The Fire Dragon (34 page)

At length, when the talk threatened to turn into shouting, Admi flung his arms up and bellowed for silence. The crowd quieted as fast it could, from those closest to the back, as if a wave of silence washed over the crowd.

“It be no time for despair,” Admi's voice boomed and swelled, “but for vigilance and cunning! We have walls, we have weapons, we have the men to hold those walls. It does behoove us to join our strengths to those who would befriend us.” Admi paused, glancing around at the crowd, looking directly at this person or that. “And yet, this be a grave and serious matter. There be a need on us to refrain from haste and a decision made in fear. What the council would ask you be this: think hard and long on what I have said here tonight. Talk among yourselves, come to us, your councilmen, with your queries and doubts, your counsels and thoughts. The town shall not decide this matter till three more nights have passed.”

Admi stood for a moment more, looking out over the crowd; then he turned and gestured to his fellow councilman. Burra stepped forward and struck the gong hard thrice with the long brass hammer. Verrarc and burly Frie helped Admi down from the table. The meeting had ended.

It took a long time for the crowd to clear the plaza. At first the townsfolk stood silently, as if they knew not what to think or say, then they began to talk among themselves, forming little clots of neighbors and friends. Although many wished to leave, there were only two ways down, the winding path near the front, where three or four people could walk abreast, and a narrow goat track round the back of the Council House, which at night was too dangerous to be useful.

Those at the very back of the crowd finally began to move toward the wider path and start the long plod downhill. Since Lael was tall enough to see over the crowd, he spotted friends nearby and waved vigorously. Murmuring apologies, he and Dera began to squeeze through the crowd to meet them as they did the same from their side. Niffa lost them after they'd gone barely two yards and turned back toward the bonfire.

The councilmen were huddled, arguing over something, off to one side. With her retinue behind her, Zatcheka had moved out of earshot. In the firelight Niffa could see her looking around with the polite little smile of someone waiting. Now, she thought. I cannot let her go on hoping! She ran a hand through her hair to tidy it a bit and walked over to the Gel da'Thae. At her approach the two warriors stepped forward, staves at the ready, but Zatcheka laughed and spoke to them in her own language. They bowed and moved back to let Niffa approach.

“A good eve to you,” Zatcheka said.

“And to you, honored ambassador.” Niffa's mouth had turned dry, but she made herself go on. “My name be Niffa, a citizen of this town. I—” All of a sudden she realized that she could never tell her about Meer's death without explaining how she knew.

“Do go on. I bite not, though I have fangs.”

“My thanks. I did but wish to greet you and wish your stay here a pleasant one.”

“Truly?” Zatcheka was smiling. “I think me you do have more than that in mind. I did wonder if we'd meet, ever since I marked you at the first, when we rode in the gates.”

“You did? Why?”

“And why did you come down to the walls to wait for us? I did ask about you and found that you live here on Citadel, a goodly ways away from the gates.”

Niffa felt herself blush.

“I will tell you first,” Zatcheka said, “as is seemly for a guest. On the night before we reached your city, the gods did send me a dream. At the gates, they did say, you will see this lass. And they did show me your face.”

“And I did dream of a caravan! Go wait, my dream told me. I did think it did pertain to someone else, you see, because my brother, he be travelling home too.”

“So! The gods have had a hand in this, then. Grave things are on the move.”

“Just so, but I do wonder if it be the gods or …” Niffa let her voice trail away.

Zatcheka considered her for a moment, then smiled.

“Or the witchlore, child?”

“Just that,” Niffa said. “I take it then that you do ken these things yourself.”

“I have seen some of the sights along the witchroad. More than that I would not claim.”

“I'd not claim more either. But then I may give you the news I carry, though truly, it be sad, and I do wish I had better.”

Zatcheka went tense, her lips a little parted, her eyes narrowing.

“Be it about my son?” Zatcheka whispered. “My Meer?”

“I fear so. He—well, he has gone to your gods.”

Zatcheka tossed her head back, her mouth open and rigid as if she would wail, but she made no sound. She raised her arms and clasped them across her chest as if to hold in her grief.

“A thousand apologies,” Niffa stammered. “I could not
bear it, seeing you hope in vain when I knew he were gone.”

