“Thrice horned—yes, that sentence he can enforce in Kars. For the city is his. But the old lords have ties with us, and where they lack such ties or sympathy, they may be moved by jealousy ofYvian.They may not actively aid us, but neither will they help the Duke’s men cut us down. It will be largely a matter of their closing their eyes and ears, hearing and seeing naught.”
“Yes, Karsten is now closed to us,” the witch agreed with Vortgin. “And I would say to all of the old race that they should flee borderward, not leaving escape until too late. Perhaps the Falconers will aid in this matter. Aie . . . aie . . . our night comes!”
But Simon knew that she did not mean the physical night closing about their own small party.
* * *
* * *
VI
FALSE HAWK
They lay behind the winter pressed stack in the field, Simon, Koris, and Vortgin, wisps of the dank straw pulled over their bodies, watching what went on at the crossroads hamlet beyond. There were the brilliant blue-green surcoats of the Duke’s men, four of them, well mounted for hard and far riding, and a fringe of the dull-robed villagers. With some ceremony the leader of the small force out of Kars brought his horse beneath the Pole of Proclamation and put a horn to his lips, its silver plating catching fire from the morning sun.
“One . . . two . . . three . . .” Koris counted those blasts aloud. They heard them clearly, all the countryside must have heard them, although of what the Duke’s men said to the assembly afterwards they caught only as a mumble.
Koris looked to Vortgin. “They spread it fast enough. You’d best be on your way, if any of your kin is to be warned at all.”
Vortgin thrust his belt dagger deep into the earth of the field as if he were planting it in one of the blue coated riders. “I’ll need more than my two legs.”
“Just so. And there is what we all seek.” Koris jerked a thumb at the ducal party.
“Beyond the bridge the road takes a cut through small woods,” Simon thought aloud.
Koris’ pseudo-face expressed malicious appreciation of that hint. “They’ll soon be through with the chatter. We’d best move.”
They crawled away from their vantage point, crossed the river ford, and found the woods track. The roads leading north were not well kept. Yvian’s rule in this district had been covertly opposed by noble and commoner alike. Away from the main highways all passages tended to be only rough tracks.
On either side banks rose, brush and grass covered. It was not a safe place for any wayfarer, doubly suspect for anyone in the Duke’s livery.
Simon settled into concealment on one side of that cut, Koris chose a stand closer to the river, prepared to head off any retreat. And Vortgin was across from Simon. They had only to wait.
The leader of the messengers was no fool. One of his men rode ahead, studying every bush the wind stirred, every clump of suspiciously tall grass. He passed between the hidden men and trotted on. After him came the one who bore the horn, and a companion, while the fourth man brought up the rear.
Simon shot as the rearguard drew level with his position. But the man who fell from the expertly aimed dart was the lead scout.
The leader swung his mount around with the skill of an expert horseman, only to see the rearguard collapse from his saddle coughing blood.
“Sul. . .Sul. . .Sul!” The battle cry Simon had last heard in the doomed seaport rose shrilly. A dart creased Simon’s shoulder, ripping leather and burning skin—the leader must have cat’s eyes.
The remaining shieldman tried to back his leader in that attack, until Vortgin arose out of hiding and threw the dagger he had played with. The weapon whirled end over end until its heady knob struck the back of the other’s head at the base of his skull and he went down without a protesting sound.
Hooves pawed the air over Simon’s head. Then the horse overbalanced and crashed back, pinning his rider under him. Koris sprang out of hiding and the hooked pole battered down upon the feebly struggling man.
They set to work to strip the riders, secure their mounts. Luckily the horse which had fallen struggled to its feet, frightened and blowing but without any great injury. The bodies were dragged out of sight into the brush and the mail shirts, the helmets and the extra weapons were bound on the saddles before the horses were led to the deserted sheep fold where the fugitives had sheltered.
There the men walked into a hot quarrel. The withered crone, the dark beauty in rent gold and scarlet fronted each other hot-eyed. But their raised voices fell silent as Simon came through a gap in the rotting fence. Neither spoke until they brought up the horses and their burdens. Then the girl in red gave a little cry and pounced upon one of those bundles of leather and mail.
“I want my own shape—and now!” She spat at the witch.
Simon could understand that. At Briant’s age a role as he had been forced to assume would be more galling than slavery. And none of them could wish to keep on wearing the decidedly unattractive envelopes the woman from Estcarp had spun for them, even though they had been so delivered out of Kars.
“Fair enough,” he endorsed that. “Can we change by our—or rather your will, lady? Or is there a time period on this shape business?”
Through her tangle of rough locks the witch frowned. “Why waste the time? And we are not yet out of the reach of Yvian’s messengers—though apparently you have dealt with some of them.” She picked up one of the surcoats as if to measure it against her own bent person.
Briant glowered, gathering an armload of male clothing to him. The pouting lips of his girl’s face set stubbornly. “I go away from here as myself, or I don’t go at all!” he announced and Simon believed him.
The woman from Estcarp gave in. From beneath her ragged bodice she pulled a bag and shook it at Briant. “Off with you to the stream then. Wash with a handful of this for your soaping. But be careful of it, for this supply must serve us all.”
Briant snatched the bag, and, with the clothing, he gathered up his full skirts to scuttle away as if he feared his new possessions might be torn from him.
“What about the rest of us?” Simon demanded indignantly, ready to take off after the runaway.
Koris secured the horses to the moldering fence. His villainous face could not look anything but hideous, but somehow he managed to suggest honest amusement in his laughter. “Let the cub get rid of his trappings in peace, Simon. After all, he hasn’t protested before. And those skirts must have irked him.”
“Skirts?” echoed Vortgin in some surprise. “But . . .”
“Simon is not of the old race.” The witch combed her hair with her long nails.”He is new to our ways and shape changing. You are right, Koris,” she glanced oddly at the Captain, “Briant can be left to make his transformation in peace.”
The garments looted from the Duke’s unfortunate messengers hung loosely on the young warrior who returned at a far bolder gait from the stream. He tossed a ball of red stuff to the back of the shelter and stamped earth over it with an energy which approached attack as Simon and the rest went to the water.
Koris rubbed and laved his rusty hooked pole before he dipped his body, and continued to hold the Ax of Volt as he scrubbed himself. They made a choice from the tumbled clothing, Koris again assuming the mail shirt he had worn out of Kars since no other would fit him. But he shrugged one of the surcoats over it, a precaution followed by both his companions.
Simon handed the bag to the witch when they returned and she nursed it for a moment in one hand, then restored it to its former hiding place. “You are a brave company of warriors. Me, I am your prisoner. With your hoods and your helms Estcarp does not show so strong in you. Vortgin, you alone have the print of the old race. But were I to be seen in my true face I would damn you utterly. I shall wait before I break this shape.”
So it was that they rode out of that hiding place, four men in the Duke’s colors and the crone perched behinds Briant. The horses were fresh, but they held the pace to a comfortable trot as they worked a path across the country, avoiding the open roads until they reached a point where Vortgin must turn east.