The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [119]
“Tell me somewhat,” Dallandra said. “Alshandra’s Elect traveled long distances to spread the word, didn’t they?”
“Very long, truly.” Sidro laid her mending into her lap. “We did call ourselves Alshandra’s messengers and speak of our duty to let all hear of her.”
“Do you know if anyone went to Cerr Cawnen?”
“Not to the town itself, though it be the place where the Holy Witness Raena did die. Lakanza did warn us away from there, saying the folk were too savage and too inclined to murder any Gel da’Thae on sight.”
“Er, that wasn’t true, you know. Cerr Cawnen had an alliance with Grallezar’s people.”
“Never did they tell us that! The rakzanir, they did lie and lie again.” Sidro set her lips tight in disgust.
“From everything you’ve told me about them, I’m not surprised. But what about the villages near Cerr Cawnen, like Penli, for instance?”
“Well, truly, that be a name I did hear. I think me one of us, Rocca most like, did go there.”
“My thanks.” Dallandra stood up, glancing around her. “Have you seen Cal?”
“He did take Dari with him but a little while ago. He were going to the edge of camp to do somewhat, he did tell me, and thought she should have a bit of sun.”
Dallandra found them both out in the grass. Dari was on her stomach on a blanket and solemnly watching her father straighten arrow shafts. One at a time, he pulled them through a hole drilled in the flat part of a deer’s shoulder blade.
“Cal?” Dallandra said. “I have some nasty news. I just spoke with Niffa through the fire.”
Cal looked up and squinted at her. She realized that the late afternoon sun hung in the sky behind her and moved around to his other side while he laid his work aside. She sat down next to him in the grass, then picked Dari up and settled her in her arms.
“What’s this news?” Cal said.
“Alshandra worship has reached the farms near Cerr Cawnen.”
“Oh, by the Black Sun!” Calonderiel said. “It spreads like a plague.”
“So it does. Niffa met a man from Penli, that’s the village just south of the town, if you remember, who’s at least heard of Alshandra. Sidro said that a priestess had visited them. Niffa suspects that he’s a convert of sorts, but she’s not entirely sure. He was afraid of her, but then, he might merely be afraid of what they call ‘witch lore.’ Many people are, after all.”
“It’s nasty news either way. I’ll tell the prince. I think we’d best hurry everyone along and get to Cerr Cawnen as soon as we can.”
“My thought exactly. One thing is clear. Whether Laz can fetch the book or not, Rori’s transformation will have to wait. The danger’s so thick around us that I can barely breathe.”
“A bad omen in itself. Where is Laz, by the by? And what about Voran?”
Dallandra used the sky as a focus and found them together, the prince at the head of a long convoy of riders and dwarven axemen, Laz back toward the end among the servants and wagons with Faharn beside him.
“They’ve left Tren’s dun,” she told him. “Beyond that, I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s hope they’re off to attack some Horsekin,” Cal said. “Exactly where or which ones doesn’t matter all that much to me.”
When Prince Voran and Brel Avro led out their combined forces, they headed straight east from the dun. For the first day the land ran through fallow farmland and past the deserted homesteads that had once belonged to Tren’s vassals. Soon they’d be farmed again, by men of the Mountain Folk, or so some of the royal servants told Laz.
“His highness settled this land upon them,” the quartermaster said, “in return for the part they played in last summer’s wars.”
On the second day the terrain began to rise, gently at first, but soon enough it turned rugged. Broken hills, gashed by steep ravines and white water creeks, formed a line of natural defenses for the Boar territories that lay beyond. Without the Mountain Folk and their axes and picks, the army of horsemen would have had to turn back.