Darkspell Read online

  The boundless imagination of

  KATHARINE KERR

  Her novels of Deverry and the Westlands:

  DAGGERSPELL

  DARKSPELL

  THE BRISTLING WOOD

  THE DRAGON REVENANT

  A TIME OF EXILE

  A TIME OF OMENS

  DAYS OF BLOOD AND FIRE

  DAYS OF AIR AND DARKNESS

  THE RED WYVERN

  Available from Bantam Spectra Books

  BATTLE TO THE DEATH

  “Do I have any hope of convincing you to get back and stay out of this?” Rhodry said, pulling a javelin.

  “None.” Jill glanced back and saw that he’d positioned all the guards directly behind them.

  He gave her a tight smile, as if he’d been expecting no less from her. For another mile the road snaked on. The dust they were raising hung in the windless air like a banner to announce that they were coming. Jill felt a little coldness in the pit of her stomach. She knew what riding to battle meant. In her hand, her sword winked bright, the blade that her father had given her. Oh Da, she thought, it’s a cursed good thing you taught me how to use it.

  The road made a sharp turn, and Jill saw them, a pack of some twenty armed men, blocking the road about thirty feet ahead. With an automatic shout of his old war cry, “For Aberwyn!” Rhodry threw the javelin in his hand and drew his sword. Screaming, the bandits charged, but their leader’s horse staggered to its knees and fell with Rhodry’s javelin in its chest, rolling its rider under the hooves of his own men. Jill kicked Sunrise forward as Rhodry led his ragged handful of men out to meet the charge….

  BY KATHARINE KERR

  Her novels of Deverry and the Westlands

  DAGGERSPELL

  DARKSPELL

  THE BRISTLING WOOD

  THE DRAGON REVENANT

  A TIME OF EXILE

  A TIME OF OMENS

  DAYS OF BLOOD AND FIRE

  DAYS OF AIR AND DARKNESS

  THE RED WYVERN

  Her works of science fiction

  RESURRECTION

  PALACE

  (with Mark Kreighbaum)

  For my father, Sergeant John Carl Brahtin, 1918-44,

  who died fighting to free Europe from a worse evil than

  anything a novelist can invent.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I owe many thanks to Bill and Katie Daniel, who made the revision of both this book and Daggerspell much easier by keyboarding the previous versions onto disks. I also owe more than a few thanks to all those friends and relations, particularly my husband, Howard, who put up with my moods when I’m writing.

  PRONUNCIATION NOTES

  The language spoken in Deverry, which we might well call Neo-Gaulish, is a member of the P-Celtic family. Although closely related to Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, it is by no means identical to any of these actual languages and should never be taken as such, just as the Deverrians themselves are quite different from any historical Celts.

  VOWELS are divided by Deverry scribes into two classes: noble and common. Nobles have two pronunciations; commons, one.

  A as in father when long; a shorter version of the same sound, as in far, when short.

  O as in bone when long; as in pot when short.

  W as the oo in spook when long; as in roof when short.

  Y as the i in machine when long; as the e in butter when short.

  E as in pen.

  I as in pin.

  U as in pun.

  Vowels are generally long in stressed syllables; short in unstressed. Y is the primary exception to this rule. When it appears as the last letter of a word, it is always long whether that syllable is stressed or not.

  DIPHTHONGS generally have one consistent pronunciation.

  AE as the a in mane.

  AI as in aisle.

  AU as the ow in how.

  EO as a combination of eh and oh.

  EW as in Welsh, a combination of eh and oo.

  IE as in pier.

  OE as the oy in boy.

  UI as the North Welsh wy, a combination of oo and ee. Note that OI is never a diphthong, but is two distinct sounds, as in carnoic (KAR-noh-ik).

  CONSONANTS are mostly the same as in English, with these exceptions:

  C is always hard as in cat.

  G is always hard as in get.

  DD is the voiced th as in breathe, but the voicing is more pronounced than in English. It is opposed to TH, the unvoiced sound as in thin or breath. (This is the sound that the Greeks called the Celtic tau.)

