A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [116]
“And what name does -he answer to?”
“I don’t know, but he wears a twisted rod of gold round his neck.”
“Then I know him, yes, but he’s no longer one of mine. Some of my people have broken from my rule and command, Evandar, just as, or so I hear, some have from yours.” All at once he grinned, pulling dark lips back from sharp white teeth. “Even your wife, or so the minors say,”
“My liege!” With a little shriek the herald rode in between them. “If we’re here to prevent a battle, perhaps the harsh ways of speaking had best be laid aside,”
“Go away, old man,” the fox warrior snarled. “My brother and I will solve this thing between us.”
Dallandra caught her breath in a little gasp. Was this then her lover’s true kin and his true form? Sitting easily on his horse Evandar merely smiled at his rival, and he looked so truly elven at that moment, except perhaps for his impossibly yellow hair, that she found it hard—no, she refused—to think of him as anything but a man of her own people. Whimpering, the herald pulled back,
“Women tire of men all the time.” Evandar remarked, still smiling. “Tend to your rebels, and I’ll tend to mine. Are you telling me that you hold no command over our snouted friend?”
“I am. Just that. Some few have left my host, claiming they’ve found more powerful protectors elsewhere. At first I thought they’d gone over to you.”
“No such thing, not in the least, The woman you spoke of told me about new and powerful friends as well”
For a long moment they stared at each other, each man, if such you could call them, leaning a bit forward over his horse’s neck, their eyes locked as if they could read truth from each other in some secret way. Then the fox warrior grunted under his breath and sat back, shifting his weight and bringing up his spear to the vertical.
“This is no time for feuding between us. I’ll give you a weapon against this rebel of mine.”
“And I’ll offer you my thanks in return, but give it to this woman who rides with me, for she’s the one who’ll need it.”
The warrior turned, pausing to look Dallandra over as if he’d just noticed her presence, then with another grunt tossed her the spear. She caught it in one hand, surprised at the length and the heft of it: good oak with a leaf-shaped bronze head, set by its tang into the wood and bound round with bronze bands.
“Make that as short or as long as you please,” he remarked, then turned back to his brother. “Farewell, Evandar, and let there be peace between us until we settle this other matter.”
“Farewell, brother, but I’d wish for peace between us always and forever.”
The fox warrior merely sneered. With a wave of one hand, each finger tipped with a black claw instead of a nail, he wheeled his horse and headed back toward his army. With a roar like a flood racing down a dry ditch they all swung round and galloped off, raising a cloud of dust, shouting, screaming over the clatter of horse gear, till silence fell so hard that it rang louder than the shouts, and the dust settled to reveal an empty field, though the grass lay trampled and torn. Behind Evandar the bright host gathered, muttering their disappointment.
“We ride for home,” he announced. “Dalla, that spear’s too large for you to carry into the lands of men.”
He flicked his hand in its direction, then wheeled his horse round to lead his army away. Dallandra felt the spear quiver in her hand like a live thing. It shrank so fast that she nearly dropped it. She twisted it round and laid it across her saddle in the little space behind the peak, then fought to hold it down as it writhed and shriveled till at last she held a dagger and naught more. A strange thing it was, too, with a leaf-shaped blade of bronze stuck into a crude wood hilt. As she studied it she saw that the bronze band clasping the wood closed round the tang sported a graved line of tiny dragons.
“Dalla, come along!” Evandar called out. “It’s too dangerous to linger here.”
She slipped the dagger into her belt, then