The Silver Mage (39 page)

O
ut in the Rhiddaer, the oddly circular town of Cerr Cawnen sheltered some four thousand souls. It lay in the midst of water meadows, a first line of defense against Horsekin raiders, whose mounts would have had to pick their way through the little streams and springs that turned solid-seeming ground into bog. On its outer walls, made of good stone, guards prowled the catwalks and stood at the ironbound timber gates.

Inside the walls, a wide strip of grassy commons surrounded the town, which in turn surrounded the roughly circular Loc Vaed, the crater of an ancient volcano. Most of the buildings crammed into the pale greenish shallows: a jumble and welter of houses and shops all perched on pilings or crannogs, joined by little bridges to one another in a confusing jumble. The edge of the crannog-town bristled with rickety stairs and jetties, where leather coracles bobbed at the end of their ropes.

In the center of the lake lay deep water, fed by underground hot springs. Drifts of mist hung over the lake on cold days and veiled the shores of the rocky central island, Citadel. On Citadel, a few large houses and a scatter of shabby dwellings clung to its steep sides, along with the town granary, the militia’s armory, shrines to the local gods and ruins of an ancient temple, tumbled in an earthquake so long ago that no one remembered exactly when.

Niffa, the dweomermaster who had once been Dallandra’s apprentice, lived with her brother’s family in a large house out on Citadel. Jahdo had grown up as an apprentice to a successful merchant, who had traded with Lin Serr among other places in the Northlands, though only rarely with the Gel da’Thae. After Verrarc’s death, Jahdo had become rich on his own, then married Cotzi the weaver’s daughter, who’d borne him a fine clutch of children. Just that spring he’d been elected Chief Speaker of the town council—an honor that had delighted him at the time. Now, however, his feelings had changed. Niffa was lingering at the breakfast table with him when he brought up the election.

“I do wish I’d turned down the post,” Jahdo said that morning. “And kept on leading the caravans myself. Better that I’d died than our Aethel. He were so young, and I’m but an old man now. I’ve had my life, and—”

“Nah, Brother!” Niffa said. “Hold your tongue! Be not blaming yourself. It was his wyrd.”

“And no one can turn aside another’s wyrd?” Jahdo made a sour face at her. “That old saying does sicken me this morning.”

“It be true whether you do like it or not.”

He scowled at her then shrugged with a lift of one skinny shoulder.

“Whether I be right or wrong,” she said, “You be Chief Speaker now. This matter of the Horsekin—”

“—does grow more grave daily.” Jahdo finished her thought. “I did call a council meeting this afternoon. The folk who do live in Penli, they do fear the Horsekin even more than we. They did send a man to us to petition for the right to flee inside our walls should the need arise.”

“It would be wise to grant it.”

“Of course, but the council needs must decide for themselves.” He paused for a sly smile. “With a bit of help from me, truly.”

Niffa learned that the council had followed her advice when Jahdo returned, bringing the Penli suppliant with him. Cleddrik, his name was, a tall skinny fellow with short black hair and a straggling mustache. He was, he informed them both, the son of a pig farmer, whose trade in salt pork had given his family a certain standing in his town.

“We be grateful that you did grant us shelter,” Cleddrik said. “There be some fifty families in Penli, and we have not the men nor the stone to build walls of our own.”

“There be a need on us to arrange some signal,” Jahdo said. “The Horsekin, they be most like to come down from the north and thus reach us first.”

Over the noon meal the two men continued talking while Niffa studied this stranger. Something about Cleddrik troubled her, yet he seemed sincere enough, especially when it came to his fear of the Horsekin.

“We did build a wooden palisade round our village.” Cleddrik’s voice shook on the words. “But how long might it take the Horsekin to burn that? And then, once it be done, they be amok among us and our women.”

“Dwell not upon it,” Jahdo said. “Our stone walls, they will keep you safe enough, the gods willing.”

“But be they willing?” Cleddrik’s voice abruptly turned calm. “What about this new goddess of theirs? She has great power of her own.”

“She be not a goddess.” Niffa leaned forward into the conversation. “And she does live no longer.”

Cleddrik turned his head to look at her with an utterly blank expression on his face, as if perhaps he’d not heard her.

“This be my sister,” Jahdo said. “She does walk the witch road.”

Cleddrik’s face lost some of its color. He pushed out a twitch of a smile and bobbed his head in her direction.

“And I will tell you yet again,” Niffa said, “Alshandra were but an illusion and a cheat. Fear her not.”

“If you do say so, mistress,” Cleddrik said, “then I shall do as you say.”

Yet he was staring at the table as he spoke rather than looking her way. Niffa said nothing more, but for the rest of the meal, she studied Cleddrik, who did his best to avoid her gaze the entire time. As soon as the meal was over, he mumbled excuses and fled the house.

Niffa went up to her little chamber at the top of the rambling house. Besides her narrow bed, it held a lectern, a high stool for reading at the lectern, and a comfortable cushioned window seat. From the window she could see all the way down Citadel, past the fine houses, past the public granary and the little annex where she’d been born and spent her childhood, past the steep paths and the retaining walls, down the strip of sandy beach and the coracles drawn up upon it, to Loc Vaed itself, where patches of pale mist floated above the greenish water.

She used the mist as a focus and reached out to Dallandra. The elven dweomermaster answered her immediately.

“Sour news,” Niffa said. “I do think Alshandra worship has reached the Rhiddaer.”

