“Now, by all of Zandru’s hells—” Bard began, but Prince Beltran rode forward, looming over the little man in his miller’s apron.
“I am very willing to pay a head tax to the Lord of Dalereuth.” he said. “I am sure he would appreciate the head of an insolent fellow like you. Rannvil—” he gestured, and one of the horsemen drew his sword. “Open the gates, man; don’t be a fool.”
The toll-keeper, his teeth chattering, went to the mechanism that trundled the great toll gate aside. Beltran contemptuously flung the man a few coins. “Here’s your tribute. But if this gate is barred against us when we come back, take my word for it, I’ll have my men tear it out of the ground and set your head on top of it to scare away crows!”
As they passed through, Bard heard the man grumbling and leaned down from his horse to grab him by the shoulder. “Whatever you said, say it aloud to our faces, you!” The man looked up, his jaw set and wrathful. He said, “I have no part in the quarrels of my betters, vai dom. Why should I suffer because you noblemen can’t keep your borders? All I care about is running my mill. But you won’t come back this way, or at all. I have nothing to do with what waits for you at the ford yonder. Now, if you wish, win honor by killing an unarmed man!”
Bard let him go and straightened up. He said, “Kill you? Why? Thanks for your warning; you’ve been well paid.” He watched the man go off toward his mill, and although he had been a soldier since his fourteenth year, he frowned and suddenly wondered why it should be this way. Why should every nobleman who chose demand that he be sovereign over his own land? That only made more work for mercenaries.
Perhaps, he thought, all this land should be under one rule, with peace at the borders, from the Hellers to the sea… and little men like this could grow their crops and turn their mills in peace… and I could live on the estates the king has given me, with Carlina…
But there was no leisure to think of that now. He called urgently to Master Gareth, raising his hand to halt the men.
“I have had a warning,” he said, “that something waits for us at that ford; but I see nothing. Does your bird give you warning, or has either of your women seen anything by their spells?”
Master Gareth beckoned to Mirella, shrouded in her cloak, and spoke to her, softly. She took her starstone from about her throat and gazed into it
After a moment she said, in a low, neutral voice, “There is neither man nor beast at the ford to wait for us; but there is darkness there, and a barrier we may not be able to pass. We must go with great care, kinsman.”
Master Gareth raised his eyes and met Bard’s. He said, “She has the Sight; if there is a darkness that she cannot penetrate, we must indeed go with the greatest of care, sir.”
But the ford lay calm and peaceful in the sunlight, shallow ripples swirling with glints of crimson. Bard frowned, trying to assess what lay before them. He could see nothing, no signs of ambush, no twig or branch stirring on the far side of the ford, where a path led up between overgrown trees. That would, indeed, be a good place for ambush.
“If you cannot see beyond the ford by sorcery or the Sight,” he said, “can the sentry bird pass and see if there is any ambush hidden beyond?”
Master Gareth nodded. “To be sure; the bird is only a beast and has nothing to do with sorcery or the magic of the trained mind. The only magic about the bird is the skill Melora and I have to remain in rapport with the creature. Melora,” he called, “child, let the sentry bird go.”
Bard watched as the fierce bird rose high over the ford, circling. After a time, Master Gareth shook himself, waked, beckoned to Melora, who reached out her hand and took the bird as it came circling back, stroking its feathers and feeding it tidbits before slipping the hood over its head. Master Gareth said, “There is no one, man or beast, hidden beyond the ford; no living creature for many leagues except a girl herding a flock of rabbithorns. Whatever waits here at the ford, vai dom, it is not an ambush of armed men.”
Bard and Beltran exchanged glances. Finally Beltran said, “We cannot wait here all day for a terror no one can see. I think we must ride to the ford; but Master Gareth, stay back, for we must keep you in reserve if you are needed. I have known sorcerers to set a forest or a field ablaze in the path of armies on the march; and I suppose there could be something like that beyond the ford. We must be wary of that. Bard, will you order the men to ride?”
