The Gold Falcon. Katharine Kerr

wager their warband numbers more than that. Someone must have been guarding the prisoners from the first village while the raiders rode to the second one. We’ve got thirty men ourselves, and Lord Samyc can give us only a few more.’

      ‘Ah!’ Samyc held up one hand to interrupt. ‘But some of my villagers have been training with the longbow.’

      ‘Splendid, my lord!’ Gerran said. ‘How many?’

      ‘Well, um, two.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘We’re badly outnumbered.’ Pedrys leaned forward. ‘Is that it, captain?’

      ‘It is, my lord, though it gripes my soul to admit it. We’ve all faced the Horsekin before. They know how to swing a sword when they need to. If we had more than two archers to call upon, the situation would be different.’

      The three lords nodded agreement.

      ‘So, I don’t think it would be wise to follow them, your grace,’ Gerran said. ‘What if they have reinforcements waiting further west?’

      Cadryc stabbed a chunk of bread with his table dagger and leaned back in his chair to eat it.

      ‘It gripes my soul,’ Pedrys snarled, ‘to let them just ride away with our people.’

      ‘It gripes mine, too,’ Cadryc said, swallowing. ‘But what good will it do them if we ride into a trap? We’ve got to think of the rest of the rhan, lads. If we’re wiped out, who will stand between it and the Horsekin?’

      ‘That’s true,’ Samyc said. ‘Alas.’

      Cadryc pointed the chunk of bread at the two lords in turn. ‘We need more men, that’s the hard truth of it. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s the blasted truth.’

      ‘Just so, your grace,’ Gerran said. ‘It’s too bad we don’t have wings like that dragon.’

      ‘Indeed.’ Cadryc glanced at Samyc. ‘Do you know you’ve got a dragon in your demesne?’

      ‘It’s not mine, exactly,’ Samyc said with a twisted grin. ‘It comes and goes as it pleases.’

      ‘When did you first see it, my lord?’ Gerran said. ‘If I may ask.’

      ‘Well, it was a bit over a year ago, just when the snow was starting to melt. It came flying over the dun here, bold as brass. I’d heard of dragons before, of course, but seeing a real one – ye gods!’

      ‘Truly,’ Cadryc said. ‘I don’t mind admitting that the sight was a bit much excitement at the start of a day.’

      ‘Let’s hope it likes the taste of Horsekin,’ Gerran said.

      Cadryc laughed with a toss of his head. ‘I’ve got a scribe now,’ he said with a nod at the two lords. ‘So I’ll send a letter to the gwerbret and see what kind of answer he has for us. Get the warbands ready to ride, Gerro, will you? We’re going home.’

      ‘I will, your grace,’ Gerran said. ‘One thing, though. That last man from Neb’s old village,’ he looked Samyc’s way, ‘did he take shelter with you, my lord?’

      ‘Not that I know of. Did someone escape, you mean?’

      ‘Just that. I’d like to hear what he has to say. Any information we can get about the raid is all to the good.’ Gerran stood up. ‘I’ll ask around out in the ward.’

      Unfortunately, no one, not farmer nor member of the warband, had seen any escapee arrive at the dun, nor had the wood-cutting expedition turned him up that morning in the coppice. It was possible, one farmer pointed out, that the man or lad was hiding in the wild woods across the river to the west.

      ‘They’re not far, about three miles,’ Gerran told Cadryc. ‘Do you think it’s worth a look?’

      ‘I do,’ Cadryc said. ‘I want to hear what he can tell us.’

      When they rode out, the warbands clattered across Lord Samyc’s bridge, then headed out into the meadowland on the western side of the river. They found the last man from the village long before they reached the wild wood, along with the site of what must have been one of the raiders’ camps, judging from the trampled grass, firepits, scattered garbage, and the like.

      The villager, however, could tell them nothing. About a hundred yards west of the camp, they found a lumpish low mound covered with blankets that had been pinned down at each corner with a wooden stake. They all assumed that it was a dead Horsekin, covered to protect him from scavengers. With a dragon hunting their mounts, the Horsekin would have had no time for a proper burial.

      ‘Let’s take those blankets off,’ Cadryc said. ‘Let the ravens pull him to pieces.’

      Gerran dismounted, and Salamander joined him. Together they pulled up the wood stakes and threw back the blankets. Flies rose in a black cloud of outraged buzzing. For a moment Gerran almost vomited, and Salamander took a few quick steps back.

      The corpse was human, naked, lying on his back, and he’d been staked out with thick iron nails hammered through the palm of each hand and each foot. Judging from the amount of dried blood around each stake, he’d been alive for the process and perhaps a little while after. He was bearded in blood, too, because he’d gnawed his own lips half away in his agony. Where his eyes had been black ants swarmed. At some point in this ghastly process the Horsekin had slit him from breech to breastbone and pulled out his internal organs. In a pulsing mass of ants they lay in tidy lines to either side of him, bladder, guts, kidneys, liver and lungs, but the heart was missing.

      ‘What – who in the name of the Lord of Hell would do such a thing?’ Gerran could only whisper. ‘Ye gods, savages! That’s all they are!’

      ‘In the name of Alshandra, more likely.’ Salamander sounded half-sick. ‘I’ve heard about this, but I’ve never seen it before, and I thank all the true gods for that, too.’

      ‘What have you heard?’

      ‘That they do this to selected prisoners, always men, and usually someone who’s been stupid enough to surrender. They send them with messages to Alshandra’s country. That’s somewhere in the Otherlands, I suppose.’ Salamander paused to wipe his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. He swallowed heavily, then turned away from the sight. ‘As the prisoner’s dying, they tell him he’s lucky, because their goddess will give him a favoured place in her land of the dead.’

      ‘I hope to every god that he lied when he got there.’

      ‘That’s why they keep the heart. If he lies, they say, they’ll torture it, and he’ll feel the pains in the Otherlands.’

      Gerran tried to curse, but he could think of nothing foul enough. He turned away and saw that even Cadryc had gone white about the mouth.

      ‘Let’s bury him,’ the tieryn said. ‘And then we’re heading home. There’s naught else we can do for him or any of the other poor souls they took.’

      ‘Good idea, your grace.’ Gerran pointed to a pair of riders. ‘You – take the latrine shovels and dig him a proper grave.’

      As they dismounted, Gerran heard a raven calling out from overhead. He glanced up and saw a single large bird circling – abnormally large, as he thought about it. With a flap of its wings it flew away fast, heading east. Gerran turned to mention it to Salamander, but the gerthddyn had walked some yards away and fallen to his knees. He appeared to be ridding himself of his breakfast in a noisy though understandable fashion. And after all, Gerran told himself, there’s naught strange about a corpse-bird come to carrion. He put the matter out of his mind.

      Everyone was very kind. Perhaps that was the most painful thing of all, this unspoken kindness, or so Neb thought. None of the other servants resented his sudden arrival into a position of importance. They gave him things to put in his chamber – a pottery vase from the chamberlain, a wood bench from the cook, a wicker charcoal-basket from the head