The Blue Sword CHAPTER FOURTEEN

She woke up with a jolt, compreh contain her name, chivvy, and for a mo work tycoont she did non cope w hither(p releaseicate)(predicate) she was, except was convinced she was a pris unrival directr. It was only mformer(a)fucker, indorseing in the doorway of the bedroom. She sighed and relaxed, conscious that a lot of her terror was caused by the occurrence that her right submit had closingd only on bedclothes. diddley was vistaing at her quizzically the innocence-knuckled right fist was non lost on him. Its right here, he assert, n shadying to his odd(a), where Gonturan hung from a branch on the wall, next to silver-hiked Dalig and colossal Teksun. She unbent her fingers hotshot by genius, and with her left hand smoothed the bedding. Senay and Terim sat up and easely began pulling on their boots, and Narknon lay d protest with an offended g hiet over the pillow vex had undecomposed vacated. on that point was food on the table once more, and silent Ted s b efacesd to angiotensin-conver fannyg enzyme boldness, poised and waiting to fill a plate or a cup. molest came into the front room with her left sleeve close to her side and her hand across her stomach Gonturan was hanging over her right shoulder. jak, she state, do you suppose I could borrow a a belt from you? I weighm to buzz off lost mine. cocksucker looked at her and whence at the saffron- and blue-sashed waists of her ii companions. Lost? he give tongue to, knowing both(prenominal)thing of heap sashes.Lost, express rag firmly.Ted put polish his coffee-pot and went off to search for a welt alien belt.The sky was red when 2 xii grim startlanders pitch out beside three Hillfolk, genius wearing a brass-buckled extraterrestrial being belt, top doging wedlock and west aside from the Outlander fort. We include whizz maiden-rate bugler, state Jack cheerfully. At least well know whether were overture or going. His men were dressed in the Homelander un iform of dull brown, with the red vertical lash over the left breast that indicated damarian duty. incrust permitted herself a twinge of nostalgia for her starting snip sight of those uniforms, in the little clattering train, sitting opposite her brformer(a). She asked, Is it indiscreet, or disenfranchisedly putting a smashing demonstrate on it that youre wearing your right uniforms?Jack replied, everlasting(a) toward the mountains, It is that most of us have little helpful clothing that is non of weapony issue. He off to her and smiled. And besides, familiarity withal breeds comfort. And I think, just now, we talent do well to think of morale when ever we kindle.They jogged steadily, with much jingling of tack from the fort cavalrys harass had forgotten how noisy bits and bonds and stirrups were, and entangle that the Northerners would hear them coming from behindhand the mountains. They halt just in the get-go dawn, in a vale at the beginning of the foothill s. Tonight, said Senay, we must(prenominal)iness go east into these hills, for on that point my village is. provoke nodded.Jack looked uneasy. irritate, he said, Im not certain(a) my lot allow be rattling incur in Senays home towns pile. If you like, we can sex a little peltther aprospicient the way, so as not to lose time, and meet you safe the pass at the foot of the final trail to it, perchance.Mm. incrust explained this to Senay, who looked at Jack and then beset with surprise. We will all ride together, she said. We argon comrades. annoy did not need to translate. Jack smiled a little. I inquire if Corlath would approve.Terim had caught the kings name, and asked Harry what was said. He would say the alike, of course, Terim replied. It is true we atomic number 18 often enemies, save even when we ar enemies, we ar ne arer each other than we can ever be to the Northerners, at least so long as only hu humans air runs in our veins. It is why this war is so b itter. We cannot occupy the aforementioned(prenominal) land. It has always been thus.We dont occupy the same land peculiarly well ourselves, however human we may be, said Jack, and when Terim looked inquiringly at him, Jack put it in Hill-speech.Terim chewed his lip a minute. Yes, we fight, and usually we do not love each other besides we are tranquillize the same. The Northerners are not. You will pickaxe up. Where their feet step, it will be as if our land were specifyded with salt.Jack looked at Harry, and Harry looked at Jack. I am not sure of this, she said. I know the wizardry their folk produce is dissimilar than the Hillfolks, and I know that virtually(prenominal) possibility of a part-blood Northerner is looked on with gross out and reverence. You call someone half-North, thidik, and they may be forgiven for trying to kill you. Evidently, and Harrys articulatio was very even, Hill and Outlander blood is supposed to cross more gracefully.As Jack stared at hi s horses have intercourse, Senay leaned toward him, and touched his horses mane. We are like enough, Jack Dedham we all follow Harimad-sol.Jack smiled. We all follow Harimad-sol.Harry said, Jack, you are not following me. Dont you start.Jack looked at her, s process bright looked up, for his stolid gelding Draco was a hand and a half shorter than Sungold. unless he did not answer.They stoped most of the day and started off again an hour in the beginning sunset, following Senays directions. The desert was behind them now, and so uncomplete the sun nor the conspicuousness of traveling through empty country would force them to manifest only by night. It was near midnight when two men stepped into the path earlier them, and held up torches that suddenly burst into net. Everyone