The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [114]
Below them, between them and the fourth wall, lay the deserted village—round houses, sheds, long barns, cattle pens, and here and there a beehive-shaped pigsty. The animals were a danger; pigs were smart enough to know an intruder when they saw one and raise a fuss. Fortunately, they could smell the pigsties a good long ways off and avoid them. But if the peasants had left dogs behind to guard their houses—Branoic didn’t want to think about that. In the chancy moonlight he could see Tieryn Peddyc, crouched behind a merlon, leaning a little way out to study the lie of the village while Caradoc knelt behind him.
All at once Branoic heard distant voices. Peddyc slid back behind the merlon. The voices were drifting across from the fourth wall—guards. The voices came closer, resolved at their loudest as those of two men, then faded again. So they were patrolling in pairs. For a long while the silver daggers waited, listening and judging intervals. The guards came infrequently. Nevyn’s magical storm had done its work.
One man at a time, the silver daggers climbed down the far side of the wall. Branoic was halfway down when a cloud tore and exposed the moon. He froze, heard distant voices, climbed a few yards down, froze again. The moon disappeared. He clung some ten feet up from the ground while the guards walked by, arguing about some trivial thing. Once they were past, he slithered a few more feet, then let himself drop the rest. He found himself among round thatched houses. Caradoc grabbed his arm and whispered, “You blind-lucky dog.”
Once they were all down, they walked in single file, crouching as they went, pausing often to freeze and listen. Branoic had ended up near the front, just behind Owaen and Caradoc. Peddyc was doing the leading, or so Branoic supposed. In the dark, and smeared with mud as they all were, it could have been the Lord of Hell for all he knew.
Ahead loomed a big rectanglar structure with its roof sagging against the backdrop of the clouds—an old barn, Branoic assumed, from the dry smell of ancient manure. Between it and the fifth wall behind them lay a gap long enough for all the silver daggers to assemble in relative safety. Caradoc walked down the line, counting heads.
“All here,” he murmured. “Everyone rest. The worst bit’s on its way.”
“My liege!” Nevyn said. “They’re over the fifth wall.”
“Has anyone spotted them?” Maryn said.
“Not so far.”
“Good. I’ll go out and put the men on alert.” Maryn pulled a silver horn from his belt and handed it to Nevyn. “Just in case. If they reach the gate, and we’re not in position, step outside and blow this thing as loudly as you can.”
“I’ve never used a horn before.”
“A horrible squawk will do.” Maryn grinned at him. “I don’t expect music.”
With a wave the prince ducked out of the tent. Nevyn turned back to the table and considered the bowl of water that he was using as a scrying focus. From the murky images he could tell that the silver daggers still stood between the wall and the rotting cow barn. Caradoc was making sure the prince had time to ready the men who were waiting between the second and third walls.
Since this tent as well stood near the third wall, Nevyn could hear Maryn’s voice giving final orders to the lords outside. The gate already stood open a bare couple of feet. Just outside it, crouching at the foot of the third wall on the uphill side, were the Ram’s men and a contingent of the skilled assault