Daggerspell (38 page)

With the gnome riding on his shoulder, Nevyn left the sleeping camp and went a good ways away, where he could sit down and work in private. In his mind he built up a flaming pentagram of blue light, then pushed the image out until it seemed to stand in front of him, a glowing star some six feet high. The gnome saw it, too, and stood transfixed as Nevyn slowly chanted the secret names of the King of the Element of Earth. The space inside the star changed into a silver swirl of pale light, light of the sort that never shone on land or sea, and in that light appeared a figure, vaguely elven, yet glowing so brightly that its form was hard to discern.

“One of my kind has tormented this little brother,” Nevyn said aloud. “Will you take it into your charge?”

The voice came back only within his mind.

“I will, and my thanks, Master of the Fifth of Us, Master of the Aethyr.”

When the figure held out pale glowing hands, the gnome ran to it and threw itself into the sanctuary of the King. The silver light disappeared; there was only the blue star, which Nevyn methodically banished. He stood up and stamped thrice on the ground to end the working.

“As our Cullyn would say,” Nevyn remarked to the night wind, “oh, horseshit, and a pile of it!”

Nevyn hurried back to camp to wake Aderyn. He knew that only a master of dark dweomer could have deformed the gnome in that particular way. This dark master was in for a shock, too, when his little messenger never returned. The question was, Why was the dark dweomer spying on Loddlaen?

• • •

On the morrow, Rhodry made sure that Cullyn rode next to him, even though Peredyr and Daumyr both made nasty remarks about silver daggers. The army set out, angling toward the northeast, and in a mile or two reached the settled farmlands of Eldidd. The roads and lanes rambled between fenced fields, farmsteads, pastures, and stretches of open meadow and woods, all jumbled together with no true pattern. Since there was no law that made farmers will all their holdings to only their eldest son, the land got cut up into a patchwork that made any kind of straight travel difficult. At noon, they stopped to rest on a strip of unused land between triangular fields of cabbages and turnips.

While Cullyn and Rhodry were sharing a chunk of salt meat to go with their soda bread, Aderyn trotted over, looking grim.

“Corbyn’s army is turning south, lord cadvridoc. They’ve stopped about three miles away.”

“Well and good. Then they’re as sick of this cursed game of Carnoic as I am.”

Rhodry tossed the chunk of meat to Cullyn, then rose, painfully aware that all the lords were looking at him for their orders.

“We’re leaving the baggage train under the guard of the spearmen. The rest of us will arm and ride to meet them. If the bastards want a chance at me so cursed badly, then let’s give it to them.”

They cheered him and what they saw as his courage, never knowing that Rhodry had the simple desire to get dying over with—unless, perhaps, Cullyn guessed how he felt, because the silver dagger merely looked distracted, as if his thoughts were far away.

Thanks to Aderyn’s detailed report, Rhodry knew exactly where to draw up the army. Corbyn was marching his men down the road as straight as he could; it was not the Deverry way to hedge and maneuver for position once a battle was unavoidable. A mile north, the road crossed a big cow pasture. As the army clattered along, frightened farmers stared at them from the fields or ran away from
the roadside. When the marchers reached the pasture, there wasn’t a cow in sight. From long experience, the peasantry knew something about the art of war.

Rhodry drew up his men in a single line, a crescent with the embrace facing the road. He personally rode down the line and disposed the various warbands. For all that Rhodry was young, he’d been riding to battle since he was fourteen, and his father and uncles had trained him ruthlessly for war. When he came to the left flank, he found the two Westfolk there, wearing salvaged mail and carrying short bows that they held crosswise. Their horses had no bridles.

“So,” Rhodry said. “You know how to ride in a fight as well as stand and shoot, do you?”

“Oh, in truth,” Calonderiel said with a grin. “These are just hunting bows. I’ll be interested to see how they do as weapons of war.”

“What? Here, if you’ve never ridden in this kind of a scrap before, there’s no dishonor in staying out of it.”

“There is. Dishonor and twice dishonor. I want vengeance for my slaughtered friend.”

Jennantar nodded in agreement, his mouth set.

“Then may the gods of your people protect you, and I admire your guts.”

