The Wind-Witch

by Susan Dexter

  And all the while, small groups of horses were shepherded from holding pens to the great circle of welltrampled grass where the selling took place. The beasts left mostly singly, were led to picket lines that the buyers had set up, and kept there by drovers who had much to contend with, as old herd bonds were severed and nervous animals adjusted—or did not—to their new companions.

  Bidding waxed spirited when the duke’s great roan stallion, the king of his stables, took his turn in the ring. It barely faltered when the stud took exception to the excitement and began to display his temper in dangerous ways, hauling his attendant grooms wherever he wished, ungovemable. Eventually he managed to plunge into the crowd, though folk nearest had moved back to safety several times. There was chaos, and Siarl the constable waded in himself to take personal charge of the stallion, but the bidding never quite ceased. Duke Brioc looked well pleased. He was gaining a good deal of gold in return for his horses—gold that would soon be transmuted into longkeeled ships. A little of it would go to the coffers of one of the more tractable and practical Eral chieftains—his pay for keeping off his fellow pirates—but that was a temporary inconvenience. Once the ships were ready. . .

  In fact, there were a score more ships in Esdragon, that moment, than her duke guessed. And most of those were beaching on the gentle river shores at that very instant.

  The Riders

  Those traders encamped nearest the river were the first to realize that something was amiss. All at once their wagons were being rummaged through, their strongboxes located and smashed open, the coins within scooped up, thrown into carrysacks. Merchants who objected met short, sharp swords in the hands of men quite willing to use them—men brazen enough to attempt such business in the broad light of day. Picket lines were slashed, and loosed horses spread confusion with every stride, unwitting allies of the thieves.

  Turmoil spread inshore, and the only folk not affected by it were those who’d caused it—and had expected to have to deal with it.

  “There’s a good fifteen ships beached in the shelter of that bluff yonder,” reported one winded post rider, who had raced his mount round the fringe of the fair to scout out their enemy.

  “And never less than a dozen men to a ship,” Druyan reckoned grirnly. “Probably they’ve crammed more aboard for this. For now we act together. There aren’t enough of us here to split off and try anything fancy. Keep close, ride stimnp to stirrup.” Below, she could see her uncle’s bodyguard drawing up about their master, making no move toward the disturbance on the perimeter of the fair. “We’ll ride straight through,” she decided. “Aim for the river, and we’ll try to push them back ahead of us. Now!”

  The horses—even the weary ones—leapt forward eagerly. “Valadan!” someone shouted, like a war cry. Other voices answered him, and two horses neighed. The charge was under way.

  The slope wasn’t extreme, but it blessed them with momentum, and the horses, excited to run together, left weariness behind them like the dust they raised. The thunder of Valadan’s galloping hooves was multiplied a dozenfold, as if Kellis had been working his Mirror of Three again. Druyan had never ridden so fast in a close-packed bunch before—sometimes pastured horses had run along with Valadan, but never for so long. All about her, manes tossed like seafoam, heads stretched out as teeth fiercely clenched bits. Nostiils were red as firecoals, wide as wine cups, and a roaring sound filled Druyan’s ears, as Valadan led the charge. The ragged wave of sea blue and black-sheep’s gray crested into the horse fair.

  The fringes might have broken their charge upon picket lines still up, or deflected it around breakwaters of wagons, but the center did not much impede them. Loose horses dodged out of their path—others loosed themselves from terrified handlers and fled, only to attach themselves to the post riders like the tail of a comet, adding weight to the headlong rush as they followed it.

  “Valadan!” The name was screamed, high and shrill.

  “Druyan! Druyan!” Because there was not a man there did not feel she was the Riders’ luck, their lodestone.

  The shouts were all just at Druyan’s heels—Valadan was forgetting to school his pace to something the others could hope to match. And they were not pausing to slash at the raiders they began to encounter—Druyan carried no sword, could not have held it if she had. Valadan was her weapon, her shield, as well, his white teeth and sharp hooves putting sea bandits to flight more surely than any blade ever forged. No raider stood before him.

