The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [172]
Apparently Prince Voran agreed with him, because he set a ring of sentries around the camp, made up of pairs of swordsmen, one Deverry, one Westfolk. As he usually did, Gerran volunteered for the worst watch in the middle of the night. Much to his surprise, Calonderiel appeared to stand it with him.
‘I didn’t think a banadar would have to stand a watch,’ Gerran said.
‘He doesn’t,’ Calonderiel said. ‘Neither does a noble lord, but here we are.’
That night the moon shone nearly full, but in the gauzy light Gerran could see only a short way beyond their position. Calonderiel, of course, suffered no such limits. With his drawn sword he pointed towards the south.
‘According to Lady Grallezar,’ Cal said, ‘a couple of miles along we’ll meet a road that runs west to Braemel. If any reinforcements are on the way, that’s where they’ll arrive.’
‘If we’re between them and the fortress,’ Gerran said, ‘we’ll be pinned.’
‘Exactly. The dragons will be flying sweeps to the west, and I thank the Star Goddesses for that, too. But we’ll need some sort of a plan if they do see another army coming.’
‘Just so.’ Gerran turned to the west and took a good look at the broken field of stumps and litter. In the dim light he had trouble distinguishing one lump from another. If I had a torch, he thought, I—. ‘Oh horseshit!’ he snarled. ‘So that’s what’s been bothering me.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Tinder and firewood, banadar. There’s a nearly a mile of tinder and firewood right next to our camp. What if the Horsekin drop a torch or two into it?’
Calonderiel let fly with a string of Elvish oaths, then pulled his silver horn from his belt. ‘A good point,’ he said mildly, then raised the horn and blew the three harsh notes of the alarum, over and over until the camp woke, shouting.
Cursing and muttering, men rolled out of their blankets, pulled on boots, grabbed weapons, and came running. Each time a couple of men arrived, Calonderiel expanded the ring of sentries. Westfolk he sent ahead, swords or longbows at the ready, while the Deverry men stumbled along behind. Warleader Brel collected his axemen and headed downriver, fanning out as they did so into the wooden rubble. Since his vision was so limited, Gerran stuck close to Calonderiel as he trotted back and forth along the crescent-shaped line. At last the sentries reached the edge of the dead wood and took up posts that looked into green, damp forest.
Gerran and Calonderiel had just returned to the road after walking the newly placed sentry ring when, ahead to the south, shouting broke out, the deep voices of the Mountain Folk and a sudden scream that might have come from a human or Horsekin throat. Calonderiel began yelling in Elvish, a cry that brought archers and swordsmen both racing to him. They all took off running down the Rhwmani road so fast that Gerran was hard-pressed to keep up. He was gasping for breath by the time they reached the Mountain Folk.
In the moonlight Gerran could see a shallow river or large stream flowing from the west, parallel to another Rhwmani road leading west towards the mountains—towards Braemel, he assumed. The water crossed their path and plunged down over the canyon’s edge to join the Galan Targ below. The road itself made a sharp turn upstream, away from the cliff edge, to cross a wooden bridge, swarming at the moment with Mountain Folk. With a couple of barked orders Calonderiel sent archers to join them. Two Mountain Folk appeared out of the mob in the road and hurried over to the banadar. It wasn’t until they came close that Gerran recognized Brel Avro.
‘Good thinking, banadar,’ the warleader said in Deverrian. ‘We caught some of the Horsekin trying to fire that bridge. The sparks would have spread north quick enough.’
‘Thank Gerran here.’ Calonderiel jerked his thumb in Gerran’s direction. ‘He’s the one who realized we were sleeping next to enough wood to roast the lot of us.’
‘Good lad!’ Brel said to Gerran. ‘I’ll see that the princes know your name.’
‘No need for that,’ Gerran said. ‘I would have roasted along with everyone else.’