The Blue Sword (Damar #2)(19)

There was a meditative silence; at last Faran said: "I would go with you, Sola. My horse is fast." His voice was still unhappy, but the quaver was gone; and as he looked at the faces of the six Riders who had been with Corlath when he spoke with the Outlander commissioner, he began to feel curious. He had never seen an Outlander, even from a distance; never looked upon an Outlander town.

After three restless days at the deserted campsite, Corlath, Faran, and Innath rode swiftly back toward the Outlander town. Corlath thought: They can't see us even in broad daylight when we gallop toward them with cloaks flapping and horses whinnying. We creep like burglars to an empty house, pretending that it has an owner because we can't quite believe it is this easy.

Faran and Innath knelt down where they were and did not look as their king left them, for they knew they would see no more than he wished them to. The horses waited as silently as the men, but the king's bay stallion watched him go. The only sound was the wind whispering through the low brush and the horses' long manes.

Corlath reached the house without difficulty; he had expected none. Watchdogs ignored him, or mysteriously counted him a friend. There were several black-and-brown furry shapes lying about sullenly snoring in the Residency garden. Outlander dogs did not like the northeast Border of Daria; and Hill dogs, who would have awakened at once and watched him silently, did not get on well with Outlanders. He passed the stables, but the grooms slept as heavily as the dogs. He couldn't see in the dark, but even in the places where the moonlight was no help he knew where things were.

He reached the wall of the house and laid a hand on it. Depending on what sort of a mood the kelar was in, he could occasionally walk through walls, without knocking them down first, or at least see through them. And then again, sometimes he couldn't. It would be tiresome if he had to break in like the common burglar he felt, and wander from room to room looking at faces on pillows. There was even the remote chance he could get caught at it.

No. This wasn't going to be one of those times: the kelar was with him - since it had gotten him into this dilemma, he thought, at least it was going to help to get him out of it - and he knew almost at once where she was. His only bad moment was when that damned clock in the front hall tolled like a call for the dead, and seemed to reach up the stairs after him like cold pale hands. She was curled up, drooping and asleep on a cushioned shelf built out from a curved window; and for a moment pity struck him and he hesitated. What good will pity do me? he thought almost angrily; I'm not here by choice. But he wrapped the cloak around her with unnecessary tenderness as he breathed a few words over her head to make sure she would sleep.

Harry struggled out of some of the oddest dreams she'd ever had into a dim and foggy reality full of bumps and jolts. Was she ill? She couldn't seem to make out what was happening to her, save that it was very uncomfortable, and it was not like her to have difficulty waking up.

She opened her eyes blearily and saw something that looked like dawn behind something that looked like hills, although she was a long way from them ... Where she was, she then realized, was slung sideways across a horse's withers with her feet sliding across his shoulder with every stride - no more comfortable for him than me - and she was held sitting upright by an arm round her middle that clamped her arms to her sides, and her head appeared to be bouncing against a human shoulder.

Her only clear notion, and it wasn't very, was that she was perfectly capable of riding a horse herself, and resented being treated like a bundle or a baby: so she struggled. She raised her head with a gasp and shook her face free of the deep hood pulled over it; tried to sit up a bit farther and turn a bit more to the front.

This caused the rider to rein his horse in abruptly; except she realized there were no reins. The rider seized her a little more firmly and then there were two other men on horseback beside her, and they dismounted and came toward her at once. They were dressed like Hillfolk, with hoods pulled low over their faces; and quite suddenly, still not understanding what had happened to her, she was afraid. The rider who held her handed her down to the men beneath; and she noticed that the shoulder her heels were knocking was bright bay, and the mane long and black. Then as the two men caught her by the arms, her feet touched the ground, and she fainted again.

She woke once again in twilight, but this time the red glow came from the opposite direction. This time she awoke feeling more like herself; or she thought she did, but her surroundings were so unlikely she wasn't sure. She sat up and discovered she could; she was lying on a blanket, still wrapped in a dark hooded cloak that wasn't hers; and underneath she discovered she was still wearing her nightgown, and the dressing-gown over it. She was barefoot; she spent a light-headed minute or two trying to remember if her slippers had disappeared or if she'd never put them on - last night, or whenever it was - caught herself here, and looked around.

She was in a bit of a hollow, with a scrub-covered dune behind her. Over her was a sort of tent roof, pegged out in a square, but with only one side let down. The other three offered her a view of the dune; the sunset, if that was what it was; and three men crouching over a tiny smokeless fire, built against the opposite arm of the same dune. Around its edge she could see the black hills fading in the last light, and three horses. Three lumps that might be saddles lay near them, but the horses - a grey, a chestnut, and a blood bay - were not tethered in any way.

She had only just looked at these things with a first quick glance, and had not yet begun to puzzle over them, when one of the men stood up from the fire and walked over to her. The other two appeared to pay no attention, remaining bent over their knees and staring into the small red heart of the fire. The third man knelt down near her and offered a cup with something in it that steamed, and she took it at once without thinking, for the man's gesture had been a command. Then she held it and looked at it. Whatever it was, it was brown, and it smelled delicious; her stomach woke up at once, and complained.