Daggerspell

  “I don’t like this,” Nowec snarled. “I’m sick to my heart of all this stinking dishonor. That ruse this morning is enough.”

  All the others turned to look at him with a flash of guilt in their eyes.

  “Do we fight like men, or do we fight like filthy rabble?”

  “Oh, now, here.” Lord Cenydd stepped forward, a paunchy man with a thick, gray mustache. “Which is more dishonorable—to use the wits the gods gave us, or to kill noble-born men when we don’t even have a feud going with them?”

  “True spoken,” Corbyn put in. “Our quarrel’s with Rhodry and no one else.”

  “Pig’s balls!” Nowec spat out. “You’re afraid of the gwerbret intervening and naught else. I don’t like it, I tell you, sneaking around like a pack of stray dogs creeping up on a townsman’s slop heap.”

  The younger lords were wavering, stung by Nowec’s words, and Corbyn and Cenydd were unable to look him in the face. Loddlaen sent out a line of force from his aura and used it to slap Nowec’s aura, just as a child uses a whip to spin a top. The lord staggered slightly, and his eyes turned glazed.

  “But my lord,” Loddlaen said in a soothing sort of voice. “If we drag out the war, we could kill Sligyn or Peredyr by mistake. That would be a grievous thing.”

  “So it would.” His anger quite gone, Nowec spoke slowly. “I agree, councillor. The plan’s a good one.”

  “Then no one has any objections?” Corbyn got in quickly. “Splendid. Go give your captains their orders.”

  As the council of war broke up, Loddlaen slipped away before Corbyn noticed. He couldn’t bear the thought of sitting and drinking with his stinking lordship. As he walked through the camp, he noticed the men glancing sidewise at him and furtively crossing their fingers to ward off witchcraft. They were afraid of him, the mangy dogs, as well they might be—let them cower before Loddlaen the Mighty, Master of the Powers of Air! At the edge of the camp, he paused, debating. As badly as he wanted to get away from the army for a little while, he was quite simply afraid to go out alone with Aderyn so close by. Finally he went to his tent, ordered his manservant out, and lay down fully dressed on his blankets.

  Noise filtered in, men laughing and talking as they strolled by, swords clanking at their sides. Once, Loddlaen’s trained mind had been capable of shutting such distractions out; now, they drove him to rage. Fists clenched at his side, jaw tight, he lay shaking, trying to close down his senses and let sleep come. He did not want to summon the darkness. All at once, he was afraid of it, afraid of the voice that would pour into his mind as smoothly as oil.

  Yet, in the end, it came to him. He saw it first as a tiny black point in his mind; then it began to swell. He fought it, tried to fill his mind with light, tried to banish the dark with ritual gesture and curse, but inexorably it grew, billowed, until he seemed to stand in a vast darkness, and the voice spoke to him, gently, patiently.

  “Why do you fear me, you of all dweomermasters, Loddlaen the Mighty? All I want to do is aid you, to be your friend and ally. I came to sorrow with you, that so clever a plan went astray. You almost trapped Rhodry today.”

  “Who are you?”

  “A friend and naught more. I have information for you. That silver dagger is the key to everything. You have to kill him before you can kill Rhodry. I’ve been meditating and doing deep workings, my friend, and I’ve seen that the forces of Wyrd are at work here.”

  “Well and good, but who are you?”

  The voice chuckled once. The blackness was gone. Loddlaen lay there sweating for a moment and blessed what he had just cursed—the normal human noise of the army around him. Then he got up and left the tent to find Corbyn’s captain. He wanted to give him some special orders about this wretched silver dagger.

  Cullyn came awake suddenly to find Sligyn hunkering down next to him. The wheel of the stars showed that it was close to dawn.

  “Old Nevyn just woke me,” Sligyn said. “Corbyn’s army is getting ready to ride. Those dishonorable scum are going to make a dawn strike on us.”

  “Oh, are they, now? Well, then, my lord, we’d best pull a trick of our own.”

  When Cullyn explained, Sligyn roared with laughter and woke up half the camp. The provision carts were already drawn up in a circle some hundred yards from camp with the horses in their midst. Half the men readied the horses while the others arranged saddlebags and gear under blankets to look like sleeping men. Then the armed and ready warband hid in the circle of carts, each man crouched beside his horse. To the rear huddled the servants and suchlike; up in front stood the spearmen, ready to fill the gap in the circle once the horsemen rode out.

