Daggerspell
Yet even though Aderyn had dispelled the storm, it still slowed the army down. Soggy provisions had to be repacked; wet blankets, wrung out; mail, rubbed dry; nervous horses, soothed. They set out a good hour later than they might have—an hour that meant three more miles between them and Corbyn.
“We’re leaving the carts behind,” Rhodry snapped. “Jill, ride next to me. We’re going all out to catch the bastard.”
When Jill rode into line, her heart was pounding in fear. For all that she’d bragged to Aderyn, wearing unfamiliar mail was going to slow her down, and speed was her greatest weapon in any fight. Her shoulders ached like fire from the weight. But when Rhodry gave her one of his berserker grins, she smiled back at him with a little toss of her head. Cursed if she’d let him see that she was afraid!
The army went at a walk-trot pace, which meant they could do five miles an hour compared to Corbyn’s three. As they rode, Jill looked up constantly, and after a few miles she saw a hawk, circling high above them. Her stomach clenched. When the hawk flew away, it headed straight north. They rode on, past farms shut up tight against the doings of warring lords, through fields and woodlands. Jill decided that dying in battle would be easy, compared to this clammy fear that clung to her.
And yet, in the end, Corbyn escaped them. They came to a stubbled field, where they saw provision carts, some ten wounded horses, and fourteen wounded men, dumped there by their lord to live or die with no help from him. Corbyn had left everything behind that might slow him down and was making a run for Dun Bruddlyn.
“Ah, horseshit, and a pile of it!” Rhodry snarled. “We’ll never catch them now.” For a long moment he sat slumped in the saddle, then looked up with a sigh. “Well, no help for it, huh? Let’s go see what we can do for these poor bastards. The baggage train and the chirurgeons will catch up to us soon enough.”
As she dismounted, Jill was thinking that she’d never met a lord as honorable as he. Together they walked over to the improvised camp, where wounded men lay shivering in wet blankets on the ground. Loddlaen’s storm had swept over them, too. One man stood, leaning against a cart, his head wrapped in a bloody bandage and his right arm splinted. When he saw Rhodry, two thin trails of tears ran down his face.
“What’s your name, lad?” Rhodry said. “And how long have you been here?”
“Lanyc, my lord, and since last night. We all camped here last night, and then they left us.”
“And did your lord give you any choice in the matter?”
“None, my lord, or well, none to the others. I said I’d stay with them. At least I can stand, and I’ve been trying to feed everybody.” Lanyc paused, looking at Rhodry with eyes half drunk with pain. “It was the sorcerer, my lord. Lord Corbyn never would have deserted us, but Loddlaen made him. I saw it. He ensorceled him. Ah, ye gods, I’d rather be your prisoner than shut up with that stinking sorcerer.”
“Ye gods,” Jill said. “I don’t blame you a bit.”
At the sound of her voice, Lanyc sobbed under his breath.
“A lass. A lass with a sword.”
Then he burst out weeping.
The baggage train creaked up about an hour later. Rhodry set the two remaining chirurgeons to doing what they could for Corbyn’s men, but Aderyn joined in the council of war. The lords stood despondently in a circle and looked at the muddy ground.
“Well, that’s torn it,” Sligyn said. “Might as well ride on and invest him anyway, eh? It’s the honor of the thing.”
“True enough,” Rhodry said. “Ah, by the hells, he’s probably got messengers on their way to Rhys right now, begging him to intervene. It’s going to hurt when my ugly brother calls me off like a hound from the kill.”
“Indeed, my lord?” Aderyn broke in. “What if the messengers never reach him?”
All the lords turned to look at this frail old man who held power beyond what they could even dream of.
“Loddlaen has to be stopped, and now. Do you think Gwerbret Rhys is going to believe us if we tell him that Loddlaen incited this rebellion with dweomer? Of course not. And then Loddlaen will get off lightly in the malover by paying a blood price for the man he killed back in our lands, and he’ll be free to work more mischief.”
“That’s all well and good,” Rhodry said. “But even if we catch the messengers, they’ll testify against us to Rhys unless we kill them. Cursed if I’ll kill a pair of helpless men.”
