Days of Air and Darkness

by Katharine Kerr

  “Shaetano!” Evandar called out. “My own dear blood kin! Well met, well met!”

  With a growl, the fox warrior rode over and paused his horse beside Evandar’s.

  “Any news of Alshandra and her bronze pack of rebels?” Evandar went on. “Here in the Lands, I mean. I’ve plenty of news of her doings down in the world of men.”

  “I’ve seen her, sure enough, riding along at the head of her piss-poor excuse for an army.” Shaetano paused, glancing round at the men who used to ride in his. “You’ve mustered the lot of us, I see.”

  “Every one I could rouse. This is war, brother, and that should gladden your heart.”

  “So it does.” Shaetano pulled black lips back from pointed teeth in a grin. “And so what shall we do? Ride to the battle plain?”

  “Do you truly think they’ll be drawn up ever so nicely to wait for us? Tonight, we ride the border.”

  Under the light of a sudden moon, hanging pink and swollen near the horizon, the army cheered, waving swords and clubs alike. The wolf runners bared fangs and howled.

  “Very well,” Shaetano said. “And where shall I ride in the army?”

  “Here, next to me. You shall ride at my left hand, as Menw rides at my right, and at the feasting we shall sit together, too.”

  “What? Am I to be honored, brother dear?”

  “Not in the least. I merely don’t trust you at my back.”

  On the morrow, just as the sun was rising over Lin Serr, a hundred dwarven warriors, led by Brel Avro himself, marched out |o bury the dead up at the pillaged farms. Although Rhodry offered to go with them, he could do nothing, truly, but intrude upon private grief. In the end, he decided to stay at the dwarvehold. By this time, Arzosah was famished, and he sent her out to hunt, with a strict command to bring her kill back to Lin Serr’s park land to eat it there. She flew off with a roar, leaving him to a private talk with Garin.

  “I’ve tried to get the Council to allow you into the high city,” Garin said, sighing. “No such luck, I’m afraid. All they’ll give you is the run of the public hall here and the envoy’s quarters you had before.”

  “I’ll go on sleeping outside. Allow me to spare your people my tainted elven blood.”

  Garin winced and considered. They were standing just inside the huge double doors, carved with the history of Lin Serr, that led to the entrance hall, a cavern carved from living rock and lit by a bluish-silver glow. In the spill of sunlight through the doorway, Rhodry could just see, inlaid into the cavern floor, a circular maze that was big enough for a man to walk.

  “I’d sleep better knowing you had a roof over your head,” the envoy said at length. “You’re too vulnerable out there. You’ve got enemies, you know.”

  “Ah, Alshandra’s far away. Besides, I’ve got the talisman.”

  “That’ll only protect you from scrying, not from someone using their own two eyes, like. What if this raven creature pops out of nowhere, takes a good look at you, and pops back to fetch Alshandra to do you harm? Come now. You told me how the raven met you on the road here. Well, what if she followed you down?”

  Rhodry started to answer, then paused, caught by the truth of it.

  “There’s the old watchtower,” Garin went on. “Our wyrm could nest on top of that, and you could camp in the old gatehouse, surrounded by heaps of iron.”

  They both turned and looked out at the entrance to Lin Serr. The cliffs rose round in a horseshoe whose ends didn’t quite meet; at the gap to the south, a gentle slope of land rose from the park land and out to what was normal ground level, that is, level with the tops of the cliffs forming the artificial basin. Just inside, before this tongue of land began its rise, stood a stone tower, seemingly a natural spire, freestanding with one end of the horseshoe to one side and the gap between the ends to the other. It was in fact worked stone, carved like a statue from one living rock. When Lin Serr was a-building, the tower had overshadowed a gateway, but over centuries of peace, the dwarves had widened the entranceway, leaving the tower standing alone.

  Still attached to the cliff at the end of the horseshoe stood the gatehouse in question. This second tower sported two smaller round structures, in shape much like brochs, down at its base—the old guard rooms, crammed with stored weapons, single-bitted axes, spearheads on old and splitting wooden shafts, knives of various shapes, all too old to use but too good to throw away. If Rhodry took up residence in the empty chamber above so much iron, Alshandra would never be able to reach him.

