“I came in here willing to offer your cursed whelp a demesne out of my ancestral territory, and all I get is arrogance. Very well, then. A prince of my line can be just as arrogant when he needs to be. If your son or one of his blasted riders sets one horse’s hoof on that land, then some of my people will be there to spear him off his wretched saddle.”
The tieryn turned to Addryc with a snarl.
“And I suppose I’m expected to take this in your palace, Your Highness?”
Addryc hesitated, a man walking the edge of a sword with bare feet.
“I’ve given my judgment. If the prince of the Westfolk withdraws the matter from my arbitration, there’s naught I can do.”
“Naught?” Melaudd’s word was a howl of rage.
“Just that. I can neither furnish you with aid nor stand in the way of what you see fit in this matter. But the decree about the burial ground still stands. If ever that sacred ground is despoiled, my personal guard will deal with the criminals, and I will lead them myself.”
“Indeed?” Halaberiel said. “My respect for Eldidd justice has just shattered, Your Highness, no matter what fine words you use. You’re giving Melaudd the right to wage war on my folk.”
“I’m giving him naught of the sort! You don’t understand! By relinquishing my jurisdiction, I’ve opened the way for you to appeal directly to my father, the king, himself. I’ll see to it that he takes the matter up straightaway.”
“The king!” Melaudd sputtered. “You’d let this … this creature go to the king!”
Addryc flung up one hand for a slap, caught himself, and froze.
“Don’t distress yourself over it, Melaudd,” Halaberiel said. “I have no desire to deal with weasels any longer, not even the king of weasels. Well and good then, Prince Addryc. You’ve made your decision, and I’ve made mine. We will be leaving your hospitality this very afternoon. I only wish now that you’d given Dovyn the full twenty-five strokes.”
Motioning to his councillor, Halaberiel strode out of the chamber. When he looked back, Aderyn saw Addryc grabbing Melaudd’s arm; then a page closed the heavy door with a bow. As they made their way through the twisting corridors of Aberwyn’s broch, Halaberiel said not a word, and Aderyn was afraid to speak to him. When they got back to his suite, though, they found Namydd waiting anxiously among the elves.
“My thanks for your help, good merchant,” Halaberiel said. “But the weasels have found a nice hole in the fence. I warn you—if you come to the Lake of the Leaping Trout to trade, ride prepared to find yourself in the middle of a war.”
Namydd groaned aloud. Halaberiel paced back and forth as he told the story, pausing often to curse by elven gods, while the others merely listened, hands on sword hilts.
“Hal, please!” Aderyn said at last. “Try to understand Addryc’s position. Deverry lords like to bluster about Great Bel’s will, but they don’t rule by some kind of divine right, you know. Even high kings have been overthrown before, and they doubtless will be again. The prince can’t risk open rebellion in the north.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly. It’s because I understand that I see no use in dealing with him further or with his blasted father, the king, either. He sees the honorable thing but he simply won’t do it. All of the Round-ears are that way. This is the Cannobaen Treaty affair all over again. They speak fine words, but when it comes to giving up one little thing they want, well, then, they’re ever so sorry, but … it’s always but, isn’t it? It would be better if they gobbled openly like the swine they are, instead of mincing around and giving themselves airs. I’ve tried to mince around like they do, and now I’m sick of it. We’ll mark the death-ground and see if the good prince honors his most noble pledge. We’ll also see what Dovyn does. We may have to teach him a lesson. And then, good Namydd, we shall see what happens next.”
The twenty men jumped to their feet and cheered, but Halaberiel cut them short with a wave of his hand.
“We’re discussing death. Don’t act as hungry for it as the wretched Round-ears. Go on—start getting your gear together. We’re leaving this stinking hole this very afternoon.”
• • •
His eyes bright, Garedd leaned close to Cinvan to whisper.
“It’s all getting blasted interesting.”
“Is there going to be war? That’s all that interests me.”
