Days of Blood and Fire

by Katharine Kerr

  “Don’t. You’re doomed, too, old man. We’ll let the page there amuse himself with you.”

  The boy laughed and clapped his hands, but whether he was acting a part or honestly anticipating the job she couldn’t tell. The herald moaned and began chewing on the end of the staff.

  “Oh, Dog Nose is gone to play,” Dallandra sang. “Over the hills and far away, and Evandar shall ride where he pleases.”

  The wolf warrior turned to the old man and snatched his staff out of his hands.

  “Go fetch him,” he growled. “Go fetch our lord. You know which way he rode. Go get him back here.”

  With a snarl the pair of fox warriors grabbed the herald, one at each arm, and shook him. The entire warband gathered round, snarling, snapping, cursing, and shouting.

  “Get him, get him, fetch him back!”

  “Very well!” the herald wailed. “I will, I will. Give me my staff. Give it to me, you ugly maggots!”

  When he grabbed, the human-looking fellow grabbed back, hit the wolf warrior by mistake, and got bitten for his clumsiness. Screaming and swinging they scuffled, butting at each other with heads and shoulders, flailing round with fists and paws. The herald wiggled free and rolled clear, clutching his staff, his face bleeding from long scratches.

  “Hurry!” the wolf warrior swung his way. “Be gone!”

  Shrieking and weeping the herald rushed into the forest, traveling in the exact same direction that the earlier messenger had arrived from, Dallandra realized. She could just see him rush between a pair of strangely identical oak trees and marked them in her mind. Down below the fighting stopped in a wail of curses, a thunder of recriminations. One of the bear warriors picked up a skin of liquor.

  “Let us wash this ill feeling away,” he announced. “It behooves us to behave like the brothers we are.”

  Dallandra watched the skin making its round and tried to calculate how far away the herald and his fragment of rational mind might be. She was painfully aware that every beat of her heart meant time passing, an hour perhaps for Jill, or even a day. Besides, what if the old man found Lord Vulpine fast and brought him back? Clutching the bars of his cage, the page stared up at her as if she were a goddess. If only she could get him out of there and away from harm without them seeing, just as Lord Vulpine had winkled the pair of them out from under Evandar’s nose!

  “Dolt!”

  She’d spoken aloud, but fortunately the guards were too busy drinking and bickering to notice. She’d been thinking of the size of her physical-seeming body as immutable, just as it would have been back on the earthly plane, but here in the Lands no such restriction held. She raised one finger, got the page’s attention, pointed to herself, then to him, repeated the motion several times since she didn’t dare whisper, “Do as I do.” He watched with narrowed eyes, as if he tried to understand.

  Carefully she built up the linnet image in her mind, then concentrated on size. Immediately she felt her body melting, melding, changing. She clung to the image, made it smaller and smaller in her mind, felt her body shrinking as Lord Vulpine had made it shrink, was aware suddenly of the amethyst figurine as a weight pulling on her neck. She broke the image fast, flapped her wings, and took a few experimental hops forward. The cage towered round her, huge and looming. The little spaces between the wooden bars gaped—doorways. With a cock of her head she looked down and saw a tiny sparrow in the pageboy’s cage.

  The guards were still talking among themselves, bellowing curses on the herald, shrieking every time a twig snapped in the distant forest. Dallandra hopped to the edge of the cage, chirped to the page, and flew, swooping out over the camp, chirping again as the sparrow flapped up free to join her.

  Side by side they darted toward the forest, but just as they reached the trees, Dallandra heard the wolf warrior howl. Shrieking, leaping up, their guards raced after, throwing spears, throwing rocks, cursing and screaming in rage. As the missiles tumbled by it seemed to Dallandra that they flew through falling mountains. Ahead she could see the pair of oaks and between them an unnatural veil of mist hanging like caught moss. With a chirp to the sparrow, she darted straight into it and through.

