I’ve been told. We’ll see what the Keepers say.”

  They stopped on the other side of the bound man from the Keepers, each of whom wore a long red surcoat over his tunic and boots. One of their number, with a purple feather pinned to one shoulder, stepped forward and began delivering his report to the rakzan. Even after weeks in the Horsekin’s company, Tren could only decipher the odd word or two of their speech. Finally, Hir-li cut the man short with a wave of one massive hand.

  “He says that just before dawn, they found this fellow trying to creep out of the encampment, over on the north side where the terrain’s rough enough to give a man a chance to hide,” Hir-li said. “They have witnesses.”

  “Indeed?” Tren looked at Cadry. “Do you deny this?”

  Cadry wrenched himself round like a caught fish and managed to get his elbows under his back. He propped himself up enough to tilt his head back and look Tren full in the face.

  “I do not, my lord. If you had any honor left you’d do it yourself. Ah, by the true gods! If you had any honor, you’d lead us all out, away from these stinking creatures and back to our own kind.”

  Tren’s life and the life of every man in his warband depended on his reaction. He kicked Cadry in the mouth so hard that he heard tooth and bone crunch under the blow.

  “Hold your tongue, you blaspheming dog! Have you forgotten about her?”

  His eyes filled with tears, Cadry flopped back on the ground and bled. Tren set his hands on his hips and merely looked at him, saying nothing, showing nothing. Hir-li said a few sentences to the Keepers, but Tren, of course, had no way of knowing what. For all he knew, Hir-li was inventing rather than translating his words. The leader of the Keepers replied briefly.

  “They ask if you have objections to his death.”

  “Tell them I demand his death.”

  Hir-li repeated—something. The Keepers nodded, grunting in what seemed to be satisfaction. On the ground, Cadry sobbed once, then lay still, his eyes fixed upon the sky, so pure and far above them all. Hir-li glanced at the officers and barked an order that seemed to displease them, from the way they glowered.

  “I told them to kill him fast,” Hir-li said to Tren. “To get it over with, as your people would say.”

  “Indeed? Why?”

  Hir-li grinned hugely.

  “No wonder you speak to me of rocks, Lord Tren. Your heart is made of one.”

  He turned and spoke to the Keepers, who went on looking sour. All round, the Horsekin in the crowd groaned and muttered, as if in disappointment. Hir-li considered them, then suddenly laughed and shouted, bellowing a message as loud as he could. The Keepers cheered, the waiting warriors cheered, laughing, drawing swords in a sudden rattle and holding them high, cheered again, “Hai, hai, hai,” until the sound and the news spread through the entire camp.

  Up on the rooftop of Cadmar’s dun, Jill heard the shouting, but only as a distant sound, a sigh on the wind and little more. She was distracted enough to ignore it, because by daylight, she could see that the Horsekin had placed their reinforcements into the northern camp, formerly their
weakest point. Cengarn was ringed good and proper, now. As she so often did in difficult times, she found herself thinking of Nevyn, her teacher in the dweomer and indeed, one of the greatest dweomermasters that the world had even known. Thanks to powerful magicks, he had lived over four hundred years, and during that unnaturally long life, he’d gathered together a vast amount of lore which his own researches and experiences had enriched. What would he have done, here in this siege?

  Jill thought for a long time, pacing back and forth on the rooftop. Would he have used his alliances with the High Kings and Lords of the Elements to bring rain and plague, or perhaps fire and havoc, to the besiegers? She doubted it, since the enemy army included innocent slaves and servants—since, indeed, the army itself was deluded by Alshandra’s madness rather than being evil. Would he have risked facing the enemy sorcerer in astral combat? Not if a loss would have meant depriving the city of his protection. What about challenging Alshandra herself? Nevyn might indeed have won such a battle. She could not. She was forced to realize that he would have done exactly what she was doing—wait—wait and watch for that one moment when all the hints and omens would come together in her mind and show her the one true thing that must be done.

  Shaking her head, she left the roof and went downstairs. She was just leaving the main broch when she met Jahdo, who’d apparently been looking for her, judging from the way he brightened at her approach.