“Never would I want you to,” Aderyn said with a small smile. “Leave them to me, lord cadvridoc. I won’t harm a hair on their heads, but Rhys will never get Corbyn’s message. I promise you that.”
• • •
The line of carts carrying the wounded moved slowly and stopped often to let the men rest. At noon, they lingered for a long time while Nevyn and the chirurgeon did what they could. Nevyn had just found time to get himself something to eat when he felt Aderyn’s mind calling to him. He walked a little ways to a tiny brook and used the sun dancing on the water as a focus. Aderyn’s image built up quickly.
“Did you catch Corbyn?” Nevyn thought to him.
“We didn’t, blast him. He’s going to stand a siege in his dun. Quick—tell me somewhat. You know the politics of Eldidd a fair sight better than I do. Suppose Corbyn were going to send a desperate message to some ally, asking him to relieve the siege. Who would it be?”
“Oh, come now, do you really think he’d be that stupid? He should be sending a messenger to Rhys to sue for peace.”
Aderyn’s eyes were unusually sly.
“No doubt he is. But answer my question anyway. I’ll explain later when there’s more time.”
“Well and good, then. Let me think. Huh. Talidd of Belglaedd, no doubt.”
“My thanks.”
And then the image was gone, leaving Nevyn to wonder just what scheme his old pupil had afoot.
Because Lord Corbyn received coin in taxes from his bridge over the Delonderiel, Dun Bruddlyn was a solid fort, ringed by stone walls and large enough to house a warband of over a hundred men. Although Loddlaen usually hated being penned up there, he was glad to reach it that night. As what was left of the army crawled in the gates, Loddlaen turned his horse over to a servant and hurried up to his chambers on the top floor of the broch. He threw back the shutters from the window in his bedchamber and leaned out into the clean evening air. He was so exhausted that he was close to tears.
It was all Aderyn’s fault, he told himself, all his fault because he wouldn’t let me send the storm like I wanted. Well, maybe the old man won the first skirmish, but there’ll be other battles.
“I’m not defeated yet!” Loddlaen snarled in Elvish. “No, not I, Loddlaen the Mighty, Master of the Powers of Air!”
But when he turned from the window, he saw Aderyn, standing in the middle of the chamber. The image was so clear and solid that Loddlaen cried out, thinking that he was there in the body. Only when the vision wavered slightly did he realize that it was a projection and that he had forgotten to set his astral seals over the dun.
“Lad, lad, my son, please, listen to me. You still have one last chance. I know that someone was working on you, using you. Surrender now and make restitution. If any more men die because of you, you’ll be beyond forgiveness. Surrender now while you can still be helped.”
Aderyn looked so heartsick that Loddlaen sobbed once aloud. His father was standing there, offering to forgive him; his father had known all along what he’d only just discovered, that he’d been ensorceled, that he’d been weak and stupid enough to let himself be ensorceled by an enemy in disguise.
“Lad,” Aderyn said. “I beg you.”
Shame, embarrassment, a kind of self-loathing—they rose, choking him, turning suddenly to dirty smoke that filled the room and obscured Aderyn’s image. Loddlaen wanted to cry out, to reach out his hand to his father, but the smoke was making him gag, and all at once, he was furious, trembling and screaming with rage.
“Get out! Get out! I don’t need your help!”
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Loddlaen called up power and threw a stream of pure force, a barrage of fiery light, but long before it could hit the image was gone. Loddlaen fell to his knees and wept in the midst of the churning, filthy smoke, which slowly, a wisp at a time, cleared of its own accord.
It was a long time before he could get himself under control. He rose and staggered to a small table, where a pitcher of mead and a goblet stood ready, poured himself a full goblet, and drank it straight down. All at once, he could no longer bear to be alone. Goblet still in hand, he ran out of the chamber and hurried down the spiral staircase.
Lord Corbyn’s great hall was a hot, smoky confusion of men, sitting at tables, standing in the curve of the wall, talking in low voices, or merely drinking ale down as fast as the servants could pour it. Loddlaen took his usual place at Corbyn’s right. Across from him was Nowec, his eyes dazed as he looked around him. Even though Loddlaen had lost the others, he’d been able to keep his ensorcelment upon this lord. Corbyn was eating a slice of roast pork, biting into it, then cutting off the bite with a greasy dagger.
