A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [186]
“No doubt.” Rhodry smiled briefly. “Let me bring the others down, and then we’ll have a little chat with the gwerbret.”
“Very well. Oh, and tell Cadmar to forbid any fires. I don’t want smoke giving our prey the alarm. I’ll wait until you’ve made camp, and then I’ll fetch you and his grace.”
She gave him a friendly pat on the arm and headed off downstream, disappearing into the trees and brush beyond the power of even his elven eyes to pick her out. Dweomer, he supposed. Swearing under his breath, Rhodry hurried back to the gwerbret and the waiting army.
It turned out that the raiders were camped not five miles away. When Jill reappeared, about an hour before sunset, she led Rhodry and the gwerbret downstream for a ways, to the place where the water tipped itself over the crest of the hill in a gurgle and splash to rush down into a river far below. By peering through the trees, they could see the river twisting, as gray and shiny as a silver riband in the twilight, across a grassy plain. Far to the west, a mist hung pink in the setting sun.
“There!” Rhodry said, pointing. “Smoke from camp-fires! Right by that big bend in the river off to the west, Your Grace.”
“Don’t tell me there’s elven blood in your veins, silver dagger!” Cadmar was shading his eyes with one hand. “I can’t see anything of the sort. Weil, I’ll take your word for it.”
“I’ve scouted them out, Your Grace,” Jill said. “About fifty men, all settled in by the river, as bold as brass, in a proper camp with tents and everything. They’ve even got a couple of wagons with them. For loot, I suppose.”
Cadmar swore under his breath.
“Well, we’ll cut them down to size soon enough. What about the prisoners?”
“They seem to be tied and chained off by themselves, between the camp proper and the wagons.”
“I say we ride before dawn. Won’t be easy, riding at night, but if we fall on them with the sun, we can wipe them out like the vermin they are.”
Although Jill took the blanket and the food that Rhodry had brought her, she refused to come back to camp with them. Rhodry escorted the gwerbret back to Lord Gwinardd’s side, then went looking for Yraen. He found him with Lord Matyc, near the edge of the camp. Since his lordship was telling Yraen a long involved story about the bloodlines of some horses, Rhodry merely waited off to one side. It seemed obvious that Matyc would have preferred to cut the matter short, but Yraen kept asking such civil questions, so very much to the point, that Matyc was forced to answer. Finally, and by then the twilight had replaced the sunset, Yraen thanked his lordship in a flood of courtesies and let him make his escape. Rhodry waited while Matyc picked his way through the camp, until he was well out of earshot.
“What was all that about?” Rhodry said.
“Maybe naught, but you told me to keep an eye on him. So after I spread our bedrolls out and suchlike, I went looking for his lordship. He was just leaving camp, you see, over behind those trees there, and I would have thought he needed to make water or suchlike, except that he had his dagger out.”
“He what?”
“He was holding it in one hand, but up, like he was studying the blade. He’d turn it, too, with a flick of his wrist, like, and every time he did, it flashed with light.”
“Ye gods! You could signal a man that way, someone who was off to the west when the sun was setting.”
“Exactly what I thought, too.” Yraen’s smile was grim. “We couldn’t prove a thing, of course, and it could well be that I’m dead wrong, and it was just some nervous twitch like men will get, to fiddle with his dagger that way.”
“It could be, truly.”
“But I thought, well, if it’s nerves and naught more, he’ll feel better, won’t he now, for a bit of talk. So I kept him there, chatting about this and that, till the sun went down in the mists.”
“If I were a great lord, I’d have the best slice of roast pig brought to your plate at the honor table tonight.”
“But things being what they are, let’s go have some flat-bread and cheese.