  Cullyn took his place beside Sligyn just as the sky was lightening to a gray like mole’s fur. In the chilly dawn, the army trotted closer and closer across the wide meadow. The news whispered through Rhodry’s men—get ready to mount and ride.

  At the far end of the meadow, Corbyn’s army drew up, paused for a moment, then began to sort itself out into a long line for the charge. Cullyn began to wonder if they would see through his ruse; if the camp truly was asleep, by now someone would have been wakened by the noise of the distant jingling of tack. Walking their horses, the army came on, then broke into a trot, on and on—and suddenly they were galloping, charging to the sound of horns and warcries straight for what they thought was the sleeping camp. Their javelins sped ahead of them into the fake bodies on the ground.

  “Now!” Rhodry screamed.

  There was an awkward shoving scramble in the narrow space as the warband swung itself into the saddle. Shrieking at the top of his lungs, Sligyn led out the squad of lords, and their men surged out after them in ranks of four abreast. Out ahead, the startled enemies were swearing and yelling as they tried to check the momentum of their charge and wheel to face this unexpected attack. As they galloped, Rhodry’s army sent their javelins on ahead of them. Horses reared and men screamed as Corbyn’s line broke into a disorganized mob.

  “For Corbyn!” Cullyn yelled, and he glanced back to make sure that Rhodry was safely in the midst of the squad.

  Sligyn wheeled his unit along the battle’s edge just as the main armies hit. Horses dodged and reared as the two lines passed through each other like the fingers of one hand woven through those of the other. The riders turned them and swung back to break off into single combats or the occasional clot of fighting. Cullyn stayed close to Sligyn as the lord led his squad around the field. Suddenly Sligyn howled in triumph and kicked his horse to a gallop. Taken by surprise, Cullyn fell a little behind as the lord charged for his prey—a lord with a green and tan blazon on his shield. Cullyn heard Rhodry’s crazed berserker laugh sweep by him as the unit charged after Sligyn.

  Riding hard, Cullyn galloped after, but a man on a black cut him off, coming straight for him. As Cullyn wheeled his horse, he got a glimpse of pouchy eyes and a dark-stubbled chin under the enemy’s helm. They swung, parried, trading blow for blow while he swore and yelled and Cullyn stayed dead silent, flicking away the enemy’s sword with his own until in frustration the man tried a hard side swing that left his right unguarded. Cullyn caught the strike on his shield and slashed in to catch him solidly on the right arm. Blood welled through his mail as the bone snapped. Grunting in pain, he dropped the sword and tried to turn his horse. Cullyn let him go. He wanted Corbyn.

  Ahead, Sligyn’s squad was mobbing around Corbyn and some of Corbyn’s men, fighting ably to defend their lord. Cullyn urged his horse forward just as a fresh squad of green-and-tans galloped up.

  “My lord Sligyn! The flank!”

  But the enemy was riding for him, not for Sligyn. Cullyn wrenched his horse around to meet the enemy charge just as they swarmed around and enveloped him from all sides.

  “The silver dagger! Get him!”

  Cullyn had no time to wonder why they were mobbing a silver dagger as if he were a noble lord. A blow cracked him across the left shoulder from the flank as the man in front of him angled for a stab. Cullyn parrie
d it barely in time and twisted away, slashing out at the man pushing in from his right. They could get four on him at once, and all he could do was twist and duck and slash back and forth. He caught a strike on his shield that cracked the wood; then he felt a stab like fire on his left side. Over the screaming battle noise he heard Rhodry’s laugh, coming closer.

  Gasping with pain, Cullyn killed the man in front of him with a slash to the throat that collapsed his windpipe and knocked him off his horse, but there was another enemy waiting to take his place. A hard blow made fire run down Cullyn’s left arm. He twisted in the saddle and tried to parry, but the shield dragged his broken arm down. With a curse he let it fall and twisted back to fend a blow from the right. Rhodry’s laugh sounded louder, but still too far away.

