Daggerspell

by Katharine Kerr

  “I wish to every god and his wife that you wouldn’t spend so much time hanging around old Dregydd. I know cursed well it’s the stinking Westfolk you want to talk with.”

  “Da, I just don’t see what you have against them. They’re not animals. Look at their clothes and their jewelry, and then they built that bridge over the river. Somewhere they must have farms and cities and suchlike.”

  “Indeed? And I suppose you’d like to ride off with that Jennantar and take a look at them.”

  “What? Da, you’re daft! He’s got a wife and a baby, and he’s never said one wrong word to me.”

  “Oh, horseshit! There’s more than one man in the world who’s had a wife and didn’t mind having a pretty lass, too.”

  “Da, I don’t even know what to say to you when your temper takes you this way.”

  Cullyn stopped walking, turning a little to look out over the endless green of the grasslands, and his mouth went slack and weary. Jill laid a hand on his arm.

  “Da, please, what’s so wrong?”

  “Oh, may the gods blast me if I even know, my sweet. It aches my heart, being out here. For years I thought it was the edge of nowhere, and now I find out there’s this dismal strange folk riding round out here, and they’ve been here all along, and,” he shrugged in inarticulate frustration, “and, well, you’re going to think me daft, curse it, but they stink of dweomer and witchcraft. So does that Aderyn fellow.”

  Jill couldn’t have been more shocked if a performing bear in the marketplace had suddenly started declaiming a bard song. Her stolid warrior of a father—talking of dweomer?

  “Well,” Cullyn snapped. “I said it sounds daft!”

  “It doesn’t, truly. I think you’re right.”

  He looked at her for a moment, then nodded, as if he’d been waiting for her judgment upon the matter. Jill felt a cold streak down her back. As if to mock her, the gray gnome popped into manifestation nearby, grinned at her, then vanished again.

  “Da? I’d never leave you. If you thought I would, then truly, you were daft.”

  Cullyn relaxed, smiling at her softly.

  “Well and good, then, my sweet,” he said. “My apologies. You can watch our merchant haggle if you want to. We’ll be getting out of here soon enough.”

  Jill took him up on his offer and went back to the trading. When she sat down beside Jennantar, he raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Doesn’t your father think I’m fit company for you?”

  Jill merely shrugged. He started to say more, then suddenly jumped to his feet with an oath for trouble brewing. Two of the Westfolk were arguing with a frightened Dregydd, who was clasping the last remaining sword of Lughcorn steel. As Jill followed Jennantar over, she heard them arguing about buying it.

  “Now, here!” Dregydd snapped. “I never promised it to either of you.”

  The two men looked only at each other in an anger the more frightening because it played over such beautiful faces.

  “Jill!” Jennantar hissed. “Go fetch Aderyn. Quick!”

  Without thinking, Jill ran to the Westfolk’s camp. At the edge, she stopped, suddenly bewildered by the profusion of bright colors, the gaggle of children and dogs, the unfamiliar language that swirled around her. A few at a time, Westfolk strolled over and surrounded her. When a dog growled, she stepped back sharply.

  “Aderyn,” Jill said. “Jennantar told me to get Aderyn.”

  The people merely looked at her.

  “Please?” Jill tried again. “Where’s Aderyn?”

  They glanced at each other, their cat-slit eyes totally expressionless. Jill felt a little flutter of panic round her heart. All of them, even the women, were wearing long knives at their belts.

  “Please, Jennantar told me to come here.”

  One man glanced her way, but he said nothing. Jill wanted to turn and run, but they were standing close behind her, too. Then she heard Aderyn’s voice, calling out in their language, and the crowd parted to let him through.

  “Jennantar said to fetch you,” Jill said. “A couple of your lads are fighting over somewhat.”

  Aderyn swore under his breath. The camp, which only a moment before had seemed to understand not one word she said, muttered and swore at the news. Aderyn grabbed Jill’s arm and hurried her across the meadow, surprisingly fast for such an old man. When she glanced back, she saw the crowd trailing after them.