  “You get a good look round from up there,” Rhodry said. “I wouldn’t mind moving in.”

  “Good. Still, I feel we owe you somewhat, for the bringing of the news, if naught else.”

  “I’d never demand a price.”

  “I know it, you know it, but does the Council need to know it?”

  They shared a grin.

  “Well, then,” Rhodry said, “could you get me a proper harness for my new mount? She keeps complaining about the ropes I’ve rigged up. They’re not fine enough for a lady like her.”

  They both laughed.

  “No doubt we could,” Garin said. “Our craftsmen have never made a dragon harness before, but I suspect _they could rig one up. Can’t be much different than for horses, not in principle, anyway. You go down to the grass and wait for our demanding wyrm, and I’ll just go see what the guildsmen have to say about this.”

  Arzosah returned with two dead deer, not her usual one, and by the time she’d finished gorging herself on raw venison, she was so drowsy that she made no objection to being fitted. The master armorer, the master tanner, and their two apprentices clambered round with ropes, making knots at crucial points to mark her measure and talking all the while in Dwarvish. Occasionally, Garin would translate a question—did Arzosah want brown leather or black? would she like bronze buckles or steel?

  “I must say,” the dragon remarked at last, “that this pleases me mightily. If I must wear a harness like some smelly mule, at least I’ll have a decent one.”

  “I only wish I were a rich lord, to give my lady jewels and gold,” Rhodry said, grinning. “But I doubt if you’ll ever find better workmanship than we’ll get here at Lin Serr, even if the harness is a plain one.”

  “You know, Rori,” Garin put in, “I think we could muster a decoration or two, at that. Before he left for Haen Marn, Otho made his will, and as I remember, he left some gems to you.”

  “What? I thought he hated me.”

  “I asked him about that. He did, he said, but on the other hand, he’d hated you for so long it was like you were blood kin.” Garin’s voice wavered. “Just like the old man, eh?”

  Rhodry was caught twixt tears and laughter for a moment; then any urge toward mirth vanished.

  “I just had an evil thought. What of Otho’s mother?”

  “Ah. She died a few days after you left here for Haen Marn. She’ll never have to know how her son met his death.”

  “Good.”

  For a little while, they stood looking out over the grassy park land and the river, bright in the sun. Rhodry sighed and waved a hand at the bustling craftsmen.

  “How long do you think making the thing will take?”

  “A couple of days, they say.”

  “Huh. Well, if Arzosah will condescend to wear the ropes one more time, tomorrow we might fly down and take a look at this siege. I wonder if Cadmar’s allies are assembling somewhere near the city?”

  “It’d be a good thing to know, sure enough, but I wouldn’t go down there alone.”

  “Why not? If we fly high above the encampment, they won’t be able to touch us.”

  “Truly?” Garin raised a bushy eyebrow. “Now, if this was some ordinary fight, like, I’d agree. But there’s dweomer involved, shape-changers, and that Alshandra creature. I’ve seen what she can do. How do we know they can’t work some magic to bring our wyrm here down? And then there you’d both be, flopping along on the ground with not a friend who could reach you.”

/>   Rhodry was about to argue, but Arzosah got in first.

  “He’s right, Dragonmaster. Oh, please, I know I have to obey you, but please, don’t make us go alone. Look at how those wretched Horsekin killed my mate. They’re not to be trifled with, dweomer or no.”

  “Well, that’s true spoken.”

  “We’ll be marching soon enough,” Garin went on. “Cengarn’s walls will hold for a while longer, lad.”

  Rhodry hesitated, wondering if he wanted to explain. As long as he had some task on hand, whether traveling or fighting, he could forget about Angmar and Haen Marn, the woman he’d come to love, the place whose magic was bound up with that love.

  “What’s so wrong?” Garin said. “You look heartsick.”

  “Ah, well, it just gripes my soul, sitting up here in the mountains, not even knowing if Cengarn stands or how it fares.”

  “It still stands. I can tell you that. Some of our women have a little dweomer of their own, you know.”

  “I do know.” Reflexively, Rhodry laid his hand over the talisman he wore under his shirt. “Didn’t Otho’s mother give me this stone?”