Bard’s skin prickled. He had had this reaction once or twice before in the presence of laran; he had little enough of it himself, but somehow he could scent it. There was, he knew, a talent which could sniff out the use of laran; perhaps, if he had been trained in its use, he would have had that. It might have been useful after all. He had always thought that Geremy, training as a laranzu, was somehow less a man, less a soldier, than Beltran and himself. Now, watching Master Gareth, he began to realize that this work might have its own dangers and terrors, even though a laranzu rode unarmed into battle. That, in itself, might be frightening enough, Bard thought, laying his hand for reassurance on his sword.
He turned to the men and commanded, “Count off by fours!” He could not order any man to be first to ride into some unknown terror. When they had done so, he said, “Group two, ride forward,” and took lead of them.
His skin prickled again as he rode forward, and his horse tossed her head in protest as she set a fastidious foot within the ford; but the water was quiet, and he gave the order.
“Ride, slowly, keep together!”
Above them, at the very edge of his vision, he saw a flicker of motion. He thought Master Gareth had recalled the sentry bird… A quick glance showed him that Melora’s bird sat, hooded and quiet, on the woman’s saddle. So, they were being watched from afar. Was there any defense against that?
They were in the center of the ford now, the water at its deepest swirling around the hocks of the horses; thigh-deep on a tall man. One of his soldiers said, “There’s nothing here, sir. We can call the others to come.”
Bard shook his head. Inwardly he felt that prickling that warned of danger, growing, so that he clamped his teeth, wondering if he would spew up his breakfast like a breeding woman…
He heard Master Gareth shouting, wheeled his horse in midstream. “Back,” he yelled. “Get back—”
The water swirled upward, rising around his horses’s withers, and suddenly the peaceful ford was a raging, foaming torrent, a racing undertow sucking, pulling. He felt his horse stumble under him as if he had ridden into a mountain stream swollen by spring thaw into furious rapids. Witch-waters! He tugged at the reins, trying to soothe his neighing, plunging horse, hold her steady, against the threat of being swept away downstream. Around him every one of the group was struggling with horses maddened with fear at the peaceful water suddenly gone wild. Cursing, fighting his terrified horse, Bard managed to get her under control, urge her back toward the water’s edge. He saw one of his men slip from his saddle, go down into the torrent Another horse stumbled, and Bard reached over and grabbed the rein, trying to hold his own horse with one hand.
“Hold them! In the name of all the gods, hold them! Back to the bank!” he shouted. “Keep together!”
The surprise was the worst; his horse was used to mountain streams and fords. Warned in advance, he could perhaps have held her against this. Gripping with his knees, urging her carefully against the water that now raced up to her neck, he managed to get her back to dry land, stood grabbing the bridles of the others as they came up. One horse was down and had broken a leg; it lay kicking, screaming like a woman in the torrent, until it drowned. Bard swore, his throat tight. The poor creature had never harmed any living thing, and it had died a terrible death. Of the rider there was no sign. Another horse had gone down, and its rider, leaping off into the water, had managed to get it up, limping, and drag it back to the shore; he went down himself and floundered, half-drowned, until one of the men, leaping down the bank, grabbed him and hauled him out.
Bard saw the last man out of th
e water; then cried out in awe and dismay. For once again the water lay calm and shallow before them, the peaceful, normal ford of Moray’s Mill.
So that was what the little man had meant…
Grimly, they took stock of their losses. The horse that had broken a leg lay motionless now, lifeless; and of his rider there was no sign whatever. Either he lay dead beneath the waters of the ford or had been swept away on the torrent and his body would surface far downstream. Another man had gotten free but his horse was lamed and useless; still a third horse had thrown his rider and gotten to shore, but the man lay senseless, his body washing up and down at the edge of the water. Bard motioned to one of his fellows to go and drag him to dry land, ran his fingers briefly across the gaping wound in the skull. It was likely he would never waken.
