Days of Air and Darkness

by Katharine Kerr

When she feinted with the spear, Alshandra lunged toward her again. Jill threw herself up and back; still the Guardian rushed after. Jill swooped away barely in time and danced south again, always south and west. Below, the Horsekin were clamoring and shouting. Some had rushed to the earthworks to keep their goddess in sight; others were scurrying up the side of the east ridge and beyond. Splendid, Jill thought. You’ll see somewhat tonight that you’ll never forget. As she dodged to the south, heading for the joining of the two streams, Alshandra leapt at her and swung a huge hand, clipping Jill hard with her outstretched fingers, which were, of course, an enormous bludgeon of etheric force.

  Jill flew into the air and tumbled this way and that, at last righting herself over the Deverry army. When she glanced down, she could see the silver cord that bound her to her body growing thin and pale. Alshandra swooped in from the side. Jill dropped, then flung herself back southward just as the Guardian charged. She could see the water veil from the two streams now, a high wall of raging force springing up high above the river. She flew up a little higher, forcing Alshandra to follow, then risked a glance back. They’d angled away from the Horsekin camp, but at least the men up on the east ridge and the earthworks would see the end of this battle.

  From a bare few yards away, Jill hurled the last spear directly at her face. Howling and tearing with both hands, Alshandra hovered for a moment, pulling the dissolving form out of her etheric substance, then thrust herself forward so fast that Jill’s dodge came too late—just as she’d always known it would. In a kind of mock pain, she felt huge hands close round her almost throat.

  “You puny little shrew!” The Guardian’s thoughts hissed like water dancing on hot iron. “Who’s more clever now?”

  Jill grabbed Alshandra’s wrists with her hands and writhed, twisting, summoning the last of her strength.

  “Who indeed?”

  She wrenched them both into the streaming water veil. Shrieking, Alshandra dropped her and tried to flee, but too late. The roil of elemental force tore at her form, wrenched great handfuls of her hair from her head, stripped the etheric substance out of her spirit’s mold, and swirled it away. She bobbed and screamed, growing tattered first, then faint, but still the relentless etheric stream broke over and drowned her, shrank her to the flopping image of a tiny child, ill-formed and barely human. One last huge scream rang out across two worlds; then the river swept her away. Reborn she doubtless would be, but never would she come to life again as Alshandra the Guardian.

  All at once, Jill felt herself bobbing up into the sky as huge patches of her own etheric double tore free and fell away. She looked down and saw the silver cord dangling, broken.

  “It is over,” she called out. “It is finished.”

  With the last of her living consciousness, she could hear three great knocks boom in answer, three thunderclaps rolling through the sky. In the streaming silver mist, a golden light began to shine, and it was a light that shone as sound, too, deafening her to the thunder, deafening her to the river’s rush and the cheers and the howls far below in the land of the living. The light swept over her like a river and lifted her high and clear out of the water veil. All round her the light turned as hard as jewels, until it seemed she stood in a hall of light. When she looked at herself, she found she still had her memory of a body. Though it was a flickering thing, and pale, it seemed to her that, for this brief moment, she was young again. As well, she seemed to perceive through eyes and ears like a living woman would have.

  In front of her, his hands stretched out to greet her, stood Nevyn, but as he’d looked in his youth, with his thick shock of untidy dark hair and joyous blue eyes.

  “You waited?” Jill whispered. “You waited for me all these years?”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?” He was smiling. “Did you truly think I wouldn’t?”

  Her hands grasped his. As he drew her close, the Light rose to wrap them round.

  Carra had seen Alshandra appear, dropping out of a night sky like a hawk stooping to the kill. Too frightened to scream, she turned stone-still, as paralyzed as the rabbit that might have been the hawk’s prey. All round the dun and town shouting went up, the hai! hai! hai! of the Horsekin, the howling curses of the relieving army. Dallandra stepped smoothly in between Carra and the plunging Guardian, then began to chant in Elvish, weaving her hands back and forth in peculiar patterns. For a moment, Alshandra hovered just above the roof, her feet close to touching the slates. The shouting rose like a sea, washing Dallandra’s chants away.

