Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [115]
Their stroll had led them to the center of the camp, where Jahdo had built the evening's fire out of scrounged wood. He knelt in front of it and began to strike sparks with his flint and steel. As they watched, the tinder finally caught, and flames leapt up in the kindling. Elessi crowed with laughter and twisted in Dalla's arms, leaning down to reach toward the leaping fire.
“Hot!” Dallandra stepped back and put alarm into her voice. “Very hot! Bad for babies!”
Elessi howled—there was no other word for it, howled like an angry banshee and wrenched herself around in the general direction of the fire. So surprising was her strength that Dallandra might have dropped her had Carra not grabbed the child from behind.
“Nah nah nah!” Carra crooned. “Be good now. Don't fuss!”
Her face red as a sunset, Elessi whipped her head around and caught Carra's arm in a toothless bite. Carra slid her flesh free to a cascade of screaming.
“I'll take her inside the tent.” Carra was yelling over the noise. “That usually quiets her right down. Mayhap she'll suckle for a while.”
Dallandra gladly let go her grip on the child. Elessi continued to scream and howl as Carra carried her at a trot across the camp and ducked into the peaked tent. For some while Dallandra stood outside, listening to Carra talk to her child. Finally Elessario's wails turned to a normal cry, then stopped as Carra managed to get her to nurse. No doubt the tantrum had left her hungry. Dalla turned away and found Jahdo watching her, his head cocked a little to one side.
“Not all babies be so irksome, my lady.”
“That's very true. I'll admit I'm worried.”
“I did wonder if you were. Ah well, if we get safely to my home, my aunt, Sirri, will ken what to do. No one in our whole town does ken babies as well as she, you see. The other women, they all call her a fair marvel.”
“Good! We're going to need her counsel, no doubt of that. I hope Evandar gets himself here soon. The less time we spend on the road, the better.”
That night, when she went to the Gatelands of Sleep to look for Evandar, Dallandra found Niffa waiting for her instead. The lass's simulacrum was pacing back and forth by the fiery-red dweomer stars, and she blurted out her news as soon as Dallandra walked up.
“I did speak with Zatcheka! She did thank me for the telling of her son's death.”
“Well, that took courage!” Dallandra said. “I'm proud of you, Niffa. And my heart aches for the poor woman.”
“She were ever so sad, truly. But here be the strangest thing of all. I did approach her, and she did seem very pleasant, and then all of a sudden I did think, how can I tell her without telling her how I learnt of it?”
“Oh ye gods! Here I never thought of that!”
“But in the end, like, it mattered not. She did make it plain that she did ken witchlore, and that she'd seen me in a dream, so I did tell her.”
“The Gel da'Thae have dweomer? Huh, I can't say I'm surprised, after some of the things Meer told us.”
“Only a bit, said she. It be good she does, truly, with the times as black as these. Grave things be afoot. That be the reason she did come to our town. The wild Horsekin do gather an army. They do think some goddess or other did grant our lands and people to them to conquer.”
Dallandra swore so foully that Niffa gaped at her.
“My apologies,” Dallandra said. “I think me I've been spending too much time around soldiers. Do go on.”
“There be not much more to tell, truly. Zatcheka's town, Braemel, does wish to ally with us. We shall hold the Deciding in three days.”
“Well, I hope to every god we get there before that.”
“Do you think this alliance be a bad thing?”
“Not at all. I just happen to know a great deal about this wretched false goddess, that's all, and I think your town should hear it.”
“Ah, I do see. But here, there be another strange thing.
Raena, the councilman's woman—she did leave our town this day, and some say she be a mazrak. Know you what that be?”
“I most certainly do, and she is. I've seen her in raven