  Back by the trade goods, Jennantar stood in between the two who wanted the sword, while Dregydd hovered nearby, clutching the sheathed blade in nervous fingers. As soon as they saw Aderyn, all three men of the Westfolk began to yell at the top of their lungs. Jill hurried over to Dregydd.

  “They’re like this at times,” he said in a resigned tone of voice. “I’m glad the old man’s here to settle things.”

  Yet it seemed that Aderyn’s efforts to do just that were proving futile. All the time that he talked in a soothing, patient voice, the two went on staring at each other, arms crossed tight over their chests, cat-slit eyes unblinking. With a shake of his head, Jennantar left the bad job to the old man and joined Jill. Around them the crowd grew, Westfolk and muleteers alike, and Wildfolk popped into manifestation in droves, grinning so hard that they bared pointed teeth.

  “They’ve hated each other for years,” Jennantar remarked. “They’re not going to listen now.”

  Eventually he proved right. Aderyn threw his hands in the air and returned to the crowd of Westfolk, who stamped their feet on the ground in a sharp rhythm. The two men slowly and methodically stripped off their tunics, tossed them on the ground, then drew their knives, which were about a foot long and slightly curved on one side of the blade. The blades winked in the sun as the pair dropped to a fighting crouch. Jill felt sick, wondering if she was going to see a man killed right in front of her. In dead silence the pair circled around one another, their strange eyes narrow, their jaws set. There was none of the ritual boasting and yelling that would have accompanied a fight between two Deverry men, just the quiet animal circling, a few quick feints, a few quick withdrawals, while the sweat sprang up on their bare backs and made their pale skin glisten. Around and around they went, until one made a charge, and the other held his ground. A quick scuffle, too quick to see—then one fell back with his arm gashed open from elbow to shoulder. Dregydd swore, but the watching crowd of Westfolk merely stamped on the ground again, and briefly. Aderyn ran to separate the combatants, who fell back willingly.

  “It’s just to the first blood?” Jill said.

  “It is,” Jennantar said. “My apologies. I forgot you didn’t know.”

  The bloody knife still in his hand, the victor strolled over to Dregydd, who handed him the sword without a word. His head bowed, the loser stood alone, slumped in defeat, and let the blood run down his arm until Aderyn grabbed him and forcibly hauled him away.

  “So much for that,” Jennantar remarked. “Until the next time they find somewhat that annoys them. One of these days, the first blood is going to be someone’s throat.”

  When Jill looked at the man she’d been thinking of as a friend, she was caught all over again by his alienness as his smoky, slit eyes stared back unblinkingly. They truly are kin to the Wildfolk, she thought, and for the first time, she wondered if her father were right to think them dangerous. That night, as she listened to the music wailing from the Westfolk’s camp, she was glad to be sitting by the fire with her own kind.

  By sunset of the third day, Dregydd had twelve Western hunters in his herd, including the golden stud that he particularly wanted, and it was a good thing, too, because Jennantar abruptly announced that no one else wanted to trade with him. Dregydd made no attempt to argue with the news, merely walked away to tell the men that they would be riding out on the morrow.

  “I’ll be going with you,” Jennantar remarked to Jill. “Aderyn’s taking three of us along for guards.”

  “I don’t blame him. I met this Loddlaen, and I wouldn’t trust him with a copper, much less
my life. Well, if you lay your complaint with the tieryn, she’ll haul him into her malover for you.”

  “Her what? I’ve never heard that word.”

  “Malover. It’s when someone feels wronged and asks a tieryn or a gwerbret to judge the matter. The priests of Bel come, too, because they know all the laws.”

  “Oh. Well and good, then. No doubt Aderyn knows all the right things to say.”

  At dawn of the next day, the caravan prepared for the long march back to Eldidd. In the cool gray morning, the mules brayed in protest as the yawning men loaded up the last of the trade goods and the provisions Dregydd had obtained from the Westfolk. Jill was helping rope the riderless horses together when Aderyn rode up with his guards, Jennantar and then two men he introduced as Calonderiel and Albaral. Jennantar led a horse that was dragging a loaded travois.

  “Come ride at the head of the line with me and Jill,” Dregydd said to the old man. “I’ll put your men in the rear with Cullyn, on guard, like, if you don’t mind.”

