Days of Blood and Fire

  “Come along, come along,” Otho snapped. “Stop goggling, lad. Haven’t got all day.”

  The tunnel ran straight for some ten feet, then turned into a flight of stairs, climbing steep and narrow for an ordeal of hundreds of yards. Before they’d gone halfway up Jahdo’s heart was pounding, and he fought for breath in the stuffy air. Once he stumbled, and his sore and sweaty hands slipped from the narrow stone ridge that did for a railing. For a brief moment he thought of letting himself fall backward and plunge down to die, but Rhodry caught his arm and yanked him up.

  “No hurry, lad,” the warrior said. “Get your feet under you.”

  Jahdo had no choice but to keep climbing. By the time they reached the top, everyone was panting for breath, but Meer was downright sobbing. Rhodry allowed them a few moments of rest.

  “Tell me somewhat, lad,” Otho said. “You seem to have great respect for this creature you serve. Were you raised among his kind?”

  Jahdo started to tell him the truth; then it occurred to him to wonder if he truly wanted these people to know about his homeland.

  “I was,” he said instead. “But he be a bard, and it’s needful that-you respect him, too.”

  Otho shrugged in insulting dismissal.

  Another corridor, another stairs, another massive door—at last they came blinking out into the sunlight before another pair of guarded gates, as massive and iron-bound as the first. Behind these rose the towers, as grim as a giant’s clubs, stuck into the earth.

  “There you are,” Otho said. “We’ll be heading back now.”

  As the three dwarves started back into the tunnel, Rhodry called after them.

  “Remember that coin you owe me, Otho.”

  It struck Jahdo as viciously unjust that these people would be haggling over the ordinary details of their lives, something as petty as a gambling debt, probably, while they were dragging him off to slavery.

  As they walked through the gates, Rhodry laid a heavy hand on Meer’s shoulder, and Jahdo took the bard’s arm, because his blind man’s staff made a poor guide for leading him through the confusion in the vast ward. Clustering round the towers and the inside of the walls stood wooden sheds, mostly round and thatched. Incorporated into the outer walls were long rectangles of buildings, stables on the lower level, though Jahdo couldn’t see into the upper. Scurrying round through the midst of this jumble were servants—tending horses, carrying firewood or sacks of what seemed to be vegetables, or even pulling a squalling goat along or driving a couple of pigs before them. Somewhere close by a blacksmith’s forge rang with hammering; dogs barked; people yelled back and forth. Every now and then an armed man strolled by, knocking any servant in his way out of it.

  “Straight ahead,” Rhodry barked. “Quick like, before I find myself defending you. See that long straight building there past the pigsty, lad? That’s where we’re heading.”

  Fear made Jahdo cooperative. He hurried Meer along while Rhodry kept a nervous watch behind them, and the various servants all shrieked at the very sight of them and rushed to goggle. When the armed men started jeering, Jahdo was more than glad to duck into the long stone structure, even if it did reek of the nearby hogs and something worse, too, an undertone of human filth. Inside he found a narrow passageway, lined with doors, each with a small opening near the top and a heavy oak bar across to lock them.

  “The dungeon keep,” Rhodry remarked, confirming Jahdo’s worst guess. “With luck you won’t be here long.”

  An elderly man, dressed in brown tatters that had once been clothes, came hobbling out of a room at the far end of the corridor.

  “Prisoners of war,” Rhodry said to him.

  “Put them here, silver dagger.” With arthritic hands he lifted a bar and swung a door back. “Shove them right along.”

  Jahdo helped Meer cross the high threshold, then stepped in after, his heart pounding as badly as it had on the underground stairs. He was profoundly relieved to find a small window, barred, on the opposite wall, and thick straw, reasonably clean, on the floor. In one corner stood a leather bucket, crawling with flies—otherwise, nothing, not so much as a blanket.

  “I want them decently treated,” Rhodry was saying to the old man. “Plenty of food, mind you, and clean water, and none of that moldy bread, either. I’ll be stopping by now and again to see that you’ve made it so.”

  “It’ll be done, it’ll be done.”