“Glad you came down, councillor,” Nowec said. “Your lord and I have just been discussing sending messengers to the gwerbret to sue for peace.”
“He’ll grant decent terms,” Corbyn said, his voice too loud with a false cheer. “But we’ve got to get the men on their way tonight. I’ll wager Rhodry invests us tomorrow.”
Both men looked expectantly at Loddlaen.
“Of course,” Loddlaen snapped. “You don’t need dweomer to tell you the obvious.”
Both lords nodded sheepishly. Corbyn fanged his pork and sawed off another mouth-filling bite.
“We need to know exactly where Rhodry is,” Nowec said. “Can’t have the messengers blundering right into them.”
Corbyn nodded his agreement, then belched. Loddlaen could stand them no longer.
“I’ll attend to it straightaway.”
As he hurried up to his chamber, he was sweating with fear. He was too afraid of Aderyn to scry on the etheric plane, and that meant he would have to fly. Trying to shape-change when exhausted was dangerous. Upon entering his chamber, he lit the candle lantern with a snap of his fingers. Seeing the flame spring to his call soothed him. He still had power, more power than those round-eared dogs even knew, him, Loddlaen the Mighty! He stripped off his clothes and threw them onto the bed. Not even the mightiest masters of the dweomer could transform dead matter like cloth.
Loddlaen laid his hands far apart on the windowsill and stared up at the starry sky until he was perfectly calm. Slowly he felt power gather, carefully he invoked more, until it flowed through his mind like a mighty river. In his mind, he formulated the image of the red hawk, many times life size, proud and cruel, then sent the picture forward until it perched on the windowsill between his hands. At this point the hawk image existed only in Loddlaen’s imagination, and it was only in imagination that he transferred his consciousness over to the bird. He had spent years on tedious mental exercises that allowed him to imagine that he stood on the windowsill and saw the view below with the hawk’s eyes. Keeping his consciousness firmly focused in the hawk, he chanted the power word, a simple hypnotic device, that opened the door to the etheric for him. When he saw the view through the cold blue light, he knew that he’d transferred his consciousness up a level.
At this point, things had gone beyond simple imagination. When he glanced back, he saw his body slumped on the floor and joined to the hawk with a silver cord. He could have scried on the etheric with the hawk as a body of light, but he had a more dangerous plan. In his mind he chanted a second set of words, one that only the Elcyion Lacar knew, and saw the lips of his body twitch in rhythm. When he flexed the hawk’s wings, the arms below him raised. Now came the true difficulty. The etheric double of every person is like a matrix that holds and forms flesh; if the double is strong enough, the flesh will follow its lead. Loddlaen chanted, struggled, bent all his will into the imagining that is more than imagination until at last, with one final wail of chant, the etheric drew the physical into its new mold.
Loddlaen the man was gone from the chamber. Only the hawk stood on the windowsill and stretched proud wings. With a harsh cry of triumph, Loddlaen sprang into the night and flew out over the dun. He loved flying, the perfect freedom of drifting on the wind, the view from on high, where every fort and house seemed just a tiny toy, scattered by a child’s careless hand. Even in the hawk form, Loddlaen retained the etheric sight that was so important a part of the transformation. The countryside below glowed in the bluey night with the reddish auras of the living vegetation. Here and there were daubs of yellow glow where horses or cows huddled together. Following the cold black strip of road, Loddlaen flew south until he saw the gleaming mass of auras that had to be the men and horses of Rhodry’s army.
Loddlaen flew upward to gain height, then circled in a long sweep about the camp. His mind was alert, feeling out the etheric plane for the traces of Aderyn’s dweomer working. When he found none, he assumed that the old man was asleep or busy wasting his time by tending wounds. Then he heard a cry, the soft mournful note of the owl. With a start and a flap of terror, Loddlaen beat hard against the wind and gained more height. He saw a trace of silvery motion below him as the great silver owl sprang out of the trees. In stark terror, Loddlaen turned on the wind current and raced for the dun, beating his wings hard and steadily until he was sure he’d left the clumsier owl behind. Yet even though he reached the dun safely, as he settled onto the windowsill he heard or thought he heard a call, one soft note of mourning drifting in the night.
