Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [165]
He snarled, then kicked the warrior kneeling at his feet. The man whined but stayed where he was.
“You can’t keep Alshandra out of your territory, can you?” Dallandra pitched her voice to an insolent lilt. “Oh, a fine border you keep! Even Evandar’s cast-off woman can go strolling past your guards anytime she has the fancy to.”
Lord Vulpine growled, clutching the sword in a hand suddenly become furred. She could see fangs, too, biting into his lower lip, as if he would transform into an animal in front of her.
“My lord!” the herald shrieked.
With a toss of his head the lord collected himself and became, again, mostly elven.
“You forget, slut,” he snarled, “that her warriors carried iron.”
“They did, certainly, but how could she do the same?”
He hesitated, caught. She laughed.
“You, herald!” she called out. “How does it feel to serve a coward, one who can threaten a caged woman but not guard his own borders?”
The herald gaped his long slit of a toad’s mouth and made a gurgling noise in his throat, as if he were swallowing prayers. With paws cocked to noses the bear warriors looked back and forth between their lord and the others. Lord Vulpine swung backhanded and smacked the herald so hard he fell.
“Summon my men!” he snarled. “We ride for the borders!”
His band cheered him.
“You!” Lord Vulpine spun round, pointing at each warrior in turn. “Guard them well, the lad and the elven shrew. Once the army’s on the way, the herald here will be keeping an eye on you. There will be no parley, old man, so I don’t need you. You stay here, and if I return to find these prisoners gone, I’ll slice those folds of flesh away from your neck while you beg me to let you die.”
The herald squawked wordlessly. Lord Vulpine grabbed his arm and hauled him up.
“Summon my men, I said.”
He dragged the herald off into the forest while the warriors argued and swore, bewailing their guard duty and a lost chance to ride with the army. So far so good, Dallandra thought. She reminded herself that even if night lay close at hand for her, weeks might pass in the lands of men before the sky above her turned dark. She was going to have to scheme out some fast escape.
• • •
On the third day of the siege of Cengarn, Jill rose at dawn and climbed to the top of the main tower to renew the astral seals. After she finished her working, she stood for a moment looking out over the enemy army, ensconced now some hundred yards back, well out of a bow’s range, from the city walls. Beyond this neutral ground rode a few guards, ambling on their enormous horses in a lazy circle. Beyond them lay ground kept clear for possible fighting, and farther still the tents. As the sun brightened, it glittered on armor and weapons as the soldiers strolled through the camp, getting their rations, probably, since just past the tents stood the wagons, extra horses, and supplies.
At the outermost ring, the enemy had begun to dig trenches behind them and pile up earthworks to defend themselves from an army riding to relieve the town. Thanks to Cengarn’s position, straddling hills on the edge of more hills, the Horsekin had a difficult emplacement to defend, broken in places by rising land, in others by valleys. It would take them a good long while to dig themselves in properly, Jill supposed, or so she could hope. Whether or not they had magical defenses was the question that was truly vexing her. From her position in the dun, she could spot nothing but clouds of faint purplish glow, here and there, that indicated personal talismans of one sort or another—Horsekin magic, such as Meer and now Carra wore round their necks.
Even though the dun stood on the highest inner hill, thanks to the broken landscape not all of the enemy camp stood visible. Since Meer had told her that the Horsekin not only carried hunting bows but prided themselves on their skill, she had no desire to go flying over the camp in falcon form to scout. Later that morning, in the company