A Time of Omens

  “I know.” Yraen muttered something foul under his breath before he went on. “I wonder if these bandits maybe took the other women and the children with them.”

  “We’re not close enough to the coast for that.” Rhodry joined them. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What?” Carra broke in. “What are you talking about?”

  “Slaves for the Bardek trade. But the bandits would have to get them all the way down to the sea, avoiding the Westfolk and Deverry men alike on the way. Can’t see them bothering.”

  “Well.” Yraen rubbed the side of his face with a gauntleted hand. “They might have wanted the women for—”

  “Hold your tongue!” Rhodry hit him on the shoulder. “Look what I found in the dead woman’s fingers. She must have grabbed her attacker or suchlike.”

  He held out a tuft of straw-colored hair, each coarse strand about a foot long.

  “Looks like horse hair to me,” Yraen said.

  Nedd sniffed it, then shook his head in a vigorous no.

  “There weren’t any hoofprints anywhere near her, but there were boot prints, so I think I’ll side with Nedd.” Rhodry rubbed the strands between thumb and forefinger. “The fellow might have packed his hair with lime, like the High King does—the old Dawntime way, I mean. It makes your hair turn to straw like this.”

  “Oh, and I suppose you’ve been close enough to the king to tell,” Yraen muttered.

  Rhodry flashed a brief grin, shot through with weariness.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Nedd spoke so rarely that all of them jumped and swirled round to face him. Although he was still pale, his mouth was set in a tight line, and his eyes burned with an expression that Carra could only call fierce. “Tell the gwerbret. We’ve got to.”

  “So we should.” Rhodry glanced at Otho. “Looks like they headed south, anyway.”

  “So I told our lady. Can’t turn back.”

  “I’m on for the ride.” Carra thought of ancient queens and forced her voice steady. “I say we get to the gwerbret as fast as ever we can.”

  “Done, then.” Rhodry looked up with a toss of his head. “Nedd, can you and Carra each carry one of the dogs? You can sling them over the front of your saddles, if they’ll allow it.”

  Nedd nodded his head to indicate that they would.

  “Good. We want to make speed.”

  That night when they camped, Rhodry and Yraen set a guard with the dogs to help them. It became their pattern: rise early, tend the horses, then ride hard all day, making a late camp and a guarded one, especially once they reached the second stretch of forest, where no one slept much. The dogs were especially nervous, whining and growling, turning their heads this way and that as they rode. When they were allowed down they would trot round and round the horses and look up, every now and then, to growl or bark at the sky. Carra wondered if the raven were following them, somewhere above the sheltering trees. As they traveled steadily north, the land kept rising, and it turned rocky, too, with huge boulders pushing their way through the earth and stunting the black and twisted pines. The muddy track they were following wound and switched back and forth through the jagged hills until Carra wondered if they’d ever reach Cengarn.

  Finally, though, on the third day after they’d found the ravaged village, they reached a road, made of felled trees, trimmed into logs and half-buried, side by side in the dirt. At its abrupt beginning stood a stone marker carved with a sunburst and a couple of lines of lettering. Carra was surprised to learn that Rhodry could read.

  “Well, we’re not far now, twenty miles from Cadmar’s city.” He laid one finger on the carved sun. “This is his device.”

  The country here was broken tableland. On the flat the pine forest grew all tangled round with ancient underbrush, like a hedge on either side of the road, only to break suddenly and tumble down a small gulch in a spill of green or reveal huge boulders, heaped and tumbled like a giant’s toys. When the sunlight was falling in long and dusty-gold slants through the trees, the road flattened out and straightened. As they traveled along at a steady walk, Carra heard a distant noise ahead of them, went stiff with fear, then realized that it was the sound of a river, racing and tumbling over rock. As the road snaked west, at the end of a leafy tunnel they could see both the river and a blessed token that some kind of human presence lay close at hand. On either side the riverbank had been cleared of trees and underbrush; the rocks out in the water itself had been hauled around and arranged to floor a level if deep-looking ford. But while they were still in the forest’s shelter, Rhodry threw up his hand for a halt.

