Days of Air and Darkness

by Katharine Kerr

  “Hah,” the old man said. “Well, now, you’re a surprise.”

  “You’re one yourself, good sir. May I ask what you’re doing in this wretched place?”

  “Doing what I can to make it less so. And what about you?”

  “I’m looking for my wife. Sometimes she flies as a nighthawk, sometimes she walks as one of the Westfolk, but her name is Alshandra, and she’s quite mad.”

  “Hah. Can’t say I’ve seen her. I’ve seen no one since I came into this country. Except for you, of course.”

  “If you care to get out of here, watch the way I fly. There’s a green land in that direction, with a river of silver and some meadows that I am, I’ll admit, rather proud of. Come take our hospitality, if you’d like.”

  “Very kind of you, and perhaps, one of these days, I might do so.”

  Evandar stretched out his arms, shook himself all over, and changed into the hawk. He leapt from the rock and flew, heading back to the Lands, so intent upon finding Alshandra that he never gave another thought to the old man or wondered who he might be.

  All day, with the elven archers and the dragon on guard, the relieving army worked furiously to dig itself into its new position behind some hasty ditches of its own. Once the supply train caught up with them, they barricaded the rear of the camp further with the carts. It was late in the evening before the men had time to talk among themselves, and then Yraen found out that their victory was in some ways a defeat.

  “Well, look at their position now,” Rhodry said. “As snug as a bear in its den, they are, with the hills round their back to the north and the ditches in front of them. They still block the city gates, all three of them, north, east, and south. What are we going to do? Haul ourselves up and down the western cliffs in baskets?”

  Yraen peered through the gathering dark. Against the stars, he could see the rise of the city, sailing like a ship over the exhausted armies below. Carra’s in there, he thought. And her blasted husband’s out here. He felt sick, realizing how fiercely he was wanting Dar to die in the coming battle. No honor left. Just a cursed silver dagger, aren’t you? Not a prince anymore at all. You couldn’t have her anyway. She’s carrying a royal child.

  “Are you listening to me?” Rhodry snapped.

  “What? My apologies. Just thinking.”

  “That’s a bad thing for a fighting man to do.”

  Yraen smiled at the familiar jest.

  “I was talking about our situation,” Rhodry went on. “It’s like a siege inside a siege. Well, if the bastards have water in their camp, anyway.”

  “I’m sure they dug a spring or two just in case this happened. From what I’ve seen of them, they don’t leave one cursed thing to chance.”

  “Well, there we are, then. What worries me are those hills.” Rhodry made a wide sweep with his arm. “I wish I’d paid more attention to them, like, before the war started. They could retreat through them for all I care, but what I’m wondering is, can they get enough men out that way to fall on us from behind?”

  “Circle round, you mean? Good question.”

  And one, it turned out, that the noble-born had been wondering over themselves. It wasn’t long before Lord Erddyr came through the camp, calling for volunteers to do a little night scouting. Rhodry stepped forward immediately. With his half-elven sight, he could see well in darkness, especially since the moon was half-full.

  “And from a height I should be able to get the lay of the land for you, my lords.”

  “True spoken, Silver Dagger,” Erddyr said. “Can that, er, beast of yours fly at night?”

  “Well enough for a simple task like this.”

  Yet in the event, there was a limit to what Rhodry could discover. When he returned from a pass over the northern hills, he drew out the general shape of the land for the council of lords, but from his height, he hadn’t been able to distinguish important details, such as whether the ground lay broken or smooth, or how thick the forest cover grew.

  “We’ll have to send scouts after all,” Erddyr said. “At least you’ve given them an idea of what they’ll be facing.”

  “I’ll go on foot,” Rhodry started to say. “I—”

  “You’ll do naught of the sort! You’re the only man here who can ride that thing, and it proved its worth today.”

  “She, my lord. Not an it, but she.”

  “As you wish.” Erddyr’s smile was a bit glazed. “But you’re staying here anyway.”

  “I’ll go,” Yraen said. “I’ve some idea of the country round here.”

