Days of Blood and Fire

by Katharine Kerr

  “How long before—”

  “A turning of the moon, no more, or so the yeomen tell me, if we’re going to get a full yield at harvest. We have a few weeks more if we bring in a scant one, and then beyond that—” He shrugged, holding empty hands palm upward.

  “Well, if the winter comes late this year, the growing season will be a few weeks longer,”

  “If How can we know that it will be?”

  Jill merely looked at him and smiled.

  “Well, then.” Gavry swallowed heavily. He seemed a bit pale. “We might have two turnings of the moon, then. But I hope that my lord Cadmar’s allies will have ridden before then to lift the siege. I worry about keeping up people’s spirits, and panic in the streets, if it seems our enemies work magic against us.”

  “Just so, but I don’t intend to let things come to that.”

  Although she spoke confidently for the sake of his morale and the dun’s, Jill was suffering her own doubts. While she might well have bested the raven mazrak in some sort of battle, there remained Alshandra. Jill had never seen this strange and powerful being, merely heard reports of her, garbled ones from Rhodry, careful and technical ones from Dallandra, but secondhand information, all of it. Jill did know for a certainty that her ignorance of the dweomer of the roads put her at a decided disadvantage when it came to dealing with Alshandra and her followers. Could her army establish some line of supply with a territory far away, thus allowing them to outlast the town’s provisions? What if it was possible for Alshandra to lead part of her army to Evandar’s country and then march them back to dump them into the middle of town? Jill simply didn’t know what her enemy had the power to do or not.

  Lord Gavry spent the rest of that first day of the siege in drawing up a plan for allotting food and water. Jill spent it constructing magical defenses. The first thing she did was find the arms master and get a couple of old iron pot helms that were too dented and rusty to be much good in a battle. The blacksmith supplied a small puddle ingot, once a knife blade that had got snapped; he’d melted it down but never got round to using it again. These Jill took up to the women’s hall

  She found Carra alone, sitting in a chair by the window with sewing lying unfinished in her lap. Since the lass’s dress hung loose and unkirtled, Jill noticed that her pregnancy was beginning to show. Although Carra looked pale, she greeted Jill calmly, even steadily.

  “What have you got there, Jill?” she said, managing a smile. “Am I to arm and ride to battle? I wish I could, frankly. It’d be better than sitting round here.”

  “I can sympathize with that, but I’m afraid you’ve got the harder task of just waiting. I’ve brought these old helms because they’re iron and no reason more. You see, the being that’s trying to harm you can’t stand its presence. I want you to keep these two helms on either side of your bed, and here, take this little lump. Keep it tucked into your kirtle at all times. I see you’ve got a table dagger, too. Good. Carry that with you always, whether it’s time for a meal or not. Sleep with it, too.”

  “Very well.” Carra took the ingot, which just fit into the palm of her hand. “If somewhat happens, should I throw this or suchlike?”

  “Never that. Keep it with you always. Just hold it up, just like you’re showing it to me. That should do the trick.”

  Although Carra looked profoundly puzzled, Jill had no time to explain, and indeed, she understood little of the theory behind the iron herself, except for a few vague remarks that Nevyn had once made about lodestones. In fact, beings who exist on the etheric plane but can take on physical form, thanks to the weaving of astral substance, exist in a magnetic field and in a state of magnetic flux, which iron will first absorb, becoming magnetized itself, then disrupt to painful effect. Jill only knew, at that historical point in the development of dweomer knowledge, that beings such as Alshandra and Evandar couldn’t abide the touch or close presence of iron. The effect, she hoped, would work without Carra having to know the cause. It occurred to Jill as well that with all the armor and weaponry the Horde outside the gates was carrying, Alshandra couldn’t possibly be there upon the physical plane with them. Even though she could work harm just as easily from the etheric, the thought was somehow cheering.

  After she left the princess, Jill was crossing the ward on her way to her own side broch when she saw a small party forming at the gates, a herald, carrying a staff wound with ribands, and an escort of warriors to take him through the town. The equerry and Gwerbret Cadmar himself, leaning on his stick, were standing talking with the young herald. At his right hand, and all dressed in clean clothes for the occasion, stood Meer with Jahdo to lead him. When Jill joined them, the bard stepped forward, swinging his massive head from side to side.