  They were flying across a grassy plain, where tiny streams wound their way between hummocks of yellow flowers. Here and there at deep pools hazels and rowan grew in tangled clumps. Ahead on the horizon she could see a distant roil of smoke, such as marked the battle plain where Evandar and his brother often met. From behind them she heard howls, the baying of a wolf, the sharp yip-yip of foxes. When she risked a glance back, she saw the pack running after them, on all fours and in animal form, the wolf racing ahead, the bears lumbering after, the humanlike thing laboring along in the rear. She felt an exhalation of fear from the sparrow and knew that he’d seen them, too.

  With every stroke she flew, the amethyst figurine slapped against her breast. She could feel it pulling her down, slowing her down, aching her already sore body or surrogate of one. Although she considered growing in midair, all her dweomer knowledge warned against any such foolhardy working, no matter where she might be in the vast scheme of interlocking worlds. She forced herself to think only of flying and live each moment as a single wing stroke. Although no natural wolf or fox could have outrun a bird’s flight, behind the two birds the pack was gaining. With a shriek the sparrow pulled ahead in a frantic flapping of stubby wings.

  Seeing him, Dallandra recovered herself. She’d been thinking like a hunted bird, but with the pageboy free, she could use her dweomer. She deliberately slowed, letting him escape ahead, then wheeled round, letting herself drop low to draw the pack after her and heading for one of the hazel thickets. In bird form she darted among the snarl of shoots and trunks, found a spot of clear ground, and landed, hop ping among the twisted roots. She could hear the pack howling and grunting round and smell the bears as they began tearing at the thicket with clawed paws, pulling the withes out, rending the branches. A moment’s thought, and she stood in elven form.

  The pack yapped and snarled, falling back a few feet. To them she must have suddenly appeared from nowhere, standing among the knotted shafts and foliage. Dallandra threw up one hand and summoned etheric fire. Blue flames blazed round and shot from her fingers and struck the bears full in the face. Screaming, they raised up on their haunches, seemed to shimmer, and reformed into mostly human creatures, stark naked, batting at their snouts and eyes with human hands, clawing at sparks, and yelping as the flames bit deep into their illusions of flesh. When the wolf warrior leapt for her, she flung a cloak of fire and caught him in midtransformation. Fur scorched but so did skin; a human head screamed on a wolf’s body. With both hands she threw blue flames like darts, scattering them across the pack, until the foxes and the wolf creatures turned and fled, howling across the plains. The ursine warriors fought toward her through one last shower of flame, then broke and lumbered after their fellows, dragging the humanish thing with them.

  Panting for breath Dallandra pushed free of the thicket and watched them run toward the wisp of dweomer mist, hanging in the far distance. Their tiny figures plunged through; it blew away. She stood alone on the grassy plain, wondering where Evandar might be. Perhaps the page had flown to find him, but most likely the boy had bolted for the only home he knew, the astral river and the gold pavilion beside it. Once again she took on bird form, but full-size, this time, so that she could safely carry her ensorcelled flesh.

  In long wing strokes she flew, gliding on the air currents now and again to save her strength, toward the horizon where the yellowish-brown smoke fumed up and swirled. Underneath her flight the grassy plain gave way to rock and a rise of barren hill. With one last swoop she found herself wheeling over the battle plain, where two armies faced one another, the glittering silver swords of the Bright Court, the black enameled mail and spears of the Dark. In the little space between them Lord Vulpine sat on his black stallion, his sword raised high as he taunted his brother.

  “I have her, your precious woman!�
� he was yelling. “Harm me, and she dies!”

  His helmet tucked under one arm, his sword still in its sheath, Evandar sat dead-still, like a statue bound to a saddle.

  “Heal my lands!” Lord Vulpine bellowed. “And maybe I’ll give your elven bitch back to you. You’ll never find her now, not where I’ve kenneled her.”

  Still his brother said not a word, merely stared, while behind him the Bright Court raged and swore, waving swords and crying vengeance. At last Evandar moved, but it was only to turn in the saddle and shout them into silence.

  “Think well upon this demand!” Lord Vulpine snarled. “When the sun rises on the morrow, I’ll return to this place to hear your answer.”

  With a smack of his sword he made his horse rear, then swung round and led his host away, all of them howling with laughter, screeching insults, gloating and reveling in their temporary victory. In his flaunt Lord Vulpine never noticed a plain gray linnet circling the field and waiting till at last his army rode out of sight, and the dust settled on the dead brown plain.

