Darkwalker on Moonshae - Douglas Niles [128]
Now, she read the words of power.
*****
Canthus raced tirelessly across the rolling downs of central Corwell. His objective glared sharply in his mind. Though he had never seen it, its foul stench burned like a familiar enemy in his nostrils. Unerringly, he raced toward that enemy, instinctively changing course to home exactingly upon his foe.
He killed and ate as he ran, never deviating from his course. Some benign fortune seemed to send a rabbit scampering in his path, or a pheasant squawking from a bush just as the moorhound loped past. In these instances, he killed and ate quickly, and then slept for a few hours, before again resuming his quest.
As the dog ran, he held his head low, swinging slowly back and forth, trying to scent the quarry still a hundred miles away. Those broad nostrils would quiver as they identified an odor. His hackles would raise instinctively into a bristling collar, and a low growl would rumble from his cavernous chest.
The moorhound’s pace quickened slightly, as his long legs carried him easily over mile after mile, climbing the hills as easily as he went down them.
More days passed, and the scent grew stronger. Once, he caught and ate a plump goose, sleeping briefly as was his custom. He awakened soon, alarmed by a wayward breeze.
Canthus knew that his enemy was very close.
*****
The throaty roar that rumbled across the field was very different than the hollow cries of the northmen at Freeman’s Down. Tristan barely noticed the fact, for by then he could see thousands of northmen charging across the field in an avalanche of assault against his thin line.
The evacuation had not properly begun, for as soon as the prince had posted the companies to guard the road to the castle, the enemy had attacked.
Lord Koart’s company, to the left of the line, had already lost a fight to these northmen this day and had no stomach to fight again. One, and then another, man broke from the lines, and suddenly the whole company, some four hundred men, ran in rout toward the castle.
And the northmen were still two hundred yards away.
Seeing Koart’s men run, Lord Dynnatt’s men, though shaken by the exposure of their flank, stood firm against the charge. From the north gate of the town, Tristan could see the company surrounded by a horde of berserk attackers as the northmen poured through the gap left by the flight of Koart’s men.
The halflings, beside Dynnatt, fell back before the press of the attack, as did the dwarves to their right.
Dynnatt’s troops were wiped out to the last man, and hundreds of northmen charged across the road, down to the shore of the firth.
The town was cut off from the castle.
*****
The last candle flickered wildly as the short wick finally reached the brass holder. The flame spurted high, and then went out, to leave only the probing beams of the waning moon spilling through the wide window to outline in silver the flowing tresses of black hair that covered the lone table.
Finally, her mind sated, Robyn slept. Her cheek lay upon the smooth leather cover of her mother’s book. She breathed easily and slowly. Her long, thick hair covered her back, her sides, and her arms, as well as most of the table, blanketing her against the cool evening.
The smooth staff still rested across her lap. In the sudden darkness when the moon disappeared behind a cloud, it seemed to flicker and shimmer with an inner light that vanished as moonlight again spilled through the window.
As she slept, Robyn dreamed, more vividly than she ever had in her life. She dreamed that she was a small, furry animal, and she saw the world as that animal might. Then she became a wolf, and looked at the world through his shrewd and hungry eyes. A fish, and a bird, all gave her dreams, and each dream seemed to strengthen and vitalize her.
She dreamed next of hot light and frigid darkness, and of the warm gray that resulted from a balanced mix of the two extremes. And finally she dreamed of the goddess, resplendent in a soft, gray gown and simple ornaments of silver.