  Suddenly the man at Cullyn’s left flank screamed, and his horse reared to fall dead. Something sped through the air past Cullyn’s face. The arrow pierced the mail on the enemy at his right with a gout of blood. The man tried to turn his horse, but another arrow caught him in the back, and he went down with a cry. The mob peeled off and tried to flee, but they turned straight into Rhodry’s men, charging to meet them. In the last clear moment left to him, Cullyn saw Jennantar riding up with a curved bow in his hands. Cullyn dropped his sword and tried to hold on to the saddle peak, but his gauntlets were slippery with his own blood. He stared at them in amazement as darkness came out of nowhere, and he fell, sliding over his horse’s neck.

  It seemed that he was trying to swim to the surface of a deep blue river. Every now and then, he drew close; he could see light ahead and hear what sounded like Nevyn’s voice, but every time, a vast eddying billow would sweep him back down where he would choke, drowning in the blue. All at once, he heard a voice, mocking him, a smooth little voice that poured into his mind like oil. It seemed that the voice was coming closer out of the billowing blue stuff around him. At that point he noticed a glowing silver cord that stretched from his oddly insubstantial body down to—somewhere. He couldn’t see its destination. Another wave enveloped him in a shifting, sinking blueness. The voice poured over him again, taunting, mocking him for a dead man.

  Suddenly he saw Nevyn—or a pale blue image of him—a ghost, a shadow? In whatever form the old man was striding to meet him, and as he came, he was chanting in some peculiar language. The blue river seemed to slow, to hold steady. Nevyn reached out and caught his hand.

  All at once, Cullyn found himself awake. A solid, fleshly Nevyn was leaning over him in sunlight. In spite of his warrior’s will, Cullyn moaned aloud from the pain burning down side and shoulder. When he tried to move, the splints on his left arm clattered on the wagon bed.

  “Easy, my friend,” Nevyn said. “Lie still.”

  “Water?”

  Someone slipped an arm under his head and raised it, then held a cup of water to his lips. He gulped it down.

  “Want more?” Rhodry said.

  “I do.”

  Rhodry helped him drink another cupful, then wiped his face with a wet rag.

  “I tried to reach you in time,” the lad said. “Please believe me—I tried to reach you.”

  “I know.” Cullyn was puzzled by his urgency. “What of Corbyn?”

  “Escaped. Don’t let that trouble you now.”

  The sunny sky circled and swooped around him. He fell into the darkness, but this time, it was only sleep.

  While servants carried Cullyn away and laid another wounded man on the wagon bed, Nevyn washed his bloody hands in a bucket of water. Only he knew how hard he’d had to fight to save Cullyn’s life; he was rather amazed at himself, that he’d actually been able to go into a trance and stay standing up. A little green sprite crouched on the ground and solemnly watched as he dried his hands on a clean strip of cloth. Nevyn risked whispering to her.

  “You were right to warn me. My thanks to you and your friends.”

  The sprite grinned, showing blue pointed teeth, then vanished. If the Wildfolk hadn’t warned him, Nevyn might never have realized that someone was up on the higher planes, trying to drive Cullyn’s etheric double away from his body and then snap the silver cord that bound him to life. Someone. Not Loddlaen, but someone who stank of dark things, someone who was standing behind him or perhaps even hiding behind him.

  “You overreached yourself badly, my nasty little friend,” Nevyn said aloud. “Now I know you’re there, and I’ll recognize you when we meet again.”

  Just before dawn Jill woke, tossed irritably in bed for a while, then got up and dressed. When she came down to the great hall, the servants were yawning as they took the sods off the fire and fanned the coals to life. Lady Lovyan was already seated at the head of the honor table. When Jill made her a bow, Lovyan waved her over to sit beside her.

  “So, child. You had trouble sleeping, too?”

  “I did, Your Grace. I usually do when Da’s off to war.”