  “Well, there you are then.”

  “But here, Cadmar’s allies? His main alliance is with Gwerbret Drwmyc of Dun Trebyc, and I’ve never met a more justice-minded man. He’ll do everything he can to fulfill their treaties. Some lords might weasel, but not Drwmyc.”

  “That gladdens my heart.” Garin paused for a grin. “Now, five hundred dwarven axmen are worth a thousand human beings, but from what I gather, there’s a cursed lot of these flea-bitten Horsekin round the town.”

  Rhodry laughed at the jest, but he was thinking hard, trying to estimate just how many men Drwmyc might be able to scrape up, down in the rough borderlands of the kingdom. Not enough—that was the one thing he could be sure of.

  That very night, Garin’s prudence proved its worth. Rhodry’s chamber in the old gatehouse was small, round, and dusty-bare except for his own gear, but it had a grand view out across Lin Serr’s park land. He was sitting on one of the enormously thick window ledges, watching the moon rising over the distant cliffs, when he saw movement out in the grass. Although an ordinary man would have seen nothing, Rhodry had inherited his vision from his father’s people. When he looked carefully, he could make out a pack of strange creatures trotting across the grass and heading straight for the gatehouse. Bronze gleamed in moonlight. Smiling a little, he drew his sword and waited.

  Down at the base of the tower they assembled, a shuffling pack of misshapen warriors dressed in bronze armor and waving bronze knives. In the moonlight, he couldn’t see them clearly, but he knew from previous experience that they were a jumble of human and animal bodies. They looked up, pointing with hand or paw. At the sight of Rhodry in the window, they began to curse and shout in a babble of languages, swirling round in an eddy of malice.

  “Come up, then,” he called out. “Come up if you’re so brave.”

  They screamed and gnashed, howled and cursed, while they danced back and forth before the door. Suddenly, with a roar, Arzosah dropped from the high tower and flew. With one last shriek, the pack disappeared back into whatever world it was that they came from. The dragon swooped out into the park land, then turned and flapped back, settling up on the high tower’s roof again. Rhodry leaned out his window and yelled.

  “My thanks!”

  “Most welcome, but I wasn’t worried about you.” Her vast rumble drifted down to him. “They were keeping me awake.”

  Rhodry had been right to worry about the situation in Cengarn. The next morning, at about the time that he was telling Garin how Alshandra’s creatures had threatened him in the night, Jill was sitting in the window of her chamber, high up in one of Dun Cengarn’s towers. Except for a small shelf housing some twenty books, a fabulous number in those days, it was an ordinary sort of chamber, a half-round of a room with stone walls on the curved side and woven wicker on the straight, and furnished with a narrow bed, a chest, a charcoal brazier, a table, and one chair—perfectly ordinary, except of course it was filled with Wildfolk. Sprites and sylphs flickered through the air, some visible, others a bare crystalline glimmer; gnomes curled up in the patch of sun from the open window like cats or sat on Jill’s bed, amusing themselves by picking at the frayed edges of the blankets.

  A couple of gray gnomes sat in the lap of the guest occupying the chair, and she was far from ordinary as well. Not only was Dallandra a member of the race that men call Westfolk, or elves, but she was the only dweomermaster in Deverry whose power matched Jill’s. With her ash-blond hair and steel gray eyes, she was a beautiful woman, too, if one could overlook her eyes, slit vertically with dark irises like a cat’s, and her ears, long and furled. For the sake of privacy, they spoke in Elvish, which no one else in the dun could understand.

  “What are we going to do about Meer?” Dallandra was saying. “I cannot convince him that I’m not a goddess. He keeps throwing himself onto the ground every time I come near him, and one of these days he’s going to hurt himself. I mean, he is blind.”

  “Tell him that he’s so favored by the gods he need only kneel in your presence.”

  “Jill, this is no time for jests!”

  “I’m not jesting. I truly don’t think you have any chance of convincing him that you’re mortal. You might as well put your divine status to good use.”

  Dallandra scowled, then laughed. “Perhaps so. Besides, I know what convinced him, and I have to admit, it was fairly spectacular. It was when Rhodry first captured our bard, and he and young Jahdo were penned up in that awful dungeon here. I felt so bad for them, and Evandar wouldn’t do a thing for them, of course. So I appeared in their cell and told them that things would be better soon.”