“Just like a falcon—your mind always on meat. But listen, Cinno, when I was down at the stables this afternoon, I heard our Melaudd talking with Lord Ynydd of the Red Lion. Melaudd’s sounding his allies out, like, trying to see how far they’ll back him and Dovyn against these cursed Westfolk.”
“Indeed? And what did Ynydd say?”
“Blasted little. He’s playing it cautious, like, saying Dovyn got himself into it, so he’ll have to get himself out. But I’ll wager he’s just afraid of the prince.”
“Huh.” Cinvan glanced around the luxurious great hall. “Then the sooner we’re out of Aberwyn, the better. Men have got more guts farther north.”
“They’re leaving Aberwyn now,” Nananna said. “There’s been trouble.”
The old woman slumped forward over her scrying stones. With a little cry Dallandra caught her in her arms, but Nananna raised her head and managed a faint smile.
“I’m not dying yet, child, but I’ll admit to being very tired. Will you help me to my bed?”
Dallandra got her settled among the cushions, spread a fur robe over her, then dismissed the dweomer light when Nananna fell straight asleep. After she put the scrying stones away, she lingered, feeling helpless, for a few minutes; finally she left the tent lest her very anxiety wake the old woman. Outside, the alar was at its communal dinner. When Dallandra joined them, Enabrilia handed her a wooden bowl of venison stew.
“How’s the Wise One?”
“Very tired. Bril, there’s been trouble. The men are on their way home as fast as they can ride.”
The talk and the singing died abruptly. Dallandra felt more helpless than before.
“That’s all I know. Aderyn couldn’t spare a moment to tell us more.”
“And just how do we know we can trust this Round-ear sorcerer?” Talbrennon snapped.
“Because Nananna said we could, you moldy horse apple!” Dallandra was shocked by the rage in her own voice. “Ye gods, don’t we have enough trouble on hand without you looking for more?”
In the deepening silence the crackling of the fire sounded like the rage of a forest in full flame. Dallandra handed the bowl back to her friend, then turned and ran out of the camp. She had to be alone.
Earlier that evening, their alar, in the company of several others they’d met, had camped about eighty miles south of the Lake of the Leaping Trout. Although they were out on the high plateau of the grasslands, the edge of the primeval forest lay only a few miles away, down in the lowlands that also held the farms of the Round-ear lords. With a flock of Wildfolk darting around her, Dallandra wandered downhill, heading to the forest for comfort as even the most civilized elves are prone to do in troubled times. Once she was well among the scrubby new growth, mostly beeches and bracken, at the forest edge, she sat down on a fallen log and opened her mind to thoughts of Aderyn. She could pick up his existence dimly—very dimly—as a feeling of dread for the future and a very much present pain in his hand; once she received a brief visual impression of him clinging to the saddle as the warband rode hard through the dark. That was all, and as much as she hated to admit that she could care about a Round-ear, she felt sick with worry.
All at once she realized that she wasn’t alone. The night was far too quiet: no owls called, no animals were abroad and moving in the undergrowth. She was miles from camp without even a knife. As she stood up, the Wildfolk vanished in a skittering of fear. Dallandra took a deep breath and tried to ignore her pounding heart; if the Round-ears were prowling around, the only weapon she had was her magic. Although she thought of running, movement and noise would give her away. Off to the south she
saw a bobbing sphere of light, heading her way; twigs cracked; shrubs whispered against passing bodies. A hunting horn blew, clear and melancholy. Suddenly the light split, multiplied into a line of lights dancing along like a parade of torches, and singing drifted through the chilly air as the procession came closer, circled round, ever nearer, the singing louder—definitely Elvish, but wild, somehow, and hard to follow—the lights blinding as they ringed her round and flared up.
Out of the circling light stepped a woman. She was tall, even for one of the People, and slender, with her silver-pale hair cascading wild down to her waist. Her yellow eyes were huge and slit with emerald pupils. At first Dallandra thought that she was wearing a dress made of beaten gold, but it must have been some trick of the light, because suddenly it seemed that she was wearing only a knee-length tunic of some coarse linen. Her hair seemed darker, too, almost blond. In her hands she carried a slacked bow, and at her hip was a quiver of arrows.
