A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [10]
“As this so that. Maryn king Maryn king Maryn. Death never dying. Aranrhodda ricca ricca ricca Bubo lubo,”
His face and hands seemed to turn to ice, cold and numb and stiff. He looked up to find the room filled with Wildfolk, staring at him solemnly, some wide-eyed, some sucking an anxious finger, some gape-mouthed with terror.
“Evil men did this, didn’t they?”
They nodded a yes. In the fire a towering golden flame leapt up, then died down to a vaguely human face burning within the blaze.
“Help me,” Nevyn said to the Lord of Fire. “I want to get that corpse outside in here, and then burn it and this pitiful thing both. Then both souls can go to their rest.”
Sparks showered in agreement.
Nevyn slipped the lead plate into his pocket, lest melting it cause Maryn some harm. He gathered his gear and loaded up his mount, then untied the horse and led it about a quarter mile down the river, where he tethered it out in safety. When he got back to the lodge, he found that the fire had already leapt from the hearth to smolder in the woodpile. With the Wildfolk pulling as he pushed, Nevyn got the rotting log that bore the corpse free of the ground and hauled it inside. He positioned the corpse and log as close to the fire as possible, then laid the mutilated baby on the desecrated breast of the man who’d tried to save it. Although he felt more like vomiting than ever, he forced himself calm and raised his hands over his head to invoke the Great Ones.
“Take them to their rest. Come to meet them when they go free.”
From the sky outside, booming around the lodge, came three great knocks like the claps of godly hands. Nevyn began ‘to shudder, and in the fire, the flames fell low in worship.
Even though Nevyn had asserted, and quite calmly, too, that there was no danger, none of the silver daggers were inclined to believe him. After the men had tethered out the horses and eaten dinner, Caradoc gave orders to scrounge all the dry wood they could find and build a couple of campfires. Maddyn suspected that the captain was as troubled as any man there by this talk of a haunt and wanted the light as badly, too.
“Full watches tonight, lads,” Maddyn said. “Shall we draw straws?”
Instead, so many men volunteered that his only problem was sorting out who was going to stand when. Once the first ring of guards was posted, some of the men rolled up in their blankets and went to sleep—or at least pretended to in a fine show of bravado—but most sat near one fire or another, keeping them going with sticks and bits of bark as devotedly as any priest ever tended a sacral flame. After about an hour, Maddyn left the prince to Caradoc’s and Owaen’s care at one of the fires and went for a turn round the guards. Most were calm enough, joking with him about ghosts and even making light of their own nerves, but when he came up to Branoic, who was posted out near the herd of horses, he found the younger man as tense as a harp string.
“Oh, now here, lad! Look at the horses, standing there all peaceful like. If there was some fell thing about, they’d warn us.”
“You heard what Nevyn said, and he’s right. There are some things horses can’t know. Maddyn, you can mock me all you like, but some evil thing walks this stretch of country. I can practically smell it.”
Maddyn was about to make a joke when the knocks sounded, three distant rolls booming out like thunder from a clear sky. Branoic yelped like a kicked dog and spun round to point as a tower of pale silver flame shot up through the night. As far as Maddyn could tell, it was coming from the old hunting lodge. Even though they were over a mile away, Maddyn saw the river flash with reflected light as it seemed that the flames would lick at the sky itself. Then they fell back, leaving both men blind and blinking in the darkness. In the camp, yells and curses broke like a rainstorm. Around them horses neighed and reared, pulling at