The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [150]
Garin stared at him, his mouth slack, his eyes wide. With a snort, Brel hurried off, snapping orders in Dwarvish. Laz felt so drained that he might have fallen asleep right where he sat, but he shook himself and rose to a kneel.
“The Northlands were crawling with Horsekin raiding parties when last I rode through them,” Laz said to Garin. “And one of those messages you had me read said they were sending reinforcements to the Boars. For all we know, their line of march could cross ours.”
“So it might.” Garin spoke barely above a whisper. “My apologies.”
To spare the envoy the sight of him, Laz returned to the small tent that he and Faharn shared. In the light from the campfires around them, Faharn built a little fire of their own. Laz lit it by summoning a salamander, who obligingly caught the tinder, then settled down to bask in the flames.
“I was thinking of flying to take a look around,” Laz said, “but I’m not sure where I can find the privacy to transform. I doubt if the guards around the camp will let me past, much less let me get back again.”
“What?” Faharn grinned at him. “You don’t want to give everyone the surprise of their lives?”
“It might be amusing, seeing the looks on their faces when a huge raven flew up from the middle of their camp, but I think that’s an amusement we can forgo.”
“Why not just scry from the etheric?”
“A good point. Perhaps I will.” Yet the thought made Laz profoundly uneasy. While he couldn’t say why, the thought of attempting that particular bit of dweomer filled him with dread.
Another surprise did stir the camp, however, not long after. When he was setting the sentries, Brel had climbed out of the valley holding the camp. Off to the west he’d spotted a fire glow, some miles distant but unmistakable. As he watched, the glow had held steady, indicating not a wildfire but another camp.
“Way out here,” Laz remarked, “that means Horsekin.”
“Most likely,” Faharn said. “Just our luck! I don’t suppose it could be an innocent hunting party or suchlike.”
“Would the gods be so kind? I doubt it.”
Curiosity conquered the dread and drove Laz to find out just who was sitting around those fires off to the west. He posted Faharn as a guard, then went into their tent and lay down on his blankets. He decided that the only way to overcome his reluctance about scrying in the etheric double was to attempt it. He reminded himself that he had only a short distance to go and that no rivers or other running water intervened.
He crossed his arms over his chest and breathed deeply and slowly. Once he felt the trance take him over, he summoned his body of light, which he’d constructed as a simple man shape in the manner of most dweomermasters. What came to him, however, was a simulacrum of the raven, pale blue yet recognizable, and joined to his body by the silver cord. Laz banished it, broke the trance, and sat up. He was shaking, he realized, trembling like a man with palsy.
Faharn stuck his head into the tent. “Did you call me?” he said. “I thought I heard a yelp or something like one.”
“Did you? I wasn’t aware of making one.”
“Must have been someone else, then.”
Faharn withdrew. Laz got up and joined him at the campfire.
“I’m too tired to risk scrying tonight.” The statement was true enough, Laz decided. What else would have caused him to confuse his various magical forms in such an unexpected way? “The morrow will doubtless be soon enough.”
On the morrow, at the first light of dawn, Brel Avro sent a man up the hill whilst the rest of the camp packed up their gear. The scout came back with the report that indeed, he’d spotted a plume of smoke or perhaps dust rising close to the spot where Brel had seen fire the night past. Laz sought out Brel, who was discussing the situation with Garin.
“We’ve got two choices,” Brel said. “We can try to sneak around them, which won’t be easy. There’s about two hundred of us, and that means dust and noise. We’re too close