The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [194]
‘Good.’ Calonderiel pulled off his pot helm and pushed his sweat-soaked hair back from his face with both hands, leaving a smear of blood across his forehead. ‘Why don’t you go back to our tent and hide from all this? By now you’ve either treated the worst wounded, or they’re dead.’
Dallandra allowed him to help her up. Although she was tempted to lean on him, she shook herself free of his offered embrace. ‘I’m not that tired,’ she said. ‘I need to go back and see—Wait! There’s Ebañy heading our way.’
Salamander trotted up, carrying a blood-stained sack. Blood crusted on his sleeves and soaked the front of his shirt.
‘Your friend?’ Dalla said in Elvish.
‘Is dead.’ Salamander tossed his head, then spasmed with a racking cough that ended when he spat up black rheum. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘Here are the so-called holy relics.’
Salamander shoved the sack into her arms, then trotted off, dodging among the other men. He truly loved her, didn’t he? She watched him till she could see him no longer.
‘Dalla!’ Calonderiel grabbed her arm. ‘You should go back to our tent.’
‘I’ll go back if you go.’
‘You know I can’t do that.’ His mouth went slack, and he looked away. ‘Too many of our men are dead. I’ve at least got to go speak to the wounded.’
‘And I’ve got to do what I can for them. Let’s go tend them together.’
Calonderiel had told her the truth about his wound. When she finally got a chance to examine his arm, she saw that a blow from the trailing edge of a falcata had landed with enough force to split the skin through his padding and mail, but the cuts were shallow and easily stitched. His mood, however, would take far more time to heal. He glowered and swore revenge for every dead man, for every wound any of his men had taken until he became a walking pillar of rage and little more.
With Calonderiel to worry over and so many wounded men to attend, Dalla had no chance to open the sack of relics that day or night. By then, with the fires beaten out, the army had chased down and slaughtered every Horsekin and human straggler from the fortress that they could find. In the morning, the various lords sent a pack of messengers off on their way back to Deverry with the news. Dallandra had already used dweomer to send messages from Prince Daralanteriel to Valandario and through her, to Princess Carra and the others at Mandra.
While Dallandra and the chirurgeons did their best to save the wounded, and the warbands buried the men they failed to save, the princes, the gwerbret, and all their lords held a long council of war. Calonderiel told her of their decisions that evening. They were eating a scrappy dinner of stale flatbread and mouldy cheese, augmented by a couple of chunks of stewed horsemeat, in their tent.
‘The Roundears are probably still arguing,’ Cal said. ‘Prince Voran’s come up with a splendid idea, but Ridvar doesn’t like it. It’ll cost him taxes.’
‘Let me guess,’ Dallandra said. ‘The prince thinks Honelg’s old dun is indefensible.’
‘Right you are, my clever darling! He wants the Mountain Folk to take it over.’
‘Now that I’d never have guessed. The Mountain Folk?’
‘Why not? They maintain farming villages not all that far east of it. They could join those up with a dun or one of their underground fortresses and form a northern line of defence.’
‘But what about Gerran and his new clan?’
‘That’s where the lost taxes come in. He’d become a vassal of Tieryn Cadryc and be given a new dun on the Melyn river somewhere. That area needs fortifying against raiders anyway. It would be to our advantage as well, having allies right there to call upon in the future.’
‘So it would. Do you want some more of this bread?’
‘I do, my thanks. So here’s the thing that had Ridvar soiling his brigga. Voran wants Cadryc to change allegiance and become Prince Dar’s vassal. And of course, all of Cadryc’s vassals will come with him.’
‘I can’t imagine Ridvar allowing that.’
‘He’ll have to.’ Calonderiel paused to grin. ‘Otherwise, the high king will create a new gwerbretrhyn just to the south of