  “You’re the caravan master,” Aderyn said, smiling. “We ride at your orders.”

  Since they were heading for Cannobaen, the caravan took a different route back. For the first day, Dregydd led them straight south through the long grasslands. Once, they saw at a great distance the tiny figures of mounted riders and riderless horses heading west, like a ship seen across a green ocean, but if that clan of Westfolk saw the caravan, they gave no sign. Jill found herself wondering what it would be like to ride endlessly from nowhere to nowhere, always free like the falcon in the skies. She had such a life herself, but she knew with a bitter certainty that someday her wandering would end. At times she dropped back to ride beside Cullyn, and she would notice the gray sprinkling his hair and the web of fine lines around his eyes. The day was coming when some younger man would bring his Wyrd to him in battle. The thought brought such panic that at times it was hard to breathe.

  On the second day, the caravan turned east. Here and there they came to magnificent stands of forest, but Dreggyd knew his route well and led them from wild meadow to wild meadow. Once the track passed through straggly young beeches and alders that had to be second-growth forest, and on the other side was land that had once been plowed. Packed flint walls still stood, marking out long-gone fields. In pastures Jill saw tumbledown stone sheds and white cattle, gone wild and as suspicious as deer. Since she was riding next to Aderyn, she asked him if the Westfolk had once farmed there.

  “Not the Westfolk, but Eldidd men,” Aderyn said. “A long, long time ago it was, but some of the younger sons of Eldidd lords tried to colonize out here. It was too far west, and they couldn’t keep their holdings.”

  “And was there trouble with the Westfolk over it?”

  “Trouble and twice trouble. The Westfolk used to roam much farther east than they do now, and they felt they’d given up enough land.”

  “Here, I never heard any tales about that.”

  “It was a very long time ago, and Eldidd men have forgotten. They’ve worked at forgetting, truly. But haven’t you ever wondered about the names of the rivers—the El, the Delonderiel? Those aren’t Deverry words, child.”

  “Of course! Delonderiel’s like Calonderiel.”

  “Just so, and Eldidd was called Eltidiña, a long time ago when Deverry men first sailed here.” Aderyn thought for a moment. “That was eight hundred or so years ago, if I remember rightly. It’s been a long time since I studied such things.”

  Soon Dregydd called for the halt for the night’s camp. Where a stone wall marked out what had once been a field, and scrubby trees grew along a stream, they tethered out the horses and mules and made their camp. Over dinner, Dregydd discussed the route ahead.

  “This stream turns into a river farther south. We’ll follow it down to the coast, then turn east and march along the sea cliffs to Cannobaen. There’s plenty of fodder along there for the stock. I’d say we’re a good two days out, so let’s hope this dry weather holds.”

  Jill felt a sudden coldness along her back, as if someone had stroked her spine with a clammy hand. She was sure that worse trouble than a possible rainstorm lay ahead. Although she tried to talk herself out of the feeling, late that night when she was trying to get to sleep, the gray gnome appeared. He was troubled, too, pulling at her shirt, pointing off to the east, and opening his mouth in little soundless whimpers. Finally Jill got up and followed him to the edge of the sleeping camp. He jumped up and down, pointing, always pointing to the east.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  He clutched at his head in agony and promptly disappeared. Jill went back to her bedroll. Except for the occasional drowsy stamp of a horse or a mule, the night was utterly quiet. Once she heard the cry of an owl and looked up to see the tiny dark shape of the bird flying against the stars. She dozed off to have troubled dreams, that an enormous owl flew overhead, calling out warnings of danger. Just at dawn she woke with a start. The gnome was pulling her hair.

  “Oh, all right. Let me get my boots on, and then you try to show me again.”

  The gnome led her down to the stream, where, a giant among the twisted willows, stood one old oak. He danced around and pointed to the tree. When Jill looked up, she saw Aderyn in the branches. He gave her a sheepish smile, then climbed down, as nimble as a lad.

  “I’ve been keeping a watch,” Aderyn said, and Jill could see that he was deeply troubled. “We’re in grave danger, child. Hurry! Go wake your father!”

