Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

With a growl Marclew went back to his pacing. The chamberlain turned Jill’s way and beckoned, inviting her to come plead with the lord, but Jill shook her head no and stalked out of the great hall. One of the serving lasses followed and caught her by the arm.

“What are you doing? Why won’t you plead?”

“Because I’ve got the coin to ransom Rhodry myself. In all my years on the long road, I’ve never been treated so shabbily by a lord, and cursed if I’ll stand for it anymore. If I were a bard, I’d make a satire about Marclew.”

“Oh, plenty of bards already have, but it hasn’t done any good.”

Jill went down to the stables, where she’d been sleeping in an empty stall next to her horse. A groom helped her saddle up and told her how to get to Ynryc’s dun, about a day and a half’s ride away.

“Now, be careful, lass,” he said. “There’s going to be as many warbands in the hills as fleas on a hound.”

“I will. Can you spare me some oats for my horse, or will your tightfisted lord beat you for it?”

“He’ll never know. You want to take good care of a horse like that one, you do.”

As if he knew he was being praised, Sunrise tossed his head and made his silvery mane ripple over his golden neck. Rhodry had given her this Western Hunter, back when he’d been a lord himself and able to bestow valuable gifts on those around him, and unlike Marclew, he’d been as generous as a lord should be.

Jill rode out without extending Marclew the courtesy of a farewell and galloped the first mile or so, just to put the dun far behind her. When she reached the broad, grassy banks of the River Lit, she slowed to a walk to let Sunrise cool down. Suddenly her gray gnome appeared on her saddle peak and perched there precariously.

“We’re going to get Rhodry and then get back on the long road,” she told him. “Marclew is a swine.”

Grinning, the gnome nodded agreement.

“I hope he’s being treated well. Did you go take a look at him?”

The gnome nodded a vigorous yes to both questions.

“You know, little brother, there’s one thing I don’t understand. Here’s Rhodry with his elven blood, but he can’t see you.”

The gnome picked his long blue teeth while he considered, then shrugged and disappeared. Apparently, he didn’t understand it, either.

The road wound through low hills, sometimes leaving the river when the water ran through a deep canyon, then rejoining it in the valleys. To either side stretched mile after mile of scrubby pastureland, rolling through the hills. Here and there Jill saw herds of white cattle with rusty-red ears, tended by a cowherd with a pair of big gray-and-white hounds. Late in the day Jill had just come round a large bend in the river road when she saw ravens off to the right. Out of the tall grass they suddenly broke to fly and circle, only to settle to their feeding again.

Jill assumed that the corpse was a dead calf, born too weak to live, or even maybe a cow who’d gotten ill and died before the cowherd found her, but all at once the gray gnome reappeared. He grabbed a rein with bony fingers, shook it hard, then pointed at the ravens.

“Do you want me to take a look?”

He nodded yes in great excitement.

Jill tied Sunrise to a bush by the road, then followed the gnome over. At their approach the ravens flew up, squawking indignantly, and settled in a nearby tree to keep watch over their prize. In the tall grass lay the carcass of a horse, still carrying saddle and bridle, the leather straps cutting deep into the swollen flesh. Although she circled round it, the birds had eaten so much that she couldn’t tell how the horse had died. The saddle and bridle bothered her. If a horse belonging to a warband had merely broken a leg, the men would have taken the gear after they put the poor beast out of its misery.

Holding her breath, she moved in a little closer. Silver and gems winked and gleamed on the bridle.

“By every god and his wife! Who would have left gear like that behind?”

The gnome, however, wasn’t listening to her. He was rooting round in the grass, parting it with both hands to peer through it, his skinny little face screwed up in concentration. As Jill watched him, she realized that someone else had searched the area, because the grass was trampled and torn a good ways round the horse. When she walked toward the gnome, a wink of gold caught her eye. She picked up an arm bracelet, a semicylinder of pure gold, worked all over in an elaborate pattern of spirals and rosettes. Although she’d never seen anyone wear this sort of jewelry, she’d heard tales in which the great warriors of the Dawntime did. It had to be some family heirloom passed down for centuries, and doubtless worth twenty times the weight of its gold. Weight—she hefted the bracelet in her hand. No doubt about it, it seemed to weigh next to nothing at all, even though it looked like a solid mass of gold.

“Here, is this what you’re looking for?”

His eyes narrowed in confusion, the gnome came over. He touched the bracelet with one finger, sniffed it with his long nose, then suddenly smiled and did a little jig of victory.

“Well and good, then. We’ll take it along.”

The gnome nodded and clapped its hands.

“But why is it so light? This is really strange. It feels more like wood than gold.”

The gnome looked puzzled, shrugged, and disappeared.

As Jill wrapped the arm bracelet in her spare socks and put it in her saddlebags, she was wondering who had killed the horse and what had happened to its rider. She should probably try to get the bridle off, she decided, if she could bear the stench. One of the local lords should be able to identify such a fancy piece of gear if she brought it in, and perhaps there’d be a reward.

All at once she felt a dweomer-warning, a cold shudder down her back as if someone had stroked it with a clammy hand. Something dangerous was at work here, something far beyond her understanding, but she could smell it as clearly as she could smell the dead horse. She decided against trying to cut the bridle free, mounted up, and rode out fast. That afternoon she rode on a good long ways before she made camp, and she barely slept that night, drowsing between sleep and keeping watch.

That same night Nevyn was staying in a small inn about a hundred miles west. For the fortnight past he’d been tracking down Camdel, ever since one of the spirits who vivified the Great Stone of the West had come to tell him of the theft. Since he rarely slept more than four hours a night, he was sitting up late, brooding over this appalling theft, when Jill’s gray gnome appeared in front of him.

“Well, good eve, little brother. Is Jill close by?”

The gnome shook his head no, then danced round, grinning from ear to ear.

“What’s this? Good news of some sort?”

It nodded yes, then did an elaborate pantomime, using its hands to describe some small round thing and staring into the shape as if it were scrying.

“Oh, ye gods! Do you mean the Great Stone of the West?”

It nodded agreement, then pantomimed searching for something and finding it.

“You’ve found it? Oh, here, do you mean Jill’s got it?”

The gnome nodded yes again. For a brief moment Nevyn felt sick with terror.

“Do you realize this means she’s in terrible danger? Those men who stole it want the thing bad enough to kill to get it.”

Its mouth opened wide, and it actually made a little whimper of sound, a difficult thing for one of the Wildfolk to do.

“You get back to her. At the first sign of danger, come tell me, do you hear?”

The gnome nodded, then disappeared. In something as close to panic as his disciplined mind could get, Nevyn turned to the charcoal brazier standing in the corner of the chamber. At a wave of his hand the Wildfolk of Fire set the coals to glowing. Nevyn stared into them and thought of Jill.