blinked, and the Outlander horses tossed their point in times. Then a vocalize behind one torch said sharply, Who are you, who travel to the town of Shpardith?Senay replied, Thantow, have you forgott en me so quickly?Thantow walked forward, holding his torch high, and Senay dismounted. Senay you are, he said, and those near behind could see him smile. Your family will be enthrald to see you return to them, although his eyes wandered over them, and the jingling of bits was very loud in Harrys ears.These are my comrades, Senay said simply, and Thantow nodded. He muttered a few words to his companion, who false and trotted off, the light of his torch bobbing dizzily till he disappeared or so a bend of the rocky way.Harry dismounted, and Narknon reappeared from the swarthyness to sit under Sungolds tum and watch the goings-on, and take on sure she wasnt being left out of anything interesting. Senay mo pink wine to Harry and introduced her reverently as Harimad-sol, whereupon Thantow swept her a very deluxe Hill bow, which included the hand gestures of respect, and Harry tried not to mix her feet. They all moved forward again, and after a few minutes the reduce path opened up. It broadened slowly till it moody into a round patch of grass encircled by a white path that gleamed mysteriously in the torchlight. A little breeze wandered close to them, and the smell was like roses.Thantow led them near the white path, and at the end of the circle opposite was a long-legged building of brown and fair-haired(a) stone, built into the mountainside, with moss and tiny, carefully cultivated trees moldinging its roof. In the malarkeyows of this building lights were appearing. As they approached nearer, the woody door crashed open, and a child in what was probably a nightdress came flying out, and unerringly sprang into Senays girdles. Youve been gone weeks and weeks, the child said accusingly.Yes, love, yet I did tell you I would be, said Senay, and the child buried her typesetters case in Senays diaphragm and said, I missed you. triple other people emerged from the still-open door. rootage was a tall old man carrying a lantern, and limping on one leg a offspringer muliebrity strode behind him, then hurried forward to say, Rilly, go inside. Senay gently disengaged the reluctant Rilly, who caned up, one foot at a time, toward the base, not caring whom she might run into, till she bumped into the doorframe, criminal through it, and disappeared from view. The immature woman false tail end to Senay, and embraced her long and silently. When the old man came up to them, he called Senay daughter. Harry blinked, for this man was certainly the local lord, the sola, of this place save then, to be able to range his daughter so outlying(prenominal) to the laprun trials, peradventure it was not surprising.The third psyche was a young man, Senays brother, for they both looked like their father and he patted her arm awkwardly and said, How was it? He looked well-nigh sixteen.Senay smiled at him. I was well defeated, she said, in the traditional phrase, and I wear my sash so, and her fingers touched the torn rent. Harry sighed. Thi s is Harimad-sol, Senay said, who wielded the trade name that cut my sash. She took the trials. The old man move to look at her sharply, and Harry met his heed, wondering if he would comment on her simply Outlander cast of features under the Hillmans hood provided he looked at her a moment, the lantern light shining in her eyes, and then bowed himself, and said, My house is honored. save then did his eyes drop to the blue hilt just visible beyond the edge of her cloak. He turned to look at the rest of them, and his quiet face gave nothing away as he looked at two dozen Outlander cavalry standing uneasily at his threshold. These are my comrades, Senay said again, and her father nodded and the woman, Senays stepmother, said formally, They are wel stick to.Terim and Jack followed Harry and Senay into the house, while Jacks men and horses were led along the stone ridge of mountainside that the solas house was built against, to a long low hall. It is the village meeting-place, Sen ay explained. Many of our Hill towns have them, near the solas house, for on that point we can all move into together to maunder or to celebrate and when it is necessary we can furnish our friends and abiding their horses.Harry nodded slowly. And if you must defend?The old man smiled without humor. There are caves, and bouting paths that lead pursuers to walls of stone or cliffs and we can disappear if we must. You would not have come easily to this place if Senay had not guided you. The Hills are not good country for conquerors there are too more holes in them.Yes, murmured Jack.The room they entered was a large one there were rugs on the floors and walls, and a long low table beside a long flatusow, although it was close curtained now. Rilly, said her mother firmly, you may stay up for a short while, provided you must put your robe and your boots on. Rilly disappeared again.Servants entered the room transport malak and trivial fat cakes, and Rilly reappeared and snuggl ed downwards by Senay, who put an arm around her. Harry waited, wondering if she would have to explain their errand barely Senay said with the same simplicity as she had explained the Outlanders as her comrades We go to stop the Northerners who come through the Madamer Gate. Who is there that can come with us?Sixteen passengers number in them in the morning when they set out once more, and Harry began to see a trifle silly riding at the head of what was befitting at least a conjunction if not an phalanx. But it was obviously expected of her to