Darkover: First Contact (34 page)

Beltran said, “Perhaps; if the men know what they must face, they are picked men and good riders, all of them. But Master Gareth, and the
leroni,
probably cannot pass, and certainly the one who rides on a donkey cannot. . . .”

Master Gareth said, “We are trained
leroni,
sir; we take what risks the army takes, and my daughter and my foster daughter go where I go. They are not afraid.”

“It is not their courage I am doubting,” Bard said impatiently. “It is their skill as horsewomen. Besides, that little donkey would be drowned at the first wave. I don’t want to see any woman killed out of hand, but we will need you when battle is joined, too. And before we do anything, can you keep us from being spied on?” He gestured up impatiently at the sentry bird wheeling above them.

“I would do what I can, sir, but I think our spells will be needed more against the witch-waters of the ford,” Master Gareth said.

Bard nodded, thinking about that. As a commander made the best use of his fighting men, so, he was beginning to know, he must hoard the strength of his army’s
leroni
and use them to best advantage.

Did King Ardrin give me this command so that I might have a chance to command not fighting men alone, but sorcerers?
Even in the press of decisions, he thought with excitement that this meant well for his future.
If
. . . he thought, quickly sobering,
he could carry off this apparently simple commission without losing all his men at the witched ford!

“Master Gareth, this is the province of your special knowledge. What do you recommend to me?”

“We can try to set a counter-spell on the waters, sir. I cannot guarantee—I do not know who we are facing or what their powers may be—but we will do our best to quiet the waters. We have this in our favor; to meddle this way with nature takes tremendous power, and they cannot keep it up for very long. Nature takes always the way toward the normal again; the water seeks its proper flow, and so we have the force of natural water working for us, while they must fight
against
that natural force. So our counter-spell should not be too difficult.”

“All the gods grant you are right,” Bard said, “but still, I will warn the men to be prepared for rapids.” He rode among them, speaking to first one and then the other, telling the man whose horse had been lamed to take the one whose rider had been killed. Then he moved close to Beltran, saying. “Ride by me, foster brother; I don’t want to face my lord and king if I let you be killed in the rapids! If you die in battle, I suppose he could face it; but I will not be responsible otherwise!”

Beltran laughed. “Do you think you ride so much better than I do, Bard? I don’t! I think you overstep your authority—I, not you, command this expedition!” But he said it laughing, and Bard shrugged.

“As you will, Beltran; but in God’s name, mind what you are about. My horse is bigger and heavier than yours, because it takes a big horse to carry weight like mine, and I had all I could do to keep my seat!”

He wheeled and rode forward to Master Gareth. “There is no way mistress Melora can cross the ford on that little donkey; certainly not if your spells fail. Can she sit a horse?”

Master Gareth said, “I am her father, not her mentor or the master of her destiny; why not ask the lady herself?”

Bard set his jaw. “I am not given to asking women questions when there is a man to command them. But if you insist—well,
damisela,
can you ride? If you can, your father will take mistress Mirella before him on his horse, since she rides lighter than you, and you shall ride her horse, which looks steady enough.”

“I would rather trust to my father’s spells and my own,” Melora said firmly. “Do you think I will abandon my poor little donkey to drown?”

“Oh, hell and damnation, woman,” Bard burst out. “If you can manage to sit on a horse, one of my men will lead your donkey. I suppose the beast can swim!”

“You must do your best to ride, Melora,” Master Gareth said. “And Whitefur must make shift to swim for himself. I am sure he can fend for himself in the ford better than you can. Mirella, my child, let Melora have your horse and climb up behind me on my saddle.”

She scrambled up nimbly enough, although the watching men had a glimpse of long shapely legs in striped red and blue stockings, as she clambered up behind the elderly
laranzu
and settled herself, smoothing down her skirts, and clinging to his waist. Bard went himself to help lift the plump and ungainly Melora into the saddle of the other girl’s horse. She sat a horse, he told himself uncharitably, like a sack of meal dumped into a saddle.