  All at once, Alshandra screamed and threw her head back in agony. She flung herself into the air, snatching at something that Carra couldn’t see, swatting out with her huge hands. She darted away south and east, flying through the air, weaving and dipping as if she were trying to catch some invisible insect. Carra leapt to her feet and turned to watch.

  “Stay right here.” Dallandra grabbed her arm.

  “Of course. But what—”

  “It’s Jill, of course.”

  Carra nodded and stood half-tranced, watching every swing and flurry of the Guardian’s battle with her invisible opponent. Farther and farther away they danced—well over the city walls by now, swooping and springing up, floating this way and that over the Horsekin camp, which were shouting their false goddess’s name as if to encourage her. The Guardian’s figure turned tiny, but Carra could follow her path by the magical glow round her. Suddenly, Dallandra gasped, one dark sob.

  “The stream! Oh, by the gods! Jill!”

  “What? Dalla—”

  Dallandra grabbed her arm again and swung her round toward the trapdoor.

  “Get down and get inside. Hurry! Get inside and get Jahdo and go down to the great hall, down away from the roof.”

  “But Jill—”

  “Is past our help.” Dalla began to weep. “I should have known! Ah, ye gods! I should have known.” She choked back the tears. “Carra, get inside!”

  Stunned speechless, Carra climbed down the ladder into the darkness of the landing below. The lantern swinging in her teeth, Dallandra followed, then handed the light over once Carra was standing safely on the floor.

  “My lady!” Jahdo wailed. “Somewhat’s wrong! Look, look at Jill!”

  Her body lay twisted round into a heap, her face drained of blood, her mouth slack open like an idiot’s.

  “She’s dead.” Dallandra tried to gentle her voice but failed. “Get out of here! Jahdo, take the lantern. Get the princess down to the great hall, and do it now!”

  Jahdo grabbed the lantern in one hand and Carra’s wrist in the other. As he tugged her toward the stairs, Carra looked back to see Dallandra pulling off her clothes as if she’d gone mad. It was all too much, suddenly. Sobbing aloud, Carra let the boy guide her down the long spiral to the safety below.

  That particular night, Rhodry had been billeted straight south of the city with Lord Erddyr’s men, who were helping hold the investiture on the far side of the stream. When the shouting started in the Horsekin camp, he was on his feet and running, drawing his sword as he raced for the edge of the encampment. Around him, the warband grabbed for armor in a flood of oaths. All at once someone screamed, “Look up! Look up there!” Rhodry did and saw Alshandra, hovering just over the highest tower in Cengarn’s dun, a tiny figure from this distance. She glowed silver with her magical light, as if she were a star sailing free in the earthly sky, sailing, then swooping and dipping, heading south and west, straight for the river.

  “Ah, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell!” Donning armor suddenly seemed like the most futile thing in the world. His feet a little apart, he tipped back his head and watched Alshandra’s peculiar flight, dodging some invisible threat there, swooping down on some invisible thing here, yet always heading south, then turning west as she passed directly overhead. Rhodry spun round and saw her heading straight for the river formed by the joining of the two streams. Closer and closer, seeming larger and larger she flew, hesitated once, and plunged forward—di
rectly over the water.

  All at once she shrieked, an enormous howl of pain that every man or Horsekin on the southern side of Cengarn could hear. Her enormous woman’s form hung steady over the stream, then began to bob and swirl, began to tear apart and shatter. Even with his elven sight, Rhodry could see nothing more than Alshandra, howling and writhing, caught in some invisible web, but he knew that she had to be dying. The Horsekin shouting turned puzzled, then broke into a thousand cries of confusion and fear. The investing ring of Deverry men yelled and howled in triumph as Alshandra’s tattered form began to shrink and ebb away.

  Booming through the night came the three great knocks. Those Rhodry had heard before, the sign of the Great Ones, pronouncing a doom. He threw back his head and shrieked with berserk laughter as the last remnant of Alshandra’s earthly body winked out like a blown candle. The sound of terror rose from the Horsekin camp like the trail of smoke.

  “Master!” Arzosah’s voice cut through the noise. “Master! The raven!”