  The stallion veered from the river’s edge, on the heels of a yelling man with a sack slung over his right shoulder. The yells changed to screams as he went over the bank and into deep water. Druyan whirled Valadan about, his forehooves treading empty air, his quarters bunching powerfully beneath her.

  Four Riders drew even with them. Three others pelted up, to re-form the line.

  “Back across!” Druyan shouted, her voice breaking into a croak. “Try to push them on toward the right.” Keverne lay in the opposite direction, and she knew there were already folk tiying to make for the safety of the stronghold—they would do no kindness to send the raiders into them.

  Now to charge was a struggle, uphill and without a running start. To stay in any sort of a line was nearly impossible. The Riders mired upon knots of struggling men—stray guardsmen and horse traders fighting back against those who’d sought to rob them. Afoot, they’d never have won to the hill to regroup—even ahorse some of the Riders couldn’t get there, but were forced aside, sent wide and slowed.

  They were the only mounted force on the field, but there weren’t enough of them to matter. Druyan reined in, trying to decide whether another sweep through could possibly do further good—the horse fair was absolute chaos, and determining a course of action could be done only whilst one was on the edges of it. Once embroiled in the struggle, only the next instant could be judged—only the next instant would matter. She looked, and her head swam with the enormity of it. But everyone was looking to her for their direction, it was her name they cried. . .

  Valadan snorted, stamped, and tugged at the reins. Too few of us to keep the line, he said. Three horses had not rejoined them after the last charge—they were together in a little knot downriver, their riders quite busy and plainly too far away to return. Choose to or not, their little force was split.

  Esdragon’s duke had never beheld an Eral raid at close hand, or even seen the aftermath with his own eyes. He had been willing to permit the coasts of his domain to be pillaged the rest of this season in order to better protect them the next—never had he imagined he would need his army to stand off such an unheard of, daylight, and not the least secret attack. His Guard alone should have been sufficient to keep order at the fair. So they had been, but were no longer. Two dozen men, even hand-picked, could not defend the traders and see him safe back to his fortress, as well; Brioc forbade them to try. He looked about for his son—Dimas was nowhere in sight, having made for the riverbank to report on the raiders’ ships, and steal one if he could. He should have forbidden that, the duke thought—surely those ships were not left unguarded. . .

  “Lady, I’ll not ride into that alone, but if your Riders are game, I’ll add my horse to yours,” the trader said, speaking over the neck of a high-spirited gray he had purchased the previous day and managed to saddle ere the picket lines went to perdition and loosed the rest of his stock.

  “Follow me, then!” Druyan shouted, and wheeled Valadan to face the worst of the fighting. She felt his forehand lighten, and all at once he reared as if he would touch the stars that hid out the day behind the gray clouds—reared and screamed both a challenge to the foe and a rallying cry to every ridden horse upon the moor. Druyan did her best to look as if the action was her own idea.

  The riderless answered Valadan, as well, and the ground trembled with the thunder of thousands of hooves. If the earlier charge had been pounding surf, now it was an earthshake. And over the edge of the rolling gray-green horizon came half a dozen more blue and gray rid
ers, with a silver shape darting just ahead of their horses’ hooves.

  “Valadan!”

  “The Warhorse!”

  “Druyan! Druyan!”

  “Valadan!”

  The raiders had been hard-pressed enough to keep out of the way of the early charges. Afoot, even a single horse running at them was a terror hardly to be withstood. Now, faced with scores of onrushing beasts, some few Eral stood fast, but most broke for their ships—if, in the confusion, they still had any notion where the river lay, whether they were up- or downstream of their beached craft.

  “Valadan! Follow the Warhorse!”

  A wolf howled.

  Brioc looked over the shoulders of his guards, as wave upon wave of gleaming horseflesh swept past. Incredulous, he saw his post riders among them, wielding their swords at any sea raider fool enough to be trying to stand in their path.

  “What a sight!” exclaimed Siarl, Constable of Esdragon. He recognized some of the horses hurtling by. “And this you’d trade for a paltry few barnacle-covered tubs?” He spat into the trampled grass.

  The duke was speechless.

