“Running off may well be what we all must do,” Jahdo said. “The prince of the Westfolk be on his way here with an offer of land farther south. There be no hope in holding out against the Horsekin. There be thousands of them.”
Cleddrik turned dead-pale. Big drops of sweat broke out on his forehead and ran down the creases in his jowls. He pulled a rag from his brigga pocket and mopped the sweat away. It was a reasonable enough reaction, Dallandra decided, to Jahdo’s news. When she opened her sight and took a look at his aura, it swirled around him in a gray-green cloud of sheer terror—again, a reasonable reaction to a marauding Horsekin army from a farmer who stood to lose the land he’d worked all his life, to say naught of that life itself. She returned to her normal vision and saw Cleddrik trying hard to put on a brave front as Jahdo explained their situation.
“Well, what must be done must be done,” Cleddrik said at last. “My thanks, Chief Speaker, for this honest talk. By your leave, I’ll be going to tell my folk what we do face. Then we must make some sacrifice to the gods of the town, some of the first apples, they might please the holy spirits.”
“True spoken,” Jahdo said. “Tell your folk that the prince, we do expect him some three days hence.”
Cleddrik hurried away to the path down to the lakeshore, where the council barge stood at its pier, ready to take him across to the mainland. Jahdo crossed his arms over his chest and watched him go with narrowed eyes.
“Do you trust that man?” Dallandra said.
“I know not if I do or not,” Jahdo said. “Niffa did tell me that the Alshandra priestesses did come to Penli.”
“As far as we know they did.”
“If Cleddrik did believe in their false goddess, it be possible that the Horsekin, they did strike some bargain with him. Messages could go back and forth, like, with the priestesses.”
“Very possible indeed.”
“But then, we all be frightened, and mayhap my mind does see things that be not there. What think you?”
“I don’t know.” Dallandra managed a smile. “He could be so utterly terrified for many reasons. The question is, is he afraid of the Horsekin or of Prince Dar?”
Jahdo laughed, one short bark that edged close to panic. When Dallandra glanced around, she saw the other members of the Council of Five hurrying across the plaza toward them.
“I’ll go back to the house,” she told Jahdo. “I see that you have a council meeting.”
“True spoken. We do meet many a time in a day now, after we do go through the town and talk to our folk. The others,” he gestured at the council, “they do see the wisdom in leaving. So that be one battle we need not fight.”
Later that day, Dallandra contacted Salamander through the fire. He and Rori had flown a good distance since they’d left the alar. By Salamander’s estimate, they were some miles to the west of Cerr Cawnen and a good bit farther north.
“And the Horsekin?” she asked.
“Well, there’s been no sign of them so far,” Salamander said. “Which is all to the good. We’ve been following the route they must be taking, you see, just in the reverse direction.”
“Very well. Suppose the army was camping where you are now. How far is it from there to Cerr Cawnen?”
“At least three days’ ride for a horde such as Rori described.”
“Only three?”
“Well, they must be at least a day’s ride north of where we are, so make that four days at least.”
“It’s still not enough.”
“I know, O Mistress of Mighty Magics, but we have yet to deploy and display our wiles, tricks, and shows of brute force and harassment. In short, we shall slow them down, never fear.”
I do fear, Dallandra thought to herself. Profoundly so.
To him, she said, “I just hope there are priestesses traveling with the army. I’d hate to think of you performing a dangerous feat for an audience that can’t see you.”
“So would I, but I’m willing to wager high that the holy ladies have come along. These days the Horsekin never go anywhere without at least a pair or two, or so it seems.”
“Well and good, then. Do let me know how things go.” She broke the link before he could feel just how troubled she was.
Since Rori had no desire to tease his brother with sudden drops in height or near-vertical climbs, Salamander was finding the trip north on dragonback a far easier ride than the one Arzosah had given him. By the time they reached the dragons’ mountain lair, the view from high in the air had come to delight him. Rivers ran sparkling in tiny silver threads through forests that billowed and swayed in the winds like one massive living thing rather than separate trees. Grassy valleys lay like jewels among the dark rocks and twisted pines of the foothills. When they reached the mountains, they dodged among enormous pillars of rock and skimmed above craggy slopes. The boom and thunder of Rori’s wings echoed back to them like a chant.