Bard blessed whatever precognitive warning had prompted him to send only a quarter of the men into the stream. At that rate they would have lost half a dozen men, instead of two men and horses, and perhaps had more horses lamed or damaged. But he beckoned to Master Gareth and his voice was grim.
“So this is what lay in the darkness your girl could not read!”
He man shook his head, sighing. “I am sorry, vai dom… We are psychics, not sorcerers, and our powers are not infinite. May I venture to say in our defense that without us your men would have ridden completely unwarned into the ford?”
‘True,“ Bard admitted, ”but now what do we do? If the ford is spelled against us—have we sprung the trap, or will it rise again the moment we set foot within it?“
“I cannot say, my lord. But perhaps Mirella’s Sight will tell us,” he said, beckoning her forward. He spoke in a low voice, and again the girl gazed into her starstone, finally saying in her wandering, neutral, drugged spell-voice, “I can see nothing… there is a darkness on the water…”
Bard swore, morosely. The spell was still there against them, then. He said to Beltran, “Do you think we can take the ford now we are warned?”
Beltran said, “Perhaps; if the men know what they must face, they are picked men and good riders, all of them. But Master Gareth, and the leroni, probably cannot pass, and certainly the one who rides on a donkey cannot…”
Master Gareth said, “We are trained leroni, sir; we take what risks the army takes, and my daughter and my foster daughter go where I go. They are not afraid.”
“It is not their courage I am doubting,” Bard said impatiently. “It is their skill as horsewomen. Besides, that little donkey would be drowned at the first wave. I don’t want to see any woman killed out of hand, but we will need you when battle is joined, too. And before we do anything, can you keep us from being spied on?” He gestured up impatiently at the sentry bird wheeling above them.
“I would do what I can, sir, but I think our spells will be needed more against the witch-waters of the ford,” Master Gareth said.
Bard nodded, thinking about that. As a commander made the best use of his fighting men, so, he was beginning to know, he must hoard the strength of his army’s leroni and use them to best advantage.
Did King Ardrin give me this command so that I might have a chance to command not fighting men alone, but sorcerers? Even in the press of decisions, he thought with excitement that this meant well for his future. If… he thought, quickly sobering, he could carry off this apparently simple commission without losing all his men at the witched ford!
“Master Gareth, this is the province of your special knowledge. What do you recommend to me?”
“We can try to set a counter-spell on the waters, sir. I cannot guarantee—I do not know who we are facing or what their powers may be—but we will do our best to quiet the waters. We have this in our favor; to meddle this way with nature takes tremendous power, and they cannot keep it up for very long. Nature takes always the way toward the normal again; the water seeks its proper flow, and so we have the force of natural water working for us, while they must fight against that natural force. So our counter-spell should not be too difficult.”
“All the gods grant you are right,” Bard said, “but still, I will warn the men to be prepared for rapids.” He rode among them, speaking to first one and then the other, telling the man whose horse had been lamed to take the one whose rider had been killed. Then he moved close to Beltran, saying, “Ride by me, foster brother; I don’t want to face my lord and king if I let you be killed in the rapids! If you die in battle, I suppose he could face it; but I will not be responsible otherwise!”
Beltran laughed. “Do you think you ride so much better than I do, Bard? I don’t! I think you overstep your authority—I, not you, command this expedition!” But he said it laughing, and Bard shrugged.
“As you will, Beltran; but in God’s name, mind what you are about. My horse is bigger and heavier than yours, because it takes a big horse to carry weight like mine, and I had all I could do to keep my seat!”
He wheeled and rode forward to Master Gareth. “There is no way mistress Melora can cross the ford on that little donkey; certainly not if your spells fail. Can she sit a horse?”
Master Gareth said, “I am her father, not her mentor or the master of her destiny; why not ask the lady herself?”
Bard set his jaw. “I am not given to asking women questions when there is a man to command them. But if you insist—well, damisela, can you ride? If you can, your father will take mistress Mirella before him on his horse, since she rides lighter than you, and you shall ride her horse, which looks steady enough.”