Toward noon of the next day, Rhodry’s army reached Corbyn’s demesne. Everywhere the farmhouses were shut up tight, with not so much as a chicken out in the farmyard. From bitter experience the farmers knew that the army of even a lord like Rhodry would steal any fresh food that came its way. Corbyn’s dun stood at the top of a low artificial hill in the middle of a big stretch of open pasture, but none of his lordship’s cows were to be seen when the army reached it. Leaving the carts behind, they trotted over, fully armed and ready in case Corbyn stupidly tried to sally, but they found the heavy iron-bound gates shut. Up on the catwalks men stood half hidden by the merlons. Defiant at the top of the broch flew Corbyn’s green banner. Rhodry ordered his men to fan out and surround the fort. The investment had officially begun.
Just as the carts arrived, Corbyn sent out a herald, his aged chamberlain Graemyn, trembling even though he carried the beribboned staff that would have kept him safe from even the most murderous lord in all Deverry. When he saw the portly old man puffing down the hill, Rhodry dismounted and honorably walked a few steps to meet him—but he made sure he stayed out of bowshot of the dun.
“Greetings, Lord Rhodry. My lord Corbyn requests that you withdraw from his lands.”
“Tell your lord that I respectfully decline to fulfill his request. He is a rebel and under my proscription.”
“Indeed?” Graemyn licked nervous lips. “Even now messengers are riding to Gwerbret Rhys to sue for his intervention in this affair of war.”
“Then I’ll wait here with my army until His Grace arrives. You may consider yourselves under full siege until the gwerbret personally orders me to withdraw. Tell your lord also that he’s harboring a murderer, Loddlaen, his councillor, and that I demand he be turned over to me speedily for trial.”
Graemyn blinked twice, then trembled a little harder.
“I have sworn witnesses to Loddlaen’s crimes,” Rhodry said. “If Loddlaen is not delivered to me by nightfall, then your lord is twice in rebellion. There’s one more thing, good herald. Although I’m determined to prosecute this war against Corbyn, I’m extending pardon to Nowec and his men. All they have to do ride out and ask for it.”
Graemyn turned and fled, trotting as fast as his short breath would allow. Rhodry laughed, then walked back, shouting out orders to the army to settle in and start digging earthworks.
Needless to say, nightfall came
without Loddlaen being handed over, but by then the army was firmly entrenched. The carts were drawn up in a circle and guarded by a narrow ditch and bank; the tents were raised and surrounded by a broader one. Armed patrols trotted endlessly round the hill in case Corbyn tried to escape. As the men settled down to their well-earned dinner, Rhodry and Sligyn walked through the camp for an inspection.
“I wonder if any of this will do us the least bit of good,” Sligyn said gloomily. “It’s all very well for Aderyn to ramble on about stopping the messengers, but what could he have done? Can’t see one old man murdering them on the road, eh?”
“After all the cursed dweomer I’ve seen, I’m ready to believe anything. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
As it turned out, the wait was a short one. Round noon the next day, a guard ran up to Rhodry with the news that a noble lord, come with an escort of twelve men, was waiting just outside the camp. The lord turned out to be Talidd of Belglaedd, who owed direct fealty to the gwerbret. Since Rhodry could only assume that he was there with a message from Rhys, he was cursing inwardly as he bowed. A man of close to forty, Talidd looked shrewdly on the world out of narrow green eyes.
“And what brings you to me, my lord?”
“A very strange business.” Talidd turned to gesture to his men. “Bring those prisoners here.”
When they were led up, Rhodry recognized them as two of Corbyn’s men. They knelt at Rhodry’s feet and stared at the ground in humiliated shock.
“Did you know that my sister is Corbyn’s wife?” Talidd said.
“I didn’t. She has my sympathy.”
Talidd allowed himself a twitch of a smile.
“I should say she was Corbyn’s wife. When she and her women came to me at the beginning of this blasted war, I made a vow that she’d never go back to her piss-poor excuse of a husband even if you didn’t hang him. He’s driven her mad, stark raving mad! She’s been babbling about evil dweomermen lurking everywhere, and evil spirits taking Corbyn over, until I can’t stand it anymore.”