“Sit a bit straighter, I implore you,
vai leronis,
and hold more carefully to the reins,” he said, then sighed. “I think perhaps I had better ride at your side and lead your horse.”

“That would be good of you,” Master Gareth said, “for we will need to concentrate on setting the counter-spell; and I would take it as a kindness, too, if one of your men can lead Melora’s donkey, for she will be afraid for him.”

One of the veterans burst out, laughing, “Mistress Melora, if you can set a spell to quiet these waters, I will myself carry your little donkey across my saddle like a baby!”

She giggled. Fat and ungainly as she was, she had a sweet voice and a lovely laugh. “I am afraid that would frighten him worse than the rapids, sir. I think, if you will lead him, he can manage somehow to swim, after your horse’s tail.”

The veteran brought a tie-rope and secured the bridle of the donkey to his own bridle. Bard took Melora’s rein, thinking what a pity it was that it was not the pretty Mirella; and heard again Melora’s sweet giggle. He wondered, uneasily, if she could read his mind, and cut off the thought. This was no time for thinking about women, not with a spelled ford to cross and a battle coming up!

“For the love of all the gods, Master Gareth, set your counter-spell.”

Melora’s heavy figure was motionless on her horse. The look of strangeness, of concentration, settled down over Master Gareth’s face. Mirella’s hood slid down over her face so that nothing was visible but her small chin. Bard watched the three
leroni,
feeling the prickling in his spine that meant
laran
was powerful somewhere near. . . . How could he tell, what was it?

Silently, feeling a curious reluctance to shatter the scary silence by a word or a shout, Bard beckoned the men forward. Still weighted by that sense of prickling intensity in the air, he twitched at his horse’s rein and urged the animal forward. The mare tossed her head and whickered uneasily, remembering what had happened when she had set foot in the ford before.

“Easy. Easy, girl,” he urged in a low voice, thinking,
I don’t blame her at all, I feel the same way
. . . . But he was a reasoning human, not a brute beast, and he would not give way to blind, unreasoning fear. Urged on by voice and hands, the mare set foot into the ford, and Bard beckoned to the men behind him.

Nothing happened . . . but then, nothing had happened, before, until they were in midstream. Bard urged the horse on, holding to Melora’s rein, half-turned in his saddle. Behind him Master Gareth rode, Mirella clinging to his waist, and behind him, the men of the party, Prince Beltran bringing up the rear.

They were all in the water now, and Bard felt his skin tighten on his face. If the spell was working, it would strike them now, sweep down on them like a torrent. He braced himself in his saddle, feeling the prickle, prickle, prickle that was his personal awareness of
laran
at work, growing in strength as if he could almost see the flare and interplay between the spell set on the ford and the counter-spell; his horse seemed to step through a tangle of thick weed although there was nothing tangible there . . .

Then, suddenly, it was gone; just gone, vanished, the ford running silent and innocent, just water again. Bard let out his breath and dug his heels into his mare’s side. The first riders were partway up the far bank by now, and he held his mount there in midstream, watching them ride past and up the other side of the stream.

For now, at least, their
leroni
had out-spelled the wizards set against them.

 

So far, on this campaign, the weather had held fine. But now, as the day waned, the sky grew dark with thickening clouds and toward evening snow began to fall, softly, but with persistence; first a few thick, clumped, wet flakes at a time, then thick and fine and hard, coming down and down and down with idiot persistence. Melora, back on her donkey, swaddled herself in her gray cloak and wrapped a blanket over her head. The soldiers, one by one, got out scarves and mufflers and thick hoods, and rode, sullen and glowering. Bard knew what they were thinking. By tradition, war was a summer business, and in winter, all but the mad, or the desperate, kept to their own firesides. There was a certain amount of danger in a winter campaign. The men might say, and with some justice, that while they owed service to King Ardrin, this went beyond what was customary and right, and riding like this into a snowstorm which might easily turn into a blizzard in intensity was not customary and therefore the king had no right to ask it of them. How could he command their loyalty? For the first time he wished he were not in command here, but that he was riding north to Hammerfell at King Ardrin’s right hand, his sovereign’s banner bearer. The king could command loyalty from his troops, use his personal influence and power to demand loyalty beyond custom. He could make the men promises, and make those promises good. Bard was painfully aware that he was only seventeen years old; that he was only the king’s bastard nephew and fosterling; that he had been promoted over the heads of many seasoned officers. There were probably men in the ranks, even among these picked men he had chosen for this campaign, who might be waiting to see him come to grief; to make some dreadful mistake that he could never recoup. Had the king given him this command only that he might overstep his powers, see himself as the green and unseasoned warrior that he was?