  “What’s wrong?” Carra said. “Can’t we camp here? I’d be so glad to see the sky.”

  All at once the dogs began growling and squirming so badly that neither Carra nor Nedd could keep them on the saddle. They slithered down and rushed to the head of the line, bristling and snarling on the edge of barks. At their signal Rhodry began yelling at Carra and Nedd to get back into the forest. In a swirl of confusion they did just that, but as Carra looked up reflexively at the sky, she saw the raven flap away. Whistling and yelling, Nedd got the dogs to come to him, but they kept growling. Up ahead Rhodry, Yraen, and Otho peered across the river into the forest on the other side. Nothing moved. It was dead-silent, not the chirp of a bird, not the rustle of a squirrel.

  “Ill-omened places, fords,” Yraen remarked.

  “So they are.” Rhodry rose in the stirrups and stared as if he were counting every distant tree. “Think there’s someone waiting on the other side?”

  “The dogs think there is,” Otho put in. “I say we ride upstream.”

  “Upstream?” Yraen said. “What’s upstream?”

  “Naught, I suppose. So they won’t expect us to go that way.”

  Rhodry laughed, a little mutter under his breath like a ferret’s chortle. Carra went ice-cold. She was going to die. She realized it all at once with a calm clarity: what waited for them across that river was death, and there was no escaping it. They couldn’t go back, they couldn’t go forward, they might as well cross over to the Otherlands and be done with it. Although she tried to tell the rest of them, when she opened her mouth she simply couldn’t speak. Not so much as a gasp came out.

  “Well spoken, Otho my old friend,” Rhodry said at last. “Let’s give it a try. See those boulders up there a ways? Shelter of a sort. But we’d best dismount, I think.”

  Since the trees thinned out toward the clearing’s edge they could lead their horses, single file, without leaving this imperfect shelter, but they couldn’t do it without cracking branches and snapping twigs and setting the underbrush rustling. After some twenty yards the dogs began growling and snarling, anyway, no matter how Nedd tried to hush them.

  “They know we’re here,” Rhodry said to him finally. “Don’t trouble yourself about it. But there can’t be a lot of them or they’d have rushed us already.” He pointed across the river. “Look.”

  In among the trees at the far side of the clearing on the opposite bank someone or something was moving to follow them, some three or maybe four shapes, roughly man-shaped, that slipped along when they moved and stopped again when they halted.

  “Otho,” Rhodry said. “You and Nedd take Carra into the trees. We won’t fool them, but maybe—”

  Carra never learned what he intended. Pressed beyond canine endurance, Thunder suddenly began to bark, then bounded away and raced straight for the river before Nedd could grab him. Just as he burst free of the trees something flashed and hissed in the air: an arrow. Carra flung herself on Lightning to hold him back and screamed as the arrow struck Thunder in the side. Another followed, another, catching him, throwing him to the ground—pinning him to the ground, but still alive he writhed and howled in agony. The horses began to dance and toss their heads in terror. Dead-silent as always Nedd ran.

  “Don’t!” Rhodry and Yraen screamed it together.

  Too late. Nedd reached the dog, flung himself down beside the dying Thunder just as
another flight came hissing down, bright death catching the fading sunlight. He never screamed, merely jerked this way and that while the long shafts struck until at last he and Thunder both lay still, the dog cradled in his arms, in the middle of a spreading pool of blood. Carra felt herself sobbing and choking, but in an oddly distant way, as if she stood beside herself and watched this girl named Carra howl and retch until she could barely breathe. Just as distantly she was aware of horses neighing and men cursing and shouting, then the sound of some large animal crashing through the under-brush. All at once Otho grabbed her by the shoulder with one hand and Lightning’s collar by the other.

  “Move!” he howled. “Run, lass!”

  For such a small man he was terrifyingly strong. Half dragged, half stumbling, Carra got herself and the dog into the hollow among the rocks and fell, half spraddled across the whining, growling Lightning. Otho threw himself down beside her. He was cursing a steady stream in some language she’d never heard before.

  “Rhodry, Yraen?” she gasped out.

  “Right here.” Rhodry hunkered down beside her. “Hush, lass. They won’t come for us here.”

