The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [151]
“We’re not even sure that they’re Horsekin,” Garin said. “We certainly don’t know how many of them there are.”
“That’s true.” Brel looked straight at Laz. “I wonder if our loremaster here can find out.”
Laz had the quick and dishonorable impulse to say no, he couldn’t. The memory of the peculiar behavior of his body of light made his chest turn tight and cold. But—another memory kept troubling him, the sincere, grave look in Mara’s eyes when she’d warned him against walking an evil path.
“I probably can,” Laz said. “I’ll need some kind of private space to work in, somewhere invisible from the camp.”
“Among the trees?” Brel turned and pointed to the hillside. “I’ll take a couple of axemen, and we’ll stand guard for you.”
“Done, then,” Laz said. “I warn you, though. Don’t be surprised at what you might see or hear.”
They found a shrubby thicket of sorts about halfway up the hill, with a clearing just large enough to allow the raven access to the sky. The axemen took up places among the trees with their backs to him. Laz stripped and transformed, then considered the opening above him. He hopped back to the edge of the clearing, took a deep breath, and flew, as vertically as he could manage. With a squawk the raven just cleared the grasping branches of the trees and winged free into the morning.
Laz saw the plume of smoke immediately and headed straight west. About a mile away he found a camp full of Horsekin, a gloomy prediction come true. He circled it several times then flew back to the valley. When he reached the clearing, he heard the guards shouting below in Dwarvish, but he could understand the alarm and surprise in their voices well enough. They had seen him. He landed in the clearing far more easily than he’d flown out of it, then transformed back into man-shape.
Brel and Garin trotted into the clearing while Laz was still dressing.
“Well?” Brel said.
“Horsekin, indeed, about a hundred of them.” Laz finished lacing up his brigga, a slow process with his maimed hands, and took his shirt from the ground. “Some, of course, would be slaves and servants, but most were putting on armor and buckling on weapons, falcatas, I assume. I was too high to see things that small.”
Garin crossed his fingers in the sign of warding against witchcraft. Laz pulled his shirt over his head, then sat down beside his boots.
“I’ll help you with those.” Garin knelt down in front of him.
“My thanks. They are the one thing that I have real trouble with. I just can’t get a good grip on them to pull them up.”
Brel looked off into the distance and stroked his beard. “About of a hundred, eh?” he said eventually. “We can take them, then. How battle-ready were they?”
“Their horses were still on tether.”
“Good. That gives us a little time to fortify the camp. What’s the terrain like beyond the hill?”
“A flattish valley, a stream with thick underbrush along the banks.”
“That’ll do.” Brel strode off, shouting in Dwarvish—orders to his men, Laz assumed.
Once Garin had got Laz’s boots on, they walked back to the camp, where a few of the men were pulling the handcarts into a rough circle. The servants were striking the tents and tossing them into the middle of the circle along with packets of supplies and bedrolls. Laz spotted Faharn, helping haul carts. The fighting men were pulling on chain mail and readying their war axes.
“We’ll stay here,” Garin said.
“Good,” Laz said. “I used to have a little skill with a sword, not much, truly, but some. Now I can barely hold one.”
Brel left twenty-five axemen behind to guard the camp, then led the rest up the hill. Laz watched them as they reached the crest and went over, marching down out of sight one tight rank at a time. Faharn and the servants joined Laz and Garin inside the circle. The axemen left on guard disposed themselves around the perimeter.
Laz sat down in the shade of one of the carts and looked up at the sky, streaked with a few pale clouds, shimmering with heat haze. When he opened