  The horse at Valadan’s near shoulder was a blood bay, with a white spot between its eyes. The Rider’s hair matched the stallion’s coat, though by then ’twas too dark to notice such details.

  “They managed to launch all their ships, though they left a lot of their crewmen behind,” Yvain reported.

  Some had in fact been drowned trying to swim after departing boats. Others were cut down ere they reached water too deep to ride a horse through at speed. A few were taken alive. Most had not been.

  Robart cantered up to them. “Brioc’s safe back at Keverne. No one has seen Dimas, but there was hard fighting by the boats, and last anyone heard, he was headed that way.”

  “Did we lose any Riders?” Druyan asked hoarsely. She wanted to ask after Kellis, but dared not, not of Robart. All those iron-shod hooves. All those cold iron blades. . .

  “Some wounded, none like to die,” Robart answered. “I can’t say as much for the horses. Some may never carry weight after this day’s work. If they get through the night without foundering or colicking, I’ll be pleased. And amazed.”

  There were horses everywhere one looked, most unmounted. Some were probably wounded or otherwise hurt. Most were upset and exhausted. Druyan had seen a sad number lying dead, the great roan stallion prominent among those. He had been surrounded by bodies, and Valadan had commented on his valor as they passed.

  “We should try,” Druyan said, “to send someone along the coast, to see where those ships dropped anchor. They won’t be able to get far, not as they are now. They’re still here. Somewhere?

  “But not on the coast,” croaked a familiar voice at her left stirrup. Druyan looked down, her heart leaping with relief. Kellis was swaying there, barely on his feet. He was clad in a shapeless garment starred with thistles and muddy hoofprints, which possibly had been part of a merchant’s tent that morning. There was dried blood all over his face, but nothing red and fresh and his.

  “I remembered,” he mumbled. “What I wanted to tell you before, Lady.” Druyan leaned down, barely able to hear him. Valadan looked back curiously. Kellis took hold of his mane. “The raids came too thick, I knew it had to be the same ships striking again and again, not always fresh fleets from over the sea. That meant they had a base here, an anchorage no one knew about.” He faltered, put a hand to his head, and clung to Valadan’s mane for dear life. Druyan reached for him, but he got his eyes open and shook his head at her. “That’s how it was I set myself to learn birds, so I could scout your coasts the way a boat can’t. That crash, though, going out of form when I wasn’t ready—” He smiled ruefully. “It put most of it right out of my head.”

  What’s he babbling about?” Roban demanded harshly. Druyan waved him off and leaned closer.

  “Kellis? What did you remember?”

  He lifted his face to hers and gave her a clear sight of those innocent dog’s eyes and a lopsided grin. “Where the base is,” Kellis said, just before his knees buckled.

  The Wind-Witch

  “An island,” Robart said dourly, while Kellis sucked thirstily at cider Yvain had liberated from some unfortunate merchant’s wrecked caravan. “Can’t be. Someone would see them. No place in Esdragon is that deserted.”

  “Perhaps not,” Yvain answered thoughtfully. He nodded at Kellis. “He said the anchorage faces the sea. You’d need a boat to spot it, and if I was fishing off the Promontory, I’d be steering well clear of all such islands—the water’s nothing but shoals, and the surf is murderous. I’d want to get safely by, not gawk at the sights.

  “Yet the raiders stumbled on it?” Robart argued scornfully.

  “Probably they were seeking such a bolt-hole purposely, Captain. No one’s said they were stupid, besides having magpie morals.”

  Robart growled something indistinguishable, and Yvain laughed.

  “You’re both missing the point,” Druyan said stemly, intolerant of the squabbling. “Most of us in Darlith have been clinging to the hope that the raids would end when winter came—living for that, truly. Now we know they won’t stop.

  “No reason they should,” Kellis agreed cheerfully, waving the hand holding the cider.

  Druyan took the just-emptied bottle away from him, frowning. Too late she suspected he’d been parched enough to get himself silly-drunk in the space of two minutes, and she angrily wished that Yvain had found them water to quench Kellis’ thirst instead of hard cider—she didn’t doubt he could have managed it. Kellis looked aggrieved, as if he’d guessed her thought and resented her judgment of him.