  Her tears stopped of their own accord, leaving her face sticky and filthy both. She wiped it best she could on her equally filthy sleeve, then looked around her. In that last panicked dash they had reached the cluster of boulders and what shelter they were going to find. The river ran too deep to cross some yards off to the north; the forest grew thick and tangled to the south; the rocks rose up and melded with a cliff to the west behind them. Ahead and east, they had a clear view of the ford, some distance away, and the dark shape sprawled in the gathering shadows that had once been Nedd and Thunder.

  “They can’t get round back here without the dog letting us know.” It was Yraen, sliding down the rocks behind them. “And they won’t get a clear aim to skewer us in here, and we can see them coming if they rush us. Couldn’t have been more than ten of them, Rhodry. If they try to squirm in here, on this broken ground, we’ll drop them easy.”

  “True spoken. Think we can hold off a small army? We might have to. Ill wager they’re on their way to fetch a few friends.”

  “Or one or two of them are. I’d say they left a squad behind, some archers, too, in case we take it into our heads, like, to try to cross the river. Huh. Told you there was somewhat wrong with that cursed ford, didn’t I?”

  “Did I argue with you?”

  By then Carra was too spent to be frightened. She leaned back against a rock and looked straight in front of her with eyes that barely saw.

  “Is there any water?” she whispered.

  “There’s not,” Otho said. “Nor food, either. The horses bolted.”

  “Ah, I see. We’re still going to die, aren’t we?”

  No one said a word.

  “I only mind because of the baby, really.” She needed, suddenly, to make them understand. “It seems so unfair to the poor little thing. It never had a chance to live and now it’s going to die. I mean, when it comes to me, I might have died in childbirth anyway, and this is still better than Lord Scraev, but—”

  “Hush, my lady!” The words sounded as if someone were tearing them out of Otho under torture. “Ah, ye gods! Forgive me, that ever I should let this happen to you!”

  “It’s not as if you had any choice in the matter.” Carra laid a hand on his arm.

  She was shocked to see tears in his eyes. He wiped them vigorously with both hands before he went on.

  “As soon as it’s dark, I’m going to try creeping through the forest a ways. We can move quiet when we want to, my people. The way those horses were tearing through the brush, a saddlebag or two might have gotten itself pulled free.”

  “And if there’s someone out there?” Yraen said. “Waiting for one of us to try just that?”

  Otho merely shrugged. Rhodry was examining the leather pouch he carried at his belt.

  “This should hold a little water.” He dumped the coins in a long jingle onto the ground. “I think I can reach the river and get back again. I hate to think of our lady going thirsty.”

  “I’ll do it.” Otho snatched the pouch from him, “You need to be here. Just in case, like.”

  In the gathering dusk Otho slipped off, moving silent and surefooted around the rocks. In a few moments, though, they heard him chuckle.

  “My lady, come here,” he called. “I think you can squeeze through, and there’s a nice little stream, there is. Bring the dog, too.”

  Sure enough, by sliding and cramming herself between two massive boulders, Carra popped out into a flattish opening big enough for her to crouch and Otho to stand upright, where a trickle of water ran down one rock, pooled, then disappeared under an overhang in the general direction of the river. She flung herself down and drank as greedily as the dog beside her, then washed her face. Otho was looking round with a grin of triumph on his face.

  “When they come for us, my lady, you can hide in here. We’ll draw them off, down toward the ford, say. Once all the shouting’s over, you’ll have a chance to make your way north to the gwerbret. Not much of a chance, but better than none. If we tie that blasted dog’s mouth shut, we can hide him, too, and you’ll have company, like, on your journey. I’ll die easier, knowing that. Think of the child, my lady. It’ll keep you strong.”

  “I am. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

  Yet with the hope fear returned and a grief sharper than any she’d ever known. Otho, Yraen, Rhodry—all dead for her sake? As Nedd already was. Lightning whined, pushing into her lap, reaching up to lick her face and whimper over and over again. She threw her arms around his neck and would have cried, but all her tears were spent.

