Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [169]
“To the border!” Evandar cried. “And if my bastard-born brother tries to forbid me passage, then this day I’ll have his head on a pike.”
In a howl of laughter the Bright Court rode out. Their silver weapons and armor flashed and jingled as they sang of vengeance for old wrongs. As they passed through the green grassy lands, Evandar visualized a huge and towering silver drinking horn that rose from him and above him. Through this channel, light and life-stuff poured down, and through him as well it spread out to the Lands, turning them solid, filling their forms with energy and the illusion of life— the trees, the flowers, the rivers, even the images of distant towns, all sprang from his mind and vivified by his effort alone. Yet when he saw the dark forest that straddled the border, he stopped working dweomer and concentrated only on the task ahead.
With one long note of his silver horn, he halted his army in the midst of a grassy plain. As they milled round him, those with true minds crowded close to listen and advise, urging their own horses up next to his golden stallion.
“And where do you think Alshandra will be?” Evandar called out.
“Always did she hate the deep woods, my lord.”
“And she scorned the cities as well.”
“She loved the streams and rivers, and the silver lakes.”
“And the flowers and thickets, where the lilacs blow.”
“None of these, my lord, but sheltering in your brother’s country out of fear of you.”
This last was spoken by a warrior with yellow hair as bright as Evandar’s own, though his eyes shone deep blue, and the shape of him was more human than elven.
“Have you a name?” Evandar said to him.
“I do not, my lord.”
“Then take one, for you’ve earned it this day. I think the same, my lords and vassals. We ride to the battle plain.”
While the news of Alshandra’s army was spreading across what had once been her homeland, Cengarn reached the seventh night of the siege. Long days of scattered rain and wind turned the town damp and miserable, though those caught camped in it could take some pleasure in knowing that their besiegers were a fair bit wetter still. From the safety of her alcove in the women’s hall, Carra spent sleepless nights watching the rain pour down, or catching in those odd moments when the sky cleared glimpses of the new moon, swelling into its first quarter. Several times a day Jill would find her and tell her that she’d scried out Dar, riding south with his remaining men in safety, but glad as Carra was of the news, it always reminded her of the men who had died, Dar’s own men, those handsome, laughing young archers of his escort. Although she hadn’t know them well, the simple fact that they’d died because of her made her mourn them as bitterly as she would have a brother.
“Well, more bitterly than I would have mourned my brother,” she remarked to Yraen. “I really did rather hate him. I meant less to him than one of his dogs.”
He merely nodded, which was often the only answer she got from him in these talks. They were sitting that morning in the herb garden behind the kitchen hut, simply because she’d felt that she had to get out in the sun or die, and it was the only reasonably private place they could find. Yraen had fetched her a wobbly bench and placed it up against the dun wall, so she could sit with her back against the stone, while he sat in the dirt at her feet, leaning back against the bench with his long arms clasped round his knees.
In the hot sun the rain-washed herbs smelled sharp and spicy and sweet all at once, and the drowsy air hummed with bees. She thought at moments that Yraen had fallen asleep, but whenever she looked his way, he would turn his head and look at her in return, as if waiting for some request or order. Often she’d considered asking Jill for another guard, but if she did, Jill would want to know why, and Yraen would end up humiliated. If Carra had