  R is heavily rolled.

  RH is a voiceless R, approximately pronounced as if it were spelled hr in Deverry proper. In Eldidd the sound is fast becoming indistinguishable from R.

  DW, GW, and TW are single sounds, as in Gwendolen or twit.

  Y is never a consonant.

  I before a vowel at the beginning of a word is consonantal, as it is in the plural ending -ion, pronounced yawn.

  DOUBLED CONSONANTS are both sounded clearly, unlike in English. Note, however, that DD is a single letter, not a doubled consonant.

  ACCENT is generally on the penultimate syllable, but compound words and place names are often an exception to this rule.

  On the whole, I have transcribed both Elvish and Bardekian names and words according to the preceding system of orthography, which is quite adequate to the Bardekian, at least. As for Elvish, in a work of this sort it would be both confusing and overly pedantic to use the full apparatus by which scholars try to represent this most subtle and nuanced of tongues. To the average human ear, for instance, distinctions such as those between A, *A, and A are lost in the hearing. Why, then, should we try to distinguish them in print?

  If the reader feels that I belabor this point, the reader should be apprised that a certain Elvish scholar of Elvish has already sniped at this simplified usage, both in private circles and the more public medium of the Aberwyn papers. One hopes that having relieved himself of his bile, he will now find more suitable activities for his leisure hours.

  PROLOGUE

  AUTUMN, 1062

  Every light casts a shadow. So does the dweomer. Some men choose to stand in the light; others, in the darkness. Be ye always aware that where you stand is a matter of choice, and let not the shadow creep over you unawares….

  —The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid

  Back in the eleventh century, when the far-flung kingdom of Deverry lay sparse and tentative across the lands men claimed in the king’s name, Eldidd province was one of the most sparsely settled areas of all. Particularly in its western reaches, towns were rare, and in the west Dun Gwerbyn was something of a governmental seat, even though its high stone walls circled barely five hundred thatched houses and three temples, two of those little better than wayside shrines. On a hill in the center of town, however, stood the dun, or fort, of the tieryn, large and solid enough to be impressive in any province at that time. Inside a double set of earthworks and ditches, stone walls sheltered stables and barracks for the tieryn’s warband of a hundred men, a collection of huts and storage sheds, and the broch complex itself, a four-story round stone tower with two shorter towers built on to the sides.

  On one particular morning, the open ward round the broch was abustle with servants, carrying supplies to the kitchen hut or stacks of firewood to the hearths in the great hall, or rolling big barrels of ale from the sheds to the broch. Near the iron-bound gates other servants bowed low as they greeted the arriving wedding guests. Cullyn of Cerrmor, captain of the tieryn’s warband, assembled his men out in the ward and looked them over. For a change they were all bathed, shaved, and presentable. He himself, a burly man well over six feet tall, had put on the newer of his two shirts for the occasion ahead.

  “Well and good, lads,” Cullyn
said. “You don’t look bad for a pack of hounds. Now, remember: every lord and lady in the tierynrhyn is going to be here today. I don’t want any of you getting stinking drunk, and I don’t want any fighting, either. This is a wedding, remember, and the lady deserves to have it be a happy one after everything she’s been through.”

  They all nodded solemnly. If any of them forgot his orders, he’d make them regret it—and they knew it.

  Cullyn led them into the great hall, an enormous round room that took up the full ground floor of the broch. Today freshly braided rushes lay on the floor; the tapestries on the walls had been shaken out and rehung. The hall was crammed with extra tables. Not only were there plenty of noble guests, but each lord had brought five men from his warband as an honor escort. Servants sidled and edged their way through the crowd with tankards of ale and baskets of bread; a bard played almost unheard; over by their hearth the riders diced for coppers and joked; up by the honor hearth the noble-born ladies chattered like birds while their husbands drank. Cullyn got his men settled, repeated his order about no fighting, then worked his way to the table of honor and knelt at the tieryn’s side.

