Daggerspell (44 page)

It was well after sunset when a messenger from Rhodry came to Dun Cannobaen. The men on fortguard, just as anxious as Lovyan was for news, crowded round while the scribe read out the dispatches. When she heard of Daumyr’s death, Lovyan groaned aloud.

“I’m heartsick at this news. He was a good man and a true one.” She paused, thinking things out. “On the morrow, we’ll all ride out. If Corbyn’s running like a fox to his earth, there’s no danger hell besiege me here. Men, you’ll escort me and my womenfolk to Dun Gwerbyn, then ride after the army.”

The fortguard cheered her. Dannyan turned her way with a quizzical lift of an eyebrow.

“I want to be nearer the war,” Lovyan said. “If Corbyn’s allies have deserted him, then they’ll all have to sue for a separate peace. I want to be at Dun Gwerbyn to receive them. What if Rhys takes it into his mind to be at Dun Gwerbyn in case they want to sue directly to him?”

“He might, at that. I’d forgotten about Rhys.”

“I can’t, not for one wretched minute of one beastly day.”

Once the army had pulled out to chase Corbyn, Nevyn went to his blankets and slept all afternoon, waking just in time to tend the wounded at the dinner hour. As soon as it was dark, he left the camp and walked to the woodland. He’d been telling Rhodry the simple truth when he talked of standing a rear guard, and to do it he had no need of being physically close to Rhodry, any more than the dark master needed to be physically close to attack him. Nevyn was sure that the dark master’s body was very far away, at least far enough to flee in plenty of time should Nevyn send armed men after him.

Safely hidden in the woods, Nevyn went into his trance and up to the etheric plane. Flying fester than any bird, he sped north until he saw the tangled mass of auras that marked Rhodry’s army below him. Like a sentry, he hovered above it and circled this way and that as the hours slipped by, unmarked and untellable until midnight, when the astral tide changed from Water to Earth, and the etheric began to billow and churn. Nevyn fought and held his place, like a swimmer treading water in a choppy sea.

Now, if the dark master was desperate enough, was the perfect time for him to make an attack. Nevyn kept low, close to earth where the billows were less severe. Every now and then, he rose up higher, fighting the waves, to get the distant view before he was forced to sink down again. Slowly the waves grew slower, smoother; slowly the billows and churning died away. Just when the tide had finally turned, he saw someone coming to meet him, but it
was Aderyn, floating along in a simple blue body of light much like his own.

“How goes it?” Aderyn thought to him.

“Dull, so far. Not a sign of our enemy.”

“I’ve seen naught, either. I risked going in this form to Corbyn’s camp. Loddlaen never challenged me.” Aderyn’s grief swept out like a wave, almost tangible there on the etheric.

“Think of him as dead, my friend.” Nevyn put as much gentle sympathy into the thought as he could. “Mourn him and let him go.”

“There’s naught else I can do.”

Abruptly Aderyn turned away and, following the silver cord, floated down fast to his body.

Nevyn kept his watch all that night, until the Aethyr tide began rolling in a little before dawn. Since no dark master could work magic under the tides of Aethyr or Air, Nevyn returned to his body. As he walked back to camp, he was mulling over his long, boring night. It was possible that the dark master was merely holding his hand, waiting until Nevyn dropped his guard, possible, but highly unlikely. Nevyn dwelt on the dark master, thought of every grim thing he might do, but no dweomer-warning came to him, not the slightest twinge. From its lack, he knew that the master had left the field entirely.

“I should have done that last night and saved myself the boredom,” he remarked aloud. “But truly, I never thought he’d give up so easily.”

All at once, he had to laugh at himself. He took his powers so much for granted that he’d forgotten how terrifying they would be to someone with good cause to fear him.

The night before, Rhodry’s army had camped in a common pasture about half a mile from a farming village. Although Rhodry woke everyone before dawn and yelled orders to hurry and get ready to ride, they had to linger for at least an hour, simply to allow the horses to graze. Jill supposed that Corbyn was already on the march; he
could risk harming his horses because he was headed for his dun.

As Jill was drawing her rations, Aderyn came up to her and asked her to walk with him a ways. Nearby was a copse of willows around a duck pond, and they went there for a bit of privacy. With a sigh, Aderyn sat down on a fallen tree trunk. The brightening light picked out the wrinkles around his eyes and made him look very weary indeed.

