Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [61]
Evandar turned in his saddle to look back at her.
“How do you fare, my love?”
“Well enough.” Since she hated to show him weakness, she forced out a smile. “It’s a long ride for a dark night.”
“True. But well be there soon.”
He turned back again to guide his horse round the beacon, half the tree blazing, half as green as spring. In an uncertain dawn the army rode out of the forest. By then the river had sunk and dwindled to a white-water stream, cutting a canyon some twenty feet below and to the left of the road. Ahead lay plains, stretching on and on to a horizon where clouds—or was it smoke—billowed like a frozen wave, all bloody red from the bloated sun. Far out in the grasslands this hideous light winked and gleamed on spears and armor. Evandar laughed and held up his hand for the halt. When Dallandra rode up next to him, he grinned at her.
“I sensed him here, waiting. My brother, that is,”
“I assumed that’s who it was.”
Out in the plain, the fox warrior broke ranks and trotted to meet them, but he tucked his helm under one arm and held his spear loosely couched and pointed at the ground. When Evandar called out orders, the Bright Court clattered to a stop behind him and reined their horses up into a rough semicircle by the river. Clad in glittering black helms and mail, their opponents wheeled round to face them, but they kept their distance. The fox warrior pulled off his helm and smiled with the glint of strong white teeth.
“Riding your border, are you?”
“I am,” Evandar said, “and with good cause, it seems, being as I’ve found you here.”
“If you’ll not heal my lands, then someday I just might have to come take yours.”
Evandar tossed his head back and howled with laughter.
“You mean you’d try to take mine. Do you truly think you’d win, young brother of mine?”
The fox warrior snarled with a draw of black lips that showed fang.
“You’d have attacked me long ago,” Evandar went on, “if you’d thought you had a hope of winning.”
“The matter’s not been put to any kind of test, elder brother.” In his mouth the word brother was an insult. “Did I not weave bodies for my folk when you mocked me and said I never could?”
Evandar merely looked him over with a small smile.
“So don’t go puffing yourself up with pride,” the warrior went on, rather too hurriedly for dignity’s sake. “Besides, I came here on another errand, not on a matter of war at all, so you were twice wrong.”
“Indeed?”
“You have a whistle that was stolen from me.”
“I have it, truly, but stolen it was not. I found it upon my lands, and long ago you told me that it belonged to a rebel from your court.”
“I told you that?” For a long moment he sat silently. “Well, he stole it from me.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The warrior growled with a long flash of fangs.
“Why do you want it?” Evandar said.
“Because it’s mine.”
“That’s no answer at all, and how can I gift you with it if it were already yours?”
“You’d give it to me?”
“Tell me why you want it, and I might.”
The fox warrior considered, turning in his saddle to look back at his court, then swinging round again to face Evandar. His horse stamped and tossed its head. Dallandra felt a cold dread. She didn’t want that evil whistle in enemy hands, and especially not after Rhodry had carried it for so long in the lands of men. Just as she was about to speak the fox warrior got in before her.
“I need it as a ransom,” he said. “The rebels have taken one of my women, and they’ll not give her back till I fetch them the whistle.”
“They’ve grown so bold?”
“They have. They camp on my borders, and I’ve seen some of your folk among them, too, rebels all and gone off to follow Alshandra.”
Evandar turned his head and spat on the ground.
“Then I’d recommend, younger brother, that you ride your borders as carefully as I ride mine.”
“How can I when the Lands sicken and pale?”
Evandar ignored the question. When he snapped his fingers, the bone whistle appeared, clasped in his hand. The fox warrior started to lunge forward, then pulled himself