  It was Jill’s turn for the laugh. “Just like a goddess in an old hymn, comforting prisoners. Dalla, you’ve brought it on yourself.”

  “Maybe so. But I’ve managed to change Jahdo’s mind, you know. Once he got a chance to talk with me, he could tell that I’m not some divinity.”

  “Jahdo’s got a lot of common sense for a child, but our Meer sees gods everywhere. His people do, after all. That’s what Alshandra took advantage of.”

  “And so did Evandar. He deliberately set himself up as a god, too, you know. He’s the one who manifested back in Meer’s home city and sent the bard on his quest in the first place.”

  “Here!” Jill snapped. “I never knew that.”

  “He told me about it at the time, but I had no idea what he was up to. He loves to speak in riddles. But I’ve pieced the meaning out now. Evandar appeared right in a temple, as bold as brass, and told the priestess to send Meer off on some errand. He’s the one who guided Meer and Jahdo into Deverry and had them take the route that would lead them to Rhodry and his men. Evandar’s up to something, Jill. I don’t know what it is, but he’s got some sort of horribly elaborate strategy in mind to reach some mysterious goal. And he doesn’t care what he does to whom, just so long as he gets what he wants.”

  “And you love this man?”

  Dallandra rose, pacing back and forth in the wedge-chamber. The displaced gnomes sat down on the floor and pouted.

  “I do,” she said at last. “I know it’s daft, but I do. At heart he’s good and warm, but he has no idea of consequences. How could he, Jill? He’s never lived incarnate. He knows nothing of suffering, or frustration, or illness—none of those things have a feather’s weight of meaning for him.”

  “Any more than they do for Alshandra.”

  “Exactly.”

  Jill shuddered and turned on the narrow ledge to better catch the afternoon sun. From her perch, she could see out over the dun to the distant east wall of the city. Beyond that she could just catch a glimpse of white tents and red banners on a little rise, a group that seemed to be the encampment of the Horsekin leaders. She idly wondered if they worshipped their false goddess somewhere among them, or if Alshandra could approach so much iron.

  “Dalla, a
question for you! How can Evandar come and go so easily? He just walks right into cities, and Rhodry says that Evandar’s ridden next to him when he—Rhodry, I mean—he’s been fully armed. But Alshandra can’t abide the touch of iron, and none of her folk can, either.”

  “No more can Evandar’s men. They all have silver weapons and suchlike. I haven’t the slightest idea, Jill, not the slightest. He keeps his secrets, even from me, until he feels like telling them.”

  At a knock on the door, Jill swung her feet back to the solid floor of the chamber.

  “Who’s there?” she called out in Deverrian.

  “Yraen, my lady,” a dark voice answered. “The gwerbret’s wife sent me to see if you could come attend upon the princess.”

  Jill muttered something foul under her breath, then raised her voice again.

  “Come in, will you?”

  With a deferential nod of his blond head, Yraen stepped in, shutting the door behind him. Well over six feet tall, and in a warrior’s prime of life, Yraen was, in his way, a good-looking man, though the way was cold and grim enough to scare off most women. His ice-blue eyes glittered with some suppressed rage, and thick blond mustaches hid most of his full mouth. At his belt, the hilt of a silver dagger glittered as coldly as his eyes.

  “What’s all this?” Jill said.

  “Carra’s worrying about the prince her husband again, my lady. We were all down in the great hall when she started weeping over him. So the gwerbret’s wife took her back to the women’s hall and sent me to fetch you. We were wondering if you had, uh well er you know, news.”

  Scrying, of course, was what he meant but refused to name.

  “I haven’t had a chance to glean any news today,” Jill said, “about much of anything. Ye gods! Weeping right out in the great hall? She’s got to learn to control herself better than this. We’ve got the men’s morale to think of.”

  “Jill, please!” Dallandra spoke in Elvish. “You’re as cold as Evandar at times, really you are.” She switched to Deverrian. “Yraen, Jill’s tired. She has more important things on her mind than young Carra’s temperaments, too. I’ll go the women’s hall and deal with it.”