The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [195]
Dallandra found that she could still laugh. ‘Grallezar always calls Voran sly. It’s a good word for him.’
‘Yes, it is.’ Calonderiel returned the grin. ‘Now, tomorrow the entire army’s pulling back to the place where that road to Braemel joins the river. Day after that, part of it will retreat further, across the ford and some miles east.’
‘Only part of it?’
‘Yes. We’ll be sending the wounded back under heavy guard. The rest of us will stay and wait.’ He paused to scrape green mould from a chunk of cheese.
‘Wait for what?’
‘The Horsekin reinforcements. The dragons killed a couple of men we missed who were trying to get back to their cities, but I’m certain that some will make it back, the ones with the wits to reach the forest. The dragons can’t follow them there, and we can’t ride in after them, either.’
‘And when they reach the cities?’
‘I can’t believe the reserve forces won’t march out immediately.’ Calonderiel looked up with a sunny grin. ‘This is our chance to deal them a blow they’ll remember for years, Dalla. The more we kill now, the more time we’ll have to fortify duns along the Melyn. If the People are going to survive, we have to have somewhere to retreat to if—no, when—these shit-ugly savages break out onto the grasslands again.’ He stabbed the now-clean cheese wedge with his table dagger and gestured with it. ‘And you know they will.’
‘Yes, I suppose I do. Are you going to stay?’
‘Of course. I’m the banadar.’
By sheer dint of will Dallandra managed to keep from shedding angry tears. With the fortress destroyed, she had thought the worst over, but the worst was refusing to end.
‘I’ll stay with you,’ she said. ‘Some of our men might well be wounded, and you’ll need a healer here who understands the People. I can send two of my assistants back with the others.’
‘Good. We’ll need you.’
Her gratitude that he would say only the simple truth surprised her. Praise or fulsome thanks would have sickened her, she realized, but all of a sudden she lost her appetite, especially for tough, stringy horsemeat. She handed him the rest of her dinner to finish, then made a dweomer light and hung it near the smokehole.
‘What’s that for?’ Calonderiel said with his mouth full.
‘The holy relics from Zakh Gral. I haven’t even looked at them yet.’
‘You know, those might be useful. No doubt their wretched priestesses will want them back. They could give us something to bargain with in the future.’
‘Perhaps. Some of them should be destroyed.’
Dallandra found the sack and sat down with it under the light. She opened it and pulled out a lumpy bundle wrapped in the banner made of Salamander’s old shirt.
‘I can’t believe they thought that prattling dolt had worked a miracle,’ Calonderiel said.
‘They wanted a miracle very badly, is why they believed it.’ One fold at a time, Dallandra unwrapped the relics and laid them onto a leather cushion beside her. In the dweomer light the golden bow and arrow glittered with a normal metallic sheen.
‘Now, these I won’t mind turning over to you, if you think they’ll be useful,’ Dallandra said. ‘They’re just ordinary objects. So’s this.’ She picked up a wooden box inlaid with spirals and opened it to reveal the so-called wyvern knife. ‘But here’s Yraen’s silver dagger.’ Dallandra handed the box to Calonderiel. ‘They shan’t have that back. They stole it in the first place. Give it to Gerran, I’d say. None of us can touch the thing without it blazing like a fire.’
‘Oh, it might come in handy on a dark night.’
‘I doubt if you want to use it for a torch. I’m not sure how it affects us, but I suspect it sucks out life force to fuel the light.’
‘Very well, out it goes.’ Calonderiel was scowling into the open box. ‘I’ll see if Gerran wants it. A silver dagger’s something of an insult among the Roundears, though.’
‘It’s too bad we don’t know where Yraen’s buried, or we could put it in his grave. Otherwise, I don’t know what to do with it. One of the Mountain Folk