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2.

The Prince of Swords

The Westlands, Autumn, 1112

Out on the high plains the elven leader with the most authority—and the largest warband for that matter—was Calonderiel, Banadar of the Eastern Border, and yet, as Deverry men reckoned such things, his claim to power rested on an oddly weak foundation. He was descended from nobody in particular and related to no one much—just the son of a horse herder who was the son of a weaver who was the son of a prosperous farmer back in the old days when the elves lived settled lives in their own kingdom in the far west. No one had ever accused his family of having any connection whatsoever to the noble-born or the renowned. He was, of course, the best archer, the shrewdest tactician, and one of the most respected leaders of men that the high plains had ever seen, and those things, among the People, outweighed any questions of kinship. Despite that, Rhodry ap Devaberiel was continually amazed that Calonderiel would hold such easy authority without a grumble from anyone. He himself was second in command of the banadar’s warband, and since he’d sworn to serve him, he personally would never have argued with a single order or decision his leader made. It was just that, at odd moments, he puzzled about it, or even, Calonderiel being the kind of man he was, felt he could wonder about it aloud.
“And now this Aledeldar shows up for the autumn meeting,” Rhodry remarked. “What if he and his son decide to ride with us? Doesn’t it trouble you?”
“Why should it?” Calonderiel looked up in surprise. “Something wrong with him?”
“Not as far as I can see. It’s just that he’s the king, isn’t he? Well, the only one you people—we, I mean—have. There’s bound to be trouble over it. One wagon but two teamsters makes for a rough journey.”
Calonderiel merely laughed. It was late in the evening, and wrapped in woolen cloaks, they were sitting together in front of the banadar’s enormous tent. Among the other tents (and there were over two hundred of them), everything was dark and silent, broken only by the occasional bark of a dog or cry of a hungry baby, hushed as fast as the echo died.
“Well, it won’t be so funny when he starts countermanding your orders.”
“Rhodry, you don’t understand us still, do you? How long have you lived with us now? Thirteen, fourteen years? Well, think back over it. You’ve heard plenty of people mention Del and his son, haven’t you? And how? Exactly like they’d mention anyone else they know. You have more real power than he does, as a matter of fact. You’re my second, and the men all respect you, and so the People would take your orders long before they’d take his. Nothing can take his position away from Del, mind. He’s Halaberiel’s son, and Halaberiel was Berenaladar’s, and Berenaladar was the son of Ranadar, King of the High Mountain, and that’s that. But since the wolves and the owls and the weeds are running his kingdom these days, well, by the Dark Sun herself! He’s got no call to be giving himself airs over it.”
Baffled, Rhodry shook his head Calonderiel was right, he supposed. He didn’t understand the People, and at times like these, he doubted if he ever would.
On the morrow, with the autumn meeting or alardan as it was called in full swing, his loneliness seemed to double itself. Since it was the last festival before the long trip south to the winter camps, it was a big one. Whenever a new traveling group arrived, some ten families and their horses and sheep, everyone rushed to greet old friends, not seen since the height of summer, and to help them unpack and settle in. Time to visit was short; the herds would crop the available grazing down fast, and the meeting would disperse. Rhodry wandered through the brightly painted tents by himself, saying the occasional hello or exchanging smiles and nods with someone whom he recognized. Wildfolk swarmed everywhere, grinning and gaping, dashing back and forth, pulling dogs’ tails and children’s hair, then suddenly vanishing only to stream back into manifestation a few feet away. Among the People themselves, everyone was rushing around, getting ready for the enormous feast that evening. Here and there he found groups of musicians, tuning their instruments together and squabbling over what to play; here and there cooks were drawing and dressing slaughtered lambs or pooling precious hoards of Bardek spices. Children ran to and fro, bringing twigs and scraps of bark or baskets of dried dung to the cooking fires that were, as always on the grasslands, short of fuel.
At one of the fires Rhodry found Enabrilia, sitting on a wooden chest, her two grandsons fighting at her feet over a pair of pottery horses. She looked tired, that morning, and scattered through her golden hair shone an obvious sprinkling of gray. When Rhodry hunkered down next to her, she smiled at him, then went back to peeling roots with a small knife.
“The warband’s always in the way when there’s work to be done,” she remarked, but pleasantly. “Hanging round asking when the food’s going to be cooked and distracting the girls who are supposed to be working. You’re all the same, you know.”
“Well, that’s true enough. I thought I’d come distract you.”
“Oh, get along with you! I’m old enough to be your grandmother—well, three times over, no doubt, and I feel every one of my years this morning, I tell you.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Oldana’s having one of her bad turns again.” She paused with a significant look at the boys, all ears at the mention of their mother, who had been ill for months.
“Ah. I see.”
Back in Eldidd, where he’d been a great lord and one of the High King’s personal friends, Rhodry would never have given the two children, one barely out of diapers, a thought. Since he was out on the grasslands now, he held out his arms to the younger one, Faren, who toddled over and laid both of his tiny hands into one of Rhodry’s callused and weather-beaten palms.
“Let’s go for a walk and let your gramma cook in peace. Val, are you going to come with us?”
Val shook his head no and grabbed both horses with a grin of triumph. Carrying Faren, Rhodry went back to his aimless wandering. In the center of camp, near the ritual fire that burned at the heart of every alardan, he found Calonderiel talking with the king and his young son, who at twenty-six was still a child by elven standards. They looked too much alike to be anything but father and son, with raven-dark hair yet pale gray eyes, slit vertically like a cat’s to reveal a darker lavender, and they were slender even for men of the People. Rhodry was honestly shocked to see how deferentially the two of them treated the banadar, nodding thoughtfully at his remarks, laughing at his little jokes in exactly the same way as the other men did. When Rhodry joined them, both of them greeted him by holding up their hands, shoulder high and palm outward, in a gesture of profound respect; yet all his instincts were making him want to kneel to their royal blood instead.
“I’ve wanted to meet you,” Aledeldar said. “I have great respect for your father’s poems.”
“So do I,” Rhodry said. “Not that I understand them very well.”
Everyone laughed but Faren, who squirmed round in Rhodry’s arms and pointed over his shoulder.
“Who’s that? She’s strange.”
“Beautiful, maybe,” Calonderiel remarked. “Wouldn’t say strange.”
When Rhodry turned to look, he saw what seemed to be an ordinary elven woman, with waist-length hair the color of strained honey, bound back in two severe braids, standing among the tents some twenty feet away. She was wearing an ordinary pair of leather trousers and an ordinary linen tunic, and carrying a basket of greens in one hand while she watched the men, but she stood so still, and her stare was so intense, that she did indeed seem strange in some hard-to-place way. Cut off from the bustle around her, perhaps? Rhodry had the peculiar feeling that she wasn’t really there, that she stood behind some invisible window and looked into the frantic camp. When Calonderiel gave her a friendly wave, she turned and walked fast away, disappearing into the constant scurry of people among the tents.
“What’s her name?” Rhodry asked.
“I don’t know,” Calonderiel said. “Del, does she ride with your alar?”
“No. Never seen her before. Well, there’s a lot of people here. Bound to be a few that we don’t know.”
Out of curiosity and not much more, Rhodry kept an eye out for the woman all during the rest of that day. Although he described her to a number of friends, no one remembered her or would admit to knowing her, and she should have stood out. Among the People, dark blond hair like hers, with a honey-colored or yellowish tinge, was very rare, enough so that she might have had some human blood in her veins. Once, when he was hauling water for the cooks, he dodged between two tents and saw her, walking away in the opposite direction, but though he called out, she merely glanced over her shoulder and hurried on.
He didn’t see her again until late that night, long after the feast was over. On the opposite side of the camp from the herds some of the People had cleared a space for dancing by cutting the long grass down to a reasonably even stubble. By torchlight the musicians gathered off to one side, a rank of harpers backed by drummers and a couple of those elven bundled-reed flutes that produce drones. The People danced in long lines, heads up, backs straight, arms up and rigid while their feet leapt and scissored in intricate steps. Sometimes the lines held their position; at others they snaked fast and furiously around the meadow until everyone collapsed laughing on the cool grass. On and on the dancing went, till the older and less energetic began to drop out, Rhodry among them.
Out of breath and sweating, he flung himself down near a tall standing torch, far enough away from the music to hear himself think, and watched the dance spiral past. A pack of gray gnomes flopped into manifestation around him and lay on their backs, panting in imitation of their elder brothers. When Rhodry laughed, they all sat up and grinned, then began pushing and shoving each other to see who would sit on his lap. All at once one of them drew his lips back from his teeth and pointed at something behind Rhodry; the rest leapt up and snarled; they all disappeared. Rhodry slewed round where he sat to see the honey-haired woman standing behind him. In the torchlight her eyes seemed made of beaten gold.
“And a good eve to you, my lady.” He rose to his knees. “Won’t you join me?”
She smiled, then knelt down facing him rather than sitting companionably. For a long moment she studied him in a silence as deep and unreadable as the night sky. He was struck all over again by the sense she gave of distance, as if she were a painted image on a temple wall, looking down upon him from a height. In her presence the camp seemed far, far behind him.
“Uh, my name is Rhodry, son of Devaberiel. May I have the honor of knowing yours?”
“You may not, truly.” Much to his shock, she spoke in Deverrian. “My name’s not for the giving, though I’ll trade it for that little ring you have.”
Reflexively he looked down at his right hand, where he wore on the third finger a silver band, about a third of an inch wide and graved with roses.
“Well, now, you have my apologies, but I’ll not surrender that, not even to please a lady as beautiful as you.”
“It’s made of dwarven silver, did you know?”
“I do. It’s the same metal as this silver dagger I carry.”
“So it is, and both were made by a dwarf, too, many a long year ago.”
“I know the man who made the dagger, and dwarven he is, but this ring is elven.”
“It’s not, for all that it has elven writing inside it. It’s the work of the Mountain Folk, and not a fit thing for an important man of the People like you, Rhodry Maelwaedd.”
“Here! No one’s called me by that name for years and years.”
She laughed, revealing teeth that seemed oddly sharp and shiny in the flickering light.
“I know many a name, I know all your names, truly, Rhodry, Rhodry, Rhodry.” She held out her hand. “Give me that ring.”
“I will not! And who are you, anyway?”
“I’ll tell you everything if you give me that ring.” She smiled, her mouth suddenly soft with a thousand promises. “I’ll do more than tell a tale, truly, for that ring you wear. Give me a kiss, Rhodry Maelwaedd, won’t you now?”
Rhodry stood up.
“I won’t, my thanks. Many a year ago now a dangerous thing happened to me for being too free with my kisses, and I’ll not make the same mistake twice.”
In cold fury she crouched, staring up at him while he wondered if he were daft for treating one so beautiful so coldly.
“Rhodry! Where are you?” It was Calonderiel’s voice, calling out in Elvish with a drunken lilt, coming from a long distance over the music. “Here, harpers! Have you seen Rhodry?”
She flung her head back and howled like a wolf, then as suddenly as one of the Wildfolk she was gone, simply gone, vanished without so much as a puff of dust or a stirring of the torch flame. From right behind him Rhodry heard Calonderiel swear. He spun round.
“There you are!” Calonderiel was half laughing, half afraid. “By the Dark Sun, I’ve drunk myself half-blind! I didn’t see you, and here you were so close by that I nearly tripped over youl Must’ve drunk too much, that’s what it is.”
“I’ve never known you to pass on a skin of mead untasted, no.” Rhodry realized that he was cold-sick and shaking. “Uh, did you see that woman who was here just now?”
“Woman? No, I didn’t even see you, much less some female. Who was she?”
“The woman we saw earlier, when we were talking with the king and his son. The one little Faren called strange.”
“Oh, her.” Calonderiel burped profoundly. “Hope I didn’t interrupt anything, er, important.”
“Not in the least, my friend, not in the least. Huh, I wonder if Faren has a touch of the second sight or suchlike. We should have Aderyn take a look at the lad the next time we meet up with the old man.”
“I thought the Wise One would be here already, as a matter of fact. Um, why are you talking in Deverrian?”
“Am I? Well, I’m sorry.” He switched back easily to his adopted tongue. “That woman was speaking it, you see.”
“What woman?”
“The one you didn’t see. Don’t worry about it. Let’s get back to camp, shall we?”
When he went to sleep that night, Rhodry was glad that he shared a tent with a warband. Somehow he would have felt in danger if he’d been off by himself.
Close to dawn the entire camp woke in a swirl of yelling and cursing from the herd-guards. Rhodry pulled on his trousers and boots, then dashed outside, slipping on his shirt in the chilly night, to find the rest of the warband running for the herd of horses to the east of the encampment. From the snatches of shouted conversation he could figure out that something had panicked the stock.
By the time they reached the grazing ground, the mounted herders had rounded up most of the runaways. Rhodry found a horse that knew him, swung up bareback, and riding with just a halter joined the hunt for the others. Although he lacked the full night vision of the People, he could see far better than the average human in the dark, and certainly well enough to hunt for horses in moonlight. He found four mares and their half-grown colts, herded them into a little group, and brought them back just as the sky was turning gray in the east with the tardy autumn dawn. Riding out among the assembled herds were three of the women, counting up the stock with a call or a pat for every animal. Rhodry turned his mares into the muling mass, then found Calonderiel, mounted on his golden stallion off to one side, and rode up beside him.
“What was all this about?”
“Cursed if I know.” Calonderiel shrugged eloquently. “One of the boys told me that all of a sudden, the herd just went mad: neighing and rearing, kicking out at something. He said he could just barely see shapes moving, doglike shapes, but then they vanished. Some of the Wildfolk, I suppose, up to their rotten infuriating pranks. They know there’s naught we can do to them, blast them, and they probably thought it a fine jest to see us all riding round yelling our heads off.”
Rhodry saw no reason to disagree, especially since there was no particular harm done. Once the sun was up and the herds all counted, only three horses were still missing, and their tracks, heading off in three separate directions, were perfectly clear. Rhodry got himself some breakfast, then set off after one of the stragglers.
He tracked the lost horse all that morning, until finally, close to noon, he found the miscreant, a blood-bay gelding with a black mane and tail, peacefully grazing beside a narrow river. Clucking under his breath, holding out a nose bag of oats, Rhodry circled round to approach him from the front. The gelding rolled a wary eye, then spotted the nose bag and trotted over, shoving his nose right in and allowing Rhodry to attach a lead rope to his halter with no trouble at all.
“Well, at least you decided to wait for me, eh? I think I’ll have a bit of a meal of my own, and then we’ll go home.”
Rhodry unsaddled the horse he’d brought with him, let him roll, and tethered him out to rest while he ate griddle bread and cheese from his saddlebags and watched the river flow through its grassy banks. He’d just finished eating when he happened to glance upstream and saw something that brought him to his feet with an oath. About a quarter of a mile away stood a thicket of hazels: absolutely nothing unusual in that, no, except that he’d seen no such thing when he first rode up. For a moment he debated the question, but in the end, he was sure as sure that he’d looked that way and seen nothing but the long green swell of grass stretching out to the horizon. Again, he debated; then curiosity got the better of him, and he strode off for a look.
When he got close, the thicket certainly seemed ordinary enough, a wild tangle of stunted trees and shoots, but someone was sitting among them on what seemed to be a rather anomalous oak stump, and while the day was breezy, the hazels stood unmoving. In the warm sun he felt his blood run cold. Hand on the hilt of his silver dagger, he stopped walking and peered in among the shadows. The seated figure rose and hobbled to meet him, an old, old woman, all bent-backed and dressed in drab browns, leaning on a stick, her white hair escaping in wisps from her black head scarf. She paused a few feet away and looked up at him with rheumy eyes.
“Good morrow, silver dagger.” She spoke in Deverrian. “You’re a long, long way from the lands of men.”
“And so are you, good dame.”
“I’ve come looking for my daughter. They’ve stolen her, you see. I’ve looked and I’ve looked, but I can’t find her anywhere in my own country. They’ve stolen her away, my baby, my only daughter, and now they’re going to bury her alive. Oh, they’re weaving her a winding sheet, they are, and they’ll bury her alive.”
“What? Who will?”
She merely looked up at him with a little smile, too calculated, somehow, to be daft. The wind lifted his hair; the hazels never shivered nor swayed. With his heart pounding like a wild thing, Rhodry began to back away.
“Where are you going, silver dagger?” Her voice was all soft and wheedling. “I’ve got a hire for you.”
She strode after, suddenly younger, swelling up tall and strong, and now she was wearing a green hunting tunic and a pair of doeskin boots, and her hair was the color of honey, and her eyes like beaten gold. Rhodry yelped, staggering along backward, afraid to turn his back on her to run. Out of sheer warrior’s instinct and nothing more he drew his sword. The moment that the bright steel flashed in the sunlight she howled in rage and disappeared, flickering out like a blown candle.
Rhodry broke into a cold sweat. For a moment he merely stood beside the river and shook; then he turned and shamelessly ran for the horses. With clumsy shaking hands he saddled his gray, grabbed the lead rope of the bay gelding, then mounted and rode out at a fast trot. All the long way back to camp he wished for a good road and a gallop. And yet, when he saw the camp and, in particular, the other men in the warband, his fear seemed not only shameful but foolish, and he told no one what had happened. In fact, the more he thought about the incident, the more unreal it seemed, until finally he convinced himself that he’d fallen asleep in the warm sun and dreamt the whole thing.
Two days later, on the last afternoon of the alardan, Oldana died. Rhodry was walking among the tents when he heard Enabrilia start keening. The high-pitched shriek cut through the noise of the camp like a knife and sobbed on and on. One at a time, other voices joked in, wailing and gasping. Rhodry turned and ran for Oldana’s tent, shoved his way through the sobbing mob at the door, and ducked inside. Her hair down and disheveled, Enabrilia was clawing at her own face with her nails while two of her women friends grabbed at her hands to make her stop. Oldana lay on a pile of blankets, her arms thrown wide, her unseeing eyes still open. She had been ill so long that her face seemed, at first, no colder, no paler than before, but her mouth hung slack, her lips flaccid. Huddled in the curve of the tent wall little Faren stood staring and silent, watching his elder brother mourn without truly understanding a thing. Rhodry gathered the pair up and led them out of the tent. In a time of mourning, boys belonged with the men while the women cared for the dead.
Outside, other women were assembling at the tent while the men hurried through the camp, extinguishing every fire as they went. They gathered near the horse herd, where Oldana’s brother, Wylenteriel, met Rhodry and took his nephews with a murmur of thanks for the banadar’s second in command. Rhodry found Calonderiel swearing under his breath with every foul oath he knew.
“She was so wretchedly young to die! I don’t understand the gods sometimes, I really don’t!”
“Who can?” Rhodry said with a shrug. “I’m heartsick, too, but I’m worried about her sons more. Where’s their father?”
“Up north somewhere with his herds, last anyone saw him. The boys will fare better with their uncle anyway, if you ask my opinion and not that anyone did.” The banadar looked briefly sour. “With luck we’ll run into their father down at the winter camps. The alardan will break up tonight, and we’ll be heading east.”
“East?”
“To the death ground. That’s right, you’ve never been there before, have you? We’re close enough to take her there for the burning, in this cool weather and all.”
Rhodry felt oddly troubled. The sacred death ground lay right on the Eldidd border, not more than a hundred miles from Aberwyn, where once he’d ruled as gwerbret, not far at all from the place he’d always considered home.
“What’s wrong with you?” Calonderiel said. “You look pale.”
“Do I? Ah, well, it’s a sad thing, when one of the People dies so young. We’d best call for the ceremony to end the alardan. The sooner we get moving, the better.”
The women sprinkled Oldana’s corpse with spices and covered it with dried flowers before they wrapped it round with white linen. They cut a white horse out of the herd to drag the travois that would carry her to the resting place of her ancestors, and when the alar left the rest of the gathering behind for their sad journey east, that horse led the line of march, with Rhodry and Calonderiel riding alongside. The boys, as much confused as grief-struck, traveled far back at the rear with their uncle and grandmother. Out of simple decency the king and the young prince came twith them, and their alar, of course, as well, to dignify the eventual ceremony with their presence.
It took them two full days and part of a third to reach the Lake of the Leaping Trout. During that time they ate food left from the alardan feasting, and slept cold at night, too, because no one could light a fire until Oldana’s soul was safely on its way to the world beyond. Slowly the grasslands began to rise, until by the third dawn they saw ahead of them rolling grassy downs that were almost hills. Finally, just after a noon gray with the promise of winter, they came to the last crest. Far down the green slope lay the silver lake, a long finger of water caught in a narrow valley pointing southeast to northwest. To the north a thick forest spread along the valley floor, the dark pines standing in such orderly rows that obviously they were no natural growth, but all along the north shore lay an open meadow. Calonderiel turned to Rhodry and gestured at the forest with a wide sweep of his arm.
“Well, there it is. The death ground of my ancestors, and of yours as well. Your father’s father was set free and his ashes scattered among those trees, though I think your grandmother died too far out on the grass to be brought here.”
When they rode down to the lake, Rhodry realized that the meadow area was laid out as a proper campground: there were stone fire pits at regular intervals and small sheds, too, for keeping firewood dry and food safe from prowling animals. The alar rushed to set up their tents against the darkening sky and tether the horses securely as well, just in in case there should be thunder in the night. As the early evening was setting in, Calonderiel fetched Rhodry.
“Let’s go take a look at the firewood. The women tell me that we’d better do the ceremony tonight.”
They crossed the neatly tended boundary of the forest into the dark and spicy-scented corridors of trees. In a clearing, not ten yards in, stood a structure of dry-walled stone and rough-cut timber about thirty feet long. Inside they found it stacked with cut wood, a fortune in fuel out on the grasslands.
“Good,” Calonderiel saidbd. “Fetch the others. Let’s get this over with before the rain hits.”
But as if in sympathy witlth their loss, the rain held off. The wind rose instead, driving the clouds away and letting the stars shine through. Close to midnight the alar burned Oldana’s body to send her soul free to the gods. Rhodry stood well back toward the edge of the weeping crowd. Although he’d traveled with the Westfolk long enough to witness several cremations, still they disturbed him, used as he was to burying his kin and friends in the hidden dark of the earth with things they’d loved in life tucked round them. He found himself moving slowly backward, almost without thinking, easing himself out of the crowd, taking a step here, allowing someone to stand in front of him there, until at last he stood alone, some distance away.
The night wind lashed at the lake and howled round the trees like another mourner. Rhodry shivered with grief as much as the cold, because she had indeed been so young, and so very beautiful. Although he’d never known her well, he would miss her presence in the alar. Among the Westfolk, that last remnant of a race hovering on the edge of extinction, where the loss of any individual was a tragedy, the death of a woman who might have borne more children was an appalling blow of fate. In the center of the crowd the women howled in a burst of keening that the men answered, half a chant, half a sob. Rhodry turned and ran, plunged into the silent camp, raced through the tents and out the other side, ran and ran along the lakeshore until at last he tripped and went sprawling. For a long time he lay in the tall grass and gasped for breath. When he sat up the fire was far away, a golden flower blooming on the horizon. The wind-struck water lapped and murmured nearby.
“You coward,” he said to himself, and in Deverrian. “You’d best get back.”
The alar would expect him, the banadar’s second in command, to be present at the wake. He got up, pulling down his shirt, automatically running one hand along his belt to make sure that his sword was still there, and of course his silver dagger—which was gone. Rhodry swore and dropped to his knees to hunt for it. It must have slipped out of its sheath, he supposed, when he’d tripped and fallen flat on his face. In the starry dark his half-elven sight could make out little: the blacker shapes of crushed-down grass against the black shadows of grass still standing. On his hands and knees he crisscrossed the area, fumbling through and patting down the grass, pulling it aside, hoping for the gleam of silver, praying that the wretched thing hadn’t somehow or other slid into the lake. A gaggle of gnomes appeared to help, though he doubted if they truly understood him when he tried to explain what he was doing. Finally he gave up in disgust and sat back on his heels. In a flurry like a whirlwind the gnomes all disappeared.
“Rhodry, give me the ring, and I’ll give the dagger back.”
The voice—her voice, all soft and seductive—spoke from behind him. Swearing, he got to his feet and spun around to see her, standing some five feet away. She seemed to stand in a column of moonlight, as if the air around her were a tunnel to some other world where the moon was at her full, and she was wearing elven clothes, the embroidered tunic and leather trousers in which he’d first seen her. Her honey-colored hair, though, hung free, a cascade over her shoulders. In one hand she held his silver dagger, blade up.
“The ring, Rhodry Maelwaedd. Give me the rose ring, and you shall have your dagger back.”
“Suppose I just take it from you?”
She laughed and disappeared, suddenly and completely gone. When he swore, he heard her laugh behind him again, and spun around. There she was, and she was still holding the dagger.
“You shan’t be able to catch me, of course,” she said. “But I always keep my promises. I promise that if you give me the ring, I shall give you your dagger.”
“Well, if you want it that cursed badly . . . ”
When he started to slip the ring free, she moved forward, gliding over the grass, and it seemed that she was suddenly taller, her eyes flashing gold in the not-real moonlight that clung to her. All at once he was afraid, hesitated, stepped back with the ring still on his finger.
“Just why do you want this bit of silver so badly?”
“That’s none of your affair! Give it to me!”
She strode forward, he moved back. She stood huge now, her hair spreading out in some private wind like flames stirring, and she held the dagger up to strike.
“Stop!” It was a man’s voice. “You have no right to that ring!”
Rhodry could see no one, but she suddenly shrank down to form of a normal elven woman, and the dagger hung in a flaccid hand.
“It was his long before I carved the runes upon it. You know it was. Admit it.”
All at once a figure appeared to match the voice, a man with impossibly yellow hair and lips as red as cherries. Smiling, but it was more a wolf’s smile than a man’s, he strolled in between them. The long tunic he wore matched his unnaturally blue eyes. With a sense of utter shock Rhodry realized that he could see him so clearly because dawn was already turning the eastern sky silver, that the entire night had somehow passed during his brief conversation with the woman. She was staring at the grass now, and kicking a tuft of it like a sulky child.
“Hand it over,” the man said.
With a shriek of rage she hurled the dagger straight at Rhodry’s head. He ducked, twisting out of the way barely in time, then looked up to find them both gone. The dagger, however, lay gleaming in the rising sun. When he picked it up, he found it perfectly solid—and realized with surprise that he’d expected it to be somehow changed. Although he sheathed it, he kept his hand on the hilt as he started back to camp.
“Rhodry?”
The voice made him yelp aloud. The man with the yellow hair gave him an apologetic smile.
“If I were you,” the fellow said. “I’d leave the Westlands. She won’t follow you into the lands of men.”
He disappeared again. Rhodry ran the rest of the way back to the camp.
The wake was long over. Most of the People, in fact, were asleep after the long night of mourning. Only a pack of dogs, a few of the older boys, and Calonderiel were sitting round the newly rekindled fire in front of the banadar’s tent.
“Where were you?” Calonderiel said.
“I hardly know.” Rhodry sat down next to him on the ground.
Calonderiel considered for a moment, then waved at the boys and dogs impartially.
“Go. I don’t care where—to bed, probably. But go.”
Once they’d gone, the banadar laid a few chips and twigs onto the fire.
“I hate to let it go out,” he remarked. “What do you mean, you hardly know?”
“Just that. I thought I was but a mile from here, down by the lake, but the whole night passed like a bare moment, and I saw a woman who came and went like one of the Wildfolk.”
While Rhodry told the story, and he finally admitted the earlier incidents as well, Calonderiel listened without a word, but the banadar grew more and more troubled.
“Guardians,” he said at last. “What you saw were two of the Guardians. I don’t exactly know what they may be, but they’re somehow linked to the People. They’re not gods, certainly, nor are they elves like you and me, nor men like your other tribe, either. No more are they Wildfolk, though they seem more like the Wildfolk than like us at times. I’ve heard a wagonload of old tales about them. Sometimes they harm those that see them, but more often they help, which is why we call them Guardians. The bards say that at the fall of Rinbaladelan, a man of the Guardians fought side by side with the royal archers, but not even his magic could hold the Hordes off in the end.”
“Do you think I should take the fellow’s advice, then?”
“Most likely. Ye gods, I wish Aderyn were here! We need a dweomerman’s counsel, we do.”
“I’m still surprised he never came to the alardan. It’s not like the old man to miss one.”
“Just so.” Calonderiel suddenly yawned with a convulsive little shudder. “Well, let’s get some sleep. It’s been a miserable night, all told. Maybe your dreams will tell you something useful.”
That afternoon, though, Rhodry dreamt of the long road, that is, the time when he’d ridden as a silver dagger into political exile. When he woke, he could remember nothing particular about the dream, and it faded fast as dreams will, but the feeling of it lingered round him, a sour sort of omen. He found himself alone in the banadar’s huge tent, with the rest of the warband gone, though he did hear whispering voices just outside. When he dressed and went out, he discovered a clot of men, all white-faced and shaking, standing round the young prince, Daralanteriel, who had his hands set on his hips and an angry toss to his head.
“What’s all this?” Rhodry was instantly awake.
“My apologies, sir,” the prince said. “The men keep talking about ghosts, and I’m trying to force some sense into their heads.”
“Good.” Rhodry turned to Jennantar, who of all the men in the warband was usually the most hard-headed. “Now, what—“
“Mock all you like, we saw her!” Jennantar said. “Oldana, standing at the edge of camp clear as clear.”
The rest nodded in stubborn agreement.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Daralanteriel snarled. “Only Round-ears believe in trash like that. Well, begging your pardon, sir.”
“Tact isn’t your strongest point, lad, is it? But apology accepted. Look at it this way: the men saw something, so the real question is, what was it?”
“I’m glad to see that someone believes our sworn word.” Jennantar shot Daralanteriel an evil glance.
“Enough of that! It’s a prince you’re looking daggers at,” Rhodry broke in and quickly. “Where did you see this thing?”
With the others trailing after, Jennantar led Rhodry out of the camp on the forest side. He pointed to a spot between two ancient pines.
“Right there. She was standing between those trees, in the shadows, yes, but we still saw her really clearly, all wrapped up in the white linen, and her hair was all white, too.”
“When you looked at her, did she seem solid, or could you see things through her, like you can through smoke?”
“Interesting.” Jennantar thought for a moment. “In the bard tales, you can always see right through a ghost, but she looked as real as you or me, and it was sunny, of course, which should have made her look even less real, but it didn’t.”
“What did you do when you saw her?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, we all yelped and jumped. She didn’t say anything, just looked at us. And Wye said, ‘Look at her hair, it’s not yellow anymore, it’s turned white.’ And she smiled at that, like, and vanished, sudden as sudden.”
“And you’re sure it was Oldana?”
“Looked exactly like her, except for that white hair.”
The other men nodded agreement. Rhodry sighed with a sharp puff of breath. Whoever or whatever that spirit who coveted his ring might be, there was no doubt that she could shape-change to perfection.
As they walked back to camp, three women came running to meet them. They ringed Rhodry round and all began talking at once: they too had seen Oldana, prowling round her family’s tent.
“I suppose she wants a look at her children, poor thing,” Annaleria said, her voice shaking with tears. “I know I would.”
“Ye gods!” Rhodry snarled. “Where are the boys?”
“With their grandmother in her tent.”
“Good. Go join her. Fill that tent with women, and for the love of every god, don’t let the apparition near those boys. If she gets her claws into one of them, he’ll be gone where none of us can get him back.”
Except, no doubt, by handing over the ring.
“Let’s go. Hurry!”
Rhodry broke into a run and raced for camp, leaving the others startled behind him. Enabrilia’s distinctive tent, painted with scenes of deer drinking at a river, stood off to one side, with nothing beyond it but the lakeshore. As Rhodry jogged up, he saw Val heading down to the water’s edge with a leather bucket in his hands. Rhodry took off after him, yelling his name. The boy stopped on the pale sand and looked back, smiling. Out on the water something was forming. It seemed a wisp of mist at first, then shimmered and began to grow thicker.
“Run!” Rhodry shrieked. “Come here, Val!”
The boy dropped the bucket and followed orders, racing to Rhodry’s open arms just as the shape took form and stepped off the water to the shore. She looked so like Oldana—and her hair was the other’s proper color now, too, a pale gold—that Rhodry swore under his breath. Val twisted in his arms.
“Malamala!” he cried out. “Let me go! It’s my mother.”
Rhodry held him tighter and swore again as the boy burst into tears. Shouting and cursing, Jennantar and half the alar came running to surround them. The apparition shook one fist in Rhodry’s direction, then vanished like smoke blowing away under a wind.
“She’s gone,” Val sobbed. “Why didn’t you let me go? Why?”
“Because she would have taken you with her to the Otherlands, and it’s not your time to go.” Rhodry said the only thing he could think of, looked round, saw Enabrilia shoving her way through the crowd. “Here’s your gramma. Go with her. I’ll come talk to you later, little one, but I don’t know if I can ever explain.”
“I wanted to go with Malamala. I hate you! I want my mother.”
When Rhodry handed the weeping child over to Enabrilia, the other women formed round her like a guard and swept them away. Rhodry looked round to find Daralanteriel and the other men standing between him and the lake.
“I’m sorry,” Dar stammered out. “Jennantar, I never should have doubted your word, and I’m sorry. I—”
“Don’t think of it again.” Jennantar laid a gentle hand on the prince’s shoulder. “It’s all unbelievable enough, isn’t it? Rhodry, for the love of every god, what was that—that creature?”
“I don’t truly know.” Rhodry ran both hands through his hair and felt himself shake like a man with a fever. “But she bodes ill, whatever she is. Let’s go find the banadar.”
Rhodry could be a stubborn man when he wanted, and indeed at times when he didn’t, as well. That she would stoop so low to gain her prize made him suddenly determined that she should never have that ring, no matter what the cost to him. Risking the rest of the alar, of course, was different. When they found Calonderiel, Rhodry told him the story, then led him away from the others out to the edge of the forest, where the corridors of trees stood nodding in the rising wind.
“That Guardian I saw spoke true. I’ve got to leave, for the alar’s sake more than my own. I’m minded to ride north and look for Aderyn. No doubt she’ll follow me and the ring and leave the rest of you in peace.”
“It seems best, doesn’t it? But you can’t go alone. Too dangerous. I’ll come with you, and we’ll take part of the warband, too.”
“You have my thanks, and from the bottom of my heart.” Rhodry caught himself—he was speaking Deverrian again. After so many years of rarely hearing it, he was surprised that he would so instinctively return to it when he was troubled. He made himself speak Elvish. “I wasn’t looking forward to being out there alone, but I’ve got to talk to Aderyn. I don’t know whether to placate her or fight her.”
“If she’s one of the Guardians, normally I’d say you should do what she wants, but I’m beginning to wonder.” Calonderiel thought for a moment, frowning out at the horizon. “I’ve never heard of a Guardian begging and wheedling a mere mortal like this. Maybe she’s some kind of evil spirit. You’re right. Aderyn’s the one who would know.”
“I wonder where the old man is?”
“North, probably, coming down to the winter camps. If he’d been south already, he would have come to the alardan.”
Calonderiel turned the leadership of his alar over to the king and his son, just until he should return. With some ten men and a couple of packhorses, Rhodry and Calonderiel rode straight north, making a good twelve miles before pitching the night’s camp. Since under the starry sky everyone could see well enough, they dispensed with a fire, merely sat close together in a ring, watching the moon rise. No one seemed to have a thing to say. Twice someone started a song; both times the music died away after a few quiet verses.
“Ye gods!” Calonderiel snarled at last. “What’s wrong with us all?”
“Well, it’s a hard thing,” Jennantar said. “Losing first Oldana and now Rhodry.”
“Here!” Rhodry snapped, “I’m not dead yet, curse you and your balls both, but you might be if you keep talking that way.”
Everyone managed a weak laugh.
“Not talking about you being dead,” Jennantar said. “Talking about you riding east.”
“Do you think I want to leave the Westlands? Not without a fight, my friends.”
At that exact moment they heard the howl, as if she’d waited to pick the perfect time to appear, echoing through the moonlight. Without thinking Rhodry was on his feet, facing her as she stood just beyond the circle of elves. Although she no longer wore Oldana’s face, she was still dressed all in white, like the burning clothes, and her long hair, hanging free, was silver-white as well.
“My daughter.” This time she spoke in Elvish. “You don’t understand. They’ll take her far away from me. I must have that ring.”
“How will my having the ring lose you your daughter?”
“I don’t know. Evandar won’t tell me, but that ring was omened for you, Rhodry Maelwaedd, long, long ago before you were born again onto this earth of yours. Don’t you remember? You gave it to him, long years ago, when you wore another face and carried another name.”
Rhodry could only stare, gape-mouthed. He heard Calonderiel get to his feet and come to stand beside him.
“Listen, woman,” the banadar said. “If that ring was omened for Rhodry, then it’s no doing of yours. I’m truly sorry to hear your grief, but none of us know one wretched thing about this daughter of yours. And what’s this nonsense about other faces and names? I’m beginning to think you’ve gotten Rhodry confused with some other man.”
She shrieked once, then disappeared. Rhodry felt sweat run down his back in a cold trickle.
Although they kept a watch that night, and rode on guard from then on as well, they never saw the strange being again. After some days of searching, they found a fresh trail—horses and travois—that eventually led them to another alar, camped in the bend of a stream. As they rode up, a pair of young men came out to hail them and welcome them into the camp. Everyone dismounted and began leading their horses toward the distant circle of tents.
“A question for you,” Calonderiel said to the pair. “Does Aderyn of the Silver Wings ride with this alar?”
The two men winced, looking back and forth between them.
“I take it you haven’t heard the news.”
“News?” Rhodry turned cold, guessing it just from the grim looks on their faces.
“He was on his way to a big alardan down south somewhere, but he never reached it.”
Rhodry grunted like a man kicked in the stomach. Staring at the ground but unseeing, he dropped his horse’s reins and walked a few steps away while the others went on talking to the banadar. He heard himself speak, realized that he was shaking his head in an instinctive denial while he muttered no, no, no, over and over. Oldana’s death was very sad, but to have Aderyn gone shook his entire world. The old man had always been there, wise and strong and full of good counsel, ever since those days long ago when Rhodry as a lad of twenty rode to war as cadvridoc for the first time, back in the old days, when he was heir to Aberwyn. Calonderiel caught up with him and grabbed his arm.
“How?” Rhodry said. “Did they say?”
“In his sleep. As peaceful as you’d want, or so they heard. Well, he’d lived a full life, after all, not like poor little Oldana, and no doubt he’s gone to join those Great Ones that dweomerfolk speak of.”
“True spoken.” Without thinking, Rhodry slipped into Deverrian. “But it aches my heart all the same. Will his apprentice succeed him?”
“He will, but he’s up north somewhere. Shall we ride after him? The gods only know when we’d catch up with him, and I think you’re in too much danger for us to wander aimlessly about, my friend.”
“So do I. I think me that I’ve been given an omen as well as sad news.”
“You’re going to leave us?”
Rhodry hesitated, staring off at the horizon and the endless sea of green, rippling in a rising wind. For years his entire life had been bounded by grass and grazing, the herds and the seasons of the year, the vast freedom of following the herds and the grass. To go back to the lands of men, to cities and to farms—what would he do there?
“Staying here would put you all in danger,” he said aloud. “Evandar—I suppose that’s the Guardian who spoke to me that night—Evandar seemed to think that leaving was my only choice. And without Aderyn . . . ” He let his voice trail away. “Well, I sold my sword once before. I can do it again.”
“Ye gods! Not that!”
“What choice do I have?”
“I don’t know. But let’s shelter here tonight anyway. Don’t go rushing into some decision you’ll regret.”
“Good advice. Done, then.”
But that evening, as they sat around a fire with their hosts, Rhodry barely listened to the talk and the music round him. As much as he hated to leave the Westlands, he felt Deverry pulling at him, the memories of his native land rising in his mind as easily and as vividly as his native language had come back. All at once he realized that he was thinking of his ride east as “going home.” He looked up and found Calonderiel watching him in some concern.
“You look like a man with a bad case of boils,” the banadar remarked. “Or are you brooding about that female?”
“Neither. I’ve made up my mind. It’s east that I’ll be heading.”
Calonderiel sighed in a long puff of breath.
“I’ll hate to see you go, but it’s probably for the best. I suppose you’ll be safe there. At least the spirit won’t trouble you, but what about the Round-ears?”
“If I stay out of Eldidd, no one’s going to recognize me.”
“Even if they did, they’d never believe you were Rhodry Maelwaedd anyway. How strange, they’d say, that silver dagger looks a fair bit like the old gwerbret, the one who drowned so mysterious like all those years ago.”
Rhodry smiled, but there was no humor in it.
“No doubt. Will you ride with me to the border?”
“Of course. It’s too cursed dangerous to let you go alone. Humph. I’ve got some Deverry coin with me. The handful I got from those merchants a couple of months ago, remember? You’re taking it with you.”
“Now here, I don’t want—”
“Hold your tongue! It won’t do me a cursed bit of good, and it’ll keep you warm this winter. You have the worst ill luck of any man I’ve ever known.” Calonderiel sounded personally aggrieved. “Why couldn’t this stupid bitch of a spirit at least wait until spring?”
Rhodry started laughing. It came boiling out of his very heart, shaking him, choking him, but still he laughed on and on, until Calonderiel grabbed him by the shoulders and made him stop.
In the days that followed, as he rode back east to the lands of men with Calonderiel and their escort, he found himself thinking of Aderyn, remembering all the times they’d spent together, all the favors that the old man had done him, though “favors” was much too mild a word. Ye gods, he would think, what’s going to happen to the kingdoms now? First Nevyn gone in Deverry, and now Aderyn dead in the Westlands! Although he knew that there were other dweomerworkers in both lands to protect their peoples, still it troubled his heart, this feeling that some great and dreadful thing was coming toward them all on a dark wind. The two deaths—Oldana so young, so unjustly taken; Aderyn no surprise, truly, at his advanced age—mingled together in his mind and tipped some inner balance dangerously low.
They rode into Deverry up Pyrdon way, crossing the border on a day still and cold under a lowering sky. The horses were restless, feeling thunder coming, dancing and snorting as their hooves hit the unfamiliar surface of a log-paved road. By a stone pillar carved with the rearing stallion of the gwerbrets of Pyrdon, Calonderiel called a halt.
“There’s no use you coming farther in,” Rhodry said.
“True spoken. Bitter partings are best over fast.”
Yet they lingered, sitting on horseback together and idly looking at the pillar. Since Rhodry could read, he translated the inscription into Elvish: a claim-stone, mostly, for the gwerbrets, though it did deign to tell them that Drw Loc, chief city of the rhan, lay some forty miles on.
“Two days riding,” Calonderiel said. “Will you be safe tonight?”
“There’s a town just ten miles down the road, or there was, anyway, last time I rode this way. I’ll find lodging there. And if the man named Evandar was telling me the truth, I’ll be safe enough with human beings around me.”
The other men exchanged grim glances. The silence hung like the heavy air.
“Do you see that device? the Stallion?” Rhodry found himself talking merely to be talking. “Another branch of this clan holds Cwm Pecl under its sign. My cousin Blaen used to rule there, but he rode to the Otherlands many a long year ago. Huh. He named his eldest son after me. Maybe I should ride east and see if young Rhodry’s still upon the earth—listen to me! He’s not young anymore, is he? If naught else, I can pour a little milk and honey on Blaen’s grave.”
“Ye gods, you’re in a morbid mood!”
“Well, so I am. It aches my heart to leave you, my friend.”
“And it aches mine to lose you. Whether you come back or no, Rhodry, you’ll always be my friend.”
Rhodry felt a lump forming in his throat and looked away fast.
“Tell my father where I’ve gotten myself to, won’t you?”
“I will. Ye gods, I don’t relish the task, I tell you. No doubt he’ll revile me for days for letting you go off like this. Devaberiel’s the only man I know with a worse temper than mine.”
They both smiled, briefly, and sat for another long moment more, studying the horizon where it darkened with storm.
“Ah, well,” Calonderiel said at last. “For the love of every god, take care of yourself on the long road.”
The silence grew. With a wave of his arm, Calonderiel called out to his men.
“Let’s ride! No need to twist the arrow in the wound.”
Rhodry steadied his horse and kept him still while they gathered in the road and dopped off. He sat, staring out across the empty meadowlands, until he could no longer hear them riding away. He was a silver dagger again, back on the long road, with no more of a name than Rhodry, not Maelwaedd, not ap Devaberiel—no name, no place, no clan to take him in. He started to laugh, his mad berserker’s chortle and howl, and headed off toward the east. It was a long time before he could make himself stop laughing.
Late in the afternoon, when thunderheads were piling and sailing in a crisp sky, Rhodry rode into a village called Tiry, a scatter of some two dozen roundhouses, all nicely whitewashed and newly thatched for the winter and set among now-leafless ash and poplar trees. Down by the banks of a small river stood the local inn and tavern behind a wooden fence. When Rhodry led his horse into the yard, the tavernman bustled out to greet him, a stout fellow with hair as yellow and as messy as the thatch.
“You’ll be wanting lodging, no doubt,” he announced. “And the gods all know that I wouldn’t turn anyone away tonight, not even a silver dagger like you.”
“My thanks, I suppose. Tonight? What—”
“Ye gods, man! It’s Samaen! Now let’s get that horse into the stables.”
Rhodry was shocked at how easily he’d lost track of the markings of Time in the world of men. How could he have forgotten Samaen, when the gates of the Otherlands open wide and the unquiet dead come walking through the lands of their kin? Those who lie unburied, those who hold grudges, those who’ve left a true love behind or a hoard buried—they all come wandering the roads in the company of fiends and spirits on this night that belongs neither to this world nor to the other and thus lies common to both.
Once his horse was fed and stabled, and his gear stowed in a neat pile under a table by the hearth, Rhodry and the innkeep, Merro, sat down to have a tankard of dark apiece in the otherwise empty tavern room.
“You’re on the road late, silver dagger.”
“I am, at that, and a cursed ugly thing it is, too. I couldn’t find a hire for the winter, you see.”
“Ah, well.” The tavemman considered, sucking his teeth. “Well, now, there were some merchants through here not so long ago, from Dun Trebyc way, they were, and they told me about a feud brewing, down in the southern hills.”
“Sounds like work for a silver dagger’s sword.”
“It does, truly. What you do, see, is ride dead east from here till you reach the lake, then take the south-running road. Keep asking along the way. If there’s war brewing, it won’t be any secret, will it now? Or if that comes to naught, you might give his grace our gwerbret a try. He’s a generous man, just like he should be, and he remembers the old days, too, when you lads put a king on his throne, or so he always says. We remember the old days, here in Pyrdon.” Merro paused for a sip of ale. “This village, now? It used to be royal land, you see, when there was a king in Dun Drw instead of a gwerbret. That’s why it’s got this name. Ty Ric, it was once, the king’s house. There was a royal hunting lodge here in those days, you see, right where this inn is now, though of course there’s not one stick of wood left from it. That’s the way things go, eh?”
“Interesting,” Rhodry said to be polite. “But it’s a free village now?”
“It is, and on good terms at that, when it comes to the taxes. Lord Varyn, he’s our local lord, you see, is an honorable man, but even if he weren’t, well, we remember the days when this was the king’s land, not his, and we hold to our charter, like, and so does the gwerbret, and that’s that.” Merro raised his tankard in brief salute, had a sip, and proceeded to lecture Rhodry about local politics in great detail.
When the sun sank so low that the storm clouds blazed red and gold, Merro closed the inn. Rhodry went along with him and his family to join the village in lighting the Bel fire. At the crest of a low hill near town two priests waited, dressed in white tunics, gold torcs round their necks, golden sickles dangling from their belts, with the village blacksmith and his son to help them. One at a time each village or farm family panted up the hill with a burden of wood, added it to the stack, and received the blessings of Great Bel. When everyone who lived under the temple’s jurisdiction was assembled and blessed, the priests laid the wood ready for a proper fire and sprinkled it with oil. As if in answer to their chanting, the twilight grew as gray and thick as fur. The blacksmith lit torches and stood prepared.
Then came the waiting. Far away, hundreds of miles away in the High King’s city of Dun Deverry, the head priest would light the first fire. The instant that the nearest priests on their hilltops saw the blaze, they would torch their own wood. Those next away would see and kindle theirs—on and on it would go, thin lines of light springing up and spreading out across the kingdom in a dweomer web, until beacon fires burned from the sea coast up to Cerrgonney and all across from Cwm Pecl to here on the Pyrdon border. The younger priest raised a brass horn, long and straight in the ancient style, to his lips and stared off to the east. The villagers huddled close together in the gathering dark. All at once the priest tipped his head back and blew, a rasping, shrieking cry straight from the heart of the Dawntime. Down went the torches. The fire blazed up, crackling with oil, a great leap of gold flame lurching in the night wind. When Rhodry spun around, searching the horizon, he saw the neighboring fires like little stars, resting on the hilltops.
The village cried out, praying wordlessly to the gods to keep them safe through the night ahead. Silhouetted by the dancing bonfire, the priests flung their arms over their heads and began to chant. Rhodry found himself remembering Oldana, and another fire that had bloomed by the Lake of the Leaping Trout. Doubtless Aderyn’s alar had burned the old man’s body, too, out on the grasslands where he’d died. For a moment Rhodry felt so odd that he wondered if he’d been taken ill; then he realized that he was crying, aloud and helpless like a child, beyond all power to stop himself. Fortunately, in the chanting, yelling mob no one noticed. When the chanting died away, the horn shrieked again, over and over, sending the villagers on their way. The children ran for home, the adults walked fast—but not too fast, because it didn’t pay to let the spirits know you were afraid of them. Rhodry trailed after the innkeep’s family and managed to have his face wiped and respectable by the time they reached the inn. Merro set a couple of bowls of milk and bread out on the doorstep to keep the spirits happy, then ushered everyone inside and barred the door with a profound sigh of relief. While his wife poured ale for the grown-ups, Merro lit the new fire laid ready in the hearth.
“Well, there,” he said. “May the gods keep us safe in the coming snows, too.”
With a murmured excuse, the wife set the tankards down and left the tavern room, taking the young boy with her. The two older girls looked into the fire trying to see the faces of the men they’d someday marry. Rhodry and Merro sat at a table and drank in silence. Outside the wind picked up, rustling the thatch on the roof, banging the shutters at the windows. Even though Rhodry kept telling himself that it was only the wind, he heard the dead walking.
Merro was just remarking that he might pour a second round when they heard hoofbeats clattering up to the inn. It could only be a horse from the Otherlands. Merro turned dead-pale, staring at the door while the wind whispered and rattled. Someone—something—knocked so loudly that the two girls shrieked. Rhodry sprang to his feet, his hand on his sword hilt, as the knocking came again.
“Innkeep!” The voice sounded human enough, male and deep at that. “Open up, for the love of the gods!”
Merro sat frozen, his face dead-white.
“It’s going to rain!” the voice went on. “Have pity on a traveler, even though he was a dolt, sure enough, to let himself get caught on the roads for Samaen eve.”
Merro made a rattling sound deep in his throat.
“Ah, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell!” Rhodry said, and he could feel himself grinning. “Let’s let him in, innkeep. If naught else, it’ll be a fine tale to tell, about the spirit who was afraid to get wet.”
The lasses shrieked again, but halfheartedly, as if they were only doing it to keep up appearances. Rhodry strode over and unbarred the door. The man that stood there in the shadows seemed human enough: tall, broad-shouldered, a little beefy, in fact, with windblown blond hair, but in the uncertain light Rhodry couldn’t see his eyes to tell if they were demonic or not. He was holding the reins of a normal-looking horse, too, standing head down and weary, a gray as far as Rhodry could see. Up in the sky the clouds hung black. A few drops of rain pattered then stopped.
“What do you think, Merro?” Rhodry called out. “He looks like flesh and blood to me.”
“Oh, well and good, then.” With a sigh the inkeep came over. “But by every god in the sky, traveler, you gave me a fright!”
By the time that Merro and the stranger got back to the tavern room, the rain was pouring down. Rhodry helped himself to more ale, then put one foot up on a bench and leaned onto his knee to watch as the stranger stripped off his wet cloak and shook his head with a scatter of drops. You never knew about men you met on the long road, though in truth this lad seemed decent enough. In the leaping light he looked young, twenty at the most, and his blue eyes were perfectly human, neither cat-slit like an elf’s nor blank and empty as those of demons are reputed to be. He accepted a tankard from the innkeep, started to speak, then leaned across the table. His eyes were narrowing in puzzlement even as he smiled, suddenly pleased, suddenly grinning, in fact, in something close to joy.
“Don’t I know you, silver dagger?”
“Not that I recall.” Yet even as he spoke Rhodry felt his heart twist.
He did know this lad, didn’t he? It seemed that the name hovered on the edge of his mind, just out of reach yet as familiar as his own, and on that same edge an image was trying to rise, a memory trying to bloom like a flower.
“Where are you from?” the lad said.
“Down Eldidd way. You’re from Deverry proper, by the sound of your speech.”
“I am, and never been west till this summer. But it’s odd, I could have sworn . . . ” He let his voice trail away.
Rhodry hadn’t been in Deverry for close to twenty years, when this fellow would have been a babe in arms.
“And who was your father, then?”
“Now that I can’t tell you.” The lad hesitated, drawing into himself, turning his face expressionless. “And as for my name, you can call me Yraen.”
“Well and good, Yraen it is. My name is Rhodry, and that’s all the name I have.”
“It’s enough for a silver dagger, huh?” Yraen hesitated, cocking his head to one side, looking Rhodry over. “You are a silver dagger, aren’t you? I mean, I just assumed . . . ”
“I am.” Rhodry drew the dagger and flipped it point down and quivering into the table between them. “What’s it to you?”
“”Naught, naught. Just asking.”
Yraen stared at the device graved on the blade, a striking falcon, for a long time.
“Mean anything to you?” Rhodry said.
“Not truly, but it’s splendid, the way it’s drawn. You’d swear that bird could fly, wouldn’t you?”
Rhodry remembered the innkeep, looked up to find Merro shepherding his daughters through the door into the family’s rooms.
“I’ll just leave you two lads,” Merro announced. “Bank the fire before you go to sleep, won’t you, silver dagger? Dip yourself more ale if you want it.”
“I will, and my thanks, innkeep.”
He got himself more ale and came back to the table to find Yraen holding the dagger, angling the blade to catch the firelight. Yraen caught his expression and hurriedly put the dagger down.
“Apologies. I shouldn’t have touched it without asking you first.”
“”You’re forgiven. Don’t do it again.”
Yraen blushed as red as a Bardek roof tile, making Rhodry wonder if he were closer to eighteen than twenty.
“You look like you’ve been on the long road for years,” the lad said finally.
“I have. What’s it to you?”
“Naught. I mean. Well, you see, I’ve been hoping to find a silver dagger. Think your band would take me on?”
“Oho. You’ve got a reason to be traveling the kingdom, have you?”
Yraen stared down at the table, began rubbing the palm of one hand back and forth along the edge of the grease-polished wood.
“You don’t have to tell me what got you dishonored,” Rhodry said. “None of my wretched business, truly, as long as you can fight and keep your word.”
“Oh, I can fight well enough. I got my training . . . well, uh, in a great lord’s household, you see. But . . . ”
Rhodry waited, sipping his ale. He could tell that Yraen was hovering on the edge of some much-needed confession. All at once the lad looked up.
“They say that every silver dagger’s got some great shame in his past.”
“True enough. Not our place to judge another man.”
“But, you see, I haven’t done anything, I just want to be a silver dagger. I always have, from the day I heard about them. I don’t know why. I don’t want to sit moldering in my, uh, er, my lord’s dun down in Deverry. I’ve talked to every silver dagger who rode our way, and I know in my very soul that I was meant to ride the long road.”
“You must be daft!”
“That’s what everyone says.” All at once he grinned. “And so, think I, well, maybe being daft is dishonor enough.”
“Not likely. Listen, once you take this blasted dagger, you’re marked for life. You’re a shamed man, and you only deepen your shame every time you take coin from a lord for fighting his battles instead of serving him out of fealty. Ye gods, why do you want to throw your young life away? Can’t you see that—”
“I know my own mind.” There was a growl in his voice. “That’s what they all say, you know. You’ll only regret it when it’s too late, and you’ve dishonored yourself in the eyes of the entire kingdom, and no one will take you in, then, because you’ll just be a cursed silver dagger. Well, I don’t care.” He stiffened, half rising from his seat. “You asked me if I could keep my word. Well, I could have made up some lie, said I caused trouble in the warband or suchlike, but I didn’t. I told you the truth, and now you’re mocking me for it.”
“I’m not mocking you, lad. Believe me, that’s the farthest thing from my mind.”
Yraen sat back down. Rhodry considered the empty bottom of his tankard and felt himself yawning. The events of the day, of the past few weeks, truly, all seemed to rush in upon him. He was tired, and he’d drunk more than a fair bit—those were the reasons, he supposed, that his mind kept circling round the peculiar idea. Against his will he found himself remembering the evil spirit, nattering about times when he’d worn another face and another name. And things Aderyn had said, years ago. And a strange woman of the Wildfolk, who had known him when he should never have recognized her—though he did. And Evandar, saying that he’d owned the rose ring long before the Guardian had put runes upon it, when Rhodry had never seen the thing without its inscription. And then Yraen, this familiar stranger. When a man’s dead, he’s gone, he told himself. The doors to the Otherlands only swing one way. All at once he realized that Yraen was still talking.
“Were you listening to me?” Yraen snapped.
“I wasn’t, at that. What were you saying?”
Faced with his direct stare the lad blushed again.
“You’re noble-bom, aren’t you?” Rhodry said.
“How did you know?”
Yraen looked so honestly surprised that Rhodry nearly laughed aloud, but he caught himself in time.
“Go back to your father’s dun, lad. Don’t throw your life away for the silver dagger. Now look, if you rode here from Deverry, you must have met other silver daggers along the way. None of them would pledge you to the band, either, would they?”
Yraen scowled and went back to rubbing his hand on the edge of the table.
“I thought not,” Rhodry said. “We have a bit of honor left, most of us, anyway.”
“But I want it!” He hesitated, reining in his temper. “What if I beg you, Rhodry? Please, will you take me on? Please?”
It cost him dear to humble himself that way, and for a moment Rhodry wavered.
“I won’t,” he said at last. “Because it would be a rotten thing to do to a man who’s never wronged me.”
Yraen tossed his head and muttered something foul.
“There’s naught out to the west of us, so there’s no use in you riding that way,” Rhodry went on. “On the morrow you’d best head back east to your father. Winter’s coming on fast.”
As if to underscore his point, a blast of wind hit the tavern. Thatch rustled, shutters breathed and banged, the fire smoked. Rhodry started to get up, but Yraen forestalled him, swinging himself clear of the bench and hurrying to the fire.
“I’ll tend it,” he said. “I’ll make you a bargain. I’lsl be your page, and we’ll travel together for a while. I’ll wait on you like I waited on the lord who trained me, when I was a page in his dun, I mean, and then you can see if I’m good enough to carry the dagger.”
“You young dolt, it’s not a question of you proving yourself.”
Yraen ignored him and began to mess about with the fire. Sparks scattered, logs dropped and smothered coals, sticks of glowing charcoal rolled into corners to die.
“I think you’d best let me do that.”
“Well, maybe so. My apologies, but the servants always did the fires at home, not the pages.”
“No doubt.”
“But is this your bedroll? I’ll spread it out for you.”
Before Rhodry could stop him, he did just that, in the best spot nearest the fire in the cleanest straw, and he insisted on straightening out all of Rhodry’s gear, getting his razor out ready for the morning. He would have pulled Rhodry’s boots off for him, too, if Rhodry hadn’t snarled at him. Whoever had trained him as a boy had taught him a few things, at least, about waiting on a lord on campaign.
Rhodry woke early the next morning. Since the tavern room was cold, and the innkeep and his family not yet up, he lay awake thinking, watching the cracks round the shutters turn gray with dawn and listening to Yraen snore by the other side of the fire. A lad who actually wanted to be a silver dagger! A lad whom, he was sure, he remembered. From somewhere. From some time. From some other . . . his mind shied away from the idea like a horse from a snake in the road. Someone he had known, a long, long time ago and then again, not so long ago at all.
With a shake of his head Rhodry got up, moving as quietly as he could, pulled on his boots and grabbed his cloak, then slipped outside to use the privy round by the stables. As he was coming back, he lingered for a while in the inn yard. It had stopped raining, though the sky still hung close and gray, and he leaned onto the low wooden fence and looked idly down the north-running road, leading toward Dun Drw. The rhan’s chief city, it was, the capital of the gwerbrets who once had been kings. We remember the old days, here in Pyrdon, or so Merro had said. Maybe, Rhodry told himself, just maybe I do, too. Then he shook the thought away and hurried inside.
Back in the tavern he found Yraen up and busy. The fire was burning again, the lumps of sod neatly stacked to one side of the hearth; both bedrolls were lashed up and laid ready with the other gear by the door; Yraen himself was badgering the yawning innkeep about heating water for shaving. In the morning light Rhodry could see that the lad did indeed need to shave and revised his estimate of Yraen’s age upward again.
“Morrow, my lord,” Yraen said. “There’s naught for breakfast, our innkeep tells me, but bread and dried apples.”
“It’ll do, and don’t call me your lord.”
Yraen merely grinned. Over breakfast Rhodry tried arguing with him, snarling at him, and downright ordering him to go home, but when they rode out, Yraen rode alongside him. The lad had a beautiful horse, a dapple-gray gelding standing close to seventeen hands, with a delicate head but a barrel chest. When Rhodry glanced at its flank, he found the king’s own brand.
“A gift to my father from his highness,” Yraen said. “And my father gave him to me.”
“You don’t expect me to believe that you left with your father’s blessing, do you?”
“I don’t. I snuck out in the night like a thief, and that’s the one thing that troubles my heart. But I’m one of four brothers, so he’s got plenty of heirs.”
“I see, and you had no prospects at home, anyway.”
“None to speak of.” Yraen flashed him a sour sort of grin. “Unless you count riding in a brother’s warband as a prospect in life.”
Since Rhodry had once been in the same position, he could sympathize, though not to the point of weakening.
“It’s a better prospect than you’ll have on the long road. At least if you die riding for your brother, someone will give you a proper grave. A muddy ditch on the battlefield’s the best a silver dagger can hope for.”
Yraen merely shrugged. Whether eighteen or twenty, Rhodry supposed, he was too young to believe that he would ever die.
“Now look, I’m not going to stand you to the dagger and that’s that. You’re wasting your time and your breath, following me and begging.”
Yraen smiled and said nothing.
“Ye gods, you stubborn young cub!”
“Rhodry, please.” Yraen turned in the saddle so that he could see his unwilling mentor’s face. “I’ll tell you somewhat that I’ve never told anyone before. Will you listen?”
“Oh, very well.”
“When I was about fourteen, just home from serving as a page, my mother gave a fête. And one of her serving women has the second sight, I mean, everyone says she does, and she’s usually right if she outright predicts something. So she dressed up like an old hag and did fortunes, looking into a silver bowl of water by candlelight. Mostly she talked about marriages and silly things like that, you see, but when she came to do mine, she cried out and wouldn’t say anything at all. Mother made me leave, so the fête wouldn’t be spoiled or suchlike, but later I made the woman tell me what she’d seen. And she said she saw me riding as a silver dagger, somewhere far, far away in a wild part of the kingdom, and that when she saw it, she just somehow knew that it was my Wyrd, sent by the gods. And then she started crying, and I had to believe her.”
Rhodry gave him a sharp and searching look, but he’d never seen anyone so sincere. In fact, the lad blushed, and that very embarrassment stood as witness to the truth of his tale.
“I’ll wager you think it’s daft or womanish or both.”
“Not in the least. Well, ride with me a while, then, and we’ll see what the long road brings us. I’m not promising anything, mind. I’m just not sending you away. There’s a difference.”
“There is, at that, but you have my thanks, anyway.”
As he thought about the story, with its talk of serving women and fêtes, Rhodry realized why Yraen looked like a man of twenty but at times acted like a boy. He must have been raised in a very wealthy clan indeed, sheltered down in Deverry by their power and position from the hard times that aged a man fast on the border. Grudgingly he admitted that he rather admired the boy for wanting to leave all that comfort behind and ride looking for adventure. He’ll learn soon enough, he thought. One good rough time of it, and I’ll wager I can send him home—if he lives through whatever the gods choose to send us.
At the moment it seemed that the gods were planning on sending them a storm. Slate-gray swirled with black, the sky hung low in the cold morning, though the rain held off for a few miles. They rode through farmland at first; then a twist in the road brought them to a thin stand of pines and an overlook, where they halted their horses. Some thirty feet below them lay Loc Drw, dark and wrinkled in the wind, stretching off to the north where, in a haze of distance, they could just pick out the stone towers of the gwerbret’s dun.
“I’ve heard that it stands on a little island,” Rhodry remarked. “You reach it by a long causeway. A splendid defensive position.”
“Ah. Well, maybe if this feud in the hills has come to naught, we can find shelter there.”
Rhodry merely nodded. Seeing the lake was affecting him in a way that he couldn’t understand. Although he’d never been in Pyrdon, not once in his life, the long sweep of water looked so achingly familiar that he wasn’t even surprised to hear someone calling his name.
“Rhodry! Hold a moment!”
When Rhodry turned in the saddle, he saw Evandar riding up on a milk-white horse with rusty-red ears. The Guardian was wrapped in a pale gray cloak with the hood shoved back to reveal his daffodil-yellow hair.
“You took my advice, did you?” He smiled in a way meant to be pleasant, but Rhodry noticed his teeth, as sharp and pointed as a cat’s. “Good, good.”
“I had little choice in the matter, but truly, good advice it seems to be. She hasn’t followed me here.”
“I doubt me if she will.” Evandar paused, rummaging in a little leather bag he wore at his belt. “A question for you. Have you ever seen a thing like this before?”
“A whistle, is it?” Rhodry automatically held out his hand and caught it when Evandar tossed it over. “Ych! It looks like it’s made of human bone!”
“Or elven, truly, except it’s too long. I thought at first that two finger joints had somehow been joined into one, but look at it, close like.”
Rhodry did so, holding it up and twisting it this way and that. All at once he remembered Yraen. The lad was clutching his saddle peak with both hands, leaning forward and staring, his mouth slacked open like a half-wit’s.
“I told you that you should ride back to your father’s dun,” Rhodry said, grinning. “It’s not too late.”
Yraen shook his head in a stubborn no. Evandar looked him over with a thoughtful tilt of his head.
“And you are?”
“My name’s Yraen,” he snapped. “What’s it to you?”
“Yraen? Now there’s a well-omened name!” Evandar laughed aloud. “Oh, splendid! You’ve found a fine companion, Rhodry, and I for one am glad of it. Good morrow, lads. A good morrow to you both.”
With a friendly wave he turned his horse and trotted off along the lakeshore, yet, before he’d gone more than a hundred yards, both he and his horse seemed to waver, to dissolve, to change into mist, a puff of it, blowing across the water and then gone.
“Ye gods,” Yraen whispered. “Oh, ye gods.”
“Go home, then, where spirits fear to ride.”
“Shan’t. That’s what we get, riding on Samaen day, and cursed and twice cursed if I’ll run from some rotten ghost.”
“No such thing as ghosts. Our Evandar’s a good bit stranger than that, and by the hells, he’s gone and left me with the wretched whistle.” Rhodry breathed a few quiet notes into it. “It makes a nasty sound, it does.”
“Then maybe you’d best just throw it into the lake. Last thing we need is a pack of spirits, coming at your call.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, lad. There are spirits and spirits, and some can be useful, in their way.” He grinned and leaned forward to unlace the flap of his saddlebag. “It’s too strange to throw away. Looks like it’s been made from the bone of a bird’s wing, but one fine big bird it must have been, an eagle or suchlike. Want a look at it?”
“I don’t.” Yraen cleared his throat to cover the squeak in his voice. “We’d best get riding. Going to rain soon.”
“So it is. Well, south and east, our Merro said, and we’ll see if this feud has a hire for the likes of us.”