  “Come now, lass, come now.” Otho’s voice was very soft. “I was only going home to die, anyway, and Rhodry loves death more than he ever loved life, and well, I’m sorry for Yraen, not that you’d best ever tell him that, but then, he made his choice when he took to the long road, and who can argue with Wyrd, anyway, eh? Come now, hush. We’ll take them some water and tell them what we’ve found.”

  By then a gibbous moon was rising, silvering the river, picking out Nedd’s body and the gleam of arrows lying on the grass. Although Carra wished with all her heart that they could bury him and Thunder, too, it seemed too trivial to mention to men who would doubtless lie dead and unburied themselves in the morning. She sat with her back to one of the boulders and stared fixedly in the opposite direction while Otho went back and forth fetching pouches of water for the two silver daggers. All at once she realized that her body had a thing or two that needed attending to, and urgently. Ever since she’d gotten pregnant, it seemed, when she needed to relieve herself there was simply no arguing about it. She got up and slipped away, keeping to the safe shelter of the boulders and broken terrain, to find a private spot.

  When she was done she walked a few steps toward the forest and stood looking into the silver-touched shadows. For miles and miles the trees stretched, hiding enemies, maybe, or maybe promising safety. She wondered how far away the rest of the bandits were, and how fast their advance scouts would reach them. They won’t attack till dawn, she thought. We’ve got that long. Out in the shadows something moved. Her heart thudded, stuck cold in her chest; her hands clenched so hard her nails dug into her palms. It seemed that a bird, a strange silvery bird with enormous wings, dropped from the sky and settled deep among the trees.

  A trick of moonlight—it had to be a thrown shadow and naught more—but a branch rustled, a tree shivered. Something snapped and stamped. Carra wanted to run, knew she should run, tried to call out, but she was frozen there, ice-cold and stone-still, as something—no, someone—made its way, made his way through the trees—no, her way. A silver-haired woman, wearing men’s clothing but too graceful and slender to be a man, stepped out into the clearing. She carried a rough cloth sack in one hand, and at her belt gleamed the pommel of a silver dagger.

  “I’m a friend. Where’s Rhodry?”

  Carra c
ould only raise a hand and gesture mutely toward the boulders. As she led the way back, she could hear the woman following, but she was afraid to turn round and look behind lest the woman disappear. All Rhodry’s talk of shape-changers rushed back to her mind and hovered like a bird, half-seen in moonlight.

  In among the broken rocks they found the men sitting in a circle, heads together, talking in low voices about the coming battle, if one could call it that. Carra suddenly realized that she could see them clearly, could pick out the expressions on their faces as they looked up startled. Only then did she realize that the woman gave off a faint silver light, hovering round her like scent.

  “Jill!” Rhodry leapt to his feet and stepped back as if in fear. “Jill. I—ye gods! Jill!”

  “That’s the name my father gave me, sure enough. Come along, all of you! We’ve got to get out of here and right now.”

  “But those guards, they’ve got archers…” Yraen let his voice trail away.

  “Who no longer matter at all.” Jill glanced Otho’s way. “Hurry! Get up!”

  Lightning sprang up at the command and Otho followed more slowly, grumbling to himself.

  “Good.” Jill glanced her way. “You’ve got guts, lass. You are Carramaena, aren’t you?”

  “I am. But how did—”

  “Someone told me. No time to explain. Let’s get out of here. I can’t deal with a whole pack of raiders, and they’re on their way. Rhodry, get up here with me. Yraen, take the rear guard with Carra. Otho, keep a hand on that dog’s collar, will you? I don’t want him bolting.”

  As they picked their way through the broken rocks and headed downstream toward the ford, Jill pulled a little ahead. Carra could see her looking around, frowning every now and then and biting her lower lip as a person will when they’re trying to remember something. Daft though this exercise seemed, Carra could pay no attention, because they were walking straight toward the ford where Nedd and Thunder lay. She could hear Lightning whining and Otho’s reassuring whisper, and she clung to the sound as if to someone’s hand. When they reached the bodies, she turned her head away and stared across the river. Something was moving among the trees. Even in the poor light she—they all—could see the underbrush shaking at the approach of someone or something.