  “Is that the mazrak?” he bellowed.

  “It is, indeed,” Jill said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have offered my services to the gwerbret in thanks for his generous treatment of me and my lad. Among our people one of the twelve essential conditions for a parley is the presence of a bard. Besides, if these savage swine don’t speak your language, the herald will need a man along who speaks theirs.”

  “Just so, and my thanks. Savage swine, is it? They’re Horsekin from the north, then.”

  “They are, and I don’t like the smell of them. Somewhat evil’s afoot here, but you don’t need me to tell you that.”

  “I’m afraid not, good bard, I’m afraid not.” Jill turned to the gwerbret. “Who’s called for the parley, Your Grace?”

  “They have. They want to deliver a demand and terms.” Cadmar’s face flushed red with rage. “The filthy gall, thinking they can make demands upon me!”

  “I’m willing to wager what they’ll be, too,” Jill said. “Hand over Princess Carramaena and thus the unborn child.”

  Although the herald looked profoundly skeptical, in the end Jill was proved right. Those sent to the parley rode back soon and fast. Though the herald himself was white and shaking, Meer raged, bellowing and stomping his way into the great hall. Jill hovered by the dragon hearth while the herald delivered his news. Everyone in the hall, whether noble or common-born, went dead-silent to listen.

  “They demand we hand over the princess, sure enough,” the herald said. “The only terms they offer are these, that we may kill her ourselves, to assure ourselves that her death is a merciful one, and hand over her dead body instead.”

  The hall broke out in rage—curses, shouts, inarticulate howls of sheer horror. Meer turned to Jill and hissed a single word, “blasphemy.” Cadmar rose, pounding on the honor table with his stick until he got silence.

  “It gladdens my heart to hear you as furious as I.” The gwerbret’s voice rang loud but steady. “Never fear. Never would I turn over any woman to this swarm of filthy maggots, whether she were princess or tavern wench.”

  A roar of approval answered him. Jill could only hope that they’d feel the same if the siege dragged on into long months of starvation and disease. With Jahdo at his elbow, Meer strode forward and made a bow in the gwerbret’s direction. The hall silenced itself again, straining forward in curiosity.

  “Your Grace, I have a thing that I must say, for it burns in my mouth. These people are not my people. They may be Horsekin, but they are not Gel da’Thae. They would kill a woman who carries a child, and such is one of the four greatest offenses to our gods. They are blasphemers, idolaters, followers of perverted magicks, filth clotting the pure face of the earth and a stinking dung heap under the sky. I abjure them, I abhor them, I turn my back upon them forever and utterly.”

  The crowd in the hall muttered to one another, but quietly, waiting for his grace’s answer.

  “For that you have my thanks, good bard,” Cadmar said. “And from now on, I shall consider you one of my own men. Even if you choose to leave us, you will always have a place here in my dun and at my table, any time you see fit to return.”

  The crowd sighed, nodding approval.

  “My lord has my hum
ble thanks. He has shown the greatness of his heart and soul this day.” Meer bowed again, then whispered something to Jahdo, who turned him in Jill’s direction. “Mazrak, everything I know, all my twelve levels of lore, is at your disposal. Ask, and I shall answer everything, with naught locked behind walls.”

  The delighted crowd applauded, even though they doubtless had no idea of the enormous scope of the gift he was offering. Jill was so pleased that she found it hard to speak. Here was a weapon she’d never hoped to earn: Meer’s aid.

  “My thanks, good bard. Tonight, if it pleases you, we shall dine together in my chamber.”

  “It pleases me indeed, mazrak.” Meer hesitated. “Wait. Such address is not correct. It pleases me—Jill.”

  With one last bow the enormous bard gestured to Jahdo and strode off, swinging his head from side to side with a rustle of his braided mane, tapping his way with his long staff through the crowd, which parted to let him pass. No doubt he needed to be alone with his grief, that a tribe of his own kind, even if it weren’t his own tribe, would betray their gods and all that such stood for.

