The Shadow Isle

‘And what about you, Branna?’ Sidro said. ‘Do you too long for a child?’

Branna’s grey gnome popped into materialization and shook its head in a resounding no.

‘What’s this?’ Branna said to the gnome. ‘You’d be jealous, I suppose.’ She brought her attention back to Sidro. ‘I hope this doesn’t mean I’m an awful unnatural woman, but I don’t really want a child just now. I want to keep studying dweomer. A baby would be a nuisance.’

‘Not here,’ Dallandra said, ‘not among the Westfolk. We prize our children so much that you’ll have plenty of help when you do give birth.’

‘Good. If he got me with child, Neb doubtless would gloat over it, but I’ll wager he wouldn’t be any help with the baby. Although I might be doing him a disservice. He’s not like the men I grew up with.’

‘I’m glad you can see that.’ Dallandra smiled at her. ‘An honour-bound warrior he’s not.’

Over on the blankets Vek let out a long snore, then turned over on his side and nestled down, his back to the women.

‘Good, he’s asleep,’ Dallandra said. ‘That’s the best thing for him.’

‘So it is,’ Sidro said, then lowered her voice to a murmur. ‘He had one of his visions during the fit.’

‘Did he see Laz or the black stone?’ Dallandra leaned closer and spoke softly.

‘Alas, he did not. He spoke of a tower that reached to the sky, but it turned to smoke.’

‘The tower did?’

‘It turned to a pillar of smoke whilst it sent out flames, he did say. Do you think his mind did fasten on the burning of Zakh Gral? The men here have talked of little else all winter long.’

‘It seems likely, truly. Did he say anything about where this tower was?’

‘He did not, but many of our people – the Gel da’Thae, that be – did die in the flames. He wept to see it. Then spirits came down from heaven and spread snow upon the burning, and the snow did fall everywhere and ruin a harvest. The oats and barley in the field do die, he cried out. The snow were ashes, I suppose.’ Sidro frowned, thinking. ‘But there were no tilled fields near Zakh Gral. The rakzanir did speak of settling slave farmers around it to feed the soldiers stationed there, but that were to happen the next year. Our food did come from the cities.’

‘Well, I don’t think we can expect every detail of his visions to make perfect sense.’ Dallandra glanced at Vek to make sure that he was still sound asleep. ‘This one seems clearer than the others, though, so I can see why you’re trying to puzzle it out.

‘So it be.’ Sidro paused for a sigh. ‘I think me, Wise One, that we’ll be having a harvest of omens this summer.’

‘And few of them good.’ Dallandra had meant to speak lightly, but her words sprang to life in her mouth and burned.

Branna and Sidro both turned towards her and waited, studying her face. ‘More trouble, I suppose,’ Dallandra said. ‘The Star Goddesses only know what, though I’ve no doubt we’ll find out for ourselves soon enough.’

‘True spoken,’ Branna said, ‘or too soon.’

Branna’s grey gnome grinned and nodded, then slowly, one bit at a time, disappeared.

On the morrow the rain slackened. A wind sprang up from the south and brought not warmth but the promise of it as it drove the clouds from the sky. Prince Daralanteriel gave the order to his royal alar to break camp. Besides his wife, Carra, and their children, the prince travelled with his banadar or warleader, his bard, his dweomermasters, and a hundred warriors, most of them archers, along with their wives and children, or in the case of the women archers, their husbands and children. Getting this mob on the road took time.

As well as the crowd of Westfolk, the alar travelled with herds of horses, flocks of sheep, and packs of dogs, trained for herding or hunting. Although the People were adept at packing up their goods, their livestock, and their tents, by the time they got moving along the predetermined route, the sun would be well on its way to midday. They’d travel until some hours before sunset, when everyone would stop to allow the stock to graze before night fall. In the short days of winter’s end, they managed perhaps ten miles a day.

Dallandra thanked the Star Goddesses for the slow pace. She was too pregnant to ride astride for long. Walking would have tired her after a few miles, and sitting on a travois to be dragged along would have shaken her bones and the baby both. With the ground still saturated from the winter rains, using a wagon would have been out of the question even if the Westfolk had possessed such a thing. Fortunately Grallezar had a solution.

‘Among my people,’ the Gel da’Thae said, ‘we have a thing called a mother’s saddle. It be long from pommel to cantle, and both stirrups, they hang on one side.’

‘I saw something similar in Deverry,’ Dallandra said. ‘I’d be afraid to use one. What if something frightens my horse, and it tries to throw me? I couldn’t get free in time to save myself and the child.’

‘With Pir leading your horse, think you it will spook at shadows?’

Dallandra grinned at her. ‘I’d forgotten about Pir. Do you think we can put together one of those saddles?’

