The Fire Dragon. Katharine Kerr

a bow from the saddle.

      ‘My liege, if I may be so bold, it would best if you withdrew from the first rank.’

      ‘So it would,’ Maryn said. ‘Very well, silver daggers, follow me.’

      Ammerwdd bowed again, then trotted back to his own line. Prince Maryn led his silver daggers through the ranks of the south-facing army and took a place behind the centre of the long line. The banners of the red wyvern stood off to one side, billowing as the wind rose.

      ‘Naught to do now but wait,’ Owaen remarked.

      ‘Not for long.’ Branoic rose in his stirrups, turned towards the east, and shaded his eyes with one hand. ‘I see dust coming. Ammerwdd’s men are going on alert.’

      He heard Maryn burst out laughing, and on that laughter the command travelled through the ranks: draw javelins and stand ready to use them. With a jingle of mail the men leaned down and drew the short war javelins from the sheaths under their right legs. Horses stamped and tossed their heads; some men laughed, while others turned grim and quiet. Branoic was about make some jest when he saw the ravens, circling high above the assembled armies.

      ‘Look at that,’ he said to Owaen, ‘the cursed birds are eager, aren’t they? Three big ones!’

      ‘What birds?’ Owaen was looking up where Branoic was pointing. ‘I don’t see any birds.’

      ‘Oh.’ Branoic lowered his javelin. ‘Guess I was imagining things.’

      He felt very cold, and very still, as if his vision, his mind, his heart, his very soul had all suddenly turned inward away from the world. As he looked out towards the south, where a second plume of dust had just appeared, it seemed that he was seeing not the day and the landscape but a thin grey picture of them. The Three, he thought to himself. Well, lad, you always knew it would come to this. When he looked Owaen’s way, he saw him rising in his stirrups and looking towards Ammerwdd’s position.

      ‘Here comes the first lot of rebels,’ Owaen said abruptly. ‘Hold your position, men! Wait for the Boar and his little pigs to arrive!’

      Off to their left, beyond the crescent of Ammerwdd’s waiting line, noise exploded, men screaming war cries, galloping hooves, the whinny of frightened horses, and all the jingling chaos of a charge. All along Maryn’s line horses stamped and neighed in answer; the men had to fight to keep their mounts in position. Off to the south the plume of dust swelled like smoke high into the crystal blue sky. A few moments more, and figures appeared under the dust, a lot of them, mailed riders on horseback, following the grey banners of the Boar.

      ‘Here they come,’ Owaen whispered, then laughed, a little mutter under his breath.

      Branoic could hear the horses. With a howl of war cries, Braemys’s men started their charge, expecting to slam into the rear of the fighting. Branoic settled his shield on his left arm, raised the javelin in his right, and waited.

      At about the time that Braemys was leading his share of the rebel army towards the banners of the Red Wyvern, Lilli was sitting in her window, perched on the sill and looking down on the ward far below. Her intellect seemed to have deserted her – she could neither study nor think clearly thanks to the icy cold fear that gripped her. When she held up a hand, she found it shaking. Somewhat’s going to happen, she thought. Some evil thing. She gasped for air; her lungs ached, or so it felt, as if some invisible being was squeezing her ribs with huge hands.

      Overhead a flock of little birds flew, chirping and twittering to themselves – sparrows, most likely, but suddenly in her mind they loomed huge and black, shrieking as they wheeled round the dun. The sunlight began to disappear, swallowed up by the black of raven wings. Lilli had just enough presence of mind to twist around and fall inside the chamber rather than out to her death. She lay huddled on the floor and heard herself moan as the vision overwhelmed her.

      Over the battlefield she flew among the ravens. To her horror she realized that the birds were as real as the armies, that they rode the wind and waited for the feast being prepared for them below. In the vision state she heard nothing, not war cry nor clash of metal. The sunlight and the silence melted together into something thick and enveloping, as if she were drowning in honey. At first, too, she could barely make sense out of what she saw. The fields below glittered – armed men, she realized – their armour glittered as they charged together, broke apart, spun, rushed this way and that. Surges of movement carried ten, twenty, some uncountable number of horses and men forward, then turned on some tide of their own and swept them back again. At times the mobs below pulled apart, and she could see the ground, all trampled grass and red stain. At other times it seemed to her visionary sight that the red blood rose like a river in spate to pull the men and horses down under its drowning waves.

      Slowly she began to pick out details: a sword held high, a javelin gleaming as it sped through the air. Banners rose out of the chaos. She saw the grey Boar of her old clan first, dipping and swaying in the midst of hard fighting. Like the ravens she wheeled and turned. Maryn! she thought. The red wyvern! At her thought she saw his banners, creeping forward in the midst of a tight squad of riders. These horsemen moved together like long time partners in some well-known dance. When the squad leader turned, they turned smoothly; when he charged, they leapt forward together. Silver daggers, Lilli thought.

      ‘Branoic!’

      She heard her own voice speak his name, the first sound in this long ghastly vision. At the sound she saw him, or rather a rider whom she somehow knew must be him, up near the front of the squad. Swords flew and horses reared or stumbled. Wyvern shields flashed up, Boar shields answered them. A wedge came cutting its way through from the Boar’s side of the melee and slammed into the side of the silver daggers. Lilli heard herself scream and scream again as the wyvern banner swung, dipped, threatened to fall. She could look at nothing else until at last with a defiant swoop it straightened itself and soared once more above the melee.

      The Boars began to retreat, but one silver dagger had ridden too far out. He was cut off, doomed – but another – Branoic – spurred his horse and came after, swinging hard, yelling a horrible hoarse cry that blended with her own screaming, the only sounds she could hear. Men fought and died in silence; horses wrenched their mouths open in agony; she heard nothing but Branoic’s berserk howl and her own terror matching it. It seemed to her that she hovered low over him as he swung and cut and shoved his way to the isolated rider’s side. For a moment the two held position, doomed together, it seemed.

      Sudden flashes of metal filled her vision. Prince Maryn himself came charging in to the rescue with the other silver daggers right behind him.

      She saw blood. Saw a sword rise and fall. Saw Branoic’s face run with blood. Heard his howl cut off, heard nothing but her own sobbing. Saw nothing but his face, slashed half-open like a torn mask hanging in blackness. Saw nothing.

      ‘My lady, oh my lady!’ Clodda’s voice sobbed in the blackness. ‘My lady, oh by the Goddess!’

      Lilli opened her eyes and saw her maidservant’s face, perfectly sound and whole, leaning over her. She was lying on the floor, Clodda was kneeling next to her, they were in her chamber.

      ‘Oh thank the gods! My lady, I thought you were dying.’

      ‘Here.’ Elyssa’s voice came from some near distance. ‘Give her some water.’

      Clodda put an arm around Lilli’s shoulders and helped her sit up enough to lean against the wall, then held the wooden cup while Lilli drank. Elyssa knelt down beside the maidservant.

      ‘What is it?’ Elyssa said. ‘Did you fall? Are you in pain?’

      ‘Should we get old Grodyr to attend you?’ Clodda said.

      Lilli shook her head and took the cup, then gulped more water. The two women sat back on their heels and waited till she finished.

      ‘I had a vision.’ Lilli could hear her voice croak, all hoarse. ‘Branoic’s been wounded. Badly.’

      They stared at her for a long silent moment. She braced herself against meaningless reassurances,