Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [179]
“How long have you been awake?” she said.
“Not very.” He stifled a yawn. “Dalla, do you love me?”
“Not truly: Do you want me to?”
“I don’t. I just don’t fancy breaking your heart.”
“Good, but I wouldn’t worry about it.” She paused, sitting back on her heels. “Do you want me to come down to the muster and kiss you farewell and suchlike when the army rides out?”
“I’d just as soon you didn’t.”
She looked so relieved that he knew they understood each other very well.
When he went downstairs, Rhodry stopped at the kitchen hut and bullied a serving lass into giving him a loaf of yesterday’s bread, then left Cengarn. Out on the battlefield, all the men and Horsekin had been buried, but ravens still wheeled and dipped over dead horses. He could see Arzosah moving among them and glutting herself while the ravens shrieked in rage for their interrupted meal.
Jahdo sat waiting for him at their camp. Rhodry handed the boy a chunk of bread, then sat down opposite him to eat.
“When will the army be marching?” Jahdo asked.
“Some time today, most like. I’ve been thinking. It’d be best if you stayed here, to help Dalla, like. You can learn a little herbcraft and help her guard the princess.”
“Oh, please, I don’t want to stay behind like a lass.”
Rhodry grinned.
“Nicely spoken, but this is going to be a forced march all the way. We’ll be driving them and harrying them, and there’s too many ways you could get killed. I can’t keep Jill’s promise if that happens, can I now?”
Jahdo wept, two thin trails of tears, hastily stifled. He stared down at his chunk of bread for a long time.
“Sometimes the best thing a man can do is naught,” Rhodry said. “I learned that lesson myself, riding this war. It’ll be best if you learn it now, early like, and don’t wait as long as I have.”
“Well.” The boy looked up at last. “If you do order me, naught is all I can do about that. But please, be it truly needful for me to stay?”
“It is. If I thought your Wyrd was war, I’d bring you along. But it’s not, lad. I’ve no idea what your Wyrd will be, but I know it’s not riding in a warband. Stay with Dalla.”
“I will, then. But I do hope you come back, Rhodry.”
“So do I.” He smiled in a weary sort of way. “So do I.”
Jahdo wasn’t the only person in the dun ordered to stay behind against his will. Later that morning, when Rhodry joined the lords and warleaders, he found them sorting out the unwounded men, most for the pursuing army, but some for the fort guard. With the raven mazrak on the loose, Cengarn would need one. For all anyone knew, she’d flown off to muster more Horsekin for yet another attack. Calonderiel counted up his archers and delegated a hundred of them to remain behind and guard the walls.
“And you, my prince,” he said to Daralanteriel, “are staying behind to captain them.”
“Now here!” Dar snarled. “If you think I’m going to hide in a stone tent like a woman—”
“You’re going to stay in the stone tents like a sensible man. Have you already forgotten that the point of this war is killing your wife?”
Dar started to argue, thought better of it with his mouth still open.
“Guard her well, and you’ll assure the victory,” Calonderiel went on. “Am I right, Rhodry?”
“You are at that,” Rhodry chimed in. “Dar, don’t be a fool. They need you here, not haring round the countryside.”
“Well and good, then,” the prince said. “Stay I will, but if any man says one word to my shame—”
“I’ll knock some sense into him myself,” Calonderiel said. “And you know that’s no idle threat.”
That afternoon, Rhodry and Arzosah flew out first and found the remnants of the Horsekin army crawling north, some fifteen miles away, then circled back to lead Cengarn’s men after. The grim pursuit went on for months, until as the old chronicle remarks, “the last of the savages still alive fled back into the high mountains, where, or so we may hope, they perished in the winter snows.”
But during all those weeks of slaughter, Rhodry saw no sign of the enemy shape-changer,