Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [106]
“Well and good, then. Maybe we’ll take some of these bandits to the Otherlands with us. Albaral, do you have any armor?”
“Eldidd mail. Thought it might come in handy, so I packed it.”
“And here I thought you were a fool,” Calonderiel said. “For dragging all that weight along.”
Albaral smiled with a tight twist to his mouth. Cullyn noticed that Albaral had a scar down his cheek much like the one he himself carried.
“So. Your people fight among themselves, do they?”
“Every now and then. But an Eldidd lord marked me like this. I killed the bastard for it. Long time ago now.”
The four of them peered up at the rotted splinters along the top of the wall that were all that was left of the catwalks under the ramparts. Never would they hold an archer again.
“Well, the top of that wall’s about five feet thick,” Jennantar said at last. “We can stand there and shoot if we’re careful. Those projection things will provide some cover for our legs, anyway.”
“Merlons.” With a real surprise Cullyn realized that they knew nothing about duns. “They’re called merlons. But we still have to get you up there.”
Albaral took a rope off the travois, turned it into a lasso, then stepped back and cast. The loop sailed up and encircled a merlon as easily as if he’d been aiming at a horse in a herd. Cullyn whistled in admiration.
“Now we can weave ourselves a ladder,” Calonderiel said. “I wonder if those bandits are still lying in their stinking ambush. May the flies cluster thick around them if they are.”
“Aderyn will know,” Jennantar remarked. “Look! He’s just going to find out.”
Just then Cullyn heard a strange sound above him, a rushy flap like the wings of an enormous bird. When he glanced up, an enormous bird was exactly what he saw—a great silver owl, a good five feet long, flapping up from the broch, circling once, then heading off to the east with a long mournful cry. Albaral waved farewell to it as casually as if he were waving to some friend who was riding off to a tavern. For a moment Cullyn came close to vomiting.
“By the black ass of the Lord of Hell, can Aderyn turn himself into an owl?”
“Of course,” Jennantar said. “You just saw him, didn’t you?”
Cullyn’s mind refused to acknowledge the fact. He had, of course, seen the owl; he believed that Jennantar was telling the truth; he even remembered seeing Aderyn go upstairs for some purpose of his own—but his mind stubbornly refused to draw the proper conclusion. He stared at the sky for a long time before he could speak.
“Well and good, then. Albaral, we’d best get our blasted mail on our backs.”
Every morning, unless it was pouring rain, Rhodry led his warband out to exercise their horses. Lately, thanks to the threat of rebellion, he’d been making the rides good long ones to ensure that men and mounts both would be fit to ride to war. Thus it seemed perfectly logical when the idea occurred to him of taking the men out for a day-long jaunt. He was talking with Caenrydd, his captain, as he usually did after breakfast when suddenly—out of nowhere, as he would later realize—it occurred to him that none of them had spent a full day in mail in months.
“Have the men pack provisions for the noon meal. We’ll ride fully armed, rest a bit, and then return.”
“Well and good, my lord. Which way shall we ride?”
“Oh, doesn’t much matter.” Rhodry named the first direction that came to mind. “West.”
Although a dark line of fog crouched ominously on the ocean horizon, it was a fine sunny morning when they set out. Every now and then Rhodry would turn in the saddle just to look at his men, riding two abreast, with the red lion shield of his adopted clan at every saddle peak. Soon he would be leading a full army. Cadvridoc, he thought to himself, it has a fine ring to it, truly. Eventually he called Caenrydd up to ride beside him. The captain was a solid man in his late twenties, with