“You have my thanks.” Zatcheka lowered her head at last to look at her. “And you have done a right thing. It were better I know the truth, no matter that the truth be a burning spear plunged into my heart.”

Niffa groped for words, found none, and unthinkingly held out a hand. Zatcheka clasped it in both of hers with a grip almost painful.

“How did you learn of this?” Zatcheka whispered.

“My master in witchlore did tell me in a dream. She be on her way to Cerr Cawnen. I do hope and pray she'll be here soon. She can tell you more.”

Zatcheka gave her hand another squeeze, then let her go.

“You have my thanks,” she repeated, in a voice that throbbed with tears. “Forgive me. I would be alone now.”

Zatcheka glanced back and summoned her people with a wave. Together they strode off across the plaza to the Council House, to wait there, Niffa supposed, till the crowd cleared and they could return to their tents. She herself turned back toward the front of the plaza and found Harl, watching her from some distance away. She walked over to join him.

“By the gods themselves!” Harl said. “And be you not the brave one? Talking with our shaven monster?”

“No monster,” Niffa snarled. “But a woman like all others.”

“My apologies. I did but jest.”

“Oh, mine to you, too. I do feel as if I walked on nails or suchlike tonight.”

“Admi's news would turn any heart fretful, bain't?”

“Just so. Here, I saw not your master's lady here tonight.”

Harl grinned, then glanced around. Niffa could see that Verrarc still spoke with Admi, both of them a fair way away, too.

“The bitch did run off again,” Harl lowered his voice. “I ken not where she be. The master be ever so troubled, too.”

The strange cold warning clutched Niffa's heart, or so it seemed, so hard that she couldn't speak.

“And here be a thing most peculiar,” Harl went on. “Korla did tell me about it. Our mooncalf swears that she did see Raena standing naked on the back garden wall, and then she turned herself into a big raven and flew off. Raena, I mean, not poor little Magpie.”

“Oh come now! That can't be true!”

Yet even as she spoke, Niffa found herself hearing a little voice in her mind, telling her that true it was. Mazrak—she too had heard the old tales. All at once her loathing for the woman came clear in her mind, that someone would work the witchlore to do harm. All ye gods! she prayed. Do let Dalla get herself here straightaway! She remembered what she'd told Zatcheka: my master in the witchlore. It be true, she thought, mayhap the truest thing I've ever spoke. Harl was standing close to her, smiling at her with an unmistakable fondness.

“Harl?” she said. “Do get yourself another lass. In but a little while you'll understand why I do say this.”

Niffa turned on her heel and hurried off. Once she'd caught up with the last of the crowd, she looked backed to find him still standing where she'd left him, staring after her.

Evandar being Evandar, Dallandra and her expedition spent two full days, not one, on the west-running road before he finally joined them. On their second night out from Cengarn, they camped in a wild meadow some miles from the last farm of Cadmar's demesne, at about the time that Admi was summoning the citizenry to hear his news. While the men tethered out the horses and mules, Dallandra took Elessario from a weary Carra, whose back ached from a long day of carrying the baby in the sling. Lightning, Carra's wolfish grey dog, padded along behind as they strolled through the camp. By then Elessi could hold her head up, and she sat up in Dallandra's arms, looking round with her big golden eyes.

“Tomorrow Dar can take a turn at carrying her,” Carra said.

“Will she be quiet for him?”

“I don't care if she screams the whole way. He can still take a turn. But truly, she does love her da, and I think me she'll be good enough.”

Their stroll had led them to the center of the camp, where Jahdo had built the evening's fire out of scrounged wood. He knelt in front of it and began to strike sparks with his flint and steel. As they watched, the tinder finally caught, and flames leapt up in the kindling. Elessi crowed with laughter and twisted in Dalla's arms, leaning down to reach toward the leaping fire.

“Hot!” Dallandra stepped back and put alarm into her voice. “Very hot! Bad for babies!”

Elessi howled—there was no other word for it, howled like an angry banshee and wrenched herself around in the general direction of the fire. So surprising was her strength that Dallandra might have dropped her had Carra not grabbed the child from behind.

“Nah nah nah!” Carra crooned. “Be good now. Don't fuss!”