  Tieryn Lovyan was something of an anomaly in Deverry, a woman who ruled a large demesne in her own name. Originally her only brother had held this dun, but when he died without an heir, she’d inherited under a twist in the laws designed to keep big holdings in a clan even if a woman had to rule them. Although she’d come to her middle age, she was still a good-looking woman, with gray-streaked raven black hair, large cornflower-blue eyes, and the straight-backed posture of one quite at home with rulership. That particular day she wore a dress of red Bardek silk, kirtled in with the red, white, and brown plaid of the Clw Coc clan.

  “The warband is in attendance, my lady,” Cullyn said.

  “Splendid, Captain. Have you seen Nevyn yet?”

  “I haven’t, my lady.”

  “It would be like him to just stay away. He does so hate crowds and such like, but if you do see him, tell him to come sit with me.”

  Cullyn rose, bowed, and returned to his men. From his seat he could see the honor table, and while he sipped his ale, he studied the bride at this wedding, Lady Donilla, a beautiful woman with a mane of chestnut hair, clasped back like a maiden’s now for the formality of the thing. Cullyn felt profoundly sorry for her, because her first husband, Gwerbret Rhys of Aberwyn, had recently cast her off for being barren. If Lovyan hadn’t found her a husband, she would have had to return to her brother’s dun in shame. As it was, her new man, Lord Garedd, was a decent-looking fellow some years older than she, with gray in his blond hair and a thick mustache. From what the men in the warband said, he was an honorable man, soft-spoken in peace and utterly ruthless in war. He was also a widower with a pack of children and thus more than glad to take a beautiful young wife, barren or not.

  “Garedd looks honestly besotted with her, doesn’t he?” Nevyn remarked.

  With a yelp Cullyn turned to find the old man grinning at him. For all of Nevyn’s white hair, and a face as lined as an old leather sack, he had all the vigor and stamina of a young lad, and he stood there straight-backed, his hands on his hips.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said with a sly grin.

  “Here, I never saw you come in!”

  “You weren’t looking my way, that’s all. I didn’t turn myself invisible, although I’ll admit to having a bit of a jest on you.”

  “And I took the bait, sure enough. The tieryn wants you to come sit with her.”

  “At the honor table? What a blasted nuisance. It’s a good thing I put on a clean shirt.”

  Cullyn laughed. Usually Nevyn dressed like a farmer in shabby brown clothes, but today he’d actually put on a white shirt with Lovyan’s red lion blazon at the yokes and a pair of patched but respectable gray brigga. Still, he looked like a shabby townsman or maybe a minor servitor, anything but what he was, the most powerful master of the dweomer in the entire kingdom.

  “Before you go,” Cullyn said, “have you had any, well, news of my Jill?”

  “News? Why don’t you say the word ‘scrying’ right out? You’ll have to get used to sorcery sooner or later, Captain. Here, come along.”

  They made their way over to the servants’ hearth, where an entire hog crackled, roasting on a spit so large that it took two kitchen boys to turn it. For a moment Nevyn stared intently into the flames.

  “I see Jill and her Rhodry looking in good spirits,” he said at last. “They’re walking through a town on a nice sunny day, going up to a shop of some sort. Wait! I know the place. It’s Otho the Silversmith’s in Dun Mannannan, but he doesn’t seem to be in at the moment.”

  “I don’t suppose you can tell if she’s with child.”

  “She’s not showing the baby if she is. I can understand your concern.”

  “Well, it’s bound to happen, sooner or later. I just hope she has the wit to ride home when it does.”

  “She’s never lacked for wit.”

  Although Cullyn agreed, worry ate at him. Jill was, after all, his only child.

  “I just hope they have enough coin for the winter,” the captain remarked.

  “Well, we gave them plenty between us, if Rhodry doesn’t drink it all away, anyway.”

  “Oh, Jill won’t let him do that. My lass is as tight as an old farmwife with every cursed copper.” He allowed himself a brief smile. “She knows the long road well.”

