The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [92]
Only to wake to a tug on her hair and the feel of a little paw tapping her face. With a cold ripple of danger down her back Jill was alert, unwinding herself from the blankets even as she was still recognizing the dim form of her gray gnome silhouetted against the night.
“Is somewhat wrong?” she whispered.
It seemed that the little creature was nodding a yes. Jill threw the blankets back and got to her knees, feeling for the hilt of her sword. Her fingers had just closed on it when she heard a rustle and a scrape off downhill. With one last pull on her hair the gnome vanished. She grabbed the hilt in one hand, the scabbard in the other, and slid the sword half-free. All at once, up at the crest of the hill, she heard a whicker, then the neigh of a frightened horse.
“Rhodry! Ware!”
With her yell Jill was on her feet, the sword drawn. As she started to pick her way clear of the boulders, she saw a trace of movement out of the corner of her eye and whirled round toward it. Dimly she could make out a head-shaped darkness against the dark sky, then another movement. Up on the hill horses were whinnying and plunging. Something hissed by her face like an angry insect. As she took a step forward, sword raised, something pricked her cheek, no worse than a bee sting. She dodged, raised her free hand to brush the annoyance away, and realized that her legs were giving out under her. In a rushy hiss the black world vanished into a gauzy gray silence.
His weeks in a comfortable house had softened Rhodry enough that sleeping wedged in between cold rocks was impossible. Although he drowsed for a few minutes here and there, he finally gave it up as a bad job and left the imperfect shelter of the boulders to join Salamander at the crest of the hill. In this dark a night his elven vision could no longer distinguish color or detail, but he could see outlines and shapes well enough to move with confidence. He found his brother sitting cross-legged and sneezing in the long grass and watching the horses and the mule, who stood heads down and weary, nose to tail in the drizzling damp.
“You can go and try to sleep if you want,” Rhodry said. “I’m wide awake.”
“So am I. Awake—and miserable. And forlorn, dejected, pathetic, dismal, bleak of heart. Ah, how I long for our father’s tent, its warm fire, its soft cushions, and above all, its waterproof roof and sides! I wouldn’t mind being surrounded by several hundred elven archers, either, come to think of it.”
“Nor more would I. Do you think we should turn back to Albara on the morrow?”
“I’m tempted, truly. I wonder if I—here, what’s that?”
They went silent, sitting as stone-still as only elves can. Very faintly, some distance away, Rhodry heard a noise, too muddled with the wind and drizzle for him to identify it. All at once the horses tossed up their heads and whickered. Rhodry and Salamander were on their feet, and Rhodry had his new sword drawn before he even realized he’d reached for it.
“Rhodry! Ware!”
It was Jill’s voice, coming from among the rocks. Cursing under his breath Rhodry started toward her, just as the horses and the mule went mad. All at once they were bucking, yanking at their tethers and pawing at the air with their fore hooves. As dim shadows Rhodry could see what the animals saw: horrible, deformed Wildfolk, with huge fangs and red, gleaming eyes, leaping and dashing straight for the stock.
“Ware!” Salamander screamed.
The tethers snapped, and the horses came plunging straight for them. With a yell Rhodry knocked Salamander to the ground and rolled with him downhill and to the side just barely in time. He saw hooves flash by and felt mud spatter his face as the galloping horses parted around them and plunged off into the darkness, heading back toward the road.
“May the Lord of Hell eat their intestines and their balls both,” Salamander gasped with the breath half knocked out of him. “Not the horses, I mean. Whoever did