Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [114]
The wolf-thing threw the boy to the floor, but he did stroll away and let him be. When the fox warrior joined the others at their fire, Dallandra sat down on die floor of her cage and tried to think. How long had she teen lying unconscious, first from the return to her normal size, then in her faint? She had no idea, none. She couldn’t even begin to guess how much time had passed on the physical plane since she’d left Jill She rose to her knees, then wedged the flagon between two branches so that it wouldn’t spill.
“Herald!” she called out. “Has my lord Evandar been notified of this outrage?’
The old man trotted closer, looking up with pink and rheumy eyes.
“I’ve not been sent to him, my lady,” he said. “My lord believes that he should find us.”
“In other words you’ve set a trap for him.”
The herald moaned, wringing his long and clawlike hands together.
“Get over here!” the fox warrior called out. “You’ve naught to say to her.”
Bowing, cringing, moaning under his breath, the ancient creature scurried away, but as he did so he shot a glance back Dallandra’s way that she could only call apologetic. She crouched in the middle of the cage floor, to keep the structure balanced and level. She wondered if Evandar would realize that she’d been taken by his enemies or if, when he found her gone, he would simply assume that she’d gone to help Jill. Perhaps the night princess would remember that she’d seen her and tell him so? Dallandra doubted very much that one of Evandar’s folk was conscious enough for putting a memory together with a present danger and drawing a conclusion. She could only hope that his brother’s ugly crew had left some clue behind them. Otherwise, she might rot there, bait in an unsprung trap, for aeons as men and elves measure Time.
4
VIA
A figure most mixed in its influences, injurious to those figures it does fall between upon the map, but good in all manner of journeys and most beneficent indeed in the Land of Gold. Yet if it fall into the Land of Silver, it bodes great evil in matters of Love,.
The Omenbook of Gwarn, Loremaster
WHEN RHODRY AND THE three dwarves finally left Cengarn, closer to noon than dawn, they headed northeast on a narrow dirt road that climbed and twisted its way round sheep pastures and coppiced woods. It took climbing only two of those hills for Rhodry to start wondering if he could endure this journey. Although he was more than used to wearing mail and carrying its particular pattern of weight, he’d never hauled a pack on his back before. Garin had fitted a sheep’s skin across his shoulders before loading him up, but even so, the wood and canvas chafed, dug, and shifted position constantly. Since he was carrying Dar’s bow, he couldn’t hook his hands in the pack straps to steady the load as the dwarves were doing. Under the hot sheepskin he began to sweat, which made the chafing worse.
The real problem, though, was the walking. Rhodry had started learning to ride when he was three years old, on a little Eldidd pony, and from then on the major part of his waking life had been spent on horseback. His warrior’s code, in fact, labeled walking as something fit only for peasants and other such inferior beings. By the time he’d grown into manhood, his legs had grown into the shape of a horse’s barrel
Now the uphill walk made his turned-out knees ache first, but his hips soon followed, especially when the pack began to rest heavy on his kidneys. While the dwarves strode on ahead with their short but straight and sturdy legs, he waddled after them, blistering his feet on the road and his back muscles on the pack as he fell farther and farther behind. Finally, when the dwarves were halfway up the third hill and Rhodry was just starting it, Garin called a halt. The dwarf waited until Rhodry staggered up to them before speaking.
“This won’t do, Otho. It’s unjust to expect our silver dagger to learn the ways of the road all at once, like. When we stop at the farm to pick up the supplies you bought, we’ll have to bargain for a mule as well,