Days of Air and Darkness

by Katharine Kerr

  “Drink this.” Brel shoved a tiny glass stoup of herbed liquor under Garin’s nose. “It’ll bring the blood back to your head.”

  Garin took the stoup and tried a cautious sip—bitter, fiery, but invigorating. The scent knifed into his nose and made him remember other times he’d drunk in this inn.

  “I wonder if Rori lived through the fight,” Garin said.

  “Good question. He’s a berserker, after all.”

  Garin nodded, gulping down another mouthful of pale fire.

  “Well, Cengarn’s free,” Brel went on. “And we’ve fulfilled our obligation, but I’ll tell you something, Envoy. If our gwerbret rides after the murdering scum, I say we join him.”

  Garin tossed off the last of the liquor and saluted him with the empty stoup.

  “So do I.” He wiped his mouth and mustaches on the back of his hand. “I’ll tell him that, too. We’ll be meeting in council tonight. Here, help me up. I’d best go attend upon his grace. By the Thunderer! I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

  Once he was on his feet, Garin could keep moving, though the liquor and the aftermath of the day’s battle made the firelight dance round him in golden waves. Outside, it was cooling off, and blessedly dim with twilight. The streets, though, were still crammed with livestock and refugees, prudently waiting for dawn to leave the shelter of the walls. The stench of dung and urine hung thick in the air as Garin dodged cows and children, sidestepped camps and cooking fires. Every now and then, he stepped over a wounded man, too, who’d managed to drag himself inside the walls.

  Cadmar’s ward was mobbed. Wounded men, wounded horses, servants rushing back and forth, soldiers searching for friends, women weeping—the dwarf could barely push himself through and reach the door of the great hall. Inside, packed into the torchlight, the men who could still stand stood round or perched on tables, swilling ale, gobbling chunks of cold meat. The elven archers huddled together, drinking more than eating, across the hall by open windows. No one, men or Westfolk, seemed to be talking much.

  Garin slipped in and kept to the wall, inching round the curve until he could see the table of honor and count up the noble-born. The two gwerbrets still lived, relatively unscathed, but then, no one would have let them lead charges. Prince Daralanteriel stood next to Cadmar’s chair, his face smeared with dirt and cold fury as he clasped a silver goblet so tightly in one hand that Garin feared it might smash. Calonderiel sat next to Tieryn Magryn. This lord, that lord—many accounted for, Lord Erddyr with his head bandaged and blood streaking his beard, the child-lord, as Garin thought of Gwandyc, looking wide-eyed and pale, but no sign of Comerr and Nomyr.

  All at once, Garin broke out grinning. Sitting at the end of the table, speaking to no one, was Rhodry, with a young lad in a dirty shirt standing behind him like a page. Garin started over, dodging through clusters of people until the gwerbret noticed him.

  “Here!” Cadmar hauled himself to his feet. “Let the envoy through! Someone find him a chair.”

  Garin took the chair, but he waved away mead—he didn’t fancy pouring it down on top of the medicinal.

  “Rori!” he called down. “It gladdens my heart to see you!”

  Rhodry smiled and waved.

  “Our berserker’s a friend of yours, Envoy?” Cadmar said.

  “He is, Your Grace. It gladdens my heart to see you and so many of your lords alive, too. Uh, is Tieryn Comerr—?”

  “Dead? He is, and Lord Nomyr and young Peddyn, too, which aches my heart. Our prince here’s lost his lieutenant, Jennantar, as well.”

  “Your Highness.” Garin bobbed his head in the prince’s direction. “My heart sorrows for you.”

  Daralanteriel started to speak, then thought better of it, frowning hard into his goblet.

  “He’ll be avenged,” Calonderiel said flatly. “They all will. And what of your people, Envoy? I saw them in the middle of hard fighting.”

  “We’ve lost a fair number, truly. But then, every war-band gathered here today has lost far too highly for the peace of anyone’s heart.”

  “Well said, Envoy.” Calonderiel nodded in his direction. “Well said, indeed.”

  Every man within earshot raised goblet or tankard in grim salute.