At about the time that Rhodry and Yraen were riding away from the lake, Dallandra woke, after what seemed an ordinary night’s sleep to her. The cloth-of-gold pavilion was empty except for the sunlight, streaming through the fabric so brightly that it seemed she lay in the middle of a candle flame. Yawning, rubbing her eyes, she got up and stumbled outside, where she stood for a long moment, getting her bearings in the warm day. The dancing was over; the meadow, empty, except for Evandar, sitting under the oak tree. When he saw her coming, he rose and hailed her.
“There you are, my love. Refreshed?”
“Oh, yes, but how long have I slept?”
“Just the night.” He was grinning in his sly way. “And you needed a bit of a rest.”
“Just the night here, yes. How long?”
“Oh, some years, I suppose, as Time runs back in your country. It was winter there, when I left Rhodry on the road.”
“When you what? Ye gods! Will you tell me what you’ve been doing?”
“I will, but there’s not much to tell. I just wanted to see if he was safe and well.”
“Let me think. He’s the one with the ring, isn’t he? You know, I do wish you’d tell me about that ring.”
“There’s naught to tell. The ring is just a perfectly ordinary bit of jewelry.”
“Aha! Then Jill’s right. It is the word inside that’s so important!”
“You’re too clever for me, my love. So it is, and I wonder if Jill’s found the secret yet. No doubt she will, because she’s as clever as you are, in her way. And so, why should I waste my breath, telling secrets that you’ll only unravel between you?”
When Dallandra made a mock swing his way, he laughed, ducking back.
“Are you hungry, my love? Should I call a servant to bring you food?”
“No, thank you. There’s naught I need but answers.”
Grinning, he ignored her hint.
“Help me look for something, will you?” he said. “That wretched whistle. I had it this morning, and now I’ve lost the thing.”
“It’s just as well. It was ill-omened, I swear it. Why don’t you let it go?”
“Because its owner might come looking for it, and if I had it, I could make a bargain.” He paused, frowning at the water reeds. “I was walking over there when I came back. Maybe I dropped it in the river. By those hells men swear by, I hope not.”
“Why not scry for it?”
“Of course!” He grinned in a sly sort of way. “Here’s a trick you might not have seen before. Watch.”
When he knelt beside the river, she joined him and did just that while he described a circle in the air with a flick of one hand. The motion-trace glowed, became solid, then settled upon the flowing water like a circle of rope, but unlike the rope, it remained in the same spot instead of floating downstream. Within the circle pictures appeared, all hazy and strange at first, then forming into clear images: a muddy road, a rainy sky, a vast lake, rippled and dark. Two riders appeared, one dark-haired, one light.
“Rhodry,” Evandar remarked. “And the yellow-haired fellow’s Yraen. Now here I am, riding up to them.”
Riding up, talking, and handing Rhodry the whistle—the memory vision broke when Evandar swore under his breath.
“I forgot to take it back from him. Well, it’s gone, then. No use in worrying over it.”
“Now just wait! We can’t leave him with that ill-omened thing without even a warning. It’s as you said: what if its owner comes looking for it?”
Evandar shrugged, turning half away to stare at the swift water, flowing between the sword-sharp rushes. All at once he seemed old, his face fine-drawn and far too pale. The sun darkened, as if it had gone behind a cloud, and the wind, too, blew suddenly cold.
“What’s so wrong?” she said, and sharply.
“I forgot, that’s what. I simply forgot that I’d handed him the whistle, forgot that I left it back in the lands of men.”
“Well, everyone forgets something every now and then.”
He shook his head in a stubborn no.
“You don’t understand,” he snapped. “This is a serious matter. I grow weary, my love, more weary every day, and now, it seems, feeble-minded as well. How long will I be able to keep our lands safe and blooming?” He paused, rubbing his eyes with both hands, digging the palms hard into his cheekbones. “It’s true. You’ve got to take my people away with you, and soon.”
She started to make her ritual protest, to beg him to come himself, but an idea struck her, and she said nothing. He dropped his hands and looked at her with a flash of anger in his turquoise eyes.
“Well,” she said carelessly. “If you’ve made your mind up to stay behind, who am I to argue with you?”
“I’m no man to argue with, no.” But for the first time, she heard doubt in his voice.
She merely nodded her agreement and looked away.
“Well, someone had best go after Rhodry,” she said. “Will you?”
“I can’t. One of us has to stay here, on guard. It was foolish of me to leave while you slept, truly.”
“But I’ve never seen him in the flesh. Sharing your memory won’t help me scry him out.”
“True.” He hesitated, thinking. “I know. Scry for the whistle. You’ve handled it, even.”
“True enough. All right, let me see if I can, before I actually go anywhere.”
Sure enough, picturing the image of the bone whistle led her in vision straight to Rhodry. Yet, when she found him, she was glad she’d been so prudent and not gone haring off to Deverry in search of him without a look first. The vision showed her a stone dun, far east of the elven border, where a cold and sleeting rain turned the outer wards to mud. Inside, the great hall swarmed with human men, most armed. Off in the curve of the wall the whistle appeared in sharp focus, held in Rhodry’s hands, although Rhodry himself was hard to see clearly, simply because she’d never actually met him on the physical plane, merely seen him in several states of vision over the years. As far as she could tell, he was showing the whistle to some lord’s bard, who merely shook his head over it and shrugged to show his ignorance of the subject.
Since she saw no elves in the hall, and no one with the golden aura of a dweomermaster, either, Dallandra focused the vision down a level, till it seemed to her that she stood in the great hall at Rhodry’s side. From this stance she could see him a good bit more clearly and pick out his companion as well, the young blond fellow that Evandar had called “Yraen,” the Deverrian word for iron and thus doubtless only a nickname. The bard, an elderly fellow, set his harp down on the floor and took the whistle, turning it this way and that to study it.
As she hovered there, looking round within the room of her vision, a flash of blue etheric light caught her eye. Over by the hearth something man-shaped and man-sized appeared, swinging its head this way and that, but judging from the shape of that head, flat and snouted like a badger’s, and its skin, covered with short blue-gray fur, there was nothing human in its nature. It was dressed in human clothes, but of a peculiar cut: brown wool brigga that came only to its knees, a linen shirt as full as those Deverry men wore, but lacking sleeves and collar. Round its neck it wore a gold torc. Slowly it stood and began ambling over to Rhodry’s side, but no one in the room seemed to see it at all. At times, in fact, one of the men might have walked right into it if the creature hadn’t jumped out of their way.
All at once Rhodry spun round and yelped aloud, pointing straight at the snouted beast. Dallandra had forgotten that he was half-elven, with that race’s inherent ability to see etheric forms, so long, that is, as the forms are imposed into the physical plane. It seemed that the creature hadn’t known it, either. It shrieked and disappeared, leaving behind a puff of evil-looking etheric substance like black smoke. Apparently the shriek was a thing of thought only, because none of the men, not even Rhodry, reacted to it. What did happen was that a cluster of men formed round the silver dagger, all of them looking puzzled and asking questions. Talking a flood of explanations, Yraen grabbed the bone whistle with one hand and Rhodry’s arm with the other and dragged him out of the hall.
Dallandra followed, hovering round them until she was sure that the badger-thing was gone for good, then broke the vision cold and flew up the planes. She found Evandar waiting where she’d left him on the riverbank. When she told him the story, his mood turned as dark as a summer storm.
“Then it’s as I thought, my love,” he snarled. “Curse them all! Sniffing and snouting round my country, threatening harm to a man under my protection!”
“Who?”
“The dark court. Those who dwell farther in.” He rose, snapping his fingers and snatching from midair a silver horn. “This could well mean war.”
“Now wait! If I simply go and fetch the whistle back—”
“That won’t matter. This is a question of boundaries, and those are the most important questions of all.”
With a toss of his head he raised the horn and blew, a long note that was both sweet and terrifying. In a clang of bronze and silver and a storm of shouting, the Host came rushing to ring him round.
“Our borders! They’ve breached our borders!” Evandar called out. “To horse!”
With a roar of approval the Host raised their spears and yelled for horses. Servants swarmed out of nowhere to bring them, and these steeds were every one white with rusty-red ears. Evandar helped Dallandra mount, then swung up onto his own horse, gathered the reins in one hand, and rode up beside her.
“If things go against us, my love, flee for your life back to the Westlands, but I’d beg you to remember me for a little while.”
“Never could I forget you.” She felt cold horror choking her throat. “But what do you think might happen?”
“I don’t know.” He laughed, suddenly as gleeful as a child. “I don’t have the least idea.”
The Host howled laughter with him. Holding the silver horn above his head in one hand, Evandar led them out at a jog upstream along the riverbank. Over the mutter of water and the jingling of armor and tack Dallandra found it impossible to ask him questions—not, she supposed, that he would have answered them. There was nothing for her to do but ride and picture horrible imaginings of war.
Once, hundreds of years past as men and elves reckoned time, though it seemed but a few years ago to her, she’d done what she could with herbs and bandages after a battle, when wounded man after wounded man was dragged to her and dumped bleeding or dying onto the wagon bed she was using for a surgery. Hour after hour it went on, till she was so exhausted that she could barely stand, though no more could she bear to stop tending such need. It seemed to her that she could smell all over again the lumps and streaks of gore clotting black on her hands and arms. With a moan of real pain she tossed her head and forced the memories away. Evandar, riding a bit ahead of her, never heard.
By then the river had sunk and dwindled to a white-water stream, cutting a canyon some twenty feet below and to the left of the road, The sun hung red and swollen off to their right, as if they saw it through the smoke of some enormous fire. Ahead lay plains, as flat and seemingly infinite as those in the Westlands, stretching on and on to a horizon where clouds—or was it smoke—billowed like a frozen wave, all bloody red from the bloated sun. Ahead out in the grasslands this hideous light winked and gleamed on spears and armor. Evandar blew three sharp notes on the silver horn. The Host behind him howled, and a dusty wind blew back in answer the sound of another horn and the shouting of the enemy.
“Peel off!” Evandar yelled at Dallandra. “Stay in safety and prepare to flee!”
Sick-cold and shaking, she followed his orders, turning her horse out of line and heading off to the right, where she could lag behind the warband. Yet both her caution and her fear went for naught that day. As they rode closer to the assembled army, waiting out in the plain, a herald broke ranks and came trotting out, carrying a staff wound with colored ribands in the Deverry manner. When Evandar began screaming orders, the Host clattered to a stop behind him and reined their horses up into a rough semicircle, spread out by the river. Clad in glittering black helms and mail, their opponents wheeled round to face them, but they kept their distance. In a muddle of curiosity and fear for her lover’s life, Dallandra kicked her horse to a trot and rejoined Evandar as he jogged out to meet the herald. As if in answer to her gesture, one of the enemy warriors broke ranks and trailed after the herald, but he tucked his helm under one arm and held his spear loosely couched and pointed at the ground.
When out between the armies the two sides met, Dallandra nearly lost all her courtesy; with great difficulty she stifled a noise that would have been partly an oath, partly a scream. Although both the herald and the warrior facing them were shaped like men, and both were wearing human-style clothes and armor, their faces were grotesquely distorted, the herald all swollen and pouched, his skin hanging in great folds of warty flesh round his neck, while the warrior was more than a little vulpine, with pointed ears tufted with red fur and a roach of red hair running from his forehead over his skull and down to the back of his neck, while his beady black eyes glittered above a long, sharp nose. The herald was bald and hunchbacked as well, though he did speak perfect Elvish with a musical voice.
“What brings you to the battle plain, Evandar? My lord has committed no fault against you or yours.”
“A fault he has done, good herald, against a man marked as mine, and all for the sake of a trinket dropped in my country and thus mine by treaty.”
When the herald swung his head round in appeal to the warrior behind him, the swags and wattles of skin grated with a sound like dry twigs scraping over one another. The warrior acknowledged his gesture with a nod, then spurred his horse to the herald’s side. For a moment he and Evandar considered each other in silence, while the herald turned dead-pale and began to edge his mount backward. Dallandra noticed then that the ancient creature’s eyes were pink and rheumy.
“Not one word of what you say makes the least sense,” the leader of the Dark Host said at last. “What trinket?”
“A whistle made of some kind of bone,” Evandar said. “And dropped by one of your spies, I’ll wager. I gave it to a human man named Rhodry, and now one of your folk’s come sniffing round him to fetch it back.”
“I know naught of what you say. Never have I owned or seen a bone whistle.”
Evandar studied him with narrowed eyes while the herald fidgeted in his saddle.
“Tell me this,” Evandar said at last. “Have ever you seen or accepted service from a man with a head and snout as flat and blunt as a badger’s, and him all hairy with grey fur, who dresses as the Deverry men dressed when first they came into their new country?”
“And what name does he answer to?”
“I don’t know, but he wears a twisted rod of gold round his neck.”
“Then I know him, yes, but he’s no longer one of mine. Some of my people have broken from my rule and command, Evandar, just as, or so I hear, some have from yours.” All at once he grinned, pulling dark lips back from sharp white teeth. “Even your wife, or so the rumors say.”
“My liege!” With a little shriek the herald rode in between them. “If we’re here to prevent a battle, perhaps the harsh ways of speaking had best be laid aside.”
“Go away, old man,” the fox warrior snarled. “My brother and I will solve this thing between us.”
Dallandra caught her breath in a little gasp. Was this then her lover’s true kin and his true form? Sitting easily on his horse Evandar merely smiled at his rival, and he looked so truly elven at that moment, except perhaps for his impossibly yellow hair, that she found it hard—no, she refused—to think of him as anything but a man of her own people. Whimpering, the herald pulled back.
“Women tire of men all the time,” Evandar remarked, still smiling. “Tend to your rebels, and I’ll tend to mine. Are you telling me that you hold no command over our snouted friend?”
“I am. Just that. Some few have left my host, claiming they’ve found more powerful protectors elsewhere. At first I thought they’d gone over to you.”
“No such thing, not in the least. The woman you spoke of told me about new and powerful friends as well.”
For a long moment they stared at each other, each man, if such you could call them, leaning a bit forward over his horse’s neck, their eyes locked as if they could read truth from each other in some secret way. Then the fox warrior grunted under his breath and sat back, shifting his weight and bringing up his spear to the vertical.
“This is no time for feuding between us. I’ll give you a weapon against this rebel of mine.”
“And I’ll offer you my thanks in return, but give it to this woman who rides with me, for she’s the one who’ll need it.”
The warrior turned, pausing to look Dallandra over as if he’d just noticed her presence, then with another grunt tossed her the spear. She caught it in one hand, surprised at the length and the heft of it: good oak with a leaf-shaped bronze head, set by its tang into the wood and bound round with bronze bands.
“Make that as short or as long as you please,” he remarked, then turned back to his brother. “Farewell, Evandar, and let there be peace between us until we settle this other matter.”
“Farewell, brother, but I’d wish for peace between us always and forever.”
The fox warrior merely sneered. With a wave of one hand, each finger tipped with a black claw instead of a nail, he wheeled his horse and headed back toward his army. With a roar like a flood racing down a dry ditch they all swung round and galloped off, raising a cloud of dust, shouting, screaming over the clatter of horse gear, till silence fell so hard that it rang louder than the shouts, and the dust settled to reveal an empty field, though the grass lay trampled and torn. Behind Evandar the bright host gathered, muttering their disappointment.
“We ride for home,” he announced. “Dalla, that spear’s too large for you to carry into the lands of men.”
He flicked his hand in its direction, then wheeled his horse round to lead his army away. Dallandra felt the spear quiver in her hand like a live thing. It shrank so fast that she nearly dropped it. She twisted it round and laid it across her saddle in the little space behind the peak, then fought to hold it down as it writhed and shriveled till at last she held a dagger and naught more. A strange thing it was, too, with a leaf-shaped blade of bronze stuck into a crude wood hilt. As she studied it she saw that the bronze band clasping the wood closed round the tang sported a graved line of tiny dragons.
“Dalla, come along!” Evandar called out. “It’s too dangerous to linger here.”
She slipped the dagger into her belt, then turned her horse and followed, galloping to catch up, dropping to a jog as they led their troops home to the meadowlands. All the way she rode just a little behind Evandar, and she found herself studying his slender back, his yellow mop of hair, all, in fact, of his so accurately portrayed elven form, and wondering just what he really did look like when no glamours lay upon him.

“Tell me somewhat honestly, young Yraen,” Lord Erddyr said. “Is Rhodry daft?”
“I wouldn’t say that, my lord, but then, I’ve known him less than a year, now.”
“Well, I keep thinking about the way he sees things. Things that aren’t really there. I mean, I suppose they aren’t really there.” Erddyr let his words trail away and began chewing on his thick gray mustaches.
As Time runs in our world, the winter solstice lay months in the past, though it was still some weeks till the spring equinox. Bundled in heavy cloaks against the cold, the lord and his not-quite-a-silver-dagger were walking out in the ward of Dun Gamullyn, where Yraen and Rhodry had spent the winter past as part of the lord’s warband. Although the sun had barely risen, servants were already up and at their work, bringing firewood and food into the kitchen hut or hurrying to the stables to tend the horses.
Yawning and shivering, the night watch was just climbing down from the ramparts.
“Ah, well, when the fighting starts, won’t matter if he’s daft or not,” Erddyr said at last. “And I’m willing to wager it’s going to start soon. Snow’s been gone for what? a fortnight now? And down in the valleys the grass is breaking through. Soon, lad, soon. We’ll see if you two can earn your winter’s keep.”
“I swear to you, my lord, that we’ll do our best to repay your generosity, even though it be with our heart’s blood.”
“Well-spoken lad, aren’t you? Especially for an apprentice silver dagger or whatever it is you are.”
Erddyr was smiling, but his dark eyes seemed to be taking Yraen’s measure, and a little too shrewdly for Yraen’s comfort. All winter he’d done his best to avoid the lord’s company, an easy enough thing to do, but every now and then he’d noticed Erddyr looking him and Rhodry both over with just this kind of thoughtful calculation.
“Apprenticeship is a good word for it, my lord. Well, I’d best be on my way and not distract my lord from his affairs any longer.”
Erddyr laughed.
“Very well spoken, indeed! That’s a nice fancy way of saying you want to make your retreat before I ask you any awkward questions. Don’t worry, lad. Out here in the west you silver daggers are valuable men, and we’ve all learned not to go meddling with your private affairs.”
“Well, my thanks, my lord.”
“Though, well . . . ” Erddyr hesitated a minute. “You don’t have to answer this, mind, but you and Rhodry are both noble-born, aren’t you?”
Yraen felt his face burning with a blush. Here was someone else who’d seen right through his secret, even though he’d been trying to act like an ordinary fellow.
“I can’t answer for Rhodry, my lord,” he stammered.
“Don’t need to.” Erddyr gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Well, I’ll let you down from the rack, lad. Go get your breakfast.”
That afternoon, while Yraen and Rhodry were sitting together over on the warband’s side of the great hall, a weary messenger, his clothes all splashed with mud from the spring roads, came rushing in to kneel before Lord Erddyr. The entire warband fell silent to watch while the lord summoned his scribe to read the proffered letter, but they couldn’t quite hear the old man’s voice over the general noise of the dun. At length, however, the warband’s captain, Renydd, was summoned to his lordship’s side, and he brought the news back.
“Our lord and his allies have had a bit of luck, lads. Oldadd took Tewdyr’s son and half his warband on the road, just by blind chance and naught more.” He paused for a grin. “Our lords are going to get themselves a nice bit of coin out of this, I tell you.”
The warband broke out laughing and began heaping insults on the name and lineage both of Lord Tewdyr, a famous local miser. As all blood feuds were, the situation was complex. Along with several other noble clans, Lord Erddyr, Rhodry and Yraen’s employer, and his young ally, Lord Oldadd, owed various bonds of family and fealty to one Lord Comerr, who was feuding with a certain Lord Adry for many and various reasons, most of which went back several generations. Adry had allies of his own, the chief one being the aforementioned miser, Tewdyr, who was now going to have to ransom back his oldest son and some twenty of their men.
Lord Erddyr spent the afternoon sending messages to all and sundry, and toward sunset Lord Oldadd and his warband of forty escorted their prize into the lord’s dun. Since the nights were warming up, the horses were turned out of their stables, which became a temporary prison for the hostages, except of course for the son himself, Lord Dwyn, who upon an honor pledge became Erddyr’s guest more than his prisoner. During the dinner that evening, Yraen watched the noble-born at their table across the great hall. Erddyr and Oldadd laughed and joked; Dwyn stared at his plate and shoveled food.
“He might as well eat all he can stuff in,” Renydd said with a grin. “His father sets a poor enough table.”
When the warband roared with laughter, Dwyn looked up and glared their way. Although he was too far away to have overheard Renydd’s remark, he could no doubt guess that he was being mocked. Yraen started to join the general good time, then noticed Rhodry, sitting in the straw by the door and staring at nothing again. His eyes moved as if he watched some creature about the size of a cat; every now and then his mouth twitched as if he were suppressing a smile. Yraen got up and walked over, half thinking of telling him to stop. He was both embarrassed for the man he’d come to consider a friend and afraid that this daft behavior would get them both thrown out of the warband before the war even started. Eventually, whatever Rhodry thought he was watching seemed to take itself off, and the silver dagger turned his attention back to the men around him. When he caught Yraen standing nearby and staring at him, he grinned.
“Beyond this world lies another world, invisible to the eyes of men but not of elves,” Rhodry said. “That’s a quote from a book, by the way.”
“Of course it is: Mael the Seer. His Ethics, isn’t it?”
“Just that. You’ve read it?”
“I have. Oh. Curse it!”
“What’s so wrong?”
“I just remembered a thing that Lord Erddyr said to me this morning. He asked me if I—we, I mean, you and I—asked me if we were noble-born, and I wondered how he knew, but I suppose I’ve been acting like a courtly man. I shouldn’t even admit I can read, should I?”
“Depends. Out here very few noble-born men can read, so I suppose it’d mark you as son of a scribe or suchlike.”
“And what about you? You can quote from the Seer’s books, but I can’t believe that you were raised in a scriptorium.”
“I wasn’t, at that.” Rhodry flashed him a grin. “But as to where I spent my tender years, I . . . oh, by the gods!”
All at once he sprang to his feet and spun round, peering out the door, and his hand drifted of its own accord to his sword hilt. Yraen glanced back to find that, much to his relief, no one else had noticed. When Rhodry slipped outside, he followed, wondering if he was going daft himself for suddenly and somehow believing that Rhodry was in danger.
Outside, the ward was dark, silent except for the noise spilling through the windows of the dun. Once Yraen’s eyes adjusted to the dim light from a starry sky and a sliver of moon, he saw Rhodry standing some five feet away. Otherwise nothing or no one moved, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched.
“Rhodry?” Yraen whispered it, even as he wondered why he was keeping his voice down. “What’s so wrong?”
“Shush! Come here.”
As quietly as he could Yraen stepped up beside him.
“There,” Rhodry hissed. “By the cart. Can you see him?”
Yraen obligingly looked. Some ten feet ahead of them stood a slab-sided wooden cart, tipped forward with the wagon tree resting on the cobbles. Its whitewashed side caught a square of light from one of the dun windows; Yraen could pick out the blurry shadow thrown by a tankard that someone had set on the win-dowsill. In the reflected light, he should have been able to see whatever it was that Rhodry saw . . . if indeed it was actually there.
“I can’t see a cursed thing.” Yet still, he whispered. “Much less anything I could call a ‘him.’ What do you—”
He stopped, feeling cold fear run down his spine. Although he saw nothing solid twixt the window and the cart, a shadow suddenly fell, a distinct silhouette, on the white square. It looked like a shadow thrown by a man standing sideways, except for the head, which was blunt and snouted. In one clawed paw it carried a dagger, raised and ready. In dead silence Rhodry drew his sword and flashed the blade in the light. The shadow wavered and distorted like an image seen on a still pond will bend and billow when someone throws a rock into the water. Yraen could have sworn he heard a faint and animal squeal; then the shadow disappeared. Chortling under his breath, Rhodry sheathed the sword.
“Still think I’m daft?”
Much to his surprise, Yraen found that he couldn’t talk. He shrugged and flapped one hand in a helpless sort of way.
“I’ve no doubt that every man in this dun thinks I am,” Rhodry went on. “And you know, I wish I was. Things would be so much simpler that way.”
Yraen nodded with a little gargling sound deep in his throat.
“It’s spring. The roads are passable and all that. Why don’t you just ride home, lad?”
“Shan’t.” Yraen found his voice at last. “I want the silver dagger, and I don’t give up on things I want so easily.”
“As stubborn as a lord should be, huh? Well, as our Seer says, in the book called On Nobility, it does not become a noble-born man to quail at the thought of invisible things or to run from what he cannot see merely because he cannot see it.”
“I’m not in the mood for great thoughts from great minds just now, my thanks. I—here, hold a moment! What was that bit you recited earlier? Not to the eyes of elves, he said. I always thought elves were some sort of a daft jest or bard’s fancy, but . . . ”
“But what?” Rhodry was grinning at him.
“Oh, hold your tongue, you rotten horse apple!”
Yraen spun on his heel and strode back into the light and noise of the great hall. For the first time in all the long months since he’d left Dun Deverry and his father’s court, he was beginning to consider riding home.
Over the next few days Yraen kept a jittery watch, but never did he see more evidences of hidden things or presences. Mostly he and Rhodry had little to do but sit in the great hall and dice for coppers with the rest of the warband while the negotiations went back and forth between Tewdyr and Erddyr in a regular spate of heralds. The gossip said that Tewdyr was trying to bargain for a lower rate of exchange.
“What a niggardly old bastard he is,” Renydd said one morning.
“Just that and twice over,” Rhodry said. “But in a way, he’s got a point. With a war on, coin’s as precious as men.”
“It must look that way to a silver dagger.”
There was such cold contempt in his voice that Yraen felt like jumping up and challenging him, but Rhodry merely shrugged the insult away. Later, he remarked to Yraen, casually, that causing trouble in the warband was a good way for a silver dagger to lose a hire.
Soon enough, though, the men as well as the lords realized that Tewdyr was holding out for a very good reason. Late the next day a rider came galloping in with the news that Erddyr’s allies had marched and were holding Lord Adry under siege. Since Erddyr was required to join them at once, he was forced to lower his demands, at which Tewdyr finally capitulated and arranged the exchange. Early in the morning, Lords Erddyr and Oldadd took their full warbands and escorted the prisoners back to neutral ground, an old stone bridge over a deep-running stream.
On the other side of the bridge, Tewdyr, all red beard and scowls, waited with the remaining men of his warband and another noble lord with twenty-five men of his own. The two heralds walked their horses onto the middle of the bridge and conferred with a flurry of bows. A sack of coin changed hands; Erddyr’s herald counted it carefully, then brought it back to his lord. With a grin, Erddyr slipped it inside his shirt and yelled at his men to let the prisoners through. Head held high, Lord Dwyn led his twenty men across to his father’s side.
“Good,” Renydd said. “Now we can get on with the real sport.”
Back at the dun, the wooden carts were drawn up in the ward. Like ants bringing crumbs to a nest, a line of servants hurried back and forth to pile them up with grain and supplies. On the morrow, the warbands would be riding to help hold the siege at Lord Adry’s dun.
“This Comerr’s got a couple of hundred men at the siege,” Rhodry told Yraen. “And we’ll be bringing him eighty more. They tell me that Adry’s got about ninety men shut in with him, so it all depends on how many Tewdyr and his other allies can raise. Huh—I’ll wager Tewdyr’s going to put up a good fight now. The old miser’s got a thorn up his ass good and proper.”
“Did you see how the herald counted that coin? I’ll wager Erddyr ordered him to do it.”
“So do I. Most heralds have more courtesy than that.”
Although Rhodry chattered on, Yraen barely heard the rest of it. Now that the war was finally upon them, he felt his own secret rising in his mind to turn him cold. Even though he’d won many a tournament down in Dun Deverry, even though the royal weaponmasters all proclaimed him one of the finest students they’d ever had, he’d never ridden to a real battle, not once in his young life. Considering the peaceful state of the kingdom’s heartland, it was unlikely that he ever would have done so, either, if he’d rested content with his position in life as a pampered minor prince of the blood royal. The very safety and luxury of his life had always seemed shameful to him, a goad that had driven him out, seeking the long road and battle glory. Never once, until this icy moment in Lord Erddyr’s great hall, had he considered that he might be frightened when the chance for that glory finally presented itself.
Yet, that evening it seemed his Wyrd was mocking him. Erddyr, of course, had to leave a fort guard behind him. He chose a few of the oldest and less fit men in the warband, then told his men to dice and let the gods decide the rest of the roster. Yraen lost. When his dice came up low, he stared at them for a long while in stunned disbelief, then cursed with every foul oath he could remember. What was this? Was he doomed to spend his entire life safe behind walls no matter how hard he tried to break out? All at once he realized that Erddyr and Renydd were both laughing at him.
“No one can say you lack mettle, silver dagger,” Erddyr said. “But if I make an exception for you, I’ll have to make exceptions for others, and then what’s the wretched use of dicing at all? Fort guard it is for you!”
“As his lordship commands,” Yraen said. “But I just can’t believe my rotten luck.”

Down in southern Pyrdon, the crop of winter wheat had already sprouted. A feathery green dusted the fields bordering the river that Dallandra found when she appeared in the world of men. Judging from the direction of the sun as well as her scant knowledge of the country, the river seemed to lead northeast into the hills. She was well prepared for her journey, with Deverry clothes, a fine horse, and every piece of gear she might need—all stolen, a bit here and there from this town or that, by Evandar’s folk. Her only salve for her raw conscience was Evandar’s promise that they’d give it all back again when she was done with it. At her suggestion, they’d outfitted her as if she were Jill, the only model she had for a woman alone on the Deverry roads.
Leading a pack mule, laden with herbs and medicines, she rode past tidy farmsteads where aspens and poplars quivered with their first green buds. Behind the earthen walls, skinny white cattle with rusty-red ears chewed sour hay while they longed for meadows. In a lazy curve of the river, she found a town, some fifty round wooden houses scattered around an open square and set off from one another by greening poplar trees, where a gaggle of women in long blue dresses leaned onto their water buckets and gossiped at the stone well. Before they noticed her, she dismounted, gathering her nerve and wondering if Evandar’s magic would truly hold against human eyes. When she looked at her own hands or her reflection in water, she saw her usual elven self, but he had assured her that others would see an old, white-haired human woman and nothing more.
Clucking to her horse and mule, she gathered her courage and walked over.
“Good morrow,” she said. “Is there a tavern in this town?”
“There is, good dame. Right over there.” A young woman smiled at her. “I don’t mean to be rude, but how are you faring, traveling the roads all alone, and at your age, too?”
“Oh, I’m like an old hen, too tough even for soup.”
The women all laughed pleasantly and nodded to themselves, as if wishing for a life as long for themselves. Feeling a good bit more sanguine about her ruse, Dallandra led her stock across the village square to the tavern. In a muddy side yard she found the tie rail, then went in. The small, well-scrubbed tavern room was empty except for the tavernman himself, a young, dark-haired fellow with a big linen apron wrapped around his shirt and brigga.
“Good morrow, good herbwoman,” he said. “Can I fetch you a tankard?”
“Of dark, and draw one for yourself and join me.”
They carried their ale to a table by an open window to sit in the pale afternoon sun.
“I was thinking of riding up into the hills to gather fresh medicines,” Dallandra said. “But a peddler I met on the road warned me about a blood feud brewing.”
“Indeed?” The tavernman had a sip of ale and considered the problem. “Now, a fortnight past, we had a merchant come in with fresh-sheared fleece for the local weaver. He was from the hills to the east of here, and he was fair troubled, he was, about a feud in his lord’s lands. Lord Adry, the name was. The wool merchant was telling me that the whole countryside could go up in a war just like tinder, he says, just like dry tinder in a hearth.”
“Sounds bad, truly. But I’ve been looking for someone, and a feud would draw him the way mead draws flies. He’s a silver dagger, an Eldidd man, dark hair with a streak of gray in it, blue eyes, the Eldidd way of speaking. Seen anyone like that through here?”
“I haven’t, no, but if he’s ridden this way, Lord Adry’s feud is where you’ll find him.”
The trouble was, of course, that Dallandra had no idea exactly which way Rhodry had ridden. As far as Evandar had been able to tell from his scrying, the silver dagger was somewhere in this part of Pyrdon, but her main focus was the bone whistle, which spent most of its time in the dark of Rhodry’s saddlebags. She was reduced, therefore, to asking round for information like any ordinary soul.
When she left the village, Dallandra crossed the river on a rickety wooden bridge and headed east for the hills and Lord Adry’s dangerous feud. She camped that night in a greening meadow by a small stream, where she could water her horse and mule and tether them out to graze. From a nearby farmhouse she bought half a loaf of bread and an armful of wood for a campfire. Once it was dark, she built a fire without bothering to use kindling, called on the Wildfolk of Fire, and lit the logs with a wave of her hand.
Dallandra called up a memory image of the bone whistle, focused it sharply, and let her mind range over the Inner Lands to pick up its trail. She was in luck. All at once, in a swirl of flames, she saw not a memory, but a vision of the thing, lying in Rhodry’s hands. He was showing it round to a circle of men standing near a campfire. When she expanded the vision, using Rhodry’s eyes as her own, she saw that the campfire was only one of many, spread out in a meadow crowded with soldiers and horses, arranged in a wide arc of a circle. In the center of that circle she could just make out the dark rise of a towered dun. So Rhodry had found himself a hire, indeed, and seemed to be in the midst of a siege army as well. Unfortunately, Dallandra had no idea of where he might be, other than in a meadow in what seemed like hill country—a description that could apply to hundreds of miles of territory.
Irritably she broke the vision and got up to pace back and forth in front of the dying fire. So far, the tavernman’s vague report of Lord Adry’s feud was the only clue she had, but if all the lords in this part of the province were about to be drawn into it, Rhodry could be riding for any one of ten different men. At least a siege will keep him put in one place, she thought, and by the gods of both my people and of men, everyone for miles around will be talking about the thing!

After Lord Erddyr led his men out, his wife took over the command of the dun and the fort guard. Lady Melynda, a stout woman, was as gray as her husband, with quick-humored blue eyes. Whenever she smiled, she kept her lips tight together, a gesture that made her seem supercilious. When Yraen got to know the lady better, he realized that Melynda was simply missing the teeth in the front of her mouth and hated to show it. During the evening, the lady sat at the head of the table of honor, with her two serving women to either side of her. Across the great hall, the fort guard ate quietly, minding their manners in deference to the lady. The days passed as slowly and silently as water running in a full stream, while the fort guard divided their time between keeping watch on the walls and exercising their horses, riding round and round the dun. Every now and then they would go perhaps a quarter of a mile down the main road, then gallop back fast for a bit of excitement.
After three days, the first messenger rode in, told Lady Melynda that the siege was going quietly, then rode out that same night on a fresh horse. The lady began an elaborate piece of needlework—a set of bed hangings, covered with interlaced tendrils and the red rose blazon of her husband’s clan. Up at the honor table, she and her serving women marked out the vast stretches of linen in silence and sewed on them grimly and steadily for hours at a time. Yraen found himself thinking about his mother, even though he was ashamed of himself for doing it, and her own needlework projects, so like the Lady Melynda’s, that helped her put griefs and disappointments aside. Most likely she’d started some new bed hangings or suchlike when the chamberlain had reported him gone.
On the fifth day, Rhodry rode back to the dun as Erddyr’s messenger. He was so clean and well-shaven that Yraen and everyone else could figure out that the siege was dragging on without incident. While he ate a hasty meal at one of the riders’ tables, the fort guard clustered round him and asked for news. There was none.
“Sieges are always tedious,” Rhodry said. “I wonder what’s happened to old Tewdyr and his lads?”
“Gathering allies, most like.” Yraen hoped that he was saying something knowledgeable. “Doesn’t Erddyr have any spies?”
“Probably, but no one tells me that sort of thing.”
The fort guard all sighed in agreement.
When he was done eating, Yraen walked him down to the gate and saw him off, just for something to do. Rhodry started to mount up, then hesitated, running one hand over his saddlebags.
“I’m thinking of leaving these here with you,” Rhodry said.
“Hum? Won’t you need—Oh, ye gods, the whistle.”
“Just that. It’s getting to be a nuisance, having to stay on watch every moment for thieves, and there we are, packed cheek by jowl into the camp, where everyone can hear every word I say, so I can’t even swear at the evil beast when I see him prowling round. But I don’t want to hand you a curse to guard for me.”
“How will these, uh, creatures know I’ve got the rotten thing?”
“Just so, but still, I hate to put you at risk.”
“I doubt me that I’ll be at one, and if I’m your apprentice, then it’s part of my labor to guard your possessions.”
“Well and good, then.” Rhodry began unlacing them from the saddle peak. “If you’re certain?”
“I am.”
Rhodry handed over the saddlebags, then mounted and rode out the gates. Yraen climbed the wall and watched him riding off into the twilight. Curse my luck! he thought again. If there is a battle, I’ll miss it. The worst thing of all was wondering if deep in his heart, he was glad. He’d taken the whistle off Rhodry’s hands, he supposed, just in order to share, at least in some small way, his danger.

“Oh, the situation’s truly vexed, good Dallandra,” said Timryc the chirurgeon. “It seems that every hill lord is up in arms, and so you’re going to have a fine job finding your silver dagger.”
“So it seems. On the other hand, no doubt I’ll find plenty of work for my herbs.”
A tiny, wrinkled man with a face as brown as a walnut, Timryc nodded in sad agreement. Drwmyc, Gwerbret Dun Trebyc and master of the Pyrdon hills by the power of the king and the council of electors, was the lord he served as head chirurgeon, a position that kept him current on everything worth knowing about the affairs of the gwerbretrhyn. The exotic medicines from Bardek that Dallandra was carrying (stolen from some priests who were rich enough to spare them, or so Evandar had assured her) had gotten her ushered right in to the presence and the favor of this important man. After buying as much of her stock as she could spare, the chirurgeon had invited her to dine with him, out of sympathy, no doubt, for her supposed advanced age.
“The war started over some cattle rights,” Timryc went on. “But now there’s a bit more at stake than that. You see, His Grace Drwmyc is going to create a tierynrhyn up in the hill country soon. I’ll wager the various lords are sorting themselves out to see who’ll receive the honor.”
“Ah. And so his grace doubtless won’t intervene right away.”
“Not unless he receives a direct appeal, which is unlikely. After all, he’ll want to appoint a tieryn who has the respect of his vassals.” Timryc idly picked up a bone-handled scalpel from the table in front of him and considered the fine steel blade. “Of course, if things get out of hand, and too many of the freemen and their farms are threatened, the gwerbret will intervene. No doubt the feuding lords know that, too.”
“Let’s hope. A formal little war, then?”
“It should be.” Timryc laid the scalpel back down. “It had better be, or his grace will end it. But I’m glad to have that opium and suchlike you’ve sold me.”

Dallandra looked absently round Timryc’s comfortable chamber. In the midst of oak paneling and fine tapestries, it was hard to think about warfare, particularly a noble-born squabble, fought by rules as clear as a tournament, with the one difference that death was an allowable part of the sport.
“The latest news is that Lord Adry’s dun is under siege,” Timryc went on. “A certain Lord Erddyr is leading the faction that’s trying to keep Adry’s allies from lifting the siege. If you insist on riding up there, be very careful. There’ll be skirmishing along the roads.”
“Where is this dun, anyway? I’m truly grateful to you for all this information.”
“Oh, it’s naught, naught. I’ll offer you somewhat more valuable—a letter of safe conduct. Even the most ignorant rider can recognize the gwerbret’s seal.”
Later that evening, with the letter tucked safely inside her tunic and a map of the road to Lord Adry’s dun as well, Dallandra returned to her chamber in the inn where she was staying. Since the night was too warm for a fire, she used the dancing reflections of candle flame in a bucket of water for her scrying, but she saw nothing but a stubborn darkness, telling her that the bone whistle was tucked away in Rhodry’s gear. In a way, she was relieved to fail and have done with it, because her day’s traveling had left her exhausted. Every muscle in her legs and back burned from riding, and she felt as if the rest of her were made of lead. It had been a long time since she’d lived in her physical body. That night she dreamt that she lounged in the sunny grass with Evandar, in the land where life meant ease and dweomer, only to wake in tears at the sight of the dingy chamber walls.

