The Gold Falcon (8 page)

“It can’t be,” Gerran muttered. “Ye gods, it is! It’s a dragon!”

Behind him the camp exploded with noise—men yelling and cursing, horses whinnying in terror. Gerran knew he should turn and rush back, should impose some kind of order or at the least guard the horses, but he stayed, staring at the huge silver wyrm. It was so strong, so powerful, and beautiful, as well, in his warrior’s eyes, with the sun glistening on its smooth skin, stretched and supple over immense muscles. It reached the river, dipped one wing, then sheared off, heading north. On its side, just below the wing’s set, Gerran saw a smear of reddish black—old blood from a wound.

“Rhodry!” Salamander started yelling at the top of his lungs. “I mean, blast it, Rori! It’s me, Ebañy! Rori, come back! Rhod—I mean Rori! Wait!”

Screaming like a madman, waving his arms, Salamander raced down the riverbank, but the dragon flapped his wings in a deafening drumbeat and rose high, banking again to head back west. Gerran set his hands on his hips and glared as the gerthddyn came jogging back to him.

“And just how did you know its name?” Gerran said.

Salamander winced, tried to smile, and looked away. “Actually, you see, well, um, er—that’s my brother. He was a silver dagger named Rhodry, but now that he’s a dragon, he’s known as Rori. I keep forgetting to use the right name.”

Gerran started to speak, but his words twisted themselves into a sound more like a growl.

“I’m not a dragon,” Salamander said hastily. “Neither was he originally.”

“What? Of all the daft things I’ve ever heard—”

“Scoff all you want. He was turned into a dragon by dweomer.”

“Dafter and dafter! What are you, a drooling idiot? There’s no such thing as dweomer, and a witch could never have done aught as that.”

“I should have known you’d take it this way.” Salamander looked briefly mournful. “I’m telling you the exact truth, whether you believe it or no. So I thought I’d best find him and see how he was faring and all that. It seemed the brotherly thing to do.”

“Daft.” Gerran was finding it difficult to come up with any other word. With a last angry shrug he turned on his heel and ran back to camp.

It took till noon for Gerran and the two lords to transform the warbands from a frightened mob of men and horses into an orderly procession. Even then, as they rode south along the riverbank, the men kept looking up at the sky, and the horses would suddenly, for no visible reason, snort, toss their heads, and threaten to rear or buck until their riders calmed them. To set a good example, Gerran kept himself from studying the sky, but he did listen, waiting for the sound of wings beating the air like a drum.

In midafternoon they stopped to water their horses at the river. As soon as his horse had finished drinking, Salamander handed its reins to one of the men and went jogging eastward into the meadowlands.

“What in all the hells does he think he’s doing?” Gerran said. He tossed his reins to Warryc and ran after the gerthddyn.

Not far off a small flock of ravens suddenly sprang into the air, squawking indignantly. With his Westfolk eyes, Salamander must have seen them from the riverbank, Gerran realized, and sure enough, he found the gerthddyn standing by the scattered remains of the ravens’ dinner, a dead horse, or to be precise, the mangled bones, tail, and a few scraps of meat of what had once been a dead horse. Lying around it in the tall grass were torn and broken pieces of horse gear. Salamander nudged a heavily painted leather strap, once part of a martingale, perhaps, with his toe.

“Horsekin work,” Salamander said. “They decorate all their horse gear. I think we now know what disturbed the raiders at their foul, loathsome, and heinous work.”

“The dragon?” Gerran said.

“Exactly. Their horses doubtless panicked as ours did at the thought of ending up in a great wyrm’s stomach. I wonder if dragons follow the Horsekin around? Where else are you going to find heavy horses like theirs?”

“The best meal going, eh? It could well be, but come along, we’ve got to keep moving today.”

When the sun was getting low, the warband came to another burned village, a tangled heap of ruins spread out over a charred meadow. Once again the horses began snorting and trembling. Swearing under their breaths, Cadryc, Pedrys, and Gerran dismounted some distance away and walked over to the ruin, expecting the worst, but they found no corpses, not even a dead dog, among the drifting pale ash.

“Well and good,” Cadryc said. “I’ll wager they got to Lord Samyc’s dun in time.”

“And I’ll wager they’re still there, Your Grace,” Gerran said. “One way or another.”