  That night, the army slept anywhere it could, whether in dun walls or out of them. With Jahdo in tow, Rhodry left the town and picked his way through the dead and dying until he found Arzosah, who’d made herself a camp off to the west and far away from the carnage. A stream ran through the western plain, and the dragon had settled herself in a copse of trees beside it. When Rhodry found her, she lay inert, so drowsy that he knew she must have fed well. He decided against asking her upon what. The boy, who was carrying a lantern, held it up to wash her in its dappled light.

  “Oh, she be so grand,” Jahdo whispered. “Never have I seen her so close, just did I see her fly, like, over the town.”

  At that, Arzosah raised a drowsy head and opened one eye. Jahdo stifled a shriek.

  “What’s this?” the dragon rumbled. “Another dwarf?”

  “Nah, nah, nah,” Rhodry said. “A child, and he’s under my protection. By the power of your name, I enjoin you to treat him as a friend and protect him if ever need be.”

  Arzosah yawned with a long whining sigh.

  “Another burden! May the god of dragons help me! First this wretched dragonmaster, and now his cub!”

  “Arzosah—” Rhodry held up the ring.

  “I hear you! Of course, I’ll have to obey you. I promise, I promise. He shall be as my own little hatchling would be.”

  “How do dragons treat their hatchlings?”

  “My, you’re clever! But have no fear. A hatchling is our greatest treasure.” She swung her head and squinted at Jahdo. “What’s your name, lad?”

  “Jahdo, my lady.” He swallowed heavily. “Truly, you be the most beautiful thing that ever I did see, in my whole life.”

  Arzosah rumbled.

  “At least he has nice manners. Very well, Jahdo. You may count yourself a dragon friend. Now please, Dragonmaster, won’t you take these wretched straps off me? I’m so tired.”

  With Jahdo’s help, Rhodry undid her harness and let her shake it off. The boy had brought his tattered blankets from the dun, and Rhodry found his bedroll in the general clutter of gear. They both just barely had the strength to spread them out, and as soon as Rhodry lay down, boots, sword belt, and all, he fell asleep.

  With the morning, the men and lords alike found the life to cull the battlefield. The warbands began rescuing what wounded men had survived till dawn, killing those Horsekin who’d done the same, and looting the dead, enemy and friend alike. Rhodry sent Jahdo back into Cengarn with a message for Garin, asking the envoy to find the boy some food and clothes as a personal favor. Once the lad was on his way, Rhodry harnessed up a grumbling Arzosah.

  “I don’t want to fly today,” she snarled. “My wings ache.”

  “My heart bleeds. I’m not taking any chances. I’ve seen these Horsekin fight now. For all I know, they’re hale and hateful enough to regroup for another fight. No one’s keeping a decent watch, as far as I can tell.”

  “Oh, very well, but I’ll wager they’re not. They’re not demons, you know, only made of flesh and blood, just like poor, weary dragons are.”

  In the event, Arzosah was proved right. They found the remnant of the routed army camped, if you could call the straggling disorder they found a camp, some ten miles away. Rhodry had to marvel that they’d managed to retreat so far. As far as he could tell in their brief circle round the encampment, the Horsekin force numbered in the high hundreds, but they had far fewer horses—and fewer still remained after Arzosah risked one low pass over the herd. Screaming and cursing, the Horsekin rushed out a volley of futile spears, then contented themselves with trying to round up their fleeing stock.

  “They’ll get used to me, sooner or later,” Arzosah called back over the beating of her wings. “We’d best not play this tric
k too often.”

  “Just so. Let’s get back to Cengarn. Land up at the gwerbret’s dun.”

  By the time they returned, the town was emptying out. In long weary lines, farmers trudged out the gates, driving their remaining cattle before them, carrying children on their shoulders and cages of chickens in their hands. They would find their houses burnt and their fields ravaged, but in their carts they had their ploughs and seed corn, more precious than gold here in the aftermath of siege. We came in time, Rhodry thought. They won’t starve, and they won’t be speared and butchered. When tears sprang to his eyes, he was shocked at himself, that he, a noble-born man no matter how far he’d fallen in the world, would be so proud of saving the lives of farmers, crude peasants all of them. But despite his bemused surprise, he felt like singing when he saw them heading home.