Rhodry rode for most of the night, stopping at the dun of Lord Degedd, one of Erddyr’s allies, to get a few hours sleep and a meal, and to pick up his own horse, which he’d changed there for a fresh one on his journey out. About an hour after dawn, he left for the last leg of the journey. As a simple precaution, he rode fully armed and mailed, with his shield ready at his left arm. Once he left the cultivated land behind, he was utterly alone, riding through low brushy hills where every tiny valley could mean an ambush. After so many years of peace out on the grasslands, he found the feeling of danger sweetly troubling, like seeing a pretty woman walk by.
Toward noon, he reached the first plowed fields of Adry’s demesne, where frightened farmers leaned onto their hoes to stare at him as he rode past. Rhodry was thinking of very little besides getting something to eat when he rode up the last hill and heard the sound. From his distance, it sounded like a stormy wind in the trees, but his horse tossed up its head and snorted.
“Oh, here, my friend,” Rhodry said. “Do you think Lord Tewdyr’s here to meet us?”
Chuckling under his breath, Rhodry drew a javelin and trotted up to the hill crest. The sound grew louder and louder, resolving itself into the clang of sword on shield and the whinnies of frightened horses. At the crest, Rhodry paused and looked down into the flat valley below, where the battle raged round Lord Adry’s dun, a swirling, screaming mass of men and horses. Off to the left stood the white tents of the besiegers, but as Rhodry watched, fire sprang out among them. Black plumes of smoke welled up and mingled with the dust.
Howling a war cry, Rhodry kicked his horse to a gallop and raced downhill. Round the edge of the fighting, where there was room to maneuver, the mob spread out into little clots of single combats. Rhodry hurled one of his javelins at an unfamiliar back, pulled and threw the other, then rode on, circling the field and drawing his sword. It was hard to tell friend from foe as the smoke spread over the field. At last he saw two men mobbing a third, riding a gray. As Rhodry rode over, he heard the single rider shouting Erddyr’s name. He spurred his horse and slammed into the melee. He slashed at an opponent’s back, yelled Erddyr’s name to warn the man he was trying to rescue that he was an ally, then stabbed at an enemy horse. Screaming, the horse reared, and Rhodry had a clear strike at the rider as it came down. He flung up his shield to parry, then spurred his quivering horse forward and stabbed with his whole weight behind the sword. The blade shattered the enemy’s mail and killed him clean as the horse stumbled to its knees.
With a wrench of his whole body, Rhodry pulled the sword free and swung his horse round, but the second enemy was already down, huddled on the ground as his horse raced away. With a friendly shout the rider on the gray rode up beside him—Renydd, panting for breath and choking on the smoke in the air.
“Back just in time, silver dagger. My thanks.”
“Stick with me, will you? I don’t know one bastard from another in this lot.”
Renydd nodded and gulped for breath. His horse was sweating with acrid gray foam running in gobbets down its neck.
“I owe you an apology, silver dagger,” Renydd said. “I haven’t treated you too well.”
“Don’t let it trouble your heart. We’ve not got time for fine points of courtesy just now.”
Out on the field three men broke free and headed straight for them. When Rhodry called out Erddyr’s name, the three howled back their answer: for Lord Adry! The name rang with ill omen. If the men from the dun had managed to fight their way out to the edge, the besiegers were losing the battle. With a whoop of laughter, Rhodry flung up his shield and charged to meet them. His thigh slashed open to the bone, one of the three was turning away. Rhodry swerved around him and headed for a man on a black. The enemy wheeled faultlessly to face him and slashed in from the side. Rhodry caught the sword on his shield and leaned, pulling him to one side and opening his guard. When he stabbed in, his enemy twisted back, but blood flowed from his side. Rhodry heard himself laughing his cold berserker’s howl. The enemy broke free of his shield and swung; sword clashed on sword as Rhodry parried barely in time. He could barely see his enemy’s smoke-stained face, his blue eyes narrowed in pain as he slashed at Rhodry’s horse.
The horse dodged too late, and the blow caught it on the side of the head. Staggering, it tried to rear, then stumbled, plowing into the enemy black and throwing Rhodry forward almost into his enemy’s lap. Rhodry flung up his shield and thrust as he felt the horse going down under him. With a shriek the enemy reeled back from a lucky gouge of the shield boss across his face, the blood running like a curtain from his eyes. When Rhodry stabbed at him, he missed and hit the black hard. In panic the black bucked up once and writhed, dumping his blinded rider, then pulled free to run away. Deprived of its support, Rhodry’s horse buckled to its knees. Rhodry threw his shield to avoid breaking his arm and rolled, falling across his struggling enemy. He heard hoofbeats and flung his arms over his head just as a horse leapt over the pair of them. Rhodry staggered to his feet and grabbed the wounded man by the shoulder.
“You’ve got to get up,” Rhodry yelled.
His former enemy clung to him like a child. His sword in one hand, the other around the man’s waist, Rhodry staggered toward the open ground beyond the fighting. He had no idea why he was saving the man he’d just tried to kill, but he knew the reason somehow lay in their both being unhorsed, as vulnerable as weeds in a field. At last they reached a stand of trees. Rhodry shoved the blinded man down and told him to stay there, then ran back toward the battle. He had to find another horse. Suddenly he heard silver horns, cutting through the shouting—someone was calling a retreat. He didn’t know who. Sword in hand, Rhodry gasped for breath and tried to see through the smoke. A rider on a gray galloped straight for him: Renydd.
“We’re done for!” Renydd yelled. “Get up behind me.”
When Rhodry swung up behind him, Renydd spurred the gray hard, but all it could manage was a clumsy trot, sweating and foaming as it stumbled across the open ground. The horns sang through the smoke like ravens shrieking. When Rhodry choked on a sudden taste of smoke, he twisted round and saw fire creeping through the grass round the tents and heading their way. Off to their right, a poplar blazed like a sudden torch.
“Oh, by the hells,” Renydd snarled. “I hope it reaches the bastard’s dun and burns it for him!”
As they trotted for the road, three of Comerr’s men joined them on weary horses. Cursing, slapping the horses with the flats of their blades, the men rode on while the smoke spread out behind them as if it were sending claws to catch them. Ahead they saw a mob of men milling in confusion around a lord with a gold-trimmed shield.
“Erddyr, thank the gods,” Renydd said. “My lord! My Lord Erddyr!”
“Get over here, lad,” Erddyr yelled. “We’ve got a horse for that man behind you.”
Rhodry mounted a chestnut with a bleeding scratch down its neck and joined the pack, about fifty men, some of them wounded. As they made their slow retreat back to the dun of another ally, Degedd, Lord Comerr joined them with close to a hundred. A few at a time, stragglers caught up and joined their disorganized remnant of an army. At the top of a hill, the lords called a halt to let the horses rest—it was that or lose them. When Rhodry looked back, he saw no sign of pursuit. In the distance, the smoke pall slowly faded.
Just at sunset, they reached Degedd’s dun and mobbed into the ward, bleeding horses, bleeding men, all of them stinking of sweat and smoke and aching with shame. Yelling orders, Lord Degedd worked his way through the mob while he cradled a broken left wrist in his right hand. Rhodry and Renydd pulled a wounded man down from his saddle before he fainted and split his head on the cobbles. They carried him into the great hall, where Degedd’s lady and her women were already frantically at work, tending the wounded. The hall swarmed with so many men and servants that it was hard to find a place to lay their burden down.
“Over by the hearth,” Renydd said.
Rhodry cursed and shoved their way through until at last they could lay him down flat on the floor in a line of other wounded men, then started back outside to fetch anyone else who needed to be carried. Once the wounded were all brought in, they had the horses to tend.
Degedd’s small dun was crammed from wall to wall with the remnants of his allies’ army, so crowded that Rhodry felt a surge of hope. Although they’d fled the battle, the war wasn’t over yet. By the time Rhodry and Renydd returned to the great hall, Rhodry’s head was swimming. They got a couple of chunks of bread and some cold meat from a servant, then sat on the floor and gobbled it silently.
Up by the hearth of honor, the womenfolk were still working. His wrist bound and splinted, Lord Degedd sat on the floor with the other noble lords—Erddyr, Oldadd, and Comerr—and talked urgently. Although the hall was filled with men, it was oddly silent in a wordless chill of defeat. When Renydd finished eating, he leaned back against the curve of the wall and fell asleep. Many of the men did the same, slumping against the wall, lying down on the floor, but the noble lords leaned close together and went on talking. Rhodry thought he was going to ache too badly from his fall to sleep straightaway, but he was too exhausted to stay on his feet. He’d been awake and riding for the entire cycle of a day.
When he sat down next to Renydd, the captain stirred, looked at him blearily, then leaned against his shoulder. Rhodry put his arm around him just for the simple human comfort of it. All at once his weariness caught up with him. His last conscious thought was that they were all shamed men tonight, not just him.
Rhodry woke suddenly to Lord Erddyr’s voice. With a grunt, Renydd sat up straight next to him. Erddyr was on his feet in the middle of the hall and yelling at the men to wake up and listen to him. Sighing, cursing, the drowsy warband roused itself and turned toward their lords.
“Now here, lads,” Erddyr said. “I’m going to ask you a hard thing, but it has to be done. We can’t stay here tonight and get pinned like rats in a trap. We’re leaving the wounded behind and riding back to my dun.”
A soft exhausted sigh breathed through the hall.
“I know how you feel,” Erddyr went on. “By the Lord of Hell’s warty balls, don’t you think I’d rather be in my blankets than on the back of a horse? But if we stay, those horseshit bastards have us where they want us. Degedd can’t provision a siege. We’ve got to have time to collect our men on fort guard, and then we can make another strike on the bastards. Do you all understand? If we stay here, we lose the war and every scrap of honor we ever had. So, are you riding with me or not?”
Cheering as loudly as they could manage, the men began to get up, collecting shields and gear from the floor.
“Save your breath,” Erddyr called out. “And let’s ride!”

A few hours before dawn, Yraen went out for his turn on watch. Yawning and cursing, just on general principles, he climbed up to the catwalk and took his place next to Gedryc, the nominal captain of the fort guard, who acknowledged him with a nod. Together they leaned onto the rampart and looked over the hills, dark and shadowed in the moonlight, to watch the road. In about an hour, just as the moon was setting, Yraen saw a somewhat darker shape moving on the dark countryside, and a certain fuzziness in the air over it—probably dust.
“Who’s that?” Gedryc snapped. “Don’t tell me it’s our lord! Oh, ye gods!”
In a few minutes more the moving shape resolved itself into a long line of men on horseback, and something about the slumped way they sat, and the slow way that the horses limped and staggered along, told the tale.
“A defeat,” Gedryc said. “Run and wake the dun, lad.”
As Yraen climbed down the ladder, he felt a sudden sick wondering if Rhodry was still alive. Somehow, before this moment, it hadn’t really occurred to him that a friend of his might die in this war. He raced to the barracks over the stables, woke up the rest of the fort guard, then ran into the great hall and the kitchen hut to rouse the servants. He came back out in time to hear the men on the walls calling to one another.
“It’s Erddyr, all right! Open those gates!”
The servants came pouring into the ward to help the night watch pull open the heavy iron-bound gates. Torchlight flared in the ward as the army filed in, the horses stumbling blindly toward shelter. Wrapped in a cloak over her night dress, Lady Melynda rushed out of the broch just as Lord Erddyr dismounted and threw his reins to a groom.
“Your husband’s come home defeated and dishonored,” Erddyr said. “But the war’s not over yet.”
“Well and good, my lord,” Melynda said calmly. “Where are the wounded?”
“Back in Degedd’s dun, but get the servants to feeding these men, will you?”
Yraen found Rhodry down at the gates. He’d dismounted to lead his horse inside and spare it his weight for the last few yards. When Yraen caught his arm, all the silver dagger could do was turn toward him with a blind, almost drunken smile.
“I’ll tend that horse,” Yraen said. “Go get something to eat.”
When he finished with the horse, Yraen went back into the great hall, filled with men—some still eating, most asleep. At the table of honor the noble lords ate silently while Lady Melynda watched them with frightened eyes. Yraen picked his way through and joined Rhodry, sitting on the floor in the curve of the wall with Renydd, who was slowly eating a piece of bread as if the effort were too much for him.
“Why did you lose?” Yraen said to Rhodry.
“What a comfort my friend is,” Rhodry said. “From his mouth no excuses or blustering to lift a man’s shame, only the nastiest of truths.” He paused to yawn. “We lost because there were more of them than us, that’s all.”
“Well and good, then. I’m cursed glad to see you alive, you bastard.”
Rhodry grinned and leaned back against the wall.
“We comported ourselves brilliantly on the field,” Rhodry said. “Renydd and me slew seventy men each, but there were thousands ranged against us.”
“Horseshit,” Renydd said with his mouth full.
“It’s not horseshit.” Rhodry yawned violently. “There were rivers of blood on the field, and corpses piled up like mountains. Never will that grass grow green again, but it’ll come up scarlet, all for grief at that slaughter.”
Yraen leaned forward and grabbed his arm: he was beginning to realize what it meant when Rhodry babbled this way.
“And the clash and clang was like thunder,” Rhodry went on. “We swept in like ravens and none could stand before us. We trampled them like grass—”
“That’s enough!” Yraen gave his arm a hard shake. “Rhodry, hold your tongue! You’re half-mad with the defeat.”
Rhodry stared at him, his eyes half-filled with tears.
“My apologies,” Rhodry said. “You’re right enough.”
He curled up on the straw like a dog and fell asleep straightaway, without even another yawn.
All that day, the army slept wherever it could find room, scattered through the dun. Before he went to his bed, Erddyr sent men from the fort guard out with messages to the duns of the various allies, warning their fort guards to be ready to join their lords. Other men rode out to scout and keep a watch for Adry’s army on the road. The servants went through the stored supplies. The army had lost all its carts, blankets, provisions, and, worst of all, its extra weapons. Not all the scrounging in the world could produce more than twenty javelins for the entire army. Yraen, of course, still had a pair, those he’d brought with him when he’d left home, but he gave one to Rhodry and hoarded the other.
“Here’s your saddlebags, too,” Yraen said. “I had no trouble with them.”
“Good. Huh. I’d say our enemy can’t track the whistle by dweomer then, but if that’s true, how by the hells did he know I had the ugly thing in the first place?”
“Well, was there someone else who could have told him?”
Rhodry swore under his breath.
“There was, at that, and I’ll wager it was our lovely Alshandra, all right.”
Yraen would have asked him more about this mysterious being, but a couple of other men joined them with rumors to share.
In the afternoon, Yraen had a word alone with Lady Melynda, who bravely smiled her tight-lipped smile and talked of her husband’s eventual victory. It seemed that Comerr alone had thirty fresh men in his dun, to say nothing of the men they could muster from other allies.
“If they can assemble them all, my lord swears they’ll outnumber the enemy. He tells me that Adry and Tewdyr already had every man they could muster at the siege.” Her bright smile faded abruptly. “I wonder if that’s true, or if he’s trying to spare my feelings?”
“It’s probably true, my lady, because he’s already let the worst news slip. What matters is whether they can assemble them in time, and Rhodry says that’s a hard thing to do.”
“Just so.” Melynda was silent for a long time. “I’m going to try to prevail upon my lord to send to the gwerbret for his judgment on this matter.”
“Do you think he will?”
Melynda shook her head in a no and stared at the floor.
“Not with this defeat aching his heart. He’d feel too shamed.”
When he left the lady, Yraen climbed up to the walls and looked out at the silent hills. Somewhere out there was the enemy army, perhaps riding for them, perhaps off licking its own wounds. He wondered if Erddyr would stand a siege or sally out right away should Adry appear at his gates, but in the end, the lords decided to leave the dun as soon as possible and ride round the countryside to collect their allies, rather than risk getting trapped in a siege. Although a dun with an army inside was a prize worth having, it was unlikely that Tewdyr and Adry would try to take an empty one, simply because they’d be too vulnerable to attack themselves. There came a point in any war where it was best to settle the matter in open country rather than trusting in stone walls, or so Rhodry always said.
Late that afternoon, one of the scouts returned, rushing into the great hall and blurting out his urgent message: Adry and his allies were riding their way and had made camp not fifteen miles off.
“There’s close to two hundred of them, my lord,” the scout finished up. “Fully provisioned.”
“Only two hundred?” Erddyr said, grinning. “Well, then, we left a few scars on them before we called the retreat.”
“Maybe so,” Comerr said. “But we’d best get out of here before they pin us at your gates.”
The dun turned into an orderly madhouse. The warband ran to fetch their gear and horses. Servants frantically loaded the last pair of carts left in the dun and commandeered extra horses for pack animals to carry what supplies they’d been able to scrape together. Yraen collected his horse, donned his armor, and realized that everything he’d wanted was about to come to him. Soon he would test himself and all the weaponcraft he’d learned; soon he would discover for himself what battle and battle-glory had to teach a man. Now that the time was upon him, he felt preternaturally calm and oddly light, as if he floated through the crowded ward to Rhodry’s side. Only his heart refused to quiet itself; he could feel it knocking in his throat, or so it seemed, like some wild creature in a trap.
“We’ll be at the rear, no doubt,” Rhodry said. “Silver daggers always eat the whole cursed army’s dust.”
Yraen merely nodded. Rhodry gave him a look as sharp as a knife blade.
“Tell me somewhat, lad. Have you ever fought before?”
The time was past for bluster. Yraen shook his head in a no. Rhodry swore under his breath and seemed to be about to say more, but at the head of the line the horns sang out the order to mount and ride. As the men swung into their saddles and started moving, trying to sort themselves into warbands in the too-small space, Yraen ended up separated from Rhodry, and there was no time to find him again as the riders began filing out the gates. When they first reached the road, Yraen made a futile try at spotting him, then fell back with the squad assigned to guard the supplies.
Once the moon rose, bright and swollen just a night off her full, the lords led their men off the road and began circling to the north through the hills and ravines, good hiding from their enemies. Thanks to the carts and the pack train, they moved slowly, the carters cursing as the carts banged through the rocks and brush. Riding at the very rear, Yraen was the only one who realized that someone was following them.
As they started down the side of a hill, Yraen saw movement out of the corner of his eye, turned to look, and caught the unmistakable shape of a man on foot slinking through the tall grass behind them. He must have left his horse somewhere behind—a mistake that cost him his life. With a shout of warning, Yraen turned his horse out of line and drew his javelin in the same smooth motion. The enemy scout turned and raced downhill, but Yraen galloped after, plunging through the grass and praying that his horse wouldn’t stumble and go down. Twisting in a desperate zigzag, his prey ran for the trees at the bottom of the valley, but Yraen gained on him and rose in the stirrups to throw. The point gleamed in the moonlight as it sped to the mark and caught the scout full in the back. With an ugly shriek he went down headlong into the grass. Yraen trotted over and dismounted, but he was already dead. A couple of men from his warband rode up and circled round them.
“Good job, lad,” one of them shouted. “We’re cursed lucky you’ve got good eyes.”
Yraen shrugged in pretended modesty and pulled the javelin free with a welling up of the enemy’s blood. In the moonlight it seemed like dark water, some strange and dreamlike substance. Yraen wondered how it could be possible that he’d killed a man and yet felt nothing, not grief nor gloating.
“Just let him lie,” the rider went on. “We’ve got to get back to the warband, but in the morning, I’ll make sure Lord Oldadd knows what you’ve done.”
But apparently the noble-born already realized what had happened. When Yraen returned to the warband, the lords halted the march and had a hasty horseback conference up at the head of the line. Yraen strained to hear as Erddyr leaned over in his saddle to make his points with the wave of a gauntlet. All at once Lord Comerr laughed and gave Erddyr a friendly cuff on the shoulder. Erddyr turned his horse and trotted over to bellow at the warband.
“With their scout dead, we’ve got a chance to wreak a little havoc, lads,” Erddyr called out. “I want fifty men to risk their cursed necks. I’ll be leading you in a raid on Adry’s camp, just to stick a thorn up the bastard’s ass.”
Yraen turned his horse out of line to volunteer. As a squad assembled round Erddyr, he kept watch for Rhodry and finally saw him on the other side of the group, or saw, rather, his silver dagger, catching the moonlight with an unmistakable glitter. Although he waved, he had no idea if Rhodry had seen him or not.
Leaning forward in his saddle, Erddyr explained the situation. Comerr and the pack train were going to head for his dun in hopes of meeting the reinforcements on the road, while Erddyr and the squad tried to slow their enemies. It was going to be a quick raid—Erddyr emphasized that repeatedly—one fast sweep down, then an equally fast retreat.
“The whole point, lads, is to panic their horses, not to make kills. Go for the herd and try to scatter it. If anyone gets in your way, kill him, but leave the real slaughter for later. All we want to do is keep them busy chasing their worm-gut stock instead of chasing us.”
Erddyr sent Rhodry and some man Yraen didn’t know out in front as scouts, then led his squad back the way they’d come until the scouts rejoined them. At that point they left the road to dodge through the brush and down a narrow valley. On the far side they climbed a hill and found the camp down below, the rough circles of sleeping men and the bulky dark shapes of the supply wagons. Off to one side drowsed the horse herd. At the edge of the camp, guards walked in a circling patrol. Erddyr whispered something to Rhodry, who whispered it to the man behind him. The order made its way back: charge through the guards for the horses, then circle and wheel for the retreat before the men grab their weapons and join the fight.
Steel flashed in the moonlight as the squad drew their swords. Yraen settled his own and felt his heart pounding in his throat again, but he was beginning to wonder if he’d ever see a real battle, the sort he’d heard bards sing about, with proper armies and strategies and all that sort of thing. They walked their horses over the crest of the hill, paused for a moment like a wave about to break, then started down with the jingle of tack and the clank of armor. In the camp, the guards looked up and screamed the alarm.
“Now!” Erddyr yelled.
In a welter of war cries and curses, the squad spurred their horses and galloped full-tilt downhill. When they reached the valley, they spread out in a ragged line and swept toward the horse herd. Although the guards raced over to make a futile stand against them, the line ignored them and charged past. As he galloped past a guard, Yraen swung wildly at him, but he missed by yards. When the squad screamed and plunged into the herd, the horses panicked, rearing up and stretching their tether ropes so tight that it was easy to snap them with one swing of a blade. Yraen cursed and shrieked and made every ungodly noise he could think of as he sliced ropes and set horse after horse racing away from the attack. At last his wild ride brought him to the edge of the valley. As he turned his horse, he saw men pouring toward the raiders with their swords and shields at the ready. It was time to run.
Yraen kicked his horse and galloped back across the valley with the rest of the squad. Here and there, a panicked horse still at tether bucked and kicked. Yraen cut one last rope, then turned his attention to the men racing to stop them. All at once, one of the panicked horses slammed into the rider ahead of him. That horse reared; the rider went down, with the flash of a gold-trimmed shield that said Lord Erddyr. Yraen pulled his horse up just in time to avoid running right over him. The armed and furious enemy was charging straight for them. Yraen swung down and grabbed Erddyr’s arm.
“Take my horse, my lord,” he yelled. “I’ll guard your mount.”
“By the hells, we ride together or die together! Here they come, lad.”
Yraen set his back to Erddyr’s and dropped to a fighting crouch as the first enemies reached them. Four of them, and in the gauzy moonlight, it was hard to see their swings, impossible to detect all those subtle movements that reveal an enemy’s next thrust. Yraen could only hack and swing blindly as he desperately parried their equally blind strikes. His shield cracked and groaned; Erddyr was screaming his war cry at the top of his lungs; but Yraen fought silently, coldly, dodging forward to make a slash across an enemy’s arm, then dodging back, slamming into Erddyr’s back as the melee thickened. Screaming Erddyr’s name, the mounted squad was cutting and trampling through the mob on the ground.
In front of him an enemy feinted in close. Yraen lunged fast and got him, almost without realizing it in the bad light. He felt rather than saw his sword bite deep into something soft and stick. When he yanked it free, a man fell forward at his feet. He flung up his shield to parry a blow from the side, slashed at another man, missed, and saw him fall, cut down by a thrust from a mounted man. Erddyr was laughing aloud as riders swirled round them in a kicking, bucking confusion.
“Mount behind me, lad!” a man yelled.
Yraen sheathed his sword still bloody and swung up behind him, scrambling awkwardly onto his bedroll. The rider turned his horse and spurred it on, slashing down at an enemy in their way. Yraen leaned forward and got a cut on the same man as the horse carried them past at a clumsy gallop.
“Ride!” Erddyr screamed. “Retreat!”
Shouting, swinging, the mounted squad cut its way across the valley and headed for the hills. Yraen saw a couple of Erddyr’s men driving what was left of the enemy horses straight for the camp. Howling in rage, half the enemy line peeled out of the battle and ran for the camp to save their gear from being trampled. The squad cut grimly on. Yraen leaned and swung randomly at unhorsed men who had little appetite for a fight. At last they gained the hillside, and the horse stumbled wearily up toward the crest. There Rhodry rode to meet them, leading a riderless bay.
“Transfer him over,” Rhodry yelled. “We’ve got to make speed.”
As Yraen mounted the fresh horse, he could tell from the gear that it had once been Lord Erddyr’s, who, of course, still rode his own gray. Ahead, the squad was already crashing its way through the underbrush and heading downhill. As he followed, Yraen saw Lord Erddyr, rising frantically in the stirrups as he tried to count his men. They trotted across the next valley and finally assembled in a laughing, shoving mob at the crest of the farther hill.
“Where’s that lad whose horse I’m riding?” Erddyr called out. “Come ride next to me, lad, and then we’d best get our asses out of here.”
Yraen guided his horse through the warband, which showered him with good-natured insults to show their respect for the way he’d saved their lord. Erddyr waved the line forward. Carefully they picked their way along the dark valleys until they reached the place where they’d left the main column. No one ever tried to follow them. Doubtless Adry and his men were chasing horses and swearing all over the hills round their camp.
“Well played,” Erddyr called out as the warband gathered around him. “It’s a pity your lord here almost ruined the whole maneuver, but we’re born to our place, not picked by wits.”
The men laughed and cheered him.
“It’s a cursed good thing I hired this silver dagger’s apprentice,” Erddyr went on. “But we’re a bit short on time to have the bard make you a song, lad. Let’s get on our way.”
When the warband rode out, Yraen and Rhodry rode together. By then the sky was beginning to pale into gray, and in the growing light Yraen could look round and see that their squad had suffered no losses. He remembered then the man who’d fallen at his feet when he’d been defending Lord Erddyr. I must have killed him, he thought—he lay so still. He shook his head hard, wondering why nothing seemed real or even important, then looked up to find Rhodry watching him.
“Not bad,” Rhodry said. “You’ve got sharp eyes, and a cursed good thing, too.”
“The scout, you mean?”
“That, too, but I was thinking about Lord Erddyr. Well done.”
Yraen felt himself blushing like the rising sun. The fulsome praise heaped upon his princely self by his father’s weaponmasters had lost all its meaning, compared to those two words.

“That’s true, good herbwoman,” Lady Melynda said. “My husband did indeed hire a silver dagger named Rhodry, and young Yraen, too. Of course, you’ve arrived a bit late to speak with them. The army rode out in the middle of the night, you see.”
For a moment the lady’s careful calm nearly deserted her. With shaking hands she wiped tears from her eyes, then composed herself with a long sigh that came close to being a gasp. Dallandra looked round the great hall, empty and echoing with silence. Aside from a handful of male servants, the only guards the lady had were three wounded men.
“Well, my lady, before I ride on, I’ll see what I can do for these men here.”
“My thanks, but I’d be most grateful if you did catch up with the army. You see, my husband doesn’t have a proper chirurgeon with his warband, so your aid would be most welcome.”
“In the morning, then, I’ll be on my way. No doubt they’ve left an easy trail to follow.”
Since it had been some years since Dallandra had tended wounds, she was dreading the job, but once she got the clumsy bandages off her first patient’s injuries, her old professional detachment set in. The man’s gashed and bloody flesh became merely a problem for her to solve with the medicinals and other means she had at hand, rather than an object of disgust, and his gratitude made the effort well worth it. By the time she finished with the wounded, it was late in the day. She washed up, then joined the lady and her serving women at the table of honor. As they tried to make conversation about something other than the war and the lady’s fears for her husband, Dallandra found herself oppressed by a sense of dread so sharp and miserable that she knew it must be a dweomer-warning of sorts. Of what, she couldn’t say.
Just at sunset, the answer came in a shout of alarm from the servants who were watching the gates. Dallandra ran after Melynda when the lady rushed outside and saw the stableboys and the aged chamberlain swinging the gates shut. The two women scrambled up the ladder to the ramparts and leaned over. Down below on the dusty road, Lord Tewdyr was leading forty armed men up to the walls.
“And what do you want with me and my maidservants?” Melynda called down. “My husband and his men are long gone.”
“I’m well aware of that, my lady,” Tewdyr shouted back. “And I swear to every god and goddess as well that no harm will come to you and your women while you’re under my protection.”
“His lordship is most honorable, but we aren’t under his protection, and I see no reason to ask for it.”
“Indeed?” Tewdyr gave her a thin-lipped smile. “I fear me it’s yours whether you want it or not, because I’m going to take you back to my dun with me and hold you there until your husband quits the war and ransoms you back.”
“Oh, indeed?” Melynda tossed her head. “I should have known that spending all that coin would ache your heart, but never did I think it would drive you to dishonor, just to get it back.”
“There is no need for my lady to be insulting, especially when she can’t have more than a handful of men in her dun.”
Melynda bit her lip sharply and went a bit pale. Dallandra stepped forward and leaned over the rampart.
“The lady has all the men she needs,” Dallandra called. “This is an impious, dishonorable, and wretched move you’re making, my lord. Every bard in Deverry will satirize your name for it down the long years.”
“Oh, will they now?” Tewdyr laughed. “And do you claim to be a bard, old woman?”
His voice dripped cold contempt for all things old and female both. In an icy rage Dallandra swept up her hands and invoked elemental spirits, the Wildfolk of Air and Fire. In a swarming, glittering mob they answered her call and rushed among the men and horses in a surge of raw life. Although the men couldn’t see them, they could feel them indirectly, just as when a cloud darkens the sun outside and the light in a chamber dims. The riders shifted uneasily in their saddles; the horses danced and snorted; Tewdyr looked wildly around him.
“We have no need of armed men,” Dallandra said. “Are you stupid enough to match steel against the laws of honor and the gods?”
The Wildfolk chattered among the men and pinched the horses, pulled at the men’s clothes, and rattled their swords in their scabbards until the entire warband shook in fear. Turning this way and that, they cursed and swatted at enemies they couldn’t see. Dallandra held up her right hand and called forth blue fire—a perfectly harmless etheric light, but it looked like it would burn hot. She fashioned the fire into a long streaming torch and made it blaze brightly in the fading sunlight. Tewdyr yelped and began edging his horse backward.
“Begone!” Dallandra called out.
With a wave of her hand, she sent the bolt of light down like a javelin. When it struck the ground in front of Tewdyr’s horse, it shattered into a hundred darts and sparks of illusionary fire. Dallandra hurled bolt after bolt, smashing them into the ground among the warband while the Wildfolk pinched the horses viciously and clawed the men. Screaming, cursing, the warband broke and galloped shamelessly down the hill. Tewdyr spurred his horse as hard as any of them and never even tried to stop the retreat.
Dallandra sent the Wildfolk chasing them, then allowed herself a good laugh, but a pale and feverishly shaking Lady Melynda knelt at her feet. Behind her the servants huddled together as if they feared Dallandra would attack them simply for the fun of it. Only then did Dallandra remember that she was among human beings, not the People, who took dweomer and its powers as a given thing.
“Now, now, my lady, do get up,” Dallandra said. “The honor is mine to be allowed to be of service to you. It was naught but a few cheap tricks, but I doubt me very much that they’ll return to trouble you.”
“Most likely not, but I can’t call them cowards for it.”
All that evening the lady and her women waited upon Dallandra as if she were the queen herself, but none of them presumed to make conversation with her. As soon as she could, Dallandra went up to the chamber that they’d readied for her. Although she tried to scry, the whistle stayed hidden and Rhodry with it, giving her a few bitter thoughts on the limits of the dweomer that had so impressed the lady and her household.

In the meadows behind Lord Comerr’s dun, the allies had camped their hastily pulled together army of two hundred thirty-six men. For that first day after Erddyr’s dawn arrival, the men rested while the lords conferred over the various scraps of news that scouts and messengers brought them. Rhodry spent the day in rueful amusement, mocking himself for how badly he wanted to be included in those conferences. He was used to command, and even more, he knew that he was good at it, better, certainly, than the overly cautious Comerr and the entirely too daring Erddyr. Yet there was nothing for him to do but sit around and remind himself that he was a silver dagger and nothing more. He was also more than a little worried about Yraen, who’d made his first kills by blind luck. The lad himself seemed dazed, saying little to anyone. Finally, when they received their scant rations for the evening meal, Rhodry led him away from the other men for a talk.
“Now listen, you know enough about war to know that you’re not ready to lead charges or suchlike. Every rider goes through a time when he’s just learning how to handle himself, like, and there’s no shame in an untried man staying on the edge of things. Everyone seems to have figured out that this is your first ride.”
“Oh, true spoken,” Yraen said. “But is there going to be any edge to stay on? It sounds cursed desperate to me. That last scout said that Adry’s scraped up almost three hundred men.”
“You’ve got a point. Unfortunately. Well, there’s still one thing you can do, and that’s think before you go charging right into the thick of things. More men have been saved by a good look round them than by the best sword work in the world.”
On the morrow, when the army saddled up and rode out, Lord Erddyr told Yraen to ride just behind the noble-bom as a way of honoring the lad for saving his life and allowed Rhodry to join him there. They were heading back east in the hopes of making their stand on ground of their own choosing. Logic foretold that Adry would be riding for Cornell’s dun, but the scouts who circled ahead of the main body brought back no news of him. Finally, toward noon, scouts came back to report that they’d found Adry’s camp of the night before, but that the tracks of his army led south, away from Comerr’s dun and toward Tewdyr’s. The noble lords held a quick conference surrounded by their anxious warbands.
“Now why by the hells would he circle when he’s got the numbers on his side?” Erddyr said.
“A couple of reasons,” Comerr said. “Maybe to draw us into a trap for one. But I wonder—he’s heading back to Tewdyr’s dun, is he? Here, you don’t suppose Tewdyr rode away from the war, and Adry’s after him?”
“He’d never withdraw now. He’s too cursed furious with me for that, He—oh, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell! What if the old miser’s making a strike on my dun?”
“I wouldn’t put it past the bastard,” Comerr snarled. “I say we ride back for a look.”
When the warband rode on, they left the wagon train behind to follow as best it could at its own slow pace. Lord Erddyr rode in a cold grim silence that told everyone he feared for his lady’s life. For two hours they kept up a cavalry pace, walking and trotting with the emphasis on the trot, and they left the road and went as straight as an arrow, plowing through field and meadow, climbing up the wild brushy hills. Finally a scout galloped back, grinning like a child with a copper to spend at the market fair.
“My lords!” the scout yelled. “Tewdyr’s not far ahead, and the stupid bastard’s only got forty men with him!”
Both lords and riders cheered.
It was less than an hour later when the warband trotted down a little valley to see Tewdyr and his men, drawn up in battle order and waiting for them. Apparently Tewdyr had scouts of his own out and had realized that he was pretty well trapped. When Lord Erddyr yelled out orders to his men to surround the enemy, the warband broke up into a ragged line and trotted fast to encircle the waiting warband. Rhodry drew a javelin, yelled at Yraen to follow him, and circled with the others. When he glanced back, Yraen was right behind him.
Sullen and disgruntled, the enemy moved into a tight bunch behind Tewdyr and his son. Tewdyr sat straight in his saddle, a javelin in his hand.
“Tewdyr!” Comerr called out. “Surrender! We’ve got the whole cursed army surrounding you.”
“I can see well enough,” Tewdyr snarled.
With a laugh, Comerr made the lord a mocking bow from the saddle.
“Doubtless the thought of paying more ransom aches your noble heart, but fear not—your withdrawal from the war will be sufficient. We all know that dishonor will be less painful to you than losing more coin.”
With a howl of rage, Tewdyr spurred his horse forward and threw the javelin straight at Comerr, who flung up his shield barely in time. The javelin cracked it through and stuck there dangling. Shouting, the entire warband sprang forward to Comerr’s side as he flung his useless shield away and grabbed for his sword. Tewdyr’s men had no choice but to charge to meet them. Yelling, shouting, Erddyr tried to stop the unequal slaughter, but the field turned into a brawl. Like too many flies crawling on a piece of meat, the warband mobbed Tewdyr’s men with their swords flashing up red in the sunlight. Rhodry yelled at Yraen to get back, then trotted over to Erddyr, who was sitting on his horse and watching, his mouth slack in disbelief.
“At least the two of you followed my orders, eh?” the lord shouted. “Ah, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell!”
They sat there like spectators at a tournament as the dust plumed up thick over the battle, and this was no mock combat with blunted and gilded weapons down in the Deverry court. Horses reared up, blood running down their necks; Tewdyr’s men fell bleeding with barely a chance to defend themselves. Four and five at a time, the warband mobbed them, hacking and stabbing, while the fighting was so thick that half the men never got a chance to close. They rode round and round the edge, shrieking war cries over the shouts of pain and the trampling clanging sound of horses shoving against shields. When Rhodry looked at Yraen, he found the lad decidedly pale, but his mouth was set tight and his eyes wide-open, as if he were forcing himself to watch the way an apprentice watches his master’s lesson in some craft.
“It’s not pretty, is it?” Rhodry said.
Yraen shook his head no and went on watching. The fighting was down to a desperate clot around Tewdyr, bleeding in his saddle but still hacking in savage fury. Suddenly Yraen turned his horse and galloped down the valley. Rhodry started to follow, but he saw him dismount and take a few steps toward the stream, where he stood with his hands pressed over his face, merely stood and shook. He was crying, most like. Rhodry couldn’t hold it against the lad. He felt half-sick himself from the savagery of this slaughter. When he looked Erddyr’s way, his eyes met the lord’s, and he knew Erddyr felt the same.
Suddenly a distant noise broke into Rhodry’s mind and pulled him alert. Erddyr threw up his head and screamed out a warning as silver horns rang out on the crest of the hill. Too late for rescue, but in time for revenge, Lord Adry’s army galloped down to join the battle. Shrieking orders, Erddyr circled the edge of the mob and managed to get a few men turned round and ready to face this new threat. Rhodry followed, howling with laughter, and spotted a rider who could only be one of the noble-born, a lean man carrying a beautifully worked shield and riding a fine black horse. Howling a challenge he charged straight for him. Only when it was too late to pull back did he remember Yraen, and much later still did he remember that he was a silver dagger again, no longer a noble lord to challenge one of his peers.

After he stopped crying, Yraen knelt by the stream and washed his face, but the shame he felt for what he saw as womanish weakness couldn’t be so easily dealt with. For a moment he lingered there alone, wondering if he could face Rhodry again, realizing that he had no choice. He was walking back to his horse when he heard the enemy horns and saw the enemy army pouring over the hill like water. He ran, grabbed the reins just before the animal bolted, and swung himself up into the saddle. None of his fancy lessons in war mattered now; all that counted was getting to the safety of his own pack of men. As he galloped down the valley, he saw the enemy army spreading out, trying to encircle his own. Just barely in time Yraen dodged through their van.
An enemy rider, carrying a shield blazoned with a hawk’s head, swung past. Yraen wrenched his horse after and struck at his exposed side. Although he missed the rider, he did nick the horse, which bucked once and staggered. When the enemy wheeled to face him, Yraen caught a glimpse of pouchy eyes and a stubbled face. They swung, parried, circling, trading blow for blow while the enemy howled and Yraen found himself muttering a string of curses under his breath. The Hawksman was good, almost his match—almost. Yraen caught a swing on his shield, heard the wood crack, and slashed in through his enemy’s open guard to catch him solidly on the back of his right arm. Blood welled through his mail as the bone snapped. With one last shout, he turned his horse and fled, clinging to its neck to keep his seat.
Yraen let him go and rode on, weaving his way through the combats, looking desperately round for Rhodry. His fear had shrunk to a dryness in his mouth, a little ache around his heart, and nothing more. Under a pall of dust the battle swirled down the valley. Here and there he saw clots of fighting around one lord or another. Dead men lay on the ground and wounded horses struggled to rise. When at last he heard someone calling Erddyr’s name and someone laughing, a cold berserker’s laugh of desperation, he turned in the saddle to see Rhodry and Renydd, mobbed by six of the enemy. They were fighting nose to tail and parrying more than they dared strike as Adry’s men shrieked for vengeance and pressed round them. Yraen spurred his horse and charged straight for the clot.
Yraen slapped his horse with the flat of his blade and forced it to slam into the flank of an enemy horse. Before the enemy could turn, he stabbed him in the back and turned to slash at another. Dimly he was aware of men shouting Erddyr’s name riding to his side, but he kept swinging, slashing, hacking his way through the clot, closing briefly with one man who managed to turn his horse to face him. He parried and thrust, never getting a strike on him, until the enemy horse screamed and reared. Renydd had cut it hard from behind, and as it came down, Yraen killed the rider. He was through at last, wrenching his horse round to fight nose to tail with Renydd.
“I saw you coming into the mob,” Rhodry yelled out.
Rhodry pulled in beside him to guard his left side. Sweat ran down Yraen’s back in trickles, not drops, as he panted for breath in this precious moment of respite. It was only a moment. Five men were riding straight for them. Yraen heard them yelling at one another: there he is, get the cursed silver dagger.
Yraen suddenly remembered that he had javelins again, distributed the night before. Grabbing his sword in his left hand, he pulled one from the sheath, threw it straight for an enemy horse, and grabbed the second all in the same smooth motion. Caught in the chest, the enemy horse went down, dumping its rider under the hooves of his friends charging behind him. Yraen heard Rhodry laughing like a fiend as the clot of enemy riders swirled and stumbled in confusion. Yraen had just enough time to transfer his sword back again before the enemies sorted themselves out and charged.
When the three of them held their ground, the enemies rode round them, circling to strike from the rear. Yraen was forced to wheel his horse out of line or get stabbed in the back. Riding with his knees, he ducked and dodged and slashed back at the man attacking him, who suddenly wheeled his horse and rode back toward the main fight. When Yraen followed, for a brief moment he could watch Rhodry fight, and even in the midst of danger the silver dagger’s skill was breathtaking as he twisted and ducked, slashing with a cold precision. Rhodry’s enemy lunged, missed, and pulled back clumsily as Rhodry got a strike across his shoulder. The Hawksman wanted to kill him—Yraen could see it—this was not the impersonal death-dealing of armies but sheer blazing hatred.
“Silver dagger!” he hissed. “Cursed bastard of a silver dagger!”
When he lunged again, Rhodry caught his blow with his sword. For a moment they struggled, locked together, but Yraen never saw how they broke free. All at once his back burned like fire as someone got a glancing strike on him from behind. Barely in time Yraen wheeled his horse away, swung his head round, and made him dance in a circle till they could face the Hawksman swinging at them. Yraen stabbed, and his greater speed won. Before the enemy could bring his shield around to parry, Yraen thrust the sword point into his right eye. With an animal shriek he reeled back in the saddle, dropped his sword, and clawed in vain at the blade as Yraen pulled it free. Yraen swung and hit him with the flat, knocking him off his horse. In a flail of arms, he rolled under the hooves of a horse just behind. When that horse reared and lung itself backward, the mob of enemies pressing for them fell back, cursing and screaming for vengeance.
Horns rang out over the battlefield. The mob ahead hesitated, turning toward the insistent shriek. Yraen started to edge his horse toward them, but Rhodry’s voice broke through his battle-fever.
“Let them go!” Rhodry yelled. “It’s the enemy calling for retreat this time.”
The field was clearing as Adry’s men and allies galloped for their lives. Yraen saw Lord Erddyr charging round the field and screaming at his men to hold their places and let them go. Panting, sweating, shoving back their mail hoods, Yraen, Rhodry, and Renydd brought their horses up dose and stared at each other.
“Look at them run,” Yraen said. “Did we fight as well as all that?”
“We didn’t,” Renydd panted. “They’ve got naught left to fight for. Rhodry killed Lord Adry in that first charge.”
Rhodry bowed to him, his eyes bright and merry, as if he’d just told a gopd jest and was enjoying his listener’s amusement.
“I shamed myself before the battle,” Yraen said to him. “Will you forgive me?”
“What are you talking about, lad? You did naught of the sort.”
But no matter how much he wanted to, Yraen couldn’t believe him. He knew that the feel of tears on his face would haunt him his whole life long.
Picking their way through the dead and the wounded, what was left of the warband began to gather around them. No boasting, no battle-joy like in a bard song—they merely sat on their horses and waited till Erddyr rode up, his face red, his beard ratty with sweat.
“Get off those horses, you bastards,” Erddyj bellowed. “We’ve got wounded out there!” He waved his sword at the clot of men that included Yraen. “Go round up stock. They’re all over this cursed valley.”
Gladly Yraen turned his horse out of line and trotted off. Down by the stream the horses that had fled after losing their riders waited huddled together, blindly trusting in the human beings who had led them into this slaughter. When the men grabbed the reins of a few, the rest followed docilely along. Yraen rode farther downstream, ostensibly to see if any horses were in the stand of hazels near the water, but in truth, simply to be alone. All at once, he wanted to cry again, to sit on the ground and sob like a child. His shame ate at him—what was wrong with him that he’d feel this way in the moment of victory?
Yraen found one bay gelding on the far side of the copse. He dismounted and slacked the bits of both horses to let them drink, then fell to his knees and scooped up water in both hands. No fine mead had ever tasted as good. When he looked at the bright water, rippling over the graveled streambed, he thought of all those bards who sang that men’s lives run away as fast as water. It was true enough. The evidence was lying a few hundred yards behind him on the field. He got up and tried to summon the will to go back and help with the wounded. All he wanted to do was stand there and look at the green grass, soft in the sun, stand there and feel that he was alive.
Far down the little valley, he saw a single rider, trotting fast, and leading what seemed to be a pack mule. Mounting his own horse, he jogged down to meet her, for indeed, the rider turned out to be a woman, and an old white-haired crone at that. Her voice came as a shock, as young and strong as a lass’s.
“Yraen, Yraen,” she called out. “Where’s Rhodry? Has he lived through this horrible thing?”
Yraen goggled, nodding his head in a stunned yes. She laughed at his surprise.
“I’ll explain later. Now we’d best hurry. I fear me there’s men who need niy aid.”
Side by side they jogged down the valley as fast as the pack mule could go. Out on the field, dismounted men hurried back and forth, pulling wounded men free, putting injured horses out of their misery. Near the horse herd, Lord Erddyr knelt next to a wounded man. When Yraen led Dallandra over, Erddyr jumped to his feet.
“A herbwoman!” he bellowed. “Thank every god! Here, Comerr’s bleeding to death.”
Yraen turned his horses into the herd and left Dallandra to her work. He forced himself to walk across the battlefield, to pick his way among the dead and dying, simply to prove to himself that he could look upon death without being sickened, just as a real man was supposed to do, but he found it hard going. At last he found Rhodry, kneeling by Lord Adry’s corpse and methodically going through his pockets, looting like the silver dagger he was.
“A herbwoman’s here,” Yraen said. “She just rode out of nowhere.”
“The gods must have sent her. Did you hear about Comerr? Tewdyr got in a blow or two before he died. Tewdyr’s son is dead, too.”
“I figured that.”
Rhodry slipped a pouch of coin into his shirt under his mail and stood up, running his hands through his sweaty hair.
“Sure you don’t want to go back to your father’s dun?”
“Ah, hold your tongue! And know in my heart for the rest of my life that I’m a coward and not fit to live?”
“Yraen, you pigheaded butt end of a mule! Do I have to tell you all over again that you’re not the first lad to break down after his first battle? I—”
“I don’t care what you say. I shamed myself and I’ll feel shamed till I have a chance to redeem myself.”
“Have it your way, then.” With a hideously sunny grin playing about his mouth, Rhodry looked down at the corpse. “Well, what man can turn aside even his own Wyrd? I’d be a fool to think I could spare you yours.”
In that moment Yraen suddenly saw that Rhodry was a true berserker, so in love with his own death that he could deal it to others with barely a qualm. The intervals of peace, when he was joking or courtly, were only intervals, to him, things to pass the time until his next chance at blood. And I’m not like that, Yraen thought. Oh, by the gods, I thought I was, but I’m not. When Rhodry caught his elbow to steady him, Yraen felt as if one of the gods of war had laid hands upon him.
“What’s so wrong?” Rhodry said. “You’ve gone as white as milk.”
“Just tired. I mean, I . . . ”
“Come along, lad. Let’s find a spot where you can sit down and think about things. I’ll admit to being weary myself.”
The army made a rough camp down by the strearnside. One squad rode out to fetch the carts and the packhorses; another circled on guard in case Adry’s men returned. Since the shovels were all with the pack train, the remaining men couldn’t bury the dead. Although they lined the corpses up and covered them with blankets, still the birds came, drawn as if by dweomer to the battlefield, a flapping circle of ravens that cawed and screamed in sheer indignation, that men should drive them away from so much good meat. With the work done, the men stripped off mail and padding, then found places to sit on the ground, too weary to talk, too weary to light fires, merely sat and thought about dead friends. It was close to twilight before Yraen remembered the herbwoman.
“Here’s an odd thing. She knew our names, Rhodry. The old herbwoman, I mean. She asked if you were still alive.”
Rhodry flung his head up like a startled horse and swore.
“Oh, did she now? What does she look like?”
“I don’t know. I mean, she’s just this old woman, all white and wrinkled.”
Rhodry scrambled up, gesturing for him to follow.
“Let’s go find her, lad. I’ve got my reasons.”
Eventually, just as the falling night forced the exhausted men to their feet to tend to fires and suchlike, they found the herbwoman at the edge of the camp. By then the carts had come in, and she was using one of them as a table for her work while servants rushed around, fetching her water and handing her bandages and suchlike. As bloody as a warrior, she was bending over a prone man and binding his wounds by firelight. Yraen and Rhodry watched while she stitched up a couple of superficial cuts for one of Adry’s riders, then turned the prisoner back over to his guard.
“Old woman?” Rhodry said. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“I’ve not. Have you? I mean, what are you talking about? She looks old to me.”
“Does she now?” All at once Rhodry laughed. “Very well. I’ll take your word for it.”
“Rhodry! What by the hells are you talking about?”
“Naught, naught. Here, I thought for a while there that it might be someone I know, you see, but it’s not. Let’s go pay our respects anyway.”
Wearing only a singlet with her brigga, Dallandra was washing in a big kettle of warm water while a servant carried off her red and spattered shirt. To Yraen she looked even older with her flabby, wrinkled arms and prominent clavicle exposed, but Rhodry was staring at her as if he found her a marvel.
“Well met, Rhodry,” she said, glancing up. “I’m glad I didn’t find you under my needle and thread.”
“And so am I, good herbwoman. Have you ridden here from the Westlands to find me?”
“Not precisely.” She shot a warning glance in the servants’ direction. “I’ve too much work to do to talk now, but I’ll explain later.”
“One last question, if you would.” Rhodry made her a bow. “How fares Lord Comerr?”
“I had to take his left arm off at the shoulder. Maybe he’ll live, maybe not.” Dallandra looked doubtfully up at the hills. “The gods will do what they will, and there’s naught any of us can do about it.”
Yraen and Rhodry made a fire of their own, then ate stale flatbread and jerky out of their saddlebags, the noon provisions they’d never had time to eat before the battle. Yraen found himself gobbling shamelessly, even as he wondered how he could be hungry after the things he’d seen and done that day.
“Well, my friend,” Rhodry said. “You’ve made a splendid beginning, but don’t think you know everything you need to know about warfare.”
“I’d never be such a dolt. Don’t trouble your heart.”
“Is it what you’d been expecting?”
“Not in the least.”
Yet he was snared by a strange dreamlike feeling, that indeed it was all familiar—too familiar. His very exhaustion opened a door in his mind to reveal something long buried, not a memory, nothing so clear, but a recognition, a sense of familiarity as he looked at the camp and his own bloodstained clothes, as he felt every muscle in his body aching from the battle behind them. Even the horror, the sheer disgust of it—somehow he should have known, somehow he’d always known that glory demanded this particular price. For a moment he felt like weeping so strongly that only Rhodry’s appraising stare kept him from tears.
“Why don’t you just ride home?” Rhodry said.
He shook his head no and forced himself to go on eating.
“Why not?”
He could only shrug for his answer. Rhodry sighed, staring into the fire.
“I suppose you’ll feel like a coward or suchlike, running for home?”
“That’s close enough.” Yraen managed to find a few words at last. “I hate it, but it draws me all the same. War, I mean. I don’t understand.”
“No doubt, oh, no doubt.”
Rhodry seemed to be about to say more, but Dallandra came walking out of the shadows. She was wearing a clean shirt, much too big for her, and eating a chunk of cheese that she held in one hand like a peasant. Yraen was suddenly struck by the strong, purposeful way she strode along; if she were as old as she looked, she should have been all bent and hobbling, from the strain of her day’s work if nothing more. Without waiting to be asked she sat down next to Rhodry on the ground.
“Yraen here tells me you know our names,” Rhodry remarked, without so much as a good evening. “How?”
“I’m a friend of Evandar’s.”
Rhodry swore in a string of truly appalling oaths, but she merely laughed at him and had another bite of her cheese.
“Who’s that?” Yraen said. “Or wait! Not that odd fellow who gave you the whistle!”
“The very one.” Rhodry glanced at the herbwoman again. “May I ask you what you want with me?”
“Well, only the whistle your young friend mentioned. It’s a truly ill-omened thing, Rhodry, and it’s dangerous for you to be carrying it about with you.”
“Ah. I’d rather thought so myself. The strangest people—well, I suppose that people isn’t the best word—the strangest creatures keep showing up, trying to steal it from me.”
At that Yraen remembered the peculiar shadow that he’d seen out in Lord Erddyr’s ward.
“You really would be better off without it,” Dallandra said. “And Evandar never even meant to leave it with you. He’s been much distracted of late.”
Rhodry made a sour sort of face and glanced round, finding his saddlebags a few feet away and leaning back to grab them and haul them over. He rummaged for a few moments, then pulled out the whistle, angling it to catch the firelight.
“Answer me somewhat,” he said. “What is it?”
“I have no idea, except it feels evil to me.”
When she reached for it, he grinned and snatched it away, slipping it back into the saddlebag.
“Tell Evandar he can come fetch it himself.”
“Rhodry, this is no time to be stubborn.”
“I’ve a question or two to ask him. Tell him to come himself.”
Dallandra made some exasperated remark in a language that Yraen had never heard before. Rhodry merely laughed.
“Well, I don’t want to see you dead over this wretched thing,” the herbwoman went on. “So I’ll give you somewhat for protection.” She rumbled at her belt, where something heavy hung in a triangular leather sheath. “Here.”
When Rhodry took the sheath, Yraen could see a wooden handle—you couldn’t really call it a hilt—sticking out of the stained and crumbling leather. Rhodry slid the sheath off to reveal a leaf-bladed bronze knife, all scraped and pitted as if it had been hammered flat, then sharpened with a file like a farmer’s hoe.
“Ye gods, old woman!” Yraen said. “That wouldn’t protect anyone against anything!”
“Hold your tongue!” Rhodry snarled. “Better yet, apologize to the lady.”
When Yraen stared in disbelief, Rhodry caught his gaze and held it with all his berserker force.
“You have my humble apologies, good herbwoman,” Yraen stammered. “I abase myself at your feet in my shame.”
“You’re forgiven, lad.” She smiled briefly. “And I know it looks peculiar, but then, Rhodry’s enemies are a bit on the peculiar side themselves, aren’t they?”
“Well, the one I saw was. I mean, I didn’t actually see it, just its shadow, but peculiar’s a good enough word.”
Rhodry nodded his agreement; he was busily attaching the sheath to his belt at the right side to balance the dagger at the left. With a shake of her head the old woman got up, stretching her back and yawning.
“Ych, I’m exhausted,” she remarked. “Well, have it your way, Rhodry ap Devaberiel. But I’ve got obligations here and now, at least till we get these wounded men to a chirurgeon, and it may be a longer time than you think before I can tell Evandar to come fetch it back. Until then, you’ll be in danger, no matter how many knives I give you.”
“I’ll take my chances, then. I want some answers from your friend, good herbwoman.”
“So do I.” She laughed, as musically and lightly as a young girl. “But I’ve never gotten any from him myself, and so I doubt very much if you will either.”
She turned on her heel and walked off into the darkness, leaving Yraen staring after her. Smiling to himself, Rhodry laced the saddlebag up again, then laid it aside right close at hand.
“Why didn’t you give her the blasted thing?” Yraen said.
“I don’t know, truly. She’s probably right enough about Evandar not answering my questions.”
“Who or what is this Evandar, anyway?”
“I don’t know. That’s one of the questions I want to ask him.”
“Oh. Well, he and this strange hag seem to know you well enough. Here, wait a minute. She called you Rhodry ap Deva-something. What kind of a name is that? Your father’s, I mean.”
Rhodry looked at him for a long, mild moment.
“Elven,” he said at last, and then he tossed back his head and howled with laughter, his icy berserker’s shriek.
Demanding an explanation from him in that mood was the furthest thing from Yraen’s mind.
“I’ll just go get some more firewood.” He got to his feet. “Fire’s getting low, and I wouldn’t mind some light.”
As he hurried off to the area where the provisions were stacked, Yraen was remembering all the old children’s tales he’d ever heard about the people called the Elcyion Lacar or elves. If any such race did exist, he decided, Rhodry was the best candidate ever he’d found to be one of them, simply because he seemed so alien at his very heart.