“I would rather trust to my father’s spells and my own,” Melora said firmly. “Do you think I will abandon my poor little donkey to drown?”
“Oh, hell and damnation, woman,” Bard burst out. “If you can manage to sit on a horse, one of my men will lead your donkey. I suppose the beast can swim!”
“You must do your best to ride, Melora,” Master Gareth said. “And Whitefur must make shift to swim for himself. I am sure he can fend for himself in the ford better than you can. Mirella, my child, let Melora have your horse and climb up behind me on my saddle.”
She scrambled up nimbly enough, although the watching men had a glimpse of long shapely legs in striped red and blue stockings, as she clambered up behind the elderly laranzu and settled herself, smoothing down her skirts, and clinging to his waist. Bard went himself to help lift the plump and ungainly Melora into the saddle of the other girl’s horse. She sat a horse, he told himself uncharitably, like a sack of meal dumped into a saddle.
“Sit a bit straighter, I implore you, vai leronis, and hold more carefully to the reins,” he said, then sighed. “I think perhaps I had better ride at your side and lead your horse.”
“That would be good of you,” Master Gareth said, “for we will need to concentrate on setting the counter-spell; and I would take it as a kindness, too, if one of your men can lead Melora’s donkey, for she will be afraid for him.”
One of the veterans burst out, laughing, “Mistress Melora, if you can set a spell to quiet these waters, I will myself carry your little donkey across my saddle like a baby!”
She giggled. Fat and ungainly as she was, she had a sweet voice and a lovely laugh. “I am afraid that would frighten him worse than the rapids, sir. I think, if you will lead him, he can manage somehow to swim, after your horse’s tail.”
The veteran brought a tie-rope and secured the bridle of the donkey to his own bridle. Bard took Melora’s rein, thinking what a pity it was that it was not the pretty Mirella; and heard again Melora’s sweet giggle. He wondered, uneasily, if she could read his mind, and cut off the thought. This was no time for thinking about women, not with a spelled ford to cross and a battle coming up!
“For the love of all the gods, Master Gareth, set your counter-spell.”
Melora’s heavy figure was motionless on her horse. The look of strangeness, of concentration, settled down over Master Gareth’s face. Mirella’s hood slid down over her face so that nothing was visible but her small chin. Bard watched the three leroni, feeling the
prickling in his spine that meant laran was powerful somewhere near… How could he tell, what was it?
Silently, feeling a curious reluctance to shatter the scary silence by a word or a shout, Bard beckoned the men forward. Still weighted by that sense of prickling intensity in the air, he twitched at his horse’s rein and urged the animal forward. The mare tossed her head and whickered uneasily, remembering what had happened when she had set foot in the ford before.
“Easy. Easy, girl,” he urged in a low voice, thinking, I don’t blame her at all, I feel the same way… But he was a reasoning human, not a brute beast, and he would not give way to blind, unreasoning fear. Urged on by voice and hands, the mare set foot into the ford, and Bard beckoned to the men behind him.
Nothing happened… but then, nothing had happened, before, until they were in midstream. Bard urged the horse on, holding to Melora’s rein, half-turned in his saddle. Behind him Master Gareth rode, Mirella clinging to his waist, and behind him, the men of the party, Prince Beltran bringing up the rear.
They were all in the water now, and Bard felt his skin tighten on his face. If the spell was working, it would strike them now, sweep down on them like a torrent. He braced himself in his saddle, feeling the prickle, prickle, prickle that was his personal awareness of laran at work, growing in strength as if he could almost see the flare and interplay between the spell set on the ford and the counter-spell; his horse seemed to step through a tangle of thick weed although there was nothing tangible there…
Then, suddenly, it was gone; just gone, vanished, the ford running silent and innocent, just water again. Bard let out his breath and dug his heels into his mare’s side. The first riders were partway up the far bank by now, and he held his mount there in midstream, watching them ride past and up the other side of the stream.
For now, at least, their leroni had out-spelled the wizards set against them.