“I hope I don’t offend you, Jill, but do you truly think you can best Corbyn? I won’t have you killed in a hopeless cause. If nothing else, Nevyn would never forgive me, and his wrath is nothing to invoke lightly.”

“Oh, I can well believe that. But as long as it’s in single combat, I think I can take him. From what Rhodry says, he’s old, slowing down, and he’s got a good paunch on him. If I can keep him moving, I’ll wear him down.”

“Old? I though he was but eight-and-thirty.”

“Well, no offense on my part, but that’s old for a fighting man.”

“I suppose so. I—”

Suddenly the light in the copse dimmed around them. Aderyn jumped to his feet and swore as a mass of thick gray rain clouds swept down out of an otherwise clear sky. With a slap, wind hit the copse in a welter of falling leaves. In the distance, thunder cracked and rumbled.

“Is Loddlaen behind this?” Jill said.

“Who else? I’ll deal with it. Run, child—the horses!”

Under the shadows of clouds, scudding in fast with the cold scent of rain, Jill raced back to the camp and found it in confusion: men swearing, captains and lords running, yelling orders, the horses dancing at their tether ropes. Just as Jill reached the herd, the first lightning struck, a crackling blue bolt ominously near. Neighing and plunging, the horses pulled at their tethers. The lightning hammered down again; big drops of rain fell in a scatter. Jill grabbed the halter of the nearest horse and pulled it down just in time to keep it from breaking free. Swearing, the
rest of the army was among the herd and doing the same. Rhodry came running and grabbed the horse next to her.

“Get ready to run! If they stampede, save yourself and let them go!”

With a slap of wind the rain poured down, drenching them. The horses danced and tossed their heads as the men pulled them down and talked endless nonsense to soothe them. But that was the end of the lightning, as if the god Tarn had snatched his weapons back from Loddlaen. In a few minutes more, the rain stopped with an eerie suddenness. When Jill looked up, she saw the clouds breaking up and swirling in a troubled, gusty wind. For a moment it seemed that they would mass again, as a real storm would have done, but the stretch of blue sky overhead stayed stubbornly clear, then widened, as if the clouds were spilled flour and a giant with a broom was sweeping them away.

“Oh, ye gods.” Rhodry whispered. “Dweomer.”

The last of the clouds dissolved. They did not blow away; they did not thin out and slowly dissipate; they dissolved, suddenly and completely gone. Jill shuddered convulsively.

Yet even though Aderyn had dispelled the storm, it still slowed the army down. Soggy provisions had to be repacked; wet blankets, wrung out; mail, rubbed dry; nervous horses, soothed. They set out a good hour later than they might have—an hour that meant three more miles between them and Corbyn.

“We’re leaving the carts behind,” Rhodry snapped. “Jill, ride next to me. We’re going all out to catch the bastard.”

When Jill rode into line, her heart was pounding in fear. For all that she’d bragged to Aderyn, wearing unfamiliar mail was going to slow her down, and speed was her greatest weapon in any fight. Her shoulders ached like fire from the weight. But when Rhodry gave her one of his berserker grins, she smiled back at him with a little toss of her head. Cursed if she’d let him see that she was afraid!

The army went at a walk-trot pace, which meant they could do five miles an hour compared to Corbyn’s three. As they rode, Jill looked up constantly, and after a few miles she saw a hawk, circling high above them. Her stomach clenched. When the hawk flew away, it headed straight north. They rode on, past farms shut up tight against the doings of warring lords, through fields and woodlands. Jill decided that dying in battle would be easy, compared to this clammy fear that clung to her.

And yet, in the end, Corbyn escaped them. They came to a stubbled field, where they saw provision carts, some ten wounded horses, and fourteen wounded men, dumped there by their lord to live or die with no help from him. Corbyn had left everything behind that might slow him down and was making a run for Dun Bruddlyn.

“Ah, horseshit, and a pile of it!” Rhodry snarled. “We’ll never catch them now.” For a long moment he sat slumped in the saddle, then looked up with a sigh. “Well, no help for it, huh? Let’s go see what we can do for these poor bastards. The baggage train and the chirurgeons will catch up to us soon enough.”

As she dismounted, Jill was thinking that she’d never met a lord as honorable as he. Together they walked over to the improvised camp, where wounded men lay shivering in wet blankets on the ground. Loddlaen’s storm had swept over them, too. One man stood, leaning against a cart, his head wrapped in a bloody bandage and his right arm splinted. When he saw Rhodry, two thin trails of tears ran down his face.

