Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [115]
“Just so, master,” Sarcyn said. “Can you reach her mind? We could send some spell to muddle her.”
“It may come to that, but for now I’d prefer not to. Nevyn could detect that, you see.”
Sarcyn did see. Although he’d been left behind in Bardek the summer before to tend to the master’s affairs there, he’d heard the reports about the Master of the Aethyr and his vast powers.
“And here’s Rhodry again,” Alastyr went on thoughtfully. “I’ll have many an interesting thing to tell the Old One when we see him.”
If we live to see him, Sarcyn thought to himself. He felt all their careful plans fraying, just as when a farmer loads too much in an old sack, and the cloth shreds away rather than simply rips. Yet he never would have dared voice such doubts to the master. Uneasily he looked round their camp, Camdel curled in a blanket like a small child, Gan sitting by the fire and staring into it, his mouth twisted, his eyes wide in terror. Alastyr got up and stretched.
“Tell me somewhat, Sarco,” he said. “Do you ever have the feeling that someone’s scrying us out?”
“I’ve had a thought that way, once or twice. Do you think it’s the Master of the Aethyr?”
“I don’t, because if he knew where we were, he’d be after us like a snake striking. But if it’s not him, then—”
Sarcyn shuddered, finishing the thought in his mind: then it had to be the Hawks of the Brotherhood. Half assassins, half dweomer-apprentices, the Hawks served the ruling council of the dark dweomer and enforced its commands. Although the Brotherhood was too loosely organized to have a code in any real sense of the word, it did require a means of dealing with traitors. The Hawks provided all the means any guild would need.
“And why would they be watching us?” Sarcyn said.
“I failed last summer, didn’t I?”
“But the Old One laid no fault upon you.”
“That’s true.” Alastyr hesitated, sincerely puzzled. “Then maybe it’s some minion of Nevyn’s?” Again the hesitation. “I’m going out into the darkness where I can meditate upon this.”
As the master strode away, Gan looked up, watching him with numb eyes. He was so old, toothless, so twisted from hard work and scarred here and there from Alastyr’s rages, that Sarcyn wondered if the mute cared anymore if he lived or died. He found himself thinking of Evy, his beautiful sister, Evy—would slavery someday reduce her to a piece of human flotsam such as this?
“Don’t vex yourself, old man. We’ll pull our chestnuts out of the fire yet.”
Gan tried to force a smile from trembling lips, then went back to staring at the fire.
“Well, I’ve sworn not to take a hire in this war,” Rhodry said, yawning. “So which way shall we ride?”
“Oh, we could go east to Marcmwr,” Jill said. “This time of year there are always caravans going to Dun Hiraedd.”
“Oh, ye gods, I’m sick to my heart of stinking merchants and their stinking mules! I wasn’t raised to be a nursemaid to a pack of common-born traders.”
“Rhoddo, you’ve guarded only two caravans in your entire life.”
“Two were too many.”
Jill put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him.
“If it’s bloodshed you’re after, there are bandits in those mountains. That’s why the caravans need guards.”
When they left Ynryc’s dun, they rode east, heading for Marcmwr. The road climbed steadily through the hills, and they let the horses walk slowly. The grassy pastureland gave way to stands of the scrubby, twisted pines peculiar to this part of Deverry. As they rode through the dark, silent forest, Jill suddenly remembered the arm bracelet in her saddlebags.
“Rhodry? A strange thing happened when I was on my way to Ynryc’s.”
When she told the tale, he grew troubled.
“Why didn’t you tell Ynryc about this?” he said at last. “That horse could have belonged to one of his allies.”
“You’re right.” She felt a shudder of cold down her back. “Why didn’t I? I—well—I just forgot.”
Rhodry turned in the saddle to look at her.
“That’s a peculiar sort of thing to just forget.”
“I know.