“Do you know who I am?”
“I … I … I’ve heard tales of the Blessed Court. The ghosts of the seven kings and the faithful who died with them.”
The woman laughed, a peal of scorn. She was wearing a golden diadem round her forehead, jewels winked at her throat, and her dress gleamed again with gold. The bow was gone.
“Tales and nothing more, girl, tales and nothing more. We are the Blessed Court, sure enough, but we were here long before your kings and their stinking iron and their ghastly cities.” She turned to address someone over her shoulder. “Do you hear that? Do you hear how our fame suffers? Reduced to being labeled ghosts and nothing more and by our own people at that.”
Rage howled and pealed through the forest on a blast of icy wind. Strain her eyes as she might, Dallandra could see nothing beyond the circle of torches. When the woman turned back, she was wearing the rough tunic again and hunting boots; the bow in her hands was drawn, a silver-tipped arrow nocked at the ready.
“Tell me our name, or we’ll hunt you through the forests like a beast, girl. You stink of the demon metal.”
What struck Dallandra the hardest was the irony of it, that she was going to die before Nananna, when all along she’d been bracing herself for her teacher’s death. The woman smiled, revealing long pointed teeth like a sprite’s. Dallandra tried to speak, failed, swallowed, and blurted the only answer she could think of.
“The Guardians.”
The woman laughed, the bow gone, her dress now of silk and a deep soothing blue.
“Right you are. Remember us.”
With a howl and an upflung arm she turned and plunged through the circle of torches. Whoever the others were, they laughed and howled and sang with her as the procession rushed off, as fast and smooth as if they floated above the ground. Perhaps they did. Dallandra was shaking too hard to speculate. She sank to her knees and trembled while the lights bobbed away, farther and farther, the song fading, the laughter only a sigh of wind: then gone. Finally Dallandra forced a few words through dry lips.
“I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
With one last convulsive shudder she looked around her and saw, sticking point down into the earth, an arrow. When she drew it out she heard the woman’s voice whispering from the wind.
“A gift for you. Remember.”
Dallandra ran all the way back to the comfort of the fire and the camp. Still shaking, still gasping for breath, she stammered out the story between gasps while everyone crowded round and passed the silver-tipped arrow from hand to hand.
“After all,” Wylenteriel remarked, “we’d better take a good look at it now, because it’ll probably turn into a twisted stick or something when the sun comes up.”
Only then did Dallandra remember all the old stories about the Guardians that she’d heard as a child, “fantastic tales for the little ones,” or so they’d always been called. Now she knew that in some measure at least they were true. Yet, when the sun came up on the morrow, the arrow was still an arrow, beautifully worked from some dark wood and fletched with blue feathers from, most likely, a jay. Dallandra took it in to show Nananna along with breakfast.
Nananna was slow to wake that morning. As she sat up, she plucked at the cushions with frail and clumsy fingers as if they annoyed her. For the briefest of moments she couldn’t remember her apprentice’s name. Dallandra felt tears spring to her eyes from fear as well as grief. She turned away and hid them.
“What’s this arrow?” Nananna’s voice was suddenly full again, and in control. “It’s got a dangerous dweomer upon it.”
“Dangerous?”
“Deadly to the likes of us, child. I can feel a destiny upon it. It will kill a shape-changer as he flies and turn his body to elven form, too, when he falls dying from the sky.”
“I didn’t know, Wise One, but truly, I never did trust the giver of it. A strange thing happened to me last night.”
When Dallandra started to tell the story, Nananna was all attention, but in a bit her mind seemed to drift away. She ran slow fingers over the polished shaft, then let it fall from her lap.
“Well, child, this puzzle is yours, not mine,” she said at last. “I … I know nothing of these things.”
The fear turned to a presence, cold and menacing behind her, as if a murderer had crept into the tent.
“Well, it probably doesn’t mean much.” Dallandra forced herself to sound brisk and cheerful. “Would you like some porridge? Namydd the merchant brought us some nice Eldidd oats the last time he came.”
