Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [144]
Since both Jill and Dallandra could scry out Yraen, the two dweomermasters had been keeping track of the relieving army’s progress and knew, therefore, approximately when it would arrive at the siege. Before the battle started, they went up to the roof of the main broch and watched, waiting to transform into bird form if they needed to. Neither the raven nor Alshandra appeared.
“Odd,” Dallandra said. “You’d think Alshandra would be here to inspire her men if naught else.”
“True spoken. Perhaps the raven went to fetch her.”
Below them, men crowded the walls of both town and dun to watch the battle. Until the dragon’s swoop brought the relieving army the victory, Jill watched with a growing sense of dread. She knew enough about war craft to realize that without the dragon’s aid, the relievers would have lost, and badly. As the Horsekin line broke, and their mounts began bolting and panicking, the men on the walls cheered and screeched in victory. Jill found herself shaking her head over and over in a long no.
“Oh, ye gods,” Jill said. “We’ll drive them off this time, if we’re lucky, but the next?”
“What do you mean? The next?”
“The Horsekin know where Deverry is now, and they think a goddess has promised the country to them. They may well lose this siege, but what about when they come back? This war will look like a little skirmish. If Drwmyc and his men crush this lot, they might not return for years, but return they will.”
For a moment, she was afraid that Dallandra would faint, she turned so pale and weak. Jill caught her arm in a strong grip.
“I’ll be all right,” Dallandra whispered. “It’s just that here I was thinking we were saved, and there’s not but worse trouble ahead.”
“Well, it may not be for years and years. For all I know, neither of us will live to see it.”
“Especially if they can’t break this siege.”
And, Jill supposed, it might well be that the relieving army would yet fail. Even though the Horsekin had ceded the western half of Cengarn’s valley, their position to the east was still strong, especially if Alshandra arrived to help them defend it. She glanced up and saw the dragon circling the dun. On her back rode a man, a tiny figure at this distance, but she could guess it was Rhodry. When she flung up her arm in a wave, she could just make out him waving back. She laughed and waved again as the pair flew off.
“Well,” Jill said to Dallandra, “that’s why Evandar had the omen of the dragon.”
“So it would seem.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I just had the strangest feeling round my heart, watching them. For Rhodry’s sake, I mean, not ours. The beast will bring Cengarn naught but good.”
“But Rhodry harm?”
Dallandra tried to speak, her lips half-parted as she shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “The omens aren’t clear enough to speak. Harm and yet not harm. I just don’t know.”
They left the roof and hurried down to the great hall, where everyone was talking and shaking their heads over the wondrous creature they’d just seen.
Evandar in hawk form flew over the Lands, past the forest and the beacon tree, over the silver river, above the semblances of cities and the long green meadows. As he flew he called out, a harsh cry from the hawk’s mouth, yet it was still her name. She would have to come to her name as long as she was in his dominion or in the lands that had once been Shaetano’s, and when she did not come, he could assume that she’d taken herself away from them. He flew on farther, faster, heading for the misty horizon that he’d seen from the hill. Never did it come closer, not that horizons do come closer in our world, but in Evandar