  Arzosah landed on the roof of one of the lower brochs. Rhodry unharnessed her, then tied his gear and the harness into a neat bundle.

  “Carry this down with you, will you?”

  “I will. I’ll find a nice spot for us to camp. Would anyone mind if I ate some more of those dead horses, Master? I hate to see them going to waste.”

  “I don’t see why you shouldn’t. But don’t eat any of the men, not human, not dwarven, not elven—not even the Horsekin. I don’t want everyone running to me and crying sacrilege.”

  “Oh, very well, if you say so.”

  “I do say so. And when you’ve done eating, you stay at our camp and go to sleep.” Rhodry held up the ring and caught the sunlight upon the metal. “Wait for me there.”

  “I will, I will. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Walk round a bit. See where my new page has got to. Find some ale and drink myself blind.”

  “Here, you’re still heartsick over Jill’s death!”

  “Just so. Did you think I wouldn’t be?”

  The dragon rustled her wings in a shrug, then seized the gear in her talons, bunched, and leapt into the air. For a moment, he watched her glide, heading for the battlefield and its rich harvest of horse meat, then climbed through the trapdoor and hurried downstairs through the silent tower and out to the ward.

  Its doors flung wide in triumph, Cadmar’s main broch stood silent and empty. Rhodry found a page hurrying out and discovered why. To celebrate the victory, there would be a feast that night, but out in the meadows to the south of town, the only area that could accommodate the entire army. The servants and whatever town folk could be pressed into service had already rolled out the barrels of ale and carried down the various sacks of provisions. Except for the guards at the gates, the warbands had gone off for the grimmer task of helping bury the dead. Rhodry stood looking up at the towers and wished that Yraen were alive.

  From inside the great hall, a harp trilled in a minor key, as if the bard were practicing a mourning song, but when he went to the doorway, Rhodry saw Evandar, his armor gone, sitting cross-legged on the table of honor up by the dragon hearth. The lap harp he played stood long and narrow in the trapezoidal elven style, all inlaid with mother-of-pearl in a pattern of seahorses and seaweeds. Drawn by the music, Rhodry joined him, but Evandar never looked up, merely frowned over his song as it began to take shape, a melody so filled with hiraedd that Rhodry’s eyes filled with tears. Evandar glanced up, saw him, and let the song die in a scatter of random notes.

  “No need to stop for my sake.” Rhodry wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

  “It’s Jill that makes you so sad, then?”

  “It is, and Yraen, and every good man killed here.”

  Evandar nodded, looked at the harp for a moment, then picked it up and tossed it into the air. Rhodry yelped, but long before it reached the stone floor the harp disappeared, as if it had fallen through some invisible window. Evandar climbed down from the table and stretched like a cat.

  “Ill news, Rori. I never did find Yraen. He’s somewhere in the old siege camp, I suppose, buried under the other dead in a trench. I’m sorry. I wanted to set your mind at rest.”

  “You have my thanks.” Rhodry sighed sharply and looked away. “You were right yesterday. It doesn’t much matter. He’s dead. Where he lies won’t change that.”

  “It aches my heart to see you so sad.”

  “Truly? I didn’t think you cared much for the likes of us.”

  “Only for you and Dalla. The rest come and go like birds, here in the spring, gone in the fall of the year. I can never tell one from the other.”

  “Ah. Well, I suppose we’d look that way to you.”

  Evandar nodded, glancing round the great hall with a peculiar expression on his face, as if he were judging it and finding it somehow lacking.

  “What are you doing?” Rhodry said.

  “Making plans.” Evandar flashed him a grin, then wandered over to the hearth. He ran one hand over the carving and peered at the designs. “This is a fine bit of carving, wouldn’t you say?”

  “It is, I suppose.”

  “Imph.” Evandar had his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth while he examined the tiny bands of interlace down the dragon’s body. “These delicate bits here. Did the masons cut them with a chisel?”

  “How would I know?”

  “I wonder how many masons it took to do this? Do you know?”

  “I don’t. Ye gods, who cares? Will you stop worrying at that blasted stone?”

  Evandar straightened up and blinked at him.

