The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [118]
“You’re alive? Good. You’re proving very useful indeed, little Baruma.” The master sat back on his heels, then reached up and took a wine cup off the table. “Drink this.”
Baruma sat up and gulped the sweet wine; oddly enough, it seemed to clear his head rather than muddle it.
“Those silver flames were elven auras,” the Hawkmaster said.
“But one of them was Rhodry!”
“Oh, indeed?” The master rose, reaching for the wine cup. “For that information you get another drink. Did you recognize anyone else?”
“Gwin. Gwin was there.”
“I wondered if he’d been taken prisoner. I would have known if he’d been killed. Who were the others? They have magic, tremendously powerful magic, and you should be able to recognize them. They must be Inner Circle members.”
“Her. Rhodry’s woman. She was there. And the other elf used dweomer against me. He was the one who sent the spear of light.”
The Hawkmaster went on refilling the cup, his face betraying not a twitch or a grimace, but through the link that bound him to the master Baruma could feel his fear.
“It’s the dweomer of light, isn’t it, master?” he whispered. “They’re not from the guild at all. They serve the dweomer of tight, don’t they?”
“Shut up!” The master threw the wine cup full into his face.
Baruma began to laugh. In the last small sane corner of his mind he wondered if he were laughing because he was going to be revenged on the Hawkmaster or out of simple hysteria, but either way he gasped and howled and writhed on the floor until the master kicked him into silent submission.
“Very well, then,” the Hawkmaster said, and his voice was perfectly steady. “At least now I know who our enemies are. They certainly weren’t sent by the Old One, were they? Later I’ll see if I can arrange a parley with him, but for now, let’s give Gwin’s captors something to think about. Tonight that wolf goes home to stay.”
Rhodry had just come back to their cold camp from checking on the horses when he saw a swarm of Wildfolk rise up and tear off to the west like a flurry of dead leaves in a wind. All at once Jill yelped in surprise and scrambled to her feet; Salamander yelled even louder and jumped up, too, to wave his arms in the air and chant in some strange language. When a silver ball of light blossomed above the camp, dimly in midair Rhodry could see a horde of Wildfolk mobbing what seemed to be the misty and ill-defined figure of a wolf, and an even vaguer indication of something riding on its back. Then they were all gone, and Salamander was standing with his hands on his hips and swearing like a pirate. It had all happened so fast and been so cryptic that Rhodry felt as openmouthed stupid as a peasant gawking at a fake unicorn skull in the market fair. He was honestly surprised to find Gwin white-faced and shaking.
“Here,” Rhodry said automatically. “No danger now.”
“Like Hell,” Gwin snapped. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but the Hawkmaster’s behind it. I should have known I’d never get free of him, not for long.”
“Na, na, na, don’t fret about that now,” Salamander broke in. “You’ll get free of him eventually, if we have to kill him to do it, which, come to think of it, we doubtless will. Be that as it may, I wonder if he was looking for you specifically or merely scouting out the lay of the land—if indeed that was him, which I doubt, because our wolf-rider looked most unhappy,