  The door eased shut, and the bar fell down with a thump. Jahdo could hear Rhodry and the old man squabbling down the corridor for a moment; then the old man returned.

  “Lad, lad! I’m handing you water in through the window.”

  A clay pitcher appeared in the slit in the door. Jahdo could just pull it through. A clay cup with a broken handle followed, and after that a loaf of brown bread, reasonably fresh.

  “There,” the old man snapped. “Cursed arrogant bastard of a silver dagger, giving an honest man orders like that.”

  “Bain’t Rhodry a lord, then?”

  “What did you say, lad?”

  “Bain’t Rhodry a lord?”

  After a moment the old man laughed, and hard.

  “Not half, lad, not half. A stinking mercenary and naught more, fighting for coin, not honor like a decent man. Little better than thieves, all of that lot. Got into trouble young, they did, or they wouldn’t be riding the long road at all, would they now?” There was the sound of him spitting onto the floor. “The gall, a silver dagger giving me orders.”

  Muttering under his breath, the fellow stumped away, and this time he never returned. Jahdo poured Meer a cup of water—it was indeed clean, even cool—and helped him drink.

  “I can break this bread up with my fingers,” he said. “You know what I really hate, Meer? They did take my grandfather’s knife, and it were the only thing of his I ever did have that were just mine.”

  Meer moaned as he passed the cup back.

  “If only I’d never brought you on this fool’s errand!”

  “It’s what the gods did decide for us. I guess.” Jahdo heard his voice break as he wished from the bottom of his heart that he’d never come, either. “You couldn’t know Thavrae was going to be killed.” He swallowed hard, concentrating on pouring himself water. “Oh. You know what? I do have somewhat to give you, and I never did remember it till this moment.” He gulped the water, set the cup down, and began fishing in his pocket. “Here they are. It’s the stuff Thavrae wore, the amulets and things. I did cut them off for you.”

  When Jahdo laid them in Meer’s palm, the bard tightened his fingers over them for a moment, then muttered a curse and flung them hard against the wall.

  “I have done what our mother asked. I will do no more. If it weren’t for him and his foul demons, his false gods, his blasphemy, and his heresy, then our clan would still have the hope of life, and neither you nor I would be caged here in this loathsome dungeon. Is it not one of the seven worst things in all of life, to fall into the hands of one’s enemies?”

  Jahdo tried to find some comforting thing to say and failed. He broke the bread up into chunks and gave Meer a big one, but the bard handed it back.

  “Eat it all, lad, the whole loaf. You are young, and you have hope. Many a faithful slave’s been rewarded with freedom.”

  “But bain’t you hungry?”

  Meer shook his head no.

  “Meer, you must be—oh, Meer, don’t. Don’t starve yourself to death. You mayn’t, you mayn’t! You’re all I’ve got, Meer. Please eat some of this bread. Please.”

  Meer folded his arms over his chest and turned his head away. No matter how Jahdo begged and wept, he spoke not one word. In the end Jahdo gave up. His own stomach was growling from the scent of food. He wiped his face as best he could on his filthy sleeve and began to eat. Meer must have heard, because he allowed himself a brief smile.

  Jahdo finished one chunk and started on another. He was wondering if they’d be fed more later in the day, or if he should be saving half the loa
f, when he heard a slight sound without the door, or so he thought until he looked up to find someone inside the cell with them.

  In the dim light she seemed to glow, a beautiful woman, tall and slender with long ash-blond hair that cascaded down her back, deep-set eyes the color of storm clouds but slit vertically like a cat’s, and the strangely long and curled ears he’d seen on the god by the stream. She was dressed in clothes of silvery gray, a full shirt, belted at the waist, a pair of doeskin trousers, and boots of the same.

  “Evandar wouldn’t come himself, but I can’t bear to leave you this way, child. Fear not: things aren’t as dark as they must seem. I promise you that.”

  She seemed to swirl like a trail of smoke above a camp-fire; then she was gone.

  “What was that voice?” Meer snapped. “Who was that?”

  “It were a goddess.” Jahdo had never been so sure of anything in his life. “A goddess did come to us, Meer. It’s needful for you to eat now, bain’t it? She came and did say that all be well.”