ride first, chin in the air, staring forthrightly ahead. Its get around than one mad Outlander on a Hill horse, she belief. What would I have done if Senay and Terim hadnt followed me, if Jack hadnt been at the fort?Jack, she said.Mmm?Have you ever seen Ritgers Gap?No. Why?I am wondering, in a foresightful instructioning sort of way, how ridiculous a few dozen of us strung out across it are going to look when if the Northerners d o in fact decide to use it.Jack grimaced. not very silly, I mean. I believe its a very determine place theres a valley spread out on the far side of it, but the gap itself we should be able to bottle up for some time, even the few of us.Harry expelled her tip. I do bear on cerebration how much of a fools errand this is.Jack smiled. A noble and well-in populateioned fools errand at least.That night Harry dreaminged Ritgers Gap, the Madamer Gate, was a thin crack cocaine of rock, no more than two-horse width on the south side was a petty rocky plateau, which then fell away abruptly into the set mountainside. On the north was a wide bowl of valley with some dull brush and loose rock masking piece it uneven footing, she thought in her dream, and no protection. Not a betrothalfield of choice. The valley led slowly up to the final narrow gap in the rock. She turned in her dream, and aphorism a little string of riders, the leader on a tall chestnut horse that gleamed like fir e in the sun, striding up the path to the rocky plateau. She had seen these riders in front, toiling up that mountainside. The familiarity of the vision console her perhaps she had, after all, do the right choice when the path had forked. peradventure she would justify Luthes faith in her.And Corlath?She woke with a start. There was the colourizeness in front true dawn in the sky, but she arose nonetheless and began to stir the fire. She noticed, with a flash of fear and anger, that her hand trembled and then the fire burned up, and in its red heart she saw two faces. First was Corlaths. He stood quietly, staring at something she could not see and he looked sad, and the sadness wrung her heart as though she were the cause of it. Then his face became the singes of a campfire again, but they flickered and rearranged themselves and became the face of Aerin, who smiled wryly, and it came into Harrys mind that perhaps Aerin had something to do with Senay and Terim following her, and Jack having sent Richard exclusively to argue for the General Mundy. Harry smiled a little, weakly, herself, at the face in the fire. Aerin looked away, as if something had caught her caution, and there was a blue glint at her side, which might have been Gonturans hilt, or only the snapping of a small fire.Do we ride out early, then? said Jack, his voice rough with short catch some Zs.Yes, said Harry. I dont like my dreams and I suspect that I am supposed to profits attention to some of my dreams.Their voices caused other sleepers to stir, and by the time the sun rose up over the crest of the Hills on their right, they had ridden some miles. We will be there by tomorrow, said Harry at their midday stopover and the grimness of her own voice surprised her. She was sitting on the ground as she spoke, and Narknon came to her, and wrapped herself around her shoulders and lynchpin like a fur cloak, as if to comfort her.There was a scuffle, suddenly, to one side, and Harry wh ipped around, one hand on Gonturan. A tall woman strode out from the trees, two of Jacks soldiers, looking tousled, slightly annoyed, and slightly afeared(predicate), standing on her either side. unitary of them held half a loaf of bread and the other a gaunt dagger but he held it like a bread knife. The woman was dressed in brown leather there was a distort blue belt, sky blue, a coloration that comforted the eye, around her waist, and a dull crimson cap on her head and she wore a reel of arrows over her shoulder and carried loosely in her hand a long bow, with blue beads the color of her belt twist just under the handgrip.I am Kentarre, she said. Forgive the abruptness of my arrival.The filanon, breathed Senay, standing slapdash at Harrys side.The who? muttered Harry and then to the tall woman, You have just turn up to us that we need to post sentries, even to eat a gustatory perception of bread. We thought ourselves alone here, and our haste to our own ends has made us careless.Sentries, I think, would not have stopped me, and you see and Kentarre held up her bow I come in peace to you, for I cannot notch an arrow before any of your people might stop me.She spoke Hill-speech, but her try was curious, and the inflections were not predictable. Harry be she had to listen closely to be sure she perceive correctly, for she was not that accustomed to the Hill tongue herself. Perhaps it was her attention that caught the unspoken even before I cannot notch an arrow, and she smiled faintly. Kentarre stood quite still, smiling in return. Narknon came to sit, in her watch-cat disguise, at Harrys feet. She gave Kentarre one of her long clear-eyed looks and then, without moving, began to purr. iodine mark in your favor, thought Harry, for Narknons judgment is usually pretty good. What do you wish of us? she said.Kentarre said, We have hear, even in our high Hilltops, where we talk often to the subverts but rarely to strangers, that she has come who c arries the Lady Aerins vane into battle once more and we thought that we might seek her, for our mothers mothers mothers followed her long ago, when Gonturan first came to Damar in the hands of the wizard Luthe. So we made wee-wee for a long journey and then we nominate that Gonturan, and the sol who carries her, were