  “We shall have mead,” Cadmar called out. “I need to wash the taste of these impious demands out of my mouth. Let the swine wait for their answer.”

  The crowd roared again. As the serving lasses and pages scurried off, Jill glanced round, but there was no sign of Carra. Yraen, however, was standing by the foot of the spiral staircase. He seemed carved of granite, he’d gone so gray and still. When Jill hurried over, he bowed to her, but he said not a word.

  “Where’s Cam?” Jill snapped.

  “In the women’s hall, where I can’t go.” His voice shook badly.

  “Well, there’s Lady Ocradda, over there by the window with the bards. Get her to take you up. Carra’s going to hear the news sooner or later, and I’d rather she heard from you and Occa, not from her maid’s gossip or suchlike.”

  Yraen nodded and trotted off to follow orders.

  Jill had a peculiar sort of battlement to build round the dun and the town. Even though it was broad daylight, and the ward and the walls were filled with people, she decided that she had no time to waste in waiting for darkness, and that the dun had seen enough dweomer by now to put up with her standing on the tops of towers and doing odd things. She puffed up the spiral staircase to the roof of the main broch, where she’d taught Rhodry how to intone a magical formula, and found tidy little pyramids of round stones, stacked at the edge at regular intervals, ready for some desperate defense of the dun. Jill walked into the center of this circle and stood for a moment, catching her breath.

  When she was ready, she focused her mind on the blue light of the etheric. Slowly it seemed that the bright sunlight round her faded and a different light rose, dim and silvery, though through it she could clearly see the physical world around her. In this bluish flux she raised her arms high and called upon the power of the Holy Light that stands behind all the shadowy figures and personified forces that men call gods. Its visible symbol came to her in a glowing spear that pierced her from head to foot. For a moment she stood motionless, paying it homage, then stretched her arms out shoulder-high, bringing the light with them to form a shaft across her chest. As she stood within the cross, the light swelled, strengthening her, then slowly faded of its own will. When it was gone, she lowered her arms, then visualized a sword of glowing light in her right hand. Once the image lived apart from her will, she circled the roof, walking deosil, and used the sword to draw a huge ring of golden light in the sky.

  As the ring settled to earth, it sheeted out, forming a burning wall round the entire town of Cengarn. Three times round she went, until the wall lived on the etheric of its own will. At each ordinal point, she put a seal in the shape of a five-pointed star made of blue fire. Once the sigils of the kings of the elements blazed at the four directions, she spread the light until it was not a ring but an enormous sphere of gold, roofing over the dun and the town both and extending down under them as well. Two last seals at zenith and nadir, and Cengarn hung in the many-layered worlds like a bubble in glass.

  At the end of the working, she withdrew the force from the image of the sword, dissolving it, then stamped three times on the roof. Sunlight brightened round her, and she could hear the sounds of the dun, shut out earlier by sheer concentration. The portion of the sphere above the earth, however, remained visible—that is, visible to someone with dweomer sight. Although she would have to renew the seals five times a day at the changing of the astral tides, everyone inside the sphere would be safe from prying eyes as well as spirits sent by their enemies.

  “And we’ll see,” she said aloud. “How our fine Alshandra likes that.”

  Yet she knew that she was as guilty as any green warrior of sheer braggadocio — For all she knew, Alshandra would be able to brush the seals away like so many cobwebs — If only Dalla would return! Jill had that thought a hundred times a day — But a useless sort of thought it was, she reminded herself just as often — Rather than stand round wishing, she hurried down to try to convince the arms master to help her salt the entire dun with whatever bits of old iron they could find.

  After Meer pledged himself to sorcerer and gwerbret both, Jahdo led him over to the servitors’ table where the young bard and his lady were sitting together — Meer sat himself down across from them and bellowed for ale.

  “Be it so that you have need of me?” Jahdo said.

  “Not for some while, lad — Run off and find your friends if you’d like.”

  Instead, Jahdo hurried up the spiral staircase after Yraen and Ocradda. On the landing, by the door into the women’s hall, Ocradda told Yraen to wait while she broke the evil news to Carramaena as gently as could ever be possible — Jahdo lingered, half-hidden on the stairs, till the lady was well inside, but Yraen’s sharp eyes spotted him.

