A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [184]
“See that brown mark on what’s left of its stomach? Looks like a stemmed cup? We call that the goblet of death.” Otho turned to her. “This particular creature’s a spider—well, it used to be, I should say. Big as your fist. Poisonous as you could want. Or not want.”
“Yen! That’s disgusting!” She looked up at the ceiling and shuddered, half expecting to see a whole nest of them ready to drop. “How common are they?”
“They’re not common, my lady. You almost never find them in civilized tunnels and suchlike. They’re shy, like most wild things. Find ’em hiding under rocks in the high mountains, if you find them at all.”
“Then how, I mean, why—” She fell silent, seeing their answer in their faces. “Someone brought it here, didn’t they?”
“They did.” Otho was staring up at the ceiling. “And whoever dropped it down through one of them vents is long gone, I’ll wager. There’s another floor up there, a gallery, like, so a workman can get up and clean out the air vents. Anyone could climb up there easy. No one would ever see ‘em.” He turned and snarled something in Dwarvish at one of the young men, who rushed off. “I’m sending him to get the landlord and wake this place up. If we make a big fuss about it, whoever this was won’t dare to make more mischief. Don’t you worry, my lady. Safety in numbers and all that.”
Carra let go of lightning’s collar and sat down, feeling a little sick as she realized the truth. Someone had just tried to kill her, and she didn’t even know why.
Thanks to the support of his vassals, Gwerbret Cadmar led out close to two hundred men that morning, far too many to assemble in the ward of his dun. A long swirl of men and horses spread out through the streets of Cengarn, made their way out several different gates, then re-formed into a warband down on the plain at the base of the city’s hills. Although Rhodry and Yraen, silver daggers as they were, expected to ride at the very rear and breathe the army’s dust, one of the gwerbret’s own men sought them out and grudgingly informed them that they were to ride with his grace.
“It’s because of the sorceress, you see. She told our lord that you were the only one who amid follow her directions. Cursed if I know what she meant by that.”
“No more do I,” Rhodry said. “Jill has a fine hand with a riddle, I must say, and so blasted early in the morning, too.”
Yet soon enough he found the answer. They followed the rider up to the head of the line of march, where the gwerbret and his lords were sitting on horseback and conferring in low voices. Although Cadmar acknowledged them with a smile and a nod of his head, the two lords, Matyc and Gwinardd, merely looked sour. While they waited for the gwerbret to have time to speak to them, Rhodry glanced idly around, sizing up the men in the warbands. They all had good horses, good weapons, and here and there he spotted men with the confident air of veterans. Off to one side, waiting on horseback for the gwerbret’s orders, sat Dar and his archers, each man with his unstrung longbow tucked under his right leg like a javelin and his short, curved hunting bow close at hand on his saddle peak. Rhodry waved to Dar, happened to glance at the sky, and swore aloud. Hovering above was an enormous bird with the silhouette of a hawk but, as far as he could tell by squinting into a bright morning, of a pale silvery color. It also seemed to be carrying something in its talons, a sack, perhaps, of some sort. As he watched it circled and began to drift off toward the west. With a cold certainty he knew that Jill had mastered elven dweomer as well as the lore proper to humankind.
“Your Grace?