The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [81]
Merodda found herself remembering Brour and the warning he’d given her about his old master in Cerrmor. Could he be hiding Lilli from her? Apparently so. She wondered just how powerful this sorcerer, this Nevyn, might be. With an involuntary shudder she left the stars to their own devices and went back to the dun.
• • •
When the Red Wyvern pulled out of Yvrodur, scouts rode ahead in squads of five men for safety’s sake. Since they could travel twice as fast as the massive army, they would leave the river road at intervals and turn down the cross-running lanes through the fields. In the southern river valley the land stretched out flat. A man on horseback who found the slightest rise had a good view.
The first morning out of Yvrodur, Caradoc put Branoic in charge of a squad. The five silver daggers would ride in a loose cluster, ready to break up at the first sign of real danger and head back to the army.
“Remember, lads,” Caradoc said. “No heroics. What counts is warning the rest of us. You can’t do that dead.”
“Just so, captain,” Branoic said. “Come on, lads! Let’s get down the road.”
For a few miles they jogged their horses to put some distance between themselves and the army, then slowed to a steady walk. Off to their right the river flowed past silently; to their left lay a field of grain, pale green and nodding in a light breeze. In the hot summer sun staying alert took some doing. Unfortunately, none of the men who’d drawn scout duty with him were the talkative sort. Branoic’s mind wandered, and as it did so it peopled the world around him with little creatures. He was sure he saw Wildfolk splashing in the river eddies; now and again faces peered out at him from the grass beside the road; once he distinctly heard a voice calling his name. The angrier he grew with himself for giving into these childhood fancies, the more distinct the wretched things became. Grimly he did his best to look only at the road, but even there warty grey gnomes appeared, waving to him pleasantly as the squad ambled past.
At length, when the sun was climbing toward noon, a real distraction presented itself. Where the river curved to the east and the road followed, the squad left both to cut straight across on a narrow track between two fields. Far ahead of them Branoic spotted a smudge on the horizon.
“Dust!” he called out. “Hold up, lads!”
The squad jingled to a halt behind him. Branoic rose in his stirrups and shaded his eyes with his free hand. A lot of dust, it was, and moving purposefully down the road toward them.
“Trevyr! Head back to the prince and tell him riders are coming, a good-sized contingent but no army.”
“Done, then.” With a wave red-haired Trevyr guided his horse out of line and turned it around. “Do you want more men up here?”
“I don’t, but you’d best get back here straightaway yourself.”
Trevyr trotted off down the lane, and Branoic went back to his watching. The dust cloud came along leisurely, finally resolving itself into a column of mounted men followed by what seemed to be a pair of carts—an ally, most like, joining the muster. Branoic sent another man off with this news, but just in case the column meant trouble, he led his remaining two men back to the main road. By the time they reached it the column had come close enough for him to see the blazons on shields—a blue circle with a line of darker blue knotwork around it, and nothing that Branoic recognized.
“We’d best get out of here,” he said.
The other two silver daggers nodded their agreement, turned their horses in the road, and jogged off fast. Branoic lingered a moment to estimate the contingent’s size, about six twenties, he figured. None of them were wearing their mail, and their shields hung from their saddle bows. Just as Branoic was