Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [149]
As Jill was drawing her rations, Aderyn came up to her and asked her to walk with him a ways. Nearby was a copse of willows around a duck pond, and they went there for a bit of privacy. With a sigh, Aderyn sat down on a fallen tree trunk. The brightening light picked out the wrinkles around his eyes and made him look very weary indeed.
“I hope I don’t offend you, Jill, but do you truly think you can best Corbyn? I won’t have you killed in a hopeless cause. If nothing else, Nevyn would never forgive me, and his wrath is nothing to invoke lightly.”
“Oh, I can well believe that. But as long as it’s in single combat, I think I can take him. From what Rhodry says, he’s old, slowing down, and he’s got a good paunch on him. If I can keep him moving, I’ll wear him down.”
“Old? I though he was but eight-and-thirty.”
“Well, no offense on my part, but that’s old for a fighting man.”
“I suppose so. I—”
Suddenly the light in the copse dimmed around them. Aderyn jumped to his feet and swore as a mass of thick gray rain clouds swept down out of an otherwise clear sky. With a slap, wind hit the copse in a welter of falling leaves. In the distance, thunder cracked and rumbled.
“Is Loddlaen behind this?” Jill said.
“Who else? I’ll deal with it. Run, child—the horses!”
Under the shadows of clouds, scudding in fast with the cold scent of rain, Jill raced back to the camp and found it in confusion: men swearing, captains and lords running, yelling orders, the horses dancing at their tether ropes. Just as Jill reached the herd, the first lightning struck, a crackling blue bolt ominously near. Neighing and plunging, the horses pulled at their tethers. The lightning hammered down again; big drops of rain fell in a scatter. Jill grabbed the halter of the nearest horse and pulled it down just in time to keep it from breaking free. Swearing, the rest of the army was among the herd and doing the same. Rhodry came running and grabbed the horse next to her.
“Get ready to run! If they stampede, save yourself and let them go!”
With a slap of wind the rain poured down, drenching them. The horses danced and tossed their heads as the men pulled them down and talked endless nonsense to soothe them. But that was the end of the lightning, as if the god Tarn had snatched his weapons back from Loddlaen. In a few minutes more, the rain stopped with an eerie suddenness. When Jill looked up, she saw the clouds breaking up and swirling in a troubled, gusty wind. For a moment it seemed that they would mass again, as a real storm would have done, but the stretch of blue sky overhead stayed stubbornly clear, then widened, as if the clouds were spilled flour and a giant with a broom was sweeping them away.
“Oh, ye gods.” Rhodry whispered. “Dweomer.”
The last of the clouds dissolved. They did not blow away; they did not thin out and slowly dissipate; they dissolved, suddenly and completely gone. Jill shuddered convulsively.
Yet even though Aderyn had dispelled the storm, it still slowed the army down. Soggy provisions had to be repacked; wet blankets, wrung out; mail, rubbed dry; nervous horses, soothed. They set out a good hour later than they might have—an hour that meant three more miles between them and Corbyn.
“We’re leaving the carts behind,” Rhodry snapped. “Jill, ride next to me. We’re going all out to catch the bastard.”
When Jill rode into line, her heart was pounding in fear. For all that she’d bragged to Aderyn, wearing unfamiliar mail was going to slow her down, and speed was her greatest weapon in any fight. Her shoulders ached like fire from the weight. But when Rhodry gave her one of his berserker grins, she smiled back at him with a little toss of her head. Cursed if she’d let him see that she was afraid!
The army went at a walk-trot pace, which meant they could do five miles an hour compared to Corbyn’s three. As they rode, Jill looked up constantly, and after a few miles she saw a hawk, circling high above them. Her stomach clenched. When the hawk flew away,