The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [206]
“She is temperamental, isn’t she?” Dallandra rolled her eyes heavenward. “Where is she?”
“Down by that rivulet in the pasture. Follow your nose. The scent of rotting beef will guide you.”
Mostly to get out of the stuffy tent, Salamander volunteered to escort her. With the rain clouds moving up from the south, the night had turned dark even for elven eyes. Once they were safely away from the main camp, Dallandra made another silver ball, a small one, this time, supplying just enough light for them to negotiate the rocky path down to Arzosah’s temporary lair. They found her chewing thoughtfully on a white oxtail, hair and all, but she obligingly spat it out when they arrived.
“The banadar told me you wanted to speak with me,” Dallandra said.
“Is that what he is, the actual banadar?” Arzosah said. “I might have been nicer to him if I’d known that, but then, he was awfully rude to me.”
“He tends to lack tact, yes,” Dalla said. “Not that you have a long supply of it yourself.”
“I’m a dragon. I don’t need tact. But be that as it may, I’ve had an idea about those archers. I was sitting here thinking that it looks like rain, and how much I hate being out in the rain. I wish, I was thinking, that we dragons could make our own weather. That’s when the idea came to me.”
“Um?” Dallandra said. “I don’t quite follow—”
“That’s because I’m not finished yet,” Arzosah said. “Now, tell me something. The arrows, are they heavy? They look very slender and light.”
“They have wooden shafts, yes. What makes them deadly is the force created by the snap of the bowstring and the bend of the bow.”
“Good! That’s what I thought, but I needed to make sure.” Arzosah crossed her front paws and considered something for a moment. “Now, long ago, during the siege of Cengarn, when Rori was still Rhodry, he told me that he couldn’t shoot arrows from my back because the wind stirred up by my wings knocked them off-course. I remember him trying to throw javelins from my back as well, and again, he couldn’t, because of the wind.”
Salamander laughed, one sharp crow of triumph.
“I think you follow my drift, as it were,” Arzosah said. “Now, suppose I flew around above the dun walls, flapping madly. How many arrows do you think would reach their targets?”
“Very few.” Dallandra broke into a grin. “What a splendid idea!”
“So I thought.” Arzosah rumbled briefly. “The plan does have one difficulty, though, namely, there’s only one of me, and to make turns I have to swing wide.”
“So while you’re on the one side of the broch, the arrows on the other will fly true,” Salamander joined in. “If Rori would only get himself here!”
“There’s no sign of him?” Arzosah said.
“I don’t know if there is or not,” Salamander said. “Every time I scry him out, he’s in some wild place. It’s hard for me to tell one wilderness from another.”
Arzosah drew back her head in sincere surprise. “I suppose that’s because you don’t hunt for your dinner,” she said at last. “Well, Dalla, I know you did your best to summon him, and your best effort has powerful dweomer behind it, so we can hope he’ll come soon.”
The rain arrived in the middle of the night, a swift downpour that hammered on the tent roof and woke Salamander. All around him the archers of Calonderiel’s warband slept, as silent and motionless as only those raised in the close quarters of a Westfolk alar’s tents could be. For some while Salamander lay awake, worrying about his brother, the coming battle, and worst of all, the hypothetical dark dweomermaster who might or might not be close by. He considered scrying, but the etheric disturbance given off by the falling rain made it impossible. Finally he fell back asleep to wake suddenly at dawn.
The rain had stopped, but when he looked at the little patch of sky visible through the smokehole, he could see swirling clouds. Still, the air was dry enough for him to try scrying. This time he got a dim impression of the silver wyrm, flying over the temple of Bel, before the vision turned murky and disappeared into etheric water-mist. Salamander