Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [137]
“Just so. That does trouble my heart. We'd best be taking a good hard look at what we've got in the armory.”
Verrarc nodded his agreement. Distantly he heard shouting, and as the sound grew louder he and Gart turned toward the source: the south gate. A sudden horn rang out.
“That be the alarum!” Gart said abruptly. “We'd best hurry.”
They set off around the wall as fast as the rickety catwalk would allow—a little less than a brisk walk.
“We'd best get this shored up,” Verrarc said.
“Cursed right!” Gart said. “There'll be a need on us to move the men round quickly. Well, if the worst happens.”
The news met them halfway when Kiel came striding along from the south gate.
“Horsekin, Sergeant,” Kiel blurted. “They do claim they come in peace, but we did shut the gates nonetheless, for there be about a score of them. Uh, Councilman, I ken not how to say this graciously. Your wife be with them, riding at their head bold as brass.”
For a moment Verrarc could neither think nor speak. He felt so cold that he was sure his face must have blanched, right there for his men to see. In his mind he could hear Zatcheka's voice, sharp with anger: a human woman at that, come to preach the false goddess. With a shake of his head he forced himself under control.
“It be time I did give her a good talking to,” Verrarc said as briskly as he could manage. “Let's go see what silliness she has in hand.”
Gart and Kiel were looking at him—oddly, though he couldn't quite read their expressions. He pushed past Kiel and led the way along the catwalks to the gate. Other militiamen met him there, all talking at once. He yelled at them to hold their tongues, then leaned over the wall.
Sure enough, down below, drawn up in tidy pairs, a full score of tall Horsekin warriors stood beside their massive bay or chestnut horses, eighteen hands, some of them, with heavy legs and shaggy fetlocks. At the rear of their line a high-sided mule cart waited, loaded with sacks of supplies and driven by a human man.
At the head stood Raena, dressed in men's clothing and holding the reins of a beautiful grey palfrey, and beside her, with no horse, the strangest Horsekin Verrarc had ever seen. He wore nothing but rags, though a lot of those: three or four tunics of different colors, all ripped and threadbare, piled one on top the other but barely keeping him decent even so. His feet were misshapen masses of calluses and swollen flesh, for he wore no boots. His huge mane of grey hair had not been washed or combed for entirely too long, and his weather-beaten face sported patterns of scars instead of tattoos. While he waited he leaned on a heavy, long staff of some dark wood, decorated with little metal disks and feathers.
“Verro,” Raena called out. “Why will they not let us in?”
At that the wild man raised his staff and grunted a few words, not that Verrarc could understand them.
“Rae!” He heard himself stammering. “What be you doing there?”
“Let us in, and I'll tell you!”
Verrarc turned around and called down to his men to open the gates. None of them moved. He looked at Gart and Kiel and saw mutiny in their eyes.
“Now here!” Verrarc snapped. “Think you we be so weak as all that? Cannot our men fend off a mere score of enemies? If not, we'd best surrender straightaway, but I never thought you both such cowards.”
Kiel blushed scarlet. Gart turned away fast and yelled down, “Open the gates, lads! There be naught here that we can't best.”
Verrarc went to the ladder and climbed down just as the gates finished squeaking open. He was about to step forward to greet Raena when he saw Dallandra, standing nearby on the green with her arms crossed over her chest and watching him, simply watching with no expression at all, but suddenly he felt like a thief caught with his hand in someone else's money box. For a moment he could neither move nor think, but Raena and the wild man came walking through the gates with their men and horses close behind. Dallandra turned on her heel and strode off, losing herself in