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 hed positioned all the guards directly behind them.
He gave her a tight smile, as if hed 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, its 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 leaders horse staggered to its knees and fell with Rhodrys 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)
Back in the eleventh century, when the far-flung kingdom of Deverry lay sparse and tentative across the lands men claimed in the kings 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 tieryns 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 tieryns 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 dont look bad for a pack of hounds. Now, remember: every lord and lady in the tierynrhyn is going to be here today. I dont want any of you getting stinking drunk, and I dont want any fighting, either. This is a wedding, remember, and the lady deserves to have it be a happy one after everything shes been through.
They all nodded solemnly. If any of them forgot his orders, hed make them regret itand 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 tieryns 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, shed inherited under a twist in the laws designed to keep big holdings in a clan even if a woman had to rule them. Although shed 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 havent, 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 maidens 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 hadnt found her a husband, she would have had to return to her brothers 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, doesnt he? Nevyn remarked.
With a yelp Cullyn turned to find the old man grinning at him. For all of Nevyns 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.