  When Jahdo handed him the bread, Meer began to eat, slowly, savoring each bite in something like awe, while Jahdo poured himself more water and drank it the same way.

  • • •

  After he made his final threats to the jailor, the man who preferred to be known only as Rhodry from Aberwyn stood in the ward for a moment, considering how badly he wanted a bath and some clean clothes after a fortnight in the saddle. He knew, however, that he’d best make his report to those who’d sent him on this hunt. He headed across the ward to the broch complex, aiming for one of the smaller towers that were joined to the flanks of the main broch. Although he was planning on slipping in quietly, he found waiting for him a man he couldn’t ignore. A tall, hard-muscled fellow with moonlight-pale blond hair and gray eyes, Lord Matyc of Dun Mawrvelin was leaning against the door with his arms crossed over his chest. Since he had no choice, Rhodry made him a bow.

  “Good morrow, my lord. Somewhat I can do for you?”

  “Just a word, silver dagger. Those two prisoners you just brought in? By whose order did you take them?”

  “The gwerbret’s himself, my lord. He sent me and Yraen out with a few of his own men.”

  “I see.”

  His lordship peeled himself off the door and walked away without so much as a fare thee well. And since it was the gwerbret, Rhodry thought, there’s not one wretched thing you can do about it, is there? He would have disliked so arrogant a man as Matyc on principle alone, but recently an incident or two had left Rhodry wondering just how loyal the lord was to his overlord, Gwerbret Cadmar of Cengarn. What interested him about this latest brush with his lordship was not that Matyc had asked him a question—simple curiosity would have explained that—but the lack of further questions, such as a wondering about who Meer might be or how he’d been found, the normal sort of things you’d expect a man to ask. Rhodry watched Matyc until the lord had gone into the main broch, then went on his own way.

  Right inside the door of the side tower a wrought-iron staircase led up every bit as steeply as the dwarven stairs, spiraling round and past all four floors of the small and wedge-shaped chambers belonging to various of the gwerbret’s honored servitors. On the fifth and final floor was an open area for storing sacks of charcoal to one side and one last chamber to the other. Rhodry stood for a moment catching his breath, then knocked. A woman’s voice called for him to enter. He hesitated ever so slightly before he opened the door and strode in.

  Dressed in pale gray brigga and a heavily embroidered white shirt, Jill was sitting on a curved, three-legged chair with a large leather-bound book on the table in front of her. Her hair, cropped off like a lad’s, was perfectly white, and her face was thin, too thin, really, so that her blue eyes seemed enormous, dominating her face the way a child’s do. Overall, in fact, she was shockingly thin, and quite pale, yet she hardly seemed weak, her eyes snapping with life when she smiled, her voice strong and vibrant as well.

  “Well?” she said. “Success?”

  “Just that. We followed your directions and found them just about where you said they’d be, one human lad, one Gel da’Thae. I’ve stowed them in the dungeon keep.”

  Jill made a face.

  “Oddly enough, they’re safer there than anywhere,” Rhodry went on. “Feeling in the town’s running high. A lot of townsfolk lost kin to those raiders, and the word’s gone round that their leader was a hairy creature straight out of the third hell. How are they going to feel about having another of the same lot right within reach? Here, an odd thing. That Gel da’Thae I killed was this bard’s brother.”

  “Odd, indeed. How do you know the prisoner’s a bard?”

  “His servant told me. And here’s the oddest thing of all. They speak the same tongue as Deverry men do. I’ve never been so surprised in my life, Jill. The lad just spoke right up, and I could understand him. Not easily at first, mind. His way of speaking’s a fair bit different, all flat and watery, like, and he uses a lot of words that I’d say were very old. The kind of thing you find in my esteemed ancestor’s books—words that haven’t been spoken round here in two hundred years.”

  “No doubt they haven’t, and no doubt he was as surprised as you were. If I’m guessing a-right, his forefathers were escaped bondmen. The bondfolk came from many different tribes, you see, before our ancestors conquered the lot. And each of those, or so the lore runs, had its own language, a hundred of them all told, or so the priests say.” She tapped the book before her with reed-slender fingers. “The only tongue that they all had in common was the language of their old masters, and they were forced to use it to survive.”

