A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [167]
The hayloft turned out to be quite big enough for all of them, though Nedd insisted on piling up a barrier of hay to give Carra a bit of privacy in one curve of the wall. Before she went to this improvised bower, she asked Rhodry outright why he’d lied to the blacksmith.
“Because the truth could be dangerous, that’s why. Bandits have been known to hold important people for ransom.”
“Important…”
“Carra, believe me. The Westfolk would hand over every fine horse they own to ransom Dar’s wife and heir, to say naught of that bit of jewelry you’re carrying. From now on, just pretend you ran off with me. It’s perfectly believable.”
“The vanity of the man!” Otho said. “But women do stupid things sometimes, sure enough.”
“And men are the soul of tact?” Carra snapped.
“It’s not like you really did run off with Rhodry. This man of yours couldn’t be any worse, even if he is an elf.”
Lightning picked up her mood and growled. At the sound Thunder swung his head around and bared teeth.
“My apologies,” Otho said, and quickly. “No offense meant.”
Carra decided that as men at arms went, the dogs had much to recommend them.
In the morning, when they rode out, Rhodry and Yraen held a last conference with the blacksmith, then decided to wear the mail shirts they’d been carrying in their saddlebags. Much to Carra’s surprise, Otho produced one as well. As they followed the road into the forest, Nedd put the dogs on alert with a few hand signals; their noses would provide the best warning they could have against possible ambushes. Although she tried to keep her courage up, a few hours of this dangerous riding brought Carra an acute case of nerves. Every flicker of movement in the underbrush, every ripple of wind in the trees, every distant crack of a twig or hammer of a woodpecker, made her flinch.
Rhodry and Yraen rode in silence, as alert as the dogs. When they finally came clear of the forest, just after noon, she offered up a prayer of thanks to the Goddess. Yet, paradoxically enough, it was out in the open farmlands that the reality of their danger struck her like a blow across the face. Thanks to heavy cutting by the locals, the trees ended in a welter of stumps just at the edge of a broad valley. As they jogged their horses out into the open air, the dogs growled and threw up their heads to sniff the sudden gust of burning that greeted them. When Carra looked up, she could see a lazy drift of smoke, yellowing the sky. Circling up high flew the raven. Yraen swore—he’d seen it, too. Rhodry, oddly enough, started singing, just a few lines of some looping melody in the language of the Westfolk.
“Would that I had my good yew bow to speed an arrow to your lying heart,” he translated. “So your blood could water the tree of my revenge—but that bit isn’t really to the point, being as that cursed bird hasn’t done anything to us yet. I suspect it of having plans. What do you think, Otho?”
“I think we should turn back, that’s what.”
The raven headed off west and disappeared into the bright sun beyond the smoke.
“Normally I’d agree, but there’s a farmstead burning over there.” Rhodry rose in his stirrups and squinted across the valley. “Somebody might be still alive.”
But the gods weren’t so kind as that. At a fast jog they cut across the fields, the dogs racing to keep up, and reached the farmstead to find the fire burning itself out in a smolder of smoking thatch and glowing embers. Just at the road lay the corpse of a woman, her head half cut from her shoulders, in a blackening pool of blood. She lay on her back, her arms thrown akimbo, her stomach swollen with a late pregnancy.
“Get back!” Rhodry turned in his saddle and yelled at Carra. “Get back with the dogs!”
She wheeled her horse around, but it was too late. Mixed with the smoke hung a sweet scent, much too much like burnt meat. She pulled Gwerlas up after a few lengths, dismounted as fast as she could, and vomited into the long grass. Sick, cold, and shaking, she wiped her mouth on a pull of grass and got up, staggering back to her horse,