Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [129]
“Dalla!” he called out in Elvish. “This Mera's gone daft!”
“No,” Dallandra called back. “He thinks you're a god.”
As Dallandra ran for the well, Niffa caught up with her. The rest of the Gel da'Thae came running from their camp. As soon as they got close enough to see the elves clearly, they all began shouting; most fell to their knees, some even prostrated themselves, hiding their faces in their manes of hair. When the elven men started to laugh, Dallandra snarled them into silence.
“I know it looks like a jest,” she said, “but it's deadly serious to them.”
Walking slowly from the Gel da'Thae camp came a tall person covered with green tattoos and wearing a leather cap that seemed to hide a hairless head. Rather than screaming, this person paused, arms folded across chest, to consider the tableau near the well. Another, much like the first, hovered uncertainly behind. Both wore white-cloth garments, falling just above the knee, that might have been long shirts or short dresses.
“That be Meer's mother,” Niffa said. “Lady Zatcheka.”
“My thanks!” Dallandra spoke in Deverrian. “I truly couldn't tell if she were woman or man.”
With one hand raised, palm out in the sign of peace, Dallandra slowly walked forward. Niffa accompanied her, but she waved cheerfully to Zatcheka.
“There be no jeopard here!” Niffa called out. “This be my master.”
At that Zatcheka came to meet them, but cautiously, gesturing for the other woman to stay back. The elven men stood on their side of the well, while the Gel da'Thae men crouched or knelt on theirs. A few feet apart Zatcheka and Dallandra stopped, considering each other in the brightening light.
“You be the children of the gods,” Zatcheka said, and her voice shook. “Come ye back to claim your broken heritage?”
“We come in peace,” Dallandra said. “And though we are the children of the gods, we are no more so than you and yours. We are born, we die, and in between we rejoice or suffer just as you do.”
Zatcheka thought for a long moment, glancing around her at the men of her kind, crouched immobile, waiting, some staring at her as if begging her to decipher this dangerous situation for them.
“Your son Meer taught me much,” Dallandra went on, “about the Gel da'Thae and your ways. I swear to you, we mean you no harm, and we want no tribute or slavery from you. No more do we fear you, because Meer taught us that at the heart we share many things.”
Again Zatcheka thought this through.
“What shall we call you?” Zatcheka said at last. “If not children of the gods?”
“The Westfolk,” Dallandra said. “The men of Deverry call us that, because we live to the west of them, but it will do.”
“I see.” Zatcheka hesitated, then made some decision with a firm nod. “Whoever you are, I think me you did come here timely, like, if you would be friends.”
“My apprentice told me about the Horsekin.”
“Then you did hear the worst of it.”
“I can tell you worse than your worst. I was at the siege of Cengarn, when the Horsekin tried to take one of the Slavers' cities. It was a gruesome thing.”
Zatcheka let out her breath in a sharp hiss.
“We would be friends, indeed,” Dallandra went on, “if we're going to make a stand against such as them.”
“Give me leave to speak to my people.”
“Of course.”
Zatcheka turned and began to speak in a clear, firm voice. Although Dallandra could understand but one word of it, “Westfolk,” she could hear the authority in it, the words of a woman who expected to be obeyed. Sure enough, the Gel da'Thae men first listened, then sat back on their heels to look at those they'd thought gods. Some smiled, a few laughed, and at length they all rose, bowing to Dallandra. The elven men they regarded pleasantly enough. Zatcheka turned back to Dallandra.
“Shall we let our people go about their morning?”
“By all means,” Dallandra said. “But shall you and I talk more?”
“Such would gladden my heart.”
Zatcheka turned, clapped her hands together twice, and called out a few words