The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [89]
“Hold, hold!” Caradoc was shouting. “Silver daggers, to me!”
From across the field silver daggers answered. Branoic could hear voices he recognized screaming warcries as they tried to cut their way to the prince. The fighting went on while the last of the dweomer-clouds broke up and blew away in a rising wind.
From his position among the beeches, Maddyn had a distant view of the battle. Nevyn had lain himself down on his back in the grass, with a folded-up cloak for a pillow, but his restful pose had proved an illusion. As soon as he’d fallen into a deep trance, he began to move. At first he merely twitched, and his lips worked as if he were talking in his sleep. All at once he flung one arm straight up into the air. His head flopped from side to side. Maddyn crouched next to him and wondered what he should do. Since Nevyn was smiling, it seemed that he was safe enough, but suddenly he jerked his legs and let his arm flop down to the grass.
For a long while he lay so still that Maddyn risked getting up and looking around. In the valley below the regent’s position, he could see the prince’s army spreading out. Maddyn felt a twist of fear. A charge up that slope would cost a heavy price in lives. He stood shading his eyes with one hand and watching until the Red Wyvern army came to a halt. They had formed up in ragged lines five riders deep.
Behind him Nevyn suddenly spoke in a loud and ringing voice.
“Lords of Air, hear my plea!”
Maddyn spun around to find Nevyn spreadeagled on the grass, still in his trance. He knelt beside him just as the old man sat up, called out an incomprehensible word, and flopped down onto his back again. After a long moment, he fell motionless in a sleep that seemed nearer death. He could have warned me, Maddyn thought with some bitterness. Curiosity bit too hard for him to stay at Nevyn’s side. He got up to look at the battlefield in time to see the unnatural storm forming over Regent Burcan’s army. A wind slammed into the beeches and made them rustle as it tore past, heading across the valley to the ridge.
“Lords of Air, indeed!” Maddyn said aloud.
He stood watching as the clouds thickened and the thunder boomed in the sky. The air around him, far away though he was, seemed charged with some strange force or power, as if the very elements themselves quivered with excitement. When he rubbed a hand on his wool brigga, little blue sparks snapped and tingled. He wondered if the same was happening to Burcan and his men. When the rains started, he felt a small stab of pity for the enemy, trapped between the prince’s army and dweomer as they were, but the pity vanished when the prince charged. Without thinking he yelled aloud to cheer them on.
From his distance Maddyn saw embattled armies whole for the first time, as if they were entities that had life and identity. Thanks to the wet ground, no dust cloud rose over the fighting. It was a greater marvel even than the dweomer-storm to see in the clear what had so often trapped and overwhelmed him. He watched fascinated as the Red Wyvern rushed uphill to leap upon the Green, which broke apart and seemed ready to shatter, only to recover itself and countercharge. Off to the flanks of the battle he could see fragments of the Green army running away. A few turned back to rejoin the fighting, but most eventually passed out of sight behind the sheltering downs.
“They’re on their own,” Nevyn remarked from behind him.
Maddyn yelped, then collected himself.
“Ye gods, but you startled me! I’ve been cursed near entranced, watching.”
“My apologies. I could clear the ridge for them, but the prince will have to win the actual battle. It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?”
“It is. I just wish my friends weren’t in the middle of it.”
“That does take the bloom off.”
For a long while they stood together, watching the battle sway this way and that along the crest of the ridge. Over it the dweomer-clouds broke up and dissipated as quickly as they’d formed. When