Knight Or Knave

by Andre Norton

  "None, Lady Ashen," the soldier said, obviously grateful to be addressing her rather than enduring the wrath of his commanding officer. "All we know is, she stole a horse, and by the few tracks we found, we determined that she was headed north and west."

  "Then she was traveling toward the Bog," Gaurin said. "And, somehow, knowing enough to avoid passing near the Oakenkeep."

  "And how long has it been since you noticed she was missing?" Lathrom said, with heavy irony.

  "Five days, sir. We searched hard, truly. The lady might as well have flown avvay, for all the traces of her that we could see. We did find the horse, though."

  "Five days. And in this coid. With rivers to cross, and probably

  When he learned of Anamara's disappearance, Rohan left Cragden Keep and went directly to Zazar's hut, following a trail that had by now become familiar.

  "Have you heard? Have you seen her?" he demanded.

  "I have heard, and no, I have not."

  "She must have been coming here."

  "Perhaps," Zazar said. "The Bog is a big place. Remember, you no food except what might happen to be in a saddlebag." Gaurin sighed. He turned to Ashen. "I am sorry, my dear. I fear that, under the circumstances, even if she managed to reach the Bog, she must have perished by now."

  "She was in my care," Ashen said numbly. "Zazar put her into my care."

  "No, my lady," Lathrom said. "I am to blame. I should have gone myself, to ensure her arrival safely at Rydale. If there is punishment to be dealt out, it must fall on me."

  "We will speak of punishment later, if at all," Gaurin told him. "You were bidden to Rendelsham, even as we were." Then he turned to Ashen. "We must notify

  Madame Zazar, and we must also inform Rohan."

  "Yes," she said.

  "Not that either of them can do anything, but they should know."

  "Yes," she repeated. She could scarcely believe the news the man had brought.

  How could they have been so careless? Or, perhaps, this was a remnant of whatever spell the wretched girl had been put under, that she had been able to elude the men set to watch over her.

  She dreaded Zazar's wrath. Anamara was dead, and Ashen was sorry for it—sorry for Rohan, actually—but her passing would solve many problems Rohan did not need to deal with just now.

  She hoped that, one day, Rohan would be able to forgive them all for the loss of his addle-pated lady. found her wandering somewhere to the north of here."

  "Grandam, I don't know what I'll do if I have lost her—" Tears welled up in

  Rohan's eyes. A moment later, they spilled down his cheeks as Zazar slapped him, hard, across the face.

  "Stop thati" the Wysen-wyf said fiercely. "Stop it, I say!" She slapped him again, even harder, on the other cheek.

  Rohan, shocked out of his grief over Anamara, could only stare at her. Then he noted a gleam of moisture in the old eyes that glared so sternly into his and knew that, in striking him, Zazar had somehow been striking out at herself as well, sharing the responsibility for the girl's disappearance.

  "Nobody is to blame," Rohan said. "Or we all are."

  "Did you see anything as you came through the Bog?"

  "I eluded a couple of hunting parties on the way."

  "Then you must assume that your lady is dead," Zazar said flatly. She led him to a seat beside the fire. "If she survived to cross the land beyond the Oakenkeep and here, she had to cross more than one river. She could have fallen through the ice and drowned. If she fell and did not drown, she must have fallen ill from the cold and crawled away to die. Or, supposing that she made it to the

  Bog, without knowledge of the place and how to elude those she did not want to encounter, the hunting parties must have caught her and she is dead at their hands. But know this, young Rohan. She is surely dead, and the sooner you understand this, the better off you will be."

  "I will never understand it," Rohan said, and heard the words thin and hollow in his own ears.

  "I will keep you here tonight, and in the morning you must return to Rendelsham.

  Be very careful. You were foolish to risk coming here. Those hunting parties you saw are out in the Bog from every village, even this one, for hunger drives.

  Even if you wore a badge of my own devising, it would not save you if you were taken. You were foolish to come here."

  "Yes, Grandam," he said, bowing his head. "Only, I thought you might help, or might know of something, anything I could do."

  "There is nothing," Zazar said, her voice once more flat and without intonation.

  "Only that you must now survive." She reached out and touched the tuft of herbs and grasses in Rohan's helm. "Survive, and do as Fate decides."

  In the high tower atop Rendelsham Castle, the Dowager Queen Ysa sat as one paralyzed in her chair, watching what her flyer was seeing, shocked beyond disbelief.

  Everywhere, the forces in the northern lands were stirring, and some already begun on their long march southward. She had been idle and lulled into a false sense of security, beguiled by the Sorceress into thinking the land was safe because Obern's heir by Ashen had perished. But while she slept and her eternal vigilance flagged, the Great Foulness had been busy marshaling its minions against the time when it would break free at last from the Palace of Fire and

  Ice, guarded so long and so well by Cyornas NordornKing. As if from a great distance, she heard the words of Snolli, at that council when they had worked out the treaty between Rendel and the Sea-Rovers. "He will face it first. He cannot prevail alone."

  Even as she watched in horror, great pale beasts, breathing crystals of ice and ridden by white-clad horrors, stumped forward awkwardly. Bellowing and trumpeting, they assaulted the walls and methodically smashed them, stone by stone. An old warrior, snowy hair blowing in the wind, challenged them fiercely, only to be cut down with his nobles and stretched cold upon the ground.

  Ysa's hands were clasped, hard, against her mouth. The Great Rings cut into her lips. Cyornas NordornKing was no more. His had been a valiant, useless defense, and the time he had bought would— Ysa knew as a certainty that froze her heart—be inadequate. The great beasts reared high and their riders shrilled cries of triumph and of challenge.

  Then they began to lead the armies on their march southward.

  The great beasts walked with a ponderous tread that shook the very ground beneath them. Always, over all, the air reverberated with their bellowing and the ice-crystals of their breath formed cold clouds around them One of the riders threw back her hood and, with a chill beyond what had taken her before,

  Ysa recognized the Sorceress. She gazed around, alerted by something, and Ysa knew that her flyer's presence had been recognized.

  Flee for your life! Return at once! She sent out the message with all the urgency she could muster, and the flyer immediately turned and began winging its swift way back toward the south, frightened not only by Ysa's command but also by what was happening around it that it had been forced to observe.

  Flavielle was perched on the beast's neck, just behind the horrible head. She nudged it with her heels. It stretched white leather wings and lifted itself into the air, seeking the invisible flyer. Snow fell from under the wings as it flew. In that moment of pure, unreasoning panic, Ysa recognized what sort of creature Flavielle rode, and those still-hooded horrors with her. Could they even be men? Their mounts were the most fell creatures ever dreamed of in the nightmares of men, that until now had been relegated to tales and legends.

  Ice Dragons. And they were marching on Rendel.

  The End

 

 

 
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