  “There you be, my lady,” Jahdo said. “I did come to ask you a question for my master’s sake.”

  “Ask away, then, if it’s somewhat that needn’t be kept secret.”

  Jahdo glanced round at the busy ward, considered, then shrugged.

  “I do see no reason for it to be, my lady. Meer did wonder if you could give me a written thing, a note, he called it, to introduce us to the dwarven gentlemen what be staying down in town. They do have a way of casting omens, or so he heard, that he would like to know of.”

  “That’s more like our Meer, truly. It gladdens my heart to hear he’s got his appetite for lore back. Let’s go up to my chamber, and I’ll write it out.”

  “My thanks, my lady. It do be a marvel, that you can read and write. Now, that be somewhat that I’d like to learn, someday, but no one’s going to be teaching the ratter’s lad letters.”

  “Indeed? Well, if I had time, I’d teach you. I didn’t learn how to read until I was way older than you are now, you see. I was a grown woman, and it was a bit hard at first.”

  “I’ll wager, I’ll wager. I do know how precious every scrap of your time do be, my lady. But oh, it would be splendid, if someday you could teach me.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. When this war’s over, you remind me of my promise, and I will.”

  The boy grinned as bright as a rising moon, but Jill felt a coldness wrap round her heart, as she wondered if either of them would live long enough to sit down to that tutoring.

  The note turned out to be a pair of wooden tablets, smeared with wax. Jill wrote her message with a stylus, put the tablets wax side together, and tied them up with a thong.

  “A dwarven invention, this,” she remarked. “You can use them over and over, you see. Here you go, lad. Ask for Jorn.”

  With the tablets safely in hand, Jahdo hurried out of the dun gates into the town. At the best of times, Cengarn was a confusing place, with streets that curved round the hills and dipped randomly into the valleys between them. Round houses, sheds, shops, most roofed with thatch, stood where people chose to build them, some set off with woven withey fences, others right on the streets. Here and there stretched bits of grass, and trees grew here and there, as well, nodding over chicken coops and public wells. Now, of course, with the siege, farmers, cows, chickens, children, sheep, wagons, improvised tents, dogs, lines of washing hung to dry, extra horses, cooking fires, stacks of hay filled every spot and nook and spilled half out in the street, while loose creatures and children ran round between other people’s houses.

  It took Jahdo a long time to find his way, asking directions every time he saw someone who looked like an actual townsman, to the dwarven inn. Round back of the hill topped by the public market—a campground now—he found a rise so steep it came close to being a cliff. Set right into it, between two stunted little pines, stood a wooden door with big iron hinges and a big iron ring. Jahdo grabbed the ring and used it to pound on the door. After a few minutes, a dwarf with an enormously long black beard opened up and fixed him with a suspicious eye.

  “I do have a note from the dweomermaster up in the dun,” Jahdo stammered. “For the man known as Jorn.”

  “Ah.” The dwarf stepped back. “Well, come in, then.”

  Jahdo followed him into a stone hallway, lit with the eerie blue glow of phosphorescent fungi gathered into baskets and hung along the walls. Much to the boy’s surprise, the air inside smelled fresh and sweet. At length, they reached a round chamber, some fifty feet across, scattered with low tables and tiny benches round a central open hearth, where a low fire burned and a huge kettle hung from a pair of andirons and a crossbar. The smoke from the fire rose straight up to vent holes in the stone ceiling. At one of the tables lounged a dwarf who was on the lean and lanky side, with a brown and curly beard.

  “Message for you, Jorn.” The innkeep jerked his thumb at Jahdo. “From the dun.”

  Jorn read Jill’s message, then smiled.

  “Well, now,” he said. “If your master would like to learn geomancy, I do know a bit about it. Get him started, like. But the man who really knows how it works isn’t here, alas. He went off with Rhodry to look for that dragon months ago, before the siege came, like. Otho’s his name, and—”

  The floor shook. Jorn swore in Dwarvish and swung himself clear of the bench to stand just as the shaking came again. It felt as if a giant hand had slammed into the side of the hill from outside. The innkeep turned dead white.