  Rhodry came to himself and ran to her. No time for harness—he set his foot upon her bowed neck and let her lift him up, then wedged himself between two scales of her crest at her shoulder. She crouched and flung herself into the air like a slung stone. Rhodry threw his left arm round one scale and gripped it tight. Her wings beat hard and steadily as she spiraled up over the camp and Cengarn’s walls. Everywhere in the camps, and down in the town, lights bloomed as men blew fires into life or lit torches and rushed outside to stare up at the sky. The streets of the town began to fill as the trapped folk began to cheer for the dragon and her rider.

  Arzosah circled once, dipping her wings as if to acknowledge the cheers, then headed for the dun. Rhodry could see, against the background of the starry sky, the dim shapes of two enormous birds, the beaky raven and a sleeker shape, glowing a faint gray as she flapped and dodged. There was no doubt that the raven was winning the battle, gaining height and diving down to stab at its prey with a vicious beak.

  “This is going to be sweet,” Arzosah called back.

  The dragon went into a glide, raised her head, and roared as she plunged straight for the raven. Squawking and shrieking, the raven turned and flew, her wings pumping the air as she fled. Arzosah flapped once, gained—then suddenly the raven disappeared, slipping into another world and safety. Rhodry swore under his breath with every foul oath he knew, while Arzosah slowed her flight and turned back in a huge circle. Down below, the Horsekin were wailing and keening as if they saw their deaths riding for them in the night sky.

  “Camp or dun?” Arzosah called. “The air belongs to us now, since the bitch Alshandra is dead.”

  “To the dun!”

  Arzosah circled the main broch and landed gracefully upon the roof in a scatter of stones and arrows until her front talons clutched the low wall round the edge and held her steady. Rhodry grabbed at her crest, slipped, and tumbled inelegantly onto the slates.

  As he picked himself up, he heard someone weeping and laughing together in long choking litany. He glanced round and saw Dallandra, wearing only a tunic, crouched at the far side of the roof. When he ran to her, she rose and flung herself into his arms.

  “Rhodry, oh, by the Goddess, Rhodry!”

  “It is at that. Dalla, hush, hush! It’s over, for the night at least. Hush, hush.”

  Something wet ran down his arm. Her shoulder was bleeding through her tunic.

  “You’re wounded!”

  “It’s but a scratch, a gift from the raven. She’s got a vicious beak on her.”

  “That was you I saw? Where’s Jill?”

  She went stone-still in his arms, leaning back to look up at him, her face streaked with dirt and tears. Rhodry felt his arms tighten round her of their own will.

  “Dalla—”

  “She’s dead.” Her voice was a whisper. “Just now. She killed Alshandra, but she died with her. She turned herself into bait, Rhodry. She knew she’d die, too, and she didn’t tell me. She just did it. Baited the trap and saved us all.”

  Voices came hurrying closer, voices and a shriek of mourning through the trapdoor below. Rhodry was suddenly aware of Arzosah, stepping off the wall and settling herself near him, filling half the roof as she did so. All round the dun swirled the distant keening of the Horse-kin, mourning their dead goddess. Rhodry wondered why he wasn’t keening himself, opened his mouth to speak, at least, to Dallandra and try to comfort her, found he could make no sound at all. Dalla herself had turned as hard as steel.

  “Close the trap, Rhodry. Keep them off the roof! I’ve got to set the seals over the dome. If the raven comes back, the town’s in danger.”

  “But that wound—”

  “Curse the wound! You can help or you can hinder, but I’m doing the work I have to do.”

  Rhodry ran for the trapdoor, yelled a few words to those below, then shut it and knelt upon it to keep it shut. The dragon hunched, then leapt into a glide. With a flap of wings, she settled herself on one of the shorter brochs nearby to leave the main roof clear for Dallandra’s workings. Rhodry crouched and watched as Dallandra paced round, muttering spells in the elven tongue, but he truly saw none of it. All he could think of was Jill, gone from him forever. He realized that he was shaking his head in time to Dallandra’s chanting, mouthing no, no, no over and over until at last, just as she finished setting the last seal, he burst out keening. From far below, he heard the dragon roar in answer.

  “Rhodry, go back to the camp.” Dallandra knelt beside him. “There’s naught you can do here, and they’ll need you on the morrow.”

  He fell silent, rocked back on his heels to stare up at the cold and indifferent stars.

  “Go,” she whispered. “Go back to the army. Avenge her on the morrow.”

  Nodding agreement, he rose.