At last, late on an afternoon, Salamander saw the remains of a stone tower standing at the edge of a mountain meadow. Above the meadow loomed a sheer cliff, leading up and up to a streak of snow on a rocky ridge. Low on this cliff, behind the tower, he noticed a ledge of rock and the dark slash of a cave mouth.
“Hang on!” Rori called out.
Salamander tightened his grip on the rope harness around his brother’s chest as the dragon swooped, flapped hard, curled his wings, and landed neatly on the ledge. Salamander slid down from his back just as Medea poked her green-and-gold head out of the cave and roared a welcome.
“Rori’s brought Uncle Ebañy!” she called out in Elvish. “Mezza, Devar, come meet Uncle Ebañy!”
A smaller dragon—Salamander estimated she was perhaps fifteen feet long—waddled out of the cave. Her scales shone as golden as the sunlight on a summer afternoon, darkening on her belly to the orange-red of a sunset. Behind her came a slender hatchling about the size of a plow horse, iridescent silver like his father, though his underside was a definite dark blue to match his dragon-slit eyes. Beautiful though the three young wyrms were, the vinegar stench of dragon billowed out of the cave along with them, so strong that Salamander felt faint. He managed a decent bow to the two females, who rumbled in answer, and caught his breath at last.
Devar, his nephew, his dragon brother’s son—Salamander hardly knew how to address him. His name, Salamander could guess, came from that of his and Rori’s father, Devaberiel Silverhand. The young silver wyrm bobbed his head respectfully to his uncle. His dark blue eyes caught Salamander’s attention. He had the vertical cat-slit eye of a dragon, but, rather than round, his eyes were oval like a human or elven eye.
“Greetings.” Devar had a dark voice, but still within a human range, thanks to his youth and size. “Did you bring my new sister, too?”
“I told him about Berwynna,” Medea put in.
“Wynni’s visiting friends farther east,” Rori said. “I hope you’ll meet her someday soon.” He paused, glancing around him. “Ebañy, that tower just below us? I thought you might want to lair in it. I know the cave’s a bit dank for someone of your delicate sensibilities.” He rumbled briefly.
“Delicate as horseshit,” Salamander said, “after everything I’ve been through. Be that as it may, the tower intrigues me, and it should provide all the shelter I need, this time of year.”
“Good.” Rori turned to the hatchlings. “We have something important to discuss. Medea, it’s time you learned to hunt the Meradan.”
Medea lifted her graceful green-gold head and roared with joy.
While the afternoon sunlight lingered, Salamander clambered down the cliff face to the meadow. Medea swooped down with his saddlebags and blankets in her claws, dropped them into the high grass, then swooped up again to the ledge. When Salamander looked back, he saw that the other dragons had all gone into the cave, which must have been, therefore, far larger than it looked from the outside. With a shake of her green-and-gold tail, Medea slithered in after them.
Salamander walked over
to inspect the tower. It lacked a roof, and its wooden door and the inner ceilings had long since rotted away, but the walls still stood high, although inside green moss grew thick upon them. In the center of the roofless circle, where sunlight could reach, tall grass and some sort of bramble formed spiky tangles. Snakes and a variety of spiders and insects, Salamander assumed, lived under the greenery. He decided that he’d sleep outside the tower rather than in it.
He walked outside and glanced up, just idly, but carving on one of the higher ranks of stone caught his attention. He shaded his eyes with his hand and saw a line of lettering in the ancient style of the Elvish syllabary, picked out by the shadows of long light from the west. Craning his neck, he walked around the tower several times until he’d seen it all and could puzzle out the meaning.
“We, the last of they who stand on guard, carved these words. Traveler, if any travelers there be, we hold to our duty though no relief has reached us this hundred years.”