“Just so. Let’s get on the road.”

Lord Samyc’s dun stood on a low artificial hill, guarded by a maze of earthworks on the flat and a stone wall at the top. Not far away lay a patch of woodland. As the warbands rode up to the earthworks, Gerran saw a straggle of farmers leaving the trees with a cart full of firewood and an escort of two mounted men. When Tieryn Cadryc rose in his stirrups to hail them, the riders whooped with joy and galloped straight for the warbands waiting on the flat. One man dismounted and ran to grab Cadryc’s stirrup as a sign of fealty. A dark-haired young lad, he grinned from ear to ear.

“Ah thank every god, Your Grace,” the rider said. “How did you get the news?”

“Someone from the farther village escaped,” Cadryc said. “How fares your lord?”

“That’s a tale and a half, my lord. Here, the farmers from our village got to the dun in time. One of the lads was out looking for a lost cow, so he saw the Horsekin coming and raised the alarm.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Truly, Your Grace. So, the first thing we knew about it was when the whole cursed village comes charging up to the gates and yelling about raiders. So we let them in, and Lord Samyc wanted to ride out, but his lady begged him not to. There’s a woman for you, but anyway, cursed if the whole stinking village didn’t take her side.” The lad looked retrospectively furious. “They stood in front of the gates, and our lord was yelling and swearing, but they wouldn’t move, and all for her ladyship’s sake. So in the end Lord Samyc gave in.”

“It gladdens my heart to hear that,” Cadryc said. “This raiding party must have been a large one.”

“It was, Your Grace. Cursed if thirty Horsekin didn’t ride up to the maze here.” The lad gestured at the earthworks. “We could see them from the top of the wall, and they were yelling back and forth in that cursed ugly language of theirs, as bold as brass they were.”

Cadryc glanced Gerran’s way with troubled eyes.

“We’ve not seen that many in a long time, Your Grace,” Gerran said.

“Indeed.” Cadryc raised one hand to get everyone’s attention. “All right, men, let’s get this wood up to the dun.”

The villagers had turned Lord Samyc’s small ward into a camp, crammed with their cows, children, poultry, dogs, and heaps of household goods. When the warbands rode in, the men and horses filled the last available space. As he dismounted, Gerran saw a pair of hysterical servants rushing around and yelling back and forth about trying to feed so many guests. Red-haired, freckled, and a fair bit younger than Gerran, Lord Samyc ran out of the broch and knelt before the tieryn.

“It gladdens my heart to see your grace,” Samyc said. “Even though you have every right to despise me for my dishonor.”

“Suicide brings little honor, my lord,” Cadryc said. “Now get up and stop brooding about it.”

Startled, Samyc scrambled to his feet and glanced over his shoulder. In the doorway of the broch, a young woman, so great with child that she’d slung her kirtle over one shoulder rather than wrapping it round her middle, stood watching the confusion in the ward. Gerran was surprised that Lord Samyc’s lady hadn’t delivered under the stress of the raid. She needed the help of a servant girl to curtsy to the tieryn.

“Have I done a wrong thing, Your Grace?” she said. “Have I truly ruined my husband’s whole life by refusing to let him die?”

“Oh, horse—oh, nonsense,” Cadryc said. “He’ll get over his sulk in time.”

Since Lord Samyc had no room to shelter everyone, Lord Pedrys and Tieryn Cadryc stayed in the broch while Gerran led the warbands down to the riverbank to camp. On the off chance that the raiders would try a night strike, Gerran posted guards. When the gerthddyn offered to stand a watch, Gerran’s first impulse was to turn him down, but then he remembered Salamander’s formidable eyesight. Gerran gave him the last watch and decided to stand it with him.

Some while before dawn, they walked down to the river together. Flecked with starlight, the water flowed broad and silent. Off to the west the rolling meadowlands lay dark. Somewhere out there the Horsekin were camping with their miserable booty.

“On the morrow, Captain,” Salamander said, “do we ride after the raiders?”

“I hope so,” Gerran said. “We doubtless don’t have a candle’s chance of warming hell, but it would gladden my heart to get those women and children back. Better a free widow than an enslaved one.”

“True spoken. You know, there’s somewhat odd about this raid, isn’t there? At least thirty fighting men and their heavy horses—that’s not an easy lot to feed on a long journey. And they’ve traveled all this way to glean a handful of slaves from a couple of poor villages?”