  “I’ll wager it griped their souls. It would have mine.”

  “No doubt.” She smiled briefly, then glanced at the book. “It must be a strange place, the Rhiddaer. I haven’t been able to learn much about it, which is why this pair of prisoners is so important. But there’s no High King, and no lords nor gwerbrets, either, to keep order or form alliances—not that I can truly blame the people for wanting to leave all that behind forever. The High King’s justice never did apply to them, did it? But as for the lad and the bard, I hate to do this, but I’d say leave them where they are for a while, at least, until they’re scared enough to consider talking to me and the townsfolk find somewhat else to gossip about.”

  “Done, then.”

  “Tell me, was your ride quiet enough?”

  “It was. No signs of trouble, no sign of more of those raiders, but we might have ridden right past them, and they past us, with no one being the wiser. It’s wild country out that way.”

  “It’s wild country all round here. That’s the problem with Cengarn, isn’t it? Ye gods, we’re isolated! Tell me somewhat, Rhoddo. How many men do you think Cadmar could field, if things came to some sort of war?”

  “Not all that many. Let me think. Matyc’s his only vassal to the north, and then Gwinardd is his richest vassal, which should tell you somewhat about this place when you look at the kind of gear his men have. There’s a lot of small lords round here, with, say, five, ten men sworn to them. But anyway, our gwerbret has alliances farther east, of course, but Arcodd province isn’t exactly a rich and settled place itself. Say five hundred men easily, another five hundred if all his nearby allies sent their treaty-bond due. And of course, the common-born are all free farmers, out this way. They’ll fight for their own, and they could field what? Say another thousand men, half armed and half trained, but brave and determined.”

  “And if the entire province were threatened, the High King would march, wouldn’t he?”

  “Of course, but it would take months to mobilize and get an army out here.” All at once the implications of all these questions sank in. “Jill! What are you saying? Do you really think we’re in that kind of danger?”

  “I don’t know. I hope not. But all my life I’ve expected the worst and planned for it, and you know what? I’ve never been disappointed yet.”

  Rhodry tried to laugh, then
gave it up as a bad job.

  “I honestly don’t think we’ve seen the last of this trouble,” Jill went on. “But how big the danger is? Well, I have no idea. As soon as I find out anything, I’ll tell you and the gwerbret both.”

  “Fair enough, and speaking of his grace, I’d best find him and tell him I’ve brought his men back.”

  “Just so. And give him my thanks, will you?” She turned another page in the book. “I’ll come down the great hall in a bit.”

  The great hall of Gwerbret Cadmar occupied the entire ground floor of the main broch. On one side, by a back door, stood enough trestle tables and backless benches for a war-band of well over a hundred men; at the hearth, near the table of honor itself, furnished with actual chairs were five tables more for guests and servitors. On the floor lay a carpet of fresh braided rushes. The walls and the enormous hearth were made of a pale tan stone, all beautifully worked and carved, while huge panels of interlacement edged the windows and were set into the walls alternately with roundels of spirals and fantastic animals. An entire stone dragon em-braced the honor hearth, its head resting on its paws, which were planted on the floor, its winged back forming the mantel, and its long tail curling down the other side. Even the riders’ hearth on the far side of the hall was heavily decorated with interlacing and dragons’ heads. When Rhodry walked in, he found the hall mostly empty, except for a couple of servant lasses over by the warband’s hearth, and a page, polishing tankards up at the table of honor. When Rhodry hailed the page, the boy ignored him.

  “You, Allonry! I know your father’s a great lord, but you’re here to run errands for anyone who asks.”

  Scowling, the lad slouched over, a willowy lad of about ten summers, red-haired and freckled.

  “Where’s his grace?” Rhodry said.

  “Out in the stables with the equerry.”

  “Will he be there long?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Go ask him yourself, silver dagger.”

  Rhodry restrained himself with difficulty from slapping the boy across the face. Although he himself had served as a page in a gwerbret’s dun, he couldn’t remember having been this arrogant. He’d been terrified, mostly, of making a wrong step and disgracing himself, but young Allonry seemed to have no such worries.