Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [128]
Eventually Carra took the baby into the big round tent, then Dar followed her. Out in the forest and in the grasslands the rest of the elves had been sleeping under the stars in this dry weather, but here in this public campground they wanted privacy. Although their party had only the one proper tent, every rider carried a length of Eldidd canvas and a short pole to make a lean-to. Each lashed one end of his canvas to the tent, tied the other to the pole, and drove the pole into the ground like a long tent peg. It was rough, but they each had private shelter of a sort. Niffa watched all of this fascinated.
“The tent does look like a wheel hub now, with all those spokes! Our Jahdo, he did tell us that the Westfolk ken how to make a home wherever they are, and he did speak true.”
“Well, it's home for us,” Dallandra said. “I doubt me if you'll find it comfortable at first, but I hope you'll get used to it.”
“So do I. From the bottom of my heart.”
They shared a laugh. The eleven men spread out their bedrolls under their improvised roofs and turned in to sleep. While she still had the firelight, Dallandra set up her own lean-to, divided her blankets twixt herself and Niffa, and unlaced her pair of saddlebags to make two pillows. Once the fire burned low, the two women strolled down to the lakeside with a fresh candle in the lantern. The night wind had picked up, and Dallandra had got used to the smell to some degree, so that it was pleasant, walking along the shore and watching the silver road that the moon laid upon the water.
“Dalla?” Niffa said abruptly. “The strangest feeling did trouble my heart when I met the princess.”
“Did it? I thought I noticed an odd look on your face.”
“It were—” Niffa shook her head in confusion. “I could have sworn—well, it did seem that I remembered her. Yet never in our lives could we have met.”
“It's impossible, indeed.”
They stopped walking at the edge of the tiny waves. When Niffa held up her lantern, the light sparkled on the water as if to mirror the moon's road.
“There be some truth here, bain't?” Niffa said at last.
“There is.” Dallandra smiled, waiting.
No good lay in telling unready souls about the wheel of birth and death, but if Niffa asked, she would answer honestly. Niffa lowered the lantern and stood looking out at the dark mass of Citadel, rising from the lake.
“I do hope my mother's heart be not troubled,” Niffa said. “But I doubt me if she did notice me gone, we had so many visitors.”
So. She was not quite ready.
When they returned to the camp, Dallandra banked the fire with the bricks of sod that one of the men had cut earlier.
She let Niffa have the lean-to and showed her how to wrap her blanket efficiently around herself. She put her own bedroll by the banked fire and lay down, hoping that it wouldn't rain during the night. In the dark she could hear Niffa squirming around, trying to get comfortable whilst fully dressed on hard ground. If she's going to ride with the Westfolk, Dallandra thought, she'd best get used to it. Then she fell straight asleep.
Only to wake to the sound of a scream in what seemed but a moment later, but silver dawn was flooding the east with light. She sat up, unwrapping her blanket. The scream, a dark throaty male voice shrieking in full terror, rang out again. Dallandra shoved her blankets back and leapt to her feet. A quick glance at the camp showed her that most of the men were just waking, swearing and reaching for weapons. Most, but not all—some while earlier Vantalaber had taken a leather bucket and gone to the well to draw water. So, apparently, had one of the Gel da'Thae men, who by the