  “Good,” Erddyr said. “I’ll find a few others, too. But listen, lad. Just get a quick idea of the lay of the land, how many wretched trees we’ve got to deal with, things like that. Don’t risk too much. It’s only the first night, and for all we know, we’re in for a long stand-off of it.”

  By then, the wheel of stars marked out midnight. Yraen took his sword off his belt, because it might clank and give him away, though he kept his dagger, and he left his mail behind for the same reason. He rubbed ashes from a cold fire over his face and hands to darken them, then set out from the easternmost, edge of the Deverry camp. With the sharp bulk of the ridge, fringed with tents, so clear against the stars, he had a good idea of where he was and where he was going. Since the woods here on the flat had been coppiced and the ground gleaned for every possible stick of dead wood, he could stay hidden and silent among the trees. He angled off to the south, following the line of the ridge but a good safe distance away, until he reached the flank of the low hill into which the actual ridge rose.

  There he hesitated. He could see by the sudden immensity of shadow that about halfway up the hill the woods turned shrubby again. He could move there without being seen, but staying silent was another matter. He climbed the hill to the edge of the tended woods, found a low stone wall to mark the difference, and walked along it for a ways back in the direction of the Horsekin camp. He could see that with so much ground cover, the enemy wasn’t going to be able to bring any kind of cavalry force out of their camp in this direction. But how far did the camp extend? He paused, considering. By sticking to the wall and keeping low, he would be impossible to see, and the footing was still good. It would do no harm to go on for a ways more.

  Yet something stopped him, a feeling, a sudden sensation that the danger had just magnified itself. He dropped and crouched behind the wall, then began to move, hunkered down awkwardly, back in the direction he’d come. All at once, he heard them, crashing through the woods, men running downhill and toward him. He got up and ran, angling through the woods away from the wall, dodging through the dark shapes of trees in the lighter darkness of a starry night. He could hear them coming, didn’t dare risk a look back, dodged off at an angle, heard them follow precisely. He could see ahead to the flat, he was coming clear at last, when something thrown struck him in the back.

  Nothing bladed, just a weight, but it smacked the air from his lungs and made him stumble, gasping and tripping. From behind, he heard a shout and then a laugh of victory as he went down to his knees. He staggered to his feet, tried to run, wondered if the men chasing him could see in the dark like Rhodry, but the hands that grabbed his arm didn’t belong to some man of the Westfolk. He twisted free, but another Horsekin clutched his shirt, and the first smacked him hard across the head with the haft of a spear. Yraen fell, and this time he lay still, gasping into the grass, feeling blood run down the side of his face, while his captors chattered above him in a language he’d never heard.

  They waited, briefly, then hauled him up, one on either arm, and began to half-drag him up the hill while he staggered and tried to keep up. At the top of the ridge, another Horsekin waited with a lantern. He held it high in one hand and pointed to his long thin nose with the other, grinning as he sniffed the air with little noises. Yraen understood; they’d smelled him out, not seen him, nor even needed to see or hear a scout to find one. The lantern light seemed to burn into his eyes and make him sick to his stomach as his
captors dragged him along through the tents to a little clearing among them.

  Other Horsekin came running, chortling, talking fast. His captors threw him onto his back in the dirt; one kicked him in the stomach for good measure. The man with the lantern called out, glancing round him as if looking for someone. When a Horsekin walked into the lantern light carrying a long spear, they all laughed.

  “Wait!” A human man, vaguely familiar, stepped forward. “I claim this man’s death. He helped kill my brother.”

  Dazed and bleeding, Yraen could only stare at him. Brother? Of course! He looked much like Lord Matyc, the same moonlight-pale hair, the same gray eyes, the same narrow face so tightly controlled that it might have been carved from stone. Yraen’s captors stared puzzled at the fellow, as if they hadn’t understood a word of what he’d said, but the guard carrying the long spear fell back as another Horsekin made his way through the circle. This one wore a long gold-threaded surcoat over his tunic and boots; a welter of charms glittered in his hair. Yraen could guess him an officer.

