The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [95]
“What?” Dallandra nearly dropped her tongs in surprise. “Just like that?”
“Snap of my fingers, if I had any.” The dragon paused to rumble with laughter. “He spun in a circle, danced if you can call it that, on his short legs. Then this peculiar blue light flashed around the otter-thing, and a man stood there.”
His laughter had dislodged the leech. Dallandra used the tongs to pick it out of the grass.
“Did you see the other otter change?” She dropped the leech back into the water then took out one of its fellows. When she held the fresh leech up to the wound, it grabbed hold with its smaller mouth and began to feed on the sour flesh with the larger.
“I didn’t. It stayed in the water. Now, there was a third fellow on the riverbank, but he was different-looking. I was far too high to see him clearly, but he looked like one of the Mountain Folk.”
Berwynna gasped, and Mic cried out. He clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle the noise.
“Think you it could be Kov?” Berwynna said to her uncle. “My Dougie—” Her voice caught, but she continued on. “My Dougie did wonder if Kov were truly dead, or if he were mayhap taken for a slave or such.”
Mic lowered his hand; he was smiling, his eyes full of sudden hope. “Maybe it’s so,” he said. “Ah ye gods, maybe he’s still alive.”
“I can find out easily enough,” Dallandra said. “I remember him quite well, so I can scry for him.”
“I’d be truly grateful if you did,” Mic said.
Dallandra looked up at the sky, where a few streaks of high cloud offered a focus. When she thought of Kov, his image built up quickly, though at first she had trouble identifying him, since the only light, and that a peculiar blue, came from glowing baskets.
“He’s in a dark tunnel with an absolute mob of other people,” Dallandra said. “I can’t tell if they’re asleep or just resting, but they all seem to have big bundles and baskets and the like with them. Refugees from the Horsekin? It could be.” She banished the vision. “He looks very much alive to me, Mic.”
Tears welled in Mic’s eyes. He wiped them vigorously away on his sleeve. “Then I’ve got to head back north,” Mic said. “He’s my bloodkin, distantly, perhaps, but bloodkin nonetheless, and it’s my duty to ransom him.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Rori broke in. “There are bands of Horsekin raiders all over the countryside.”
“But—”
“Uncle Mic?” Berwynna laid her hand on Mic’s arm. “Remember you when I did wish to go haring off across the countryside to find Da’s book? You did tell me then that the danger were too great. It be worse now, from what Da does tell us.”
Caught, Mic looked back and forth between his niece and the dragon, then nodded. “Well and good, then,” Mic said. “But how do we know that the danger won’t come his way?”
“We don’t,” Dallandra said. “It’s in the laps of the gods.” She frowned at the dragon’s side, where the leeches were finishing up their work. “As is this wretched wound, apparently. I think I’ll have Neb take a look at it.”
Once she finished tending to Rori, Dallandra returned to camp. She found Neb, told him that she wanted him to examine the dragon’s wound at some point, then went to her tent to nurse a hungry Dari.
Late that afternoon, in a flourish of silver horns, the hunting party rode back to camp with venison to distribute. Prince Daralanteriel and Calonderiel turned their horses over to Pir to rub down and put out with the herd. Dallandra followed the pair as they hurried out to speak with Rori, who was lounging in the high grass on the opposite side of camp from the herd and the flocks. While Pir’s dweomer was gradually accustoming the horses to the scent and sight of dragon, the sheep lacked the capacity to learn, and Pir knew nothing of ovine ways.
The two leaders joined Rori in the grass to hear his detailed report. A few at a time, other members of the alar gathered around as well, squatting down in the golden sunlight of late afternoon. When Rori described the old cities of the Far West, everyone sighed. A few of the men brushed