When he went to sleep that night, Rhodry tucked the bone whistle into his shirt. Although he doubted very much if Dallandra would stoop to stealing it, he was expecting one of the strange creatures to take advantage of his weariness, and he put the bronze knife right beside his blankets, as well. Sure enough, he woke suddenly in the middle of the night at the sound of someone or something dumping out his saddlebags. When he sat up, grabbing the knife, whatever it was fled. He could see nothing but his strewn gear, and the whistle was still safely in his shirt. Moving quietly he got up, knelt and put the gear away again, then pulled on his boots for a look round and a word with the night watch. Although the camp was ringed by sentries, none of them had seen anything moving, either in the camp or out in the silent valley.
About halfway between two sentries, Rhodry paused, rubbing his face and yawning while he considered offering to stand someone’s watch for them. From where he stood he could see the bleak lines of dead men, waiting under their blankets for their burying on the morrow. With a sharp sigh he turned away, only to find Dallandra walking toward him. In the moonlight he could see her quite clearly as a young and beautiful elven woman. With her long silvery-blond hair carelessly pulled back with a thong, she seemed no more than a lass, in fact, but he’d heard enough tales to know who she was.
“Good evening,” he said in Elvish. “Looking for me?”
“No, I just couldn’t sleep.” She answered in the same. “Ych, this slaughterl I feel like crying, but if I let myself start, I’d weep for hours.”
“It takes some people that way, truly.”
“Not you?”
“It did at first. I grew past it, as, or so I hope, our young Yraen will. If he insists on riding with me, he’ll see plenty of this sort of thing.”
She merely nodded, staring out over the field with her steel-gray eyes.
“Tell me something,” Rhodry said. “You have dweomer, don’t you? Every other man in this camp thinks you’re an ugly old crone.”
“That’s Evandar’s dweomer, not mine. I should have known that a man of the People would see through it. You’ve met me before, Rhodry, in a rather odd way. I think you might have seen me, anyway, even though I wasn’t truly on the physical plane. It was a long time ago, when Jill and Aderyn pulled you free of that trouble you’d got yourself into.”
Rhodry winced. Silver dagger or no, there were a few shameful things in his life that he didn’t care to remember.
“I wasn’t truly aware of much, then,” he said at last. All at once a thought struck him. “Oh, here, I’ve sad news for you. Or did you know about Aderyn?”
“Is he dead then?”
“He is, of old age and nothing more.”
Her eyes spilled tears, and she spun round, hiding her face in the crook of an elbow. When Rhodry laid a hesitant hand on her shoulder to comfort her, she turned to him blindly and sobbed against his chest.
“That hurts,” she choked out. “I’m surprised at how much.”
“Then forgive me for being the bearer of the news.”
She nodded, pulling away, wiping her face vigorously on the hem of her shirt,
“I’ll talk to you later,” she said, her voice still thick. “I need a moment or two alone.”
She strode off, walking so fast and surely, even in her grief, that he wondered at the blindness of men for believing in the dweomer cloak that Evandar had fashioned for her.

On a bed of blankets, Lord Comerr lay beside Lord Erddyr’s fire. His face was dead-pale, his breathing shallow, and his skin cool to the touch—a trio of omens that troubled Dallandra deeply. While she changed the bandages on his wounds, Erddyr knelt beside her and did his best to help, handing over things as she asked for them. Comerr stirred once or twice at the pain, but he never spoke.
“Tell me honestly,” Erddyr said. “Will he live?”
“Maybe. He’s a hard man, and there’s hope, but he’s lost a terrible lot of blood.”
With a grunt, Erddyr sat back on his heels and studied Comerr’s face.
“Let me ask you a presumptuous question, my lord,” Dallandra went on. “Have you ever thought of asking the gwerbret for his intervention? Lord Adry is dead, and Comerr close enough to it. Fighting over which of them will be tieryn someday seems a bit superfluous, shall we say?”
“True spoken. And they aren’t the only noble lords fallen in this scrap. I’ve been thinking very hard about sending that message.”
“That gladdens my heart. Do you think the other side will submit?”
“They’ll have cursed little choice if the gwerbret takes the matter under his jurisdiction. Besides, Nomyr’s the only lord left on their side, and he’s in this only out of duty.”
“Didn’t Adry have a son?”
“He does, but the lad’s only seven years old.”
Dallandra muttered an oath under her breath. Erddyr studied his mercifully unconscious ally.
“Ah, by the fart-freezing hells, it aches my heart to see him maimed like this.”
“Better than dead. The arm wasn’t worth saving, and I never could have stopped the bleeding in time.”
“Oh, I’m not questioning your decision.” Erddyr shuddered like a wet dog. “I think I’ll take my chance to get him out of this while he can’t speak for himself. I’ll send messengers tomorrow.”
“The gods will honor you for it. You know, my lord, I happen to have a letter of safe conduct with the gwerbret’s seal upon it. You’d be most welcome to make use of it.”
“My thanks a hundredfold. I will.”
“I wonder if his lordship would do me a favor. I’d just as soon have my friend Rhodry out of this. Could you send your pair of silver daggers as the messengers?”
“Oh, I’d grant your favor gladly, but they’d be in worse danger there than here. You’re forgetting that Rhodry is the man who killed Lord Adry. If any of Adry’s men catch Rhodry on the road, they’ll cut him down even if he’s carrying letters from the Lord of Hell himself.”
“I hadn’t realized that, my lord.”
Erddyr nibbed his beard and looked at Comerr, who tossed his head in his sleep and grunted in pain. Suddenly too weary to stand, Dallandra sat down right on the ground and cradled her head in both hands.
“A thousand apologies, good herbwoman,” Erddyr said. “I never should have kept you here like this. You need your sleep at your age and all.”
“So I do. Since my lordship excuses me?”
Yet, once she was lying down in her blankets, she found herself thinking about Aderyn instead of falling asleep. The surprise of her grief troubled her more than the grief itself, until she realized that she was mourning not so much the man himself, as what their love might have been if only Evandar and his doomed people hadn’t claimed her instead. Another painful thing was Rhodry’s news that he’d died of simple old age. Even though she’d spent a few months with him when he was already old as men reckon age, in her mind and heart she always saw him as her young lover with his ready smile and earnest eyes. Once more she wept, crying herself asleep, alone at the edge of the armed camp.
It took two days for the army to return to Comerr’s dun, simply because the lord’s life hung by a thread. Being jolted in a cart tired him so badly that every now and then the line of march was forced to stop and let him rest. At last, close to sunset on the second day, they rode into the great iron-bound gates, where Comerr’s young wife waited weeping to receive her husband. Dallandra helped the lady settle Comerr in his own bed and tend his wounds, then went down to the great hall for a meal. Crowded into one side of the great hall, the men were sitting on the floor or standing as they ate. At the table of honor, Lord Erddyr dined alone. When Dallandra went for a word with him, the lord insisted that she join him.
“What do you think of Comerr’s chances now?” Erddyr said.
“They’re good. He’s lived through the worst, and there’s no sign of either gangrene or lockjaw.”
With a sigh of relief, Erddyr handed Dallandra a slice of bread and poured her ale with his own hands. Sharing a wooden trencher, they ate roast pork and bread in silence. Finally the lord leaned back in his chair.
“Well, naught for it but to wait for the gwerbret’s answer to that message of mine. I wonder if Nomyr sent a request for intervention himself?” He held up a greasy hand and ticked the names off on his fingers. “Adry’s dead, Tewdyr and his heir are dead, Oldadd’s dead, Paedyn’s dead, and Degedd’s dead. Ah horseshit, I’m not sure I give a pig’s fart about this war anymore, but I’ll beg you, good herbwoman, don’t tell another man I ever said such a dishonorable thing.”
In two days the messengers returned with the news that the gwerbret was riding to settle the matter with his entire warband of five hundred men. Erddyr was to select twenty-five men for an honor guard and ride to neutral ground; Nomyr would do the same or be declared a traitor. Although Dallandra would have liked to have ridden to hear the settlement, her first obligation was to the wounded. Although a good half of the casualties had died during the long journey back to the dun, she still had some twenty men who needed more care than the servants could give them. Late that evening, when she was tending them in the barracks, the messenger sought her out; he’d been given a note for her at the gwerbret’s dun.
“Can you read, good dame, or should I fetch the scribe?”
“I can read a bit. Let me try.”
Although written Deverrian was difficult for her, the note was brief.
“Ah, it’s from Timryc the chirurgeon! He’s riding our way as fast as ever he can, and he’s bringing supplies with him.”
She was so relieved that she wept, just a brief scatter of tears while the messenger nodded in sympathy, glancing round at the men whose luck had been worse than his own. She could never tell him or any other human being that her heart was troubled more by revulsion than sympathy for all this gouged and shattered flesh, cut meat exposing splintered bone.
Close to midnight, Dallandra went for a walk out in the ward. By then the gibbous moon was already slouching past zenith. Most of the men were asleep, but she could see through the windows a few servants still working in the firelit great hall. Although she’d come out for a breath of air, the ward stank of dungheaps and stable sweepings, a pigsty and a henhouse. Mud from the spring thaw lay everywhere, slimy and half-alive with sprouting weeds and fungi.
For a moment she wanted to scream and run, to find a road back to Evandar’s country no matter who might need her here in the world of men, to leave, in fact, the entire physical world far behind her. How could she condemn Elessario or any of the Host to this foul existence? Even the People, for all their long lives, suffered illness and injury and death out on the grasslands; even they, for all their former glory, spent cold wet winters huddled in smelly tents while they rationed out food and fuel. Perhaps Evandar was right. Perhaps it would be better to never be born, to live for a brief while in the shifting astral world like flames in a fire, then fade away in peace, the fire cold and spent.
She looked up to the moon, waning now, only a bulbous wedge of light in the sky and soon to disappear into the darkness. Yet, in turn again, it would shine forth and grow till it rode full and high in the sky—a visible symbol of the waxing and waning of the Light, the sinking and rising of birth and death. Once Dallandra would have found comfort in meditating on such a symbol; that night in the stinking damp ward she was simply too weary, too sick at heart for it to seem anything but a sterile exercise.
“Evandar, I wish you’d come to me.”
Although she only breathed a whisper, she’d surprised herself by speaking aloud at all. There were times when she could summon him by trained and concentrated thought, but that night when she tried she could only feel that he was far out of reach, off perhaps on business of his own rather than hovering near her in the country he called the Gatelands. Perhaps his brother had broken their truce? Remembering the fox warrior, wondering if some peculiar combat was being joined, made her shudder with a sick loathing.
“Evandar!”
No thought, no breath of his presence came to her, yet she was sure that she would know if he was dead or somehow being kept from her against his will.
“Evandar!”
She could hear her voice, the wail of a lost child. Yet she felt nothing but a vast lack, an emptiness where his presence might have been. She had no choice, then, but to face her melancholy alone.
In the vain hope of finding cleaner air, she started for the gates, only to find someone there ahead of her, climbing down the ladder from the ramparts. When he turned round, she could see with her elven sight that it was Rhodry, yawning as he came off watch. In the shadow of the dun she paused, hiding out of a weary reluctance to speak with anyone, but being a man of the People as he was, he spotted her and strolled over.
“You’re up late,” he remarked.
“I just finished with the wounded. By the gods of both our peoples, I hope that chirurgeon gets himself here soon.”
“Shouldn’t take him long. Shall I escort you to your luxurious chambers? I trust our lord found you a clean place to sleep, anyway.”
“He did, though splendid it’s not. One of the storage sheds.” All at once she yawned. “I’m more tired than I thought.”
Silently they walked round the dun and made their way behind the kitchen hut to the ramshackle thatched shed that was serving her as a bedchamber. Since like cats the People can’t see in pitch-darkness, she had a tin candle-lantern, perched on an ale barrel far away from the heap of straw where she’d spread her blankets. When she lit the candle with a snap of her fingers, Rhodry flinched.
“You never truly get used to seeing that,” he said, but he was grinning at her. “May I talk with you a little while? I’d like to ask you a few questions and all that, but I can see you’re weary, so send me right away if you want.”
She hesitated, but not only did he deserve answers, she quite simply didn’t want to be alone.
“Not that tired. Bar the door, will you?”
She sat down on her blankets amid a scatter of her gear, and watched him as he sat by the barrel a few feet away. In the shadow-dancing candlelight she was struck by how good-looking he was, especially for a man who was half-human; somehow, in all the danger and hard work of the past few days, she simply hadn’t noticed. In her dark mood the streak of gray in his hair and the web of lines round his eyes made him seem only more attractive. Here was a man who knew defeat and suffering both.
“Who or what is Evandar?” he said abruptly. “He’s not a man of the People, is he?”
“He’s not, and no more is he human. He’s not truly incarnated or corporeal at all. Do you know what those words mean?”
“Close enough.” He shot her a grin. “Not only did I spend a few years in the company of sorcerers, but I was raised a Maelwaedd. I’ve a bit more learning than most border lords or silver daggers either.”
“Well, my apologies—”
“No need, no need. I don’t suppose anyone else in this dun would know what you’re talking about, except maybe young Yraen, and he wouldn’t believe you.” They shared a soft laugh.
“But Evandar’s only one of an entire host of beings, some like him—true individuals, I mean. The others are about as conscious as clever animals but no more, and there’s even some who seem to have never truly evolved at all into anything you could call a man or woman.”
“Indeed? And what about that badger-headed thing that keeps trying to steal this whistle?” Rhodry laid a hand on his shirt, just above his belt. “Is he one of Evandar’s people?”
“He’s not, but a renegade from another host, headed by Evandar’s brother, and a strange thing that is.” She shuddered again, remembering the sheer malice in the black and vulpine eyes, “I don’t truly understand them myself, Rhodry. I’m not trying to put you off. You’re probably thinking of the old stories, of how I left Aderyn hundreds of years ago, but you’ve got to remember that as Evandar’s world reckons Time, I’ve only been there a month or so.”
His lips parted in a soft “oh” of surprise.
“No more do I know what that whistle may be,” she went on. “I suspect that it’s not magical at all, but just a trinket, like that ring of yours.”
“Now wait! If there’s no dweomer on this ring, why does that female keep trying to take it back?”
“Alshandra? Evandar told me about your skirmishes with her. She doesn’t truly understand what she’s doing. I fear me that she’s gone mad.”
“Oh, splendid!” Rhodry snarled. “Here I am, chased round two kingdoms by a thing from the Otherlands and a mad spirit, and no one even knows why! I just might go daft myself, out of spite if naught more.”
“I couldn’t hold it to your shame, but it would be a great pity if you did. You’re going to need your wits about you.”
“No doubt. I always have, for all of my wretched life, except perhaps for those few years out on the grass. That’s the only peace I’ve ever known, Dalla, those years with the People.”
All at once he looked so weary, so spent, really, that she leaned forward and laid her hand on his knee.
“It aches my heart to see you so sad, but you’ve got a tangled Wyrd, sure enough, and there’s naught that I or any other dweomerworker can do about that.”
He nodded, putting his hand over hers, just a friendly gesture at first, but it seemed to her that a warmth grew and spread between them. His fingers, the rough, callused fingers of a fighting man, tightened on her hand. She hesitated, thinking of Evandar, but when she sent her mind ranging out, she could sense nothing but a vast distance between them. When Rhodry raised her hand and kissed her fingertips, just lightly, she felt the warmth spread as if it were mead, flowing through her blood. He rose to his knees, pulling her up with him. She laid her free hand flat on his chest.
“In a few days I’ll have to leave this world and go back to the one I’ve made my own. If you ride with his lordship to the settlement, I could well be gone by the time you return, and by the time I come back to your world, a hundred years might have passed.”
“And would it ache your heart, to ride back and find me gone?”
“It would, but not enough to keep me here. In all fairness, you need to know that.”
He smiled, but in the candlelight his eyes seemed wells of sadness.
“A silver dagger’s no man to make demands upon a great lady, or to tax her comings and goings.”
She would have said something to comfort him, but he kissed her, hesitantly at first, then openmouthed and passionately when she slipped into his arms. At first she was shocked by how strong, how solid he was, real muscle and bone, warm flesh and the smell of flesh and sweat. When he laid her down in the straw, she could feel his weight, and his mouth seemed to burn on hers, and on her face and neck as he kissed her over and over, as if she were feverish and he, the healer. She found herself digging her fingertips into his back just for the sensation of solid flesh beneath her hands and pressing against him as tight as she could just for his warmth—an animal warmth, she realized suddenly, just as somehow she’d forgotten that she too was an animal, no matter how great her dweomer powers, no matter how far above the world of flesh she’d come to dwell. At that moment she was nothing but glad that he was making her remember.
Afterward, she lay panting and sweaty in his arms and listened to his heart pounding close to hers. The candle threw guttering shadows on the wooden walls as outside the wind rose, whispering in the thatch. Rhodry kissed her eyes, her mouth, then loosened his hold upon her and moved a little away. He looked so sad that she laid her hand alongside his face; he turned his head and kissed her fingers, but he said nothing, merely watched the shadows leaping this way and that. She sat up, running both hands through her hair and sweeping it back from her face.
“Do you really have to ride with Erddyr when he goes?” she said.
He grinned at that and looked her way again.
“I already said we would, Yraen and me.”
“Is it going to be safe? Erddyr said something about Adry’s men wanting to kill you.”
“And the laws will make the gwerbret forbid them any such thing, if I appeal in his court. I want it over and settled before we ride on.” He sat up, stretching and yawning. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a fancy to travel the roads with a silver dagger? You don’t have to answer that, mind, just a wondering. I know you’ve work at hand, and I—ye gods! What’s that?”
She slewed round and saw someone—or something—crouched in the shadows at the curve of the wall. It was too small to be the snouted creature she’d seen before; more doglike, it had tiny red eyes that glowed like coals in a fire and long fangs that glistened wet. When Dallandra flung up one hand and sketched a sigil in the air, it shrieked and disappeared. Rhodry swore under his breath.
“I wish you’d just give me that wretched whistle and be done with it,” she said.
“What? And let you face those creatures instead of me?”
“I happen to know how to deal with them.”
“Tirue spoken. But if I give it to you, what will you do? Go back to that other country?” All at once he grinned. “I’d rather you tarried here a little while longer.”
“Oh, would you now?”
She saw the whistle lying not far away, where it had rolled when he’d taken his shirt off, and made a grab at it. He was too fast, catching her wrists and dragging her back, even though she struggled with him. She found herself laughing, let him pull her close, kissed him until he let her go so they could lie down together again. But before he made love to her, he picked the whistle up and tucked it into the straw under her head, where nothing could steal it away.
This time, when they were finished, he fell asleep, so suddenly, so completely, that it seemed he would sink into the straw and disappear. She slipped free of his arms and stood up. As naked as a country woman worshiping her goddess in the fields, she raised her arms and called down the light. Moving deosil she used her outstretched hand as a weapon to draw a circle of blue light round the hut and seal it at the quarters with the sigils of the kings of the elements. With a flick of her hand she set the circle moving, turning, glowing golden as it formed into a revolving sphere with the sleeping Rhodry safe in its center. No member of any host, whether elemental or astral, could breach this wall
As silently as she could, she sat down next to him and worked the whistle free from the straw. She could steal it now, slip out into the night, and be gone to Evandar’s country before he even woke for an argument. No doubt Tlmryc would arrive on the morrow to nurse her charges; she could even scry and make sure of that, then leave in perfect conscience. Yet as she watched her human lover sleeping in the light of a guttering candle, she wondered if she wanted to return to Evandar. She felt not the slightest guilt at having betrayed him, if indeed betrayal was even the proper word. The fleshy, sweaty love she’d just shared with Rhodry was so different from anything she’d ever experienced with Evandar that she simply couldn’t equate the two. They belong in different worlds, indeed, she thought to herself. And I? I suppose I belong in this one, no matter what I may want or think, no matter how it aches my heart.
Eventually she would return to the world and the Westlands, once her work was done, her service to Evandar’s host all paid. Although she would always see life as a burden, no matter what compensations it might offer from now on, she could thank Rhodry for making her remember that she belonged to the life of the world. In the meantime, too much depended upon her, not merely Evandar’s happiness but his soul, and that of his daughter and all their kind as well, for her to linger in the lands of men. No matter what doubts she might have, she loved Elessario and Evandar both too well to condemn them.
In his sleep Rhodry stirred, sighing, burrowing his face into the crook of his arm like a child. For a moment she wondered what it would be like to stay with him a little while, riding the Deverry roads, but she knew that he would only come to bore her, and the fine thing they’d shared would grow tarnished. She would leave Rhodry behind, but she refused to be a thief. She tossed the whistle onto his shirt, put the candle out with a snap of her fingers, then lay down to cuddle next to him for their last few hours together.
Some hours after dawn, Dallandra woke to find Rhodry already gone, and the whistle with him. She threw on her clothes and hurried outside to find the ward empty and silent. Inside the great hall, a page informed her that Erddyr and his ritual escort, including Yraen and Rhodry, had already ridden out, heading for the settlement ground just as dawn was breaking.
“Shall I bring you some food, good dame?”
“My thanks, but I’d best tend the wounded first.”
“Oh, Timryc the chirurgeon’s doing that. He and one of his apprentices rode in just as the men were leaving.”
Again she felt her relief as a rush of tears. She wiped her face on her sleeve while the page watched, all solemn-eyed.
“Then I’ll have some breakfast, lad, and my thanks for the news.”
It took Dallandra a few hours to settle matters at the dun, discussing her patients with Timryc, making her farewells. Just as she was riding out the gates, Lord Comerr’s chamberlain came rushing after with a sack of silver coins, which he insisted she take with his thanks before she rode on. By the time she could no longer see the towers from the road, the sun was at its zenith. Out in the middle of pastureland she found a stream, running through the shelter of trees. She set her horse and mule out to graze, then treated herself to a bath elven style, in the fast-running clean water instead of some dirty wooden tub.
Once she was dressed and dry, she sat on the bank, watched the sun dappling the ripples as it broke through the branches of the trees, and thought of Evandar. This time he came. She felt his presence first as a sound, as if someone called her name from a great distance; then she had the same sensation as a person reading in a chamber who feels rather than sees someone step silently through the door. In a rustle of leaves and branches he walked out from between two trees, and no matter what she might have done with Rhodry the night before, she felt herself smiling as if her face would split from it at the sight of him. Laughing, he folded her into his arms and gave her one of his oddly cool kisses. He smelt clean, like the stream water, not like flesh at all.
“You look pale, my love,” he remarked in Deverrian. “Is somewhat troubling your heart?”
“I’ve just spent a ghastly week or two, truly, tending men wounded in battle, and more than a few of them died, no matter how I tried to help them.”
“A sad thing, that.”
She knew that he felt no honest compassion, but that he would mimic it for her sake was comfort enough.
“Rhodry still has the whistle,” she said. “He wouldn’t give it up. He says he wants to have a talk with you, and that you’ll have to come fetch it back yourself.”
Evandar laughed with a flash of his sharp white teeth.
“Then a talk he shall have. I like a man with mettle, I do. Imph, I suppose I’d best stay here in this world. If I go back with you, I might miss him entirely.”
“True spoken. Here, where were you? I called for you—well, last night it would have been here, whatever that might have been in your country.”
For a moment he looked puzzled.
“Ah! I’d gone to the islands to see how Jill fares. She’s been ill, it turns out, but now she’s well again and learning much new dweomer lore. She’ll be growing wings like one of us next, if she keeps on this way.”
“That’s a dangerous thing for a human being to try to learn. I wonder how skilled her teachers are, and if they know the differences from soul to soul.”
Evandar laughed aloud.
“I’d wager a great deal that they do, my love, but you look like a mother cat chasing her kittens away from danger! Get on your way back, then. I’ll take your horse and follow our Rhodry down. I doubt me if I’ll tell him what he wants to know, but maybe he’ll have a riddle or two to trade.”
“Well and good, then.” She paused to kiss him on the mouth. “And you promised me you’d return that stolen mule and all its goods, didn’t you now?”
“So I did, so I did. I’ll summon one of my people straightaway, I promise you.”
“My thanks. Meet me by our river.”
With him so close beside her, she could use his particular dweomer to breach the planes. She floated onto the surface of the stream and dashed along the rippled road, saw the fog of the Gatelands opening out, and stepped up and through. She had just time to turn and wave to Evandar, standing on the streamside, before the fog shut her round. At her neck hung again the amethyst figurine. She kept walking through the misty landscape beyond gate until she could be sure that Evandar and the lands of men lay far behind her. Then she sat down on a cold, damp hillside and wept for Rhodry Maelwaedd, whom most likely she’d never again.

The neutral ground turned out to be a day and a half’s ride from Lord Comerr’s and down in the plains on the Deverry side of the Pyrdon hills. Out in front of the walled dun of a certain Tieryn Magryn, whose chief distinction lay in his lack of ties to either Comerr or Adry, the gwerbret’s warband had set up camp in a meadow lush with spring grass. As soon as Lord Erddyr and his escort dismounted, a hundred men surrounded them—all in the friendliest possible way, but Yraen knew that they were being taken under arrest to keep them away from Lord Nomyr and his riders. Some of the gwerbret’s men took their horses; others escorted them on a strict path through canvas tents. At the far end, a few hundred yards from the hill of the dun, stood a long, canvas pavilion, draped with the green and blue banners of the gwerbrets of Dun Trebyc to cover the rips and weather stains. A tall blond man in his thirties, Gwerbret Drwmyc sat in a chair carved with the eagle blazon of his clan. Behind him stood two councillors, and a scribe sat at a tiny table nearby.
Kneeling at the gwerbret’s right side, Lord Nomyr was already present; his honor guard sat in orderly rows behind him. With a wave at his men to settle themselves, Erddyr knelt at the gwerbret’s left. The gwerbret’s men stood round the scene with their hands on their sword hilts, ready for the first sign of trouble.
“It gladdens my heart to see you both arrive so promptly,” Drwmyc said. “Now. Lord Erddyr, by whose authority do you come?”
“Comerr’s himself, Your Grace. He gave me his seal and swore in front of witnesses to abide by the settlement I make in his name.
“Well and good. Lord Nomyr?”
“By the authority of Lady Talyan, regent for her son Gwandyc, Adry’s heir. She too has agreed to abide by his grace’s arbitration.”
“Well and good, then. Lord Erddyr, since you’re the one who called upon me, speak first and present your tale of the causes of this war.”
Erddyr recited the story of the dispute of the cattle rights and many another cause of bad blood between Adry and Comerr. When he was done, Nomyr had the chance to tell a slightly different version. Back and forth they went, working through the actual events and battles, while their men grew restless. To the riders, this judgment seemed a pitiful way to end the fighting, a coward’s out, and tedious. While the two lords wrangled over Tewdyr’s raid on Erddyr’s dun, the warbands leaned forward, staring at each other narrow-eyed and hostile. Yraen noticed four of Nomyr’s guard studying Rhodry in barely concealed fury. He elbowed him and pointed them out.
“Adry’s men,” Rhodry whispered. “Hawk blazon.”
Yraen was profoundly glad that the gwerbret’s warband stood on the watch for trouble. While the two lords argued furiously, the hot summer day turned the pavilion stifling, another spur to ill temper. At last the gwerbret cut the argument short with a wave of his hand.
“I’ve heard enough. I intend to set aside all charges of misconduct during the actual fight, because for every wrong on one side, there was one on the other to countercharge it. Will their lordships agree?”
“On my part, I will.” Nomyr bowed to his liege lord.
Erddyr debated for several minutes. “And I, too, Your Grace,” he said at last. “After all, my wife to no actual harm, and Tewdyr’s dead.”
“Done, then.” Drwmyc motioned at the scribe to record the agreement. “We can turn now to the disputes of cause.”
Adry’s four men looked at each other and risked a few grim whispers. Nomyr glared and waved at them to be silent.
“What troubles your men, Lord Nomyr?” Drwmyc said.
“They used to ride for Lord Adry, Your Grace, and his lordship’s death troubles them.”
“By the gods themselves!” Drwmyc lost patience with ritual courtesy. “The death of so many lords troubles us all, but men do die in battle.”
“Begging his grace’s pardon.” A heavyset blond rider rose to his feet and made the gwerbret a bow. “Never did we mean to disturb his grace’s proceedings, but we’re all shamed men, Your Grace, and that’s a hard thing to bear in silence. Our lord was killed by a cursed silver dagger, and Lord Nomyr called the retreat before we could avenge him. How can we live with that?”
With a ripple of trouble coming, the warbands turned toward the speaker.
“You’ll have to live with it,” Drwmyc answered. “If you retreated on order of your lord’s faithful ally, then no man can both hold you shamed and himself just.”
“We hold ourselves shamed, Your Grace. It’s a bitter thing to choose between disobeying the noble-born and letting your lord lie unavenged. And now here’s that silver dagger, sitting in your court with honest men. It gripes our souls, Your Grace.”
Yraen grabbed Rhodry’s arm and pulled it away from his sword. Nomyr swung round to face the rider.
“Gwar, hold your tongue and sit down,” Nomyr snarled. “We’re in the gwerbret’s presence.”
“So we are, my lord. But begging your lordship’s pardon, I swore to Lord Adry, not you.”
When his three companions rose to join him, everyone around went tense, murmuring among themselves. The gwerbret rose from his chair and drew his sword, holding it point upward, a solid symbol of justice.
“There will be no murder in my court,” Drwmyc snarled. “Gwar, if the silver dagger killed your lord in a fair fight, that’s the end to it.”
The four men tensed, glancing at one another, as if they were debating their choices. Since their honor lay buried in a shallow grave with Lord Adry, they were likely to leave Nomyr’s service and hunt Rhodry down on the roads no matter what the cost to themselves. Rhodry pulled away from Yraen’s restraining hand and got to his feet.
“Your Grace,” Rhodry called out. “I’m the silver dagger they mean, and I’ll swear it was a fair fight. I’ll beg your grace to settle this here and now under rule of law. I don’t care to be hunted on the roads like a fox.” He turned to Gwar. “Your lord died by the fortunes of war. What do you have against me?”
“That you killed him for a piece of silver! What do you think? A good man like him, killed for a cursed bit of coin.”
“I didn’t kill him for the coin. I killed him to save my life, because your lord was a good man with his blade.”
“You wouldn’t have been on the field if it weren’t for the coin.” Gwar paused to spit on the ground. “Silver dagger.”
Yraen and Renydd exchanged a glance and rose to a kneel, ready to leap up to Rhodry’s defense if Gwar and his lads charged. Drwmyc’s hand tightened on his sword hilt when he saw them.
“No one move,” the gwerbret said. “The first man to draw in my court will be taken alive and hanged like a dog. Do you hear me?”
Everyone sat back down, even Gwar, and promptly.
“Good,” Drwmyc continued. “Silver dagger, are you appealing to me?”
“I am, Your Grace, under the laws of men and gods alike, and I swear upon my very life to abide by your decision. Either absolve me of guilt or set me some lwdd to pay for Lord Adry’s death.”
“Nicely spoken, and so I shall.” The gwerbret considered for a moment. “But on the morrow. I have one matter before me in malover already, you know.”
“I do, Your Grace, and never would I set my own affairs above those of honorable men.”
When Yraen stole a glance at Gwar and his friends, he found them looking as sour as if they’d bitten into a Bardek citron. Apparently the last thing they’d expected from a road-filthy silver dagger was eloquence.
“Until I hold malover upon this matter of the silver dagger and the death of Lord Adry, his life is sacrosanct under all the laws of Great Bel,” the gwerbret said. “Gwar, do you and your lads understand that?”
“We do, Your Grace, and never would we break those laws.”
“Good,” Brwniyc allowed himself a thin smile. “But just in case temptation strikes, like, I’m putting guards on the silver dagger. Captain?” He turned to one of the men standing behind him. “See to it, will you, when we leave the pavilion?”
With the morning the malover reconvened, and the proceedings over the war droned on. Round noon, the gwerbret ruled in Comerr’s favor, that his clan should rule the new tierynrhyn. Since Tewdyr was dead without an heir, his grace split his lands twixt Erddyr and Nomyr, as a reward for bringing the matter under the rule of law. Since there was a vast sea of details to sail across, however, it was late in the day before everything was settled. Yraen was half expecting that Rhodry’s matter would be postponed yet again, but the gwerbret had forgotten neither it nor his obligation to even the least of the men in his rhan. When the proceedings were finally concluded to the lords’ satisfaction, Drwmyc rose, looking, over the assembly.
“There you are, silver dagger. Let’s settle your matter now, and then we’ll have a good dinner to celebrate, like. Maybe I can talk Tieryn Magryn into standing for some mead for all you men. Come forward. We’ll hear what you and that other fellow, the spokesman—Gwar, was it?—have to say.”
The gwerbret’s jovial mood certainly boded well for Rhodry’s case, Yraen decided. In answer to the summons, Rhodry went forward, bowed, then handed his sword to a guard and knelt at the gwerbret’s feet. Gwar, however, seemed to have disappeared, though his three friends were sitting over at the right side of the pavilion. They got up and began bowing and making apologies, while everyone else started grinning and making jokes about privies. After a few brief moments Gwar did indeed appear, hurrying into the big tent and threading his way down to the front. Yraen was suddenly struck by an oddity; after being so bold the day before, Gwar looked toward the ground as he walked as if he were afraid to meet anyone’s gaze.
“Good, good. Hurry up, lad,” the gwerbret said. “The rest of you, hold, your tongues now! Let’s get the judgment under way.”
Yraen saw Rhodry studying Gwar as his enemy handed his sword over, and though he couldn’t see the silver dagger too clearly from his distance, he would have sworn that Rhodry had gone a little pale. Certainly he half rose from his kneel as if on sudden guard. Gwar walked forward, heading, or so it seemed, for the other side of the gwerbret’s chair. All at once he hesitated for a bare flick of an eyelash, then spun round and rushed at Rhodry, who had no time to get to his feet. Yraen saw Gwar throw himself on Rhodry and grab him round the throat, and the bronze knife gleam in Rhodry’s hand, before the pavilion erupted into shouting. Men leapt to their feet and swarmed forward. With a yell Yraen jumped up, thanking the gods for making him tall enough to see over this pack.
The gwerbret himself was on his feet, sword in hand and slashing at the man who’d broken order in his malover, but Gwar was already dead, crumpled over Rhodry’s shoulder like a sack of meal. As Yraen shoved himself forward through the mob, Rhodry slowly rose, shoving the corpse off, staggering to bis feet with the reddened bronze knife in his hand. His neck bled from scratches and punctures, as if he’d been clutched by a gigantic cat.
“Chirurgeon!” the gwerbret yelled. “Get one of the chirurgeons!”
“Your Grace, it’s only a scratch.” Rhodry’s voice was choked and rasping, his face dead-pale. “But ye gods!”
Yraen managed to reach his side just as the captain of the gwerbret’s guard knelt and turned the corpse over. For a moment he stared, then he began cursing in a steady foul stream. The gwerbret looked and went pale himself. Lying at Rhodry’s feet was a creature in Gwar’s clothes, a badger-headed thing with a blunt snout and fangs. Protruding from the sleeves of its shirt were hairy paws with thick black talons. Rhodry held up the bronze knife.
“Told you not to mock the herbwoman,” he croaked. “Without this, he’d have strangled me.”
All round them men were pushing forward to see, swearing or yelping and passing the news back to those who couldn’t get close. Suddenly Yraen thought of the obvious.
“Gwar!” he snapped. “What’s happened to him, then?”
While the apprentice chirurgeon washed Rhodry’s throat clean and put a few stitches in the worst wounds, his grace’s entire warband began searching the area. At last they found Gwar, naked and strangled, round back of the dun. At that point the assembled warbands, battle-hardened men all of them, began to break and panic. Even though the gwerbret sent to the tieryn’s town for every priest he could find, morale washed away like sand under a tide of rumors and speculations. All his grace could do was to call the various lords to him.
“Get your men on the road,” he snapped. “We’ll settle any last things with heralds. Get your men together and riding for home, and do it now.”
The lords were entirely too ready to obey for Yraen’s taste, but he did have to wonder at himself for being one of the calmest men in the pavilion.
“I guess it’s because I saw the shadow-thing, and I was there when the herbwoman gave you that knife, and all that. Hold a moment—herbwoman, indeed! Who was she, Rhodry?”
Rhodry merely shrugged for an answer.
“He shouldn’t be talking,” the chirurgeon snapped.
“One thing, though, lad.” Rhodry immediately broke this sensible rule. “Lord Erddyr. Find him and get our hire.”
“I can’t be asking him for coin now!”
Rhodry looked at him with one raised eyebrow.
“Oh, very well,” Yraen sighed “I’m gone already and running, too.”
Yraen found his lordship in his tent, where he stood watching his body-servant shove his possessions all anyhow into whatever sack or saddlebag presented itself. The lord was more than a little pale, and his mouth was slack as he rubbed his mustaches over and over. When he saw Yraen, however, he made an effort to draw himself up and salvage dignity.
“I owe your wages, I know,” he said. “You’re not coming back with us, are you?”
The question contained an obvious “you’re not welcome.”
“I don’t think Rhodry should ride, my lord.” Yraen was more than willing to play into the courtesy of the thing. “We’ll find an inn or suchlike to rest in, and then be on our way.”
Erddyr nodded, concentrating on opening the pouch that hung at his belt. He poured out a random handful of coin and shoved it in Yraen’s direction. Briefly Yraen thought of counting it, but he wasn’t that much of a silver dagger, not yet, at least.
For all that Rhodry kept saying his wounds were mere scratches, his face was so pale by the time the chirurgeon was done tending them that Yraen begged him to go lie down somewhere. The gwerbret, however, had other ideas.
“I think me you’d best ride out, silver dagger. I hate being this inhospitable to a man who’s done me no wrong, but once news of this thing gets round . . . ”
“I understand, Your Grace,” Rhodry croaked.
“Don’t try to talk, man.” Drwmyc turned to Yraen. “Do you both have decent horses?”
“We do, Your Grace. Rhodry lost his in the war, but Lord Erddyr replaced it.”
“Good. Then saddle up and go.” He turned, looking down at the corpse. “I’m going to have this thing burned. If the common folk see or hear of it, the gods only know what they’ll do, and I doubt me if you two will be safe here.”
“Your Grace, that’s cursed unjust! Rhodry’s the victim, not the criminal.”
“Hold your tongue!” Rhodry managed to speak with some force. “Listen to his grace. He’s right.”
Yraen found their horses, saddled them and loaded up their gear, then brought them round to the rear of the pavilion where Rhodry was waiting for him, still under guard, but this time, Yraen supposed, the men were there to keep him away from others, as if he carried some kind of plague of the supernatural that the populace might catch. Yraen felt the injustice of it eating at him, but since he had no desire to molder in the gwerbret’s dungeon keep, he kept his mouth shut.
At least they could travel unmolested; he doubted if Gwar’s three friends would bother to follow them, and with old Badger Snout dead, Rhodry was probably safe enough from creatures of that sort, whatever they might be. Yet, as he thought about it, Yraen no longer knew what might or might not be probable. His entire view of the universe had just gotten itself shattered like a clay cup hitting a stone floor. The calm and literate air of his father’s court, where bards and philosophers alike were always welcome, seemed farther away and stranger than the Otherlands, As they rode out of the dun, he found he had nothing to say. He could only wonder why he’d ever left the Holy City.
Already the sun hung low, catching a few mares’ tails high in the sky and turning them gold, a promise of rain coming in a day or two. A few miles from the dun, they crested a rise and saw down below them an unmarked crossroads, one way heading roughly east and west, the other running off to the north. A rider was waiting in the cross, a tall blood man on a white horse with rusty-red ears.
“Evandar, no doubt,” Rhodry whispered. “And me too hoarse to talk!” He tried to laugh, but all that emerged was a rusty cracking sound that made Yraen feel cold all over.
“Just be quiet, then! I’ll try to bargain with him.”
As they walked their horses down, Evandar waited, sitting easy in his saddle and smiling in greeting, yet as soon as they drew close, his eyes narrowed.
“What happened to your neck?” he snapped at Rhodry.
“This thing tried to strangle him,” Yraen broke in. “A fiend from the hells with a badger head, like, and claws. Rhodry killed it with the bronze knife that the old herbwoman gave him.”
“Good, good,” Evandar was still looking at Rhodry. “It came for that whistle, you. know. Why don’t you let me have it back? They won’t come bothering you anymore.”
“Who are you, anyway?” Yraen said, with as much authority as he could summon. “We want some answers.”
“Do you now?” Evandar paused to smile. “Well, I spoke to Dallandra, and she did mention that, but I’ve none to give you. That whistle, however, is mine by right of a treaty sealed in my own country, and I do wish to have it back. You wouldn’t want me riding to the gwerbret and accusing you of theft, would you now?”
Rhodry made a painful, gurgling noise that made Evandar frown.
“You’ve been hurt badly, haven’t you? That aches my heart, that you’ve taken a wound over a thing of mine. I consider you under my protection, you see.” Evandar held out one slender, pale hand. “Rhodry, please?””
Rhodry considered, then shrugged. He wrapped his reins round his saddle peak, then loosened his belt and reached inside his shirt to pull out the whistle. In the graying twilight it glimmered an unnatural white.
“Now here,” Yraen snapped. “You can’t just give it back after all that’s happened. He should at least give us a price for it.”
“Well put, lad, and fair enough.” Evandar raised one hand, snapped his fingers, and plucked a leather bag out of midair. “Here’s a sack of silver, given to Dallandra by that lord, but she has no use or need of it in my country.” He tossed it to Yraen. “How’s that for a price?”
“Not enough. I’ll hand the silver back again in return for some answers.”
“Keep the silver, for answers you shall not have until you guess them. I pose riddles, and men must find the answers. I never solve a riddle for free, lad, and it’s unwise of you to keep asking.”
Maybe it was only the darkening light, or the cool spring wind raffling his hair, but Yraen abruptly shuddered. When he glanced at Rhodry, he found the silver dagger grinning in his usual daft way, as if leaving this exchange to his apprentice.
“Very well, then,” Yraen said. “We’ll take the silver.”
When Rhodry flipped the whistle over, Evandar caught it in one hand and bowed from the saddle.
“I’ll give you somewhat more in return, then, as thanks for your grariousness. Which way are you riding?”
“North, I suppose, to Cerrgonney.” Yraen glanced at Rhodry, who nodded agreement “There’s always work for a silver dagger to the north.”
“Or east.” Rhodry cleared his throat with a rasp. “The Auddglyn, maybe.”
“I can’t ride through Deverry to get there.”
“And Rhodry had best stay clear of Eldidd,” Evandar broke in. “Why the Auddglyn, Rhodry?”
“We need a smith, and I used to know one down in Dun Mannannan.”
“Otho the dwarf!” Evandar smiled suddenly and bowed again. “Did you know that he made that ring you wear? Ah, I didn’t think you did. Well, he’s gone from Dun Mannannan, but his apprentice took over his shop, and he’s a skilled man, for a human being. Follow me.”
When Evandar turned his horse and headed for the east-running road, Rhodry followed automatically. Yraen hesitated, knowing in some wordless way that dweomer hung all around him. At this crossroads he had reached the crux of his entire life. He could sit here and restrain his horse, let them ride off without him, and then return to his safe life in Dun Deverry. His clan would forgive him for their joy in having him back; he would put his one adventure into his memory like a jewel locked in a casket and take up again the ceremonial duties of a minor prince. Ahead neither Rhodry nor Evandar looked back, and as Yraen watched, he saw what seemed to be gray mist rising from the road, billowing up to hide them—or was it to hide him, to rescue him from the foolish choice he’d made when he left home?
“Hold! Rhodry, wait for me!”
Yraen kicked his horse hard and galloped into the mist. Ahead he could see the glimmer of the white horse and hear hooves, clopping on what seemed to be paving stones. All at once sunlight gleamed, and he saw Rhodry on his new chestnut gelding and Evandar on the white nearby. Sunlight? Yraen thought. Sunlight? Oh, ye gods! Yet he jogged on, falling into place beside the silver dagger, who turned in the saddle to grin at him.
“You don’t want to lose your way round here, lad.”
Rhodry’s voice sounded perfectly normal, and when Yraen looked, he saw that his friend’s neck bore only a few green and yellow bruises, all faded and old.
“I can see that I don’t, truly.”
Ahead the mist thinned to a sunny day, and Yraen could hear the sea, muttering on a graveled shore. Evandar paused his horse and waved them on past.
“You’re a bit east of Dun Mannannan and the shop of Cardyl the silversmith,” he called out. “Farewell, silver daggers, and may your gods give you luck that’s good and horses to match it.”
The mist sealed him over, then vanished, blowing away in a sunny spring wind, tanged with the smell of the sea. They were riding on a hard-packed dirt road that ran through fields where young grain stood maybe two feet high, nodding pale green in a morning breeze. Far off to their left stood cliffs, dropping to the ocean below. All at once Yraen realized that he was having trouble seeing, that he was shaking and sweating all at once, that his hands simply wouldn’t hold his reins. Rhodry leaned over and took them from him, then brought both horses to a halt.
“Go ahead and shudder,” Rhodry said. “There’s no shame in it.”
Yraen nodded, gulping for breath and clutching at the saddle peak. Rhodry looked away, watching the swell and rise of the distant ocean while he spoke.
“I’m glad I thought to mention silversmiths to Evandar. It’s time we got you a kniife of your own. Still want it?”
Yraen had never thought that he would ever feel such pride, the sort that comes from knowing you’ve earned a thing yourself, and against all odds.
“Well, call me daft for it, but I do.”
“Good. You know, I just realized a thing that I should have seen years ago. Once the wretched dweomer’s had its hand on you, there’s no going back; there’s no use in pretending that things will ever be all quiet and peaceful and as daily as before.” He turned, glancing Yraen’s way, “You’re a silver dagger now, sure enough, as much an outcast as any of us.”
Yraen started to make some jest, but all at once he could think of nothing to say, just from hearing the bitter truth in his friend’s words.

By the time Dallandra reached Bardek, summer was well along in Deverry, though the journey seemed to take only a day to her. As usual, she started from the Gatelands in Evandar’s country, at a spot near the river where white water foamed and churned over black rock. When she thought of Jill, the image that rose, seemingly standing between two trees, seemed so faint and silvery that Dalla was alarmed. She hurried over just as it disappeared, called up another image, followed that, trotting faster and faster until at last the river disappeared far behind her, and she heard the ocean. In a swirl of mist upon a graveled beach, Jill’s image appeared again, a little more solid and bright this time. When she approached it, Dallandra felt the gravel underfoot turning to coarse, stunted grass, rasping round her ankles. The ocean murmur disappeared. She hesitated, looking over a brown and treeless plain, wondering if she’d made a wrong turn, but tracking the images had never failed her before.
As she walked on, she kept expecting to find herself emerging into a jungle, but the air stayed cool and the landscape barren. It seemed that the very sunlight changed, turning pale while she picked her way through huge gray boulders along the crest of a hill. All at once she realized that the amethyst figurine was gone. She was fully back in her body, shivering in cold sunlight, breathing hard in thin air. Below her a cliff dropped down to a long parched valley gashed by a dry riverbed; far across rose mountain peaks, black and forbidding, peaked with snow. A wind blew steadily, whining through the coarse grass. The stunted slant of the few trees she saw told her that the wind rarely stopped.
When she turned round, she saw directly behind her more of the deformed trees, scattered round a spread of low wooden buildings, long oblongs roofed with split shingles. They were covered with carvings, every inch of the walls, every window frame and door lintel, of animals, birds, flowers, words in the Elvish syllabary, all stained in subtle colors, mostly blues and reds, to pick out the designs. From round behind the complex she could hear a faint whinny of horses, and a snatch of song drifted on the swirling dust. Out in front of the nearest building a gray-haired woman sat reading on a wooden bench, a pair of big tan hounds lounging at her feet.
“Jill! By the gods!”
The dogs leapt up and barked, but Jill hushed them, laying a slender scroll down beside her just as Dallandra hurried over. She was much thinner, and her hair was going white round her temples, but when she shook hands, her clasp was firm and strong, and her voice steady.
“It gladdens my heart to see you,” Jill said in Deverrian. “What brings you to me?”
“Just concern. Evandar said you’d been ill.”
“I have been, truly, and I’ve been told I still am, though I feel mended. I’ve had a shaking fever. I picked it up in the jungle. They have a tree there, whose bark has the virtue to cure the symptoms, but they say it gets in your blood and lies quiet for years and years, only to flare up when you get yourself cold or tired or suchlike.”
“That’s a grave thing, then.”
Jill merely shrugged, turning to snap at the dogs bounding round them. With little whines they lay down on the hard-packed reddish ground.
“Where are we?” Dallandra said.
“Outside the guest house of . . . well, the only word I can find for it in my own language is temple, but it’s not that. It’s a place where a few scholars of the People keep lore alive, and teach it to any who ask.”
“I’ve heard about such places from the days of the Seven Kings. I think the People sent their children to them as a matter of course, but I’m not sure why.”
For a moment they both turned, looking at the huddled long-houses, some hardly better than huts, that sheltered what was left of one of the finest university systems the world has ever known, then or now, not that either of them realized what such a word meant, of course. Once Dallandra saw a man of the People, dressed in a long gray tunic gathered at the waist with a rope belt, crossing from one house to another, but he never so much as looked their way.
“It’s so lonely up here,” Dallandra remarked at last. “Why did they choose this place?”
“See those mountains over there? Well, on the other side and down below them lies the jungle. All the clouds that come from the sea fetch up against those peaks and drop their rain. So up here, the air’s dry as a bone, and books and scrolls last a fair bit longer than they would down in the jungles. It was a long hard journey getting here, let me tell you, and of course, I had to go and get sick on the way.”
“Oh, come now! Don’t blame yourself for that.”
“I should have been able to turn it aside.” Jill sounded genuinely aggrieved. “Well, but it’s too late now to worry about it, I suppose. What’s done is done. I must say, I’ve come to have a lot of respect for the physicking your People know.”
“Oh, by the gods! Forgive me, I feel like a dolt, but you know, it’s just dawned on me what all of this means.” Dallandra waved her hand round at the buildings. “It’s true, isn’t it? Refugees did reach the islands.”
“Quite a few of them, Dalla, quite a few.” All at once she grinned, a flash of her old humor. “Here, I’ve forgotten all my courtesies! Won’t you come in?”
Dallandra hesitated, suddenly afraid, wondering why she should be afraid rather than eager to learn this ancient lore of her people.
“I can’t stay long. I need to get back to Elessario. She might be in danger.”
“Ah. Forgive me. Of course, you’ve got your own work to do. Don’t worry about me. I’m as well as I need to be. And you know where to find me now.”
“So I do. I take it you’ll be here a long while?”
“Oh, you could spend a life here, if you had one to spare. It’s amazing, Dalla, just simply amazing! They’ve managed to preserve so much, most, I’ll wager, of what they brought with them. It’s their whole life, up here, copying things. You know, my teacher here, Meranaldan, his name is, told me that men risked their lives—gods! some actually died, saving these books when the city was falling.” She shook her head in something like sadness. “The history of your race, their songs and poems, some of their magic, though not as much of that as I’d like to see, and all sorts of odd bits of craft lore and learning—scrolls and codices, heaps of them. A true marvel it is, all of it.”
All at once Dalla knew why she was afraid, and that she’d have to face that fear.
“And what of the Guardians? Do they speak of them?”
“They do, but I don’t suppose they know much about their true nature. I’d wager that you know more about Evandar’s folk than any person alive, man or woman both.”
Dallandra smiled, glancing away to hide her stab of relief that no one but her knew just how strange her lover was, and how unnatural a love they shared.
“Well, you know, maybe I should come in and talk awhile. Jill, the time’s coming near for the child to be born. I can feel it, deep in my heart. If I’m to succeed, then I’ve got to make my move soon.”
“When you need me, we’ll go back to Deverry together.” She hesitated, looking across the far valley. “And we’ll pray that this rotten fever’s gone for good.”
Yet even as she spoke, Dallandra saw a shadow cross her face, not some trick of the physical light, but a dweomer warning, as if the dark bird of Death were blessing her with a flick of its wing.