  “I’ll defer to you, Tren,” he growled, then spoke in his own language.

  All the Horsekin began babbling at once while Tren crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Yraen. Yet Yraen found it hard to believe that the lord hated him; the stance, the glare were as real as some pose a bard adopts while he sings a ballad. They seemed, however, to convince the Horsekin leader, who shouted his men into silence.

  “Well, then,” the leader remarked in an oddly conversational tone, “if he helped trap your brother, he’s yours. Kill him now, any way you want.”

  “Rakzan Hir-li, I choose the way of my own people.”

  The rakzan bowed in a passable imitation of Deverry courtesy and stepped aside.

  Tren drew his dagger and strode forward. With a wrench of his body, Yraen managed to get kneeling; he would have preferred to die on his feet, but there was no help for that now. Tren knelt just behind and to the left of him, grabbed his hair, and jerked his head back. Yraen concentrated on the pain and stared up at the night sky. Beyond the flaring torchlight, he could see the moon and a few glimmering stars. It pleased him that his last sight of the world would be the stars. Tren pulled him back to brace his body against his own chest.

  “I’m sorry,” Tren whispered. “But it’s better this way. The way they treat their prisoners …”

  Yraen remembered the staked cowherd and smiled. The dagger swung and bit. A red fire of pain sprang up and fell over him like a winding sheet. His last thought was Carra’s name, but his lips refused to form the word before the darkness claimed him.

  Tren wiped his dagger on the dead prisoner’s shirt, then thrust the body away, letting it flop into the dirt. He rose to find himself face to face with Hir-li, who had taken the dead man’s belt from the guards.

  “Very cleanly done,” the rakzan said. “You have a nice hand for these things, Lord Tren. Here. You’ll want this.”

  Tren took the proffered silver dagger, hefting it in one hand.

  “My thanks. This is how I knew who he was. Our spy told me about two silver daggers. One set up the fight, she said. The other did the killing.”

  “I see.” Hir-li nodded, swallowing the lie. “Well, you have half your revenge, then, and a trophy.”

  Tren, however, kept the silver dagger not more than a scant hour. He was sitting in his tent, examining it by lamplight, wondering who the poor bastard was that he’d slain to spare him the long spear, and wondering as well why he’d done so, when Raena’s maidservant shoved back the tent flap.

  “Her Holiness summons you.” She pointed one finger at the dagger. “Bring that.”

  Tren found her alone in the tent. Dressed only in a linen tunic, she was pacing back and forth in the silvery moon glow, her hair spread out round her shoulders, and it seemed that the long black mane had come alive, swirling and snapping in some private breeze. When she saw the dagger, she smiled, grabbed it in both hands, and held it up to catch the dweomer light. He knelt, thinking that the Goddess was upon her, but her voice sounded human enough, giggling like a lass who’s been given a courting gift.

  “Name your price for this, my lord.”

  “Take it as a gift to you and our Goddess both.”

  She laughed and rubbed the flat of the blade over her breasts, the edge so near her nipples that he winced. She saw the gesture and smiled as she lay the dagger down on a wooden chest.

  “My thanks, then,” she said, “and a pretty gift it is. I only wish I’d seen him die. Do you know who that was?”

  Tren debated.

  “I don’t,” he said at last. “That he was a silver dagger was enough reason for me to hate him.”

  “He was Rhodry Maelwaedd’s friend. I’m sure he had a great deal to do with your brother’s death.”

  Tren laughed himself, one short bark that he’d all unwittingly told Hir-li the truth.

  “I shall treasure this blade,” Raena went on. “I shall savor it, I shall brood over it, I shall work dweomer with it, and someday I shall have revenge with it.”

  “No doubt.” Tren rose with a bow in her direction. “I have every faith that Her Highness will be successful.”

  “Do you? Good.” She reached out and caught his arm. “There’s blood all over your sleeve, Tren.”

  “So there is, Your Holiness. My apologies, but slitting a man’s throat is a messy job.”