Her face red as a sunset, Elessi whipped her head around and caught Carra's arm in a toothless bite. Carra slid her flesh free to a cascade of screaming.

“I'll take her inside the tent.” Carra was yelling over the noise. “That usually quiets her right down. Mayhap she'll suckle for a while.”

Dallandra gladly let go her grip on the child. Elessi continued to scream and howl as Carra carried her at a trot across the camp and ducked into the peaked tent. For some while Dallandra stood outside, listening to Carra talk to her child. Finally Elessario's wails turned to a normal cry, then stopped as Carra managed to get her to nurse. No doubt the tantrum had left her hungry. Dalla turned away and found Jahdo watching her, his head cocked a little to one side.

“Not all babies be so irksome, my lady.”

“That's very true. I'll admit I'm worried.”

“I did wonder if you were. Ah well, if we get safely to my home, my aunt, Sirri, will ken what to do. No one in our whole town does ken babies as well as she, you see. The other women, they all call her a fair marvel.”

“Good! We're going to need her counsel, no doubt of that. I hope Evandar gets himself here soon. The less time we spend on the road, the better.”

That night, when she went to the Gatelands of Sleep to look for Evandar, Dallandra found Niffa waiting for her instead. The lass's simulacrum was pacing back and forth by the fiery-red dweomer stars, and she blurted out her news as soon as Dallandra walked up.

“I did speak with Zatcheka! She did thank me for the telling of her son's death.”

“Well, that took courage!” Dallandra said. “I'm proud of you, Niffa. And my heart aches for the poor woman.”

“She were ever so sad, truly. But here be the strangest thing of all. I did approach her, and she did seem very pleasant, and then all of a sudden I did think, how can I tell her without telling her how I learnt of it?”

“Oh ye gods! Here I never thought of that!”

“But in the end, like, it mattered not. She did make it plain that she did ken witchlore, and that she'd seen me in a dream, so I did tell her.”

“The Gel da'Thae have dweomer? Huh, I can't say I'm surprised, after some of the things Meer told us.”

“Only a bit, said she. It be good she does, truly, with the times as black as these. Grave things be afoot. That be the reason she did come to our town. The wild Horsekin do gather an army. They do think some goddess or other did grant our lands and people to them to conquer.”

Dallandra swore so foully that Niffa gaped at her.

“My apologies,” Dallandra said. “I think me I've been spending too much time around soldiers. Do go on.”

“There be not much more to tell, truly. Zatcheka's town, Braemel, does wish to ally with us. We shall hold the Deciding in three days.”

“Well, I hope to every god we get there before that.”

“Do you think this alliance be a bad thing?”

“Not at all. I just happen to know a great deal about this wretched false goddess, that's all, and I think your town should hear it.”

“Ah, I do see. But here, there be another strange thing.

Raena, the councilman's woman—she did leave our town this day, and some say she be a mazrak. Know you what that be?”

“I most certainly do, and she is. I've seen her in raven form with my own eyes.”

Niffa stared for a long moment.

“Do you know where she went?” Dallandra said.

“Not I. I did but hear the news from the councilman's servant.”

“Huh! I wonder if she knows we're coming? But don't you worry about that. I'll do some scrying.”

“Well and good, then.” The girl's image was wavering and growing thin. “Forgive me, I do be so tired this night.”

“Go back to your body, then, child. We could all do with some rest after horrible news like that.”

Niffa's image smiled briefly, then disappeared. Evandar better get himself here, Dallandra thought. We need to make some speed.

With the first grey light of dawn Evandar did indeed arrive. Dallandra was sitting on the ground, eating breakfast with Jahdo while Prince Dar and his guard struck the tent. Off to one side of the confusion Arzosah sat crouched like a cat with her forepaws folded under her chest and her wings neatly furled, while Rhodry stood nearby, eating a chunk of bread. All at once, Arzosah hissed like a thousand snakes and lumbered to her feet. Lightning sprang up and began to bark a deep-throated warning. Dallandra got up herself and turned to see what had so alarmed the dragon: Evandar, striding into camp leading a scruffy-looking grey gelding on a halter rope for want of a bridle. The grey carried no saddle, either. Although the horse rolled an eye at the sight of Arzosah, it stayed remarkably calm. No doubt Evandar had worked his strange horse-dweomer once again.