---

---

2.

The Prince of Swords

The Westlands, Autumn, 1112

Out on the high plains the elven leader with the most authority—and the largest warband for that matter—was Calonderiel, Banadar of the Eastern Border, and yet, as Deverry men reckoned such things, his claim to power rested on an oddly weak foundation. He was descended from nobody in particular and related to no one much—just the son of a horse herder who was the son of a weaver who was the son of a prosperous farmer back in the old days when the elves lived settled lives in their own kingdom in the far west. No one had ever accused his family of having any connection whatsoever to the noble-born or the renowned. He was, of course, the best archer, the shrewdest tactician, and one of the most respected leaders of men that the high plains had ever seen, and those things, among the People, outweighed any questions of kinship. Despite that, Rhodry ap Devaberiel was continually amazed that Calonderiel would hold such easy authority without a grumble from anyone. He himself was second in command of the banadar’s warband, and since he’d sworn to serve him, he personally would never have argued with a single order or decision his leader made. It was just that, at odd moments, he puzzled about it, or even, Calonderiel being the kind of man he was, felt he could wonder about it aloud.
“And now this Aledeldar shows up for the autumn meeting,” Rhodry remarked. “What if he and his son decide to ride with us? Doesn’t it trouble you?”
“Why should it?” Calonderiel looked up in surprise. “Something wrong with him?”
“Not as far as I can see. It’s just that he’s the king, isn’t he? Well, the only one you people—we, I mean—have. There’s bound to be trouble over it. One wagon but two teamsters makes for a rough journey.”
Calonderiel merely laughed. It was late in the evening, and wrapped in woolen cloaks, they were sitting together in front of the banadar’s enormous tent. Among the other tents (and there were over two hundred of them), everything was dark and silent, broken only by the occasional bark of a dog or cry of a hungry baby, hushed as fast as the echo died.
“Well, it won’t be so funny when he starts countermanding your orders.”
“Rhodry, you don’t understand us still, do you? How long have you lived with us now? Thirteen, fourteen years? Well, think back over it. You’ve heard plenty of people mention Del and his son, haven’t you? And how? Exactly like they’d mention anyone else they know. You have more real power than he does, as a matter of fact. You’re my second, and the men all respect you, and so the People would take your orders long before they’d take his. Nothing can take his position away from Del, mind. He’s Halaberiel’s son, and Halaberiel was Berenaladar’s, and Berenaladar was the son of Ranadar, King of the High Mountain, and that’s that. But since the wolves and the owls and the weeds are running his kingdom these days, well, by the Dark Sun herself! He’s got no call to be giving himself airs over it.”
Baffled, Rhodry shook his head Calonderiel was right, he supposed. He didn’t understand the People, and at times like these, he doubted if he ever would.
On the morrow, with the autumn meeting or alardan as it was called in full swing, his loneliness seemed to double itself. Since it was the last festival before the long trip south to the winter camps, it was a big one. Whenever a new traveling group arrived, some ten families and their horses and sheep, everyone rushed to greet old friends, not seen since the height of summer, and to help them unpack and settle in. Time to visit was short; the herds would crop the available grazing down fast, and the meeting would disperse. Rhodry wandered through the brightly painted tents by himself, saying the occasional hello or exchanging smiles and nods with someone whom he recognized. Wildfolk swarmed everywhere, grinning and gaping, dashing back and forth, pulling dogs’ tails and children’s hair, then suddenly vanishing only to stream back into manifestation a few feet away. Among the People themselves, everyone was rushing around, getting ready for the enormous feast that evening. Here and there he found groups of musicians, tuning their instruments together and squabbling over what to play; here and there cooks were drawing and dressing slaughtered lambs or pooling precious hoards of Bardek spices. Children ran to and fro, bringing twigs and scraps of bark or baskets of dried dung to the cooking fires that were, as always on the grasslands, short of fuel.
At one of the fires Rhodry found Enabrilia, sitting on a wooden chest, her two grandsons fighting at her feet over a pair of pottery horses. She looked tired, that morning, and scattered through her golden hair shone an obvious sprinkling of gray. When Rhodry hunkered down next to her, she smiled at him, then went back to peeling roots with a small knife.
“The warband’s always in the way when there’s work to be done,” she remarked, but pleasantly. “Hanging round asking when the food’s going to be cooked and distracting the girls who are supposed to be working. You’re all the same, you know.”
“Well, that’s true enough. I thought I’d come distract you.”
“Oh, get along with you! I’m old enough to be your grandmother—well, three times over, no doubt, and I feel every one of my years this morning, I tell you.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Oldana’s having one of her bad turns again.” She paused with a significant look at the boys, all ears at the mention of their mother, who had been ill for months.
“Ah. I see.”
Back in Eldidd, where he’d been a great lord and one of the High King’s personal friends, Rhodry would never have given the two children, one barely out of diapers, a thought. Since he was out on the grasslands now, he held out his arms to the younger one, Faren, who toddled over and laid both of his tiny hands into one of Rhodry’s callused and weather-beaten palms.
“Let’s go for a walk and let your gramma cook in peace. Val, are you going to come with us?”
Val shook his head no and grabbed both horses with a grin of triumph. Carrying Faren, Rhodry went back to his aimless wandering. In the center of camp, near the ritual fire that burned at the heart of every alardan, he found Calonderiel talking with the king and his young son, who at twenty-six was still a child by elven standards. They looked too much alike to be anything but father and son, with raven-dark hair yet pale gray eyes, slit vertically like a cat’s to reveal a darker lavender, and they were slender even for men of the People. Rhodry was honestly shocked to see how deferentially the two of them treated the banadar, nodding thoughtfully at his remarks, laughing at his little jokes in exactly the same way as the other men did. When Rhodry joined them, both of them greeted him by holding up their hands, shoulder high and palm outward, in a gesture of profound respect; yet all his instincts were making him want to kneel to their royal blood instead.
“I’ve wanted to meet you,” Aledeldar said. “I have great respect for your father’s poems.”
“So do I,” Rhodry said. “Not that I understand them very well.”
Everyone laughed but Faren, who squirmed round in Rhodry’s arms and pointed over his shoulder.
“Who’s that? She’s strange.”
“Beautiful, maybe,” Calonderiel remarked. “Wouldn’t say strange.”
When Rhodry turned to look, he saw what seemed to be an ordinary elven woman, with waist-length hair the color of strained honey, bound back in two severe braids, standing among the tents some twenty feet away. She was wearing an ordinary pair of leather trousers and an ordinary linen tunic, and carrying a basket of greens in one hand while she watched the men, but she stood so still, and her stare was so intense, that she did indeed seem strange in some hard-to-place way. Cut off from the bustle around her, perhaps? Rhodry had the peculiar feeling that she wasn’t really there, that she stood behind some invisible window and looked into the frantic camp. When Calonderiel gave her a friendly wave, she turned and walked fast away, disappearing into the constant scurry of people among the tents.
“What’s her name?” Rhodry asked.
“I don’t know,” Calonderiel said. “Del, does she ride with your alar?”
“No. Never seen her before. Well, there’s a lot of people here. Bound to be a few that we don’t know.”
Out of curiosity and not much more, Rhodry kept an eye out for the woman all during the rest of that day. Although he described her to a number of friends, no one remembered her or would admit to knowing her, and she should have stood out. Among the People, dark blond hair like hers, with a honey-colored or yellowish tinge, was very rare, enough so that she might have had some human blood in her veins. Once, when he was hauling water for the cooks, he dodged between two tents and saw her, walking away in the opposite direction, but though he called out, she merely glanced over her shoulder and hurried on.
He didn’t see her again until late that night, long after the feast was over. On the opposite side of the camp from the herds some of the People had cleared a space for dancing by cutting the long grass down to a reasonably even stubble. By torchlight the musicians gathered off to one side, a rank of harpers backed by drummers and a couple of those elven bundled-reed flutes that produce drones. The People danced in long lines, heads up, backs straight, arms up and rigid while their feet leapt and scissored in intricate steps. Sometimes the lines held their position; at others they snaked fast and furiously around the meadow until everyone collapsed laughing on the cool grass. On and on the dancing went, till the older and less energetic began to drop out, Rhodry among them.
Out of breath and sweating, he flung himself down near a tall standing torch, far enough away from the music to hear himself think, and watched the dance spiral past. A pack of gray gnomes flopped into manifestation around him and lay on their backs, panting in imitation of their elder brothers. When Rhodry laughed, they all sat up and grinned, then began pushing and shoving each other to see who would sit on his lap. All at once one of them drew his lips back from his teeth and pointed at something behind Rhodry; the rest leapt up and snarled; they all disappeared. Rhodry slewed round where he sat to see the honey-haired woman standing behind him. In the torchlight her eyes seemed made of beaten gold.
“And a good eve to you, my lady.” He rose to his knees. “Won’t you join me?”
She smiled, then knelt down facing him rather than sitting companionably. For a long moment she studied him in a silence as deep and unreadable as the night sky. He was struck all over again by the sense she gave of distance, as if she were a painted image on a temple wall, looking down upon him from a height. In her presence the camp seemed far, far behind him.
“Uh, my name is Rhodry, son of Devaberiel. May I have the honor of knowing yours?”
“You may not, truly.” Much to his shock, she spoke in Deverrian. “My name’s not for the giving, though I’ll trade it for that little ring you have.”
Reflexively he looked down at his right hand, where he wore on the third finger a silver band, about a third of an inch wide and graved with roses.
“Well, now, you have my apologies, but I’ll not surrender that, not even to please a lady as beautiful as you.”
“It’s made of dwarven silver, did you know?”
“I do. It’s the same metal as this silver dagger I carry.”
“So it is, and both were made by a dwarf, too, many a long year ago.”
“I know the man who made the dagger, and dwarven he is, but this ring is elven.”
“It’s not, for all that it has elven writing inside it. It’s the work of the Mountain Folk, and not a fit thing for an important man of the People like you, Rhodry Maelwaedd.”
“Here! No one’s called me by that name for years and years.”
She laughed, revealing teeth that seemed oddly sharp and shiny in the flickering light.
“I know many a name, I know all your names, truly, Rhodry, Rhodry, Rhodry.” She held out her hand. “Give me that ring.”
“I will not! And who are you, anyway?”
“I’ll tell you everything if you give me that ring.” She smiled, her mouth suddenly soft with a thousand promises. “I’ll do more than tell a tale, truly, for that ring you wear. Give me a kiss, Rhodry Maelwaedd, won’t you now?”
Rhodry stood up.
“I won’t, my thanks. Many a year ago now a dangerous thing happened to me for being too free with my kisses, and I’ll not make the same mistake twice.”
In cold fury she crouched, staring up at him while he wondered if he were daft for treating one so beautiful so coldly.
“Rhodry! Where are you?” It was Calonderiel’s voice, calling out in Elvish with a drunken lilt, coming from a long distance over the music. “Here, harpers! Have you seen Rhodry?”
She flung her head back and howled like a wolf, then as suddenly as one of the Wildfolk she was gone, simply gone, vanished without so much as a puff of dust or a stirring of the torch flame. From right behind him Rhodry heard Calonderiel swear. He spun round.
“There you are!” Calonderiel was half laughing, half afraid. “By the Dark Sun, I’ve drunk myself half-blind! I didn’t see you, and here you were so close by that I nearly tripped over youl Must’ve drunk too much, that’s what it is.”
“I’ve never known you to pass on a skin of mead untasted, no.” Rhodry realized that he was cold-sick and shaking. “Uh, did you see that woman who was here just now?”
“Woman? No, I didn’t even see you, much less some female. Who was she?”
“The woman we saw earlier, when we were talking with the king and his son. The one little Faren called strange.”
“Oh, her.” Calonderiel burped profoundly. “Hope I didn’t interrupt anything, er, important.”
“Not in the least, my friend, not in the least. Huh, I wonder if Faren has a touch of the second sight or suchlike. We should have Aderyn take a look at the lad the next time we meet up with the old man.”
“I thought the Wise One would be here already, as a matter of fact. Um, why are you talking in Deverrian?”
“Am I? Well, I’m sorry.” He switched back easily to his adopted tongue. “That woman was speaking it, you see.”
“What woman?”
“The one you didn’t see. Don’t worry about it. Let’s get back to camp, shall we?”
When he went to sleep that night, Rhodry was glad that he shared a tent with a warband. Somehow he would have felt in danger if he’d been off by himself.
Close to dawn the entire camp woke in a swirl of yelling and cursing from the herd-guards. Rhodry pulled on his trousers and boots, then dashed outside, slipping on his shirt in the chilly night, to find the rest of the warband running for the herd of horses to the east of the encampment. From the snatches of shouted conversation he could figure out that something had panicked the stock.
By the time they reached the grazing ground, the mounted herders had rounded up most of the runaways. Rhodry found a horse that knew him, swung up bareback, and riding with just a halter joined the hunt for the others. Although he lacked the full night vision of the People, he could see far better than the average human in the dark, and certainly well enough to hunt for horses in moonlight. He found four mares and their half-grown colts, herded them into a little group, and brought them back just as the sky was turning gray in the east with the tardy autumn dawn. Riding out among the assembled herds were three of the women, counting up the stock with a call or a pat for every animal. Rhodry turned his mares into the muling mass, then found Calonderiel, mounted on his golden stallion off to one side, and rode up beside him.
“What was all this about?”
“Cursed if I know.” Calonderiel shrugged eloquently. “One of the boys told me that all of a sudden, the herd just went mad: neighing and rearing, kicking out at something. He said he could just barely see shapes moving, doglike shapes, but then they vanished. Some of the Wildfolk, I suppose, up to their rotten infuriating pranks. They know there’s naught we can do to them, blast them, and they probably thought it a fine jest to see us all riding round yelling our heads off.”
Rhodry saw no reason to disagree, especially since there was no particular harm done. Once the sun was up and the herds all counted, only three horses were still missing, and their tracks, heading off in three separate directions, were perfectly clear. Rhodry got himself some breakfast, then set off after one of the stragglers.
He tracked the lost horse all that morning, until finally, close to noon, he found the miscreant, a blood-bay gelding with a black mane and tail, peacefully grazing beside a narrow river. Clucking under his breath, holding out a nose bag of oats, Rhodry circled round to approach him from the front. The gelding rolled a wary eye, then spotted the nose bag and trotted over, shoving his nose right in and allowing Rhodry to attach a lead rope to his halter with no trouble at all.
“Well, at least you decided to wait for me, eh? I think I’ll have a bit of a meal of my own, and then we’ll go home.”
Rhodry unsaddled the horse he’d brought with him, let him roll, and tethered him out to rest while he ate griddle bread and cheese from his saddlebags and watched the river flow through its grassy banks. He’d just finished eating when he happened to glance upstream and saw something that brought him to his feet with an oath. About a quarter of a mile away stood a thicket of hazels: absolutely nothing unusual in that, no, except that he’d seen no such thing when he first rode up. For a moment he debated the question, but in the end, he was sure as sure that he’d looked that way and seen nothing but the long green swell of grass stretching out to the horizon. Again, he debated; then curiosity got the better of him, and he strode off for a look.
When he got close, the thicket certainly seemed ordinary enough, a wild tangle of stunted trees and shoots, but someone was sitting among them on what seemed to be a rather anomalous oak stump, and while the day was breezy, the hazels stood unmoving. In the warm sun he felt his blood run cold. Hand on the hilt of his silver dagger, he stopped walking and peered in among the shadows. The seated figure rose and hobbled to meet him, an old, old woman, all bent-backed and dressed in drab browns, leaning on a stick, her white hair escaping in wisps from her black head scarf. She paused a few feet away and looked up at him with rheumy eyes.
“Good morrow, silver dagger.” She spoke in Deverrian. “You’re a long, long way from the lands of men.”
“And so are you, good dame.”
“I’ve come looking for my daughter. They’ve stolen her, you see. I’ve looked and I’ve looked, but I can’t find her anywhere in my own country. They’ve stolen her away, my baby, my only daughter, and now they’re going to bury her alive. Oh, they’re weaving her a winding sheet, they are, and they’ll bury her alive.”
“What? Who will?”
She merely looked up at him with a little smile, too calculated, somehow, to be daft. The wind lifted his hair; the hazels never shivered nor swayed. With his heart pounding like a wild thing, Rhodry began to back away.
“Where are you going, silver dagger?” Her voice was all soft and wheedling. “I’ve got a hire for you.”
She strode after, suddenly younger, swelling up tall and strong, and now she was wearing a green hunting tunic and a pair of doeskin boots, and her hair was the color of honey, and her eyes like beaten gold. Rhodry yelped, staggering along backward, afraid to turn his back on her to run. Out of sheer warrior’s instinct and nothing more he drew his sword. The moment that the bright steel flashed in the sunlight she howled in rage and disappeared, flickering out like a blown candle.
Rhodry broke into a cold sweat. For a moment he merely stood beside the river and shook; then he turned and shamelessly ran for the horses. With clumsy shaking hands he saddled his gray, grabbed the lead rope of the bay gelding, then mounted and rode out at a fast trot. All the long way back to camp he wished for a good road and a gallop. And yet, when he saw the camp and, in particular, the other men in the warband, his fear seemed not only shameful but foolish, and he told no one what had happened. In fact, the more he thought about the incident, the more unreal it seemed, until finally he convinced himself that he’d fallen asleep in the warm sun and dreamt the whole thing.
Two days later, on the last afternoon of the alardan, Oldana died. Rhodry was walking among the tents when he heard Enabrilia start keening. The high-pitched shriek cut through the noise of the camp like a knife and sobbed on and on. One at a time, other voices joked in, wailing and gasping. Rhodry turned and ran for Oldana’s tent, shoved his way through the sobbing mob at the door, and ducked inside. Her hair down and disheveled, Enabrilia was clawing at her own face with her nails while two of her women friends grabbed at her hands to make her stop. Oldana lay on a pile of blankets, her arms thrown wide, her unseeing eyes still open. She had been ill so long that her face seemed, at first, no colder, no paler than before, but her mouth hung slack, her lips flaccid. Huddled in the curve of the tent wall little Faren stood staring and silent, watching his elder brother mourn without truly understanding a thing. Rhodry gathered the pair up and led them out of the tent. In a time of mourning, boys belonged with the men while the women cared for the dead.
Outside, other women were assembling at the tent while the men hurried through the camp, extinguishing every fire as they went. They gathered near the horse herd, where Oldana’s brother, Wylenteriel, met Rhodry and took his nephews with a murmur of thanks for the banadar’s second in command. Rhodry found Calonderiel swearing under his breath with every foul oath he knew.
“She was so wretchedly young to die! I don’t understand the gods sometimes, I really don’t!”
“Who can?” Rhodry said with a shrug. “I’m heartsick, too, but I’m worried about her sons more. Where’s their father?”
“Up north somewhere with his herds, last anyone saw him. The boys will fare better with their uncle anyway, if you ask my opinion and not that anyone did.” The banadar looked briefly sour. “With luck we’ll run into their father down at the winter camps. The alardan will break up tonight, and we’ll be heading east.”
“East?”
“To the death ground. That’s right, you’ve never been there before, have you? We’re close enough to take her there for the burning, in this cool weather and all.”
Rhodry felt oddly troubled. The sacred death ground lay right on the Eldidd border, not more than a hundred miles from Aberwyn, where once he’d ruled as gwerbret, not far at all from the place he’d always considered home.
“What’s wrong with you?” Calonderiel said. “You look pale.”
“Do I? Ah, well, it’s a sad thing, when one of the People dies so young. We’d best call for the ceremony to end the alardan. The sooner we get moving, the better.”
The women sprinkled Oldana’s corpse with spices and covered it with dried flowers before they wrapped it round with white linen. They cut a white horse out of the herd to drag the travois that would carry her to the resting place of her ancestors, and when the alar left the rest of the gathering behind for their sad journey east, that horse led the line of march, with Rhodry and Calonderiel riding alongside. The boys, as much confused as grief-struck, traveled far back at the rear with their uncle and grandmother. Out of simple decency the king and the young prince came twith them, and their alar, of course, as well, to dignify the eventual ceremony with their presence.
It took them two full days and part of a third to reach the Lake of the Leaping Trout. During that time they ate food left from the alardan feasting, and slept cold at night, too, because no one could light a fire until Oldana’s soul was safely on its way to the world beyond. Slowly the grasslands began to rise, until by the third dawn they saw ahead of them rolling grassy downs that were almost hills. Finally, just after a noon gray with the promise of winter, they came to the last crest. Far down the green slope lay the silver lake, a long finger of water caught in a narrow valley pointing southeast to northwest. To the north a thick forest spread along the valley floor, the dark pines standing in such orderly rows that obviously they were no natural growth, but all along the north shore lay an open meadow. Calonderiel turned to Rhodry and gestured at the forest with a wide sweep of his arm.
“Well, there it is. The death ground of my ancestors, and of yours as well. Your father’s father was set free and his ashes scattered among those trees, though I think your grandmother died too far out on the grass to be brought here.”
When they rode down to the lake, Rhodry realized that the meadow area was laid out as a proper campground: there were stone fire pits at regular intervals and small sheds, too, for keeping firewood dry and food safe from prowling animals. The alar rushed to set up their tents against the darkening sky and tether the horses securely as well, just in in case there should be thunder in the night. As the early evening was setting in, Calonderiel fetched Rhodry.
“Let’s go take a look at the firewood. The women tell me that we’d better do the ceremony tonight.”
They crossed the neatly tended boundary of the forest into the dark and spicy-scented corridors of trees. In a clearing, not ten yards in, stood a structure of dry-walled stone and rough-cut timber about thirty feet long. Inside they found it stacked with cut wood, a fortune in fuel out on the grasslands.
“Good,” Calonderiel saidbd. “Fetch the others. Let’s get this over with before the rain hits.”
But as if in sympathy witlth their loss, the rain held off. The wind rose instead, driving the clouds away and letting the stars shine through. Close to midnight the alar burned Oldana’s body to send her soul free to the gods. Rhodry stood well back toward the edge of the weeping crowd. Although he’d traveled with the Westfolk long enough to witness several cremations, still they disturbed him, used as he was to burying his kin and friends in the hidden dark of the earth with things they’d loved in life tucked round them. He found himself moving slowly backward, almost without thinking, easing himself out of the crowd, taking a step here, allowing someone to stand in front of him there, until at last he stood alone, some distance away.
The night wind lashed at the lake and howled round the trees like another mourner. Rhodry shivered with grief as much as the cold, because she had indeed been so young, and so very beautiful. Although he’d never known her well, he would miss her presence in the alar. Among the Westfolk, that last remnant of a race hovering on the edge of extinction, where the loss of any individual was a tragedy, the death of a woman who might have borne more children was an appalling blow of fate. In the center of the crowd the women howled in a burst of keening that the men answered, half a chant, half a sob. Rhodry turned and ran, plunged into the silent camp, raced through the tents and out the other side, ran and ran along the lakeshore until at last he tripped and went sprawling. For a long time he lay in the tall grass and gasped for breath. When he sat up the fire was far away, a golden flower blooming on the horizon. The wind-struck water lapped and murmured nearby.
“You coward,” he said to himself, and in Deverrian. “You’d best get back.”
The alar would expect him, the banadar’s second in command, to be present at the wake. He got up, pulling down his shirt, automatically running one hand along his belt to make sure that his sword was still there, and of course his silver dagger—which was gone. Rhodry swore and dropped to his knees to hunt for it. It must have slipped out of its sheath, he supposed, when he’d tripped and fallen flat on his face. In the starry dark his half-elven sight could make out little: the blacker shapes of crushed-down grass against the black shadows of grass still standing. On his hands and knees he crisscrossed the area, fumbling through and patting down the grass, pulling it aside, hoping for the gleam of silver, praying that the wretched thing hadn’t somehow or other slid into the lake. A gaggle of gnomes appeared to help, though he doubted if they truly understood him when he tried to explain what he was doing. Finally he gave up in disgust and sat back on his heels. In a flurry like a whirlwind the gnomes all disappeared.
“Rhodry, give me the ring, and I’ll give the dagger back.”
The voice—her voice, all soft and seductive—spoke from behind him. Swearing, he got to his feet and spun around to see her, standing some five feet away. She seemed to stand in a column of moonlight, as if the air around her were a tunnel to some other world where the moon was at her full, and she was wearing elven clothes, the embroidered tunic and leather trousers in which he’d first seen her. Her honey-colored hair, though, hung free, a cascade over her shoulders. In one hand she held his silver dagger, blade up.
“The ring, Rhodry Maelwaedd. Give me the rose ring, and you shall have your dagger back.”
“Suppose I just take it from you?”
She laughed and disappeared, suddenly and completely gone. When he swore, he heard her laugh behind him again, and spun around. There she was, and she was still holding the dagger.
“You shan’t be able to catch me, of course,” she said. “But I always keep my promises. I promise that if you give me the ring, I shall give you your dagger.”
“Well, if you want it that cursed badly . . . ”
When he started to slip the ring free, she moved forward, gliding over the grass, and it seemed that she was suddenly taller, her eyes flashing gold in the not-real moonlight that clung to her. All at once he was afraid, hesitated, stepped back with the ring still on his finger.
“Just why do you want this bit of silver so badly?”
“That’s none of your affair! Give it to me!”
She strode forward, he moved back. She stood huge now, her hair spreading out in some private wind like flames stirring, and she held the dagger up to strike.
“Stop!” It was a man’s voice. “You have no right to that ring!”
Rhodry could see no one, but she suddenly shrank down to form of a normal elven woman, and the dagger hung in a flaccid hand.
“It was his long before I carved the runes upon it. You know it was. Admit it.”
All at once a figure appeared to match the voice, a man with impossibly yellow hair and lips as red as cherries. Smiling, but it was more a wolf’s smile than a man’s, he strolled in between them. The long tunic he wore matched his unnaturally blue eyes. With a sense of utter shock Rhodry realized that he could see him so clearly because dawn was already turning the eastern sky silver, that the entire night had somehow passed during his brief conversation with the woman. She was staring at the grass now, and kicking a tuft of it like a sulky child.
“Hand it over,” the man said.
With a shriek of rage she hurled the dagger straight at Rhodry’s head. He ducked, twisting out of the way barely in time, then looked up to find them both gone. The dagger, however, lay gleaming in the rising sun. When he picked it up, he found it perfectly solid—and realized with surprise that he’d expected it to be somehow changed. Although he sheathed it, he kept his hand on the hilt as he started back to camp.
“Rhodry?”
The voice made him yelp aloud. The man with the yellow hair gave him an apologetic smile.
“If I were you,” the fellow said. “I’d leave the Westlands. She won’t follow you into the lands of men.”
He disappeared again. Rhodry ran the rest of the way back to the camp.
The wake was long over. Most of the People, in fact, were asleep after the long night of mourning. Only a pack of dogs, a few of the older boys, and Calonderiel were sitting round the newly rekindled fire in front of the banadar’s tent.
“Where were you?” Calonderiel said.
“I hardly know.” Rhodry sat down next to him on the ground.
Calonderiel considered for a moment, then waved at the boys and dogs impartially.
“Go. I don’t care where—to bed, probably. But go.”
Once they’d gone, the banadar laid a few chips and twigs onto the fire.
“I hate to let it go out,” he remarked. “What do you mean, you hardly know?”
“Just that. I thought I was but a mile from here, down by the lake, but the whole night passed like a bare moment, and I saw a woman who came and went like one of the Wildfolk.”
While Rhodry told the story, and he finally admitted the earlier incidents as well, Calonderiel listened without a word, but the banadar grew more and more troubled.
“Guardians,” he said at last. “What you saw were two of the Guardians. I don’t exactly know what they may be, but they’re somehow linked to the People. They’re not gods, certainly, nor are they elves like you and me, nor men like your other tribe, either. No more are they Wildfolk, though they seem more like the Wildfolk than like us at times. I’ve heard a wagonload of old tales about them. Sometimes they harm those that see them, but more often they help, which is why we call them Guardians. The bards say that at the fall of Rinbaladelan, a man of the Guardians fought side by side with the royal archers, but not even his magic could hold the Hordes off in the end.”
“Do you think I should take the fellow’s advice, then?”
“Most likely. Ye gods, I wish Aderyn were here! We need a dweomerman’s counsel, we do.”
“I’m still surprised he never came to the alardan. It’s not like the old man to miss one.”
“Just so.” Calonderiel suddenly yawned with a convulsive little shudder. “Well, let’s get some sleep. It’s been a miserable night, all told. Maybe your dreams will tell you something useful.”
That afternoon, though, Rhodry dreamt of the long road, that is, the time when he’d ridden as a silver dagger into political exile. When he woke, he could remember nothing particular about the dream, and it faded fast as dreams will, but the feeling of it lingered round him, a sour sort of omen. He found himself alone in the banadar’s huge tent, with the rest of the warband gone, though he did hear whispering voices just outside. When he dressed and went out, he discovered a clot of men, all white-faced and shaking, standing round the young prince, Daralanteriel, who had his hands set on his hips and an angry toss to his head.
“What’s all this?” Rhodry was instantly awake.
“My apologies, sir,” the prince said. “The men keep talking about ghosts, and I’m trying to force some sense into their heads.”
“Good.” Rhodry turned to Jennantar, who of all the men in the warband was usually the most hard-headed. “Now, what—“
“Mock all you like, we saw her!” Jennantar said. “Oldana, standing at the edge of camp clear as clear.”
The rest nodded in stubborn agreement.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Daralanteriel snarled. “Only Round-ears believe in trash like that. Well, begging your pardon, sir.”
“Tact isn’t your strongest point, lad, is it? But apology accepted. Look at it this way: the men saw something, so the real question is, what was it?”
“I’m glad to see that someone believes our sworn word.” Jennantar shot Daralanteriel an evil glance.
“Enough of that! It’s a prince you’re looking daggers at,” Rhodry broke in and quickly. “Where did you see this thing?”
With the others trailing after, Jennantar led Rhodry out of the camp on the forest side. He pointed to a spot between two ancient pines.
“Right there. She was standing between those trees, in the shadows, yes, but we still saw her really clearly, all wrapped up in the white linen, and her hair was all white, too.”
“When you looked at her, did she seem solid, or could you see things through her, like you can through smoke?”
“Interesting.” Jennantar thought for a moment. “In the bard tales, you can always see right through a ghost, but she looked as real as you or me, and it was sunny, of course, which should have made her look even less real, but it didn’t.”
“What did you do when you saw her?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, we all yelped and jumped. She didn’t say anything, just looked at us. And Wye said, ‘Look at her hair, it’s not yellow anymore, it’s turned white.’ And she smiled at that, like, and vanished, sudden as sudden.”
“And you’re sure it was Oldana?”
“Looked exactly like her, except for that white hair.”
The other men nodded agreement. Rhodry sighed with a sharp puff of breath. Whoever or whatever that spirit who coveted his ring might be, there was no doubt that she could shape-change to perfection.
As they walked back to camp, three women came running to meet them. They ringed Rhodry round and all began talking at once: they too had seen Oldana, prowling round her family’s tent.
“I suppose she wants a look at her children, poor thing,” Annaleria said, her voice shaking with tears. “I know I would.”
“Ye gods!” Rhodry snarled. “Where are the boys?”
“With their grandmother in her tent.”
“Good. Go join her. Fill that tent with women, and for the love of every god, don’t let the apparition near those boys. If she gets her claws into one of them, he’ll be gone where none of us can get him back.”
Except, no doubt, by handing over the ring.
“Let’s go. Hurry!”
Rhodry broke into a run and raced for camp, leaving the others startled behind him. Enabrilia’s distinctive tent, painted with scenes of deer drinking at a river, stood off to one side, with nothing beyond it but the lakeshore. As Rhodry jogged up, he saw Val heading down to the water’s edge with a leather bucket in his hands. Rhodry took off after him, yelling his name. The boy stopped on the pale sand and looked back, smiling. Out on the water something was forming. It seemed a wisp of mist at first, then shimmered and began to grow thicker.
“Run!” Rhodry shrieked. “Come here, Val!”
The boy dropped the bucket and followed orders, racing to Rhodry’s open arms just as the shape took form and stepped off the water to the shore. She looked so like Oldana—and her hair was the other’s proper color now, too, a pale gold—that Rhodry swore under his breath. Val twisted in his arms.
“Malamala!” he cried out. “Let me go! It’s my mother.”
Rhodry held him tighter and swore again as the boy burst into tears. Shouting and cursing, Jennantar and half the alar came running to surround them. The apparition shook one fist in Rhodry’s direction, then vanished like smoke blowing away under a wind.
“She’s gone,” Val sobbed. “Why didn’t you let me go? Why?”
“Because she would have taken you with her to the Otherlands, and it’s not your time to go.” Rhodry said the only thing he could think of, looked round, saw Enabrilia shoving her way through the crowd. “Here’s your gramma. Go with her. I’ll come talk to you later, little one, but I don’t know if I can ever explain.”
“I wanted to go with Malamala. I hate you! I want my mother.”
When Rhodry handed the weeping child over to Enabrilia, the other women formed round her like a guard and swept them away. Rhodry looked round to find Daralanteriel and the other men standing between him and the lake.
“I’m sorry,” Dar stammered out. “Jennantar, I never should have doubted your word, and I’m sorry. I—”
“Don’t think of it again.” Jennantar laid a gentle hand on the prince’s shoulder. “It’s all unbelievable enough, isn’t it? Rhodry, for the love of every god, what was that—that creature?”
“I don’t truly know.” Rhodry ran both hands through his hair and felt himself shake like a man with a fever. “But she bodes ill, whatever she is. Let’s go find the banadar.”
Rhodry could be a stubborn man when he wanted, and indeed at times when he didn’t, as well. That she would stoop so low to gain her prize made him suddenly determined that she should never have that ring, no matter what the cost to him. Risking the rest of the alar, of course, was different. When they found Calonderiel, Rhodry told him the story, then led him away from the others out to the edge of the forest, where the corridors of trees stood nodding in the rising wind.
“That Guardian I saw spoke true. I’ve got to leave, for the alar’s sake more than my own. I’m minded to ride north and look for Aderyn. No doubt she’ll follow me and the ring and leave the rest of you in peace.”
“It seems best, doesn’t it? But you can’t go alone. Too dangerous. I’ll come with you, and we’ll take part of the warband, too.”
“You have my thanks, and from the bottom of my heart.” Rhodry caught himself—he was speaking Deverrian again. After so many years of rarely hearing it, he was surprised that he would so instinctively return to it when he was troubled. He made himself speak Elvish. “I wasn’t looking forward to being out there alone, but I’ve got to talk to Aderyn. I don’t know whether to placate her or fight her.”
“If she’s one of the Guardians, normally I’d say you should do what she wants, but I’m beginning to wonder.” Calonderiel thought for a moment, frowning out at the horizon. “I’ve never heard of a Guardian begging and wheedling a mere mortal like this. Maybe she’s some kind of evil spirit. You’re right. Aderyn’s the one who would know.”
“I wonder where the old man is?”
“North, probably, coming down to the winter camps. If he’d been south already, he would have come to the alardan.”
Calonderiel turned the leadership of his alar over to the king and his son, just until he should return. With some ten men and a couple of packhorses, Rhodry and Calonderiel rode straight north, making a good twelve miles before pitching the night’s camp. Since under the starry sky everyone could see well enough, they dispensed with a fire, merely sat close together in a ring, watching the moon rise. No one seemed to have a thing to say. Twice someone started a song; both times the music died away after a few quiet verses.
“Ye gods!” Calonderiel snarled at last. “What’s wrong with us all?”
“Well, it’s a hard thing,” Jennantar said. “Losing first Oldana and now Rhodry.”
“Here!” Rhodry snapped, “I’m not dead yet, curse you and your balls both, but you might be if you keep talking that way.”
Everyone managed a weak laugh.
“Not talking about you being dead,” Jennantar said. “Talking about you riding east.”
“Do you think I want to leave the Westlands? Not without a fight, my friends.”
At that exact moment they heard the howl, as if she’d waited to pick the perfect time to appear, echoing through the moonlight. Without thinking Rhodry was on his feet, facing her as she stood just beyond the circle of elves. Although she no longer wore Oldana’s face, she was still dressed all in white, like the burning clothes, and her long hair, hanging free, was silver-white as well.
“My daughter.” This time she spoke in Elvish. “You don’t understand. They’ll take her far away from me. I must have that ring.”
“How will my having the ring lose you your daughter?”
“I don’t know. Evandar won’t tell me, but that ring was omened for you, Rhodry Maelwaedd, long, long ago before you were born again onto this earth of yours. Don’t you remember? You gave it to him, long years ago, when you wore another face and carried another name.”
Rhodry could only stare, gape-mouthed. He heard Calonderiel get to his feet and come to stand beside him.
“Listen, woman,” the banadar said. “If that ring was omened for Rhodry, then it’s no doing of yours. I’m truly sorry to hear your grief, but none of us know one wretched thing about this daughter of yours. And what’s this nonsense about other faces and names? I’m beginning to think you’ve gotten Rhodry confused with some other man.”
She shrieked once, then disappeared. Rhodry felt sweat run down his back in a cold trickle.
Although they kept a watch that night, and rode on guard from then on as well, they never saw the strange being again. After some days of searching, they found a fresh trail—horses and travois—that eventually led them to another alar, camped in the bend of a stream. As they rode up, a pair of young men came out to hail them and welcome them into the camp. Everyone dismounted and began leading their horses toward the distant circle of tents.
“A question for you,” Calonderiel said to the pair. “Does Aderyn of the Silver Wings ride with this alar?”
The two men winced, looking back and forth between them.
“I take it you haven’t heard the news.”
“News?” Rhodry turned cold, guessing it just from the grim looks on their faces.
“He was on his way to a big alardan down south somewhere, but he never reached it.”
Rhodry grunted like a man kicked in the stomach. Staring at the ground but unseeing, he dropped his horse’s reins and walked a few steps away while the others went on talking to the banadar. He heard himself speak, realized that he was shaking his head in an instinctive denial while he muttered no, no, no, over and over. Oldana’s death was very sad, but to have Aderyn gone shook his entire world. The old man had always been there, wise and strong and full of good counsel, ever since those days long ago when Rhodry as a lad of twenty rode to war as cadvridoc for the first time, back in the old days, when he was heir to Aberwyn. Calonderiel caught up with him and grabbed his arm.
“How?” Rhodry said. “Did they say?”
“In his sleep. As peaceful as you’d want, or so they heard. Well, he’d lived a full life, after all, not like poor little Oldana, and no doubt he’s gone to join those Great Ones that dweomerfolk speak of.”
“True spoken.” Without thinking, Rhodry slipped into Deverrian. “But it aches my heart all the same. Will his apprentice succeed him?”
“He will, but he’s up north somewhere. Shall we ride after him? The gods only know when we’d catch up with him, and I think you’re in too much danger for us to wander aimlessly about, my friend.”
“So do I. I think me that I’ve been given an omen as well as sad news.”
“You’re going to leave us?”
Rhodry hesitated, staring off at the horizon and the endless sea of green, rippling in a rising wind. For years his entire life had been bounded by grass and grazing, the herds and the seasons of the year, the vast freedom of following the herds and the grass. To go back to the lands of men, to cities and to farms—what would he do there?
“Staying here would put you all in danger,” he said aloud. “Evandar—I suppose that’s the Guardian who spoke to me that night—Evandar seemed to think that leaving was my only choice. And without Aderyn . . . ” He let his voice trail away. “Well, I sold my sword once before. I can do it again.”
“Ye gods! Not that!”
“What choice do I have?”
“I don’t know. But let’s shelter here tonight anyway. Don’t go rushing into some decision you’ll regret.”
“Good advice. Done, then.”
But that evening, as they sat around a fire with their hosts, Rhodry barely listened to the talk and the music round him. As much as he hated to leave the Westlands, he felt Deverry pulling at him, the memories of his native land rising in his mind as easily and as vividly as his native language had come back. All at once he realized that he was thinking of his ride east as “going home.” He looked up and found Calonderiel watching him in some concern.
“You look like a man with a bad case of boils,” the banadar remarked. “Or are you brooding about that female?”
“Neither. I’ve made up my mind. It’s east that I’ll be heading.”
Calonderiel sighed in a long puff of breath.
“I’ll hate to see you go, but it’s probably for the best. I suppose you’ll be safe there. At least the spirit won’t trouble you, but what about the Round-ears?”
“If I stay out of Eldidd, no one’s going to recognize me.”
“Even if they did, they’d never believe you were Rhodry Maelwaedd anyway. How strange, they’d say, that silver dagger looks a fair bit like the old gwerbret, the one who drowned so mysterious like all those years ago.”
Rhodry smiled, but there was no humor in it.
“No doubt. Will you ride with me to the border?”
“Of course. It’s too cursed dangerous to let you go alone. Humph. I’ve got some Deverry coin with me. The handful I got from those merchants a couple of months ago, remember? You’re taking it with you.”
“Now here, I don’t want—”
“Hold your tongue! It won’t do me a cursed bit of good, and it’ll keep you warm this winter. You have the worst ill luck of any man I’ve ever known.” Calonderiel sounded personally aggrieved. “Why couldn’t this stupid bitch of a spirit at least wait until spring?”
Rhodry started laughing. It came boiling out of his very heart, shaking him, choking him, but still he laughed on and on, until Calonderiel grabbed him by the shoulders and made him stop.
In the days that followed, as he rode back east to the lands of men with Calonderiel and their escort, he found himself thinking of Aderyn, remembering all the times they’d spent together, all the favors that the old man had done him, though “favors” was much too mild a word. Ye gods, he would think, what’s going to happen to the kingdoms now? First Nevyn gone in Deverry, and now Aderyn dead in the Westlands! Although he knew that there were other dweomerworkers in both lands to protect their peoples, still it troubled his heart, this feeling that some great and dreadful thing was coming toward them all on a dark wind. The two deaths—Oldana so young, so unjustly taken; Aderyn no surprise, truly, at his advanced age—mingled together in his mind and tipped some inner balance dangerously low.
They rode into Deverry up Pyrdon way, crossing the border on a day still and cold under a lowering sky. The horses were restless, feeling thunder coming, dancing and snorting as their hooves hit the unfamiliar surface of a log-paved road. By a stone pillar carved with the rearing stallion of the gwerbrets of Pyrdon, Calonderiel called a halt.
“There’s no use you coming farther in,” Rhodry said.
“True spoken. Bitter partings are best over fast.”
Yet they lingered, sitting on horseback together and idly looking at the pillar. Since Rhodry could read, he translated the inscription into Elvish: a claim-stone, mostly, for the gwerbrets, though it did deign to tell them that Drw Loc, chief city of the rhan, lay some forty miles on.
“Two days riding,” Calonderiel said. “Will you be safe tonight?”
“There’s a town just ten miles down the road, or there was, anyway, last time I rode this way. I’ll find lodging there. And if the man named Evandar was telling me the truth, I’ll be safe enough with human beings around me.”
The other men exchanged grim glances. The silence hung like the heavy air.
“Do you see that device? the Stallion?” Rhodry found himself talking merely to be talking. “Another branch of this clan holds Cwm Pecl under its sign. My cousin Blaen used to rule there, but he rode to the Otherlands many a long year ago. Huh. He named his eldest son after me. Maybe I should ride east and see if young Rhodry’s still upon the earth—listen to me! He’s not young anymore, is he? If naught else, I can pour a little milk and honey on Blaen’s grave.”
“Ye gods, you’re in a morbid mood!”
“Well, so I am. It aches my heart to leave you, my friend.”
“And it aches mine to lose you. Whether you come back or no, Rhodry, you’ll always be my friend.”
Rhodry felt a lump forming in his throat and looked away fast.
“Tell my father where I’ve gotten myself to, won’t you?”
“I will. Ye gods, I don’t relish the task, I tell you. No doubt he’ll revile me for days for letting you go off like this. Devaberiel’s the only man I know with a worse temper than mine.”
They both smiled, briefly, and sat for another long moment more, studying the horizon where it darkened with storm.
“Ah, well,” Calonderiel said at last. “For the love of every god, take care of yourself on the long road.”
The silence grew. With a wave of his arm, Calonderiel called out to his men.
“Let’s ride! No need to twist the arrow in the wound.”
Rhodry steadied his horse and kept him still while they gathered in the road and dopped off. He sat, staring out across the empty meadowlands, until he could no longer hear them riding away. He was a silver dagger again, back on the long road, with no more of a name than Rhodry, not Maelwaedd, not ap Devaberiel—no name, no place, no clan to take him in. He started to laugh, his mad berserker’s chortle and howl, and headed off toward the east. It was a long time before he could make himself stop laughing.
Late in the afternoon, when thunderheads were piling and sailing in a crisp sky, Rhodry rode into a village called Tiry, a scatter of some two dozen roundhouses, all nicely whitewashed and newly thatched for the winter and set among now-leafless ash and poplar trees. Down by the banks of a small river stood the local inn and tavern behind a wooden fence. When Rhodry led his horse into the yard, the tavernman bustled out to greet him, a stout fellow with hair as yellow and as messy as the thatch.
“You’ll be wanting lodging, no doubt,” he announced. “And the gods all know that I wouldn’t turn anyone away tonight, not even a silver dagger like you.”
“My thanks, I suppose. Tonight? What—”
“Ye gods, man! It’s Samaen! Now let’s get that horse into the stables.”
Rhodry was shocked at how easily he’d lost track of the markings of Time in the world of men. How could he have forgotten Samaen, when the gates of the Otherlands open wide and the unquiet dead come walking through the lands of their kin? Those who lie unburied, those who hold grudges, those who’ve left a true love behind or a hoard buried—they all come wandering the roads in the company of fiends and spirits on this night that belongs neither to this world nor to the other and thus lies common to both.
Once his horse was fed and stabled, and his gear stowed in a neat pile under a table by the hearth, Rhodry and the innkeep, Merro, sat down to have a tankard of dark apiece in the otherwise empty tavern room.
“You’re on the road late, silver dagger.”
“I am, at that, and a cursed ugly thing it is, too. I couldn’t find a hire for the winter, you see.”
“Ah, well.” The tavemman considered, sucking his teeth. “Well, now, there were some merchants through here not so long ago, from Dun Trebyc way, they were, and they told me about a feud brewing, down in the southern hills.”
“Sounds like work for a silver dagger’s sword.”
“It does, truly. What you do, see, is ride dead east from here till you reach the lake, then take the south-running road. Keep asking along the way. If there’s war brewing, it won’t be any secret, will it now? Or if that comes to naught, you might give his grace our gwerbret a try. He’s a generous man, just like he should be, and he remembers the old days, too, when you lads put a king on his throne, or so he always says. We remember the old days, here in Pyrdon.” Merro paused for a sip of ale. “This village, now? It used to be royal land, you see, when there was a king in Dun Drw instead of a gwerbret. That’s why it’s got this name. Ty Ric, it was once, the king’s house. There was a royal hunting lodge here in those days, you see, right where this inn is now, though of course there’s not one stick of wood left from it. That’s the way things go, eh?”
“Interesting,” Rhodry said to be polite. “But it’s a free village now?”
“It is, and on good terms at that, when it comes to the taxes. Lord Varyn, he’s our local lord, you see, is an honorable man, but even if he weren’t, well, we remember the days when this was the king’s land, not his, and we hold to our charter, like, and so does the gwerbret, and that’s that.” Merro raised his tankard in brief salute, had a sip, and proceeded to lecture Rhodry about local politics in great detail.
When the sun sank so low that the storm clouds blazed red and gold, Merro closed the inn. Rhodry went along with him and his family to join the village in lighting the Bel fire. At the crest of a low hill near town two priests waited, dressed in white tunics, gold torcs round their necks, golden sickles dangling from their belts, with the village blacksmith and his son to help them. One at a time each village or farm family panted up the hill with a burden of wood, added it to the stack, and received the blessings of Great Bel. When everyone who lived under the temple’s jurisdiction was assembled and blessed, the priests laid the wood ready for a proper fire and sprinkled it with oil. As if in answer to their chanting, the twilight grew as gray and thick as fur. The blacksmith lit torches and stood prepared.
Then came the waiting. Far away, hundreds of miles away in the High King’s city of Dun Deverry, the head priest would light the first fire. The instant that the nearest priests on their hilltops saw the blaze, they would torch their own wood. Those next away would see and kindle theirs—on and on it would go, thin lines of light springing up and spreading out across the kingdom in a dweomer web, until beacon fires burned from the sea coast up to Cerrgonney and all across from Cwm Pecl to here on the Pyrdon border. The younger priest raised a brass horn, long and straight in the ancient style, to his lips and stared off to the east. The villagers huddled close together in the gathering dark. All at once the priest tipped his head back and blew, a rasping, shrieking cry straight from the heart of the Dawntime. Down went the torches. The fire blazed up, crackling with oil, a great leap of gold flame lurching in the night wind. When Rhodry spun around, searching the horizon, he saw the neighboring fires like little stars, resting on the hilltops.
The village cried out, praying wordlessly to the gods to keep them safe through the night ahead. Silhouetted by the dancing bonfire, the priests flung their arms over their heads and began to chant. Rhodry found himself remembering Oldana, and another fire that had bloomed by the Lake of the Leaping Trout. Doubtless Aderyn’s alar had burned the old man’s body, too, out on the grasslands where he’d died. For a moment Rhodry felt so odd that he wondered if he’d been taken ill; then he realized that he was crying, aloud and helpless like a child, beyond all power to stop himself. Fortunately, in the chanting, yelling mob no one noticed. When the chanting died away, the horn shrieked again, over and over, sending the villagers on their way. The children ran for home, the adults walked fast—but not too fast, because it didn’t pay to let the spirits know you were afraid of them. Rhodry trailed after the innkeep’s family and managed to have his face wiped and respectable by the time they reached the inn. Merro set a couple of bowls of milk and bread out on the doorstep to keep the spirits happy, then ushered everyone inside and barred the door with a profound sigh of relief. While his wife poured ale for the grown-ups, Merro lit the new fire laid ready in the hearth.
“Well, there,” he said. “May the gods keep us safe in the coming snows, too.”
With a murmured excuse, the wife set the tankards down and left the tavern room, taking the young boy with her. The two older girls looked into the fire trying to see the faces of the men they’d someday marry. Rhodry and Merro sat at a table and drank in silence. Outside the wind picked up, rustling the thatch on the roof, banging the shutters at the windows. Even though Rhodry kept telling himself that it was only the wind, he heard the dead walking.
Merro was just remarking that he might pour a second round when they heard hoofbeats clattering up to the inn. It could only be a horse from the Otherlands. Merro turned dead-pale, staring at the door while the wind whispered and rattled. Someone—something—knocked so loudly that the two girls shrieked. Rhodry sprang to his feet, his hand on his sword hilt, as the knocking came again.
“Innkeep!” The voice sounded human enough, male and deep at that. “Open up, for the love of the gods!”
Merro sat frozen, his face dead-white.
“It’s going to rain!” the voice went on. “Have pity on a traveler, even though he was a dolt, sure enough, to let himself get caught on the roads for Samaen eve.”
Merro made a rattling sound deep in his throat.
“Ah, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell!” Rhodry said, and he could feel himself grinning. “Let’s let him in, innkeep. If naught else, it’ll be a fine tale to tell, about the spirit who was afraid to get wet.”
The lasses shrieked again, but halfheartedly, as if they were only doing it to keep up appearances. Rhodry strode over and unbarred the door. The man that stood there in the shadows seemed human enough: tall, broad-shouldered, a little beefy, in fact, with windblown blond hair, but in the uncertain light Rhodry couldn’t see his eyes to tell if they were demonic or not. He was holding the reins of a normal-looking horse, too, standing head down and weary, a gray as far as Rhodry could see. Up in the sky the clouds hung black. A few drops of rain pattered then stopped.
“What do you think, Merro?” Rhodry called out. “He looks like flesh and blood to me.”
“Oh, well and good, then.” With a sigh the inkeep came over. “But by every god in the sky, traveler, you gave me a fright!”
By the time that Merro and the stranger got back to the tavern room, the rain was pouring down. Rhodry helped himself to more ale, then put one foot up on a bench and leaned onto his knee to watch as the stranger stripped off his wet cloak and shook his head with a scatter of drops. You never knew about men you met on the long road, though in truth this lad seemed decent enough. In the leaping light he looked young, twenty at the most, and his blue eyes were perfectly human, neither cat-slit like an elf’s nor blank and empty as those of demons are reputed to be. He accepted a tankard from the innkeep, started to speak, then leaned across the table. His eyes were narrowing in puzzlement even as he smiled, suddenly pleased, suddenly grinning, in fact, in something close to joy.
“Don’t I know you, silver dagger?”
“Not that I recall.” Yet even as he spoke Rhodry felt his heart twist.
He did know this lad, didn’t he? It seemed that the name hovered on the edge of his mind, just out of reach yet as familiar as his own, and on that same edge an image was trying to rise, a memory trying to bloom like a flower.
“Where are you from?” the lad said.
“Down Eldidd way. You’re from Deverry proper, by the sound of your speech.”
“I am, and never been west till this summer. But it’s odd, I could have sworn . . . ” He let his voice trail away.
Rhodry hadn’t been in Deverry for close to twenty years, when this fellow would have been a babe in arms.
“And who was your father, then?”
“Now that I can’t tell you.” The lad hesitated, drawing into himself, turning his face expressionless. “And as for my name, you can call me Yraen.”
“Well and good, Yraen it is. My name is Rhodry, and that’s all the name I have.”
“It’s enough for a silver dagger, huh?” Yraen hesitated, cocking his head to one side, looking Rhodry over. “You are a silver dagger, aren’t you? I mean, I just assumed . . . ”
“I am.” Rhodry drew the dagger and flipped it point down and quivering into the table between them. “What’s it to you?”
“”Naught, naught. Just asking.”
Yraen stared at the device graved on the blade, a striking falcon, for a long time.
“Mean anything to you?” Rhodry said.
“Not truly, but it’s splendid, the way it’s drawn. You’d swear that bird could fly, wouldn’t you?”
Rhodry remembered the innkeep, looked up to find Merro shepherding his daughters through the door into the family’s rooms.
“I’ll just leave you two lads,” Merro announced. “Bank the fire before you go to sleep, won’t you, silver dagger? Dip yourself more ale if you want it.”
“I will, and my thanks, innkeep.”
He got himself more ale and came back to the table to find Yraen holding the dagger, angling the blade to catch the firelight. Yraen caught his expression and hurriedly put the dagger down.
“Apologies. I shouldn’t have touched it without asking you first.”
“”You’re forgiven. Don’t do it again.”
Yraen blushed as red as a Bardek roof tile, making Rhodry wonder if he were closer to eighteen than twenty.
“You look like you’ve been on the long road for years,” the lad said finally.
“I have. What’s it to you?”
“Naught. I mean. Well, you see, I’ve been hoping to find a silver dagger. Think your band would take me on?”
“Oho. You’ve got a reason to be traveling the kingdom, have you?”
Yraen stared down at the table, began rubbing the palm of one hand back and forth along the edge of the grease-polished wood.
“You don’t have to tell me what got you dishonored,” Rhodry said. “None of my wretched business, truly, as long as you can fight and keep your word.”
“Oh, I can fight well enough. I got my training . . . well, uh, in a great lord’s household, you see. But . . . ”
Rhodry waited, sipping his ale. He could tell that Yraen was hovering on the edge of some much-needed confession. All at once the lad looked up.
“They say that every silver dagger’s got some great shame in his past.”
“True enough. Not our place to judge another man.”
“But, you see, I haven’t done anything, I just want to be a silver dagger. I always have, from the day I heard about them. I don’t know why. I don’t want to sit moldering in my, uh, er, my lord’s dun down in Deverry. I’ve talked to every silver dagger who rode our way, and I know in my very soul that I was meant to ride the long road.”
“You must be daft!”
“That’s what everyone says.” All at once he grinned. “And so, think I, well, maybe being daft is dishonor enough.”
“Not likely. Listen, once you take this blasted dagger, you’re marked for life. You’re a shamed man, and you only deepen your shame every time you take coin from a lord for fighting his battles instead of serving him out of fealty. Ye gods, why do you want to throw your young life away? Can’t you see that—”
“I know my own mind.” There was a growl in his voice. “That’s what they all say, you know. You’ll only regret it when it’s too late, and you’ve dishonored yourself in the eyes of the entire kingdom, and no one will take you in, then, because you’ll just be a cursed silver dagger. Well, I don’t care.” He stiffened, half rising from his seat. “You asked me if I could keep my word. Well, I could have made up some lie, said I caused trouble in the warband or suchlike, but I didn’t. I told you the truth, and now you’re mocking me for it.”
“I’m not mocking you, lad. Believe me, that’s the farthest thing from my mind.”
Yraen sat back down. Rhodry considered the empty bottom of his tankard and felt himself yawning. The events of the day, of the past few weeks, truly, all seemed to rush in upon him. He was tired, and he’d drunk more than a fair bit—those were the reasons, he supposed, that his mind kept circling round the peculiar idea. Against his will he found himself remembering the evil spirit, nattering about times when he’d worn another face and another name. And things Aderyn had said, years ago. And a strange woman of the Wildfolk, who had known him when he should never have recognized her—though he did. And Evandar, saying that he’d owned the rose ring long before the Guardian had put runes upon it, when Rhodry had never seen the thing without its inscription. And then Yraen, this familiar stranger. When a man’s dead, he’s gone, he told himself. The doors to the Otherlands only swing one way. All at once he realized that Yraen was still talking.
“Were you listening to me?” Yraen snapped.
“I wasn’t, at that. What were you saying?”
Faced with his direct stare the lad blushed again.
“You’re noble-bom, aren’t you?” Rhodry said.
“How did you know?”
Yraen looked so honestly surprised that Rhodry nearly laughed aloud, but he caught himself in time.
“Go back to your father’s dun, lad. Don’t throw your life away for the silver dagger. Now look, if you rode here from Deverry, you must have met other silver daggers along the way. None of them would pledge you to the band, either, would they?”
Yraen scowled and went back to rubbing his hand on the edge of the table.
“I thought not,” Rhodry said. “We have a bit of honor left, most of us, anyway.”
“But I want it!” He hesitated, reining in his temper. “What if I beg you, Rhodry? Please, will you take me on? Please?”
It cost him dear to humble himself that way, and for a moment Rhodry wavered.
“I won’t,” he said at last. “Because it would be a rotten thing to do to a man who’s never wronged me.”
Yraen tossed his head and muttered something foul.
“There’s naught out to the west of us, so there’s no use in you riding that way,” Rhodry went on. “On the morrow you’d best head back east to your father. Winter’s coming on fast.”
As if to underscore his point, a blast of wind hit the tavern. Thatch rustled, shutters breathed and banged, the fire smoked. Rhodry started to get up, but Yraen forestalled him, swinging himself clear of the bench and hurrying to the fire.
“I’ll tend it,” he said. “I’ll make you a bargain. I’lsl be your page, and we’ll travel together for a while. I’ll wait on you like I waited on the lord who trained me, when I was a page in his dun, I mean, and then you can see if I’m good enough to carry the dagger.”
“You young dolt, it’s not a question of you proving yourself.”
Yraen ignored him and began to mess about with the fire. Sparks scattered, logs dropped and smothered coals, sticks of glowing charcoal rolled into corners to die.
“I think you’d best let me do that.”
“Well, maybe so. My apologies, but the servants always did the fires at home, not the pages.”
“No doubt.”
“But is this your bedroll? I’ll spread it out for you.”
Before Rhodry could stop him, he did just that, in the best spot nearest the fire in the cleanest straw, and he insisted on straightening out all of Rhodry’s gear, getting his razor out ready for the morning. He would have pulled Rhodry’s boots off for him, too, if Rhodry hadn’t snarled at him. Whoever had trained him as a boy had taught him a few things, at least, about waiting on a lord on campaign.
Rhodry woke early the next morning. Since the tavern room was cold, and the innkeep and his family not yet up, he lay awake thinking, watching the cracks round the shutters turn gray with dawn and listening to Yraen snore by the other side of the fire. A lad who actually wanted to be a silver dagger! A lad whom, he was sure, he remembered. From somewhere. From some time. From some other . . . his mind shied away from the idea like a horse from a snake in the road. Someone he had known, a long, long time ago and then again, not so long ago at all.
With a shake of his head Rhodry got up, moving as quietly as he could, pulled on his boots and grabbed his cloak, then slipped outside to use the privy round by the stables. As he was coming back, he lingered for a while in the inn yard. It had stopped raining, though the sky still hung close and gray, and he leaned onto the low wooden fence and looked idly down the north-running road, leading toward Dun Drw. The rhan’s chief city, it was, the capital of the gwerbrets who once had been kings. We remember the old days, here in Pyrdon, or so Merro had said. Maybe, Rhodry told himself, just maybe I do, too. Then he shook the thought away and hurried inside.
Back in the tavern he found Yraen up and busy. The fire was burning again, the lumps of sod neatly stacked to one side of the hearth; both bedrolls were lashed up and laid ready with the other gear by the door; Yraen himself was badgering the yawning innkeep about heating water for shaving. In the morning light Rhodry could see that the lad did indeed need to shave and revised his estimate of Yraen’s age upward again.
“Morrow, my lord,” Yraen said. “There’s naught for breakfast, our innkeep tells me, but bread and dried apples.”
“It’ll do, and don’t call me your lord.”
Yraen merely grinned. Over breakfast Rhodry tried arguing with him, snarling at him, and downright ordering him to go home, but when they rode out, Yraen rode alongside him. The lad had a beautiful horse, a dapple-gray gelding standing close to seventeen hands, with a delicate head but a barrel chest. When Rhodry glanced at its flank, he found the king’s own brand.
“A gift to my father from his highness,” Yraen said. “And my father gave him to me.”
“You don’t expect me to believe that you left with your father’s blessing, do you?”
“I don’t. I snuck out in the night like a thief, and that’s the one thing that troubles my heart. But I’m one of four brothers, so he’s got plenty of heirs.”
“I see, and you had no prospects at home, anyway.”
“None to speak of.” Yraen flashed him a sour sort of grin. “Unless you count riding in a brother’s warband as a prospect in life.”
Since Rhodry had once been in the same position, he could sympathize, though not to the point of weakening.
“It’s a better prospect than you’ll have on the long road. At least if you die riding for your brother, someone will give you a proper grave. A muddy ditch on the battlefield’s the best a silver dagger can hope for.”
Yraen merely shrugged. Whether eighteen or twenty, Rhodry supposed, he was too young to believe that he would ever die.
“Now look, I’m not going to stand you to the dagger and that’s that. You’re wasting your time and your breath, following me and begging.”
Yraen smiled and said nothing.
“Ye gods, you stubborn young cub!”
“Rhodry, please.” Yraen turned in the saddle so that he could see his unwilling mentor’s face. “I’ll tell you somewhat that I’ve never told anyone before. Will you listen?”
“Oh, very well.”
“When I was about fourteen, just home from serving as a page, my mother gave a fête. And one of her serving women has the second sight, I mean, everyone says she does, and she’s usually right if she outright predicts something. So she dressed up like an old hag and did fortunes, looking into a silver bowl of water by candlelight. Mostly she talked about marriages and silly things like that, you see, but when she came to do mine, she cried out and wouldn’t say anything at all. Mother made me leave, so the fête wouldn’t be spoiled or suchlike, but later I made the woman tell me what she’d seen. And she said she saw me riding as a silver dagger, somewhere far, far away in a wild part of the kingdom, and that when she saw it, she just somehow knew that it was my Wyrd, sent by the gods. And then she started crying, and I had to believe her.”
Rhodry gave him a sharp and searching look, but he’d never seen anyone so sincere. In fact, the lad blushed, and that very embarrassment stood as witness to the truth of his tale.
“I’ll wager you think it’s daft or womanish or both.”
“Not in the least. Well, ride with me a while, then, and we’ll see what the long road brings us. I’m not promising anything, mind. I’m just not sending you away. There’s a difference.”
“There is, at that, but you have my thanks, anyway.”
As he thought about the story, with its talk of serving women and fêtes, Rhodry realized why Yraen looked like a man of twenty but at times acted like a boy. He must have been raised in a very wealthy clan indeed, sheltered down in Deverry by their power and position from the hard times that aged a man fast on the border. Grudgingly he admitted that he rather admired the boy for wanting to leave all that comfort behind and ride looking for adventure. He’ll learn soon enough, he thought. One good rough time of it, and I’ll wager I can send him home—if he lives through whatever the gods choose to send us.
At the moment it seemed that the gods were planning on sending them a storm. Slate-gray swirled with black, the sky hung low in the cold morning, though the rain held off for a few miles. They rode through farmland at first; then a twist in the road brought them to a thin stand of pines and an overlook, where they halted their horses. Some thirty feet below them lay Loc Drw, dark and wrinkled in the wind, stretching off to the north where, in a haze of distance, they could just pick out the stone towers of the gwerbret’s dun.
“I’ve heard that it stands on a little island,” Rhodry remarked. “You reach it by a long causeway. A splendid defensive position.”
“Ah. Well, maybe if this feud in the hills has come to naught, we can find shelter there.”
Rhodry merely nodded. Seeing the lake was affecting him in a way that he couldn’t understand. Although he’d never been in Pyrdon, not once in his life, the long sweep of water looked so achingly familiar that he wasn’t even surprised to hear someone calling his name.
“Rhodry! Hold a moment!”
When Rhodry turned in the saddle, he saw Evandar riding up on a milk-white horse with rusty-red ears. The Guardian was wrapped in a pale gray cloak with the hood shoved back to reveal his daffodil-yellow hair.
“You took my advice, did you?” He smiled in a way meant to be pleasant, but Rhodry noticed his teeth, as sharp and pointed as a cat’s. “Good, good.”
“I had little choice in the matter, but truly, good advice it seems to be. She hasn’t followed me here.”
“I doubt me if she will.” Evandar paused, rummaging in a little leather bag he wore at his belt. “A question for you. Have you ever seen a thing like this before?”
“A whistle, is it?” Rhodry automatically held out his hand and caught it when Evandar tossed it over. “Ych! It looks like it’s made of human bone!”
“Or elven, truly, except it’s too long. I thought at first that two finger joints had somehow been joined into one, but look at it, close like.”
Rhodry did so, holding it up and twisting it this way and that. All at once he remembered Yraen. The lad was clutching his saddle peak with both hands, leaning forward and staring, his mouth slacked open like a half-wit’s.
“I told you that you should ride back to your father’s dun,” Rhodry said, grinning. “It’s not too late.”
Yraen shook his head in a stubborn no. Evandar looked him over with a thoughtful tilt of his head.
“And you are?”
“My name’s Yraen,” he snapped. “What’s it to you?”
“Yraen? Now there’s a well-omened name!” Evandar laughed aloud. “Oh, splendid! You’ve found a fine companion, Rhodry, and I for one am glad of it. Good morrow, lads. A good morrow to you both.”
With a friendly wave he turned his horse and trotted off along the lakeshore, yet, before he’d gone more than a hundred yards, both he and his horse seemed to waver, to dissolve, to change into mist, a puff of it, blowing across the water and then gone.
“Ye gods,” Yraen whispered. “Oh, ye gods.”
“Go home, then, where spirits fear to ride.”
“Shan’t. That’s what we get, riding on Samaen day, and cursed and twice cursed if I’ll run from some rotten ghost.”
“No such thing as ghosts. Our Evandar’s a good bit stranger than that, and by the hells, he’s gone and left me with the wretched whistle.” Rhodry breathed a few quiet notes into it. “It makes a nasty sound, it does.”
“Then maybe you’d best just throw it into the lake. Last thing we need is a pack of spirits, coming at your call.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, lad. There are spirits and spirits, and some can be useful, in their way.” He grinned and leaned forward to unlace the flap of his saddlebag. “It’s too strange to throw away. Looks like it’s been made from the bone of a bird’s wing, but one fine big bird it must have been, an eagle or suchlike. Want a look at it?”
“I don’t.” Yraen cleared his throat to cover the squeak in his voice. “We’d best get riding. Going to rain soon.”
“So it is. Well, south and east, our Merro said, and we’ll see if this feud has a hire for the likes of us.”

