The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [54]
“It’s a good fat one,” Rhodry said. “I’m surprised.”
“Don’t be,” the kennelman said. “The fewer the deer, the more winter fodder to go round, like.”
“Well, true spoken.”
“Save a bit of that liver, will you?” Dar put in. “For my lady’s dog.”
They left the servants with the kill and rode out again. Since the gwerbret’s farmers cut this stretch of forest for fuel and timber, the trees thinned out to scrubby grassland. Snow lay thick in the hollows, but on the side of a hill the wind had scoured it away to expose dead grass and twiggy shrubs, a veritable banquet for deer. The kennelman called in the dogs and trotted with them on foot as they put noses to the ground and headed up the hill.
Rhodry saw the stag first, standing between two trees and watching. With a yap and a bay the dogs sighted it next and raced uphill. The stag leapt and ran, bounding across the hillside, heading up to the crest and forest cover. Rhodry yelled at the others to follow and kicked his horse forward. The stag was a fat one and pure white, an omen of good fortune as well as food. He was thinking of nothing but turning it back to the waiting archers when Dar’s voice reached him on the wind.
“Come back! Don’t! Dweomer, Rhodry! Come back!”
Instinctively he slowed his horse and looked ahead. Tangled in the trees at the crest of the hill hung a pale lavender mist, shot through with opalescence. Like a gigantic wave from some unseen ocean it rose up, towering above him. With a yelp he jerked his horse’s head around so fast the poor beast stumbled. Rhodry kicked his feet out of the stirrups and threw himself clear as his horse went down, rolling. He scrambled up to see the horse, unhurt, doing the same. Around them the sunlight darkened. When he looked up, he saw the mist breaking like a wave and plunging down. He took one step back; then it hit, pouring over him with a blinding glitter of multicolored light.
By yelling curses and orders at the top of his lungs, Prince Daralanteriel managed to get all of his men, all of the dogs, and the kennelman down from the hillside and back to safety on the flat. Rhodry’s gelding, reins trailing from the bridle, trotted down to join them. The kennelman caught the reins and tossed them up to Dar.
“It looks calm enough,” Dar said. “It must not have been able to see—well, whatever that was.”
The archers nodded grimly. At the top of the hill the dweomer mist had vanished, except for a few scant shreds caught like tufts of wool on the trees, but for all he knew the wretched fog would reappear and devour them all.
“Your Highness!” The kennelman was shaking so hard that he could barely speak. “What—by the gods—where’s the silver dagger?”
The elven archers were staring at him with the same question in their eyes. Dar merely shrugged and turned in the saddle to watch the torn mists. Melimaladar urged his horse up beside the prince’s.
“That stag!” Mel said, in Deverrian for the ken-nelman’s sake.
“It wasn’t real,” Dar said. “I’ve seen it before, last summer it was, just before the siege. I took some of my men out hunting, and the cursed stag led us too far away to get back that night.” Dar’s voice tightened at the memory. “And then the Meradan caught us by our campfire.”
“That’s where Farendar died?”
“It is, and too many other good men.” Dar rose in his stirrups and shaded his eyes with one hand. “It’s dissolving, that’s the last of it. Ah horseshit! We could ride around here all day and not find a trace or track of Rhodry!”
“But we can’t just leave him here!” Mel said.
“He isn’t here for us to leave.”
Mel started to speak, then merely shuddered. As if to agree, one of the dogs whined.
“Well, what can we do?” Mel said at last. “We can’t stay here all night. We’ll freeze.”
“I know that,” Dar snapped. “I—well, ah by the black hairy arse of the Lord of Hell! I don’t have one cursed idea of what we do next.”
“Ye gods, I wish Dalla was here! She’d know.”
“Wait! Maybe I can reach her.”
“But it’ll take us a long time to ride back.”
“I didn’t mean by riding.” Dar