  “What do you want, lad?”

  “Oh, naught, truly. I did, but, er, well…”

  “Out with it!”

  “I be so scared, Yraen, that they’ll harm the princess.”

  Yraen made an attempt at a smile that failed.

  “You know somewhat, Jahdo? So am I, but by every god in the sky, before they can get at her, they’ll have to kill me, and that’s not such an easy thing to do.”

  “Truly, that be so.” Jahdo climbed the last few stairs up to stand beside him. “But I did think, well, there be dweomer here, and what may we do ‘gainst that? So I did come up with a plan. I do have these talismans that Meer did give me, long ago now, and I want the princess to wear them. Great sorcerers aren’t going to come a-bothering the likes of me.”

  “Now, that’s a noble thought you’ve had, truly, and I’m proud of you.” Yraen paused to listen at the closed door. “Whist, here they come! You kneel and get ready to ask her, like.”

  Jahdo got down on one knee and hurriedly ran his hands through his hair, lifted off the charms, rumpling his hair in the process, and was just smoothing it again when the door opened. Flanked by Lady Ocradda, Princess Carramaena stepped out, her head held high, her mouth set hard in a tight line like a warrior’s. Jahdo thought that he’d never seen her so beautiful, but still fierce and defiant, like a white eagle, dressed as she was ail in white linen, broidered with rich color at neck and sleeves.

  “What’s all this?” Ocradda said, waving vaguely at Jahdo.

  “He has a gift to offer her highness, Your Grace,” Yraen said. “Jahdo, go ahead.”

  For a moment, though, Jahdo’s heart pounded so hard that he simply couldn’t speak. Carra encouraged him with a little nod.

  “Your Highness,” he managed the words at last. “My master did give me these talismans that the high priestess made. The high priestess in Meer’s own city, I mean, and she does know Gel da’Thae dweomer better than anyone. So I did think that you should have the wearing of them, because the Horsekin sorcerers, they be trying to work you harm, but never would they care about a lad like me.”

  “Jahdo, how kind of you.” For a mo
ment Carra’s voice wavered, but only a moment. “But never could I take your safety away.”

  “Your Highness?” Yraen spoke rather bluntly, Jahdo thought, considering he was speaking to royalty. “You need them. He doesn’t.”

  “Just so, Your Highness,” Jahdo said. “Oh, please, if it were that you were wearing them, I would be sleeping so much better.”

  Carra smiled, a sudden burst of gratitude like sun through clouds, and took the thongful of charms. When she slipped them over her head, when he saw them lying against the pale skin of her neck, Jahdo felt abruptly warm all over. He simply couldn’t understand why he’d turned so giddy and shy all of a sudden, though his heart pounded harder than ever.

  “You have my undying thanks, Jahdo,” Carra said. “I’ll wear them always and think of you.”

  Although Jahdo felt himself grinning and gaping like a fool, he couldn’t force out another word. When, guarded between Ocradda and Yraen, Carra went downstairs, Jahdo stayed kneeling on the landing for a long time, wondering if he’d ever been so happy in his life, siege or no siege. In his mind he could still see the memory picture of the thongs nestling at the hollow of her throat, the bound feathers, the silver disk—

  “Oh! That other disk!”

  He leapt to his feet just as a memory leapt into his mind, the peculiar sigil on the pewter disk that Jill had shown him out in the stableyard. He rushed downstairs dangerously fast, tore through the great hall, and burst out into the ward just in time to see Jill climbing down from her warding ritual.

  “Jill, Jill,” he shouted. “I remember, I remember!”

  Laughing, she took his arm and led him away from the puzzled crowd of warriors standing round the ward.

  “Remember what, lad?”

  “The squiggly thing on Thavrae’s amulets. Remember you it? You did show me when you’d taken them from the old jailor, and there were this squiggly thing on the pewter disk.”

  “I do remember, indeed. You said you’d seen it before?”

  “And I know where. I did find one just like it, lying in the grass outside the gates of Cerr Cawnen.”