  “I’ll see you when we win through,” he said. “Fare you well till then.”

  Yelling for order, swinging a long whip all round him, Rakzan Hir-li rode bareback through the Horsekin camp, his warhorse snorting and kicking as it forced itself through the mob. Torches flared, campfires burst into light as the soldiers raged round, howling and babbling, swirling like water through the tents. Carrying his unstrung longbow like a staff, Tren scrambled to the higher ground at the end of the east ridge, watched the chaos, and laughed. So. She had failed them all, just as she’d failed him earlier. Shoot a man on dragonback with a longbow. It could be a proverb, as he thought about it, a fine bardic image for utter futility. He looked at the bow in his hands, then with a snarl of rage raised one knee and broke the shaft over it. With a scream of rage, he threw the useless pieces as hard as he could and watched them fall, unnoticed, into the mob below. He laughed again, a long choking snarl of it.

  All at once, he remembered the high priestess. On her he could take some small revenge for the way he’d been tricked. He drew his sword to protect himself from the rioting troops and plunged back down into the mob. He whacked a path for himself with the flat of the blade, shoving servants and warriors aside, screeching orders at any man or Horsekin who’d listen, until he reached her tent. A mob swirled round that, too. He beat a few men back from the side of it, then slit the canvas with his sword and ducked through to the screams of maidservants. The sobbing girls were crouched in the middle of the tent, but Raena was gone. Tren ducked back out.

  “She’s flown,” he called out. “Someone find Rakzan Hir-li! Someone tell him!”

  Those few warriors who understood him screamed and scurried. Tren kept forcing a path until he could climb down from the captains’ camp. Here and there, he saw the Keepers of Discipline, whipping and smacking what troops they could grab back into some semblance of order. The screaming was lessening, though he saw Horsekin weeping all round him. Fools! he thought.

  Down on the flat, the chaos and rioting still raged. Just as he reached his warband’s encampment, he saw a fire flare in tents some distance off. Yelling and smoke alike plumed to the sky. Ddary came rushing up and grabbed his arm. Ot
her men mobbed them round.

  “My lord, what’s going on?”

  “Panic and terror, Captain, panic and terror. I doubt me if there’s any sort of guard on the northern side of the camp. A careful man could walk away, if he wanted.”

  “And would you hold that to our shame?”

  “Never. But do it now and do it fast. The Keepers have a hold over their men’s souls. They’ll take charge quick enough.”

  His men began to grab weapons, to scoop up a blanket here, a sack of food there, and slip away, a few men one way, a few others, another. On the southern edge of the camp, the fires were spreading from tent to tent. Horsekin yelled and swore, rushed this way and that, some with buckets, some with blankets to beat out the flames, but most just running to be running, yelling to be yelling. Tren watched the fires leap toward the sky and laughed again.

  “My lord!” Ddary grabbed his arm. “Come with us.”

  “Nah, nah, nah. My place is here. If the other gods favor me, I’ll have one last chance at that cursed silver dagger before I die. I bargained my honor away for him, and I’ll kill him yet.”

  “My lord, please!”

  “Go! Ddary, I order you on the oath you swore me. Go and go now!”

  Ddary wiped quick tears from his eyes, then turned and ran into the night. Tren stood and watched the fires for a few moments, then hurried back to the east ridge before anyone could come look for him and find his men gone. Little danger of that—the camp surged with a screaming mob as the panic spread itself like the flames. He could hear horses, too, whinnying in terror, and the sound of hooves. Some at least had pulled their tethers and fled. Their red surcoats stained with smoke and blood, the Keepers ran through, swinging their whips and shouting. Tren glanced up, saw smoke billowing into the sky to join the clouds. Clouds? He’d seen no clouds obscuring the stars when they’d been watching their goddess fight and die.

  All at once, thunder boomed and cracked. The shouting in the camp changed to a shriek of prayer as suddenly rain came, pouring down cold in great sheets, dousing the flaming tents with a hiss as huge as the dragon’s. Somewhere, the high priestess was working her dweomer. Men and Horsekin alike shouted in triumph and danced like mad things in the blessed rain. Tren was surprised at himself for being so disappointed. With a shrug, he began working his way to the east ridge, climbing up the muddy slope as carefully as he could in the sudden darkness.