Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [135]
While servants carried Cullyn away and laid another wounded man on the wagon bed, Nevyn washed his bloody hands in a bucket of water. Only he knew how hard he’d had to fight to save Cullyn’s life; he was rather amazed at himself, that he’d actually been able to go into a trance and stay standing up. A little green sprite crouched on the ground and solemnly watched as he dried his hands on a clean strip of cloth. Nevyn risked whispering to her.
“You were right to warn me. My thanks to you and your friends.”
The sprite grinned, showing blue pointed teeth, then vanished. If the Wildfolk hadn’t warned him, Nevyn might never have realized that someone was up on the higher planes, trying to drive Cullyn’s etheric double away from his body and then snap the silver cord that bound him to life. Someone. Not Loddlaen, but someone who stank of dark things, someone who was standing behind him or perhaps even hiding behind him.
“You overreached yourself badly, my nasty little friend,” Nevyn said aloud. “Now I know you’re there, and I’ll recognize you when we meet again.”
Just before dawn Jill woke, tossed irritably in bed for a while, then got up and dressed. When she came down to the great hall, the servants were yawning as they took the sods off the fire and fanned the coals to life. Lady Lovyan was already seated at the head of the honor table. When Jill made her a bow, Lovyan waved her over to sit beside her.
“So, child. You had trouble sleeping, too?”
“I did, Your Grace. I usually do when Da’s off to war.”
A servant hurried over with bowls of steaming barley porridge and butter. While Jill and Lovyan ate, the men on fortguard began trickling in in twos and threes, yawning and chivying the servant lasses. One of them must have tripped or suchlike, because from behind her Jill heard the clatter and ring of a scabbard striking against a table. She started to turn round to look, but the noise rang out again and again, like a bell tolling, louder, ever louder until she heard a battle raging, the clash and clang of sword on shield, the whinnying of horses, men screaming and cursing. She heard her own voice, too, babbling of what she saw
as indeed she did see it, spread out below her in the meadow, as if she hovered over the battle like a gull on the wind. Rhodry was trying to force his way into a mob around one rider, and he was howling with laughter, utterly berserk as he swung and parried with a blood-running sword. The man inside the mob could barely swing; he turned desperately in the saddle. Cullyn. Jill heard her voice rise to a shriek and sob as Jennantar’s arrows sped past her father and one by one, began to bring his enemies down. At last Rhodry was through, leaping off his horse in time to catch Cullyn as he fell
and the battle noise faded away into the sound of her own sobs and Lovyan’s frightened voice, barking orders to the servants. Jill looked up straight into Lovyan’s face and realized that her ladyship had her arms tight round her. Leaning over her was Dwgyn, captain of the fortguard.
“Your Grace,” he burst out. “What—”
“Dweomer, you dolt!” Lovyan said. “What else could it be, and her a friend of Nevyn’s and all?”
Jill’s tears stopped, wiped away by the icy realization that Lovyan was speaking the truth. She felt herself shaking like an aspen in the wind as a servant ran over with a bit of elderberry wine. Lovyan forced her to drink it.
“Jill, is your father dead?”
“He’s not, but he’s as close to it as he can be. Your Grace, please, I beg you, I’ve got to ride to him. What if he dies, and I’ve never gotten to say farewell?”
“Well, here, my heart aches for you, but you’ll never be able to find the army.”
“Won’t I, Your Grace?”
Lovyan shuddered.
“Besides,” Jill went on, “that battle was hard-fought. Lord Rhodry’s going to need as many men of the fortguard as you can send him. I know I can lead them straight there, I truly do know it. They’re only some twenty miles away. Please, Your Grace.”
Lovyan sighed and stood up from the bench, then ran shaking hands through her