The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [95]
They had come up onto a fairly flat stretch of tableland, a good many miles wide, she decided, since it ran from horizon to horizon. Nearby stood a copse of straggly second-growth pine trees. Enj took his pack and walking stick, then set off, heading south. The rest of them got Otho into the shade of the trees and set about making camp.
Yet, as it turned out, they had no need to camp. Enj had barely disappeared into the glare of the horizon when Berwynna noticed a cloud of dust at the same spot. Quickly it resolved itself into Enj, a pair of mules, and a squad of Mountain Folk, all coming their way. At first Berwynna thought that the men were carrying unusually long walking sticks, but when the sun glittered on the flat blades at the end of each handle, she realized that she was seeing war axes, the weapons her mother had so often mentioned in her tales of the homeland.
“Ye gods!” Mic said. “I wonder how they got here so fast?”
Enj announced the answer to that question as soon as he came close enough to shout. “Someone saw our boats on the river,” he said. “So they sent guards to investigate.”
“And welcome they are!” Mic stepped forward to greet the leader of the squad. “Pel! Ye gods, you’re a grown man now!”
The man called Pel laughed aloud and came striding up to them. Instead of an ax, he carried a short-bladed sword. Judging from the way he used it to point at things while he called out orders, it marked him as the squad’s officer. He was a solid-looking fellow, with dark hair and a messy dark beard straggling over his chin and neck.
“You’ve been gone a long time, Mic,” Pel said, smiling. “I was just a sprout, not even thirty, when you up and disappeared on us.” He turned to Berwynna and bowed. “Greetings, my lady. Enj tells us that you hail from Haen Marn.”
“I do, indeed.” Berwynna dropped him a curtsy in answer to his bow. “And this is my betrothed, Douglas of Alban.”
Pel looked at Dougie—looked up at him, in fact, as if he were surveying a tree—and bowed to him as well.
“He doesn’t speak the Mountain language,” Berwynna went on, “but I’ve been teaching him some of the tongue that Deverry men speak.”
“Well and good, then.” Pel spoke in that language. “Welcome to Dwarveholt, Douglas.”
“My thanks,” Dougie said. “It glads—it gladdens my heart to meet you.”
Pel in turn introduced the other men in the squad, but so quickly that Berwynna could remember none of their names. She contented herself with smiling as the men milled around, fussing over Otho, who spoke pleasantly to some of them.
“The old man actually looks happy,” Dougie whispered to her. “The end of the world must be near or suchlike.”
Berwynna stifled a laugh.
For the trip to Lin Serr, Berwynna and Otho shared one of the mules while the rest of the men walked. Just at sunset they reached the farm Enj had mentioned, a cluster of wooden buildings. A high stone wall separated it from its fields, just bursting with the green life of young grain.
“By the gods!” Mic said. “This place looks like a Deverry dun.”
“There’s a reason for that.” Pel glanced at Berwynna and lowered his voice. “I’ll tell you later. It’s more than a bit grim.”
Berwynna was about to protest that she didn’t need sheltering from grim truths, but their hosts, a noisy troop of about twenty young men of the Mountain Folk, had flung open the gates and were inviting them in. When they heard that Berwynna came from Haen Marn, they all bowed to her and her alone.
“Come in, come in, my lady.” The man who spoke seemed older than the rest. “Welcome to our humble house.”
With its rough plank floor and whitewashed walls, their great hall may have been humble, but it seemed like luxury after the river trip. A big hearth graced one wall, and a plank table ran down the length of the room. On the wall opposite the hearth hung a row of double axes, gleaming in the sunset light that came in the windows.
As the evening went on, Berwynna realized