Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [169]
As soon as he dismounted by Corbyn’s body, Rhodry saw what Peredyr meant. Jill’s blow had shattered a well-made mail shirt and spitted Corbyn like a chicken.
“By the hells!” Rhodry whispered. “Did she truly do that?”
“I saw her with my own eyes, or I wouldn’t believe it,” Peredyr said. “She laughed while she did it, too.”
Rhodry found Jill near Aderyn’s wagon, where the old man was working over one of the wounded. Jill sat on the ground and leaned back against the wagon wheel while she stared blindly out at nothing. When Rhodry knelt in front of her, she said nothing.
“Where are you hurt?”
“I’m not. No one ever go so much as a nick on me.”
“Then what’s so wrong?”
“I don’t know. I truly don’t know.”
That was all the answer Rhodry got, too, until Aderyn was done tending what wounds he could. Still exhausted from his battle of the night before, the dweomermaster stood stiffly to one side and watched as a servant sluiced blood off the tailgate with buckets of water. He caught Jill’s hand and squeezed it.
“Are you cut?”
“I’m not.” All at once Jill broke, turning pale, speaking much too fast. “I saw his shade, Corbyn’s I mean. I killed him, and then I saw him, standing on his body. He was all blue, and ah, ye gods, the look in his eyes!”
Rhodry felt himself turn cold, but Aderyn merely nodded.
“The battle fit was on you. I heard how you shattered Corbyn’s mail. Could you do that now, child, in cold blood?”
“Never! It’s hard to believe I did it then.”
“Just so. It was the battle fit. I don’t truly understand it, but it must disrupt the humors somehow—probably it’s an excess of fiery humor in the blood. But it gave you strength far beyond yourself, and you saw things normally hidden.”
“So his shade was truly there? I thought I was going mad.”
“You weren’t.” Aderyn chose every word carefully. “What you call a mans shade is his real self, the part that indwells his body and keeps it alive and that holds his mind and consciousness. When the body’s injured beyond repair, this etheric double, as the dweomer terms it, withdraws. What you saw was Corbyn himself, utterly bewildered at being dead.”
Jill seemed to be about to speak, then bolted like a terrified horse, dodging through the wagons. When Rhodry started to follow, Aderyn grabbed his arm.
“Let her go. She needs to be alone with this.”
“No doubt. Just hearing you talk creeped my flesh. Here, Aderyn, I’m a berserker myself, and I’ve never seen anyone’s shade.”
“You aren’t marked for the dweomer like Jill is. Remember that, Rhodry Maelwaedd. Jill is marked for the dweomer.”
All at once Rhodry was frightened of this slender, weary old man. He made a muttered excuse and hurried away.
Laden with chain mail, exhausted from the battle, Jill couldn’t run far. She got free of the baggage train, jogged downstream for a bit, then tripped in the long grass and fell to her knees, gasping for breath. She flung herself face down and stretched out her arms, as if she could hold the sun-warmed earth like a mother. Wildfolk clustered around her; the gray gnome appeared and ran his twisted fingers gently through her hair. At last Jill sat up and looked across the meadow to Corbyn’s dun, where the green pennant was coming down. Jill had the uncanny feeling that Corbyn’s shade was wandering through the halls, trying to get back home. She nearly vomited.
“So much for glory. May I never ride to war again!”
Later she would realize that the gesture was a mad one, but at the time, all she could think was that she had to have a bath. She stripped off her mail and clothes, then plunged into the shallow stream. While she scoured herself with handsful of sand from the bottom, the gray gnome perched in the grass and watched her.
“I want my spare shirt. It’s in my saddlebags.”
The gnome nodded and disappeared. By the time he returned, dragging the shirt behind him, it was no longer strictly clean, but at least it didn’t stink of sweat and another man’s blood. Jill dressed, then rolled the mail up in a bundle. Although she’d