The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [183]
“—is an old wound. I have hopes that it will heal soon.”
“Be there somewhat I can do for it?”
Rori was about to dismiss the offer, then remembered that she had hands. “There is,” he said. “When we find willow trees, you can brew me up a medicine from the bark, if you’d be willing.”
“Of course I be willing.” She smiled at him. “I be your daughter, after all.”
Her smile reminded him of Angmar’s. The resemblance acted like a spark in the dry kindling that had become his heart over the years. He remembered how it had felt to love a woman, one like himself as he’d been then. The blood of two races ran in their veins, dwarven and human for her, elven and human for him. They had each lost other loves. They had understood each other’s sorrow when they’d met and found a way to assuage it for a little while. Now here was their child, considering him gravely, as small in relation to a dragon as a hound would be to a human.
“It gladdens my heart to meet you.” Rori made his voice as quiet as he could. “But what, by all the gods, are you doing out here in the middle of this blasted wilderness?”
“Looking for you.” Suddenly she turned away, and tears choked her voice. “My betrothed, he were with me, Da, but the Horsekin, they killed him.”
“Oh, did they now? Don’t trouble your little heart, Wynni. We’ll have our revenge.”
She turned back, and through her tears she smiled. “My thanks,” she said. “That eases my heart somewhat.”
“Good. Now, here, I’ll take you and Mic back to the island. You’ll be safe there.”
“And desert the caravan? I can’t do that.”
Her soft words struck him like a blow. Had he really been thinking of leaving all those other men to the mercy of the Horsekin? Dalla was right, he thought. I stand in danger of losing my human soul.
“No more can I,” Rori said briskly. “Just a passing thought. We’ll get everyone safely to—where were you all going?”
“A place called Cerr Cawnen,” Berwynna said. “I know not where that be.”
“A good long ways ahead of us, that’s where, at least a hundred miles away, maybe two.”
Berwynna said nothing, but her mouth slackened, and her eyes filled with tears. With a little frown she wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
“Then we’d best start soon, hadn’t we?” she said.
“I like your spirit, lass, but I’ve got a better idea. Let me talk with Mic and your caravan leader. If we head straight south, we’ll reach safety far sooner. Have you ever heard of the Westfolk?”
“I have.” She started to say more, then choked it back. A look he could only call terror flitted across her face.
“What’s wrong?” Rori said.
“Naught.” Her bright smile came back, but he noticed the knife trembling in her grasp. “I just be so weary, Da, and so sad, too, thinking of my Dougie dead and gone.”
“No doubt! Well, the prince of the Westfolk sent me off to scout for Horsekin. I’m to meet him at a place called Twenty Streams Rock, which is—” He paused to work out how long the journey would be for a caravan rather than a dragon. “Well, five or six days away rather than thrice that number. I’ll escort you there, and then we’ll decide what to do next.”
“My thanks.” She walked over to him and with her free hand stroked him on the jaw. “I always did think I’d run to my da’s arms one fine day.”
“At the moment I don’t have any, alas. But here, don’t look so distressed. Someday mayhap I’ll become a man again. There are powerful sorcerers among the Westfolk, and they tell me that they might be able to discover how to reverse the spell.”
Berwynna flinched, looked away, looked back, then suddenly turned and ran back to camp. As she climbed the hill, she passed Mic and a Cerr Cawnen man, who came on down to greet him. Mic introduced the fellow as Richt, the new caravan master.
“My master in the craft, Aethel,” Richt said, “he be dead, alas.”
“That saddens my heart to hear,” Rori said. “Now, I owe you my thanks for saving my daughter’s life.”
Richt made an odd noise, half a laugh, half a yelp of terror. “Ye gods!” His voice shook. “It be true, then. Our Berwynna, she be a dragon’s spawn.”
“Not precisely,” Mic said.