The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [50]
“The horses!” Andariel was calling out in what amounted to bad Gaulish, words he’d learned from Rhodorix. “Round up the horses!”
Blood-spattered and grim, the swordsmen followed orders. Andariel urged his foaming, dancing horse up to Rhodorix’s mount.
“Well, that’s a few less Meradan in the world,” the captain said through the crystal. “Once we catch these horses, let’s head back to the fortress.”
“What about the bodies?” Rhodorix said.
“Leave them for the ravens and foxes. They don’t deserve anything better.”
With the captured horses came an equally valuable prize, a leather saddlebag with painted insignia upon it, the ship crest of the Prince of Rinbaladelan. One of the guardsmen handed it to the captain, who opened it and peered inside.
“Messages,” Andariel hissed. “What happened to the messengers, then?”
“What do you think?” Rhodorix said. “They must be dead.”
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t the farseers tell us about the messengers? We might have saved their lives.”
“Good question,” Rhodorix said. “Maybe the savages can hide from magic. Maybe they have magic of their own.”
The color drained from Andariel’s face. Rhodorix abruptly realized that the captain—and doubtless the entire fortress—had been considering magic an important weapon on their side.
“I could be wrong,” Rhodorix said. “Be that as it may, we’d better get these back to the prince.”
“Just so. Let’s ride.”
Leading their captured horses, the guardsmen rode back to Garangbeltangim. As they entered the gates, half the servants in the fort rushed out to cheer the riders, blood-spattered and exhausted, but victors in their tiny battle. Everyone had been desperate for some kind of victory, Rhodorix realized, so desperate that the insight gave him a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. Maybe they could find and kill a few bands of raiders, but what would happen if his pitiful handful of mounted guardsmen had to face an army?
Andariel insisted that Rhodorix accompany him when he took the captured messages to the prince. They found Ranadar in his great hall, sitting on the dais with his advisers, all of them lounging in chairs around a small inlaid wooden table and drinking from golden cups. Rhodorix wondered which ones were the mages. All three of the men with the prince looked too young, too smooth and handsome to be learned councillors to a cadvridoc. He realized that he’d not seen one old person in the entire fortress, though Hwilli had certainly implied that her master in herbcraft had reached some great age.
Rhodorix and Andariel knelt before the prince, who leaned down to take the saddlebag from them. When he showed his advisers the crest, they all leaned forward, faces suddenly grim. Ranadar handed the messages to the nearest one, then spoke to Andariel. Rhodorix could pick out a few words and phrases of what the prince said, and he understood even more of the captain’s report of the skirmish, since he of course knew what had happened. The prince listened, nodding now and then. Behind him the adviser was reading through the messages; as he finished a sheet, he handed it over to the next man at the table. All of them had turned grim as death itself.
When he finished, Andariel handed Ranadar the white crystal, apparently at the prince’s request. Ranadar turned to Rhodorix.
“I’m well pleased with how you’ve served me,” the prince said. “From now on, you shall have the title of horsemaster and be an honored man among us.”
“My thanks, honored rhix,” Rhodorix said, “but at least half the honor goes to Andariel. He’s the one who thought of the new saddles, and without them, we couldn’t fight half as well.”
“Indeed!” Ranadar turned to Andariel. “Then you’re too modest by half, my friend.”
Andariel smiled, but his eyes looked suspiciously moist. Rhodorix could guess that the prince rarely referred to