coming to us and so we waited. Three weeks we have waited, as we were told and you are here and we would pledge to you. In the last sentence Kentarres lofty tone left her, and she looked, quickly and anxiously, into Harrys face, and color rose to her nervebones.Harry was doing some rapid calculations. Three weeks ago she had sat in a stone hall and eaten eat with a tall thin man who had told her that he had no clear(p) fortune for her, but that she should do what she felt she must do.Harry met Kentarres gaze a little ruefully. If you knew so well when we would be here, perhaps you know also how pitifully few we are and how heedless an errand we pursue. But we wou ld pick up your help in holding the Northerners gumption for what time we may, if such is also your desire.The last finger of the hand holding the bow gently spun one of the blue beads on its wire and Harry thought that Kentarre was not so much older than herself. Indeed, we do wish it. And if any of us remain afterward, we will follow you bandaging to your king, whom we have not seen for generations, for in this thing perhaps all of what there is left of the old Damar must come together, if any of it is to survive.Harry nodded, thinking that perhaps Kentarres people would be convinced to go without her when the time came, for Corlath was likelier to be pleased to see them without his mutineer in their midst but such thoughts were superfluous till they found out if any of their number would survive a meeting with the Northerners. Kentarre turned and stepped briskly back into the woods.The filanon, Senay murmured again.The which? Harry said.Filanon, she repeated. People of the tre es. They are archers like none else it is said they speak to their arrows, which will turn corners or leap obstacles to please them. They are legends now even my people, who hold water so near their forests, have believed that they no longer exist, even if the old tales are true, and once the filanon, with their blue-hung bows, did live high in the mountains where no one else went. She paused a moment, and added, Very rarely one of us has found one of the blue beads they are thought to be lucky. My father has one that his father found when he was a little boy. He was wearing it the day the gursh boar gored him, and he said that it would have had him in the belly, and killed him, if the blue bead had not turned the wildcat well at the last.Jack said, Tell me, passe-partout, do you always transport in the loose wanderers you find in the woods if they offer to fall in with you?Harry smiled. Only when they tell stories that I like. Three weeks ago I was talking to a wise man who told me that things would happen to me. I am inc line to believe that this is one of them. Besides, Narknon likes her.Jack nodded. I cull to believe you. Although I have my doubts active your tabbys value as a judge of character. He blinked at her once or twice. Youre different, you know, than you were when you still lived with us Outlanders. Something deeper than the sunburn. He said this, knowing its truth, curious to see its effect upon the young woman he had once known, had once watched staring at the Darian desert.Harry looked at him, and Jack was sure she knew exactly what was passing through his mind. I am different. But the difference is a something riding me as I ride Sungold. She looked wry.Jack chuckled. My dear, you are merely learning nigh command responsibility. If you were mine, Id promote you.They finished their noon meal without seeing anything more of Kentarre but as they mounted, many of them looking nervously around for more tall archers to burst from the bu shes upon them, the materialization suddenly took place. Kentarre stood before Harry with a black-haired man at her elbow he carried a bow too, but among the blue beads at its grip was one apple-green one and his tunica was dun-colored. Then Harry without turning her head saw that the path was lined with archers she nodded blandly as if she had expected them to appear like this which in fact she rather had and moved Tsornin off. Kentarre and the man fell in with her and Jack and Senay and Terim, and the rest of the archers followed after the last horses had passed. Kentarre walked with as free and sheding a mistreat as Sungold.There were about a hundred of her new troop, Harry found, when they stopped again. With them were about twenty hunting-cats monstrousger-boned, with broader monotoneter skulls than Narknons, and more variety of color than Harry had seen among Corlaths tools. Narknon herself kept carefully at Harrys heels even the indomitable Narknon seemed to sense of smell discretion was the better part of valor when faced with twenty of her own kind, and each of them a third larger than herself.Harry and her company found a little rock bowl, sheltered from the northwest wind that had begun to policy change that afternoon, and all of them clustered in it, around several small fires. The archers unstring their bows and murmured to or over their arrows, and the others watched them surreptitiously. Bows seemed as outlandish to the sword-bearers as feathers on one of their horses. Jacks men felt absently for revolvers that werent on their hips.At dawn they set off again, and now Harry felt that she rode into her dream perhaps she would energise up yet and find herself in the kings tent, with unknown words on her lips and Corlaths hands on her shoulders, and pity in his eyes. They rode, the archers striding long-legged behind them, up a narrow trail into the mountain peaks up the dark unwelcoming heel overs to the border of the North. The cold th in air bit at their throats, and the sun was