"Good for you," said Jack, but the lightness of his tone was forced, and they both knew it. "Are you hurt?"
Harry shook her head dizzily. "No. You?"
"No."
"But—?" Harry looked around. Narknon was beside her, covered with blood, but little of it seemed to be her own. Her flanks heaved and her green eyes were glassy, but she sat in her usual precise manner and, as Harry watched, slowly, stiffly, began to try to lick herself clean. The archers stood with empty quivers on their backs, cleaning their long daggers. There were fewer of them than there had been when she sent them into the valley's forested sides less than an hour before; and more than half of their cats were gone. She saw Kentarre, who had a rag wrapped around one forearm, but was on her feet. She saw Senay and Terim. Terim's horse was bleeding from a tear on its side, and Senay stood at its head, a hand on its crest, whispering to it, and Terim spread some pale ointment on the wound. The only wounds she saw were minor ones; none who were worse hurt had returned to the Gate.
"Is this all of us now?"
Jack nodded. "I'm afraid so."
There was barely half the tally of the defending southerners that had stood at the Madamer Gate in the morning; and there was an ashen cast to the faces that remained, for the northwest wind was not good to breathe. Unwounded limbs were numb and slow, and brains were clouded with a nagging dread that had little to do with the mortal risk of battle.
Kentarre said, as she bound up another archer's arm, "Thurra is known to love slow bloodshed, and he can afford not to hurry, for nothing can stand against him. But you have done him a blow he did not expect, for you tore down his standard."
"Thurra?" Harry said in disbelief.
Kentarre nodded, and Terim and Senay both stopped what they were doing and looked at her. Kentarre said: "I recognized him at once. He laughs during battle, and he always rides a white stallion who loves bloodshed as much as he does.
"Why do you think there are so few of us left after so brief a meeting? We are strong fighters, and we fight with the strength of despair besides, for we are terribly outnumbered. But anyone who is struck by the white rider dies on the first blow."
"Not everybody," said Terim. "Not Harimad-sol."
Kentarre nodded solemnly. "Why do you think we follow her?"
Harry said, with her left arm across Sungold's saddle to help hold herself up, "I did not die only because he chose not to kill me. I cannot match him, even for one blow." Sungold turned his head, and Harry reached stiffly out to put her fingers on his soft muzzle. She rested them there for a moment, and a little warmth crept into her nerveless hand. "And, perhaps, a little because I ride a better horse than his."
There was a commotion then, somewhere behind them, near the mouth of the trail; and then one of Jack's men laughed, and the commotion subsided. Harry looked inquiringly in the direction of the laugh, and saw a tall slim figure stride forcefully into the clearing, leading a tired horse.
"Dickie!" she said; and blushed uncomfortably, because she knew how he hated the old childhood name. "Richard—" she began, humbly, but he had reached her by then and threw his arms around her. She hugged him back, although her right arm was still not functioning very well and the left was weaker than it should be. He let her go at last, and her eyes blurred, and she couldn't tell if the brightness in his eyes was her own tears, or his.
He said to Jack, although he was staring at his sister, and his hands were closed on her arms as if she might disappear if he let her go, "I returned two days after you had left, sir. I had gotten no satisfaction on my mission, as you anticipated."
Jack grunted.
"They told me what had happened, and where you were going—and who was with you—and I took a fresh horse and followed you." He smiled at last. "Harry, damn you, we all thought you were dead."
She shook her head. "I'm not, you see." She smiled back. "Not yet, at least."
Richard let his hands drop. The shadowed army lay spread below them, and the north wind, which had quieted a little after Tsornin beat back the wizard's stallion and Narknon pulled down the red-and-white standard, began to howl around them again, and sting their eyes and throats.
"Took another horse?" said Jack musingly. Richard had dropped his reins when he reached for Harry, and the animal stood, weary and patient, where it had halted. "This looks like Bill Stubbs' horse."
Richard turned back to his commander and grinned. "It is. It always was too good for him; and I needed something fast, to catch up with you before it was all over."
"You've just blighted a spotless career with horse-stealing?" Jack said mildly.
Richard sobered. "If you like. You know that all of us who have come here—thrown in our lot with the old Damarians—are finished as far as Her Majesty's Government is concerned. You knew that when you decided to come."
Harry stared at Jack, although in the back of her mind she had known this all along. "Is this true?"
Jack shrugged. "Yes, it's true. That's why the two dozen of us who came are all grizzled old veterans—we don't have much to lose. But Richard, you—"
Richard made an abrupt gesture with one arm. "I knew what I was doing. Blood calls to blood, I suppose—for all that I've resisted it the last few years." He glanced at his sister. "It was your coming out here to Daria—Damar—and loving it, loving the desert, even though you knew nothing of it—I could see it. You were as bad as Colonel Dedham—begging your pardon, sir—by the end of the first month. It made me ashamed. I—I couldn't talk about it … "
Harry realized she was being offered an apology, and nodded. It didn't matter any more. He was here, and that was what mattered.
"Then, after you disappeared," Richard went on slowly, "these last long months, I've thought a lot—I even thought that you weren't dead—and the thought felt like betrayal … You know, I came here, to the Gap, without ever having to think about it. I knew which way to turn, all those mad little trails on the way up here. I always knew."
"Blood calls to blood," Harry said. "Why didn't you ever tell me there was Hill blood in us?"
Richard looked surprised. "Father told me. I—I assumed he'd told you. I didn't want to talk about it. There was a lot I didn't want to talk about."
Harry said, "I found out a week ago, when Jack told me."
There was a silence, and Richard began to laugh. "My God. Then becoming a king's Rider must really have been a shock to you. It was shock enough to me, when Tom Lloyd told me." He took her right hand and turned it over to look at the palm. "I was proud of you. That's when I knew I had to follow you—not only to see my sister again. To—reclaim something. Or admit to owning it all along."
The north wind snapped at their hair and eyelashes, listening to their conversation. Harry wondered idly if it understood Homelander speech.
Kentarre had left them; she returned now and said, "My lady. The North prepares to move against us again."
Richard turned to face his sister; he put his shoulders back as if bracing himself for a blow. "Command me, sol," he said awkwardly, in Hill-speech. Then in Homelander he went on: "As I came late, perhaps you'd like me to commit a daring single-handed raid."
Jack snorted.
Harry smiled in spite of herself. "No; that won't be necessary. We'll arrange ourselves across the Gap, here, and on the plateau." She paused. "I can't risk what's left of us going into the valley again … "
She raised her voice: "We're here to slow the Northerners down. We'll do the best we can. But we're overmatched—vastly more overmatched than I expected. I don't expect any of you to fight to the … last. The day is half over; if we can hold them till this evening, they'll have to wait till morning to try again." Harry closed her eyes and thought, I hope. Even demons see better by the light of day—or do they? Swimming through the mist behind her eyes then, she saw Corlath and his army; they were beating back a horde of Northerners that outnumbered them by no more than three to one. The black mass that filled the valley below the Madamer Gate was twice the size of the army that sought to pass the Bledfi Gap. Corlath's stallion ran red from its nose as it leaped and struck; Corlath's sword was dull with blood. She recognized Fireheart first; it took her a moment to recognize his rider, for Corlath's sash was the wrong color. She saw Mathin, who grinned fiercely as he fought at Corlath's heels. "If we have gained a day, we have gained … something. Tonight, those of you that remain … may scatter. Fade into these Hills; make your way back to Corlath if you can."