At about the time that Rhodry and Yraen were riding away from the lake, Dallandra woke, after what seemed an ordinary night’s sleep to her. The cloth-of-gold pavilion was empty except for the sunlight, streaming through the fabric so brightly that it seemed she lay in the middle of a candle flame. Yawning, rubbing her eyes, she got up and stumbled outside, where she stood for a long moment, getting her bearings in the warm day. The dancing was over; the meadow, empty, except for Evandar, sitting under the oak tree. When he saw her coming, he rose and hailed her.
“There you are, my love. Refreshed?”
“Oh, yes, but how long have I slept?”
“Just the night.” He was grinning in his sly way. “And you needed a bit of a rest.”
“Just the night here, yes. How long?”
“Oh, some years, I suppose, as Time runs back in your country. It was winter there, when I left Rhodry on the road.”
“When you what? Ye gods! Will you tell me what you’ve been doing?”
“I will, but there’s not much to tell. I just wanted to see if he was safe and well.”
“Let me think. He’s the one with the ring, isn’t he? You know, I do wish you’d tell me about that ring.”
“There’s naught to tell. The ring is just a perfectly ordinary bit of jewelry.”
“Aha! Then Jill’s right. It is the word inside that’s so important!”
“You’re too clever for me, my love. So it is, and I wonder if Jill’s found the secret yet. No doubt she will, because she’s as clever as you are, in her way. And so, why should I waste my breath, telling secrets that you’ll only unravel between you?”
When Dallandra made a mock swing his way, he laughed, ducking back.
“Are you hungry, my love? Should I call a servant to bring you food?”
“No, thank you. There’s naught I need but answers.”
Grinning, he ignored her hint.
“Help me look for something, will you?” he said. “That wretched whistle. I had it this morning, and now I’ve lost the thing.”
“It’s just as well. It was ill-omened, I swear it. Why don’t you let it go?”
“Because its owner might come looking for it, and if I had it, I could make a bargain.” He paused, frowning at the water reeds. “I was walking over there when I came back. Maybe I dropped it in the river. By those hells men swear by, I hope not.”
“Why not scry for it?”
“Of course!” He grinned in a sly sort of way. “Here’s a trick you might not have seen before. Watch.”
When he knelt beside the river, she joined him and did just that while he described a circle in the air with a flick of one hand. The motion-trace glowed, became solid, then settled upon the flowing water like a circle of rope, but unlike the rope, it remained in the same spot instead of floating downstream. Within the circle pictures appeared, all hazy and strange at first, then forming into clear images: a muddy road, a rainy sky, a vast lake, rippled and dark. Two riders appeared, one dark-haired, one light.
“Rhodry,” Evandar remarked. “And the yellow-haired fellow’s Yraen. Now here I am, riding up to them.”
Riding up, talking, and handing Rhodry the whistle—the memory vision broke when Evandar swore under his breath.
“I forgot to take it back from him. Well, it’s gone, then. No use in worrying over it.”
“Now just wait! We can’t leave him with that ill-omened thing without even a warning. It’s as you said: what if its owner comes looking for it?”
Evandar shrugged, turning half away to stare at the swift water, flowing between the sword-sharp rushes. All at once he seemed old, his face fine-drawn and far too pale. The sun darkened, as if it had gone behind a cloud, and the wind, too, blew suddenly cold.
“What’s so wrong?” she said, and sharply.
“I forgot, that’s what. I simply forgot that I’d handed him the whistle, forgot that I left it back in the lands of men.”
“Well, everyone forgets something every now and then.”
He shook his head in a stubborn no.
“You don’t understand,” he snapped. “This is a serious matter. I grow weary, my love, more weary every day, and now, it seems, feeble-minded as well. How long will I be able to keep our lands safe and blooming?” He paused, rubbing his eyes with both hands, digging the palms hard into his cheekbones. “It’s true. You’ve got to take my people away with you, and soon.”
She started to make her ritual protest, to beg him to come himself, but an idea struck her, and she said nothing. He dropped his hands and looked at her with a flash of anger in his turquoise eyes.
“Well,” she said carelessly. “If you’ve made your mind up to stay behind, who am I to argue with you?”
“I’m no man to argue with, no.” But for the first time, she heard doubt in his voice.
She merely nodded her agreement and looked away.
“Well, someone had best go after Rhodry,” she said. “Will you?”
“I can’t. One of us has to stay here, on guard. It was foolish of me to leave while you slept, truly.”
“But I’ve never seen him in the flesh. Sharing your memory won’t help me scry him out.”
“True.” He hesitated, thinking. “I know. Scry for the whistle. You’ve handled it, even.”
“True enough. All right, let me see if I can, before I actually go anywhere.”
Sure enough, picturing the image of the bone whistle led her in vision straight to Rhodry. Yet, when she found him, she was glad she’d been so prudent and not gone haring off to Deverry in search of him without a look first. The vision showed her a stone dun, far east of the elven border, where a cold and sleeting rain turned the outer wards to mud. Inside, the great hall swarmed with human men, most armed. Off in the curve of the wall the whistle appeared in sharp focus, held in Rhodry’s hands, although Rhodry himself was hard to see clearly, simply because she’d never actually met him on the physical plane, merely seen him in several states of vision over the years. As far as she could tell, he was showing the whistle to some lord’s bard, who merely shook his head over it and shrugged to show his ignorance of the subject.
Since she saw no elves in the hall, and no one with the golden aura of a dweomermaster, either, Dallandra focused the vision down a level, till it seemed to her that she stood in the great hall at Rhodry’s side. From this stance she could see him a good bit more clearly and pick out his companion as well, the young blond fellow that Evandar had called “Yraen,” the Deverrian word for iron and thus doubtless only a nickname. The bard, an elderly fellow, set his harp down on the floor and took the whistle, turning it this way and that to study it.
As she hovered there, looking round within the room of her vision, a flash of blue etheric light caught her eye. Over by the hearth something man-shaped and man-sized appeared, swinging its head this way and that, but judging from the shape of that head, flat and snouted like a badger’s, and its skin, covered with short blue-gray fur, there was nothing human in its nature. It was dressed in human clothes, but of a peculiar cut: brown wool brigga that came only to its knees, a linen shirt as full as those Deverry men wore, but lacking sleeves and collar. Round its neck it wore a gold torc. Slowly it stood and began ambling over to Rhodry’s side, but no one in the room seemed to see it at all. At times, in fact, one of the men might have walked right into it if the creature hadn’t jumped out of their way.
All at once Rhodry spun round and yelped aloud, pointing straight at the snouted beast. Dallandra had forgotten that he was half-elven, with that race’s inherent ability to see etheric forms, so long, that is, as the forms are imposed into the physical plane. It seemed that the creature hadn’t known it, either. It shrieked and disappeared, leaving behind a puff of evil-looking etheric substance like black smoke. Apparently the shriek was a thing of thought only, because none of the men, not even Rhodry, reacted to it. What did happen was that a cluster of men formed round the silver dagger, all of them looking puzzled and asking questions. Talking a flood of explanations, Yraen grabbed the bone whistle with one hand and Rhodry’s arm with the other and dragged him out of the hall.
Dallandra followed, hovering round them until she was sure that the badger-thing was gone for good, then broke the vision cold and flew up the planes. She found Evandar waiting where she’d left him on the riverbank. When she told him the story, his mood turned as dark as a summer storm.
“Then it’s as I thought, my love,” he snarled. “Curse them all! Sniffing and snouting round my country, threatening harm to a man under my protection!”
“Who?”
“The dark court. Those who dwell farther in.” He rose, snapping his fingers and snatching from midair a silver horn. “This could well mean war.”
“Now wait! If I simply go and fetch the whistle back—”
“That won’t matter. This is a question of boundaries, and those are the most important questions of all.”
With a toss of his head he raised the horn and blew, a long note that was both sweet and terrifying. In a clang of bronze and silver and a storm of shouting, the Host came rushing to ring him round.
“Our borders! They’ve breached our borders!” Evandar called out. “To horse!”
With a roar of approval the Host raised their spears and yelled for horses. Servants swarmed out of nowhere to bring them, and these steeds were every one white with rusty-red ears. Evandar helped Dallandra mount, then swung up onto his own horse, gathered the reins in one hand, and rode up beside her.
“If things go against us, my love, flee for your life back to the Westlands, but I’d beg you to remember me for a little while.”
“Never could I forget you.” She felt cold horror choking her throat. “But what do you think might happen?”
“I don’t know.” He laughed, suddenly as gleeful as a child. “I don’t have the least idea.”
The Host howled laughter with him. Holding the silver horn above his head in one hand, Evandar led them out at a jog upstream along the riverbank. Over the mutter of water and the jingling of armor and tack Dallandra found it impossible to ask him questions—not, she supposed, that he would have answered them. There was nothing for her to do but ride and picture horrible imaginings of war.
Once, hundreds of years past as men and elves reckoned time, though it seemed but a few years ago to her, she’d done what she could with herbs and bandages after a battle, when wounded man after wounded man was dragged to her and dumped bleeding or dying onto the wagon bed she was using for a surgery. Hour after hour it went on, till she was so exhausted that she could barely stand, though no more could she bear to stop tending such need. It seemed to her that she could smell all over again the lumps and streaks of gore clotting black on her hands and arms. With a moan of real pain she tossed her head and forced the memories away. Evandar, riding a bit ahead of her, never heard.
By then the river had sunk and dwindled to a white-water stream, cutting a canyon some twenty feet below and to the left of the road, The sun hung red and swollen off to their right, as if they saw it through the smoke of some enormous fire. Ahead lay plains, as flat and seemingly infinite as those in the Westlands, stretching on and on to a horizon where clouds—or was it smoke—billowed like a frozen wave, all bloody red from the bloated sun. Ahead out in the grasslands this hideous light winked and gleamed on spears and armor. Evandar blew three sharp notes on the silver horn. The Host behind him howled, and a dusty wind blew back in answer the sound of another horn and the shouting of the enemy.
“Peel off!” Evandar yelled at Dallandra. “Stay in safety and prepare to flee!”
Sick-cold and shaking, she followed his orders, turning her horse out of line and heading off to the right, where she could lag behind the warband. Yet both her caution and her fear went for naught that day. As they rode closer to the assembled army, waiting out in the plain, a herald broke ranks and came trotting out, carrying a staff wound with colored ribands in the Deverry manner. When Evandar began screaming orders, the Host clattered to a stop behind him and reined their horses up into a rough semicircle, spread out by the river. Clad in glittering black helms and mail, their opponents wheeled round to face them, but they kept their distance. In a muddle of curiosity and fear for her lover’s life, Dallandra kicked her horse to a trot and rejoined Evandar as he jogged out to meet the herald. As if in answer to her gesture, one of the enemy warriors broke ranks and trailed after the herald, but he tucked his helm under one arm and held his spear loosely couched and pointed at the ground.
When out between the armies the two sides met, Dallandra nearly lost all her courtesy; with great difficulty she stifled a noise that would have been partly an oath, partly a scream. Although both the herald and the warrior facing them were shaped like men, and both were wearing human-style clothes and armor, their faces were grotesquely distorted, the herald all swollen and pouched, his skin hanging in great folds of warty flesh round his neck, while the warrior was more than a little vulpine, with pointed ears tufted with red fur and a roach of red hair running from his forehead over his skull and down to the back of his neck, while his beady black eyes glittered above a long, sharp nose. The herald was bald and hunchbacked as well, though he did speak perfect Elvish with a musical voice.
“What brings you to the battle plain, Evandar? My lord has committed no fault against you or yours.”
“A fault he has done, good herald, against a man marked as mine, and all for the sake of a trinket dropped in my country and thus mine by treaty.”
When the herald swung his head round in appeal to the warrior behind him, the swags and wattles of skin grated with a sound like dry twigs scraping over one another. The warrior acknowledged his gesture with a nod, then spurred his horse to the herald’s side. For a moment he and Evandar considered each other in silence, while the herald turned dead-pale and began to edge his mount backward. Dallandra noticed then that the ancient creature’s eyes were pink and rheumy.
“Not one word of what you say makes the least sense,” the leader of the Dark Host said at last. “What trinket?”
“A whistle made of some kind of bone,” Evandar said. “And dropped by one of your spies, I’ll wager. I gave it to a human man named Rhodry, and now one of your folk’s come sniffing round him to fetch it back.”
“I know naught of what you say. Never have I owned or seen a bone whistle.”
Evandar studied him with narrowed eyes while the herald fidgeted in his saddle.
“Tell me this,” Evandar said at last. “Have ever you seen or accepted service from a man with a head and snout as flat and blunt as a badger’s, and him all hairy with grey fur, who dresses as the Deverry men dressed when first they came into their new country?”
“And what name does he answer to?”
“I don’t know, but he wears a twisted rod of gold round his neck.”
“Then I know him, yes, but he’s no longer one of mine. Some of my people have broken from my rule and command, Evandar, just as, or so I hear, some have from yours.” All at once he grinned, pulling dark lips back from sharp white teeth. “Even your wife, or so the rumors say.”
“My liege!” With a little shriek the herald rode in between them. “If we’re here to prevent a battle, perhaps the harsh ways of speaking had best be laid aside.”
“Go away, old man,” the fox warrior snarled. “My brother and I will solve this thing between us.”
Dallandra caught her breath in a little gasp. Was this then her lover’s true kin and his true form? Sitting easily on his horse Evandar merely smiled at his rival, and he looked so truly elven at that moment, except perhaps for his impossibly yellow hair, that she found it hard—no, she refused—to think of him as anything but a man of her own people. Whimpering, the herald pulled back.
“Women tire of men all the time,” Evandar remarked, still smiling. “Tend to your rebels, and I’ll tend to mine. Are you telling me that you hold no command over our snouted friend?”
“I am. Just that. Some few have left my host, claiming they’ve found more powerful protectors elsewhere. At first I thought they’d gone over to you.”
“No such thing, not in the least. The woman you spoke of told me about new and powerful friends as well.”
For a long moment they stared at each other, each man, if such you could call them, leaning a bit forward over his horse’s neck, their eyes locked as if they could read truth from each other in some secret way. Then the fox warrior grunted under his breath and sat back, shifting his weight and bringing up his spear to the vertical.
“This is no time for feuding between us. I’ll give you a weapon against this rebel of mine.”
“And I’ll offer you my thanks in return, but give it to this woman who rides with me, for she’s the one who’ll need it.”
The warrior turned, pausing to look Dallandra over as if he’d just noticed her presence, then with another grunt tossed her the spear. She caught it in one hand, surprised at the length and the heft of it: good oak with a leaf-shaped bronze head, set by its tang into the wood and bound round with bronze bands.
“Make that as short or as long as you please,” he remarked, then turned back to his brother. “Farewell, Evandar, and let there be peace between us until we settle this other matter.”
“Farewell, brother, but I’d wish for peace between us always and forever.”
The fox warrior merely sneered. With a wave of one hand, each finger tipped with a black claw instead of a nail, he wheeled his horse and headed back toward his army. With a roar like a flood racing down a dry ditch they all swung round and galloped off, raising a cloud of dust, shouting, screaming over the clatter of horse gear, till silence fell so hard that it rang louder than the shouts, and the dust settled to reveal an empty field, though the grass lay trampled and torn. Behind Evandar the bright host gathered, muttering their disappointment.
“We ride for home,” he announced. “Dalla, that spear’s too large for you to carry into the lands of men.”
He flicked his hand in its direction, then wheeled his horse round to lead his army away. Dallandra felt the spear quiver in her hand like a live thing. It shrank so fast that she nearly dropped it. She twisted it round and laid it across her saddle in the little space behind the peak, then fought to hold it down as it writhed and shriveled till at last she held a dagger and naught more. A strange thing it was, too, with a leaf-shaped blade of bronze stuck into a crude wood hilt. As she studied it she saw that the bronze band clasping the wood closed round the tang sported a graved line of tiny dragons.
“Dalla, come along!” Evandar called out. “It’s too dangerous to linger here.”
She slipped the dagger into her belt, then turned her horse and followed, galloping to catch up, dropping to a jog as they led their troops home to the meadowlands. All the way she rode just a little behind Evandar, and she found herself studying his slender back, his yellow mop of hair, all, in fact, of his so accurately portrayed elven form, and wondering just what he really did look like when no glamours lay upon him.

“Tell me somewhat honestly, young Yraen,” Lord Erddyr said. “Is Rhodry daft?”
“I wouldn’t say that, my lord, but then, I’ve known him less than a year, now.”
“Well, I keep thinking about the way he sees things. Things that aren’t really there. I mean, I suppose they aren’t really there.” Erddyr let his words trail away and began chewing on his thick gray mustaches.
As Time runs in our world, the winter solstice lay months in the past, though it was still some weeks till the spring equinox. Bundled in heavy cloaks against the cold, the lord and his not-quite-a-silver-dagger were walking out in the ward of Dun Gamullyn, where Yraen and Rhodry had spent the winter past as part of the lord’s warband. Although the sun had barely risen, servants were already up and at their work, bringing firewood and food into the kitchen hut or hurrying to the stables to tend the horses.
Yawning and shivering, the night watch was just climbing down from the ramparts.
“Ah, well, when the fighting starts, won’t matter if he’s daft or not,” Erddyr said at last. “And I’m willing to wager it’s going to start soon. Snow’s been gone for what? a fortnight now? And down in the valleys the grass is breaking through. Soon, lad, soon. We’ll see if you two can earn your winter’s keep.”
“I swear to you, my lord, that we’ll do our best to repay your generosity, even though it be with our heart’s blood.”
“Well-spoken lad, aren’t you? Especially for an apprentice silver dagger or whatever it is you are.”
Erddyr was smiling, but his dark eyes seemed to be taking Yraen’s measure, and a little too shrewdly for Yraen’s comfort. All winter he’d done his best to avoid the lord’s company, an easy enough thing to do, but every now and then he’d noticed Erddyr looking him and Rhodry both over with just this kind of thoughtful calculation.
“Apprenticeship is a good word for it, my lord. Well, I’d best be on my way and not distract my lord from his affairs any longer.”
Erddyr laughed.
“Very well spoken, indeed! That’s a nice fancy way of saying you want to make your retreat before I ask you any awkward questions. Don’t worry, lad. Out here in the west you silver daggers are valuable men, and we’ve all learned not to go meddling with your private affairs.”
“Well, my thanks, my lord.”
“Though, well . . . ” Erddyr hesitated a minute. “You don’t have to answer this, mind, but you and Rhodry are both noble-born, aren’t you?”
Yraen felt his face burning with a blush. Here was someone else who’d seen right through his secret, even though he’d been trying to act like an ordinary fellow.
“I can’t answer for Rhodry, my lord,” he stammered.
“Don’t need to.” Erddyr gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Well, I’ll let you down from the rack, lad. Go get your breakfast.”
That afternoon, while Yraen and Rhodry were sitting together over on the warband’s side of the great hall, a weary messenger, his clothes all splashed with mud from the spring roads, came rushing in to kneel before Lord Erddyr. The entire warband fell silent to watch while the lord summoned his scribe to read the proffered letter, but they couldn’t quite hear the old man’s voice over the general noise of the dun. At length, however, the warband’s captain, Renydd, was summoned to his lordship’s side, and he brought the news back.
“Our lord and his allies have had a bit of luck, lads. Oldadd took Tewdyr’s son and half his warband on the road, just by blind chance and naught more.” He paused for a grin. “Our lords are going to get themselves a nice bit of coin out of this, I tell you.”
The warband broke out laughing and began heaping insults on the name and lineage both of Lord Tewdyr, a famous local miser. As all blood feuds were, the situation was complex. Along with several other noble clans, Lord Erddyr, Rhodry and Yraen’s employer, and his young ally, Lord Oldadd, owed various bonds of family and fealty to one Lord Comerr, who was feuding with a certain Lord Adry for many and various reasons, most of which went back several generations. Adry had allies of his own, the chief one being the aforementioned miser, Tewdyr, who was now going to have to ransom back his oldest son and some twenty of their men.
Lord Erddyr spent the afternoon sending messages to all and sundry, and toward sunset Lord Oldadd and his warband of forty escorted their prize into the lord’s dun. Since the nights were warming up, the horses were turned out of their stables, which became a temporary prison for the hostages, except of course for the son himself, Lord Dwyn, who upon an honor pledge became Erddyr’s guest more than his prisoner. During the dinner that evening, Yraen watched the noble-born at their table across the great hall. Erddyr and Oldadd laughed and joked; Dwyn stared at his plate and shoveled food.
“He might as well eat all he can stuff in,” Renydd said with a grin. “His father sets a poor enough table.”
When the warband roared with laughter, Dwyn looked up and glared their way. Although he was too far away to have overheard Renydd’s remark, he could no doubt guess that he was being mocked. Yraen started to join the general good time, then noticed Rhodry, sitting in the straw by the door and staring at nothing again. His eyes moved as if he watched some creature about the size of a cat; every now and then his mouth twitched as if he were suppressing a smile. Yraen got up and walked over, half thinking of telling him to stop. He was both embarrassed for the man he’d come to consider a friend and afraid that this daft behavior would get them both thrown out of the warband before the war even started. Eventually, whatever Rhodry thought he was watching seemed to take itself off, and the silver dagger turned his attention back to the men around him. When he caught Yraen standing nearby and staring at him, he grinned.
“Beyond this world lies another world, invisible to the eyes of men but not of elves,” Rhodry said. “That’s a quote from a book, by the way.”
“Of course it is: Mael the Seer. His Ethics, isn’t it?”
“Just that. You’ve read it?”
“I have. Oh. Curse it!”
“What’s so wrong?”
“I just remembered a thing that Lord Erddyr said to me this morning. He asked me if I—we, I mean, you and I—asked me if we were noble-born, and I wondered how he knew, but I suppose I’ve been acting like a courtly man. I shouldn’t even admit I can read, should I?”
“Depends. Out here very few noble-born men can read, so I suppose it’d mark you as son of a scribe or suchlike.”
“And what about you? You can quote from the Seer’s books, but I can’t believe that you were raised in a scriptorium.”
“I wasn’t, at that.” Rhodry flashed him a grin. “But as to where I spent my tender years, I . . . oh, by the gods!”
All at once he sprang to his feet and spun round, peering out the door, and his hand drifted of its own accord to his sword hilt. Yraen glanced back to find that, much to his relief, no one else had noticed. When Rhodry slipped outside, he followed, wondering if he was going daft himself for suddenly and somehow believing that Rhodry was in danger.
Outside, the ward was dark, silent except for the noise spilling through the windows of the dun. Once Yraen’s eyes adjusted to the dim light from a starry sky and a sliver of moon, he saw Rhodry standing some five feet away. Otherwise nothing or no one moved, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched.
“Rhodry?” Yraen whispered it, even as he wondered why he was keeping his voice down. “What’s so wrong?”
“Shush! Come here.”
As quietly as he could Yraen stepped up beside him.
“There,” Rhodry hissed. “By the cart. Can you see him?”
Yraen obligingly looked. Some ten feet ahead of them stood a slab-sided wooden cart, tipped forward with the wagon tree resting on the cobbles. Its whitewashed side caught a square of light from one of the dun windows; Yraen could pick out the blurry shadow thrown by a tankard that someone had set on the win-dowsill. In the reflected light, he should have been able to see whatever it was that Rhodry saw . . . if indeed it was actually there.
“I can’t see a cursed thing.” Yet still, he whispered. “Much less anything I could call a ‘him.’ What do you—”
He stopped, feeling cold fear run down his spine. Although he saw nothing solid twixt the window and the cart, a shadow suddenly fell, a distinct silhouette, on the white square. It looked like a shadow thrown by a man standing sideways, except for the head, which was blunt and snouted. In one clawed paw it carried a dagger, raised and ready. In dead silence Rhodry drew his sword and flashed the blade in the light. The shadow wavered and distorted like an image seen on a still pond will bend and billow when someone throws a rock into the water. Yraen could have sworn he heard a faint and animal squeal; then the shadow disappeared. Chortling under his breath, Rhodry sheathed the sword.
“Still think I’m daft?”
Much to his surprise, Yraen found that he couldn’t talk. He shrugged and flapped one hand in a helpless sort of way.
“I’ve no doubt that every man in this dun thinks I am,” Rhodry went on. “And you know, I wish I was. Things would be so much simpler that way.”
Yraen nodded with a little gargling sound deep in his throat.
“It’s spring. The roads are passable and all that. Why don’t you just ride home, lad?”
“Shan’t.” Yraen found his voice at last. “I want the silver dagger, and I don’t give up on things I want so easily.”
“As stubborn as a lord should be, huh? Well, as our Seer says, in the book called On Nobility, it does not become a noble-born man to quail at the thought of invisible things or to run from what he cannot see merely because he cannot see it.”
“I’m not in the mood for great thoughts from great minds just now, my thanks. I—here, hold a moment! What was that bit you recited earlier? Not to the eyes of elves, he said. I always thought elves were some sort of a daft jest or bard’s fancy, but . . . ”
“But what?” Rhodry was grinning at him.
“Oh, hold your tongue, you rotten horse apple!”
Yraen spun on his heel and strode back into the light and noise of the great hall. For the first time in all the long months since he’d left Dun Deverry and his father’s court, he was beginning to consider riding home.
Over the next few days Yraen kept a jittery watch, but never did he see more evidences of hidden things or presences. Mostly he and Rhodry had little to do but sit in the great hall and dice for coppers with the rest of the warband while the negotiations went back and forth between Tewdyr and Erddyr in a regular spate of heralds. The gossip said that Tewdyr was trying to bargain for a lower rate of exchange.
“What a niggardly old bastard he is,” Renydd said one morning.
“Just that and twice over,” Rhodry said. “But in a way, he’s got a point. With a war on, coin’s as precious as men.”
“It must look that way to a silver dagger.”
There was such cold contempt in his voice that Yraen felt like jumping up and challenging him, but Rhodry merely shrugged the insult away. Later, he remarked to Yraen, casually, that causing trouble in the warband was a good way for a silver dagger to lose a hire.
Soon enough, though, the men as well as the lords realized that Tewdyr was holding out for a very good reason. Late the next day a rider came galloping in with the news that Erddyr’s allies had marched and were holding Lord Adry under siege. Since Erddyr was required to join them at once, he was forced to lower his demands, at which Tewdyr finally capitulated and arranged the exchange. Early in the morning, Lords Erddyr and Oldadd took their full warbands and escorted the prisoners back to neutral ground, an old stone bridge over a deep-running stream.
On the other side of the bridge, Tewdyr, all red beard and scowls, waited with the remaining men of his warband and another noble lord with twenty-five men of his own. The two heralds walked their horses onto the middle of the bridge and conferred with a flurry of bows. A sack of coin changed hands; Erddyr’s herald counted it carefully, then brought it back to his lord. With a grin, Erddyr slipped it inside his shirt and yelled at his men to let the prisoners through. Head held high, Lord Dwyn led his twenty men across to his father’s side.
“Good,” Renydd said. “Now we can get on with the real sport.”
Back at the dun, the wooden carts were drawn up in the ward. Like ants bringing crumbs to a nest, a line of servants hurried back and forth to pile them up with grain and supplies. On the morrow, the warbands would be riding to help hold the siege at Lord Adry’s dun.
“This Comerr’s got a couple of hundred men at the siege,” Rhodry told Yraen. “And we’ll be bringing him eighty more. They tell me that Adry’s got about ninety men shut in with him, so it all depends on how many Tewdyr and his other allies can raise. Huh—I’ll wager Tewdyr’s going to put up a good fight now. The old miser’s got a thorn up his ass good and proper.”
“Did you see how the herald counted that coin? I’ll wager Erddyr ordered him to do it.”
“So do I. Most heralds have more courtesy than that.”
Although Rhodry chattered on, Yraen barely heard the rest of it. Now that the war was finally upon them, he felt his own secret rising in his mind to turn him cold. Even though he’d won many a tournament down in Dun Deverry, even though the royal weaponmasters all proclaimed him one of the finest students they’d ever had, he’d never ridden to a real battle, not once in his young life. Considering the peaceful state of the kingdom’s heartland, it was unlikely that he ever would have done so, either, if he’d rested content with his position in life as a pampered minor prince of the blood royal. The very safety and luxury of his life had always seemed shameful to him, a goad that had driven him out, seeking the long road and battle glory. Never once, until this icy moment in Lord Erddyr’s great hall, had he considered that he might be frightened when the chance for that glory finally presented itself.
Yet, that evening it seemed his Wyrd was mocking him. Erddyr, of course, had to leave a fort guard behind him. He chose a few of the oldest and less fit men in the warband, then told his men to dice and let the gods decide the rest of the roster. Yraen lost. When his dice came up low, he stared at them for a long while in stunned disbelief, then cursed with every foul oath he could remember. What was this? Was he doomed to spend his entire life safe behind walls no matter how hard he tried to break out? All at once he realized that Erddyr and Renydd were both laughing at him.
“No one can say you lack mettle, silver dagger,” Erddyr said. “But if I make an exception for you, I’ll have to make exceptions for others, and then what’s the wretched use of dicing at all? Fort guard it is for you!”
“As his lordship commands,” Yraen said. “But I just can’t believe my rotten luck.”

Down in southern Pyrdon, the crop of winter wheat had already sprouted. A feathery green dusted the fields bordering the river that Dallandra found when she appeared in the world of men. Judging from the direction of the sun as well as her scant knowledge of the country, the river seemed to lead northeast into the hills. She was well prepared for her journey, with Deverry clothes, a fine horse, and every piece of gear she might need—all stolen, a bit here and there from this town or that, by Evandar’s folk. Her only salve for her raw conscience was Evandar’s promise that they’d give it all back again when she was done with it. At her suggestion, they’d outfitted her as if she were Jill, the only model she had for a woman alone on the Deverry roads.
Leading a pack mule, laden with herbs and medicines, she rode past tidy farmsteads where aspens and poplars quivered with their first green buds. Behind the earthen walls, skinny white cattle with rusty-red ears chewed sour hay while they longed for meadows. In a lazy curve of the river, she found a town, some fifty round wooden houses scattered around an open square and set off from one another by greening poplar trees, where a gaggle of women in long blue dresses leaned onto their water buckets and gossiped at the stone well. Before they noticed her, she dismounted, gathering her nerve and wondering if Evandar’s magic would truly hold against human eyes. When she looked at her own hands or her reflection in water, she saw her usual elven self, but he had assured her that others would see an old, white-haired human woman and nothing more.
Clucking to her horse and mule, she gathered her courage and walked over.
“Good morrow,” she said. “Is there a tavern in this town?”
“There is, good dame. Right over there.” A young woman smiled at her. “I don’t mean to be rude, but how are you faring, traveling the roads all alone, and at your age, too?”
“Oh, I’m like an old hen, too tough even for soup.”
The women all laughed pleasantly and nodded to themselves, as if wishing for a life as long for themselves. Feeling a good bit more sanguine about her ruse, Dallandra led her stock across the village square to the tavern. In a muddy side yard she found the tie rail, then went in. The small, well-scrubbed tavern room was empty except for the tavernman himself, a young, dark-haired fellow with a big linen apron wrapped around his shirt and brigga.
“Good morrow, good herbwoman,” he said. “Can I fetch you a tankard?”
“Of dark, and draw one for yourself and join me.”
They carried their ale to a table by an open window to sit in the pale afternoon sun.
“I was thinking of riding up into the hills to gather fresh medicines,” Dallandra said. “But a peddler I met on the road warned me about a blood feud brewing.”
“Indeed?” The tavernman had a sip of ale and considered the problem. “Now, a fortnight past, we had a merchant come in with fresh-sheared fleece for the local weaver. He was from the hills to the east of here, and he was fair troubled, he was, about a feud in his lord’s lands. Lord Adry, the name was. The wool merchant was telling me that the whole countryside could go up in a war just like tinder, he says, just like dry tinder in a hearth.”
“Sounds bad, truly. But I’ve been looking for someone, and a feud would draw him the way mead draws flies. He’s a silver dagger, an Eldidd man, dark hair with a streak of gray in it, blue eyes, the Eldidd way of speaking. Seen anyone like that through here?”
“I haven’t, no, but if he’s ridden this way, Lord Adry’s feud is where you’ll find him.”
The trouble was, of course, that Dallandra had no idea exactly which way Rhodry had ridden. As far as Evandar had been able to tell from his scrying, the silver dagger was somewhere in this part of Pyrdon, but her main focus was the bone whistle, which spent most of its time in the dark of Rhodry’s saddlebags. She was reduced, therefore, to asking round for information like any ordinary soul.
When she left the village, Dallandra crossed the river on a rickety wooden bridge and headed east for the hills and Lord Adry’s dangerous feud. She camped that night in a greening meadow by a small stream, where she could water her horse and mule and tether them out to graze. From a nearby farmhouse she bought half a loaf of bread and an armful of wood for a campfire. Once it was dark, she built a fire without bothering to use kindling, called on the Wildfolk of Fire, and lit the logs with a wave of her hand.
Dallandra called up a memory image of the bone whistle, focused it sharply, and let her mind range over the Inner Lands to pick up its trail. She was in luck. All at once, in a swirl of flames, she saw not a memory, but a vision of the thing, lying in Rhodry’s hands. He was showing it round to a circle of men standing near a campfire. When she expanded the vision, using Rhodry’s eyes as her own, she saw that the campfire was only one of many, spread out in a meadow crowded with soldiers and horses, arranged in a wide arc of a circle. In the center of that circle she could just make out the dark rise of a towered dun. So Rhodry had found himself a hire, indeed, and seemed to be in the midst of a siege army as well. Unfortunately, Dallandra had no idea of where he might be, other than in a meadow in what seemed like hill country—a description that could apply to hundreds of miles of territory.
Irritably she broke the vision and got up to pace back and forth in front of the dying fire. So far, the tavernman’s vague report of Lord Adry’s feud was the only clue she had, but if all the lords in this part of the province were about to be drawn into it, Rhodry could be riding for any one of ten different men. At least a siege will keep him put in one place, she thought, and by the gods of both my people and of men, everyone for miles around will be talking about the thing!

After Lord Erddyr led his men out, his wife took over the command of the dun and the fort guard. Lady Melynda, a stout woman, was as gray as her husband, with quick-humored blue eyes. Whenever she smiled, she kept her lips tight together, a gesture that made her seem supercilious. When Yraen got to know the lady better, he realized that Melynda was simply missing the teeth in the front of her mouth and hated to show it. During the evening, the lady sat at the head of the table of honor, with her two serving women to either side of her. Across the great hall, the fort guard ate quietly, minding their manners in deference to the lady. The days passed as slowly and silently as water running in a full stream, while the fort guard divided their time between keeping watch on the walls and exercising their horses, riding round and round the dun. Every now and then they would go perhaps a quarter of a mile down the main road, then gallop back fast for a bit of excitement.
After three days, the first messenger rode in, told Lady Melynda that the siege was going quietly, then rode out that same night on a fresh horse. The lady began an elaborate piece of needlework—a set of bed hangings, covered with interlaced tendrils and the red rose blazon of her husband’s clan. Up at the honor table, she and her serving women marked out the vast stretches of linen in silence and sewed on them grimly and steadily for hours at a time. Yraen found himself thinking about his mother, even though he was ashamed of himself for doing it, and her own needlework projects, so like the Lady Melynda’s, that helped her put griefs and disappointments aside. Most likely she’d started some new bed hangings or suchlike when the chamberlain had reported him gone.
On the fifth day, Rhodry rode back to the dun as Erddyr’s messenger. He was so clean and well-shaven that Yraen and everyone else could figure out that the siege was dragging on without incident. While he ate a hasty meal at one of the riders’ tables, the fort guard clustered round him and asked for news. There was none.
“Sieges are always tedious,” Rhodry said. “I wonder what’s happened to old Tewdyr and his lads?”
“Gathering allies, most like.” Yraen hoped that he was saying something knowledgeable. “Doesn’t Erddyr have any spies?”
“Probably, but no one tells me that sort of thing.”
The fort guard all sighed in agreement.
When he was done eating, Yraen walked him down to the gate and saw him off, just for something to do. Rhodry started to mount up, then hesitated, running one hand over his saddlebags.
“I’m thinking of leaving these here with you,” Rhodry said.
“Hum? Won’t you need—Oh, ye gods, the whistle.”
“Just that. It’s getting to be a nuisance, having to stay on watch every moment for thieves, and there we are, packed cheek by jowl into the camp, where everyone can hear every word I say, so I can’t even swear at the evil beast when I see him prowling round. But I don’t want to hand you a curse to guard for me.”
“How will these, uh, creatures know I’ve got the rotten thing?”
“Just so, but still, I hate to put you at risk.”
“I doubt me that I’ll be at one, and if I’m your apprentice, then it’s part of my labor to guard your possessions.”
“Well and good, then.” Rhodry began unlacing them from the saddle peak. “If you’re certain?”
“I am.”
Rhodry handed over the saddlebags, then mounted and rode out the gates. Yraen climbed the wall and watched him riding off into the twilight. Curse my luck! he thought again. If there is a battle, I’ll miss it. The worst thing of all was wondering if deep in his heart, he was glad. He’d taken the whistle off Rhodry’s hands, he supposed, just in order to share, at least in some small way, his danger.

“Oh, the situation’s truly vexed, good Dallandra,” said Timryc the chirurgeon. “It seems that every hill lord is up in arms, and so you’re going to have a fine job finding your silver dagger.”
“So it seems. On the other hand, no doubt I’ll find plenty of work for my herbs.”
A tiny, wrinkled man with a face as brown as a walnut, Timryc nodded in sad agreement. Drwmyc, Gwerbret Dun Trebyc and master of the Pyrdon hills by the power of the king and the council of electors, was the lord he served as head chirurgeon, a position that kept him current on everything worth knowing about the affairs of the gwerbretrhyn. The exotic medicines from Bardek that Dallandra was carrying (stolen from some priests who were rich enough to spare them, or so Evandar had assured her) had gotten her ushered right in to the presence and the favor of this important man. After buying as much of her stock as she could spare, the chirurgeon had invited her to dine with him, out of sympathy, no doubt, for her supposed advanced age.
“The war started over some cattle rights,” Timryc went on. “But now there’s a bit more at stake than that. You see, His Grace Drwmyc is going to create a tierynrhyn up in the hill country soon. I’ll wager the various lords are sorting themselves out to see who’ll receive the honor.”
“Ah. And so his grace doubtless won’t intervene right away.”
“Not unless he receives a direct appeal, which is unlikely. After all, he’ll want to appoint a tieryn who has the respect of his vassals.” Timryc idly picked up a bone-handled scalpel from the table in front of him and considered the fine steel blade. “Of course, if things get out of hand, and too many of the freemen and their farms are threatened, the gwerbret will intervene. No doubt the feuding lords know that, too.”
“Let’s hope. A formal little war, then?”
“It should be.” Timryc laid the scalpel back down. “It had better be, or his grace will end it. But I’m glad to have that opium and suchlike you’ve sold me.”
Dallandra looked absently round Timryc’s comfortable chamber. In the midst of oak paneling and fine tapestries, it was hard to think about warfare, particularly a noble-born squabble, fought by rules as clear as a tournament, with the one difference that death was an allowable part of the sport.
“The latest news is that Lord Adry’s dun is under siege,” Timryc went on. “A certain Lord Erddyr is leading the faction that’s trying to keep Adry’s allies from lifting the siege. If you insist on riding up there, be very careful. There’ll be skirmishing along the roads.”
“Where is this dun, anyway? I’m truly grateful to you for all this information.”
“Oh, it’s naught, naught. I’ll offer you somewhat more valuable—a letter of safe conduct. Even the most ignorant rider can recognize the gwerbret’s seal.”
Later that evening, with the letter tucked safely inside her tunic and a map of the road to Lord Adry’s dun as well, Dallandra returned to her chamber in the inn where she was staying. Since the night was too warm for a fire, she used the dancing reflections of candle flame in a bucket of water for her scrying, but she saw nothing but a stubborn darkness, telling her that the bone whistle was tucked away in Rhodry’s gear. In a way, she was relieved to fail and have done with it, because her day’s traveling had left her exhausted. Every muscle in her legs and back burned from riding, and she felt as if the rest of her were made of lead. It had been a long time since she’d lived in her physical body. That night she dreamt that she lounged in the sunny grass with Evandar, in the land where life meant ease and dweomer, only to wake in tears at the sight of the dingy chamber walls.

