The Blue Sword (Damar #2)(67)

"Since when is this gate closed during daylight?" she shouted; and Homelander speech tasted strange in her mouth, and she wondered if she spoke the words as a Hillwoman might.

With her words, the spell, whatever spell it might be, was broken; and the three Hill riders suddenly blinked, as if the sun had grown brighter; and a small panel shot back, beside the gate and above their heads; and a man's face glared down. "Where did you come from, Hillman, and what do you want of us?" He looked without pleasure at the white rag.

"We came from the Hills," Harry said, grinning, "but I am no Hillman; and we would like speech with Colonel Dedham."

The man scowled at her. She suspected that he did not like her knowing Jack's name. "He does not speak to Hillfolk - or those who ride like Hillfolk," he added disagreeably. By now there were several faces peering over the wall at them; Harry did not recognize any of them, and found this strange, for she had known at least by sight nearly all of Dedham's men. She had not been gone for so many months that it seemed likely the entire complement of the fort could have changed. She squinted up at them, wondering if her eyes or her memory was playing her tricks.

She frowned at her interlocutor's tone. "You could bear a message to him, then," she said, trying to decide if it was worth the possibility of some kind of uproar if she said her name.

"Hillfolk - " began the man at the window, and his tone was not encouraging.

"Oh, Bill, for the love of God, the new orders say nothing about rudeness," said one of the faces at the fence. "If you won't carry a message as requested, I will - and I'll be sure to mention why an off-duty man had to do it."

"Tom?" said Harry hesitantly. "Is that Tom Lloyd?"

There was a tense and breathless silence, and the man at the open panel hissed something that sounded like "witchcraft." The voice from the fence came again, slowly but clearly: "This is Tom Lloyd, but you have the advantage of me."

"True enough," said Harry dryly, and shook back her hood and looked up at him. "We danced together, some months ago: my brother, Di - Richard, collected favors from all his tall friends to dance with his large sister."

"Harry - " said Tom, and leaned over the fence, his shoulders outlined against the light, his face and hands as pale as the desert sand. "Harry?"

"Yes," said Harry, shaken at how strange he looked to her, that she had not recognized him before he spoke. "I need to talk to Colonel Dedham. Is he here?" Harry's heart was in her mouth.

"Yes, he is: reading a six-months-old newspaper from Home over a cup of coffee right now, I'd say." Tom sounded dazed. "Bill, you wretch, open the gate. It's Harry Crewe."

Harry's legs were tight on Sungold's sides, and the big horse threw his head up and shivered.

"He don't look like Harry Crewe," Bill said suddenly. "And what about the two with him - her? And that funny-colored leopard?"

"They're my friends," said Harry angrily. "Either open the gate or at least take my message."

"I can't leave my post - another man'll have to take the word. I won't open the gate to Hillfolk. It's Hillfolk it's closed for. Tom's too easy. How do I know you're Harry Crewe? You look like a bloody Darian, and you ride like one, and you can't even talk right."

Harry's pulse began to bang in her ears.

"For pity's sake - "

"Not you, Tom," said Bill; "we already know as how you're off duty. Get another man what's on."

"Don't bother," said Harry, between her teeth; "I'll take the message myself. I know where Jack's quarters are." She dropped her pole in the dust, and, conscious she was doing a supremely stupid thing, she brought Sungold a few more dancing steps away from the gate, turned him, and set him at it.

He went up and over with a terrific heave of his hindquarters, and Harry had reason to be grateful for the perfect fit of her saddle; but once in the air he seemed to float, and look around, and he came down as lightly as a blown leaf. He trotted two steps and halted, while Harry tried to look calm and lofty and as though she had known what she was doing all the time. The leap was over in a few seconds, and no one had expected anything so incredible, even from a Hillman; now men were shouting, and there was a crowd all around her. She thought no one would shoot her out of hand, but she wasn't quite sure, so she waited, instead of going in search of Jack Dedham as she had threatened. Sungold stretched his neck out and shook himself. Narknon flowed over the gate behind them - there was a howl of fear and wrath from Bill - and the cat trotted to Sungold and crouched under his belly.

But she did not have to look for Jack after all, because the row at the gate brought him at a run scant seconds after Sungold's leap. He rounded the narrow corner of some dark building opposite the place where Sungold stood. The horse lifted first one foot and then another, unaccustomed to such noisy reckless human beings, but still obedient to his rider's wishes. He replaced each foot in just the print it had left.

Jack came to a halt, barely avoiding running into them. Sungold pitched his ears toward the balding grey-haired Outlander who stood now, stock still, staring: his eyes traveled from the big chestnut horse down to the laconic cat, up to the horse's rider, and his jaw visibly dropped. Harry's hood was still back on her shoulders, and her bright hair flamed in the young sunlight; he recognized her immediately, although he had never seen such an expression on her face before. A moment passed while he could think of nothing; then he strode forward with a cry of "Harry!" and raised his arms, and she, a young girl again with a young girl's face, ungracefully tumbled off her horse and into them. He thumped her on the back, as he might have one of his own men back from an impossible mission and long since given up for lost; and then he kissed her heartily on the mouth, which he would not have done to any of his own men; and Harry hugged him around the neck, and then, embarrassed, tried to back away. He held her shoulders a minute longer and stared at her; they were much of a height, and Tom Lloyd, looking wistfully on, found himself thinking that they looked very much alike, for all of the girl's yellow hair and Hill clothing; and he realized, without putting any of it into words, that the girl he had danced with months ago, and thought about as he blacked his boots, and lost sleep over when she disappeared, was gone forever.