“What’s your name, lad?” Rhodry said. “And how long have you been here?”

“Lanyc, my lord, and since last night. We all camped here last night, and then they left us.”

“And did your lord give you any choice in the matter?”

“None, my lord, or well, none to the others. I said I’d stay with them. At least I can stand, and I’ve been trying to feed everybody.” Lanyc paused, looking at Rhodry with eyes half drunk with pain. “It was the sorcerer, my lord. Lord Corbyn never would have deserted us, but Loddlaen
made him. I saw it. He ensorceled him. Ah, ye gods, I’d rather be your prisoner than shut up with that stinking sorcerer.”

“Ye gods,” Jill said. “I don’t blame you a bit.”

At the sound of her voice, Lanyc sobbed under his breath.

“A lass. A lass with a sword.”

Then he burst out weeping.

The baggage train creaked up about an hour later. Rhodry set the two remaining chirurgeons to doing what they could for Corbyn’s men, but Aderyn joined in the council of war. The lords stood despondently in a circle and looked at the muddy ground.

“Well, that’s torn it,” Sligyn said. “Might as well ride on and invest him anyway, eh? It’s the honor of the thing.”

“True enough,” Rhodry said. “Ah, by the hells, he’s probably got messengers on their way to Rhys right now, begging him to intervene. It’s going to hurt when my ugly brother calls me off like a hound from the kill.”

“Indeed, my lord?” Aderyn broke in. “What if the messengers never reach him?”

All the lords turned to look at this frail old man who held power beyond what they could even dream of.

“Loddlaen has to be stopped, and now. Do you think Gwerbret Rhys is going to believe us if we tell him that Loddlaen incited this rebellion with dweomer? Of course not. And then Loddlaen will get off lightly in the malover by paying a blood price for the man he killed back in our lands, and he’ll be free to work more mischief.”

“That’s all well and good,” Rhodry said. “But even if we catch the messengers, they’ll testify against us to Rhys unless we kill them. Cursed if I’ll kill a pair of helpless men.”

“Never would I want you to,” Aderyn said with a small smile. “Leave them to me, lord cadvridoc. I won’t harm a hair on their heads, but Rhys will never get Corbyn’s message. I promise you that.”

• • •

The line of carts carrying the wounded moved slowly and stopped often to let the men rest. At noon, they lingered for a long time while Nevyn and the chirurgeon did what they could. Nevyn had just found time to get himself something to eat when he felt Aderyn’s mind calling to him. He walked a little ways to a tiny brook and used the sun dancing on the water as a focus. Aderyn’s image built up quickly.

“Did you catch Corbyn?” Nevyn thought to him.

“We didn’t, blast him. He’s going to stand a siege in his dun. Quick—tell me somewhat. You know the politics of Eldidd a fair sight better than I do. Suppose Corbyn were going to send a desperate message to some ally, asking him to relieve the siege. Who would it be?”

“Oh, come now, do you really think he’d be that stupid? He should be sending a messenger to Rhys to sue for peace.”

Aderyn’s eyes were unusually sly.

“No doubt he is. But answer my question anyway. I’ll explain later when there’s more time.”

“Well and good, then. Let me think. Huh. Talidd of Belglaedd, no doubt.”

“My thanks.”

And then the image was gone, leaving Nevyn to wonder just what scheme his old pupil had afoot.

Because Lord Corbyn received coin in taxes from his bridge over the Delonderiel, Dun Bruddlyn was a solid fort, ringed by stone walls and large enough to house a warband of over a hundred men. Although Loddlaen usually hated being penned up there, he was glad to reach it that night. As what was left of the army crawled in the gates, Loddlaen turned his horse over to a servant and hurried up to his chambers on the top floor of the broch. He threw back the shutters from the window in his bedchamber and leaned out into the clean evening air. He was so exhausted that he was close to tears.

It was all Aderyn’s fault, he told himself, all his fault because he wouldn’t let me send the storm like I wanted.
Well, maybe the old man won the first skirmish, but there’ll be other battles.

“I’m not defeated yet!” Loddlaen snarled in Elvish. “No, not I, Loddlaen the Mighty, Master of the Powers of Air!”

But when he turned from the window, he saw Aderyn, standing in the middle of the chamber. The image was so clear and solid that Loddlaen cried out, thinking that he was there in the body. Only when the vision wavered slightly did he realize that it was a projection and that he had forgotten to set his astral seals over the dun.