  A servant hurried over with bowls of steaming barley porridge and butter. While Jill and Lovyan ate, the men on fortguard began trickling in in twos and threes, yawning and chivying the servant lasses. One of them must have tripped or suchlike, because from behind her Jill heard the clatter and ring of a scabbard striking against a table. She started to turn round to look, but the noise rang out again and again, like a bell tolling, louder, ever louder until she heard a battle raging, the clash and clang of sword on shield, the whinnying of horses, men screaming and cursing. She heard her own voice, too, babbling of what she saw

  as indeed she did see it, spread out below her in the meadow, as if she hovered over the battle like a gull on the wind. Rhodry was trying to force his way into a mob around one rider, and he was howling with laughter, utterly berserk as he swung and parried with a blood-running sword. The man inside the mob could barely swing; he turned desperately in the saddle. Cullyn. Jill heard her voice rise to a shriek and sob as Jennantar’s arrows sped past her father and one by one, began to bring his enemies down. At last Rhodry was through, leaping off his horse in time to catch Cullyn as he fell

  and the battle noise faded away into the sound of her own sobs and Lovyan’s frightened voice, barking orders to the servants. Jill looked up straight into Lovyan’s face and realized that her ladyship had her arms tight round her. Leaning over her was Dwgyn, captain of the fortguard.

  “Your Grace,” he burst out. “What—”

  “Dweomer, you dolt!” Lovyan said. “What else could it be, and her a friend of Nevyn’s and all?”

  Jill’s tears stopped, wiped away by the icy realization that Lovyan was speaking the truth. She felt herself shaking like an aspen in the wind as a servant ran over with a bit of elderberry wine. Lovyan forced her to drink it.

  “Jill, is your father dead?”

  “He’s not, but he’s as close to it as he can be. Your Grace, please, I beg you, I’ve got to ride to him. What if he dies, and I’ve never gotten to say farewell?”

  “Well, here, my heart aches for you, but you’ll never be able to find the army.”

  “Won’t I, Your Grace?”

  Lovyan shuddered.

  “Besides,” Jill went on, “that battle was hard-fought. Lord Rhodry’s going to need as many men of the fortguard as you can send him. I know I can lead them straight there, I truly do know it. They’re only some twenty miles away. Please, Your Grace.”

  Lovyan sighed and stood up from the bench, then ran shaking hands through her hair.

  “Done, then,” she said at last. “Dwgyn, get thirty men ready to ride straightaway.”

  As Jill ran up to her chamber to get her gear, she was cursing her Wyrd, hating herself and hating the dweomer for taking her over. But for her beloved father’s sake, she would use any weapon that came her way.

  There were times when the depth of his pride surprised even Rhodry himself. His back hurt so badly from the kicks and bruises of the day before that he could barely stand, and now that the berserker fit had left him, he was feeling every new blow that he’d gotten, but he drove himself to accompan
y Sligyn on a tour through the somber camp. The men were bringing in the dead from the battlefield. Everywhere Rhodry heard men cursing or keening as they recognized dead friends. They needed to see their cadvridoc on his feet.

  “Do we call this a victory or not?” Rhodry said.

  “Corbyn’s the one who fled, eh?”

  Down near the supply wagons, Jennantar and Calonderiel were standing guard over the prisoners, who slouched on the ground in twos or threes, clinging together for comfort. Most were wounded, but they’d have to wait for the chirurgeons to finish with Rhodry’s men.

  “Any news of Cullyn?” Jennantar asked.

  “Still the same.” Rhodry wearily rubbed the side of his face. “I came to thank you.”

  “No thanks needed. He did his best to save the life of a friend of mine. I would have loosed more shafts, but I was afraid of hitting you and your men. I came close enough to killing Cullyn as it was.”

  “Better you than one of those scum.”

  “Well, you pulled him out in the end, eh?” Sligyn laid a fatherly hand on Rhodry’s arm. “All that matters, eh? In the laps of the gods, now.”

  Rhodry nodded. He could never explain, not even to himself in any clear way, just why it was so important that he be the man who saved Cullyn. He should have pulled him out of the mob just so they would have been even on that favor. It was important, perhaps the most important thing in his life, that each owe the other nothing—and yet he couldn’t say why.

  His tunic red with gore, Aderyn trotted up with a couple of servants laden with medical supplies.

  “Your men are all tended, lord cadvridoc. But Nevyn said to tell you that Lord Daumyr just died.”

  Rhodry tossed back his head and keened. Now a noble-born man had died for his sake. Sligyn tightened his grip on Rhodry’s arm and swore under his breath.