A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [103]
“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, the long wail of a banshee, 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.
“And foul news at that. Aderyn died some twenty days ago. 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