“Huh. I’d not thought of it that way before. I suppose they brought a good number of men because they knew we’d stop them if we could.”

“Mayhap. But why run the risk at all? Now, far to the south, down on the seacoast, there are unscrupulous merchants who’ll buy slaves at a good price, transport them in secret, and sell them in Bardek. But that’s a wretchedly long way away, and how could the Horsekin move a small herd of slaves unnoticed? They’d have to ride through Pyrdon and Eldidd, where every lord would turn out to stop them, or else travel through the Westfolk lands. The Westfolk archers would kill the lot of them on sight. They hate slavery almost as much as they hate the Horsekin.”

“So they would. I’ve got a lot of respect for their bowmen. Your father’s folk, are they? Or your mother’s?”

Salamander tipped his head back and laughed. “My father’s,” he said at last. “You’ve got good eyes, Captain.”

“So do you, and that’s what gave you away. But here—” Gerran thought for a moment. “The Horsekin have plenty of human slaves already, from what I’ve heard, and they let them breed, to keep the supply fresh, like. They don’t need to raid. You’re right. Why are they risking so much for so little?”

“It’s a question that strikes me as most recondite, but at the same time pivotal, portentous, momentous, and just plain important. Tell me somewhat. These raids, they started when farmers began to settle the Melyn river valley, right?”

“A bit later than that. When the farms reached the river.”

“Oho! I’m beginning to get an idea, Captain, but let me brood on it awhile more, because I might be wrong.”

At dawn, Gerran joined the noble-born for a council of war over breakfast in Samyc’s great hall. The three lords wanted to track the raiders down, but they ran up against a hard reality: they lacked provisions for men and horses alike. The crop of winter wheat was still two weeks from harvest. After a bit of impatient squabbling, someone at last remembered that the farther village’s crops would be milk-ripe and of no use to the poor souls who’d planted them.

“Here, what about this?” Lord Samyc said. “I’ll give you what supplies I’ve got left from the winter. Then my farm folk can go harvest the milk-ripe crops to feed my dun when I get back to it.”

Cadryc glanced at Gerran. Over the years, whether as father and stepson or tieryn and captain, they’d come to know each other so well that they could exchange messages with a look and a gesture. Gerran, being common-born, had no honor to lose by suggesting caution, and since he was the best swordsman in the province, no one would have dared call him a coward. The other two lords were also waiting for him to speak, he realized, though no doubt they would have denied it had anyone pointed it out.

“Well, my lord,” Gerran said, “Didn’t Lord Samyc’s man tell us that thirty Horsekin rode to the dun?”

“He did,” Cadryc said.

“So I’ll wager their warband numbers more than that.

Someone must have been guarding the prisoners from the first village while the raiders rode to the second one. We’ve got thirty men ourselves, and Lord Samyc can give us only a few more.”

“Ah!” Samyc held up one hand to interrupt. “But some of my villagers have been training with the longbow.”

“Splendid, my lord!” Gerran said. “How many?”

“Well, um, two.”

“Oh.”

“We’re badly outnumbered.” Pedrys leaned forward. “Is that it, Captain?”

“It is, my lord, though it gripes my soul to admit it. We’ve all faced the Horsekin before. They know how to swing a sword when they need to. If we had more than two archers to call upon, the situation would be different.”

The three lords nodded agreement.

“So, I don’t think it would be wise to follow them, your grace,” Gerran said. “What if they have reinforcements waiting farther west?”

Cadryc stabbed a chunk of bread with his table dagger and leaned back in his chair to eat it.

“It gripes my soul,” Pedrys snarled, “to let them just ride away with our people.”

“It gripes mine, too,” Cadryc said, swallowing. “But what good will it do them if we ride into a trap? We’ve got to think of the rest of the rhan, lads. If we’re wiped out, who will stand between it and the Horsekin?”

“That’s true,” Samyc said. “Alas.”

Cadryc pointed the chunk of bread at the two lords in turn. “We need more men, that’s the hard truth of it. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s the blasted truth.”

“Just so, Your Grace,” Gerran said. “It’s too bad we don’t have wings like that dragon.”

“Indeed.” Cadryc glanced at Samyc. “Do you know you’ve got a dragon in your demesne?”