Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [132]
Rhodry was listening with a fascinated curiosity. Cullyn set the empty cup down and rose.
“It’s late, lord cadvridoc. If I may speak so freely, we’d best get ourselves to bed.”
He walked away before Rhodry could call him back.
Even for a Deverry man, Lord Nowec was tall, six and a half feet of solid muscle and broad bones. That night, he was an angry man, too, standing with his arms crossed over his chest and glowering as Corbyn and the rest of the allies laid their plan. Loddlaen kept a careful eye on him. Finally the lord stepped forward with an oath that was almost a growl.
“I don’t like this,” Nowec snarled. “I’m sick to my heart of all this stinking dishonor. That ruse this morning is enough.”
All the others turned to look at him with a flash of guilt in their eyes.
“Do we fight like men, or do we fight like filthy rabble?”
“Oh, now, here.” Lord Cenydd stepped forward, a paunchy man with a thick, gray mustache. “Which is more dishonorable—to use the wits the gods gave us, or to kill noble-born men when we don’t even have a feud going with them?”
“True spoken,” Corbyn put in. “Our quarrel’s with Rhodry and no one else.”
“Pig’s balls!” Nowec spat out. “You’re afraid of the gwerbret intervening and naught else. I don’t like it, I tell you, sneaking around like a pack of stray dogs creeping up on a townsman’s slop heap.”
The younger lords were wavering, stung by Nowec’s words, and Corbyn and Cenydd were unable to look him in the face. Loddlaen sent out a line of force from his aura and used it to slap Nowec’s aura, just as a child uses a whip to spin a top. The lord staggered slightly, and his eyes turned glazed.
“But my lord,” Loddlaen said in a soothing sort of voice. “If we drag out the war, we could kill Sligyn or Peredyr by mistake. That would be a grievous thing.”
“So it would.” His anger quite gone, Nowec spoke slowly. “I agree, councillor. The plan’s a good one.”
“Then no one has any objections?” Corbyn got in quickly. “Splendid. Go give your captains their orders.”
As the council of war broke up, Loddlaen slipped away before Corbyn noticed. He couldn’t bear the thought of sitting and drinking with his stinking lordship. As he walked through the camp, he noticed the men glancing sidewise at him and furtively crossing their fingers to ward off witchcraft. They were afraid of him, the mangy dogs, as well they might be—let them cower before Loddlaen the Mighty, Master of the Powers of Air! At the edge of the camp, he paused, debating. As badly as he wanted to get away from the army for a little while, he was quite simply afraid to go out alone with Aderyn so close by. Finally he went to his tent, ordered his manservant out, and lay down fully dressed on his blankets.
Noise filtered in, men laughing and talking as they strolled by, swords clanking at their sides. Once, Loddlaen’s trained mind had been capable of shutting such distractions out; now, they drove him to rage. Fists clenched at his side, jaw tight, he lay shaking, trying to close down his senses and let sleep come. He did not want to summon the darkness. All at once, he was afraid of it, afraid of the voice that would pour into his mind as smoothly as oil.
Yet, in the end, it came to him. He saw it first as a tiny black point in his mind; then it began to swell. He fought it, tried to fill his mind with light, tried to banish the dark with ritual gesture and curse, but inexorably it grew, billowed, until he seemed to stand in a vast darkness, and the voice spoke to him, gently, patiently.
“Why do you fear me, you of all dweomermasters, Loddlaen the Mighty? All I want to do is aid you, to be your friend and ally. I came to sorrow with you, that so clever a plan went astray. You almost trapped Rhodry today.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend and naught more. I have information for you. That silver dagger is the key to everything. You have to kill him before you can kill Rhodry. I’ve been meditating and doing deep workings, my friend, and I’ve seen that the forces of Wyrd are at work