How much longer had they waited, he wondered, before making their retreat? Or had they all died in the tower, either in a Meradan attack or of simple old age, until the last of the last lay unburnt with no one to build him a funeral pyre? No one would ever know, he supposed.
“I’ve seen your message,” he called out. “I stand witness that you were faithful.”
The wind sighed around the stones, and in that sound he thought, just for a moment, that he heard voices answering.
In the last of the daylight the dragons flew out to hunt, Rori first, then the young. The combined beating of their wings boomed and echoed so loudly that Salamander clasped his hands over his ears and kept them there until they were well away. He scrounged himself enough fuel for a fire from the woody shrubs growing around the meadow’s edge, then considered the food he had left—half a sheep’s milk cheese, some scraps of flatbread, a sack of flour, a good chunk of purified lard, and his wooden box of soda.
Not far from the tower a little spring welled up amid tall grass. Salamander took his water bottle and hunkered down beside it. As he pulled the grass aside to reach clean water, he realized that someone had lined the spring mouth with neat blocks of stone—those watchmen of the tower, he could assume. He laid the bottle down, then used both hands to clean the grass and water weeds away until the spring welled up in a basin once again. He’d just finished when he heard the thrumming of dragon wings. A flash of silver in the sunset light, Devar circled low over him and dropped two dead rabbits on the ground next to Salamander. With a flutter of blue-and-silver wings he landed nearby.
“The rabbits are for you, Uncle,” Devar said in Elvish. “Da said you could roast them.”
“I can, indeed,” Salamander said. “My thanks, Nephew.”
“Da killed two horses for the rest of us. He and Medea are bringing them back.”
“Horses? I take it you found the Meradani army.”
“Yes. Da wouldn’t let me attack them, but it was still great fun, watching Da and Medea scare them! The horses all bucked and ran, and some of the Meradan, they ended up on the ground.”
“Splendid! How far away was this?”
“A long way north.” Devar half-opened his wings, then closed them again in the dragonish equivalent of a shrug. “That’s why they sent me on ahead with the rabbits. I can fly lots faster than the lasses can.”
Salamander considered the size of Devar’s wings and doubted it. Aloud, he said, “The horses must be heavy even for dragons to carry.”
“Yes. They had to fly slowly once they got them. Uncle, Da says that you can fly, too. Can you be a dragon like us?”
“No, alas, but I can turn myself into a magpie.”
Devar blinked at him.
“It’s a bird,” Salamander said, “a black-and-white bird that chatters a lot and loves shiny things.”
“I don’t think we have magpies in the mountains.”
“I doubt it, truly.”
Devar suddenly cocked his head, listening. “Here comes my clutch.”
Salamander concentrated on listening, but a fair many moments passed before he too heard the measured drumming of wings. The twilight began to deepen just as the three dragons, burdened with their dinner, reappeared above the valley. With a high-pitched roar, Devar leaped into the air and flew up to join them as they landed, one at a time, on the outcrop by the cave mouth.
Salamander watched as Rori divided up the kill for the hatchlings. He snapped at a greedy Devar and told him to wait for his sisters to take their share, had Mezza lick her face clean after a particularly disgusting bite of horse, and praised Medea for the care she’d taken of the younger wyrms while he’d been gone. It struck Salamander as passing strange that Rori would show the concern for this family that Rhodry Maelwaedd had never shown for his human children. He’s too much at ease in dragon form, Salamander thought. We’re pulling him back just in time.
Salamander lit his fire with a snap of his fingers. By its light he cleaned the rabbits, then wrapped them in the fresh wet grass he’d pulled earlier and set them to roast in the coals. Overhead the twilight was deepening into night. He walked away from his fire and stood in the darkness to watch the stars appearing over the remains of the stone tower. The sight moved him nearly to tears. Why, he couldn’t say, except to speculate that he had once served the Seven Cities here on the border, perhaps even among the last of the watchmen in the tower.