  “Today should convince Brioc that he needs cavalry more than ships,” Robart said, with satisfaction.

  “Brioc’s guards found Dimas’ body on the river shore,” Yvain reported reluctantly. He fiddled with his dagger hilt. “We may not be able to count on much from our duke.

  He’s got two other sons!” Robart protested, sparing no sympathy.

  “Dimas was his heir,” Yvain stressed softly. “And his favorite. You’ve been about Keverne enough to know that, Captain. And I am only saying that this might be a very poor time to call Brioc’s attention to anything. Especially his post riders, whose lapses as regards their official duties can be called to account. We’re easy prey.”

  Robart pounded a fist against his thigh. “We’re heroes today and examples the day after?” He shook his head. “I’m not disputing the pattern, Yvain. I know my uncle quite as well as you do! So we lay low, lick our wounds, stay out of Brioc’s sight, and the raiders do . . . what?”

  “Hit us all winter long,” Druyan supplied dismally. “No end to it.”

  “We can’t make an end, Druyan!” Robart snapped, irritated.

  Next to her, Kellis gave a little warning growl. Robart’s eyes went wide, then relaxed. He schooled his voice to a more reasonable tone. “Look. Even if we could depend on Brioc’s always chancy gratitude, we’ve nothing to do with. We rode the legs off our mounts to save Brioc’s guests today—we have nothing left for tomorrow, or the day after. Siarl himself couldn’t wangle us fresh horses out of this mess, without the duke knowing. Afoot, there aren’t enough of us to hold off a town watch.” He began to slide his dagger in and out of its sheath.

  The moon was lifting over the horizon, washing the moor with silver. Kellis saw, tipped his head back, and softly howled a welcome to it. The sound was different coming from a human throat, but unmistakably wolf. It echoed weirdly, and horses snorted.

  Druyan grabbed Kellis and muffled his lips hastily with her left palm, while Robart glared accusingly at Yvain.

  “You had to get him drunk? A shape-shifting sorcerer wasn’t trouble enough?”

  Yvain spread his long-fingered hands in innocence, but his eyes smiled.

  “Our own grandfather saluted every moonrise, they say,” Druyan offered, taking her fingers away again. She frowned—they were sticky with cider. “Though not in quite
that way.”

  “Sorry,” Kellis mumbled faintly, ducking his head and rubbing at the bridge of his crooked nose, wishing his head would clear. He had been a fool, he thought, to make himself helpless when he was hardly certain of being among friends. Every Rider still had an iron sword, and he had just called himself to their collective attention. Foolish. “But it’s so big.” It was, he thought, a moon for hunting.

  “It is close—almost near enough to lay hands on,” Druyan agreed, staring skyward at the shining disc. “And not even full till tomorrow night. The tide’s already as high as it normally gets, folk will be making ready all along the coast, the way they do when the moon’s full and close, and the tide rises, too . . .” An utterly natural peril, expected, predictable. Nothing at all like a raid in the night, swords and fire and murder. . .

  “Too much to hope, that any islands off the Promontory would be awash in a high springing tide,” Robart said, begirming to dig idly in the dirt with his dagger.

  “Probably so,” Yvain agreed reluctantly. “Perhaps the winter storms will do for them.”

  “Or they’ll carve themselves a stronger foothold before then,” Robart groused. “Maybe ashore. As you say, no one’s said they’re fools.”

  Druyan had gone silent, her eyes full of moon-silver. Behind them, her thoughts swirled like a wayward breeze, then steadied. High tide . . . A full moon increased the tidal rise. A close full moon brought the water up a touch more, but coastal folk were used to that predictable event. Only when an ill-timed storm pushed the water still higher was there truly danger. Every estuary was vulnerable to disastrous floods of saltwater, if a storm wind got behind a springing tide.

  A storm. . .

  A breath of wind feathered across her right cheek, to slide beneath her collar and down her back like a chill finger. Druyan shivered and could not cease trembling.