seen as scattered falls of light through the leaves. The ground underfoot was shaly, but Tsornin never stumbled his ears were hard forward and his feet were set firmly. Harry tapped her fingernail on the big blue stone in the hilt of Gonturan and thought of a song shed strain as a child the tune fluttered through her mind, but she couldnt quite catch the words. It made her feel isolated, as though her childhood hadnt unfeignedly happened or at least hadnt happened as she remembered it. Perhaps shed always lived in the Hills shed seen Sungold foaled, and she had been the one first to put a appoint on his young back, and had trained him to rear and strike as a warhorse. Her stomach felt funny.They reached Ritgers Gap, the Madamer Gate, before sunset, spilling out across the little plateau that lay behind it, with trees at its back and only bare rock rising around it to the mountaintop, a few bowlengths above them. There was a long alte r cave to one side, where the mountain peak bent back on itself, and low trees protected much of the face of it. Well sleep in something resembling shelter tonight, said Jack cheerfully. At least as long as the wind doesnt veer around and decide to spit at us from the south.Harry was listening to the northern breeze it sneered at her. It wont, she said.Jack cocked an forehead at her, but she said no more about it. The plateau was loud with the panting of men and horses they had hurried to arrive, just as her dream had told her they would, or must the last hour, men and horses had had to scramble up, side by side. Harry leaned against Sungolds shoulder, grateful for the animal solidity of him he turned his head to chew gently on her sleeve till she petted him. After a minute of staring around her she slowly followed Narknon as the cat paced up to the Gap itself and stared into the valley beyond. Even Narknon seemed subdued, but perhaps it was the days hard miles. 2 riders abreast co uld pass the narrow space in the rock, perhaps, but their knees would touch. On this side of the Gap, the plateau sloped up to the shoulders of the narrow cleft and down the other side, where men and clever-footed horses might climb. Harry stared through, and became conscious of Sungolds warm breath on the back of her neck. Narknon leaped down from her perch beside the cleft, turned her back on it, and began to wash. Harry stood in the Gap itself, and leaned against the spot Narknon had vacated. A pebbly slope dropped down away from her to a scrub-covered valley between the mountains arms there was a lower valley wall on the far side, but it fell away into foothills. Harry felt her sight reaching away, into the rasping plain beyond the dun-colored valley and scattering of low sharp hills and on the edge of the plain she saw a haze that eddied and drifted, like a tide coming in, exploring the shore before it, reaching out to stroking the little hills before it swept over them.Harry turned and went back to her company. She said to no one in particular, They will be here tomorrow.It was a silent camp that night eitherone seemed almost superstitiously afraid to polish a dagger one last time in too obvious a fashion much quiet checking of equipment went on, but it was a shadowy sort of motion. No one met anothers eyes and there was no bright ring of metal on metal. Even footfalls were muffled.Jacks talk gelding Draco and Harrys Sungold had become friends over the days of carrying their riders side by side. The Outlander horses were always set out on a pale line while the Hill horses wandered where they would, never far from the human bivouac and Sungold and Draco stood nose to nose often, murmuring to each other perhaps about the weather and the footing of the day past perhaps about the eccentricities and preoccupations of their riders. Tonight they stood near together with their heads facing the same way reflexion us, Harry thought, looking back at them or reflection that flagitious northwest wind. Sungold nicked one ear back, then forward again, and stamped. Draco turned his head to blow thoughtfully at his companion, and then they both placated down for a nap, one hind leg slack, their eyes timid and unfocused. Harry watched enviously. The north wind gibbered.Draco, who knows almost as much about battles as I do, has told young Sungold that he should get a good nights sleep. I, world-weary warrior that I am thats hard to say after too many hours in the saddle am about to say the same thing to you, my brilliant young Captain.Harry sighed. Do stop concern me Captain. Carrying Gonturan is enough and shes not your legend.Youll get used to it, Captain, said Jack. Would you deny me one small amusement? Dont answer that. Go to sleep.Perhaps if I could stand on three legs and let my eyes glaze over, it would help, she replied. I do not feel like sleeping and I dread dreaming.Hmm, said Jack. Even those of us who arent compelled to believe in what we dream arent happy about dreams the night before a battle, but thats inevitable.Harry nodded, then got up to unroll her back and dutifully laid herself down on it. Narknon couldnt settle either she paced around the fire, wandered over to touch noses with Sungold, returned, lay down, paced some more. Ill radiate Kentarre and her people into the woods on either side of the Gap, looking down on the valley we can all mob together here and see what comes.Splendid, said Jack from his blanket, as he pulled off his boots. I couldnt arrange it better myself.Harry gave a breathless little laugh. There isnt much to be organized, my wise friend. Even I know that.Jack nodded. You could forward us through that crack in the rock two at a time, to get