Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [164]
“I’ll follow you, lad,” Aderyn said. “Even to the ends of the earth.”
With a yelp, Loddlaen spun around, but the corridor was empty. Aderyn’s presence lingered like the scent of smoke in an empty hearth.
“Sooner or later,” Aderyn’s voice went on. “I’ll come in after you, or you’ll have to come out. Sooner or later, you’ll look me in the face.”
The feeling of presence vanished. Loddlaen hurried to his chamber and slammed the door behind him. He couldn’t escape; Aderyn wasn’t going to let him escape, as somewhere in his heart he’d been sure his father would do, as he’d always done before.
“Then I’ll have to win.”
If only Aderyn were dead, Loddlaen could do much more than merely carry messages to the gwerbret. He could send fire into Rhodry’s tents, rot into his provisions, disease to his men and horses, and stir Rhodry’s army to such a panic that the men would desert like snow melting in the sun. If only Aderyn were dead. If.
Toward the middle of the afternoon, Loddlaen went to the window and tried to call up a storm. If nothing else, it would soak Rhodry and his cursed army and give Loddlaen something to brag about to Corbyn and Nowec. He called upon the elemental spirits of Air and Water, invoked them with mighty names, and saw clouds begin to swell and thicken in the sky. Wave after wave, the storm rushed in at his command as the wind picked up strong. All at once, the wind died, and the clouds began to dissipate. Loddlaen swore and struggled and cursed the spirits, until at last he saw one of the elemental Kings striding across the sky. Huge and storm-tossed, the King was a vaguely elven shape of silver light surrounded by a pillar of golden light as fine as gossamer. The King waved one hand, and the spirits fled, far beyond Loddlaen’s power to call them back.
Loddlaen leaned onto the windowsill and wept, knowing that Aderyn had summoned the King. Once he had stood at Aderyn’s side and been presented to those mighty beings as Aderyn’s successor. Now he was an outcast and beneath their contempt.
It was over an hour before Loddlaen felt strong enough to leave his chamber. As he was going down the staircase, he saw Aderyn walking up. Loddlaen stood riveted, his hand tight on the rail, as his father came closer and closer. Aderyn gave him a faint smile of contempt, as if he were showing Loddlaen that he could break Loddlaen’s seals anytime he wanted and enter anywhere he wished. Then the vision vanished.
Loddlaen hurried to the noise and company of the great hall. While he ate his dinner, he was brooding murder.
Late that evening, Jill and the two elves were swearing over a game of dice when Aderyn came to them. He was carrying two long arrows.
“It’s time. Which of you archers wants these arrows?”
“I do,” Jennantar said.
“The revenge belongs to you, sure enough,” Calonderiel said. “I’ll have steel-tipped arrows ready to back you if need be.”
Only then did Jill realize that the two arrows had silver tips.
“Jill,” Aderyn went on. “If Jennantar can bring the bird down, you might have to finish it off on the ground. Use your silver dagger and only your silver dagger.”
“I will. So, the old tale’s true, is it? Only silver can harm dweomerfolk?”
“Oh, steel can cut a dweomerman as easily as it can other flesh, and steel would harm the hawk, too. But if the silver kills him, his body will come back to man-shape when he’s dead.”
Aderyn led them about a mile from the camp down a road dimly lit by the first quarter moon. They passed two farmhouses, tightly shuttered against Rhodry’s army, and came to a meadow bordered by a line of oaks.
“Hide under the trees,” Aderyn said. “I’m going to go throw the challenge. Be ready, will you? He could always outfly me.”
Aderyn climbed the lowest tree and steadied himself against the branches to take off his clothes. Jill could just dimly see him, a dark shape among the leaves, as he crouched there. She thought she saw the indistinct, shimmering image of an owl beside him; then suddenly a glow of blue light