A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [96]
“I still don’t understand how they’re born.”
“No more do I.” He laughed under his breath. “No more do I, but they become, and they delight us. I hate to think of them vanishing away.”
Out in the meadow the music sang in harmony with the sound of laughter. Dallandra glanced up and saw a huge silver moon, just wisped with cloud, at zenith. Black specks, birds, she supposed, moved across its face, then circled round, plunging down, growing bigger and faster with the rush of wings. Howling in rage, Evandar leapt to his feet.
“Run!” he screamed. “Dalla, to the trees!”
Suddenly she saw trees, some yards away at the hillcrest. As she ran she heard shrieks and squawks, the rush of wings and the cawing of angry ravens. Just as she darted under cover she realized that one of the enormous birds was a nighthawk, stooping straight for her. In the nick of time she rolled into the shelter of woody shrubs and low-hanging branches. Screaming its disappointment, the hawk veered off and flew toward the meadow, where the dancers were scattering among the torches with little cries of fear. When Dallandra risked standing up, the hawk circled back, but this time it landed to turn with a shimmer of wings and magic into Alshandra.
“I thought it would be you,” Dallandra said calmly. “You should come with your daughter when she goes, and then you won’t lose her.”
“Fetid bitch! I’ll kill you.”
“You can’t, not here, not in this country.” She laid her hand on the amethyst figure. “What are you going to do? Tear at me with your claws?”
A shriek hung in the morning air. Alshandra was gone, and the sun was rising through a lavender mist.
As Dallandra walked downhill in that pale dawn to join Evandar, the year 854 was ending in Deverry and Eldidd. As the slashing rains of autumn drove down, it threatened to become a black new year for Eldidd at least, because Maryn, a man now, not a lad, and the High King of a newly unified Deverry, was camped in her northern fields and sieging her northern towns with the biggest army Eldidd had ever seen. Aderyn was traveling with his alar to the winter camps when he heard the news from Nevyn, who contacted him through the fire. By then, Nevyn had become the High King’s chief councillor, but rather than sit and worry in the drafty ruins of the palace in war-battered Dun Deverry, he was traveling with his king on campaign.
“Not that there’s a cursed lot for me to do,” he said that night and with evident relief. “We’re holed up in Cernmeton, and it’s nice and snug, because the town surrendered without a siege as promptly as you please.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Do you think the war will last long?”
“I don’t. Everywhere the king rides, the opposition crumbles away. In the spring, when the towns are all running low on provisions and can’t possibly stand a siege, the army will move south and take Aberwyn and Abernaudd, and that’ll be an end to it. Deverry and Eldidd will be one kingdom from now on. What’s wrong? Your image looks frightened.”
“I am. If the wars are over, are the Eldidd men going to start moving west again and stealing my people’s land?”
“I’ve worked so hard to end the civil wars that I forget how things must look to you. But don’t let it trouble your heart.” Even the purely mental touch of Nevyn’s mind on his resonated with grief. “You don’t understand just how horrible things have been, just how many men have died. I think me that there’ll be plenty of land in the new kingdom to satisfy everyone for years to come.”
Just in time Aderyn stopped himself from gloating.
“Well, let me think,” he said instead. “My alar isn’t very far from Cernmeton, and we’ll be riding past on our way to the winter camps. Do you think we could meet?”
“That would be splendid, but I don’t think you’d best ride into town. In fact,