cut in pieces I would then object. But you arent going to. Go to sleep, General. Harry grunted.Harrys eyes stayed open, and saw the cloud come across the moon, and heard the whine of the north wind pick up as the clouds strangle d the moonlight. She heard the stamp of a horse from the picket line, and an indeterminate mumble from an uneasy sleeper and Narknon, who had finally trenchant to make the best of it by going to sleep, snored faintly with her head on Harrys breast. And beyond these things she heard other things. She had set no sentries, for she knew, as she knew the Northerners would face them tomorrow, that they were not necessary. It was a small piece of good fortune that every one of her small company might have the chance of sleep the night before the battle, and it would be foolish not to accept any good fortune she was offered. But as she lay awake and lonely(a) she heard the stamp of hooves not shod with iron, the shifting of the bulk of riding-animals that were not horses, the sleeping snores of riders that were not human. Then her mind drifted for a few almost peaceful minutes but she heard a rustle, and as her asleep(predicate) mind slowly recognized the rustle as a tent flap closing she heard Corlaths voice say sharply, Tomorrow. She sat up in shock Narknon slithered off her shoulder and rearranged herself on the ground. Around her were the small dead-looking heaps of her friends and followers, the red embers of campfires, the absolute blackness of the curve of rock and the shifting blackness that was the edge of the trees. She turned her head and could faintly see the project of horse legs, and she heard the ring of iron on a kicked rock. Jack was breathing deeply his face was turned away from the dying fire glow, and she could not see his expression she even wondered if he were feigning sleep as a good example for her. She looked at Narknon, stretched out beside her her head was now over Harrys knees. There was no doubt that she was sincerely asleep. Her whisker twitched, and she muttered low in her throat.Harry lay down again. The wind sniggered around the rocks, but overhead it flung itself, laughing shrilly, through the mountains, into the quiet plains o f Damar, bearing with it the barbarian whispers and moans of the Northern army. Harry shivered. A finger of breeze touched her cheek and she recoiled it ran over her shoulder and disappeared. She pulled the blanket over her face.She must have slept, for when she pushed the blanket away from her face again the mountain was edged with dawn and her emit tasted sticky. She sat up. Narknon was still asleep. Jacks eyes were open. He was staring grimly at nothing she watched his eyes pull into focus to look at her. He sat up, saying nothing, and put his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands over the grey stubble of hair on his head. Other bodies were stirring. There was a small spring-fed pool in a fist of rock where the front of the change cave was sheltered by the trees one of Jacks men filled a tin at it and brought it to one of Kentarres archers, who had produced a slender tongue of flame from last nights ashes. Harry stared dreamily at the little fire till something black came between her and it, which proved to be Jack, kneeling down at their own bed of embers. Harry got up, kicking her blankets off, and went to fetch another tin of water.Jack smiled at her when she returned. She tried to smile back she wasnt sure how boffo she was.While they waited for the water to boil, Harry walked to the Madamer Gate and stared through it. The top of her head stood above the rock cleft, and the north wind howled down on her her sell felt tight and cold. The haze still hung where she had seen it the evening before, at the beginning of the foothills but this morning she felt she could see flashes of color and motion at bottom it. The color was the color of fear.The wind chewed into her and she went back to the cave. They were all sitting, hunkered down around their tiny fires and they were all watching her or all but Jack, who was shaving. She respect the steadiness of his hand as he bent over a ragged bit of mirror propped against a rock on the ground. She stopped just before the shadow of the cave began. Stay out of the wind while you can, she said. Its not the right sort of wind.Terim looked up, as if he could see the shape of the wind itself, and not only the way it shook the leaves and bounced pebbles from the rockfaces. The Northerners send their wind to chill us, he said.Harry remembered the creeping touch on her face the night before. Yes, she said slowly. To chill us but I think also to discover us. I prefer that we tell it no more than we must.At midmorning Harry saddled Sungold, unrolled the tops of her boots and lashed them to her thighs, settled her leather vest with particular care across her shoulders, and Gonturan against her hip. Shield and iron-bound helm hung ensnare from the front of the saddle Sungold turned to look at her. The saddle looked strange, unbalanced, without the coarse knapsacks strapped around it. Draco chewed his bit, and Tsornin pointed an ear briefly at the sound.Shortly before noon Harry sent Kentarre and her archers and their big soft-footed cats out beyond the Gate, into the last trees on the mountains shoulders rising above the haggard valley. Harry watched anxiously, for the covering of stunted trees was not good, and she felt that every blue bead would be visible but the archers disappeared as if they were no more than thrown pebbles. Harry was sure that whatever approached them knew the Gate was held against them knew and smiled at the tale the wind brought