Rhodry trotted back and took up his position in the center of the line, with Cullyn on his left and Caenrydd on his right. By the honor of the thing, Corbyn would be at the head of the charging wedge when the attack came, and the two cadvridogion would close with each other while their men turned into a mob all round. Except for the occasional stamp of a horse and a jingle of tack, the waiting line fell silent, each man wrapped in his own thoughts. Now that his Wyrd was coming to meet him, Rhodry felt perfectly calm, except that he’d never seen such a beautiful afternoon. Every blade of grass in the meadow seemed preternaturally green, and the sunlight preternaturally golden. Some distant trees looked like green velvet against the sapphire sky. It seemed a pity to leave all that behind for the shadowy Otherlands. Then, far down the road, he
saw a plume of dust. He bent down and drew a javelin from the sheath under his right leg.

“Here they come!”

All down the line javelin points winked in the sun as the men took on faith what they couldn’t see. One last time, shields were settled, swords loosened in scabbards, as the horses danced, feeling the coming battle in their riders’ moods. The plume of dust came closer, swelled, like smoke from a fire sweeping down the road. Rhodry forgot that he was sure he was going to die. He felt himself smiling as if his face would split from it. As the battle fit took him over, it seemed that his body had turned as light as air.

About five hundred yards away, Corbyn’s army broke from the marching line and swirled around to form a wedge for the charge. Rhodry chuckled as he saw the green-and-tan shields of Corbyn’s warband take the head. Soon he and the man who had rebelled against his rule would face off in single combat. As for the rest, there were over three hundred men out there, a nice fair fight. In anticipation, his own army moved forward a pace or two, but it held its formation. Finally silver horns rang out among the enemy. Howling out war cries, Corbyn’s men charged.

Closer, closer, with the dust pluming around them they came, slapping into the crescent. Rhodry rose in the stirrups, threw his javelin overhand into the mob, then drew his sword on the follow-through. The line of darts arced up, winking as they fell indiscriminately among Corbyn’s men, who answered with a straight fling of their own. Rhodry bounced one off his shield, then kicked his horse to a gallop and charged straight for the rider in the lead. Screaming war cries, his men surged forward, falling from the flanks to close a circle of death.

Rhodry began to laugh, the bubbling, choking battle laugh that he could never control on the field. He heard himself howling like a madman as he closed with the lead rider. He ducked under a clumsy swing, slashed in, getting a nick on his enemy’s arm, and then realized that he was facing an ordinary rider, not Corbyn at all. He threw
up his sword in a parry and risked glancing round—no sign of Corbyn, and he was trapped. Men were pouring round him, mobbing for him in a tight circle. Rhodry desperately swung his horse around and felt a grazing blow bounce off the mail on his back as he charged straight for a young rider. The lad gave ground; he was almost out—more men closed the gap. His laugh rose to a howl as he saw how neatly his honor had trapped him; he’d fallen for a false decoy like a waterfowl.

“Rhodry!” It was Cullyn’s voice, close at hand.

Rhodry swung his horse around just as Cullyn cut through the closing circle and fell into place beside him, their horses nose to tail so they could guard each other’s left.

“Parry!” Cullyn screamed at him. “Forget the kills!”

Twisting in the saddle, ducking, parrying with shield and sword both, Rhodry followed orders and fought for his life. He felt a blow graze his shoulder, twisted, and flung up his shield against another. The wood cracked. A blade flashed in toward his face; he caught it on his sword. For a moment the blades hung locked; then someone else struck him from the back, and Rhodry had to pull free. He flung up his shield just in time; it cracked again, splitting down the middle to the boss. Over his own laughter and the battle cries around him, he heard his men screaming “To Rhodry! To Rhodry!” Suddenly the man straight ahead of him in the crush tried to pull his horse’s head around. The Cannobaen warband was beginning to fight through. Rhodry had no time to take the advantage. He parried a slash from the side with his sword, then twisted in the saddle to take another on his shield. The crack ran together with the first one, and half the shield fell away.

Rhodry howled like a banshee and went on parrying with half a shield. All at once, the horse to his right screamed with that ghastly half-human sound that horses make only in agony and reared straight up. As it came down, stumbling, Caenrydd killed its rider from behind.
Amyr was right behind him, swinging like a fiend, and Rhodry’s two men were through.

“My lord!” Cullyn yelled. “Follow me out!”

