A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [171]
Her tears stopped of their own accord, leaving her face sticky and filthy both. She wiped it best she could on her equally filthy sleeve, then looked around her. In that last panicked dash they had reached the cluster of boulders and what shelter they were going to find. The river ran too deep to cross some yards off to the north; the forest grew thick and tangled to the south; the rocks rose up and melded with a cliff to the west behind them. Ahead and east, they had a clear view of the ford, some distance away, and the dark shape sprawled in the gathering shadows that had once been Nedd and Thunder.
“They can’t get round back here without the dog letting us know.” It was Yraen, sliding down the rocks behind them. “And they won’t get a clear aim to skewer us in here, and we can see them coming if they rush us. Couldn’t have been more than ten of them, Rhodry. If they try to squirm in here, on this broken ground, we’ll drop them easy.”
“True spoken. Think we can hold off a small army? We might have to. Ill wager they’re on their way to fetch a few friends.”
“Or one or two of them are. I’d say they left a squad behind, some archers, too, in case we take it into our heads, like, to try to cross the river. Huh. Told you there was somewhat wrong with that cursed ford, didn’t I?”
“Did I argue with you?”
By then Carra was too spent to be frightened. She leaned back against a rock and looked straight in front of her with eyes that barely saw.
“Is there any water?” she whispered.
“There’s not,” Otho said. “Nor food, either. The horses bolted.”
“Ah, I see. We’re still going to die, aren’t we?”
No one said a word.
“I only mind because of the baby, really.” She needed, suddenly, to make them understand. “It seems so unfair to the poor little thing. It never had a chance to live and now it’s going to die. I mean, when it comes to me, I might have died in childbirth anyway, and this is still better than Lord Scraev, but—”
“Hush, my lady!” The words sounded as if someone were tearing them out of Otho under torture. “Ah, ye gods! Forgive me, that ever I should let this happen to you!”
“It’s not as if you had any choice in the matter.” Carra laid a hand on his arm.
She was shocked to see tears in his eyes. He wiped them vigorously with both hands before he went on.
“As soon as it’s dark, I’m going to try creeping through the forest a ways. We can move quiet when we want to, my people. The way those horses were tearing through the brush, a saddlebag or two might have gotten itself pulled free.”
“And if there’s someone out there?” Yraen said. “Waiting for one of us to try just that?”
Otho merely shrugged. Rhodry was examining the leather pouch he carried at his belt.
“This should hold a little water.” He dumped the coins in a long jingle onto the ground. “I think I can reach the river and get back again. I hate to think of our lady going thirsty.”
“I’ll do it.” Otho snatched the pouch from him, “You need to be here. Just in case, like.”
In the gathering dusk Otho slipped off, moving silent and surefooted around the rocks. In a few moments, though, they heard him chuckle.
“My lady, come here,” he called. “I think you can squeeze through, and there’s a nice little stream, there is. Bring the dog, too.”
Sure enough, by sliding and cramming herself between two massive boulders, Carra popped out into a flattish opening big enough for her to crouch and Otho to stand upright, where a trickle of water ran down one rock, pooled, then disappeared under an overhang in the general direction of the river. She flung herself down and drank as greedily as the dog beside her, then washed her face. Otho was looking round with a grin of triumph on his face.
“When they come for us, my lady, you can hide in here. We’ll draw them off, down toward the ford, say. Once all the shouting’s over, you’ll have a chance to make your way north to the gwerbret. Not much of a chance, but better than none. If we tie that blasted dog’s mouth shut, we can hide him, too, and you’ll have