Rhodry rode for most of the night, stopping at the dun of Lord Degedd, one of Erddyr’s allies, to get a few hours sleep and a meal, and to pick up his own horse, which he’d changed there for a fresh one on his journey out. About an hour after dawn, he left for the last leg of the journey. As a simple precaution, he rode fully armed and mailed, with his shield ready at his left arm. Once he left the cultivated land behind, he was utterly alone, riding through low brushy hills where every tiny valley could mean an ambush. After so many years of peace out on the grasslands, he found the feeling of danger sweetly troubling, like seeing a pretty woman walk by.
Toward noon, he reached the first plowed fields of Adry’s demesne, where frightened farmers leaned onto their hoes to stare at him as he rode past. Rhodry was thinking of very little besides getting something to eat when he rode up the last hill and heard the sound. From his distance, it sounded like a stormy wind in the trees, but his horse tossed up its head and snorted.
“Oh, here, my friend,” Rhodry said. “Do you think Lord Tewdyr’s here to meet us?”
Chuckling under his breath, Rhodry drew a javelin and trotted up to the hill crest. The sound grew louder and louder, resolving itself into the clang of sword on shield and the whinnies of frightened horses. At the crest, Rhodry paused and looked down into the flat valley below, where the battle raged round Lord Adry’s dun, a swirling, screaming mass of men and horses. Off to the left stood the white tents of the besiegers, but as Rhodry watched, fire sprang out among them. Black plumes of smoke welled up and mingled with the dust.
Howling a war cry, Rhodry kicked his horse to a gallop and raced downhill. Round the edge of the fighting, where there was room to maneuver, the mob spread out into little clots of single combats. Rhodry hurled one of his javelins at an unfamiliar back, pulled and threw the other, then rode on, circling the field and drawing his sword. It was hard to tell friend from foe as the smoke spread over the field. At last he saw two men mobbing a third, riding a gray. As Rhodry rode over, he heard the single rider shouting Erddyr’s name. He spurred his horse and slammed into the melee. He slashed at an opponent’s back, yelled Erddyr’s name to warn the man he was trying to rescue that he was an ally, then stabbed at an enemy horse. Screaming, the horse reared, and Rhodry had a clear strike at the rider as it came down. He flung up his shield to parry, then spurred his quivering horse forward and stabbed with his whole weight behind the sword. The blade shattered the enemy’s mail and killed him clean as the horse stumbled to its knees.
With a wrench of his whole body, Rhodry pulled the sword free and swung his horse round, but the second enemy was already down, huddled on the ground as his horse raced away. With a friendly shout the rider on the gray rode up beside him—Renydd, panting for breath and choking on the smoke in the air.
“Back just in time, silver dagger. My thanks.”
“Stick with me, will you? I don’t know one bastard from another in this lot.”
Renydd nodded and gulped for breath. His horse was sweating with acrid gray foam running in gobbets down its neck.
“I owe you an apology, silver dagger,” Renydd said. “I haven’t treated you too well.”
“Don’t let it trouble your heart. We’ve not got time for fine points of courtesy just now.”
Out on the field three men broke free and headed straight for them. When Rhodry called out Erddyr’s name, the three howled back their answer: for Lord Adry! The name rang with ill omen. If the men from the dun had managed to fight their way out to the edge, the besiegers were losing the battle. With a whoop of laughter, Rhodry flung up his shield and charged to meet them. His thigh slashed open to the bone, one of the three was turning away. Rhodry swerved around him and headed for a man on a black. The enemy wheeled faultlessly to face him and slashed in from the side. Rhodry caught the sword on his shield and leaned, pulling him to one side and opening his guard. When he stabbed in, his enemy twisted back, but blood flowed from his side. Rhodry heard himself laughing his cold berserker’s howl. The enemy broke free of his shield and swung; sword clashed on sword as Rhodry parried barely in time. He could barely see his enemy’s smoke-stained face, his blue eyes narrowed in pain as he slashed at Rhodry’s horse.
The horse dodged too late, and the blow caught it on the side of the head. Staggering, it tried to rear, then stumbled, plowing into the enemy black and throwing Rhodry forward almost into his enemy’s lap. Rhodry flung up his shield and thrust as he felt the horse going down under him. With a shriek the enemy reeled back from a lucky gouge of the shield boss across his face, the blood running like a curtain from his eyes. When Rhodry stabbed at him, he missed and hit the black hard. In panic the black bucked up once and writhed, dumping his blinded rider, then pulled free to run away. Deprived of its support, Rhodry’s horse buckled to its knees. Rhodry threw his shield to avoid breaking his arm and rolled, falling across his struggling enemy. He heard hoofbeats and flung his arms over his head just as a horse leapt over the pair of them. Rhodry staggered to his feet and grabbed the wounded man by the shoulder.
“You’ve got to get up,” Rhodry yelled.
His former enemy clung to him like a child. His sword in one hand, the other around the man’s waist, Rhodry staggered toward the open ground beyond the fighting. He had no idea why he was saving the man he’d just tried to kill, but he knew the reason somehow lay in their both being unhorsed, as vulnerable as weeds in a field. At last they reached a stand of trees. Rhodry shoved the blinded man down and told him to stay there, then ran back toward the battle. He had to find another horse. Suddenly he heard silver horns, cutting through the shouting—someone was calling a retreat. He didn’t know who. Sword in hand, Rhodry gasped for breath and tried to see through the smoke. A rider on a gray galloped straight for him: Renydd.
“We’re done for!” Renydd yelled. “Get up behind me.”
When Rhodry swung up behind him, Renydd spurred the gray hard, but all it could manage was a clumsy trot, sweating and foaming as it stumbled across the open ground. The horns sang through the smoke like ravens shrieking. When Rhodry choked on a sudden taste of smoke, he twisted round and saw fire creeping through the grass round the tents and heading their way. Off to their right, a poplar blazed like a sudden torch.
“Oh, by the hells,” Renydd snarled. “I hope it reaches the bastard’s dun and burns it for him!”
As they trotted for the road, three of Comerr’s men joined them on weary horses. Cursing, slapping the horses with the flats of their blades, the men rode on while the smoke spread out behind them as if it were sending claws to catch them. Ahead they saw a mob of men milling in confusion around a lord with a gold-trimmed shield.
“Erddyr, thank the gods,” Renydd said. “My lord! My Lord Erddyr!”
“Get over here, lad,” Erddyr yelled. “We’ve got a horse for that man behind you.”
Rhodry mounted a chestnut with a bleeding scratch down its neck and joined the pack, about fifty men, some of them wounded. As they made their slow retreat back to the dun of another ally, Degedd, Lord Comerr joined them with close to a hundred. A few at a time, stragglers caught up and joined their disorganized remnant of an army. At the top of a hill, the lords called a halt to let the horses rest—it was that or lose them. When Rhodry looked back, he saw no sign of pursuit. In the distance, the smoke pall slowly faded.
Just at sunset, they reached Degedd’s dun and mobbed into the ward, bleeding horses, bleeding men, all of them stinking of sweat and smoke and aching with shame. Yelling orders, Lord Degedd worked his way through the mob while he cradled a broken left wrist in his right hand. Rhodry and Renydd pulled a wounded man down from his saddle before he fainted and split his head on the cobbles. They carried him into the great hall, where Degedd’s lady and her women were already frantically at work, tending the wounded. The hall swarmed with so many men and servants that it was hard to find a place to lay their burden down.
“Over by the hearth,” Renydd said.
Rhodry cursed and shoved their way through until at last they could lay him down flat on the floor in a line of other wounded men, then started back outside to fetch anyone else who needed to be carried. Once the wounded were all brought in, they had the horses to tend.
Degedd’s small dun was crammed from wall to wall with the remnants of his allies’ army, so crowded that Rhodry felt a surge of hope. Although they’d fled the battle, the war wasn’t over yet. By the time Rhodry and Renydd returned to the great hall, Rhodry’s head was swimming. They got a couple of chunks of bread and some cold meat from a servant, then sat on the floor and gobbled it silently.
Up by the hearth of honor, the womenfolk were still working. His wrist bound and splinted, Lord Degedd sat on the floor with the other noble lords—Erddyr, Oldadd, and Comerr—and talked urgently. Although the hall was filled with men, it was oddly silent in a wordless chill of defeat. When Renydd finished eating, he leaned back against the curve of the wall and fell asleep. Many of the men did the same, slumping against the wall, lying down on the floor, but the noble lords leaned close together and went on talking. Rhodry thought he was going to ache too badly from his fall to sleep straightaway, but he was too exhausted to stay on his feet. He’d been awake and riding for the entire cycle of a day.
When he sat down next to Renydd, the captain stirred, looked at him blearily, then leaned against his shoulder. Rhodry put his arm around him just for the simple human comfort of it. All at once his weariness caught up with him. His last conscious thought was that they were all shamed men tonight, not just him.
Rhodry woke suddenly to Lord Erddyr’s voice. With a grunt, Renydd sat up straight next to him. Erddyr was on his feet in the middle of the hall and yelling at the men to wake up and listen to him. Sighing, cursing, the drowsy warband roused itself and turned toward their lords.
“Now here, lads,” Erddyr said. “I’m going to ask you a hard thing, but it has to be done. We can’t stay here tonight and get pinned like rats in a trap. We’re leaving the wounded behind and riding back to my dun.”
A soft exhausted sigh breathed through the hall.
“I know how you feel,” Erddyr went on. “By the Lord of Hell’s warty balls, don’t you think I’d rather be in my blankets than on the back of a horse? But if we stay, those horseshit bastards have us where they want us. Degedd can’t provision a siege. We’ve got to have time to collect our men on fort guard, and then we can make another strike on the bastards. Do you all understand? If we stay here, we lose the war and every scrap of honor we ever had. So, are you riding with me or not?”
Cheering as loudly as they could manage, the men began to get up, collecting shields and gear from the floor.
“Save your breath,” Erddyr called out. “And let’s ride!”

A few hours before dawn, Yraen went out for his turn on watch. Yawning and cursing, just on general principles, he climbed up to the catwalk and took his place next to Gedryc, the nominal captain of the fort guard, who acknowledged him with a nod. Together they leaned onto the rampart and looked over the hills, dark and shadowed in the moonlight, to watch the road. In about an hour, just as the moon was setting, Yraen saw a somewhat darker shape moving on the dark countryside, and a certain fuzziness in the air over it—probably dust.
“Who’s that?” Gedryc snapped. “Don’t tell me it’s our lord! Oh, ye gods!”
In a few minutes more the moving shape resolved itself into a long line of men on horseback, and something about the slumped way they sat, and the slow way that the horses limped and staggered along, told the tale.
“A defeat,” Gedryc said. “Run and wake the dun, lad.”
As Yraen climbed down the ladder, he felt a sudden sick wondering if Rhodry was still alive. Somehow, before this moment, it hadn’t really occurred to him that a friend of his might die in this war. He raced to the barracks over the stables, woke up the rest of the fort guard, then ran into the great hall and the kitchen hut to rouse the servants. He came back out in time to hear the men on the walls calling to one another.
“It’s Erddyr, all right! Open those gates!”
The servants came pouring into the ward to help the night watch pull open the heavy iron-bound gates. Torchlight flared in the ward as the army filed in, the horses stumbling blindly toward shelter. Wrapped in a cloak over her night dress, Lady Melynda rushed out of the broch just as Lord Erddyr dismounted and threw his reins to a groom.
“Your husband’s come home defeated and dishonored,” Erddyr said. “But the war’s not over yet.”
“Well and good, my lord,” Melynda said calmly. “Where are the wounded?”
“Back in Degedd’s dun, but get the servants to feeding these men, will you?”
Yraen found Rhodry down at the gates. He’d dismounted to lead his horse inside and spare it his weight for the last few yards. When Yraen caught his arm, all the silver dagger could do was turn toward him with a blind, almost drunken smile.
“I’ll tend that horse,” Yraen said. “Go get something to eat.”
When he finished with the horse, Yraen went back into the great hall, filled with men—some still eating, most asleep. At the table of honor the noble lords ate silently while Lady Melynda watched them with frightened eyes. Yraen picked his way through and joined Rhodry, sitting on the floor in the curve of the wall with Renydd, who was slowly eating a piece of bread as if the effort were too much for him.
“Why did you lose?” Yraen said to Rhodry.
“What a comfort my friend is,” Rhodry said. “From his mouth no excuses or blustering to lift a man’s shame, only the nastiest of truths.” He paused to yawn. “We lost because there were more of them than us, that’s all.”
“Well and good, then. I’m cursed glad to see you alive, you bastard.”
Rhodry grinned and leaned back against the wall.
“We comported ourselves brilliantly on the field,” Rhodry said. “Renydd and me slew seventy men each, but there were thousands ranged against us.”
“Horseshit,” Renydd said with his mouth full.
“It’s not horseshit.” Rhodry yawned violently. “There were rivers of blood on the field, and corpses piled up like mountains. Never will that grass grow green again, but it’ll come up scarlet, all for grief at that slaughter.”
Yraen leaned forward and grabbed his arm: he was beginning to realize what it meant when Rhodry babbled this way.
“And the clash and clang was like thunder,” Rhodry went on. “We swept in like ravens and none could stand before us. We trampled them like grass—”
“That’s enough!” Yraen gave his arm a hard shake. “Rhodry, hold your tongue! You’re half-mad with the defeat.”
Rhodry stared at him, his eyes half-filled with tears.
“My apologies,” Rhodry said. “You’re right enough.”
He curled up on the straw like a dog and fell asleep straightaway, without even another yawn.
All that day, the army slept wherever it could find room, scattered through the dun. Before he went to his bed, Erddyr sent men from the fort guard out with messages to the duns of the various allies, warning their fort guards to be ready to join their lords. Other men rode out to scout and keep a watch for Adry’s army on the road. The servants went through the stored supplies. The army had lost all its carts, blankets, provisions, and, worst of all, its extra weapons. Not all the scrounging in the world could produce more than twenty javelins for the entire army. Yraen, of course, still had a pair, those he’d brought with him when he’d left home, but he gave one to Rhodry and hoarded the other.
“Here’s your saddlebags, too,” Yraen said. “I had no trouble with them.”
“Good. Huh. I’d say our enemy can’t track the whistle by dweomer then, but if that’s true, how by the hells did he know I had the ugly thing in the first place?”
“Well, was there someone else who could have told him?”
Rhodry swore under his breath.
“There was, at that, and I’ll wager it was our lovely Alshandra, all right.”
Yraen would have asked him more about this mysterious being, but a couple of other men joined them with rumors to share.
In the afternoon, Yraen had a word alone with Lady Melynda, who bravely smiled her tight-lipped smile and talked of her husband’s eventual victory. It seemed that Comerr alone had thirty fresh men in his dun, to say nothing of the men they could muster from other allies.
“If they can assemble them all, my lord swears they’ll outnumber the enemy. He tells me that Adry and Tewdyr already had every man they could muster at the siege.” Her bright smile faded abruptly. “I wonder if that’s true, or if he’s trying to spare my feelings?”
“It’s probably true, my lady, because he’s already let the worst news slip. What matters is whether they can assemble them in time, and Rhodry says that’s a hard thing to do.”
“Just so.” Melynda was silent for a long time. “I’m going to try to prevail upon my lord to send to the gwerbret for his judgment on this matter.”
“Do you think he will?”
Melynda shook her head in a no and stared at the floor.
“Not with this defeat aching his heart. He’d feel too shamed.”
When he left the lady, Yraen climbed up to the walls and looked out at the silent hills. Somewhere out there was the enemy army, perhaps riding for them, perhaps off licking its own wounds. He wondered if Erddyr would stand a siege or sally out right away should Adry appear at his gates, but in the end, the lords decided to leave the dun as soon as possible and ride round the countryside to collect their allies, rather than risk getting trapped in a siege. Although a dun with an army inside was a prize worth having, it was unlikely that Tewdyr and Adry would try to take an empty one, simply because they’d be too vulnerable to attack themselves. There came a point in any war where it was best to settle the matter in open country rather than trusting in stone walls, or so Rhodry always said.
Late that afternoon, one of the scouts returned, rushing into the great hall and blurting out his urgent message: Adry and his allies were riding their way and had made camp not fifteen miles off.
“There’s close to two hundred of them, my lord,” the scout finished up. “Fully provisioned.”
“Only two hundred?” Erddyr said, grinning. “Well, then, we left a few scars on them before we called the retreat.”
“Maybe so,” Comerr said. “But we’d best get out of here before they pin us at your gates.”
The dun turned into an orderly madhouse. The warband ran to fetch their gear and horses. Servants frantically loaded the last pair of carts left in the dun and commandeered extra horses for pack animals to carry what supplies they’d been able to scrape together. Yraen collected his horse, donned his armor, and realized that everything he’d wanted was about to come to him. Soon he would test himself and all the weaponcraft he’d learned; soon he would discover for himself what battle and battle-glory had to teach a man. Now that the time was upon him, he felt preternaturally calm and oddly light, as if he floated through the crowded ward to Rhodry’s side. Only his heart refused to quiet itself; he could feel it knocking in his throat, or so it seemed, like some wild creature in a trap.
“We’ll be at the rear, no doubt,” Rhodry said. “Silver daggers always eat the whole cursed army’s dust.”
Yraen merely nodded. Rhodry gave him a look as sharp as a knife blade.
“Tell me somewhat, lad. Have you ever fought before?”
The time was past for bluster. Yraen shook his head in a no. Rhodry swore under his breath and seemed to be about to say more, but at the head of the line the horns sang out the order to mount and ride. As the men swung into their saddles and started moving, trying to sort themselves into warbands in the too-small space, Yraen ended up separated from Rhodry, and there was no time to find him again as the riders began filing out the gates. When they first reached the road, Yraen made a futile try at spotting him, then fell back with the squad assigned to guard the supplies.
Once the moon rose, bright and swollen just a night off her full, the lords led their men off the road and began circling to the north through the hills and ravines, good hiding from their enemies. Thanks to the carts and the pack train, they moved slowly, the carters cursing as the carts banged through the rocks and brush. Riding at the very rear, Yraen was the only one who realized that someone was following them.
As they started down the side of a hill, Yraen saw movement out of the corner of his eye, turned to look, and caught the unmistakable shape of a man on foot slinking through the tall grass behind them. He must have left his horse somewhere behind—a mistake that cost him his life. With a shout of warning, Yraen turned his horse out of line and drew his javelin in the same smooth motion. The enemy scout turned and raced downhill, but Yraen galloped after, plunging through the grass and praying that his horse wouldn’t stumble and go down. Twisting in a desperate zigzag, his prey ran for the trees at the bottom of the valley, but Yraen gained on him and rose in the stirrups to throw. The point gleamed in the moonlight as it sped to the mark and caught the scout full in the back. With an ugly shriek he went down headlong into the grass. Yraen trotted over and dismounted, but he was already dead. A couple of men from his warband rode up and circled round them.
“Good job, lad,” one of them shouted. “We’re cursed lucky you’ve got good eyes.”
Yraen shrugged in pretended modesty and pulled the javelin free with a welling up of the enemy’s blood. In the moonlight it seemed like dark water, some strange and dreamlike substance. Yraen wondered how it could be possible that he’d killed a man and yet felt nothing, not grief nor gloating.
“Just let him lie,” the rider went on. “We’ve got to get back to the warband, but in the morning, I’ll make sure Lord Oldadd knows what you’ve done.”
But apparently the noble-born already realized what had happened. When Yraen returned to the warband, the lords halted the march and had a hasty horseback conference up at the head of the line. Yraen strained to hear as Erddyr leaned over in his saddle to make his points with the wave of a gauntlet. All at once Lord Comerr laughed and gave Erddyr a friendly cuff on the shoulder. Erddyr turned his horse and trotted over to bellow at the warband.
“With their scout dead, we’ve got a chance to wreak a little havoc, lads,” Erddyr called out. “I want fifty men to risk their cursed necks. I’ll be leading you in a raid on Adry’s camp, just to stick a thorn up the bastard’s ass.”
Yraen turned his horse out of line to volunteer. As a squad assembled round Erddyr, he kept watch for Rhodry and finally saw him on the other side of the group, or saw, rather, his silver dagger, catching the moonlight with an unmistakable glitter. Although he waved, he had no idea if Rhodry had seen him or not.
Leaning forward in his saddle, Erddyr explained the situation. Comerr and the pack train were going to head for his dun in hopes of meeting the reinforcements on the road, while Erddyr and the squad tried to slow their enemies. It was going to be a quick raid—Erddyr emphasized that repeatedly—one fast sweep down, then an equally fast retreat.
“The whole point, lads, is to panic their horses, not to make kills. Go for the herd and try to scatter it. If anyone gets in your way, kill him, but leave the real slaughter for later. All we want to do is keep them busy chasing their worm-gut stock instead of chasing us.”
Erddyr sent Rhodry and some man Yraen didn’t know out in front as scouts, then led his squad back the way they’d come until the scouts rejoined them. At that point they left the road to dodge through the brush and down a narrow valley. On the far side they climbed a hill and found the camp down below, the rough circles of sleeping men and the bulky dark shapes of the supply wagons. Off to one side drowsed the horse herd. At the edge of the camp, guards walked in a circling patrol. Erddyr whispered something to Rhodry, who whispered it to the man behind him. The order made its way back: charge through the guards for the horses, then circle and wheel for the retreat before the men grab their weapons and join the fight.
Steel flashed in the moonlight as the squad drew their swords. Yraen settled his own and felt his heart pounding in his throat again, but he was beginning to wonder if he’d ever see a real battle, the sort he’d heard bards sing about, with proper armies and strategies and all that sort of thing. They walked their horses over the crest of the hill, paused for a moment like a wave about to break, then started down with the jingle of tack and the clank of armor. In the camp, the guards looked up and screamed the alarm.
“Now!” Erddyr yelled.
In a welter of war cries and curses, the squad spurred their horses and galloped full-tilt downhill. When they reached the valley, they spread out in a ragged line and swept toward the horse herd. Although the guards raced over to make a futile stand against them, the line ignored them and charged past. As he galloped past a guard, Yraen swung wildly at him, but he missed by yards. When the squad screamed and plunged into the herd, the horses panicked, rearing up and stretching their tether ropes so tight that it was easy to snap them with one swing of a blade. Yraen cursed and shrieked and made every ungodly noise he could think of as he sliced ropes and set horse after horse racing away from the attack. At last his wild ride brought him to the edge of the valley. As he turned his horse, he saw men pouring toward the raiders with their swords and shields at the ready. It was time to run.
Yraen kicked his horse and galloped back across the valley with the rest of the squad. Here and there, a panicked horse still at tether bucked and kicked. Yraen cut one last rope, then turned his attention to the men racing to stop them. All at once, one of the panicked horses slammed into the rider ahead of him. That horse reared; the rider went down, with the flash of a gold-trimmed shield that said Lord Erddyr. Yraen pulled his horse up just in time to avoid running right over him. The armed and furious enemy was charging straight for them. Yraen swung down and grabbed Erddyr’s arm.
“Take my horse, my lord,” he yelled. “I’ll guard your mount.”
“By the hells, we ride together or die together! Here they come, lad.”
Yraen set his back to Erddyr’s and dropped to a fighting crouch as the first enemies reached them. Four of them, and in the gauzy moonlight, it was hard to see their swings, impossible to detect all those subtle movements that reveal an enemy’s next thrust. Yraen could only hack and swing blindly as he desperately parried their equally blind strikes. His shield cracked and groaned; Erddyr was screaming his war cry at the top of his lungs; but Yraen fought silently, coldly, dodging forward to make a slash across an enemy’s arm, then dodging back, slamming into Erddyr’s back as the melee thickened. Screaming Erddyr’s name, the mounted squad was cutting and trampling through the mob on the ground.
In front of him an enemy feinted in close. Yraen lunged fast and got him, almost without realizing it in the bad light. He felt rather than saw his sword bite deep into something soft and stick. When he yanked it free, a man fell forward at his feet. He flung up his shield to parry a blow from the side, slashed at another man, missed, and saw him fall, cut down by a thrust from a mounted man. Erddyr was laughing aloud as riders swirled round them in a kicking, bucking confusion.
“Mount behind me, lad!” a man yelled.
Yraen sheathed his sword still bloody and swung up behind him, scrambling awkwardly onto his bedroll. The rider turned his horse and spurred it on, slashing down at an enemy in their way. Yraen leaned forward and got a cut on the same man as the horse carried them past at a clumsy gallop.
“Ride!” Erddyr screamed. “Retreat!”
Shouting, swinging, the mounted squad cut its way across the valley and headed for the hills. Yraen saw a couple of Erddyr’s men driving what was left of the enemy horses straight for the camp. Howling in rage, half the enemy line peeled out of the battle and ran for the camp to save their gear from being trampled. The squad cut grimly on. Yraen leaned and swung randomly at unhorsed men who had little appetite for a fight. At last they gained the hillside, and the horse stumbled wearily up toward the crest. There Rhodry rode to meet them, leading a riderless bay.
“Transfer him over,” Rhodry yelled. “We’ve got to make speed.”
As Yraen mounted the fresh horse, he could tell from the gear that it had once been Lord Erddyr’s, who, of course, still rode his own gray. Ahead, the squad was already crashing its way through the underbrush and heading downhill. As he followed, Yraen saw Lord Erddyr, rising frantically in the stirrups as he tried to count his men. They trotted across the next valley and finally assembled in a laughing, shoving mob at the crest of the farther hill.
“Where’s that lad whose horse I’m riding?” Erddyr called out. “Come ride next to me, lad, and then we’d best get our asses out of here.”
Yraen guided his horse through the warband, which showered him with good-natured insults to show their respect for the way he’d saved their lord. Erddyr waved the line forward. Carefully they picked their way along the dark valleys until they reached the place where they’d left the main column. No one ever tried to follow them. Doubtless Adry and his men were chasing horses and swearing all over the hills round their camp.
“Well played,” Erddyr called out as the warband gathered around him. “It’s a pity your lord here almost ruined the whole maneuver, but we’re born to our place, not picked by wits.”
The men laughed and cheered him.
“It’s a cursed good thing I hired this silver dagger’s apprentice,” Erddyr went on. “But we’re a bit short on time to have the bard make you a song, lad. Let’s get on our way.”
When the warband rode out, Yraen and Rhodry rode together. By then the sky was beginning to pale into gray, and in the growing light Yraen could look round and see that their squad had suffered no losses. He remembered then the man who’d fallen at his feet when he’d been defending Lord Erddyr. I must have killed him, he thought—he lay so still. He shook his head hard, wondering why nothing seemed real or even important, then looked up to find Rhodry watching him.
“Not bad,” Rhodry said. “You’ve got sharp eyes, and a cursed good thing, too.”
“The scout, you mean?”
“That, too, but I was thinking about Lord Erddyr. Well done.”
Yraen felt himself blushing like the rising sun. The fulsome praise heaped upon his princely self by his father’s weaponmasters had lost all its meaning, compared to those two words.

“That’s true, good herbwoman,” Lady Melynda said. “My husband did indeed hire a silver dagger named Rhodry, and young Yraen, too. Of course, you’ve arrived a bit late to speak with them. The army rode out in the middle of the night, you see.”
For a moment the lady’s careful calm nearly deserted her. With shaking hands she wiped tears from her eyes, then composed herself with a long sigh that came close to being a gasp. Dallandra looked round the great hall, empty and echoing with silence. Aside from a handful of male servants, the only guards the lady had were three wounded men.
“Well, my lady, before I ride on, I’ll see what I can do for these men here.”
“My thanks, but I’d be most grateful if you did catch up with the army. You see, my husband doesn’t have a proper chirurgeon with his warband, so your aid would be most welcome.”
“In the morning, then, I’ll be on my way. No doubt they’ve left an easy trail to follow.”
Since it had been some years since Dallandra had tended wounds, she was dreading the job, but once she got the clumsy bandages off her first patient’s injuries, her old professional detachment set in. The man’s gashed and bloody flesh became merely a problem for her to solve with the medicinals and other means she had at hand, rather than an object of disgust, and his gratitude made the effort well worth it. By the time she finished with the wounded, it was late in the day. She washed up, then joined the lady and her serving women at the table of honor. As they tried to make conversation about something other than the war and the lady’s fears for her husband, Dallandra found herself oppressed by a sense of dread so sharp and miserable that she knew it must be a dweomer-warning of sorts. Of what, she couldn’t say.
Just at sunset, the answer came in a shout of alarm from the servants who were watching the gates. Dallandra ran after Melynda when the lady rushed outside and saw the stableboys and the aged chamberlain swinging the gates shut. The two women scrambled up the ladder to the ramparts and leaned over. Down below on the dusty road, Lord Tewdyr was leading forty armed men up to the walls.
“And what do you want with me and my maidservants?” Melynda called down. “My husband and his men are long gone.”
“I’m well aware of that, my lady,” Tewdyr shouted back. “And I swear to every god and goddess as well that no harm will come to you and your women while you’re under my protection.”
“His lordship is most honorable, but we aren’t under his protection, and I see no reason to ask for it.”
“Indeed?” Tewdyr gave her a thin-lipped smile. “I fear me it’s yours whether you want it or not, because I’m going to take you back to my dun with me and hold you there until your husband quits the war and ransoms you back.”
“Oh, indeed?” Melynda tossed her head. “I should have known that spending all that coin would ache your heart, but never did I think it would drive you to dishonor, just to get it back.”
“There is no need for my lady to be insulting, especially when she can’t have more than a handful of men in her dun.”
Melynda bit her lip sharply and went a bit pale. Dallandra stepped forward and leaned over the rampart.
“The lady has all the men she needs,” Dallandra called. “This is an impious, dishonorable, and wretched move you’re making, my lord. Every bard in Deverry will satirize your name for it down the long years.”
“Oh, will they now?” Tewdyr laughed. “And do you claim to be a bard, old woman?”
His voice dripped cold contempt for all things old and female both. In an icy rage Dallandra swept up her hands and invoked elemental spirits, the Wildfolk of Air and Fire. In a swarming, glittering mob they answered her call and rushed among the men and horses in a surge of raw life. Although the men couldn’t see them, they could feel them indirectly, just as when a cloud darkens the sun outside and the light in a chamber dims. The riders shifted uneasily in their saddles; the horses danced and snorted; Tewdyr looked wildly around him.
“We have no need of armed men,” Dallandra said. “Are you stupid enough to match steel against the laws of honor and the gods?”
The Wildfolk chattered among the men and pinched the horses, pulled at the men’s clothes, and rattled their swords in their scabbards until the entire warband shook in fear. Turning this way and that, they cursed and swatted at enemies they couldn’t see. Dallandra held up her right hand and called forth blue fire—a perfectly harmless etheric light, but it looked like it would burn hot. She fashioned the fire into a long streaming torch and made it blaze brightly in the fading sunlight. Tewdyr yelped and began edging his horse backward.
“Begone!” Dallandra called out.
With a wave of her hand, she sent the bolt of light down like a javelin. When it struck the ground in front of Tewdyr’s horse, it shattered into a hundred darts and sparks of illusionary fire. Dallandra hurled bolt after bolt, smashing them into the ground among the warband while the Wildfolk pinched the horses viciously and clawed the men. Screaming, cursing, the warband broke and galloped shamelessly down the hill. Tewdyr spurred his horse as hard as any of them and never even tried to stop the retreat.
Dallandra sent the Wildfolk chasing them, then allowed herself a good laugh, but a pale and feverishly shaking Lady Melynda knelt at her feet. Behind her the servants huddled together as if they feared Dallandra would attack them simply for the fun of it. Only then did Dallandra remember that she was among human beings, not the People, who took dweomer and its powers as a given thing.
“Now, now, my lady, do get up,” Dallandra said. “The honor is mine to be allowed to be of service to you. It was naught but a few cheap tricks, but I doubt me very much that they’ll return to trouble you.”
“Most likely not, but I can’t call them cowards for it.”
All that evening the lady and her women waited upon Dallandra as if she were the queen herself, but none of them presumed to make conversation with her. As soon as she could, Dallandra went up to the chamber that they’d readied for her. Although she tried to scry, the whistle stayed hidden and Rhodry with it, giving her a few bitter thoughts on the limits of the dweomer that had so impressed the lady and her household.

In the meadows behind Lord Comerr’s dun, the allies had camped their hastily pulled together army of two hundred thirty-six men. For that first day after Erddyr’s dawn arrival, the men rested while the lords conferred over the various scraps of news that scouts and messengers brought them. Rhodry spent the day in rueful amusement, mocking himself for how badly he wanted to be included in those conferences. He was used to command, and even more, he knew that he was good at it, better, certainly, than the overly cautious Comerr and the entirely too daring Erddyr. Yet there was nothing for him to do but sit around and remind himself that he was a silver dagger and nothing more. He was also more than a little worried about Yraen, who’d made his first kills by blind luck. The lad himself seemed dazed, saying little to anyone. Finally, when they received their scant rations for the evening meal, Rhodry led him away from the other men for a talk.
“Now listen, you know enough about war to know that you’re not ready to lead charges or suchlike. Every rider goes through a time when he’s just learning how to handle himself, like, and there’s no shame in an untried man staying on the edge of things. Everyone seems to have figured out that this is your first ride.”
“Oh, true spoken,” Yraen said. “But is there going to be any edge to stay on? It sounds cursed desperate to me. That last scout said that Adry’s scraped up almost three hundred men.”
“You’ve got a point. Unfortunately. Well, there’s still one thing you can do, and that’s think before you go charging right into the thick of things. More men have been saved by a good look round them than by the best sword work in the world.”
On the morrow, when the army saddled up and rode out, Lord Erddyr told Yraen to ride just behind the noble-bom as a way of honoring the lad for saving his life and allowed Rhodry to join him there. They were heading back east in the hopes of making their stand on ground of their own choosing. Logic foretold that Adry would be riding for Cornell’s dun, but the scouts who circled ahead of the main body brought back no news of him. Finally, toward noon, scouts came back to report that they’d found Adry’s camp of the night before, but that the tracks of his army led south, away from Comerr’s dun and toward Tewdyr’s. The noble lords held a quick conference surrounded by their anxious warbands.
“Now why by the hells would he circle when he’s got the numbers on his side?” Erddyr said.
“A couple of reasons,” Comerr said. “Maybe to draw us into a trap for one. But I wonder—he’s heading back to Tewdyr’s dun, is he? Here, you don’t suppose Tewdyr rode away from the war, and Adry’s after him?”
“He’d never withdraw now. He’s too cursed furious with me for that, He—oh, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell! What if the old miser’s making a strike on my dun?”
“I wouldn’t put it past the bastard,” Comerr snarled. “I say we ride back for a look.”
When the warband rode on, they left the wagon train behind to follow as best it could at its own slow pace. Lord Erddyr rode in a cold grim silence that told everyone he feared for his lady’s life. For two hours they kept up a cavalry pace, walking and trotting with the emphasis on the trot, and they left the road and went as straight as an arrow, plowing through field and meadow, climbing up the wild brushy hills. Finally a scout galloped back, grinning like a child with a copper to spend at the market fair.
“My lords!” the scout yelled. “Tewdyr’s not far ahead, and the stupid bastard’s only got forty men with him!”
Both lords and riders cheered.
It was less than an hour later when the warband trotted down a little valley to see Tewdyr and his men, drawn up in battle order and waiting for them. Apparently Tewdyr had scouts of his own out and had realized that he was pretty well trapped. When Lord Erddyr yelled out orders to his men to surround the enemy, the warband broke up into a ragged line and trotted fast to encircle the waiting warband. Rhodry drew a javelin, yelled at Yraen to follow him, and circled with the others. When he glanced back, Yraen was right behind him.
Sullen and disgruntled, the enemy moved into a tight bunch behind Tewdyr and his son. Tewdyr sat straight in his saddle, a javelin in his hand.
“Tewdyr!” Comerr called out. “Surrender! We’ve got the whole cursed army surrounding you.”
“I can see well enough,” Tewdyr snarled.
With a laugh, Comerr made the lord a mocking bow from the saddle.
“Doubtless the thought of paying more ransom aches your noble heart, but fear not—your withdrawal from the war will be sufficient. We all know that dishonor will be less painful to you than losing more coin.”
With a howl of rage, Tewdyr spurred his horse forward and threw the javelin straight at Comerr, who flung up his shield barely in time. The javelin cracked it through and stuck there dangling. Shouting, the entire warband sprang forward to Comerr’s side as he flung his useless shield away and grabbed for his sword. Tewdyr’s men had no choice but to charge to meet them. Yelling, shouting, Erddyr tried to stop the unequal slaughter, but the field turned into a brawl. Like too many flies crawling on a piece of meat, the warband mobbed Tewdyr’s men with their swords flashing up red in the sunlight. Rhodry yelled at Yraen to get back, then trotted over to Erddyr, who was sitting on his horse and watching, his mouth slack in disbelief.
“At least the two of you followed my orders, eh?” the lord shouted. “Ah, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell!”
They sat there like spectators at a tournament as the dust plumed up thick over the battle, and this was no mock combat with blunted and gilded weapons down in the Deverry court. Horses reared up, blood running down their necks; Tewdyr’s men fell bleeding with barely a chance to defend themselves. Four and five at a time, the warband mobbed them, hacking and stabbing, while the fighting was so thick that half the men never got a chance to close. They rode round and round the edge, shrieking war cries over the shouts of pain and the trampling clanging sound of horses shoving against shields. When Rhodry looked at Yraen, he found the lad decidedly pale, but his mouth was set tight and his eyes wide-open, as if he were forcing himself to watch the way an apprentice watches his master’s lesson in some craft.
“It’s not pretty, is it?” Rhodry said.
Yraen shook his head no and went on watching. The fighting was down to a desperate clot around Tewdyr, bleeding in his saddle but still hacking in savage fury. Suddenly Yraen turned his horse and galloped down the valley. Rhodry started to follow, but he saw him dismount and take a few steps toward the stream, where he stood with his hands pressed over his face, merely stood and shook. He was crying, most like. Rhodry couldn’t hold it against the lad. He felt half-sick himself from the savagery of this slaughter. When he looked Erddyr’s way, his eyes met the lord’s, and he knew Erddyr felt the same.
Suddenly a distant noise broke into Rhodry’s mind and pulled him alert. Erddyr threw up his head and screamed out a warning as silver horns rang out on the crest of the hill. Too late for rescue, but in time for revenge, Lord Adry’s army galloped down to join the battle. Shrieking orders, Erddyr circled the edge of the mob and managed to get a few men turned round and ready to face this new threat. Rhodry followed, howling with laughter, and spotted a rider who could only be one of the noble-born, a lean man carrying a beautifully worked shield and riding a fine black horse. Howling a challenge he charged straight for him. Only when it was too late to pull back did he remember Yraen, and much later still did he remember that he was a silver dagger again, no longer a noble lord to challenge one of his peers.

After he stopped crying, Yraen knelt by the stream and washed his face, but the shame he felt for what he saw as womanish weakness couldn’t be so easily dealt with. For a moment he lingered there alone, wondering if he could face Rhodry again, realizing that he had no choice. He was walking back to his horse when he heard the enemy horns and saw the enemy army pouring over the hill like water. He ran, grabbed the reins just before the animal bolted, and swung himself up into the saddle. None of his fancy lessons in war mattered now; all that counted was getting to the safety of his own pack of men. As he galloped down the valley, he saw the enemy army spreading out, trying to encircle his own. Just barely in time Yraen dodged through their van.
An enemy rider, carrying a shield blazoned with a hawk’s head, swung past. Yraen wrenched his horse after and struck at his exposed side. Although he missed the rider, he did nick the horse, which bucked once and staggered. When the enemy wheeled to face him, Yraen caught a glimpse of pouchy eyes and a stubbled face. They swung, parried, circling, trading blow for blow while the enemy howled and Yraen found himself muttering a string of curses under his breath. The Hawksman was good, almost his match—almost. Yraen caught a swing on his shield, heard the wood crack, and slashed in through his enemy’s open guard to catch him solidly on the back of his right arm. Blood welled through his mail as the bone snapped. With one last shout, he turned his horse and fled, clinging to its neck to keep his seat.
Yraen let him go and rode on, weaving his way through the combats, looking desperately round for Rhodry. His fear had shrunk to a dryness in his mouth, a little ache around his heart, and nothing more. Under a pall of dust the battle swirled down the valley. Here and there he saw clots of fighting around one lord or another. Dead men lay on the ground and wounded horses struggled to rise. When at last he heard someone calling Erddyr’s name and someone laughing, a cold berserker’s laugh of desperation, he turned in the saddle to see Rhodry and Renydd, mobbed by six of the enemy. They were fighting nose to tail and parrying more than they dared strike as Adry’s men shrieked for vengeance and pressed round them. Yraen spurred his horse and charged straight for the clot.
Yraen slapped his horse with the flat of his blade and forced it to slam into the flank of an enemy horse. Before the enemy could turn, he stabbed him in the back and turned to slash at another. Dimly he was aware of men shouting Erddyr’s name riding to his side, but he kept swinging, slashing, hacking his way through the clot, closing briefly with one man who managed to turn his horse to face him. He parried and thrust, never getting a strike on him, until the enemy horse screamed and reared. Renydd had cut it hard from behind, and as it came down, Yraen killed the rider. He was through at last, wrenching his horse round to fight nose to tail with Renydd.
“I saw you coming into the mob,” Rhodry yelled out.
Rhodry pulled in beside him to guard his left side. Sweat ran down Yraen’s back in trickles, not drops, as he panted for breath in this precious moment of respite. It was only a moment. Five men were riding straight for them. Yraen heard them yelling at one another: there he is, get the cursed silver dagger.
Yraen suddenly remembered that he had javelins again, distributed the night before. Grabbing his sword in his left hand, he pulled one from the sheath, threw it straight for an enemy horse, and grabbed the second all in the same smooth motion. Caught in the chest, the enemy horse went down, dumping its rider under the hooves of his friends charging behind him. Yraen heard Rhodry laughing like a fiend as the clot of enemy riders swirled and stumbled in confusion. Yraen had just enough time to transfer his sword back again before the enemies sorted themselves out and charged.
When the three of them held their ground, the enemies rode round them, circling to strike from the rear. Yraen was forced to wheel his horse out of line or get stabbed in the back. Riding with his knees, he ducked and dodged and slashed back at the man attacking him, who suddenly wheeled his horse and rode back toward the main fight. When Yraen followed, for a brief moment he could watch Rhodry fight, and even in the midst of danger the silver dagger’s skill was breathtaking as he twisted and ducked, slashing with a cold precision. Rhodry’s enemy lunged, missed, and pulled back clumsily as Rhodry got a strike across his shoulder. The Hawksman wanted to kill him—Yraen could see it—this was not the impersonal death-dealing of armies but sheer blazing hatred.
“Silver dagger!” he hissed. “Cursed bastard of a silver dagger!”
When he lunged again, Rhodry caught his blow with his sword. For a moment they struggled, locked together, but Yraen never saw how they broke free. All at once his back burned like fire as someone got a glancing strike on him from behind. Barely in time Yraen wheeled his horse away, swung his head round, and made him dance in a circle till they could face the Hawksman swinging at them. Yraen stabbed, and his greater speed won. Before the enemy could bring his shield around to parry, Yraen thrust the sword point into his right eye. With an animal shriek he reeled back in the saddle, dropped his sword, and clawed in vain at the blade as Yraen pulled it free. Yraen swung and hit him with the flat, knocking him off his horse. In a flail of arms, he rolled under the hooves of a horse just behind. When that horse reared and lung itself backward, the mob of enemies pressing for them fell back, cursing and screaming for vengeance.
Horns rang out over the battlefield. The mob ahead hesitated, turning toward the insistent shriek. Yraen started to edge his horse toward them, but Rhodry’s voice broke through his battle-fever.
“Let them go!” Rhodry yelled. “It’s the enemy calling for retreat this time.”
The field was clearing as Adry’s men and allies galloped for their lives. Yraen saw Lord Erddyr charging round the field and screaming at his men to hold their places and let them go. Panting, sweating, shoving back their mail hoods, Yraen, Rhodry, and Renydd brought their horses up dose and stared at each other.
“Look at them run,” Yraen said. “Did we fight as well as all that?”
“We didn’t,” Renydd panted. “They’ve got naught left to fight for. Rhodry killed Lord Adry in that first charge.”
Rhodry bowed to him, his eyes bright and merry, as if he’d just told a gopd jest and was enjoying his listener’s amusement.
“I shamed myself before the battle,” Yraen said to him. “Will you forgive me?”
“What are you talking about, lad? You did naught of the sort.”
But no matter how much he wanted to, Yraen couldn’t believe him. He knew that the feel of tears on his face would haunt him his whole life long.
Picking their way through the dead and the wounded, what was left of the warband began to gather around them. No boasting, no battle-joy like in a bard song—they merely sat on their horses and waited till Erddyr rode up, his face red, his beard ratty with sweat.
“Get off those horses, you bastards,” Erddyj bellowed. “We’ve got wounded out there!” He waved his sword at the clot of men that included Yraen. “Go round up stock. They’re all over this cursed valley.”
Gladly Yraen turned his horse out of line and trotted off. Down by the stream the horses that had fled after losing their riders waited huddled together, blindly trusting in the human beings who had led them into this slaughter. When the men grabbed the reins of a few, the rest followed docilely along. Yraen rode farther downstream, ostensibly to see if any horses were in the stand of hazels near the water, but in truth, simply to be alone. All at once, he wanted to cry again, to sit on the ground and sob like a child. His shame ate at him—what was wrong with him that he’d feel this way in the moment of victory?
Yraen found one bay gelding on the far side of the copse. He dismounted and slacked the bits of both horses to let them drink, then fell to his knees and scooped up water in both hands. No fine mead had ever tasted as good. When he looked at the bright water, rippling over the graveled streambed, he thought of all those bards who sang that men’s lives run away as fast as water. It was true enough. The evidence was lying a few hundred yards behind him on the field. He got up and tried to summon the will to go back and help with the wounded. All he wanted to do was stand there and look at the green grass, soft in the sun, stand there and feel that he was alive.
Far down the little valley, he saw a single rider, trotting fast, and leading what seemed to be a pack mule. Mounting his own horse, he jogged down to meet her, for indeed, the rider turned out to be a woman, and an old white-haired crone at that. Her voice came as a shock, as young and strong as a lass’s.
“Yraen, Yraen,” she called out. “Where’s Rhodry? Has he lived through this horrible thing?”
Yraen goggled, nodding his head in a stunned yes. She laughed at his surprise.
“I’ll explain later. Now we’d best hurry. I fear me there’s men who need niy aid.”
Side by side they jogged down the valley as fast as the pack mule could go. Out on the field, dismounted men hurried back and forth, pulling wounded men free, putting injured horses out of their misery. Near the horse herd, Lord Erddyr knelt next to a wounded man. When Yraen led Dallandra over, Erddyr jumped to his feet.
“A herbwoman!” he bellowed. “Thank every god! Here, Comerr’s bleeding to death.”
Yraen turned his horses into the herd and left Dallandra to her work. He forced himself to walk across the battlefield, to pick his way among the dead and dying, simply to prove to himself that he could look upon death without being sickened, just as a real man was supposed to do, but he found it hard going. At last he found Rhodry, kneeling by Lord Adry’s corpse and methodically going through his pockets, looting like the silver dagger he was.
“A herbwoman’s here,” Yraen said. “She just rode out of nowhere.”
“The gods must have sent her. Did you hear about Comerr? Tewdyr got in a blow or two before he died. Tewdyr’s son is dead, too.”
“I figured that.”
Rhodry slipped a pouch of coin into his shirt under his mail and stood up, running his hands through his sweaty hair.
“Sure you don’t want to go back to your father’s dun?”
“Ah, hold your tongue! And know in my heart for the rest of my life that I’m a coward and not fit to live?”
“Yraen, you pigheaded butt end of a mule! Do I have to tell you all over again that you’re not the first lad to break down after his first battle? I—”
“I don’t care what you say. I shamed myself and I’ll feel shamed till I have a chance to redeem myself.”
“Have it your way, then.” With a hideously sunny grin playing about his mouth, Rhodry looked down at the corpse. “Well, what man can turn aside even his own Wyrd? I’d be a fool to think I could spare you yours.”
In that moment Yraen suddenly saw that Rhodry was a true berserker, so in love with his own death that he could deal it to others with barely a qualm. The intervals of peace, when he was joking or courtly, were only intervals, to him, things to pass the time until his next chance at blood. And I’m not like that, Yraen thought. Oh, by the gods, I thought I was, but I’m not. When Rhodry caught his elbow to steady him, Yraen felt as if one of the gods of war had laid hands upon him.
“What’s so wrong?” Rhodry said. “You’ve gone as white as milk.”
“Just tired. I mean, I . . . ”
“Come along, lad. Let’s find a spot where you can sit down and think about things. I’ll admit to being weary myself.”
The army made a rough camp down by the strearnside. One squad rode out to fetch the carts and the packhorses; another circled on guard in case Adry’s men returned. Since the shovels were all with the pack train, the remaining men couldn’t bury the dead. Although they lined the corpses up and covered them with blankets, still the birds came, drawn as if by dweomer to the battlefield, a flapping circle of ravens that cawed and screamed in sheer indignation, that men should drive them away from so much good meat. With the work done, the men stripped off mail and padding, then found places to sit on the ground, too weary to talk, too weary to light fires, merely sat and thought about dead friends. It was close to twilight before Yraen remembered the herbwoman.
“Here’s an odd thing. She knew our names, Rhodry. The old herbwoman, I mean. She asked if you were still alive.”
Rhodry flung his head up like a startled horse and swore.
“Oh, did she now? What does she look like?”
“I don’t know. I mean, she’s just this old woman, all white and wrinkled.”
Rhodry scrambled up, gesturing for him to follow.
“Let’s go find her, lad. I’ve got my reasons.”
Eventually, just as the falling night forced the exhausted men to their feet to tend to fires and suchlike, they found the herbwoman at the edge of the camp. By then the carts had come in, and she was using one of them as a table for her work while servants rushed around, fetching her water and handing her bandages and suchlike. As bloody as a warrior, she was bending over a prone man and binding his wounds by firelight. Yraen and Rhodry watched while she stitched up a couple of superficial cuts for one of Adry’s riders, then turned the prisoner back over to his guard.
“Old woman?” Rhodry said. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“I’ve not. Have you? I mean, what are you talking about? She looks old to me.”
“Does she now?” All at once Rhodry laughed. “Very well. I’ll take your word for it.”
“Rhodry! What by the hells are you talking about?”
“Naught, naught. Here, I thought for a while there that it might be someone I know, you see, but it’s not. Let’s go pay our respects anyway.”
Wearing only a singlet with her brigga, Dallandra was washing in a big kettle of warm water while a servant carried off her red and spattered shirt. To Yraen she looked even older with her flabby, wrinkled arms and prominent clavicle exposed, but Rhodry was staring at her as if he found her a marvel.
“Well met, Rhodry,” she said, glancing up. “I’m glad I didn’t find you under my needle and thread.”
“And so am I, good herbwoman. Have you ridden here from the Westlands to find me?”
“Not precisely.” She shot a warning glance in the servants’ direction. “I’ve too much work to do to talk now, but I’ll explain later.”
“One last question, if you would.” Rhodry made her a bow. “How fares Lord Comerr?”
“I had to take his left arm off at the shoulder. Maybe he’ll live, maybe not.” Dallandra looked doubtfully up at the hills. “The gods will do what they will, and there’s naught any of us can do about it.”
Yraen and Rhodry made a fire of their own, then ate stale flatbread and jerky out of their saddlebags, the noon provisions they’d never had time to eat before the battle. Yraen found himself gobbling shamelessly, even as he wondered how he could be hungry after the things he’d seen and done that day.
“Well, my friend,” Rhodry said. “You’ve made a splendid beginning, but don’t think you know everything you need to know about warfare.”
“I’d never be such a dolt. Don’t trouble your heart.”
“Is it what you’d been expecting?”
“Not in the least.”
Yet he was snared by a strange dreamlike feeling, that indeed it was all familiar—too familiar. His very exhaustion opened a door in his mind to reveal something long buried, not a memory, nothing so clear, but a recognition, a sense of familiarity as he looked at the camp and his own bloodstained clothes, as he felt every muscle in his body aching from the battle behind them. Even the horror, the sheer disgust of it—somehow he should have known, somehow he’d always known that glory demanded this particular price. For a moment he felt like weeping so strongly that only Rhodry’s appraising stare kept him from tears.
“Why don’t you just ride home?” Rhodry said.
He shook his head no and forced himself to go on eating.
“Why not?”
He could only shrug for his answer. Rhodry sighed, staring into the fire.
“I suppose you’ll feel like a coward or suchlike, running for home?”
“That’s close enough.” Yraen managed to find a few words at last. “I hate it, but it draws me all the same. War, I mean. I don’t understand.”
“No doubt, oh, no doubt.”
Rhodry seemed to be about to say more, but Dallandra came walking out of the shadows. She was wearing a clean shirt, much too big for her, and eating a chunk of cheese that she held in one hand like a peasant. Yraen was suddenly struck by the strong, purposeful way she strode along; if she were as old as she looked, she should have been all bent and hobbling, from the strain of her day’s work if nothing more. Without waiting to be asked she sat down next to Rhodry on the ground.
“Yraen here tells me you know our names,” Rhodry remarked, without so much as a good evening. “How?”
“I’m a friend of Evandar’s.”
Rhodry swore in a string of truly appalling oaths, but she merely laughed at him and had another bite of her cheese.
“Who’s that?” Yraen said. “Or wait! Not that odd fellow who gave you the whistle!”
“The very one.” Rhodry glanced at the herbwoman again. “May I ask you what you want with me?”
“Well, only the whistle your young friend mentioned. It’s a truly ill-omened thing, Rhodry, and it’s dangerous for you to be carrying it about with you.”
“Ah. I’d rather thought so myself. The strangest people—well, I suppose that people isn’t the best word—the strangest creatures keep showing up, trying to steal it from me.”
At that Yraen remembered the peculiar shadow that he’d seen out in Lord Erddyr’s ward.
“You really would be better off without it,” Dallandra said. “And Evandar never even meant to leave it with you. He’s been much distracted of late.”
Rhodry made a sour sort of face and glanced round, finding his saddlebags a few feet away and leaning back to grab them and haul them over. He rummaged for a few moments, then pulled out the whistle, angling it to catch the firelight.
“Answer me somewhat,” he said. “What is it?”
“I have no idea, except it feels evil to me.”
When she reached for it, he grinned and snatched it away, slipping it back into the saddlebag.
“Tell Evandar he can come fetch it himself.”
“Rhodry, this is no time to be stubborn.”
“I’ve a question or two to ask him. Tell him to come himself.”
Dallandra made some exasperated remark in a language that Yraen had never heard before. Rhodry merely laughed.
“Well, I don’t want to see you dead over this wretched thing,” the herbwoman went on. “So I’ll give you somewhat for protection.” She rumbled at her belt, where something heavy hung in a triangular leather sheath. “Here.”
When Rhodry took the sheath, Yraen could see a wooden handle—you couldn’t really call it a hilt—sticking out of the stained and crumbling leather. Rhodry slid the sheath off to reveal a leaf-bladed bronze knife, all scraped and pitted as if it had been hammered flat, then sharpened with a file like a farmer’s hoe.
“Ye gods, old woman!” Yraen said. “That wouldn’t protect anyone against anything!”
“Hold your tongue!” Rhodry snarled. “Better yet, apologize to the lady.”
When Yraen stared in disbelief, Rhodry caught his gaze and held it with all his berserker force.
“You have my humble apologies, good herbwoman,” Yraen stammered. “I abase myself at your feet in my shame.”
“You’re forgiven, lad.” She smiled briefly. “And I know it looks peculiar, but then, Rhodry’s enemies are a bit on the peculiar side themselves, aren’t they?”
“Well, the one I saw was. I mean, I didn’t actually see it, just its shadow, but peculiar’s a good enough word.”
Rhodry nodded his agreement; he was busily attaching the sheath to his belt at the right side to balance the dagger at the left. With a shake of her head the old woman got up, stretching her back and yawning.
“Ych, I’m exhausted,” she remarked. “Well, have it your way, Rhodry ap Devaberiel. But I’ve got obligations here and now, at least till we get these wounded men to a chirurgeon, and it may be a longer time than you think before I can tell Evandar to come fetch it back. Until then, you’ll be in danger, no matter how many knives I give you.”
“I’ll take my chances, then. I want some answers from your friend, good herbwoman.”
“So do I.” She laughed, as musically and lightly as a young girl. “But I’ve never gotten any from him myself, and so I doubt very much if you will either.”
She turned on her heel and walked off into the darkness, leaving Yraen staring after her. Smiling to himself, Rhodry laced the saddlebag up again, then laid it aside right close at hand.
“Why didn’t you give her the blasted thing?” Yraen said.
“I don’t know, truly. She’s probably right enough about Evandar not answering my questions.”
“Who or what is this Evandar, anyway?”
“I don’t know. That’s one of the questions I want to ask him.”
“Oh. Well, he and this strange hag seem to know you well enough. Here, wait a minute. She called you Rhodry ap Deva-something. What kind of a name is that? Your father’s, I mean.”
Rhodry looked at him for a long, mild moment.
“Elven,” he said at last, and then he tossed back his head and howled with laughter, his icy berserker’s shriek.
Demanding an explanation from him in that mood was the furthest thing from Yraen’s mind.
“I’ll just go get some more firewood.” He got to his feet. “Fire’s getting low, and I wouldn’t mind some light.”
As he hurried off to the area where the provisions were stacked, Yraen was remembering all the old children’s tales he’d ever heard about the people called the Elcyion Lacar or elves. If any such race did exist, he decided, Rhodry was the best candidate ever he’d found to be one of them, simply because he seemed so alien at his very heart.