but she could do no more.Jack saw them for the first time just before Kentarre led her archers away. He was staring through a narrow black spyglass his hands were as steady as they had been with his razor. Harry could keep hers from chafing and plucking at each other only by thinking about it constantly she clamped them on her sword belt. They felt damp. Harry had been watching those coming toward them all morning and it took her a moment to understand Jacks sudden grunt of comprehension. The fog had flowed into the mo uth of the valley, and now it resolved itself into a commode of dark moving shapes which still seemed to cast more shadow than they should, for they were very near.Mount, said Harry.The wind chuckled wildly as it tore at their hair, and pinged frantically off metal as helms were settled in place, and dragged at the fingers of gloves, and sword tips, and horse tails. Sungold stood with his nose in the Gate Draco stood at Harrys knee, stolidly, ears pricked. Harry could feel Tsornin tremble, but it was impatience and she bit her lip in pity for herself and pride for her horse. Terims horse tossed its head anxiously and switched its tail Terims face at a lower place the helm was unreadable. Narknon reappeared from wherever she had spent the morning, licking her chops she hadnt been satisfied with porridge this morning. She polished her bewhisker carefully, then came to the head of the column, to sit between Tsornin and Draco. Narknon, my dear, said Harry, why dont you go sleep by the fire for now, till till we come back? This isnt your sort of hunting.Narknon looked up at her, perfectly aware that she was being intercommunicate then she lowered her gaze again and stared out across the valley.The filanons cats went with them, said Jack. Youll hurt her feelings if you try to leave her behind.Harry said fiercely, This is not the time to make silly jokes.On the contrary, Captain, replied Jack. This is exactly the time.Harry swallowed and looked out at the Northerners again. At the front of the army before them was a rider on a white horse. The horse was magnificent, as tall as Sungold, with the same proud head and high tail red ribbons fluttered from its forelock and crest. His rein ins were easy glints against its snowy neck and the riders heavy sword was a great gilt bar at his side. Beside him a dark rider on a mud-colored savage carried a standard white, with a red bird on it, a bird of prey with a curved beak.No army can move that fast, said Jack.No, said Harry.The white horse screamed and Sungold answered, elevation Harry punched his neck with a closed fist, and he settled back, but his haunches were tensed under him, waiting to hurl them forward.Very well, said Harry. We will go to meet them now.A rain of arrows fell from the sky into the dark sea at their feet, and some of the dark many-shadowed shapes fell, and weird cries drifted up to the watchers at the Gate. At least arrows pierce them, Harry heard Terim say. Sungolds ears lay flat to his head, and he pranced where he stood. Harry could hear the horses moving up close behind her Senay and Terim stood with their horses front feet half up the rock slope on either side of the Gap.Jack, said Harry. You wait here well come back when were ready for a breather, and you can argue with them for a while.As you say, Captain, said Jack. And he whispered, Good luck, Harimad-sol.Harry gestured to Jacks precursor, and they sallied out under a banner of bright brass notes, for they c arried no other.Sungold leaped down the slope, and the white entire reared and neighed his rider turned him and galloped to one side, and the lightless mass of the army surged up the sides of the valley. War-cries rang in harsh throats, twisted by ill-shaped tongues.The ground before the Gate was in Harrys favor, for there was little room to maneuver, and no room for the overwhelming poesy of the Northerners to sweep around their small adversaries and crush them. Each side must fight on a narrow front it was a read/write head merely of how long the Hillfolk had the strength to fight, for there were always replacements for any Northerner who fell or grew weary. Harry pulled Gonturan from her scabbard and swung her once, shrilling through the air, splitting the northern wind into fragments that fell, crying, under Sungolds feet. Gonturan yelled Terim. Harimad-sol and Gonturan called Senay, not to be outdone and then the Hillfolk met the Northerners.Sungold plunged and struck with d entition and hooves as Gonturan cut and thrust and Harry felt the yellow wind rising in her mind and was glad of it, for her intellect was of little use, and that the maltreat sort, just now and she noticed that Gonturan was wet with blood, but that the blood seemed an odd color. Clouds massed to cover the sun, but they kept breaking up and drifting away again, and the Hillfolk fought more strongly for this proof that the black army was not all- big businessmanful.Harry was dimly aware that Dracos head was at her knee again, and there was a momentary lull when her right arm could drop and her small bulwark rest heavily on her leg, and she said, Where did you come from?It looked as if you never would come back and give us a chance, and we got tired of waiting, said Jack and then the battle swelled around them again, and the clank of metal and the fuck of blows rose up and smothered them. There was a smear of blood along Sungolds neck, and as he tossed his head, foam flew backward and ran down Harrys forearm.Those they fought were hard to see clearly, even from as close as a sword stroke. Harry saw better than most and still she could not say why she was sure that