  Together they ran back to the waking camp. The men were getting up and stretching, the horses and mules starting to graze. Jill found Cullyn just pulling on his boots.

  “Da, come with me! Aderyn says there’s trouble ahead.”

  Cullyn got up and grabbed his sword belt from the ground. He buckled it on as they ran back across the camp to find Aderyn arguing with Dregydd, who looked utterly baffled.

  “You’ve known me for years,” Aderyn was saying. “Please, my friend, you’ve got to trust me now.”

  “I do. But how the hells can you know? I’ve never had any trouble with bandits out here, and now you say that there’s a whole pack of them waiting in ambush. Doesn’t make any blasted sense.”

  “I can know and I do know. We’ve got to do something, or we’ll all be slaughtered on the road.”

  From the look on Dregydd’s face it was obvious that he thought the old man had gone completely and suddenly mad. Aderyn leaned forward and stared into his eyes. The look of disbelief vanished.

  “Of course,” Dregydd said. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

  For a moment Jill’s hands shook. Against all reason she knew that she’d just seen a man ensorceled. When Aderyn glanced her way, she ducked her head and refused to look at him. He laughed softly, acknowledging the gesture.

  “Cullyn,” he said. “Do you believe me?”

  “I do, and I don’t care how you scried them out, either.”

  It was Aderyn’s turn to be startled. Cullyn gave him a weary sort of smile.

  “How many of them are there?”

  “At least thirty, and they seem to be as well armed as a lord’s warband.”

  Dregydd turned dead white. Frightened muleteers clustered around to whisper the news among themselves.

  “We’ve got to have shelter.” Cullyn looked as bored and lazy as if he were asking for ale in a tavern. “The muleteers have quarterstaves, but they can’t use them if they’re being ridden down by men on horseback. A patch of forest, rocks—anything to make them attack on foot.”

  Aderyn hesitated, thinking hard.

  “Here,” Jill broke in. “If there were lords out here once, they must have had duns. Are any still standing?”

  “Of course!” Aderyn said. “Forgive me. I know nothing of matters of war. There’s one about five miles or so to the south and west. The walls were still there the last time I passed that way.”

  “Splendid,” Cullyn said. “We might be able to hold them off long enough for Jill to get back from Cannob
aen with some of the tieryn’s men.”

  “What?” Jill snapped. “You can’t send me away!”

  Cullyn slapped her across the face so hard she staggered.

  “You follow orders. What’s two days’ ride for a lot of stinking mules should be one for a rider with a spare horse to share her weight. You’re riding to the tieryn and begging for aid. Do you hear me?”

  “I do.” Jill rubbed her aching cheek. “But you’d best be alive when I ride back.”

  The way Cullyn smiled, a cold twitch of his mouth, told Jill that he doubted he would be. For a moment she thought that her body had turned to water, that she was going to flow away and dissolve like one of the Wildfolk. Cullyn grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

  “You’re riding for the life of every man in this caravan. Do you understand me?”

  “I do. I’ll take two of the hunters. They’re the best horses we’ve got.”

  Jennantar saddled one horse and put the other on a lead rope, then held the bridle as Jill swung herself up. As she bent over to take the lead rope, their eyes met.

  “I’ll see you on the morrow,” Jennantar said.

  “I’ll pray that’s true.”

  “Oh, we’ve got a trick or two to play on these piss-pot bandits. We’ll hold them off.”

  All at once Jennantar flung his hands over his head and danced, just a few quick steps to some unsung music, and he was grinning like a fiend. Seeing him so battle eager was one of the strangest things on this strange day.

  Getting the caravan on the road seemed to take an eternity. Cullyn kept on the move, yelling orders, as the men got the mules loaded and themselves mounted on the spare horses. During the march, he rode up and down the line, yelling and bullying everyone to ride as fast as they could, occasionally slapping the rump of a balky mule with the flat of his sword to keep it trotting. At last they came to the ruined dun, rising from the wild grass with all the loneliness of a cairn marking a warrior’s grave. Although the stone walls and the broch itself looked sound, the wooden gates and outbuildings had long since rotted away. Weeds and ivy ran riot in the ward. Cullyn herded the caravan inside.