Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

“I never thought I’d see the day when a lass would save my life,” he whispered. “But my thanks, silver dagger.”

Calming the panicked mules was almost a harder fight than the battle. At last those of the muleteers left alive beat and coaxed them into some kind of order, a huddled, miserable herd in the middle of the pass. Jill did what she could for the wounded while Rhodry and the guards searched through the corpses for anyone left alive. Their own men they brought to her, but the bandits they killed, slitting their throats as calmly as the king’s executioner. Jill had just finished bandaging the last wounded muleteer when they carried over Seryl’s manservant. He’d fallen from his horse and been trampled. Although he was still alive, he was spitting up blood, and both his legs were broken.

“Ah, ye gods!” Seryl groaned. “My poor Namydd.”

The lad looked up with eyes that obviously didn’t recognize him.

“We can’t move him,” Seryl snapped. “It would kill him.”

“He’s going to die anyway,” Jill said. “I’m sorry, good sir, but that’s the hard truth of it.”

Seryl groaned again and ran his hand through the lad’s hair. Jill left him to his grief and went to join Rhodry, who was kneeling beside the last of the wounded bandits with his blood-dripping silver dagger in his hand. The bandit, who couldn’t have been more than fifteen, whimpered so piteously that Rhodry hesitated.

“Hold your hand,” Jill said. “He’s dying anyway.”

The bandit turned his face away and wept. She knelt down beside him.

“I can stanch that wound and save you. Will you spill what you know if I do?”

“I will. Ah, ye gods, it hurts so bad.”

The cut on his groin was so deep that it took Jill a long time to stanch it. By then he was so weak that he could barely talk, but she did find out that he was new to the band, a runaway apprentice who’d stolen from his master, and that there were thirty-one bandits in all. Ten had been left behind to guard their camp, an ominous piece of news.

“They’re bound to come back,” Rhodry said. “They’ll lick their wounds tonight, but on the morrow—”

“We killed twelve out of the thirty-one.”

“True enough, but if they bring the fresh men from camp? We’ve lost two swordsmen and six muleteers, anyway. Well, at least we know what we’re facing. It’s a good thing you decided to save the lad.”

“It wasn’t just that. It seemed like there was somewhat else he should have been able to tell us.”

“Just that. Ah, by every hell and its ice, I wish my gnome would come back. I swear he knows somewhat about all this.”

Jill looked up at the cliff tops. She knew that she was being watched—she had never been so sure of anything in her life—but nothing moved among the silent, brooding mountains.

Just at sunset Namydd died, coughing away his life from his crushed lungs. Jill said what words of comfort she could to the merchant, then wandered restlessly through the camp. The muleteers sat huddled together, unspeaking, exhausted, like frightened sheep waiting for the wolves to come finish them off. It’s not far to the Cwm Pecl border, Jill thought, but it might as well be on the other side of the Southern Sea for all the speed this lot can make. Then she got the idea, reckless, utterly foolhardy, but the only chance they had. When she told Rhodry, he swore at her.

“Don’t be a dolt!” he went on. “For all we know, the rest of the scum are camped along the pass. I’m not letting you ride off alone, and that’s that.”

“Getting a message to one of Blaen’s patrols is the only hope we have, and you’re forgetting that I have Sunrise. Even if they saw me, by the time they saddled up and got down into the pass, they’d never catch a Western Hunter. I don’t weigh that much, and even though he’s tired from the fight, Sunrise has had a good afternoon’s rest.”

While they talked, she continued saddling and bridling the gelding. Rhodry swore, argued, and threatened, but in the end she got her way, simply because she was right about its being their only hope. The full moon was rising as she rode out, letting Sunrise pick his way among the boulders with his long, easy stride. She rode with her shield at the ready and her sword in her hand.

For a long time Rhodry stood on the edge of the camp and looked in the direction Jill had gone. Finally he wept, a brief scatter of tears for the danger that she was in, then went back. The men had built a little fire, but most of the muleteers were asleep already, drowning their terror the only way they could. The two guards, Lidyc and Myn, rose when he walked up and looked at him in a blind hope that maybe this battle-wise silver dagger would save them yet.

“Get some sleep,” Rhodry said. “I’ll stand first watch.”

They nodded. Myn started to speak, then merely shrugged. Rhodry got his shield and helm, then walked about a hundred yards down the pass. In the moonlight he could see as clearly as if it were day, even the colors of things—part of the legacy of his elven blood. Guard duty was tedious at the best of times, and now, with his worry over Jill, the time crawled past. In the tricky shadows it seemed that things moved. Rabbits, maybe, or ferrets? When he stared toward the movement, it would stop, but whatever it was, it was very small and doubtless no threat. Finally, when the moon’s position showed that it was well past midnight, Lidyc came out.

“You should have woken me earlier.”

“I don’t get as tired as most men. When you come in to change the guard, tell Myn to wake me well before dawn.”

Lidyc smiled, as if he thought Rhodry was pushing himself merely to spare his men, but it was the simple truth that Rhodry could go long hours without sleep, another gift from his wild blood. As he walked back into camp, he passed the wounded bandit, who was moaning aloud. When he knelt down beside the lad, he decided that Jill’s efforts to save him had been a waste of time. The bandit’s face was flushed so scarlet that it was obvious that infection had set into the wound.

“Which silver dagger are you?” he whispered.

“Rhodry. Why?”

“Where’s the lass?”

“Gone for help.”

“Does she truly have the jewels?”

“The what?”

“The jewels. The ones the old man said she had. We were supposed to take her alive and get the jewels.”

Rhodry grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Tell me the truth!” he snarled. “What old man?”

“The one who hired us.” His words were slurred and faint. “I don’t know his name. But he hired us to get the lass.”

“What did he look like?”

When he didn’t answer, Rhodry shook him again, but he’d passed out. With an oath he got up and left him. It was too late to go after Jill now. He wept again, then went out to take the watch back from Lidyc. It would be hours before he would be able to sleep with this new fear preying upon him. He’d let her go alone, when she was the true prize the entire time.

By midnight Sunrise was tiring badly. Jill dismounted to spare him her weight and led him on, both of them stumbling weary. Although her back ached like fire from the weight of the mail, she decided against taking it off. All she could think of was sitting down to rest, but she knew that if she did, she would fall asleep. In another mile she came to the highest point of the pass. Beside the road was a rough-cut stone pillar carved with a rearing stallion, the blazon of the gwerbrets of Cwm Pecl.

“The sight of that’s as good as an hour’s sleep. It can’t be much farther now.”

Sunrise snorted wearily, his head hanging. She leaned against the pillar and let him rest for a few minutes. All at once she knew that she was being watched, felt it as a cold shudder down her back. Sword in hand, she dropped the reins and took a few steps out into the road, then turned slowly in a circle, scanning the cliff tops. Nothing moved; no silhouettes of enemies showed against the moonlight. She grabbed the horse’s reins and went on, walking faster with a second wind of fear.