  Unmoving again, Evandar watched them go, while his court urged their horses up round him, calling out, begging him to lead them after into battle. With a little cry Dallandra swooped down. The court burst out cheering, laughing and waving in their turn, as she circled Evandar’s horse once, landed before him, and transformed herself into elven shape. He stared at her for a long moment, saying nothing. All at once she realized that he wept.

  “My love,” he whispered. “Are you truly free?”

  “I am. Did you think they could hold me?”

  He tossed back his head in a howl of berserk laughter that reminded her of Rhodry Maelwaedd, then kicked one foot free of his stirrup and reached down his hand. When she mounted behind him, he twisted round in the saddle and gave her one quick kiss.

  “Vengeance first!” He turned again, holding out his hand, grasping from the air his silver horn. “After them!”

  The court answered his cascade of silver notes with a war cry. Yelling, waving swords, they galloped across the battle plain, where far ahead, warned by the clamor, the Dark Court swung to meet them. Evandar raised the silver horn and blew the command to hold their ground and form ranks. In a milling mob his warriors pulled their horses to a halt, howling their disappointment, while in front of them the army of the Dark Court did the same.

  “Brother!” Evandar called out. “What do you think of this, little brother? I have my woman back, don’t I now?”

  Lord Vulpine screamed and turned to flee, but too late. Evandar flung up one hand and made a circling motion widdershins in the air. The ground beneath the Dark Court shuddered and began to split open, with a crack like breaking sticks but so loud it seemed an entire forest snapped. Round in a circle the widening fissure raced, ringing Lord Vulpine and all his men, penning them inside a vast ditch. Dust plumed, rocks and clods flew and fell, the Dark Court shrieked and begged for mercy as the very earth under them pitched and buckled. Horses fell, kicking and neighing; the warriors plunged to the ground and clung to dirt with fingers and claws while the Bright Court laughed and hooted.

  Evandar lowered his hand and let it rest on the saddle peak. As the clouds of dust blew away, Dallandra could see the Dark Court, huddled and clutching one another atop an island of solid ground, barely large enough to hold them all. Round this island stretched not a sea, but nothing at all—empty space, a blackness, a depth of naught, falling, reaching, stretching down to a view of distant stars like flecks of ice in a black sky, but stars such as Dallandra had never seen before, because they shone steadily without the slightest twinkling or glint. Evandar urged the horse up to their side of the abyss. After one long exhalation of fear, the Bright Court fell dead-silent behind them. Dallandra had to admit to herself that she felt none too brave, either. She clung tightly to her lover’s waist and refused to look down at the distant stars.

  “Now,” Evandar said mildly. “Let us talk, brother, shall we?”

  With a shriek and clatter the Dark Court sprang up and flew. A huge flock of ravens wheeled once, sweeping round its pinnacle of land — For a moment black feathers beat against some invisible wall. As the birds fell back, trapped, taking their usual half-human, half-animal forms, Dallandra realized that there were far fewer of them. Only those with some real consciousness would survive such an ordeal, she supposed.

  “Brother! I called you forward, did I not?”

  Weeping and trembling, stripped of his fine armor and weapons, Lord Vulpine stepped to the edge of his side of the abyss.

  “I will have retribution for this,” Evandar called out. “For the pain you’ve caused my woman and for the mocking of me.”

  “All my lands are yours, and my vassals as well.”

  “The lands were mine anyway, and I don’t want your stinking pack of monsters. Tell me your name.”

  Lord Vulpine howled in agony.

  “Not that, never that.”

  Evandar snapped his fingers. A chunk of the Dark Court’s island prison broke free and tumbled into the abyss, vanishing as it did so in a scatter of brown dirt that in turn dissolved into naught.

  “Your name, brother.”

  “No!”

  Another cliff slid down and crumbled to disappear. The remnant of the Dark Court’s army howled and wept, rushing to the center of their island, pushing and jostling one another in their greed to escape the edge.

  “Brother, your name. You tricked me out of mine, and now I shall have yours in amends.”