Later, when she was alone, Dallandra wept for hours.
Just north of Cannobaen, Halaberiel’s warband crossed a shallow stream with no name (although it was known the Badger in later years) which should have marked the limits of Eldidd territory, or so the prince told Aderyn, even though some twenty-odd miles west stood the dun and farms of the treaty-breakers’ holdings. Aderyn, however, never saw that dun, because they turned north, heading for the forest edge, long before they reached it. By then Aderyn was exhausted, riding wounded and worried for long hours as Halaberiel pushed both his men and his horses hard. Tree and meadow, rock and road—they all blurred together into the endless ache of that long ride. Finally they reached a camp, though not Nananna’s, and Aderyn was bundled off to a tent to sleep on leather cushions while the prince talked with the leaders of the various alarli.
In the morning when they rode out, twenty more warriors came with them and a herd of extra horses, too. Aderyn was shocked when he realized that some of those warriors were women. At noon that day they met up with a single alar, heading south, which donated six fighting men, three women archers, and a horse laden with arrows. At sunset, they rode into Nananna’s camp to find it huge. Other dweomermasters had heard Nananna’s call for help and sent their people, among them sixty warriors with spare horses and weapons both. After all, Halaberiel remarked, they were going to need every sword they could get.
“Our longbows are just hunting weapons. I don’t imagine they’ll be much good against Eldidd armor. I don’t know, of course—we’ve never tried it.”
“Ah.” Aderyn tried to nod sagaciously, then fainted dead away.
He woke to find himself lying on his back on a spread of cushions in Halaberiel’s enormous tent. Dweomer light shimmered near the smoke hole. At first he thought his injured hand was bleeding badly; then he realized that it was draped into a wooden bowl of warm herb water to soak. When someone knelt beside him he turned his head to find Dallandra, her beautiful eyes all grave concern. He thought that all his pain was well worth it, just to see her worried about him.
“That rotten Round-ear chirurgeon did a clumsy enough job on your hand,” she snapped. “We’re just lucky that the humors haven’t turned foul.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly follow his orders. Ye gods, my mouth! Is there water?”
She handed him a wooden cup of spring water and watched while he drank it all, then refilled it from a skin lying nearby.
“How do you feel other than your hand?”
> “A little tired, but I’ll be all right. It’s just that the beastly thing aches so much.”
She got up and moved round to lift his hand out of the water and dry it off on a scrap of clean cloth. Her touch was so light that he felt no pain, not even in his splinted fingers.
“I’ve gotten the bindings wet,” she remarked, “so they’ll shrink as they dry and pull the splints tighter.” With a little frown she laid her hand on his and stared at the splints, her lips a little parted in hard thought. The pain seemed to run out of the wounds like spilled water. “There. Better?”
“Much! My thanks, truly, a thousand times over.”
“When it starts hurting again, come to me and I’ll do it again.” Gently she laid the hand down on a cushion and picked up the bowl of filthy herb water. “I’ll just throw this away.”
As she left, Aderyn heard her speak with someone; in a moment Halaberiel came in. The prince had traded his fine clothes for a pair of tight leather trousers, a plain shirt, and a heavy leather jerkin that looked as if it would turn a blade or two.
“Dallandra says you’ll recover. I’m glad to hear it.”
“My thanks, Banadar. I hear a lot of noise outside. Have more men ridden in?”
“Fifteen, that’s all. But we’ve got a good-sized warband now, and we may pick up a few more as we ride north. I imagine Melaudd’s scraping up every man he can, too. I’ve sent a scouting party ahead to the lake. The rest of us will leave tomorrow.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Are you sure? There’s no need …”
“There is. I’m a herbman, aren’t I? If things come to battle, you’ll need me more than five swords.”
“Done then, and my thanks.”
As it turned out, Aderyn wasn’t the only healer and dweomermaster who insisted on riding with the army. That night, when Dallandra came in to tend his wounds again, she was close to tears.
“What’s so wrong?” Aderyn said.
“Nananna. She’s coming with you to the Lake of the Leaping Trout.”
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