Eric Flint - This Rough Magic

The Greek peasant woman managed a tremulous laugh. "I can ride. My uncle was a groom for Count Di Valva. The Count wasn't there very often. Where is this place you wish to find? I can probably get you in the right direction, at least." Underneath her shock and her grief, she was recovering some hope, and only because they had not offered to abandon her.

Erik nodded. "You ride, then. Benito can cling on like a tick behind you. The estate is somewhere near a place called Giannades. Do you have any idea where that is?"

She nodded. "I haven't been there. But it is to the west of Kerkira."

She went over to the horse and shortened the stirrups quickly and efficiently; clearly she knew what she was doing. Then she hitched up her skirts in a most unladylike but very practical way, and mounted with an ease that Benito envied.

"It's best that she does something," Erik said, quietly. "She's ready to go to pieces, Benito. She's like a glass that's cracked to bits; one touch, and she'll shatter."

"I'm not surprised."

Erik sighed worriedly. "That could be what happened to my Svanhild. Come on, let's go. If you look over at Kerkira, you'll see Emeric has troops coming in by the column. That's a good few thousand men down there. We should move before they get too organized, never mind before they notice a couple of missing Croats."

Caesare Aldanto's body slept. Long, long ago Chernobog had learned this was a necessity. They died quickly if you did not allow them to rest.

Caesare lay on a cot in the tent that had been allocated to him, and twitched occasionally, as a dog might when dreaming.

Chernobog's other dog, yellow and feral, prowled the hills. The shaman had been told to look for holy places, to sniff them out so they could be rededicated.

It should have been easy. It was proving impossible. The smell of magic was easy enough to find. The trouble was… everywhere reeked of it. Up in the wind-tumbled sky his two aerial eyes flew hither and yon, looking for groves. Or temples. Or even standing stones.

So far, all he'd seen through their infinite detail-seeing eyes were churches. The shaman-dog shivered, thinking about those. His master could and no doubt would rededicate some of those to his purpose, but it was a dangerous process, and there was that about them which struck at him. He could, of course, strike back… but that could easily draw the attention of the master's adversary. And the shaman was not ready for that.

The shaman-dog stumbled and sneezed. Pollen. It seemed as if every plant on this accursed island was flowering. Like the magic of this place, the pollen was in the air everywhere.

He left the roadway in haste. Horses, and a double-span of donkeys struggling to drag a heavy cannon, were coming along it. Horses took a great aversion to this body-form. They would smell him out and chase and kick him if they could. This road was busy with troops and cannons coming along it. By evening at least a third of the guns would be in place. Already the pounding thunder was beginning. The shaman wrinkled his nose in distaste. He didn't like the smell of gunpowder either. It was a new thing. The shaman hated new things.

"It's not that serious, Hildi!" Bjarni's voice was gruff, but underneath the impatience was affection, she could tell. "Just a few fragments of rock knocked off by a bullet. Head wounds always bleed like mad. Don't fuss about it. Just bandage it up so that when Kari or Gulta come back with a way out of here for us we can go. We might have to leave the horses."

"But they are such beautiful horses!" Svanhild protested, wrapping a torn section of her petticoat around her brother's head and ear. Now she was glad she had some of those travesties of Venetian gowns that her brothers had insisted she have made up. The masses of petticoats made excellent bandages. "If we leave them behind-those Magyars-"

"They won't be hurt. It's us they're after, not the horses." Bjarni managed a strained chuckle. "Actually, those brutes treat their horses better than they treat their wives. The horses will probably be better off with them."

Gulta and Kari scrambled down into the cave mouth. "There's only one other way out, like I said, Bjarni. And they've got people up there. Rolled a rock down on us."

"But there are a good few caves up there," said Gulta. "Looks like one of them is used. We could hide Svanhild up there."

Svanhild raised herself up. "I can shoot better than most of the men. And I will stand with my clan, not hide up in some other cave. We cannot get out of this valley? Well, so what? They cannot get in, either. We have food and water. Let them sit out there."

She did not add that if her brothers and hearthmen died, and she were hiding in a cave, her best option would be to fling herself off the side of the mountain.

"And tonight we'll slip out and cut a few throats," said Kari evilly.

Bjarni regarded him with a jaundiced eye. "Well, if they can get to shoot into the cave mouth the ricochets will kill us."

"Without being able to shoot around corners they'll hard pressed to do that," pointed out Hrolf. "From the lip over there we can target anyone who comes into the valley. They can't even roll rocks onto us. And there is not enough growing here to burn properly."

Bjarni sniffed. "They don't have to. They'll smoke us out."

The villa was still standing as Erik and Benito rode toward it. Not torched, as most of the others they'd seen so far. The presence of Thalia, the peasant girl they'd rescued, had a very beneficial effect. They'd been forced to the back paths and side roads by patrols. She had actually managed to draw the hastily hiding or fleeing peasants back to them to get some directions. They would have struggled to find their way, otherwise.

Erik kicked his horse into a gallop when the villa Dentico came in sight, and rode straight up to it, as hard and as fast as he could make the horse gallop.

Benito, clinging to Thalia as she followed Erik, knew from Erik's own lectures that this was plain foolishness. He also knew stopping Erik would be beyond his ability.

Besides, Thalia was the one in control of this four-hoofed bollock-cruncher, not him. He was just trying to stay on.

Erik dismounted in a leap, and ran into the house calling "Svanhild! Svanhild!" at the top of his lungs. Alerting every single enemy within hearing distance, or lying in wait in the villa, that there was someone up here. Benito winced; he had expected nothing less.

Erik did at least have that tomahawk in his hand.

Benito dismounted with as much skill as he could muster, and pelted after Erik. "Catch his horse. And stay out here!" he shouted to Thalia. What he expected to find in there would be no sight for her. He raced into the villa with the Shetlander knife in his hand, wishing desperately for his rapier.

However, what Benito found was merely Erik, examining some bloodstains in the hallway. The blood had long since dried and gone a reddish brown, but a fair amount of it was splattered onto the whitewashed walls in various spots. There had been a lot of killing done here.

Benito swallowed. "Erik. I'm sorry."

But to his astonishment, Erik smiled at him. "It wasn't their blood. Or at least, not all their blood."

He ventured closer, and peered at the bloodstains as Erik was doing. He couldn't see how Erik could tell anything from them. "Vinlander blood is a different color?" ventured Benito.

Erik swatted his ear. From past comparative experience, Benito knew he was doing it gently. "No, you young idiot. There are no bodies. Somebody took the bodies away. I don't see that being the Hungarians, not if the bodies were Svanhild and her people. And with that many men and this much blood splashed about… I don't see that they'd have just captured everyone."