  The fox warrior sneered and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at Evandar in silent defiance. The creatures behind him began to beg and weep. Evandar hesitated, then with a flick of his fingers sent a chasm tearing through the prison, separating the warriors from their leader.

  “You have one last chance,” Evandar said. “Tell me or I’ll hurl you back into the chaos you were born from.”

  His brother spun round, staring at the fissure, staring at his army, as if he’d been counting on Evandar’s pity for his men to protect him as well. His own court began to jeer and mock him, taunting him for his weakness, calling out their allegiance to Evandar instead, until the fox warrior howled at them.

  “Some dweomer do I have yet, and I’ll kill you all myself!”

  They fell silent at that and crouched, watching Evandar across the gulf.

  “Brother—the name!”

  The fox warrior spun back, throwing his head from side to side as slowly, one crumble, one split at a time, the tiny pinnacle of land round him began to fall away, first from behind his feet, then to his left, to his right, then the last little sliver in front of him, till he stood paralyzed with horror on barely enough ground to support both feet.

  “Shaetano,” he screamed. “And curse you and your elven whore both!”

  Evandar laughed aloud and snapped his fingers. With a roar like flooding water the island of land rushed out, spreading to meet the solid ground round it as the fissure healed. Screaming and cursing the Dark Court fled, leaping over the last little crack and racing away in the billowing dust. Only Shaetano remained, sinking to his knees, cringing, weeping, and snarling all at once as he tossed his head this way and that.

  “Tell me somewhat,” Evandar said. “Who’s the elder, you or I?”

  He looked up, black eyes glittering, seemed to be about to speak, drew out his silence as long as he dared.

  “You,” he snarled at last.

  “Good. Remember that from now on. Without me, little brother, you’d cease to exist. Defy me again, and I’ll ensure that you cease to exist. Now go! I have your name. You’ll have to come when I call you now, just as I had to come when you called me, and we shall see, my fine Shaetano, how you like of the feel of it.”

  He snarled, rose to his feet, the red roach of hair bristling, his clawed russet paws swiping out in a futile gesture. For a moment he tensed on the edge of a spring, then turned and strode off, walking fast, head held high, after his routed court.

  “Shaet
ano?” Dallandra said. “What sort of name is that?”

  “I’ve no idea. A thing he picked up during his wanderings in some other world, I suppose, like the rags and tatters creature he is, rooting through some other world’s dung heap for a scrap to eat. What matters is that I know it, you know it, we all know it now.” Evandar paused for a laugh. “And we shall continue our hunt beyond his power to stop us.”

  The Bright Court cheered, but Dallandra caught his shoulder.

  “My love, wait! I’ve got to get to Jill.”

  He twisted round in the saddle and scowled at her.

  “I can’t stay,” Dallandra snapped. “I absolutely must go to Jill’s country. How much time has passed for her?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Then I’d best find out, hadn’t I?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You suppose so? You do know, don’t you, that Alshandra’s led an army down the mother of all roads?”

  “I do. That’s why I summoned the court and rode to the border, to look for her, and there I found my wretched brother instead, all puffed up and gloating.”

  “Well, then! Alshandra must be trying to harm Elessario’s mother, back in Cengarn.”

  “Oh, I’d never argue with you. Why do you think I want to go a-hunting, to flush Alshandra out of my brother’s lands? Think about this, my love. She’s led one stinking pack through my country to work harm elsewhere, but no one’s seen her since. What if she’s gone off to gather another?”

  “Oh, ye gods! I never thought of that.”

  “I did,” he said with a smug little smile. “I want to keep you with me and safe while I hunt for her.”

  “Danger or no, I’ve got to reach Jill. She can’t keep a city safe all on her own. She has to sleep, sometime or other, if naught else.”

  “Well, true, but—”

  “Evandar, she needs me.”

  “Indeed? So do I.”

  “What is wrong with you? Elessario’s in danger. Your daughter! You do remember her, don’t you?”

  “Indeed I do, and my heart aches from the missing of her, but she’s gone from me. No matter whether she lives this life long or dies soon to be reborn again, she rides the wheel now.”