Despite his triumph and promotion on the field of Snow Glen, he was only a boy. Could he carry through this mission at all? Was the king hoping he would fail, so that he could deny him Carlina? What would lie ahead for him if he failed? Would he be demoted, sent home in disgrace?

He rode ahead to join Master Gareth, who had wrapped his lower face in a thick, red, knitted muffler under the gray sorcerer’s cape. He said with asperity, “Can’t you do anything about this weather? Is this a blizzard coming up, or only a snow flurry?”

“You ask too much of my powers, sir,” said the older man. “I am a
laranzu,
not a god; the weather is not mine to command.” A touch of humor wrinkled up one corner of his face in a wry smile. “Believe me, Master Bard, if I had command over the weather, I would use it to my own advantage. I am as cold as you, and as blinded by snow, and my bones are older and feel the cold more.”

Bard said, hating to confess his own inadequacy, “The men are grumbling, and I am a little afraid of mutiny. A winter campaign—while the weather held fine, they did not care. But now—”

Master Gareth nodded. “I can see that. Well, I will try to see how far this storm extends, and if we will ride out of it soon; although weather magic is not my special gift. Only one of his majesty’s
laranzu’in
has that, and Master Robyl rode north to Hammerfell with the king; he felt he would be needed more on the northern border of the Hellers where the snows are fiercer. But I will do my best.”

And as Bard turned away, he added, “Cheer up, sir. The snow may make it hard for us to ride, but not nearly as hard as for the caravan with the clingfire; they have all those carts and wagons to push along through the snow, and if it gets too deep they won’t be able to move at all.”

Bard realized that he should have thought of that. Snow would immobilize the carts and wagons of the caravan, while the light horsemen of the picked group were still well able to ride and to fight. Furthermore, if it was true that Dry-town mercenaries had been hired to escort the caravan, they were accustomed to warmer weather, and the snow would confuse them. He rode among the men, listening to their grumblings and protests, and reminded them of this. Even though the snow continued to fall, and even grew heavier, that thought seemed to cheer them a little.

However, the clouds and falling snow grew ever thicker, and after a word with Beltran, they called a halt early. Nothing was to be gained by forcing grumbling men to press on through the same snow that would immobilize their prey. Riding through the snow, the men were weary and disheartened, and some of them would have eaten a few bites of cold food and rolled into their blankets at once, but Bard insisted that fires must be lighted and hot food cooked, knowing this would do more for the men’s morale than anything else. With fires lighted on stone slabs and blazing away, fed by the fallen tree branches of an abandoned orchard—hit by the nut blight of a few seasons ago—the camp looked cheerful, and one of the men brought out a small drone-pipe and began to play, mournful old laments older than the world. The young women slept in their shared tent, but Master Gareth joined the men around the fire, and after a time, though he protested that he was neither minstrel nor bard, consented to tell them the tale of the last dragon. Bard sat beside Beltran in the shadows of the fire, chewing on dried fruit and listening to the story of how the last dragon had been slain by one of the Hastur kin, and how, sensing with the
laran
of beasts that this last of his folk was dead, every beast and bird within the Hundred Kingdoms had set up a wail, a keen, even the banshees joining in the lament for the last of the wise serpents . . . and the son of Hastur himself, standing beside the corpse of the last dragon on Darkover, had vowed never again to hunt for any living thing for sport. When Master Gareth finished his tale, the men applauded and begged for more, but he shook his head, saying that he was an old man and had been riding all day, and that he was away to his blankets.