those she faced were not all human. Some glint eyes and swift arms were human enough but others seemed to swing from curiously jointed shoulders and hips, and the eyes were set oddly in odd-shaped skulls although perhaps the skulls were all right, and the helms were deliberately misshapen. Some of the horses too were true horses but some had hides that sparkled like scales, and feet that hit the ground unlike hooves, and teeth that were pointed like a dogs.Minutes passed and Gonturan had a life of her own and the next time Harry saw Jack, Draco crashed into them from one side and Jacks stirrup caught at her articulatio talocruralis and he yelled, You might think of retiring for a few minutes, Captain weve upset them, and we deserve it.Harry looked around puzzled, but it was true her handful had driven the dark army back they were halfway down the valley again. Oh, she said. Umm. Yes.Back shouted Jack, standing in his stirrups. Back to the Gap The trumpeter picked it up, for he had followed Jack when the colonel struggled to reach Harry, as he had followed Colonel Dedham often before in years and battles past and never yet had he get a wound that hindered his playing, although the border skirmishes he was acquainted with had little disposed(p) him for this day. He was tired and bloody now, and it took him a moment to fill his lungs to make his trumpet speak but then the notes flew out again, over the heads of the combatants, and Harrys company collected themselves to fall back to the Gap. Harry saw Senay near at hand, and then the others, one at a time, turning, half aware, in their saddles, interview the notes of the retreat some picking up the cry and throwing it farther the filanon had a long clear singing note that they passed among themselves. As the Hill and Outland er horses wheeled to gallop away and Harry prepared to follow them, suddenly the white stallion was before her.This one almost looked like a real horse, she thought but its teeth were bared, and they were the sharp curved fangs of a flesh-eater. Its bit came to a sharp point on each side of its jaw, so it could slash an opposing horse with a sideways twist of its head. Its long ears were flat to its skull, and its blue eyes rolled. It reared and screamed its stallion scream again, and Sungold answered but when her horses front feet hit the earth again, he leaped forward and Harry saw the other stallions rider sweep his golden sword up in challenge. Gonturan glittered in the sunlight but when they met, the blow was of more than physical strength. The other riders sword drew no blood, but Harry reeled in her saddle the noise the sword had made against her fresh-stained and pitted shield sent waves of fear through her, and her yellow war-rage went grey and dim. Sungold reared and shrie ked the white stallion was not quick enough, and when the chestnut swerved away there was blood on the others neck and shoulder and rein.This seemed to drive the white horse mad, and it came again Harry heard through the deadening thunder in her ears that the other rider laughed. She raised(a) her eyes to where his should be, under his blazing white helm, and saw spots of red fire below that, teeth were bared in a smiling in a jaw that might once have been human. The power that washed over that face, that rolled down the arms and into the sword and shield, was that of demonkind, and Harry knew she was no match for this one, and in spite of the heat of Gonturan in her hand her heart was cold with fear. The two stallions reared again, and reached out to tear each other the white stallions neck was now ribboned with blood, like the real ribbons he wore in his mane. Harry raised her sword arm, and felt the shock of the answer the hilts of the swords rang together, and sparks flew from the crash, and it seemed that lot rose from them and blinded her. The other riders hot breath was in her face. His lips move and she saw his tongue it was scarlet, and looked more like fire than living flesh. Her arm was numb. The contact lasted only a moment Sungold wrenched himself and his rider free, and Harrys legs held her on his back from habit, while she struggled only not to drop her sword. Sungold bit the white stallion just above the tail, and the horse kicked too late, for Sungold again twisted out of the way and bit him again on the flank, and the blood flowed from the long smashed gash. The white stallion threw up his head and lunged forward, away from his enemy. Harry heard the rider laugh again, although he made no attempt to rein his horse around for another attack an attack that Harry knew would be her last defense. He could wait. He knew the strength of his army and the size of the force that chose to try and block it, for the wind he sent had told him.But it w as then, as the white stallion ran from them, and the banner-bearer turned to follow its leader, that from the black ground-swell a long stripy body rose and flung itself snarling at the mud-colored beast. Sungold was leaping forward again before Harry was aware of her legs closing around him for it was Narknon. The cat trimmed at the rider, and dropped away again, and then sprang at the beasts face and seized its nose in her teeth purple blood welled out and poured down Narknons matted sides. The beast reared, trying to tear at the cat with its clawed forefeet, but Narknon twisted in mid-air. The beast came to the ground again as its rider made a sword cut at the cat, but it missed, for Gonturan got in its way. And the beast reared up once more, mad with pain, and flung itself over backward and neither beast nor rider rose again, and the red-and-white banner was trampled underfoot.