Rhodry swung his horse around as Caenrydd and Amyr fell in behind him, but he refused to follow any man. He spurred his horse up beside Cullyn, ducked under a slash, and slashed back at the enemy on his right. The blow missed the fellow’s clumsy parry and caught him on the ribs, making him grunt and sway in the saddle. Rhodry slashed back from the other side and knocked the dazed rider off his horse to fall under the feet of a comrade’s horse beside him. When that horse reared, disrupting the mob on one side, Rhodry and his men could begin to move forward, cutting their way out of the mob at the same time as the rest of the Cannobaen warband tried to cut its way in.

It was a slow thing, forcing their horses ahead by sheer will, leaning, slashing, dodging, always striking at the nearest enemy while Corbyn’s men tried to parry Cullyn and strike for Rhodry. The silver dagger fought silently, looking utterly bored as he struck and parried with a terrifying ease, as if he were some natural force, a storm wind blowing among this screaming, cursing mob.

They were almost out when someone pushed in past Caenrydd in the rear and slashed Rhodry’s horse hard. With a scream, the gelding reared. Rhodry knew it would never come down alive; he slipped his feet from the stirrups and threw the remains of his shield as it fell. He flung himself over his horse’s neck and rolled, but with calm clarity he knew that he was doomed. A hoof kicked him in the middle of the back, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. All around him he heard screams and war cries; all he could see were the legs of horses. Grunting in pain, he pulled himself up to a kneel and twisted out of the way just in time to avoid a kick to his head. He heard Cullyn screaming at someone to pull back, and only then did he realize that he was under the hooves of his own men’s horses. Another kick came his way and grazed his shoulder.

All at once hands grabbed him and pulled him to his feet. Rhodry twisted around and landed against Cullyn’s shoulder just as a terrified horse bucked up and nearly fell on the pair of them. Cullyn dragged Rhodry back just in time and shoved him against the side of his horse.

“Can you mount?” Cullyn yelled.

Gasping for breath, Rhodry hauled himself into the saddle. Ahead of him he saw his own men cutting hard, driving the enemy back. The horse danced and shuddered, but Rhodry got it under control, then kicked his feet free of the stirrups to let Cullyn mount behind him. Cullyn put one long arm round his waist and took the reins. Over the shouting, a silver horn rang out a retreat. Rhodry’s first thought was that his side had lost the battle; then he remembered that this time, he was the cadvridoc and that the horn had to be Corbyn’s. The enemies around them fell back and fled as the battle press broke up.

“Caenrydd!” Rhodry howled. “Sound the call to stand!”

Cullyn’s arm tightened slightly around his waist.

“My lord? Caenrydd’s dead.”

For a moment Rhodry’s mind simply refused to understand.

“Rhodry.” Cullyn gave him a shake. “Sound the call.”

Rhodry drew the horn from his belt, but he merely held it. Finally Cullyn grabbed it from him and blew the signal to pull back. Rhodry wiped a scatter of tears away on the back of his gauntlet. Only then did he realize that he was doubled up with pain.

“Two little inches to the right, and that kick would have broken his spine,” Nevyn said. “Two lower, and it would have hit his kidneys. Our cadvridoc here has a silver dagger’s luck.”

Cullyn nodded his agreement. Stripped to the waist, Rhodry was lying on the tailgate of one of the wagons, Nevyn’s improvised surgery. A wedge shape of red and purple had already swollen bigger than an apple on his back.

“Well, herbman, I’m just surprised that his ribs aren’t broken.”

“So am I.”

Rhodry turned his head to look at them. Up by his shoulders and down along his arms were more bruises and small cuts, where sword blows had driven his mail through his shirt and into his skin in a blurry pattern of rings. It was odd, Cullyn always thought, that while bards sang of warriors slicing each other into shreds, you generally killed a man by beating him to death with your sword.

“I don’t need to be fussed over like an old woman,” Rhodry snapped. “You should be tending the men worse off then me.”

“Nonsense. There are three chirurgeons with this army, and Aderyn as well, who’s as good with his herbs as I am. Besides, the battle was only bloody in the fighting round you, my lord.”

Cullyn whistled sharply under his breath, because he hadn’t realized that. Nevyn rummaged through the packets of herbs laid ready on the wagon bed, dropped one into a mortar, and added some water from the kettle that hung nearby on a tripod over a small fire.