Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [157]
“But please, talk with me! If I could only help you see—”
“I wish to see naught of your ugly ways! Leave me be, witchwoman!”
With a toss of her head Raena fled, trotting across the commons toward the open gates. Dallandra took a few steps after, then stopped. Out on the road Kral and his men waited. Raena ran straight for them, and they surrounded her like a wall. Dallandra could only watch helplessly while the Horsekin and their priestess hurried down the road to their camp. She had known the truth about the gods for so long that this simple fact had never occurred to her: Raena loved her goddess with a passion straight from the heart.
For want of anywhere else private, Rhodry half shoved half guided Evandar into Dar and Carra's tent. In the diffused light and relative coolness Evandar grew calmer. He ran his hands through his hair and caught his breath with a long hard sigh. Scattered on the painted floor cloth lay blankets, tent bags, saddlebags, and other clutter. Rhodry shoved a mound of it to one side, found a pair of floor cushions, and sat down. Evandar turned his back on him.
“I have to admit it,” Rhodry said. “I liked hearing those hairy bastards squeal when you tore their false goddess to shreds.”
“I only wish Dalla had let me turn them all into swine,” Evandar said.
“Here! Is that what you were up to?”
“It was. I wanted to show them their true natures. Swine! The turds of swine! They killed the first thing I ever loved, and I loved it more than you and Dalla put together.”
“Rinbaladelan, you mean?”
“Just that. And they acted like swine, too, rooting in the ruins, leaving their filth and stench everywhere! I laughed when they began to rot, you know. It was a glorious little plague, Ranadar's curse. I only wish it had spread farther and killed every pustule-laden one of them.”
“You hate them still? Ye gods! That was over a thousand years ago.”
“So what? You can't imagine the havoc they wreaked. It was horrible.”
“I can, at that,” Rhodry said. “I sieged and killed a city once, myself, back when I was Gwerbret Aberwyn.”
Evandar turned and at last looked at him. When Rhodry pointed to the second cushion, he sat down upon it.
“Slaith, was it?” Evandar said. “The pirate harbor? Well, they were stinking foul swine, too, and you did a right thing.”
“Mayhap. But I remember how sick I felt when I came to myself after the slaughter and saw the children. Dead children in the ruins, that is, only a few of them stabbed, more of them burnt to death when the buildings collapsed. We fired the place, you see, in the king's name. Once the siege fell, there was no stopping my men. Or me. I laughed when we were burning it. But later, I found the children. And I never laughed over the city again.”
Evandar's eyes narrowed.
“And so I think me,” Rhodry went on, “that some of the Meradan did the same as me—thought twice about things when it was too late, I mean. And they're the people we call the Gel da'Thae. Meer's people—Zatcheka's people. Civilized people now.”
Evandar growled like a dog, and for a moment his form darkened and wavered, as if he might transform into a hound right there and then. With a little shudder he caught himself and returned to his blond elven self.
“Back then they were filthy savages,” Evandar said. “Why did they destroy the cities? There was no why! They swept down from the north with no reason but plunder and killing.”
“No reason? Here, don't you know? I learned the lore up in Lin Serr, the Dwarveholt.”
“You what?” Evandar stared for a long moment. “I have to know, I must know! Tell me, tell me now.”
“Well, the real culprits were my ancestors, the people of Bel, way back in the Dawntime. They made landfall at some harbor far in the north, then rode south, looking for the omens for the right spot to found their kingdom. And as they rode they slaughtered the Horsekin—took