The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [84]
“And they’ll remain so,” Dalla went on, “because they hate the Horsekin.”
“Maybe so, maybe not.” Cal thought for a moment. “I’d rather have my own kin at my side when things come to the arrows flying.”
Maelaber, who had been silent through all of this, suddenly laughed, though it was more of a bark than a merry sound. “It’s too bad,” Mael said, “that we can’t trade a few hundred years of life for more children.”
“That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?” All at once Dallandra saw something that should have been obvious long before, or so she felt. “Every time one of us has a child by a human man or gets a child on a human woman.”
Cal swore, under his breath but at length. Everyone turned toward the prince, who shrugged, hands open and palms up.
“I suppose so,” Dar said. “But I courted Carra for herself alone, and not for her—” He hesitated for a moment. “Childbearing.”
The men all laughed, but Dallandra kept silent, struck by another thought. Rhodry’s wyrd is Eldidd’s wyrd. The prophecy, over a hundred years old, suddenly revealed a fresh meaning. It might well be Eldidd’s wyrd—and the Westlands’—to give birth to a mixed race that would save a dying people.
“Well, Cal,” Dar went on. “We’ll find out soon enough just how steady our alliances are.”
“And let’s not forget that I have allies of my own.” Dallandra rose, glancing around her. “I’d better warn Grallezar as soon as I wake in the morning. And Niffa, up in Cerr Cawnen. And speaking of waking, I think I’ll go get some sleep.”
Calonderiel scrambled to his feet. “I’ll escort you back. We should have moved your tent in closer. I don’t like the idea of you being alone out on the edge of things.”
“It’s hardly necessary,” Dallandra said. “We’ll all be leaving tomorrow, and I doubt very much that there are Horsekin assassins lurking out in the grass.”
“So do I,” Cal said. “But what about Horsekin sorcerers?”
Dallandra was about to repeat Ebañy’s unpleasant news about the way the Horsekin treated sorcerers when it occurred to her that there was more than one faction of Horsekin. Some might have refused to give up their magic at the dictates of a priest.
“You have a point,” she said, “but I’ll be safe for one night. I’d feel a warning if one of their shape-changers was nearby.”
“Good.” Calonderiel glanced at the sky. “They’re usually birds, aren’t they?”
“All the ones I’ve ever seen took bird form, yes. So if you see an unusually large bird of some sort hovering around, tell me.”
After thinking about mazrakir, as the Horsekin called their shape-changers, Dallandra was glad enough of Calonderiel’s company as they walked through the dark, silent camp. A night wind picked up at last to cool the air and drive the worst of the insects away. Out beyond her tent the grass rippled and sighed at its touch, a green sea under starlight, stretching to the western horizon. And beyond the horizon, invisible at this distance, lay the foothills and high mountains of the far west, where once the People had lived in towns and farms, a settled folk, renowned for their learning and their literature.
“Having Meranaldar here has taught me a lot of things,” Dallandra said, “but the biggest one is just how much we’ve lost.”
“That’s true,” Cal said. “It would gripe my soul to lose the little bit we’ve got left. My curse upon them all, Horsekin and their false goddess both!”
“Well, the false goddess is long gone, at least. And she was the one who lied to them, you know, and set this whole ugly thing in motion. They aren’t truly to blame for that.”
Calonderiel snorted profoundly. “The Horsekin breed gods the way horseshit breeds flies,” he said. “By the Dark Sun herself, if I could concoct another plague to wipe those hairy bastards off the face of the earth, I would.”
“Don’t ever say that! You can’t know how evil a thought it is. Here, you met Zatcheka and her menfolk. The Horsekin aren’t all savages.”
“Oh, of course, of course. But it’s the savages that are causing the trouble.”
“Yes. Unfortunately. But if Zatcheka’s tribe could leave their old ways behind and become Gel da’Thae,