The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [113]
“By the Holy Stars themselves,” the first mate whispered. “I’ve never seen a wind like this before.”
“Savor it,” Elaeno said. “Doubtless you never will again.”
For days the storm clouds had lain like sheared fleeces over the Surtinna foothills. Even when it wasn’t actually raining, a thick mist shrouded the view and clung to the wet cloaks of the Great if Utterly Glum Krysello and his sneezing band of barbarians while the wind blew steadily, so cold that Jill assumed that it must be snowing up in the high mountains. The one good thing she could say about the weather was that being miserable was keeping her mind off the Hawks. The entire world seemed to have shrunk to the constant struggle to keep moving through wet and cold. Since they were off the road the footing was next to impossible—trails that were deep mud or grassy hillsides so saturated that the sod split like overripe fruit under the horses’ hooves. At times a horse would fall, and its panic would spread through the long line of stock. Calming them again would waste precious time, until Jill was ready to simply turn the entire herd loose to fend for itself. Oddly enough, to her way of thinking, it was always Salamander who insisted they keep all the horses with them for as long as possible.
The nights’ camps brought no real rest or respite. It was another struggle to find decent grazing for the horses and to keep the humans’ meager provisions dry. Lighting a fire was out of the question, even with Salamander’s dweomer; not only would the light announce their presence to possible enemies, but there was quite simply no dry wood. At night no one could sleep properly in wet blankets; there was no natural shelter except for the tangled and thorny underbrush or the occasional stand of boulders. They all began talking less and less, since every word seemed to come out as a snarl or a snap that set off an argument.
Through it all Jill kept a strict watch on Gwin, even though his devotion to Rhodry was so doglike that it turned her stomach. Late one afternoon, as she and Salamander were tethering out the riding horses together out of earshot of the others, Jill brought up her suspicions.
“Even if he doesn’t mean to betray us, how do I know the Hawks aren’t still using him? Couldn’t they make some sort of link with his mind and just follow him like a beacon?”
“They could, but they haven’t, my dubious dove. I scrutinized him most thoroughly and found naught.”
“You’re certain?”
“Certain? Certain, positive, convinced, and quite quite sure.” He paused in his work to look her over with shrewd eyes. “Jealous, are you?”
“Just what do you mean, you rotten elf?”
“Just what I said. Everywhere our Rhodry goes, there’s’ Gwin, gazing at him fondly and hanging on his every word and smile like a lover. And there’s Rhodry, who may or may not be flattered—but he doesn’t ask him to stop.”
For a moment Jill felt like hitting him, just for pointing out what she’d been trying not to see.
“I’d be jealous, too, if I were you,” Salamander went on, somewhat hastily. “I’m not belittling you, mind. But here, my sagacious sparrow, ponder this. It’s not Rhodry that Gwin’s in love with, but his own salvation. Ye gods, think of how he must feel! For the first time in his life, he has hope, he has a future, he has honor … of course he’s englamored. But he can’t understand that—Hawks are not trained in the subtleties of the mind, after all—so he gives our Rhodry all the credit and worships him.”
“Well, truly, I see your point. But …”
“It gripes your soul anyhow? Please don’t throw that peg at me, my turtledove. It’ll leave an ugly bruise.”
With the sixth dawn, the sun finally broke through the clouds. As the mist rolled back, they could see that not only did the trail they’d been following peter out into a ravine, but also that the archon’s road lay only half-a-mile downhill and to the west of their camp. After a brief argument, Jill agreed that they’d better take the road and make some speed. Just at noon the sky began to