Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [113]
“We’d best leave him alone with his grief,” Calonderiel said. “Ill fill this in.”
“I’ll help.” Jill took a shovel gladly; she wanted to forget what she might have just seen.
When they were finished, they went back to the dun and found an open spot by the back wall where Calonderiel could work at straightening the arrows he’d salvaged from the battlefield. The Westfolk had a special tool for that, the shoulder blade of a deer pierced with a hole just the diameter of a shaft.
“We didn’t bring a lot of arrows with us,” he remarked. “I never dreamt we’d be riding into the middle of a war. Are there any good fletchers in this part of the world?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never shot a bow myself.”
Calonderiel frowned down at the mangled fletching on the arrow in his hands. His eyes were a deep purple, as rich and dark as Bardek velvet.
“I might as well cut them off. Curse it—I’ve left the proper knife in my gear.”
“Borrow this.” Jill drew her silver dagger. “It’s about as sharp as you’ll find.”
He whistled under his breath and took the dagger from her. When he ran one finger down the flat of the blade, the weapon glowed with a light strong enough to be visible even in the daylight.
“Dwarven silver!” he said. “You don’t see a lot of this around, do you?”
“What did you call it?”
“Dwarven silver. Isn’t that what it is? Where did you get this, anyway?”
“From a smith named Otho on the Deverry border.”
“And this Otho was a short man.” He gave her a sly grin. “But stocky for all his lack of height.”
“He was. Don’t tell me you know him!”
“Not him, truly, but his people.”
Jill was too puzzled by the way her dagger was behaving to wonder about Otho’s clan. She took it and turned it this way and that to watch the light playing on the surface. In her hands, it was much dimmer.
“I’ve never seen it glow like this.”
“It’s because of me. Otho’s folks don’t care for the likes of me. They like to know when one of us is around, because they think we’re a pack of thieves.”
Jill looked up sharply.
“Elcyion Lacar,” she whispered. “Elves.”
“Call us what you like,” he said with a laugh. “But we’ve been given those names before, true enough.”
One at a time, like slow raindrops falling into a still pond, Wildfolk manifested around him, a blue sprite, two warty gnomes, the thick shimmer of air that meant a sylph, as if they were hounds, come to lie at their master’s feet.
“And what’s the true name of your people, then?”
“Oh, now, that’s somewhat I’ll never tell you. You have to earn the right to hear that name, and of all your folks, Aderyn’s the only one who has.” Calonderiel smiled, taking any insult from his words. “Now, I’ve heard some of the tales you folk tell about us. We’re not thieves, and we’re not demons from hell or closer to the gods than you are, either, but simple flesh and blood like you. Old Aderyn tells me that our gods fashioned us from the Wildfolk, just like your gods fashioned you from animals, and so here we are, together on the earth for good or ill.”
“Here, our priests say the gods made us from earth and water.”
“The dweomer knows a fair bit more than priests; remember that well. May I have the borrowing of that dagger again? I’ve got a wretched lot of work to do.”
Jill handed it back. For a long time she sat and watched it glow like fire in his hands, while she wondered over the strange things he’d told her.
Toward noon, Jill saw the great silver owl circle the broch and disappear inside, a sight that made her shudder. She ran after it and found Cullyn and Rhodry talking together at the foot of the stairs. In a few minutes Aderyn came down, swinging his arms and flexing his shoulders like a man who’s just swum a very long way in a strong sea.
“I found them, my lord. They’re staying in camp about fifteen miles to the northeast.”
“Well and good, then,” Rhodry said. “We might as well ride out and meet Sligyn.”
“That might be unwise, my lord,” Cullyn broke in. “They won’t risk besieging the dun with an army coming at their back, but they might make a desperate