A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [172]
“I am. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
Yet with the hope fear returned and a grief sharper than any she’d ever known. Otho, Yraen, Rhodry—all dead for her sake? As Nedd already was. Lightning whined, pushing into her lap, reaching up to lick her face and whimper over and over again. She threw her arms around his neck and would have cried, but all her tears were spent.
“Come now, lass, come now.” Otho’s voice was very soft. “I was only going home to die, anyway, and Rhodry loves death more than he ever loved life, and well, I’m sorry for Yraen, not that you’d best ever tell him that, but then, he made his choice when he took to the long road, and who can argue with Wyrd, anyway, eh? Come now, hush. We’ll take them some water and tell them what we’ve found.”
By then a gibbous moon was rising, silvering the river, picking out Nedd’s body and the gleam of arrows lying on the grass. Although Carra wished with all her heart that they could bury him and Thunder, too, it seemed too trivial to mention to men who would doubtless lie dead and unburied themselves in the morning. She sat with her back to one of the boulders and stared fixedly in the opposite direction while Otho went back and forth fetching pouches of water for the two silver daggers. All at once she realized that her body had a thing or two that needed attending to, and urgently. Ever since she’d gotten pregnant, it seemed, when she needed to relieve herself there was simply no arguing about it. She got up and slipped away, keeping to the safe shelter of the boulders and broken terrain, to find a private spot.
When she was done she walked a few steps toward the forest and stood looking into the silver-touched shadows. For miles and miles the trees stretched, hiding enemies, maybe, or maybe promising safety. She wondered how far away the rest of the bandits were, and how fast their advance scouts would reach them. They won’t attack till dawn, she thought. We’ve got that long. Out in the shadows something moved. Her heart thudded, stuck cold in her chest; her hands clenched so hard her nails dug into her palms. It seemed that a bird, a strange silvery bird with enormous wings, dropped from the sky and settled deep among the trees.
A trick of moonlight—it had to be a thrown shadow and naught more—but a branch rustled, a tree shivered. Something snapped and stamped. Carra wanted to run, knew she should run, tried to call out, but she was frozen there, ice-cold and stone-still, as something—no, someone—made its way, made his way through the trees—no, her way. A silver-haired woman, wearing men’s clothing but too graceful and slender to be a man, stepped out into the clearing. She carried a rough cloth sack in one hand, and at her belt gleamed the pommel of a silver dagger.
“I’m a friend. Where’s Rhodry?”
Carra could only raise a hand and gesture mutely toward the boulders. As she led the way back, she could hear the woman following, but she was afraid to turn round and look behind lest the woman disappear. All Rhodry’s talk of shape-changers rushed back to her mind and hovered like a bird, half-seen in moonlight.
In among the broken rocks they found the men sitting in a circle, heads together, talking in low voices about the coming battle, if one could call it that. Carra suddenly realized that she could see them clearly, could pick out the expressions on their faces as they looked up startled. Only then did she realize that the woman gave off a faint silver light, hovering round her like scent.
“Jill!” Rhodry leapt to his feet and stepped back as if in fear. “Jill. I—ye gods! Jill!”
“That’s the name my father gave me, sure enough. Come along, all of you! We’ve got to get out of here and right now.”
“But those guards, they’ve got archers…” Yraen let his voice trail away.
“Who no longer matter at all.” Jill glanced Otho’s way. “Hurry! Get up!”
Lightning sprang up at the command and Otho followed more slowly, grumbling to himself.
“Good.” Jill glanced