A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [132]
Just at sunset, the answer came in a shout of alarm from the servants who were watching the gates. Dallandra ran after Melynda when the lady rushed outside and saw the stableboys and the aged chamberlain swinging the gates shut. The two women scrambled up the ladder to the ramparts and leaned over. Down below on the dusty road, Lord Tewdyr was leading forty armed men up to the walls.
“And what do you want with me and my maidservants?” Melynda called down. “My husband and his men are long gone.”
“I’m well aware of that, my lady,” Tewdyr shouted back. “And I swear to every god and goddess as well that no harm will come to you and your women while you’re under my protection.”
“His lordship is most honorable, but we aren’t under his protection, and I see no reason to ask for it.”
“Indeed?” Tewdyr gave her a thin-lipped smile. “I fear me it’s yours whether you want it or not, because I’m going to take you back to my dun with me and hold you there until your husband quits the war and ransoms you back.”
“Oh, indeed?” Melynda tossed her head. “I should have known that spending all that coin would ache your heart, but never did I think it would drive you to dishonor, just to get it back.”
“There is no need for my lady to be insulting, especially when she can’t have more than a handful of men in her dun.”
Melynda bit her lip sharply and went a bit pale. Dallandra stepped forward and leaned over the rampart.
“The lady has all the men she needs,” Dallandra called. “This is an impious, dishonorable, and wretched move you’re making, my lord. Every bard in Deverry will satirize your name for it down the long years.”
“Oh, will they now?” Tewdyr laughed. “And do you claim to be a bard, old woman?”
His voice dripped cold contempt for all things old and female both. In an icy rage Dallandra swept up her hands and invoked elemental spirits, the Wildfolk of Air and Fire. In a swarming, glittering mob they answered her call and rushed among the men and horses in a surge of raw life. Although the men couldn’t see them, they could feel them indirectly, just as when a cloud darkens the sun outside and the light in a chamber dims. The riders shifted uneasily in their saddles; the horses danced and snorted; Tewdyr looked wildly around him.
“We have no need of armed men,” Dallandra said. “Are you stupid enough to match steel against the laws of honor and the gods?”
The Wildfolk chattered among the men and pinched the horses, pulled at the men’s clothes, and rattled their swords in their scabbards until the entire warband shook in fear. Turning this way and that, they cursed and swatted at enemies they couldn’t see. Dallandra held up her right hand and called forth blue fire—a perfectly harmless etheric light, but it looked like it would burn hot. She fashioned the fire into a long streaming torch and made it blaze brightly in the fading sunlight. Tewdyr yelped and began edging his horse backward.
“Begone!” Dallandra called out.
With a wave of her hand, she sent the bolt of light down like a javelin. When it struck the ground in front of Tewdyr’s horse, it shattered into a hundred darts and sparks of illusionary fire. Dallandra hurled bolt after bolt, smashing them into the ground among the warband while the Wildfolk pinched the horses viciously and clawed the men. Screaming, cursing, the warband broke and galloped shamelessly down the hill. Tewdyr spurred his horse as hard as any of them and never even tried to stop the retreat.
Dallandra sent the Wildfolk chasing them, then allowed herself a good laugh, but a pale and feverishly shaking Lady Melynda knelt at her feet. Behind her the servants huddled together as if they feared Dallandra would attack them simply for the fun of it. Only then did Dallandra remember that she was among human beings, not the People,