‘Something like it at the least.’

It took Dallandra some days to grow used to the new saddle. She had to sit extremely straight to keep her back from hurting, which meant counterbalancing the weight of her pregnancy. She felt her posture as awkward and ugly both. By the afternoons she wanted nothing more than to call an early halt, but with the memory of omens burning in her mouth, she set her teeth against the discomfort and said nothing. At least with the horse mage walking along beside her, she knew that she could trust her mount, who seemed to view Pir as a wiser sort of horse. A tall lean fellow, Pir’s dark hair hung in an odd style all his own. He’d cropped most of it off short but left a wide stripe down the middle of his head from brow to neck that was long enough to braid like a horse’s mane. At moments Dallandra’s mare would snuffle into the mane or onto Pir’s shoulder, as if reassuring herself that he was still there.

The royal alar made its last camp before reaching Mandra late on a day that most definitely felt like spring. Dallandra contacted Valandario while her apprentice and some of Calonderiel’s men set up her tent.

‘We’ll arrive just after noon, I think,’ Dallandra told her.

‘Very well,’ Val said. ‘I’ll tell the mayor. The townsfolk will want to greet the prince properly.’

‘What does properly mean to them?’

‘Lots of speeches. Tell Dar to have one ready.’

‘Devaberiel’s travelling with us. The two of them can work something up.’

‘Excellent! It would be a good idea for Dar to ride into town with some sort of ceremony around him, banners, pennants that kind of thing. Does he have more than that old shabby one he took to the war?’

‘He does. Carra and some of the women have been stitching all winter long.’

‘Good. The town will like that.’

On the morrow, the alar set out with the prince and his banadar in the lead, dressed in their best clothes and riding golden horses. Behind them came Dallandra and the royal bard, Devaberiel, also wearing what finery they owned. Next rode the archers and swordsmen, with the rest of the alar bringing up the rear with the flocks and herds. Some of the older children rode in front of the warriors and carried the banners and pennants of Daralanteriel’s royal line, embroidered and appliquéd with the red rose and the seven stars of the cities of the far western mountains.

For those last few miles, the road, a rough affair of mud and gravel, ran along the tops of the sea cliffs. Long before they reached its walls, they came to fields of sprouting grain and orchards of young apple trees, spindly and doubtless still barren, but a promise of fruit to come. The farmers working in the fields rushed to the stone fences to call out ‘the prince! the prince! here’s to our prince!’ as the alar rode on by. Daralanteriel bowed from the saddle and waved to acknowledge them all.

At last in the distance they saw the roofs of Mandra. All around the town the wild grass still waved, a common ground for milk cows at most times, but the townsfolk had put up a temporary enclosure to keep the royal alar’s herds and flocks from wandering too close to the cliff edge. Herdsmen were waiting to help turn the stock inside the rough walls, thrown together out of driftwood and stones, broken planks and branches. At the sight of the prince, the herdsmen rode out, cheering. Dar waved and smiled.

Everything seemed to be going splendidly, in fact, until the town herdsmen began to help round up the flocks and herds following the procession. Up near the front as she was, Dallandra heard angry shouts, yells, cries of fear and alarm, but she could see nothing. Everyone halted except for the dogs, who rushed back and forth, barking. The archers and swordsmen in the middle of the line of march began to turn their horses to ride back. The entire line broke apart as riders drifted into the meadows lining the road.

‘Ye gods!’ Pir said. ‘Those shouts – some of them be Gel da’Thae.’

Too late Dallandra remembered just how many Gel da’Thae rode with the alar – the men Pir had brought with him, the remnant of Grallezar’s bodyguard, and Grallezar herself. Over the winter they’d become loyal friends to the other members of the alar, but in the eyes of the refugees who’d settled Mandra, they’d be Meradan, demons, and little else. Swearing under his breath, Calonderiel turned his horse out of line and galloped back. As he passed the squads of swordsmen, he called to them to follow.

Dallandra’s dappled grey mare danced nervously in the road and pulled at the reins. Pir laid a hand on the horse’s neck, up under her mane, and she quieted.

‘My thanks,’ Dallandra said. ‘Can you see what’s happening back there?’

‘I can’t,’ Pir said. ‘But the shouting’s died down.’

Calonderiel returned shortly after with Grallezar riding beside him. Grallezar guided her stolid chestnut gelding up to Dallandra and leaned over to speak to her while Calonderiel went on to confer with Dar.

‘We Gel da’Thae,’ Grallezar said, ‘had best avoid strife. I did tell the banadar that we be willing to camp elsewhere, up the north-running road a fair piece, say. Then when you all leave Mandra, we shall rejoin you as you pass by.’