The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [163]
“Dwrgi,” Kov said, and his voice sounded as feeble as the ancient crone’s. “Otters. You. Shapechangers.” He stopped himself before his speech degenerated into babble.
The fellow smiled, exposing strong white teeth, prominent in front.
“Clever dwarf,” he remarked. “You know too much, you do.”
“Just so,” the other Dwrgi said. “I be sorry, Mountain Man, but we cannot let you leave. Ever.”
Kov scrambled to his feet. “Then I shall face my death with dignity.”
“What?” the first Dwrgi said. “Never would we kill you! That be a nasty thing, bain’t?”
“What do you think we be?” said the second. “Monsters?”
And they both laughed.
Berwynna was watching Aethel trade net floats for dried fish when she heard a woman start screaming. Everyone in the crowd around the trader spun around to look back at the village. An elderly woman came hurrying toward them, waving her arms in the air, and screaming out a single word: “Gartak, gartak!” Swearing under their breaths the village men ran, racing toward the village, yelling orders back and forth. Berwynna and Dougie followed more slowly. Some of the men ducked into huts and came right out again carrying long spears. Metal points winked in the sun as they ran down to the riverbank.
“What’s all this?” Mic, panting a little from the exertion, caught up with Berwynna. “Where’s Kov?”
“I ken not,” Berwynna said. “I’ve not seen him since we did cross the river.”
“No more have I,” Dougie said.
In the village the womenfolk ran back and forth, collecting children, lining them up, counting them, then shepherding them inside the various huts.
“I fear me that gartak means monster,” Mic said. “The last I saw Kov, he was walking toward the village.”
Berwynna’s stomach clenched. When Aethel, who’d stayed behind to pack up his goods, joined them, the first question he voiced was, “Where be the envoy?”
“He didn’t go with your men?” Mic said.
“Not that I do ken.” Aethel winced and shook his head. “I do hope and pray that he went not near the river.”
In the village the spearmen were returning, walking with their heads down, talking softly among themselves. One of them looked up, saw Aethel, and came trotting over. He carried Kov’s staff, sleek and gleaming with water.
“We find this floating,” the man said. “Yours?”
“It be not mine,” Aethel said. “It does belong to Kov, the man of the Mountain Folk.” He pointed to Mic. “Like this man, but not this man.”
“Ai!” The fellow handed Mic the staff. “Gartak come. We find this. Your Kov, no see.”
Mic stared at the staff in his hands as if he doubted its reality. He kept turning it round and round like an axle in his fingers.
“Let’s search,” Aethel said. “Mayhap Kov did run away, drop his staff.”
“We search,” the villager said. He turned and called out in his own language to the spearmen, who stood huddled around the stone pillar.
The search went on for a miserable hour or two while Berwynna sat on a pack saddle in the hot sun near the mules. Every time she saw someone approaching, her hope flared, and she’d get up, only to sit down again when the news came that they’d found nothing. Finally Aethel himself came back, followed by Mic, Dougie, and the muleteers who’d been helping them cover the ground around the village.
“It be no use,” Aethel said. “Kov, he be dead. I understand it not! Why did he go down to the water? I did warn him. A fine caravan master I be, losing a man to a beast in the river!”
“Here, here,” Berwynna said, “it be not your fault.”
Aethel saw a small stone on the ground and kicked it so hard that it skipped some twenty feet. Mic walked up next, still clutching Kov’s staff. His eyes filled with tears, and with a sob he let them run. Berwynna threw her arms around him and held him while he wept for their cousin. Although she’d not known Kov well, she felt like weeping herself, but even more she felt terrified. For the first time she realized just how dangerous this journey—her marvelous adventure—could become. Dougie, she noticed, was oddly silent, staring