When he went to sleep that night, Rhodry tucked the bone whistle into his shirt. Although he doubted very much if Dallandra would stoop to stealing it, he was expecting one of the strange creatures to take advantage of his weariness, and he put the bronze knife right beside his blankets, as well. Sure enough, he woke suddenly in the middle of the night at the sound of someone or something dumping out his saddlebags. When he sat up, grabbing the knife, whatever it was fled. He could see nothing but his strewn gear, and the whistle was still safely in his shirt. Moving quietly he got up, knelt and put the gear away again, then pulled on his boots for a look round and a word with the night watch. Although the camp was ringed by sentries, none of them had seen anything moving, either in the camp or out in the silent valley.
About halfway between two sentries, Rhodry paused, rubbing his face and yawning while he considered offering to stand someone’s watch for them. From where he stood he could see the bleak lines of dead men, waiting under their blankets for their burying on the morrow. With a sharp sigh he turned away, only to find Dallandra walking toward him. In the moonlight he could see her quite clearly as a young and beautiful elven woman. With her long silvery-blond hair carelessly pulled back with a thong, she seemed no more than a lass, in fact, but he’d heard enough tales to know who she was.
“Good evening,” he said in Elvish. “Looking for me?”
“No, I just couldn’t sleep.” She answered in the same. “Ych, this slaughterl I feel like crying, but if I let myself start, I’d weep for hours.”
“It takes some people that way, truly.”
“Not you?”
“It did at first. I grew past it, as, or so I hope, our young Yraen will. If he insists on riding with me, he’ll see plenty of this sort of thing.”
She merely nodded, staring out over the field with her steel-gray eyes.
“Tell me something,” Rhodry said. “You have dweomer, don’t you? Every other man in this camp thinks you’re an ugly old crone.”
“That’s Evandar’s dweomer, not mine. I should have known that a man of the People would see through it. You’ve met me before, Rhodry, in a rather odd way. I think you might have seen me, anyway, even though I wasn’t truly on the physical plane. It was a long time ago, when Jill and Aderyn pulled you free of that trouble you’d got yourself into.”
Rhodry winced. Silver dagger or no, there were a few shameful things in his life that he didn’t care to remember.
“I wasn’t truly aware of much, then,” he said at last. All at once a thought struck him. “Oh, here, I’ve sad news for you. Or did you know about Aderyn?”
“Is he dead then?”
“He is, of old age and nothing more.”
Her eyes spilled tears, and she spun round, hiding her face in the crook of an elbow. When Rhodry laid a hesitant hand on her shoulder to comfort her, she turned to him blindly and sobbed against his chest.
“That hurts,” she choked out. “I’m surprised at how much.”
“Then forgive me for being the bearer of the news.”
She nodded, pulling away, wiping her face vigorously on the hem of her shirt,
“I’ll talk to you later,” she said, her voice still thick. “I need a moment or two alone.”
She strode off, walking so fast and surely, even in her grief, that he wondered at the blindness of men for believing in the dweomer cloak that Evandar had fashioned for her.

On a bed of blankets, Lord Comerr lay beside Lord Erddyr’s fire. His face was dead-pale, his breathing shallow, and his skin cool to the touch—a trio of omens that troubled Dallandra deeply. While she changed the bandages on his wounds, Erddyr knelt beside her and did his best to help, handing over things as she asked for them. Comerr stirred once or twice at the pain, but he never spoke.
“Tell me honestly,” Erddyr said. “Will he live?”
“Maybe. He’s a hard man, and there’s hope, but he’s lost a terrible lot of blood.”
With a grunt, Erddyr sat back on his heels and studied Comerr’s face.
“Let me ask you a presumptuous question, my lord,” Dallandra went on. “Have you ever thought of asking the gwerbret for his intervention? Lord Adry is dead, and Comerr close enough to it. Fighting over which of them will be tieryn someday seems a bit superfluous, shall we say?”
“True spoken. And they aren’t the only noble lords fallen in this scrap. I’ve been thinking very hard about sending that message.”
“That gladdens my heart. Do you think the other side will submit?”
“They’ll have cursed little choice if the gwerbret takes the matter under his jurisdiction. Besides, Nomyr’s the only lord left on their side, and he’s in this only out of duty.”
“Didn’t Adry have a son?”
“He does, but the lad’s only seven years old.”
Dallandra muttered an oath under her breath. Erddyr studied his mercifully unconscious ally.
“Ah, by the fart-freezing hells, it aches my heart to see him maimed like this.”
“Better than dead. The arm wasn’t worth saving, and I never could have stopped the bleeding in time.”
“Oh, I’m not questioning your decision.” Erddyr shuddered like a wet dog. “I think I’ll take my chance to get him out of this while he can’t speak for himself. I’ll send messengers tomorrow.”
“The gods will honor you for it. You know, my lord, I happen to have a letter of safe conduct with the gwerbret’s seal upon it. You’d be most welcome to make use of it.”
“My thanks a hundredfold. I will.”
“I wonder if his lordship would do me a favor. I’d just as soon have my friend Rhodry out of this. Could you send your pair of silver daggers as the messengers?”
“Oh, I’d grant your favor gladly, but they’d be in worse danger there than here. You’re forgetting that Rhodry is the man who killed Lord Adry. If any of Adry’s men catch Rhodry on the road, they’ll cut him down even if he’s carrying letters from the Lord of Hell himself.”
“I hadn’t realized that, my lord.”
Erddyr nibbed his beard and looked at Comerr, who tossed his head in his sleep and grunted in pain. Suddenly too weary to stand, Dallandra sat down right on the ground and cradled her head in both hands.
“A thousand apologies, good herbwoman,” Erddyr said. “I never should have kept you here like this. You need your sleep at your age and all.”
“So I do. Since my lordship excuses me?”
Yet, once she was lying down in her blankets, she found herself thinking about Aderyn instead of falling asleep. The surprise of her grief troubled her more than the grief itself, until she realized that she was mourning not so much the man himself, as what their love might have been if only Evandar and his doomed people hadn’t claimed her instead. Another painful thing was Rhodry’s news that he’d died of simple old age. Even though she’d spent a few months with him when he was already old as men reckon age, in her mind and heart she always saw him as her young lover with his ready smile and earnest eyes. Once more she wept, crying herself asleep, alone at the edge of the armed camp.
It took two days for the army to return to Comerr’s dun, simply because the lord’s life hung by a thread. Being jolted in a cart tired him so badly that every now and then the line of march was forced to stop and let him rest. At last, close to sunset on the second day, they rode into the great iron-bound gates, where Comerr’s young wife waited weeping to receive her husband. Dallandra helped the lady settle Comerr in his own bed and tend his wounds, then went down to the great hall for a meal. Crowded into one side of the great hall, the men were sitting on the floor or standing as they ate. At the table of honor, Lord Erddyr dined alone. When Dallandra went for a word with him, the lord insisted that she join him.
“What do you think of Comerr’s chances now?” Erddyr said.
“They’re good. He’s lived through the worst, and there’s no sign of either gangrene or lockjaw.”
With a sigh of relief, Erddyr handed Dallandra a slice of bread and poured her ale with his own hands. Sharing a wooden trencher, they ate roast pork and bread in silence. Finally the lord leaned back in his chair.
“Well, naught for it but to wait for the gwerbret’s answer to that message of mine. I wonder if Nomyr sent a request for intervention himself?” He held up a greasy hand and ticked the names off on his fingers. “Adry’s dead, Tewdyr and his heir are dead, Oldadd’s dead, Paedyn’s dead, and Degedd’s dead. Ah horseshit, I’m not sure I give a pig’s fart about this war anymore, but I’ll beg you, good herbwoman, don’t tell another man I ever said such a dishonorable thing.”
In two days the messengers returned with the news that the gwerbret was riding to settle the matter with his entire warband of five hundred men. Erddyr was to select twenty-five men for an honor guard and ride to neutral ground; Nomyr would do the same or be declared a traitor. Although Dallandra would have liked to have ridden to hear the settlement, her first obligation was to the wounded. Although a good half of the casualties had died during the long journey back to the dun, she still had some twenty men who needed more care than the servants could give them. Late that evening, when she was tending them in the barracks, the messenger sought her out; he’d been given a note for her at the gwerbret’s dun.
“Can you read, good dame, or should I fetch the scribe?”
“I can read a bit. Let me try.”
Although written Deverrian was difficult for her, the note was brief.
“Ah, it’s from Timryc the chirurgeon! He’s riding our way as fast as ever he can, and he’s bringing supplies with him.”
She was so relieved that she wept, just a brief scatter of tears while the messenger nodded in sympathy, glancing round at the men whose luck had been worse than his own. She could never tell him or any other human being that her heart was troubled more by revulsion than sympathy for all this gouged and shattered flesh, cut meat exposing splintered bone.
Close to midnight, Dallandra went for a walk out in the ward. By then the gibbous moon was already slouching past zenith. Most of the men were asleep, but she could see through the windows a few servants still working in the firelit great hall. Although she’d come out for a breath of air, the ward stank of dungheaps and stable sweepings, a pigsty and a henhouse. Mud from the spring thaw lay everywhere, slimy and half-alive with sprouting weeds and fungi.
For a moment she wanted to scream and run, to find a road back to Evandar’s country no matter who might need her here in the world of men, to leave, in fact, the entire physical world far behind her. How could she condemn Elessario or any of the Host to this foul existence? Even the People, for all their long lives, suffered illness and injury and death out on the grasslands; even they, for all their former glory, spent cold wet winters huddled in smelly tents while they rationed out food and fuel. Perhaps Evandar was right. Perhaps it would be better to never be born, to live for a brief while in the shifting astral world like flames in a fire, then fade away in peace, the fire cold and spent.
She looked up to the moon, waning now, only a bulbous wedge of light in the sky and soon to disappear into the darkness. Yet, in turn again, it would shine forth and grow till it rode full and high in the sky—a visible symbol of the waxing and waning of the Light, the sinking and rising of birth and death. Once Dallandra would have found comfort in meditating on such a symbol; that night in the stinking damp ward she was simply too weary, too sick at heart for it to seem anything but a sterile exercise.
“Evandar, I wish you’d come to me.”
Although she only breathed a whisper, she’d surprised herself by speaking aloud at all. There were times when she could summon him by trained and concentrated thought, but that night when she tried she could only feel that he was far out of reach, off perhaps on business of his own rather than hovering near her in the country he called the Gatelands. Perhaps his brother had broken their truce? Remembering the fox warrior, wondering if some peculiar combat was being joined, made her shudder with a sick loathing.
“Evandar!”
No thought, no breath of his presence came to her, yet she was sure that she would know if he was dead or somehow being kept from her against his will.
“Evandar!”
She could hear her voice, the wail of a lost child. Yet she felt nothing but a vast lack, an emptiness where his presence might have been. She had no choice, then, but to face her melancholy alone.
In the vain hope of finding cleaner air, she started for the gates, only to find someone there ahead of her, climbing down the ladder from the ramparts. When he turned round, she could see with her elven sight that it was Rhodry, yawning as he came off watch. In the shadow of the dun she paused, hiding out of a weary reluctance to speak with anyone, but being a man of the People as he was, he spotted her and strolled over.
“You’re up late,” he remarked.
“I just finished with the wounded. By the gods of both our peoples, I hope that chirurgeon gets himself here soon.”
“Shouldn’t take him long. Shall I escort you to your luxurious chambers? I trust our lord found you a clean place to sleep, anyway.”
“He did, though splendid it’s not. One of the storage sheds.” All at once she yawned. “I’m more tired than I thought.”
Silently they walked round the dun and made their way behind the kitchen hut to the ramshackle thatched shed that was serving her as a bedchamber. Since like cats the People can’t see in pitch-darkness, she had a tin candle-lantern, perched on an ale barrel far away from the heap of straw where she’d spread her blankets. When she lit the candle with a snap of her fingers, Rhodry flinched.
“You never truly get used to seeing that,” he said, but he was grinning at her. “May I talk with you a little while? I’d like to ask you a few questions and all that, but I can see you’re weary, so send me right away if you want.”
She hesitated, but not only did he deserve answers, she quite simply didn’t want to be alone.
“Not that tired. Bar the door, will you?”
She sat down on her blankets amid a scatter of her gear, and watched him as he sat by the barrel a few feet away. In the shadow-dancing candlelight she was struck by how good-looking he was, especially for a man who was half-human; somehow, in all the danger and hard work of the past few days, she simply hadn’t noticed. In her dark mood the streak of gray in his hair and the web of lines round his eyes made him seem only more attractive. Here was a man who knew defeat and suffering both.
“Who or what is Evandar?” he said abruptly. “He’s not a man of the People, is he?”
“He’s not, and no more is he human. He’s not truly incarnated or corporeal at all. Do you know what those words mean?”
“Close enough.” He shot her a grin. “Not only did I spend a few years in the company of sorcerers, but I was raised a Maelwaedd. I’ve a bit more learning than most border lords or silver daggers either.”
“Well, my apologies—”
“No need, no need. I don’t suppose anyone else in this dun would know what you’re talking about, except maybe young Yraen, and he wouldn’t believe you.” They shared a soft laugh.
“But Evandar’s only one of an entire host of beings, some like him—true individuals, I mean. The others are about as conscious as clever animals but no more, and there’s even some who seem to have never truly evolved at all into anything you could call a man or woman.”
“Indeed? And what about that badger-headed thing that keeps trying to steal this whistle?” Rhodry laid a hand on his shirt, just above his belt. “Is he one of Evandar’s people?”
“He’s not, but a renegade from another host, headed by Evandar’s brother, and a strange thing that is.” She shuddered again, remembering the sheer malice in the black and vulpine eyes, “I don’t truly understand them myself, Rhodry. I’m not trying to put you off. You’re probably thinking of the old stories, of how I left Aderyn hundreds of years ago, but you’ve got to remember that as Evandar’s world reckons Time, I’ve only been there a month or so.”
His lips parted in a soft “oh” of surprise.
“No more do I know what that whistle may be,” she went on. “I suspect that it’s not magical at all, but just a trinket, like that ring of yours.”
“Now wait! If there’s no dweomer on this ring, why does that female keep trying to take it back?”
“Alshandra? Evandar told me about your skirmishes with her. She doesn’t truly understand what she’s doing. I fear me that she’s gone mad.”
“Oh, splendid!” Rhodry snarled. “Here I am, chased round two kingdoms by a thing from the Otherlands and a mad spirit, and no one even knows why! I just might go daft myself, out of spite if naught more.”
“I couldn’t hold it to your shame, but it would be a great pity if you did. You’re going to need your wits about you.”
“No doubt. I always have, for all of my wretched life, except perhaps for those few years out on the grass. That’s the only peace I’ve ever known, Dalla, those years with the People.”
All at once he looked so weary, so spent, really, that she leaned forward and laid her hand on his knee.
“It aches my heart to see you so sad, but you’ve got a tangled Wyrd, sure enough, and there’s naught that I or any other dweomerworker can do about that.”
He nodded, putting his hand over hers, just a friendly gesture at first, but it seemed to her that a warmth grew and spread between them. His fingers, the rough, callused fingers of a fighting man, tightened on her hand. She hesitated, thinking of Evandar, but when she sent her mind ranging out, she could sense nothing but a vast distance between them. When Rhodry raised her hand and kissed her fingertips, just lightly, she felt the warmth spread as if it were mead, flowing through her blood. He rose to his knees, pulling her up with him. She laid her free hand flat on his chest.
“In a few days I’ll have to leave this world and go back to the one I’ve made my own. If you ride with his lordship to the settlement, I could well be gone by the time you return, and by the time I come back to your world, a hundred years might have passed.”
“And would it ache your heart, to ride back and find me gone?”
“It would, but not enough to keep me here. In all fairness, you need to know that.”
He smiled, but in the candlelight his eyes seemed wells of sadness.
“A silver dagger’s no man to make demands upon a great lady, or to tax her comings and goings.”
She would have said something to comfort him, but he kissed her, hesitantly at first, then openmouthed and passionately when she slipped into his arms. At first she was shocked by how strong, how solid he was, real muscle and bone, warm flesh and the smell of flesh and sweat. When he laid her down in the straw, she could feel his weight, and his mouth seemed to burn on hers, and on her face and neck as he kissed her over and over, as if she were feverish and he, the healer. She found herself digging her fingertips into his back just for the sensation of solid flesh beneath her hands and pressing against him as tight as she could just for his warmth—an animal warmth, she realized suddenly, just as somehow she’d forgotten that she too was an animal, no matter how great her dweomer powers, no matter how far above the world of flesh she’d come to dwell. At that moment she was nothing but glad that he was making her remember.
Afterward, she lay panting and sweaty in his arms and listened to his heart pounding close to hers. The candle threw guttering shadows on the wooden walls as outside the wind rose, whispering in the thatch. Rhodry kissed her eyes, her mouth, then loosened his hold upon her and moved a little away. He looked so sad that she laid her hand alongside his face; he turned his head and kissed her fingers, but he said nothing, merely watched the shadows leaping this way and that. She sat up, running both hands through her hair and sweeping it back from her face.
“Do you really have to ride with Erddyr when he goes?” she said.
He grinned at that and looked her way again.
“I already said we would, Yraen and me.”
“Is it going to be safe? Erddyr said something about Adry’s men wanting to kill you.”
“And the laws will make the gwerbret forbid them any such thing, if I appeal in his court. I want it over and settled before we ride on.” He sat up, stretching and yawning. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a fancy to travel the roads with a silver dagger? You don’t have to answer that, mind, just a wondering. I know you’ve work at hand, and I—ye gods! What’s that?”
She slewed round and saw someone—or something—crouched in the shadows at the curve of the wall. It was too small to be the snouted creature she’d seen before; more doglike, it had tiny red eyes that glowed like coals in a fire and long fangs that glistened wet. When Dallandra flung up one hand and sketched a sigil in the air, it shrieked and disappeared. Rhodry swore under his breath.
“I wish you’d just give me that wretched whistle and be done with it,” she said.
“What? And let you face those creatures instead of me?”
“I happen to know how to deal with them.”
“Tirue spoken. But if I give it to you, what will you do? Go back to that other country?” All at once he grinned. “I’d rather you tarried here a little while longer.”
“Oh, would you now?”
She saw the whistle lying not far away, where it had rolled when he’d taken his shirt off, and made a grab at it. He was too fast, catching her wrists and dragging her back, even though she struggled with him. She found herself laughing, let him pull her close, kissed him until he let her go so they could lie down together again. But before he made love to her, he picked the whistle up and tucked it into the straw under her head, where nothing could steal it away.
This time, when they were finished, he fell asleep, so suddenly, so completely, that it seemed he would sink into the straw and disappear. She slipped free of his arms and stood up. As naked as a country woman worshiping her goddess in the fields, she raised her arms and called down the light. Moving deosil she used her outstretched hand as a weapon to draw a circle of blue light round the hut and seal it at the quarters with the sigils of the kings of the elements. With a flick of her hand she set the circle moving, turning, glowing golden as it formed into a revolving sphere with the sleeping Rhodry safe in its center. No member of any host, whether elemental or astral, could breach this wall
As silently as she could, she sat down next to him and worked the whistle free from the straw. She could steal it now, slip out into the night, and be gone to Evandar’s country before he even woke for an argument. No doubt Tlmryc would arrive on the morrow to nurse her charges; she could even scry and make sure of that, then leave in perfect conscience. Yet as she watched her human lover sleeping in the light of a guttering candle, she wondered if she wanted to return to Evandar. She felt not the slightest guilt at having betrayed him, if indeed betrayal was even the proper word. The fleshy, sweaty love she’d just shared with Rhodry was so different from anything she’d ever experienced with Evandar that she simply couldn’t equate the two. They belong in different worlds, indeed, she thought to herself. And I? I suppose I belong in this one, no matter what I may want or think, no matter how it aches my heart.
Eventually she would return to the world and the Westlands, once her work was done, her service to Evandar’s host all paid. Although she would always see life as a burden, no matter what compensations it might offer from now on, she could thank Rhodry for making her remember that she belonged to the life of the world. In the meantime, too much depended upon her, not merely Evandar’s happiness but his soul, and that of his daughter and all their kind as well, for her to linger in the lands of men. No matter what doubts she might have, she loved Elessario and Evandar both too well to condemn them.
In his sleep Rhodry stirred, sighing, burrowing his face into the crook of his arm like a child. For a moment she wondered what it would be like to stay with him a little while, riding the Deverry roads, but she knew that he would only come to bore her, and the fine thing they’d shared would grow tarnished. She would leave Rhodry behind, but she refused to be a thief. She tossed the whistle onto his shirt, put the candle out with a snap of her fingers, then lay down to cuddle next to him for their last few hours together.
Some hours after dawn, Dallandra woke to find Rhodry already gone, and the whistle with him. She threw on her clothes and hurried outside to find the ward empty and silent. Inside the great hall, a page informed her that Erddyr and his ritual escort, including Yraen and Rhodry, had already ridden out, heading for the settlement ground just as dawn was breaking.
“Shall I bring you some food, good dame?”
“My thanks, but I’d best tend the wounded first.”
“Oh, Timryc the chirurgeon’s doing that. He and one of his apprentices rode in just as the men were leaving.”
Again she felt her relief as a rush of tears. She wiped her face on her sleeve while the page watched, all solemn-eyed.
“Then I’ll have some breakfast, lad, and my thanks for the news.”
It took Dallandra a few hours to settle matters at the dun, discussing her patients with Timryc, making her farewells. Just as she was riding out the gates, Lord Comerr’s chamberlain came rushing after with a sack of silver coins, which he insisted she take with his thanks before she rode on. By the time she could no longer see the towers from the road, the sun was at its zenith. Out in the middle of pastureland she found a stream, running through the shelter of trees. She set her horse and mule out to graze, then treated herself to a bath elven style, in the fast-running clean water instead of some dirty wooden tub.
Once she was dressed and dry, she sat on the bank, watched the sun dappling the ripples as it broke through the branches of the trees, and thought of Evandar. This time he came. She felt his presence first as a sound, as if someone called her name from a great distance; then she had the same sensation as a person reading in a chamber who feels rather than sees someone step silently through the door. In a rustle of leaves and branches he walked out from between two trees, and no matter what she might have done with Rhodry the night before, she felt herself smiling as if her face would split from it at the sight of him. Laughing, he folded her into his arms and gave her one of his oddly cool kisses. He smelt clean, like the stream water, not like flesh at all.
“You look pale, my love,” he remarked in Deverrian. “Is somewhat troubling your heart?”
“I’ve just spent a ghastly week or two, truly, tending men wounded in battle, and more than a few of them died, no matter how I tried to help them.”
“A sad thing, that.”
She knew that he felt no honest compassion, but that he would mimic it for her sake was comfort enough.
“Rhodry still has the whistle,” she said. “He wouldn’t give it up. He says he wants to have a talk with you, and that you’ll have to come fetch it back yourself.”
Evandar laughed with a flash of his sharp white teeth.
“Then a talk he shall have. I like a man with mettle, I do. Imph, I suppose I’d best stay here in this world. If I go back with you, I might miss him entirely.”
“True spoken. Here, where were you? I called for you—well, last night it would have been here, whatever that might have been in your country.”
For a moment he looked puzzled.
“Ah! I’d gone to the islands to see how Jill fares. She’s been ill, it turns out, but now she’s well again and learning much new dweomer lore. She’ll be growing wings like one of us next, if she keeps on this way.”
“That’s a dangerous thing for a human being to try to learn. I wonder how skilled her teachers are, and if they know the differences from soul to soul.”
Evandar laughed aloud.
“I’d wager a great deal that they do, my love, but you look like a mother cat chasing her kittens away from danger! Get on your way back, then. I’ll take your horse and follow our Rhodry down. I doubt me if I’ll tell him what he wants to know, but maybe he’ll have a riddle or two to trade.”
“Well and good, then.” She paused to kiss him on the mouth. “And you promised me you’d return that stolen mule and all its goods, didn’t you now?”
“So I did, so I did. I’ll summon one of my people straightaway, I promise you.”
“My thanks. Meet me by our river.”
With him so close beside her, she could use his particular dweomer to breach the planes. She floated onto the surface of the stream and dashed along the rippled road, saw the fog of the Gatelands opening out, and stepped up and through. She had just time to turn and wave to Evandar, standing on the streamside, before the fog shut her round. At her neck hung again the amethyst figurine. She kept walking through the misty landscape beyond gate until she could be sure that Evandar and the lands of men lay far behind her. Then she sat down on a cold, damp hillside and wept for Rhodry Maelwaedd, whom most likely she’d never again.

The neutral ground turned out to be a day and a half’s ride from Lord Comerr’s and down in the plains on the Deverry side of the Pyrdon hills. Out in front of the walled dun of a certain Tieryn Magryn, whose chief distinction lay in his lack of ties to either Comerr or Adry, the gwerbret’s warband had set up camp in a meadow lush with spring grass. As soon as Lord Erddyr and his escort dismounted, a hundred men surrounded them—all in the friendliest possible way, but Yraen knew that they were being taken under arrest to keep them away from Lord Nomyr and his riders. Some of the gwerbret’s men took their horses; others escorted them on a strict path through canvas tents. At the far end, a few hundred yards from the hill of the dun, stood a long, canvas pavilion, draped with the green and blue banners of the gwerbrets of Dun Trebyc to cover the rips and weather stains. A tall blond man in his thirties, Gwerbret Drwmyc sat in a chair carved with the eagle blazon of his clan. Behind him stood two councillors, and a scribe sat at a tiny table nearby.
Kneeling at the gwerbret’s right side, Lord Nomyr was already present; his honor guard sat in orderly rows behind him. With a wave at his men to settle themselves, Erddyr knelt at the gwerbret’s left. The gwerbret’s men stood round the scene with their hands on their sword hilts, ready for the first sign of trouble.
“It gladdens my heart to see you both arrive so promptly,” Drwmyc said. “Now. Lord Erddyr, by whose authority do you come?”
“Comerr’s himself, Your Grace. He gave me his seal and swore in front of witnesses to abide by the settlement I make in his name.
“Well and good. Lord Nomyr?”
“By the authority of Lady Talyan, regent for her son Gwandyc, Adry’s heir. She too has agreed to abide by his grace’s arbitration.”
“Well and good, then. Lord Erddyr, since you’re the one who called upon me, speak first and present your tale of the causes of this war.”
Erddyr recited the story of the dispute of the cattle rights and many another cause of bad blood between Adry and Comerr. When he was done, Nomyr had the chance to tell a slightly different version. Back and forth they went, working through the actual events and battles, while their men grew restless. To the riders, this judgment seemed a pitiful way to end the fighting, a coward’s out, and tedious. While the two lords wrangled over Tewdyr’s raid on Erddyr’s dun, the warbands leaned forward, staring at each other narrow-eyed and hostile. Yraen noticed four of Nomyr’s guard studying Rhodry in barely concealed fury. He elbowed him and pointed them out.
“Adry’s men,” Rhodry whispered. “Hawk blazon.”
Yraen was profoundly glad that the gwerbret’s warband stood on the watch for trouble. While the two lords argued furiously, the hot summer day turned the pavilion stifling, another spur to ill temper. At last the gwerbret cut the argument short with a wave of his hand.
“I’ve heard enough. I intend to set aside all charges of misconduct during the actual fight, because for every wrong on one side, there was one on the other to countercharge it. Will their lordships agree?”
“On my part, I will.” Nomyr bowed to his liege lord.
Erddyr debated for several minutes. “And I, too, Your Grace,” he said at last. “After all, my wife to no actual harm, and Tewdyr’s dead.”
“Done, then.” Drwmyc motioned at the scribe to record the agreement. “We can turn now to the disputes of cause.”
Adry’s four men looked at each other and risked a few grim whispers. Nomyr glared and waved at them to be silent.
“What troubles your men, Lord Nomyr?” Drwmyc said.
“They used to ride for Lord Adry, Your Grace, and his lordship’s death troubles them.”
“By the gods themselves!” Drwmyc lost patience with ritual courtesy. “The death of so many lords troubles us all, but men do die in battle.”
“Begging his grace’s pardon.” A heavyset blond rider rose to his feet and made the gwerbret a bow. “Never did we mean to disturb his grace’s proceedings, but we’re all shamed men, Your Grace, and that’s a hard thing to bear in silence. Our lord was killed by a cursed silver dagger, and Lord Nomyr called the retreat before we could avenge him. How can we live with that?”
With a ripple of trouble coming, the warbands turned toward the speaker.
“You’ll have to live with it,” Drwmyc answered. “If you retreated on order of your lord’s faithful ally, then no man can both hold you shamed and himself just.”
“We hold ourselves shamed, Your Grace. It’s a bitter thing to choose between disobeying the noble-born and letting your lord lie unavenged. And now here’s that silver dagger, sitting in your court with honest men. It gripes our souls, Your Grace.”
Yraen grabbed Rhodry’s arm and pulled it away from his sword. Nomyr swung round to face the rider.
“Gwar, hold your tongue and sit down,” Nomyr snarled. “We’re in the gwerbret’s presence.”
“So we are, my lord. But begging your lordship’s pardon, I swore to Lord Adry, not you.”
When his three companions rose to join him, everyone around went tense, murmuring among themselves. The gwerbret rose from his chair and drew his sword, holding it point upward, a solid symbol of justice.
“There will be no murder in my court,” Drwmyc snarled. “Gwar, if the silver dagger killed your lord in a fair fight, that’s the end to it.”
The four men tensed, glancing at one another, as if they were debating their choices. Since their honor lay buried in a shallow grave with Lord Adry, they were likely to leave Nomyr’s service and hunt Rhodry down on the roads no matter what the cost to themselves. Rhodry pulled away from Yraen’s restraining hand and got to his feet.
“Your Grace,” Rhodry called out. “I’m the silver dagger they mean, and I’ll swear it was a fair fight. I’ll beg your grace to settle this here and now under rule of law. I don’t care to be hunted on the roads like a fox.” He turned to Gwar. “Your lord died by the fortunes of war. What do you have against me?”
“That you killed him for a piece of silver! What do you think? A good man like him, killed for a cursed bit of coin.”
“I didn’t kill him for the coin. I killed him to save my life, because your lord was a good man with his blade.”
“You wouldn’t have been on the field if it weren’t for the coin.” Gwar paused to spit on the ground. “Silver dagger.”
Yraen and Renydd exchanged a glance and rose to a kneel, ready to leap up to Rhodry’s defense if Gwar and his lads charged. Drwmyc’s hand tightened on his sword hilt when he saw them.
“No one move,” the gwerbret said. “The first man to draw in my court will be taken alive and hanged like a dog. Do you hear me?”
Everyone sat back down, even Gwar, and promptly.
“Good,” Drwmyc continued. “Silver dagger, are you appealing to me?”
“I am, Your Grace, under the laws of men and gods alike, and I swear upon my very life to abide by your decision. Either absolve me of guilt or set me some lwdd to pay for Lord Adry’s death.”
“Nicely spoken, and so I shall.” The gwerbret considered for a moment. “But on the morrow. I have one matter before me in malover already, you know.”
“I do, Your Grace, and never would I set my own affairs above those of honorable men.”
When Yraen stole a glance at Gwar and his friends, he found them looking as sour as if they’d bitten into a Bardek citron. Apparently the last thing they’d expected from a road-filthy silver dagger was eloquence.
“Until I hold malover upon this matter of the silver dagger and the death of Lord Adry, his life is sacrosanct under all the laws of Great Bel,” the gwerbret said. “Gwar, do you and your lads understand that?”
“We do, Your Grace, and never would we break those laws.”
“Good,” Brwniyc allowed himself a thin smile. “But just in case temptation strikes, like, I’m putting guards on the silver dagger. Captain?” He turned to one of the men standing behind him. “See to it, will you, when we leave the pavilion?”
With the morning the malover reconvened, and the proceedings over the war droned on. Round noon, the gwerbret ruled in Comerr’s favor, that his clan should rule the new tierynrhyn. Since Tewdyr was dead without an heir, his grace split his lands twixt Erddyr and Nomyr, as a reward for bringing the matter under the rule of law. Since there was a vast sea of details to sail across, however, it was late in the day before everything was settled. Yraen was half expecting that Rhodry’s matter would be postponed yet again, but the gwerbret had forgotten neither it nor his obligation to even the least of the men in his rhan. When the proceedings were finally concluded to the lords’ satisfaction, Drwmyc rose, looking, over the assembly.
“There you are, silver dagger. Let’s settle your matter now, and then we’ll have a good dinner to celebrate, like. Maybe I can talk Tieryn Magryn into standing for some mead for all you men. Come forward. We’ll hear what you and that other fellow, the spokesman—Gwar, was it?—have to say.”
The gwerbret’s jovial mood certainly boded well for Rhodry’s case, Yraen decided. In answer to the summons, Rhodry went forward, bowed, then handed his sword to a guard and knelt at the gwerbret’s feet. Gwar, however, seemed to have disappeared, though his three friends were sitting over at the right side of the pavilion. They got up and began bowing and making apologies, while everyone else started grinning and making jokes about privies. After a few brief moments Gwar did indeed appear, hurrying into the big tent and threading his way down to the front. Yraen was suddenly struck by an oddity; after being so bold the day before, Gwar looked toward the ground as he walked as if he were afraid to meet anyone’s gaze.
“Good, good. Hurry up, lad,” the gwerbret said. “The rest of you, hold, your tongues now! Let’s get the judgment under way.”
Yraen saw Rhodry studying Gwar as his enemy handed his sword over, and though he couldn’t see the silver dagger too clearly from his distance, he would have sworn that Rhodry had gone a little pale. Certainly he half rose from his kneel as if on sudden guard. Gwar walked forward, heading, or so it seemed, for the other side of the gwerbret’s chair. All at once he hesitated for a bare flick of an eyelash, then spun round and rushed at Rhodry, who had no time to get to his feet. Yraen saw Gwar throw himself on Rhodry and grab him round the throat, and the bronze knife gleam in Rhodry’s hand, before the pavilion erupted into shouting. Men leapt to their feet and swarmed forward. With a yell Yraen jumped up, thanking the gods for making him tall enough to see over this pack.
The gwerbret himself was on his feet, sword in hand and slashing at the man who’d broken order in his malover, but Gwar was already dead, crumpled over Rhodry’s shoulder like a sack of meal. As Yraen shoved himself forward through the mob, Rhodry slowly rose, shoving the corpse off, staggering to bis feet with the reddened bronze knife in his hand. His neck bled from scratches and punctures, as if he’d been clutched by a gigantic cat.
“Chirurgeon!” the gwerbret yelled. “Get one of the chirurgeons!”
“Your Grace, it’s only a scratch.” Rhodry’s voice was choked and rasping, his face dead-pale. “But ye gods!”
Yraen managed to reach his side just as the captain of the gwerbret’s guard knelt and turned the corpse over. For a moment he stared, then he began cursing in a steady foul stream. The gwerbret looked and went pale himself. Lying at Rhodry’s feet was a creature in Gwar’s clothes, a badger-headed thing with a blunt snout and fangs. Protruding from the sleeves of its shirt were hairy paws with thick black talons. Rhodry held up the bronze knife.
“Told you not to mock the herbwoman,” he croaked. “Without this, he’d have strangled me.”
All round them men were pushing forward to see, swearing or yelping and passing the news back to those who couldn’t get close. Suddenly Yraen thought of the obvious.
“Gwar!” he snapped. “What’s happened to him, then?”
While the apprentice chirurgeon washed Rhodry’s throat clean and put a few stitches in the worst wounds, his grace’s entire warband began searching the area. At last they found Gwar, naked and strangled, round back of the dun. At that point the assembled warbands, battle-hardened men all of them, began to break and panic. Even though the gwerbret sent to the tieryn’s town for every priest he could find, morale washed away like sand under a tide of rumors and speculations. All his grace could do was to call the various lords to him.
“Get your men on the road,” he snapped. “We’ll settle any last things with heralds. Get your men together and riding for home, and do it now.”
The lords were entirely too ready to obey for Yraen’s taste, but he did have to wonder at himself for being one of the calmest men in the pavilion.
“I guess it’s because I saw the shadow-thing, and I was there when the herbwoman gave you that knife, and all that. Hold a moment—herbwoman, indeed! Who was she, Rhodry?”
Rhodry merely shrugged for an answer.
“He shouldn’t be talking,” the chirurgeon snapped.
“One thing, though, lad.” Rhodry immediately broke this sensible rule. “Lord Erddyr. Find him and get our hire.”
“I can’t be asking him for coin now!”
Rhodry looked at him with one raised eyebrow.
“Oh, very well,” Yraen sighed “I’m gone already and running, too.”
Yraen found his lordship in his tent, where he stood watching his body-servant shove his possessions all anyhow into whatever sack or saddlebag presented itself. The lord was more than a little pale, and his mouth was slack as he rubbed his mustaches over and over. When he saw Yraen, however, he made an effort to draw himself up and salvage dignity.
“I owe your wages, I know,” he said. “You’re not coming back with us, are you?”
The question contained an obvious “you’re not welcome.”
“I don’t think Rhodry should ride, my lord.” Yraen was more than willing to play into the courtesy of the thing. “We’ll find an inn or suchlike to rest in, and then be on our way.”
Erddyr nodded, concentrating on opening the pouch that hung at his belt. He poured out a random handful of coin and shoved it in Yraen’s direction. Briefly Yraen thought of counting it, but he wasn’t that much of a silver dagger, not yet, at least.
For all that Rhodry kept saying his wounds were mere scratches, his face was so pale by the time the chirurgeon was done tending them that Yraen begged him to go lie down somewhere. The gwerbret, however, had other ideas.
“I think me you’d best ride out, silver dagger. I hate being this inhospitable to a man who’s done me no wrong, but once news of this thing gets round . . . ”
“I understand, Your Grace,” Rhodry croaked.
“Don’t try to talk, man.” Drwmyc turned to Yraen. “Do you both have decent horses?”
“We do, Your Grace. Rhodry lost his in the war, but Lord Erddyr replaced it.”
“Good. Then saddle up and go.” He turned, looking down at the corpse. “I’m going to have this thing burned. If the common folk see or hear of it, the gods only know what they’ll do, and I doubt me if you two will be safe here.”
“Your Grace, that’s cursed unjust! Rhodry’s the victim, not the criminal.”
“Hold your tongue!” Rhodry managed to speak with some force. “Listen to his grace. He’s right.”
Yraen found their horses, saddled them and loaded up their gear, then brought them round to the rear of the pavilion where Rhodry was waiting for him, still under guard, but this time, Yraen supposed, the men were there to keep him away from others, as if he carried some kind of plague of the supernatural that the populace might catch. Yraen felt the injustice of it eating at him, but since he had no desire to molder in the gwerbret’s dungeon keep, he kept his mouth shut.
At least they could travel unmolested; he doubted if Gwar’s three friends would bother to follow them, and with old Badger Snout dead, Rhodry was probably safe enough from creatures of that sort, whatever they might be. Yet, as he thought about it, Yraen no longer knew what might or might not be probable. His entire view of the universe had just gotten itself shattered like a clay cup hitting a stone floor. The calm and literate air of his father’s court, where bards and philosophers alike were always welcome, seemed farther away and stranger than the Otherlands, As they rode out of the dun, he found he had nothing to say. He could only wonder why he’d ever left the Holy City.
Already the sun hung low, catching a few mares’ tails high in the sky and turning them gold, a promise of rain coming in a day or two. A few miles from the dun, they crested a rise and saw down below them an unmarked crossroads, one way heading roughly east and west, the other running off to the north. A rider was waiting in the cross, a tall blood man on a white horse with rusty-red ears.
“Evandar, no doubt,” Rhodry whispered. “And me too hoarse to talk!” He tried to laugh, but all that emerged was a rusty cracking sound that made Yraen feel cold all over.
“Just be quiet, then! I’ll try to bargain with him.”
As they walked their horses down, Evandar waited, sitting easy in his saddle and smiling in greeting, yet as soon as they drew close, his eyes narrowed.
“What happened to your neck?” he snapped at Rhodry.
“This thing tried to strangle him,” Yraen broke in. “A fiend from the hells with a badger head, like, and claws. Rhodry killed it with the bronze knife that the old herbwoman gave him.”
“Good, good,” Evandar was still looking at Rhodry. “It came for that whistle, you. know. Why don’t you let me have it back? They won’t come bothering you anymore.”
“Who are you, anyway?” Yraen said, with as much authority as he could summon. “We want some answers.”
“Do you now?” Evandar paused to smile. “Well, I spoke to Dallandra, and she did mention that, but I’ve none to give you. That whistle, however, is mine by right of a treaty sealed in my own country, and I do wish to have it back. You wouldn’t want me riding to the gwerbret and accusing you of theft, would you now?”
Rhodry made a painful, gurgling noise that made Evandar frown.
“You’ve been hurt badly, haven’t you? That aches my heart, that you’ve taken a wound over a thing of mine. I consider you under my protection, you see.” Evandar held out one slender, pale hand. “Rhodry, please?””
Rhodry considered, then shrugged. He wrapped his reins round his saddle peak, then loosened his belt and reached inside his shirt to pull out the whistle. In the graying twilight it glimmered an unnatural white.
“Now here,” Yraen snapped. “You can’t just give it back after all that’s happened. He should at least give us a price for it.”
“Well put, lad, and fair enough.” Evandar raised one hand, snapped his fingers, and plucked a leather bag out of midair. “Here’s a sack of silver, given to Dallandra by that lord, but she has no use or need of it in my country.” He tossed it to Yraen. “How’s that for a price?”
“Not enough. I’ll hand the silver back again in return for some answers.”
“Keep the silver, for answers you shall not have until you guess them. I pose riddles, and men must find the answers. I never solve a riddle for free, lad, and it’s unwise of you to keep asking.”
Maybe it was only the darkening light, or the cool spring wind raffling his hair, but Yraen abruptly shuddered. When he glanced at Rhodry, he found the silver dagger grinning in his usual daft way, as if leaving this exchange to his apprentice.
“Very well, then,” Yraen said. “We’ll take the silver.”
When Rhodry flipped the whistle over, Evandar caught it in one hand and bowed from the saddle.
“I’ll give you somewhat more in return, then, as thanks for your grariousness. Which way are you riding?”
“North, I suppose, to Cerrgonney.” Yraen glanced at Rhodry, who nodded agreement “There’s always work for a silver dagger to the north.”
“Or east.” Rhodry cleared his throat with a rasp. “The Auddglyn, maybe.”
“I can’t ride through Deverry to get there.”
“And Rhodry had best stay clear of Eldidd,” Evandar broke in. “Why the Auddglyn, Rhodry?”
“We need a smith, and I used to know one down in Dun Mannannan.”
“Otho the dwarf!” Evandar smiled suddenly and bowed again. “Did you know that he made that ring you wear? Ah, I didn’t think you did. Well, he’s gone from Dun Mannannan, but his apprentice took over his shop, and he’s a skilled man, for a human being. Follow me.”
When Evandar turned his horse and headed for the east-running road, Rhodry followed automatically. Yraen hesitated, knowing in some wordless way that dweomer hung all around him. At this crossroads he had reached the crux of his entire life. He could sit here and restrain his horse, let them ride off without him, and then return to his safe life in Dun Deverry. His clan would forgive him for their joy in having him back; he would put his one adventure into his memory like a jewel locked in a casket and take up again the ceremonial duties of a minor prince. Ahead neither Rhodry nor Evandar looked back, and as Yraen watched, he saw what seemed to be gray mist rising from the road, billowing up to hide them—or was it to hide him, to rescue him from the foolish choice he’d made when he left home?
“Hold! Rhodry, wait for me!”
Yraen kicked his horse hard and galloped into the mist. Ahead he could see the glimmer of the white horse and hear hooves, clopping on what seemed to be paving stones. All at once sunlight gleamed, and he saw Rhodry on his new chestnut gelding and Evandar on the white nearby. Sunlight? Yraen thought. Sunlight? Oh, ye gods! Yet he jogged on, falling into place beside the silver dagger, who turned in the saddle to grin at him.
“You don’t want to lose your way round here, lad.”
Rhodry’s voice sounded perfectly normal, and when Yraen looked, he saw that his friend’s neck bore only a few green and yellow bruises, all faded and old.
“I can see that I don’t, truly.”
Ahead the mist thinned to a sunny day, and Yraen could hear the sea, muttering on a graveled shore. Evandar paused his horse and waved them on past.
“You’re a bit east of Dun Mannannan and the shop of Cardyl the silversmith,” he called out. “Farewell, silver daggers, and may your gods give you luck that’s good and horses to match it.”
The mist sealed him over, then vanished, blowing away in a sunny spring wind, tanged with the smell of the sea. They were riding on a hard-packed dirt road that ran through fields where young grain stood maybe two feet high, nodding pale green in a morning breeze. Far off to their left stood cliffs, dropping to the ocean below. All at once Yraen realized that he was having trouble seeing, that he was shaking and sweating all at once, that his hands simply wouldn’t hold his reins. Rhodry leaned over and took them from him, then brought both horses to a halt.
“Go ahead and shudder,” Rhodry said. “There’s no shame in it.”
Yraen nodded, gulping for breath and clutching at the saddle peak. Rhodry looked away, watching the swell and rise of the distant ocean while he spoke.
“I’m glad I thought to mention silversmiths to Evandar. It’s time we got you a kniife of your own. Still want it?”
Yraen had never thought that he would ever feel such pride, the sort that comes from knowing you’ve earned a thing yourself, and against all odds.
“Well, call me daft for it, but I do.”
“Good. You know, I just realized a thing that I should have seen years ago. Once the wretched dweomer’s had its hand on you, there’s no going back; there’s no use in pretending that things will ever be all quiet and peaceful and as daily as before.” He turned, glancing Yraen’s way, “You’re a silver dagger now, sure enough, as much an outcast as any of us.”
Yraen started to make some jest, but all at once he could think of nothing to say, just from hearing the bitter truth in his friend’s words.

By the time Dallandra reached Bardek, summer was well along in Deverry, though the journey seemed to take only a day to her. As usual, she started from the Gatelands in Evandar’s country, at a spot near the river where white water foamed and churned over black rock. When she thought of Jill, the image that rose, seemingly standing between two trees, seemed so faint and silvery that Dalla was alarmed. She hurried over just as it disappeared, called up another image, followed that, trotting faster and faster until at last the river disappeared far behind her, and she heard the ocean. In a swirl of mist upon a graveled beach, Jill’s image appeared again, a little more solid and bright this time. When she approached it, Dallandra felt the gravel underfoot turning to coarse, stunted grass, rasping round her ankles. The ocean murmur disappeared. She hesitated, looking over a brown and treeless plain, wondering if she’d made a wrong turn, but tracking the images had never failed her before.
As she walked on, she kept expecting to find herself emerging into a jungle, but the air stayed cool and the landscape barren. It seemed that the very sunlight changed, turning pale while she picked her way through huge gray boulders along the crest of a hill. All at once she realized that the amethyst figurine was gone. She was fully back in her body, shivering in cold sunlight, breathing hard in thin air. Below her a cliff dropped down to a long parched valley gashed by a dry riverbed; far across rose mountain peaks, black and forbidding, peaked with snow. A wind blew steadily, whining through the coarse grass. The stunted slant of the few trees she saw told her that the wind rarely stopped.
When she turned round, she saw directly behind her more of the deformed trees, scattered round a spread of low wooden buildings, long oblongs roofed with split shingles. They were covered with carvings, every inch of the walls, every window frame and door lintel, of animals, birds, flowers, words in the Elvish syllabary, all stained in subtle colors, mostly blues and reds, to pick out the designs. From round behind the complex she could hear a faint whinny of horses, and a snatch of song drifted on the swirling dust. Out in front of the nearest building a gray-haired woman sat reading on a wooden bench, a pair of big tan hounds lounging at her feet.
“Jill! By the gods!”
The dogs leapt up and barked, but Jill hushed them, laying a slender scroll down beside her just as Dallandra hurried over. She was much thinner, and her hair was going white round her temples, but when she shook hands, her clasp was firm and strong, and her voice steady.
“It gladdens my heart to see you,” Jill said in Deverrian. “What brings you to me?”
“Just concern. Evandar said you’d been ill.”
“I have been, truly, and I’ve been told I still am, though I feel mended. I’ve had a shaking fever. I picked it up in the jungle. They have a tree there, whose bark has the virtue to cure the symptoms, but they say it gets in your blood and lies quiet for years and years, only to flare up when you get yourself cold or tired or suchlike.”
“That’s a grave thing, then.”
Jill merely shrugged, turning to snap at the dogs bounding round them. With little whines they lay down on the hard-packed reddish ground.
“Where are we?” Dallandra said.
“Outside the guest house of . . . well, the only word I can find for it in my own language is temple, but it’s not that. It’s a place where a few scholars of the People keep lore alive, and teach it to any who ask.”
“I’ve heard about such places from the days of the Seven Kings. I think the People sent their children to them as a matter of course, but I’m not sure why.”
For a moment they both turned, looking at the huddled long-houses, some hardly better than huts, that sheltered what was left of one of the finest university systems the world has ever known, then or now, not that either of them realized what such a word meant, of course. Once Dallandra saw a man of the People, dressed in a long gray tunic gathered at the waist with a rope belt, crossing from one house to another, but he never so much as looked their way.
“It’s so lonely up here,” Dallandra remarked at last. “Why did they choose this place?”
“See those mountains over there? Well, on the other side and down below them lies the jungle. All the clouds that come from the sea fetch up against those peaks and drop their rain. So up here, the air’s dry as a bone, and books and scrolls last a fair bit longer than they would down in the jungles. It was a long hard journey getting here, let me tell you, and of course, I had to go and get sick on the way.”
“Oh, come now! Don’t blame yourself for that.”
“I should have been able to turn it aside.” Jill sounded genuinely aggrieved. “Well, but it’s too late now to worry about it, I suppose. What’s done is done. I must say, I’ve come to have a lot of respect for the physicking your People know.”
“Oh, by the gods! Forgive me, I feel like a dolt, but you know, it’s just dawned on me what all of this means.” Dallandra waved her hand round at the buildings. “It’s true, isn’t it? Refugees did reach the islands.”
“Quite a few of them, Dalla, quite a few.” All at once she grinned, a flash of her old humor. “Here, I’ve forgotten all my courtesies! Won’t you come in?”
Dallandra hesitated, suddenly afraid, wondering why she should be afraid rather than eager to learn this ancient lore of her people.
“I can’t stay long. I need to get back to Elessario. She might be in danger.”
“Ah. Forgive me. Of course, you’ve got your own work to do. Don’t worry about me. I’m as well as I need to be. And you know where to find me now.”
“So I do. I take it you’ll be here a long while?”
“Oh, you could spend a life here, if you had one to spare. It’s amazing, Dalla, just simply amazing! They’ve managed to preserve so much, most, I’ll wager, of what they brought with them. It’s their whole life, up here, copying things. You know, my teacher here, Meranaldan, his name is, told me that men risked their lives—gods! some actually died, saving these books when the city was falling.” She shook her head in something like sadness. “The history of your race, their songs and poems, some of their magic, though not as much of that as I’d like to see, and all sorts of odd bits of craft lore and learning—scrolls and codices, heaps of them. A true marvel it is, all of it.”
All at once Dalla knew why she was afraid, and that she’d have to face that fear.
“And what of the Guardians? Do they speak of them?”
“They do, but I don’t suppose they know much about their true nature. I’d wager that you know more about Evandar’s folk than any person alive, man or woman both.”
Dallandra smiled, glancing away to hide her stab of relief that no one but her knew just how strange her lover was, and how unnatural a love they shared.
“Well, you know, maybe I should come in and talk awhile. Jill, the time’s coming near for the child to be born. I can feel it, deep in my heart. If I’m to succeed, then I’ve got to make my move soon.”
“When you need me, we’ll go back to Deverry together.” She hesitated, looking across the far valley. “And we’ll pray that this rotten fever’s gone for good.”
Yet even as she spoke, Dallandra saw a shadow cross her face, not some trick of the physical light, but a dweomer warning, as if the dark bird of Death were blessing her with a flick of its wing.

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