There came a tapping on his door. He had already heard footsteps approaching from outside. He quelled a quick surge of anger at the intrusion, for he recognized both the tread and the rhythm of the knocking.
“Come in,” he said. “What can I do for you, wife of the Aven?”
“Liane and I have brought you a lunch,” Leith replied in her brisk tones.
“Good,” he said energetically, though for once he wasn’t hungry. He was also discomfited: it seemed that his hearing was finally starting to go. He’d only heard one set of footsteps. Both women entered, and Liane, approaching, brushed his cheek with her lips.
“Is that die best you can do?” he mock-growled. She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back. He would have ferociously denied it, if pressed, but in his heart Gereint had long acknowledged that Ivor’s daughter was his favorite child of the tribe. Of the Plain. Of all the worlds, if it came to that.
It was to her mother that he turned, though, to where he heard her kneel in front of him, and a little to the side. “Strength of the Plain,” he said respectfully, “may I touch your thoughts?”
She leaned forward, and he raised his hands to run them along the bones of her face. The touch let him into her mind, where he saw anxiety, a weight of cares, the burdens of sleeplessness, but—and he marveled, even as he touched her face—not even a shadow of fear.
His touch became, briefly, a caress. “Ivor is lucky in you, bright soul. We all are. Luckier than we deserve.”
He had known Leith since her birth, had watched her grow into womanhood, and had feasted at her wedding to Ivor dan Banor. In those far-off days he had first seen a certain kind of brightness shining within her. It had been there ever since, growing even stronger as her children were born, and Gereint knew it for what it was: a deep, luminous love that was rarely allowed to shine forth. She was a profoundly private person, Leith, never given to open demonstration, not trusting it in others. She had been called cold and unyielding all her life. Gereint knew better.
He drew his hands away reluctantly, and as he did he felt the reverberations of war sweep over him again.
Diffidently, Leith asked, “Have you seen anything, shaman? Is there something you can tell me?”
“I am looking now,” he said quietly. “Sit, both of you, and I will tell you what I can.”
He reached out again, seeking interstices of power along the webs of time and space. He was a long way off, though, no longer young and but recently returned from the worst journeying of his days. Nothing was clear, except for the reverberations: the sense of a climax coming. And end to war, or an ending to everything.
He did not tell them that; it would be needlessly cruel. Instead, he ate the lunch they had brought for him—it seemed he was hungry, after all—and listened to the dispositions Leith had made of resources within the crowded camp of women and children and the old. And eight blind, useless shamans.
All through that day and the next, as premonitions gathered more closely about him, Gereint sat on the mat in his dark house and strove, whenever his waning strength allowed, to see something clearly, to find a role to play.
Both days would pass, though, before he felt the touch of the god, of Cernan’s offered gift of foreknowledge. And with that voice, that vision, there would come a fear such as he’d never known, not even out over the waves. This would be something new, something terrible. The more so because it was not directed at him, with all his years, with his long, full life behind him. It was not his price to pay, and there was not a single thing he could do about it. With sorrow in his heart, two mornings hence, Gereint would lift his voice in summons. And call for Tabor to come to him.
Over the Plain the army of Light was riding to war. North of Celidon, of the Adein, of the green mound Ceinwen had raised for the dead they rode and the white magnificence of Rangat towered ahead of them, filling the blue, cloud-scattered summer sky.
Every one of them was on horseback save for a number of the Cathalians, racing in their scythe-wheeled war chariots at the outer rim of the army. When the summonglass had flamed in Brennin, Aileron had had too much need of speed to allow the presence of foot soldiers. By the same token, throughout the long, unnatural winter, he’d been laying his plans against such a time as this: the horses had been ready, and every man in the army of Brennin could ride. So, too, could the men and women of the lios alfar from Daniloth. And of the Dalrei there was not and never had been any question.
Under the benevolent, miraculous sun of summer returned they rode amid the smell of fresh grass and vibrant splashes of wildflowers. The Plain rolled away in every direction as far as the eye could follow. Twice they passed great swifts of eltor, and the heart of every one of them had lifted to see the beasts of the Plain, released from the killing bondage of snow, run free again over the tall grass.
For how long? Amid all the beauty that surrounded them, that remained the question. They were not a company of friends out for a gallop under summer skies. They were an army, advancing, very fast, to the door of the Dark, and they would be there soon.
They were going fast, Dave realized. It was not the headlong pace of the Dalrei’s wild ride to Celidon, but Aileron was pushing them hard, and Dave was grateful for the brief rest period they were granted midway through the afternoon.
He swung down off his horse, muscles protesting, and he flexed and limbered them as best he could before stretching out on his back on the soft grass. As Tore dropped down beside him, a question occurred to Dave.
“Why are we hurrying?” he asked. “I mean, we’re missing Diarmuid and Arthur, and Kim and Paul… what advantage does Aileron see in pushing on?”
“We’ll know when Levon gets back from the conference up front,” Tore answered. “My guess is that it’s geography as much as anything else. He wants to get close to Gwynir this evening, so we can go through the woods in the morning. If we do that, we should be able to be north of Celyn Lake in Andarien before dark tomorrow. That would make sense, especially if Maugrim’s army is waiting for us there.”
The calmness of Tore’s voice was unsettling. Maugrim’s army: svart alfar, urgach upon slaug, Galadan’s wolves, the swans of Avaia’s brood, and Weaver alone knew what else. Only Owein’s Horn had saved them last time, and Dave knew he didn’t dare blow it again.
The larger picture was too daunting. He focused on immediate goals. “Will we make the forest, then? Gwynir? Can we get there by dark?”
He saw Tore’s eyes flick beyond him and then the dark man said, “If we were Dalrei alone, we could, of course. But I’m not sure, with all this excess weight of Brennin we’re carrying.”
Dave heard a loud snort of indignation and turned to see Mabon of Rhoden subside comfortably down beside him. “I didn’t notice any of us falling behind on the way to Celidon,” the Duke said. He took a pull of water from his flask and offered it to Dave, who drank as well. It was icy cool; he didn’t know how.
Mabon’s presence was a surprise of sorts, though a happy one. The wound he’d taken by the Adein had been healed last night by Teyrnon and Barak, after Aileron had finally let them make camp. Mabon had flatly refused to be left behind.
Since the journey from Paras Derval to the Latham where Ivor and the Dalrei had been waiting, the Duke seemed to favor the company of Levon and Tore and Dave. Dave wasn’t displeased. Among other things, Mabon had saved his life, when Avaia had exploded out of a clear sky on that ride. Beyond that, the Duke, though no longer young, was an experienced campaigner, and good company too. He had already established a relationship with Tore that had the otherwise grim Dalrei joking back and forth with him.