  “An earthquake?” Jahdo said. “We do get them in my home city, but I didn’t know they happened here.”

  “They don’t,” Jorn said. “Worse’n that, lad, much worse. The Horsekin are up to somewhat, I’d say. They’re ramming the walls, most like.”

  Jahdo felt as if all the blood had drained from his body. It was an attack, then. As they all stood straining to hear, a sound at last filtered through the thick walls and under the hill, a faint susurrus like an unnatural wind.

  “Fair lot of shouting outside,” the innkeep muttered.

  Suddenly, Jahdo remembered that he had duties.

  “My master! It be needful for me to get back to the dun.”

  “Then you’d best hurry,” Jorn said. “I’ll just be arming myself and heading for the ramparts. If we turn the bastards back, then tell your master I’ll be glad to teach him what I know. If we don’t, well, it won’t matter, will it? Now run!”

  Jahdo did, racing down the long hall, letting himself out the heavy door. As soon as he opened it, the noise broke over him. Shouting, screaming, cows lowing, dogs howling, weeping, war cries—all of it punctuated by the boom, boom, boom of something huge hitting from the east. Jahdo ran and dodged and twisted his way through the streets. The refugees milled round; soldiers poured from dun or militia hall and rushed for the walls. Silver horns blared; men yelled and shrieked and yelled some more. The streets swarmed as those civilians caught down by the walls began to stream uphill and toward the center of the town, while the militia and men from the dun struggled downhill toward their posts. Jahdo ducked between two houses, crawled under a wagon, shoved his way past a group of weeping farmwives, jumped up onto a barrel, and waited while a squad of warriors raced past, wearing mail but settling their pot helms as they ran. He glanced round and realized that his barrel stood at the overhang of a rough slate roof.

  A jump and some concentrated scrabbling got him onto the roof, where he could inch himself up to the peak and finally see. The house he clung to stood halfway up a slope facing east, and it was at the east gate of the city that the attack seemed concentrated
. Cengarn men lined the ramparts and shouted war cries and insults as they hurled stones down at the attackers or leaned over to stab and shove at enemies that Jahdo couldn’t see. Behind them, other men handed stones up ladders or milled round, waiting a turn up. Every now and then a Cengarn man screamed and fell; his fellows on the wall would shove him down and help a replacement up.

  The noise spread; from the north as well as the east, came the thwack, thwack of battering rams pounding on gates, the screaming and yelling of the soldiers, the wordless chanting of the Horsekin outside. Below Jahdo’s perch, the town folk and the refugees huddled together. The center of town fell silent as the people grew terrified, barely speaking, barely moving, though here and there a woman wept, and somewhere a baby was sobbing, over and over. Suddenly, from the east, almost directly over the east gate, in fact, flew a shower of fire—whether flaming arrows or balls of pitch, Jahdo couldn’t tell from his distance. He wanted to scream as the fire fell among thatched roofs—and went out. He could only stare in utter amazement as every scrap of burning turned cold and died the moment it fell. Down below, the town folk who’d seen began to cheer and howl, laughing like demons.

  “Dweomer,” Jahdo whispered to himself. “Our sorcerers be working it, I do believe.”

  Another sound went up, this one distant from beyond the walls, another kind of howling—rage and frustration. Silver horns blared in Cengarn; the defenders began to shout and cheer only to cut the cheering short as another charge came. Remembering Meer, Jahdo clambered down from the roof, managed to get his feet on the barrel again, then fell when it tipped. Cursing under his breath, he picked his aching self up from the cobbles. The palms of his hands were scraped and bleeding. He could remember falling this way back home, but at a time when nothing terrible was happening, and his father had picked him up to comfort him. Jahdo turned and wept, leaning on folded arms onto the wall. It seemed that if he only wished hard enough, only wept hard enough, he would suddenly find himself home, but the screams and the war cries pounded on and on, like waves on some distant beach. When he opened his eyes, he was still in Cengarn. He choked back one last sob.