Dallandra listened gravely while Niffa told her of Cleddrik and his odd behavior. When she finished, Dallandra agreed with her.

“This sounds ominous, indeed,” Dalla said. “I told you, didn’t I, that we have a woman with us who used to be a priestess of Alshandra? She might well know more about Penli.”

“Splendid! Do ask her, and do let me know when you’ve done so.”

“I shall indeed. Stay on the alert would be my advice.”

“That be good advice always when the Horsekin be prowling around.”

A
fter she broke the link with Niffa, Dallandra wandered through the alar’s camp, dodging children, dogs, and Wildfolk, until she found Sidro, who was sitting in front of the tent she shared with Pir and mending one of his shirts. Dallandra sat down cross-legged in front of her.

“Tell me somewhat,” Dallandra said. “Alshandra’s Elect traveled long distances to spread the word, didn’t they?”

“Very long, truly.” Sidro laid her mending into her lap. “We did call ourselves Alshandra’s messengers and speak of our duty to let all hear of her.”

“Do you know if anyone went to Cerr Cawnen?”

“Not to the town itself, though it be the place where the Holy Witness Raena did die. Lakanza did warn us away from there, saying the folk were too savage and too inclined to murder any Gel da’Thae on sight.”

“Er, that wasn’t true, you know. Cerr Cawnen had an alliance with Grallezar’s people.”

“Never did they tell us that! The rakzanir, they did lie and lie again.” Sidro set her lips tight in disgust.

“From everything you’ve told me about them, I’m not surprised. But what about the villages near Cerr Cawnen, like Penli, for instance?”

“Well, truly, that be a name I did hear. I think me one of us, Rocca most like, did go there.”

“My thanks.” Dallandra stood up, glancing around her. “Have you seen Cal?”

“He did take Dari with him but a little while ago. He were going to the edge of camp to do somewhat, he did tell me, and thought she should have a bit of sun.”

Dallandra found them both out in the grass. Dari was on her stomach on a blanket and solemnly watching her father straighten arrow shafts. One at a time, he pulled them through a hole drilled in the flat part of a deer’s shoulder blade.

“Cal?” Dallandra said. “I have some nasty news. I just spoke with Niffa through the fire.”

Cal looked up and squinted at her. She realized that the late afternoon sun hung in the sky behind her and moved around to his other side while he laid his work aside. She sat down next to him in the grass, then picked Dari up and settled her in her arms.

“What’s this news?” Cal said.

“Alshandra worship has reached the farms near Cerr Cawnen.”

“Oh, by the Black Sun!” Calonderiel said. “It spreads like a plague.”

“So it does. Niffa met a man from Penli, that’s the village just south of the town, if you remember, who’s at least heard of Alshandra. Sidro said that a priestess had visited them. Niffa suspects that he’s a convert of sorts, but she’s not entirely sure. He was afraid of her, but then, he might merely be afraid of what they call ‘witch lore.’ Many people are, after all.”

“It’s nasty news either way. I’ll tell the prince. I think we’d best hurry everyone along and get to Cerr Cawnen as soon as we can.”

“My thought exactly. One thing is clear. Whether Laz can fetch the book or not, Rori’s transformation will have to wait. The danger’s so thick around us that I can barely breathe.”

“A bad omen in itself. Where is Laz, by the by? And what about Voran?”

Dallandra used the sky as a focus and found them together, the prince at the head of a long convoy of riders and dwarven axemen, Laz back toward the end among the servants and wagons with Faharn beside him.

“They’ve left Tren’s dun,” she told him. “Beyond that, I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s hope they’re off to attack some Horsekin,” Cal said. “Exactly where or which ones doesn’t matter all that much to me.”

W
hen Prince Voran and Brel Avro led out their combined forces, they headed straight east from the dun. For the first day the land ran through fallow farmland and past the deserted homesteads that had once belonged to Tren’s vassals. Soon they’d be farmed again, by men of the Mountain Folk, or so some of the royal servants told Laz.

“His highness settled this land upon them,” the quartermaster said, “in return for the part they played in last summer’s wars.”

On the second day the terrain began to rise, gently at first, but soon enough it turned rugged. Broken hills, gashed by steep ravines and white water creeks, formed a line of natural defenses for the Boar territories that lay beyond. Without the Mountain Folk and their axes and picks, the army of horsemen would have had to turn back. As it was, the dwarven axemen changed their weapons of war for foresters’ blades, then chopped and cleared the way through the underbrush and straggling pines. They built temporary bridges over the streams and provided both rope and expertise to keep the clumsy supply wagons moving.

“Horsekin raiders couldn’t get their mounts through here either,” Faharn remarked. “No wonder they’re looking farther west.”

“Just so,” Laz said. “And they’re looking farther south, too. If they get control of the grasslands, they’ll have a hundred easy roads into Lijik territory.”

In narrow valleys, where black boulders pushed through thin soil, the army passed more deserted farms. Empty houses and barns stood behind crumbling earthworks. Now and again they saw a cow or a few sheep gone wild among the hills.

“It makes my blood run cold,” Faharn said, “seeing all this. Where are the people, do you think?”

“Dead, maybe?” Laz said. “I’ve no idea.”

In such rough terrain, the army made slow progress, crawling up a steep hill only to pick their way down from the crest. The supply wagons became a constant problem. Even the straked wheels of the dwarven carts broke against half-hidden rocks or tangled themselves with weeds. Whenever one of the carts lost a wheel, the army halted, slowing the march further. Faharn began to worry about food.