The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [164]
Later, after the caravan had moved on to make its grim night’s camp beside a forest road, Berwynna asked him why he seemed more angry than sad. They spoke in the Alban language to keep their talk to themselves.
“This is so horrible!” Berwynna said. “Poor Kov, dead! It’s just—just—horrible to think of him being eaten by some ugly thing.”
“It is that,” Dougie said. “But this whole affair smells of dead fish, if you ask me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did I ever tell you about the silkies, when we were back home in Alban? Men on land, but they change to seals in the water?”
“You did. Here, do you think these people are silkies?”
“Or somewhat like.” Dougie frowned in thought. “We’re miles and miles from any seashore, far as we know. But I saw Kov wander away, and I saw two men follow him. All at once they slipped into the river, and then we heard the crone screeching and carrying on. Gartak? Monsters, is it? They may be that. Mayhap they murder the odd traveler or two, for their coins, like, and mayhap they eat them as well.”
“We should tell Aethel.”
“Will he believe us? Dare he believe us? He needs their bridge. Your people back in Lin Serr, that’s who we’ll be telling when we get back there.”
“We’ll have to come this way again because of that bridge.”
“When we do, not a word about this, lass. Just squeeze out a tear or two for poor Kov, eaten by gartak. If they think we suspect somewhat, we could be next.”
“Very well, then, not a word.”
That night Berwynna dreamt of Kov, laughing and talking during the dinner party back in Lin Serr. She woke to find the stars still out in the crisp dark sky and Dougie snoring beside her. She sat up without waking him and looked over the sleeping camp. One small fire still burned, and beside it sat Mic, Kov’s staff cradled in his arms. She wanted to go to her uncle and say something comforting and wise, yet could think of nothing but a futile “It saddens my heart, too.” Finally she lay back down and watched the stars, wondering if Kov’s soul wandered among them, until she slept again.
His captors had shoved Kov into a small, damp underground room with only a basket of glowing fungi for company and a stout wooden door, barred from the outside, to keep him in. From the smell of the place, previous captives had relieved themselves in the dirt beside one wall. He sat with his back to the opposite wall and wondered if he were going to be allowed to starve to death or perhaps die of thirst. At least, as a man of the Mountain Folk, he was used to being underground in dim light. A Deverry man would have gone mad, he supposed, shut up in a place not much larger than a grave.
After what seemed to him to be most of the day, he heard footsteps approaching with the slap of bare feet on damp ground. Someone lifted the bar and shoved open the door to reveal a cluster of Dwrgi faces, all of them in humanoid form, peering in at him. A young female, dressed in the same odd tabardlike garment as the males, held up another basket of light and looked him over. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared back.
Finally she spoke, at some length, in a language he’d not heard before but which reminded him of the chattering of squirrels and excited ferrets. One of the men stepped forward and pointed at Kov.
“You get up,” he said. “We go some place better.”
“It could hardly be worse,” Kov said.
Everyone laughed, and the female grinned in approval.
“They stop looking for you,” the spokesman went on. “Your friends go away now.”
Kov did his best to reveal not a trace of feeling. “I suppose they think I’m dead,” he said.
“They do. Come with us.”
When Kov stepped out of the room, the pack surrounded him. They half-led, half-shoved him through a wide tunnel that twisted, turned, branched off, doubled back, split, re-formed, and twisted some more. The vast majority of people would have been hopelessly lost, but thanks to a childhood spent in Lin Serr, Kov could memorize the entire route. For its last fifty feet or so, the tunnel sloped uphill, ending in a wooden