Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [72]
“Where are you fleeing from?” Gweniver said.
“Rhoscarn, my lady. The dun fell yesterday, and we’re trying to get south.”
“Who razed it?”
“These men with green beasts, like, on shields.”
Ricyn swore under his breath: the Cantrae Wyvern.
“They didn’t raze the dun, you dolt!” the second farmer said. “We didn’t see any smoke, like, did we now?”
“True enough,” said the first. “All the cursed same to me. We saw a powerful lot of them on the roads, my lady.”
Gweniver pulled the warband off the road to let the weary farmers trudge past.
“What do you say to this, Ricco? We could ride to Rhoscarn and have a roof over our heads. If they’ve been there already, they won’t ride back.”
And so they rode straight into the trap. Later Ricyn was to think how cleverly it had been laid, how well Cantrae’s men had played the part of farmers, how nicely Cantrae had judged their minds. At the time he was only glad to find shelter for the horses. When they reached the dun, they found the stone wall breached in three places. Tieryn Gwardon’s body lay headless among the rubble of stone. Although there were plenty of other corpses, it was too dark by then to count them. Since this dun had been taken and burned several times before, there was no stone broch, merely a wooden roundhouse in the middle of a muddy ward.
It may have been primitive, but the roundhouse was dry inside. The men stabled the horses at one side, laid down their gear at the other, then split up the furniture and built fires in the hearths. Once the horses were at their last nose bags of oats, the men broke out what was left of their rations. Ricyn was just about to mention to Gweniver that they’d have to try to forage on the morrow when he felt danger, a cold touch down his back. From the way that she shuddered, he knew she’d felt it, too. In wordless agreement, they ran out of the house to the ward. Ricyn stayed below as she climbed the wall. In the darkness he saw her shape crest the top; then she turned and yelled.
“The men! Guard the breaches! Attack!”
As he ran back, he heard the distant noise of horses, coming fast toward the dun. Yelling orders, he burst inside and got his men moving. Grabbing swords, swearing, the warband spread out around the wall and filled each breach. By then the sound of an army surrounded them like ocean waves pounding on the shore. Through a breach he saw men dismounting and circling the walls.
“Penned,” Gweniver said idly. “Think we can hold this siege for a whole day?”
“Not by half. Here, I’m surprised the Goddess didn’t warn us when we were talking to the farmers.”
“I’m not. I always knew the day would come when She wanted us dead.”
She reached up and kissed him on the mouth, just once before she walked away to start giving her orders.
Since it was unlikely that the enemy would attack in the rainy darkness, they set guards at the breaches and slept in rotating shifts. About an hour before dawn, the rain stopped, and a cold wind sprang up to clear the sky. Ricyn woke the men, who armed in utter silence. Everyone looked at their friends in a way that said farewell without need of words. While Gweniver kept watch at the breach that was once the gates, Ricyn posted the warband at the others.
“It’s to the death,” he said over and over. “All we can do is make them pay high.”
Over and over, the men nodded their silent agreement. Down by the back wall Ricyn found Alban, just fourteen that summer and brand new to the Cerrmor riders. Although the lad stood as straight and bravely as any man there, Ricyn was determined to spare his life if he could.
“Now, listen, lad,” he said. “I’ve got an important mission for you. I’m choosing you because you’re the shortest man in the pack and the least noticeable. We’ve got to get news of this back