  “No need to apologize.” She looked up with a soft smile, her eyes suddenly bright. “Don’t be in such a hurry to leave me, my lord. You shall have a reward for this.”

  “Tonight, Your Holiness, my place is with my men. What if there’s a night attack on the camp?”

  “There won’t be. The Goddess would have warned me.”

  He considered excuses, realized how fast her gleeful mood could turn to rage, then took her by the shoulders and kissed her on the mouth. With a little sob, she rubbed herself against him.

  “My heart aches to say this, Silver Dagger,” Erddyr said, “but if Yraen’s not here by now, he’s not coming back. The same goes for the others.”

  “None of them have come back?”

  “None. It bodes ill.”

  Rhodry nodded, staring at the lightening sky.

  “One more reason for blood.” Rhodry drew his silver dagger and held it up to catch the dawn. “Yraen, you’ll be avenged. I promise you that.”

  He tipped back his head and began to laugh, felt the laugh bubbling and shrieking out of his mouth while men turned to stare, and the dragon swung her head round and hissed. Lord Erddyr earned the admiration of every man in the camp by grabbing Rhodry by the shoulders and shaking him when he had a dagger in his hand and the fit upon him.

  “Stop it! Stop it, man! That’s an order!”

  Rhodry felt the laughter leave him. For a moment, he stood trembling in Erddyr’s hands and wondered who this red-faced lord might be. Then the name came back; he shook free and let out his breath in a long sigh.

  “My apologies, my lord.”

  “You’re forgiven.” Erddyr wiped his forehead with the side of his hand. “You’d best go draw your rations. The sun’s getting itself up in the blasted sky and all that.”

  “So it is. Think they’ll attack today?”

  “Who knows? I wouldn’t if I were them. But ye gods, they’re not even human. Who knows what they’ll do?”

  “Just so, my lord. Well, then. I think me we’d best decide what we want them to do, and make them do it. We’d best settle this affair soon, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “I know that, we all do. The countryside’s been stripped bare for this war as it is. Once these supplies are gone, well, there we are. But if they decide to sit on their behinds back of those earthworks, I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.”

  “Drive them out, my lord.”

  “What? Are you daft? How—” All at once, Erddyr grinned. “How, indeed? Send a ferret into the hole to drive the rats out, eh?”

  “Ju
st that, my lord.”

  Both men turned to look at Arzosah, stretching luxuriously in the morning sun.

  “I’ll just go have a bit of a talk with the gwerbret,” Erddyr said. “Come with me, Silver Dagger. We’ll just work out the details, like.”

  Although Tren was expecting a full council of war that morning, none was ever called. The Keepers of Discipline hurried through a suddenly crowded and undersupplied camp to estimate the amount of food left, while the captains themselves were pressed into service to keep order at the three small wells. Tren wondered how long it would be before they ran dry. The stream that flowed from Cengarn’s walls now lay just outside their camp, and the good-sized river to the west might as well have been on the moon for all the good it would do them.

  A couple of hours after sunrise, Rakzan Hir-li had Tren summoned. With a squad of guards trailing at a discreet distance in case of a Deverry attack from some unexpected direction, they walked up the east ridge and climbed the flank of the hill.

  “We cannot stay here like this long,” Hir-li remarked. “We Horsekin cannot endure it.”

  The general swept his arm in the direction of the camp, a jumble of tents and horses—mostly horses, it seemed, tied on short tethers in every available space.

  “Endure what, my lord?” Tren said. “Thirst?”

  “Nah, nah, nah, this shoving together, this crowd, this mob, this feeling of cattle all crammed into a pen. We live on the plains, we ride free on the plains. Only slaves live in packs, smelling each other’s stink.”

  Tren was tempted to sarcasm. Instead, he mugged a thoughtful look.

  “Well, my lord,” he said at last, “maybe we should attack then. Once we retake the ground to the west—”

  “Do you truly think we can, with that creature overhead?”

  “Imph, well.”

  “I suspected that they would enlist bowmen. Those are a difficulty, but we could, in the end, ride them down. But if we cannot ride—”