Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [82]
“Is she bleeding to death?” Maddyn whispered.
“She is. And in a way, she's drowning.”
“Ah gods. She's so blasted young. I wish it were me. What use am I, a worn-out rider with naught to live for? Better it were me!”
“Oh hold your tongue. This is no time for self-pity, bard.”
Maddyn winced and turned away. Nevyn sat down on the edge of the bed and opened his dweomer sight. Her aura looked like wisps of mist clinging to her body.
Long past midnight, Nevyn sat alone at Lilli's bedside. He had hung silver balls of dweomer light around the chamber, but all at once, the room turned oddly dark, as if some lord of shadows had entered and scattered gloom with a careless wave of a hand. Or some lady—the spirit appeared at the foot of Lilli's bed, all draped in black but still wearing her likeness of Lilli's mother, Merodda. Fortunately Lilli lay unconscious on her heap of pillows and could not see.
“What do you want?” Nevyn snapped.
“My daughter,” the spirit said. “Let me have my daughter.”
“She's not yours, and you're not her mother.”
“I shall wait for her all the same, when she crosses over.”
Her words raked him like cold claws.
“You shan't,” Nevyn said, “because I shall travel with her, and if you try to meddle, I'll blast you with a fire that will burn you to the marrow of your soul.”
“You boast, old man, and naught more.” She flounced her black robes and smirked at him.
All of Nevyn's rage at the prince, at Lilli's illness, at Merodda and her wretched curse tablet rose up and turned him for that moment into a berserker worse than any warrior. He snapped out a word of power, then raised his arms over his head. He felt the rage materialize as red fire, surging and seething.
“Begone, you fetid bitch!”
With a snap of his wrists he brought his arms down and blasted her with the red fire. Like a cataract it broke over her, foaming like boiling blood. She screamed, staggered, screamed and screamed again as she spun and tossed on the burning torrent.
“Begone!”
With one last howl of agony, she disappeared. Still shaking with rage Nevyn opened his dweomer sight—no trace of her.
“Nevyn?” Lilli's voice choked, a bare whisper.
He spun around and saw her trying to sit up. He perched on the bed next to her and put his arm around her shoulders while she coughed, spitting up more blood, bright and fresh.
“Can't breathe,” she gasped, then died in his arms.
Maddyn heard the news early the next morning. When he and Owaen went to the great hall for breakfast, they saw Lilli's maidservant, Clodda, sitting in the ashes of the servants' cold hearth and sobbing, her apron over her face.
“Ah horseshit!” Owaen muttered. “That's a bad omen for our Lilli.”
“The worst,” Maddyn said. “The poor little lass.” “Just so. I'll wager old Nevyn's all torn up about it.” “No doubt. I'll have to compose her a death song. She was a warrior in her way.”
Although Maddyn saw naught of Nevyn all that day, the news went round the dun, that Lady Lillorigga had finally died of her consumption. Toward sunset, to get a little peace and quiet in which to think, Maddyn climbed up the catwalks to the top of the dun's inner wall. He wedged himself between a pair of merlons and looked down at the sprawling disorder of the brochs and walls, wards and ruins, sheds, huts, and pigsties. That wondrous day back in Pyrdon, when the silver daggers had hailed the young Prince Maryn as the true king, none of them had ever dreamt that royal splendor would look like a heap of charcoal scattered among sticks. None of them had ever dreamt how many of them would die, either, he supposed, though they'd all made a brave show of talking about the likelihood.
In the west the sun was sinking in a clear sky. Overhead the dome of heaven shone a painfully bright blue, while below the ward lay already in shadow. Maddyn watched servants walking back and forth, bringing food and firewood to the great hall. In a