Dalla’s right, he thought. I must meditate more and study more and do all those things I’ve fled from all my life. While normally he found such thoughts wearisome, that night they gave him a peculiar pleasure, a sense of rightness, fitting the harsh times. All night he dreamt of the Western Mountains. He saw confused glimpses of a splendid fortress and of a city in ruins that, even in its ravaged state, dwarfed any he’d ever seen in Deverry.
On the morrow, Salamander woke to a less than splendid reality. He was eating cold roast rabbit for his breakfast when Rori glided down to the meadow. The dragon first drank from the spring, then waddled over to join him.
“My thanks for pulling the grass and suchlike away from the basin,” Rori said. “I tried to claw it away once, but all I managed to do was get mud in the water. Not having hands is a cursed nuisance.”
“I can well imagine.” Salamander paused to wipe his own greasy fingers on a clump of grass. “Devar told me that you found the Meradan last night.”
“Yes, we did. They’re some miles to the east of us, which doesn’t matter, and about two days’ march—for them, that is—to the north.” Rori considered briefly. “Which puts them a good six days from Cerr Cawnen, assuming they recaptured all their horses in time to get a full day’s march in today. How close to the army do you have to be to work whatever it is you have in mind?”
“Where I can see them but they can’t see me.”
“Easily done. Are you ready to leave?”
“I am. Let me just scatter these rabbit bones for whatever wants to eat them.”
Thanks to Rori’s powerful wings, they caught up with the Horsekin army just as the sun was reaching zenith. The enemy was marching through a narrow but long grassy valley, bordered on either side by forested hills. A silver riband of a river threaded itself through a stripe of trees for the entire length of the valley. Streams trickled from the hills to either side to join the river.
As he looked down from the height of dragonback, Salamander found himself thinking of the army as some sort of animal, huge, dangerous, but as awkward as a dragon on the ground as it plodded around clumps of trees and outcrops of rock. At every stream, it slowed to a crawl in order to ease its horses across the bad footing of the fords.
Rori circled high above to match its tedious pace. After a few miles the army halted, or at least, the front ranks halted, then those behind them, and so on down the entire length of the column in a sort of convulsion or ripple that at last reached the slaves and servants at the rear. Have they seen us? Salamander wondered, then realized that the Horsekin were merely pausing to rest
their horses. Noontide heat shimmered on the hills.
Rori dropped a little lower, close enough for Salamander to see the tiny figures of riders dismounting. He noticed that they kept glancing up at the sky. As the army spread out into the grassy meadows on the western side of the river, Rori banked a wing and turned toward the western hills. On the highest hill, huge boulders and outcrops of pale brown rock emerged from the forest cover like the knuckles of an enormous fist. Rori soared up to the summit, circled once, and landed upon one of the outcrops. Salamander slid down from his back.
“How’s this?” Rori said. “You’ve got a clear view down to the valley floor, but you can hide among the trees as well.”
“It should do splendidly,” Salamander said. “Are you going back to the lair?”
“No. If you’re spotted, they’ll come after you, and you’ll need a way out.”
“I can fly, you know.”
“As fast and far as I can?”
“Well, no, and I think me I see some archers down there. An arrow that would bounce off you would skewer the magpie. Your company will be much appreciated as always.”
Salamander untied his saddlebags and bedroll from the dragon’s harness. As the sun beat down on the pale rocks, sweat began to soak through his linen tunic. He took his gear and slid down between two massive boulders to the bare dirt and sliver of shade between them, but Rori stretched out in the full sun with a sigh like the sound of a wave breaking on a graveled beach.
Thanks to the steep rise of this particular hill coupled with his elven sight, Salamander could indeed look straight down to the army below. He was searching specifically for the white garments that marked the priestesses of Alshandra and the white mules they generally rode as well. Fortunately for his plans, he saw a good two dozen women in white, surrounded by slaves and servants, all in darker clothing, and among the horses, a little herd of white mules. The large number of priestesses in fact surprised him, until he remembered that their Holy Witness Raena had died in Cerr Cawnen. Most likely they were planning on founding a temple and shrine once the army had taken the city.