  “Oh well, lots of time later, I suppose.”

  “For what?”

  “Studying this hearth. By the by, what about Jill’s books?”

  “What about them?”

  “She borrowed some of them from a man I know down Bardek way.”

  “Then you’d best take them back to him. We should fetch them out of her chamber right now. You don’t want the servants tearing out pages to light fires and suchlike.”

  If the ward had seemed empty, Jill’s familiar chamber felt so cold and dead that he wondered if her very possessions somehow knew that their mistress would never come home again. When he and Evandar stepped in, silence seemed to slap them in the face, even though her narrow bed stood unmade, just as if she’d use it again, and a book lay open on the table, where it would catch the light from the window, just as if she were coming back to read it. Her packs and sacks of herbs and other medicines sat in the curve of the wall. She’d probably planned on using them to tend the wounded after the siege was lifted. Rhodry ran one hand over her pillow and felt his throat clench.

  “There’s a lot of those books,” Evandar said. “Dalla will want most of them. I’ll just take these three back to Meranaldan.”

  “Meranaldan? That’s an elven name! You said he lived in Bardek.”

  “I said he lived down Bardek way, which is a very different thing.” Evandar began picking up the books, one at a time, and slung them into the air to disappear just as the harp had. “It’s a riddle.”

  Then there was, Rhodry supposed, no arguing with him. He went to the window and leaned onto the sill to look down to the distant cobbles.

  “What about the things in this chest?” Evandar said. “Do you think any of them have dweomer?”

  “I wouldn’t know if they did. You could ask Dalla.”

  Far below, a dog was trotting across the ward. Rhodry watched until it disappeared round the corner of the stables. Behind him, he heard Evandar sigh, then walk over to join him.

  “I don’t understand sorrow, Rori, but I can see yours. It’s interesting, truly. Dalla taught me to understand joy, and I think you’re going to teach me sorrow. You and Dalla loved each other once, didn’t you?”

  Rhodry spun round to find Evandar smiling, someone who possessed more dweomer than any human being ever could muster, someone who could, for all Rhodry knew, make him disappear as completely and utterly as the books had.

  “I wouldn’t call it love, and I doubt if she would either. Does it trouble your heart?”

  “Not at all, not at all. That’s no
t the sorrow I meant. I was just thinking that you and she were two sides of a pair, sorrow and joy.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, is loving you going to bring me aught but sorrow?”

  All at once, Rhodry remembered the kiss he’d been given so long ago. He thought of stepping back, but he was caught against the window.

  “It’s never brought anyone much but sorrow,” Rhodry said. “Why should you be any different?”

  “No reason in the world, truly.”

  Rhodry started to speak, thought better of it, then twisted away from the narrow space and strode out into the middle of the room.

  “Are you going to look through that chest?” Evandar said from behind him. “I’d imagine you’d want something of Jill’s, just to keep, like.”

  “I don’t.” He took a step toward the door. “If you find anything dweomer in there, do what you think fit with it. You’d know better than I.”

  Rhodry was unaware of the other man moving, but all at once he felt hands upon his shoulders—cool hands that were more like glass than flesh, but the touch of another being had its comfort, alien or not. He froze, feeling tears rising in his throat.

  “It’s not like I still loved Jill,” he said, more to himself than to Evandar. “It just seems that my whole life’s gone with her. The life I had before, or who I was before. Ah, ye gods, I don’t know what I mean.”

  The hands stroked along his shoulders, held him a little tighter. Rhodry turned, knocked them away, found himself looking straight into Evandar’s eyes, as turquoise as a summer sea, and as alien.

  “I don’t understand that, either,” Evandar said. “But maybe Dalla will.”

  “Maybe so. It doesn’t much matter now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Will you stop?”

  Evandar laughed and made him a mocking sort of bow.

  “What will you do now, then?”

  “Go with the army after the Horsekin. They need me to scout. If we don’t harry them to our borders, who knows what they’ll do?”

  “True enough, but Cadmar doesn’t need a dragon to find his enemies.”

  “So? It’s the shape-changer I’m after. I’ve sworn vengeance on that bitch, for Yraen and Jill and Meer as well.”