  Because the mattress was full of bedbugs, Rhodry Maelwaedd, formerly heir to Dun Gwerbyn, sat on the floor of the tiny innchamber. Nearby Jill sat in the light from the one tiny window. She was dressed in a pair of dirty blue brigga and a lad’s plain linen overshirt, and her golden hair was cropped short like a lad’s, too, but she was so beautiful, with her wide blue eyes, delicate features, and soft mouth, that he loved simply looking at her. Frowning in concentration, she was mending a rip in his only shirt.

  “Ah, by the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell!” she snarled. “This’ll just have to do. I hate sewing.”

  “You have my humble thanks for lowering yourself enough to mend my clothes.”

  With another snarl she threw the shirt into his face. Laughing, he shook it out, once-white linen stained with sweat and rust, as well, from his mail. On the yokes were embroidered the blazons of the red lion, all that he had left of his old life. But a month earlier his brother, Gwerbret Rhys of Aberwyn, had sent him into exile, far away from kin and clan both. He pulled the shirt on, then buckled his sword belt over it. At the left hung his sword, a beautiful blade of the best steel with the hand guard worked in the form of a dragon, and at the right, the silver dagger that branded him as a dishonored man. It was the badge of a band of mercenaries who wandered the roads either singly or in pairs and fought only for coin, not loyalty or honor. In his case it branded him as something even stranger, which was why they’d come to Dun Mannannan.

  “Do you think that silversmith will be in by now?” he said.

  “No doubt. Otho wouldn’t leave his shop for long.”

  Together they went out into the unwalled town, a straggling collection of round thatched houses and shops along a river. On the grassy bank fishing boats lay bleaching, from the look of their cracked keels and gaping planks barely seaworthy.

  “I don’t see how these people make a living from the sea,” Rhodry remarked. “Look at that mast. It’s all held together with wound rope and tar.”

  When he started to walk over for a better look, Jill grabbed his arm and hauled him back. Two local men, hard-eyed and dressed in filthy rags, were watching.

  “It doesn’t pay to go poking your nose into other people’s business, lad,” one of them called out.

  “Especially not scum like you, silver dagger,” said the other.

  They both spat on the ground and laughed. Rhodry tried to shake his arm free of Jill’s grasp, but she hung on grimly.

  “You can’t, Rhoddo,” she whispered. “They’re not but peasants. They’re
too far below you to fight with.”

  With a toss of his head he turned away. Arm in arm they walked on down the winding street.

  “About those boats?” Jill said. “They’re not as shabby as they look. They keep them that way on purpose, to hide, like. There’s more than one kind of cargo that comes in under the mackerel.”

  “Ye gods! You mean we’re staying in a den of smugglers?”

  “Keep your voice down! Just that.”

  Otho’s shop stood on the very edge of town, just on the other side of a dirt path from a field of cabbages. Under a droop of smoke-black thatch the plank door stood shut but no longer padlocked. When Jill opened it, silver bells tinkled overhead.

  “Who’s there?” bellowed a deep voice.

  “Jill, Cullyn of Cerrmor’s daughter, and another silver dagger.”

  Rhodry followed her into an empty chamber, a small wedge of the round house set off by dirty wickerwork panels. In one panel hung a frayed green blanket, doing duty for a door, apparently, because Otho shoved it aside and came out. Although he stood only four and a half feet tall, he was perfectly proportioned and muscular at that, with arms like a miniature blacksmith. He had a heavy gray beard, neatly cropped, and shrewd dark eyes.

  “Well, Jill it is,” he said. “And it gladdens my heart to see you again. Where’s your father, and who’s this lad?”

  “Da’s in Eldidd. He won himself a place as captain of a tieryn’s warband.”

  “Did he, now?” Otho smiled in sincere pleasure. “I always thought he was too good a man to carry the silver dagger. But what have you done? Run off with this pretty face here?”

  “Now, here!” Rhodry snarled. “Cullyn gave her leave to go.”