Ambrosia was about to laugh at his pessimism when a certain thought occurred to her. She decided to hold her tongue. Morlock knew the horse better than she did.
One of the armed riders below sounded a horn call. Velox"s head snapped in that direction, and Ambrosia saw the charger"s nostrils flare with anger and delight. With a serpentine movement the warhorse swung himself about in midair so that his head faced the imperial horse soldiers.
This maneuver nearly unseated Ambrosia. Because she could not grip with her shattered hands, she reached forward and hooked her forearms around her brother"s midriff.
"With your permission, brother," she said, resting her chin on his left and lower shoulder.
Morlock grunted.
"We"re not going to make it, are we?" she said into his ear. "Velox won"t retreat."
"Do they have bowmen?" was his unexpected reply.
"I don"t think so," she said. "Bowmen are infantry."
"Bad tactics," he observed.
"Shut up."
"We"ll make it."
"We won"t!"
"You"ll see."
They struck the ground and rebounded, leaping over the crown of the hill where the imperial riders were gathering. Velox"s scream broke through a storm of horn calls. Ambrosia felt Wyrth"s hands tighten reflexively on her arms. Morlock suddenly shouted, a refrain of nonsense syllables carried on a deep-throated roar. When they struck the ground in the center of where the cavalry group had been, there was nothing there but dead hillside and some clouds of dust. Ambrosia could hear the hoofbeats of the imperial riders departing in various directions through the dusk.
"What was that spell?" Ambrosia demanded as they sprang up toward the first stars of evening.
Morlock cleared his throat, seemingly embarra.s.sed.
"An Anhikh cattle call, I believe," Wyrtheorn observed.
"We"ll have Wyrth shout next time-," Morlock began.
"Cattle call? Next time?" Ambrosia felt the conversation was getting away from her.
"It might be anything," Morlock explained. "So long as they believe dire Ambrosian magic is being worked on them."
"It won"t keep working, Morlock," Ambrosia said. "These are imperial soldiers."
"Oh, I think you underrate your reputations, Lady Ambrosia," the dwarf disagreed cheerfully. "Some of the stories I heard about you in the Great Market were enough to make one swear off sausages."
"Sausages?"
"You haven"t heard that one? Well, never mind. The point is, these soldiers are quite prepared to see Ambrosii exact a dreadful revenge by means of dreadful magic. They have their heads crammed full of such stories from the time they"re born. And here we have a flying horse screaming horribly as it hurls through the darkness while on its back a three-headed silhouette chants ominous but unintelligible words-oh, yes, they"ll run like rabbits."
"But a whole cavalry wing ..."
"The more do run, the more will run," Morlock said flatly. "Our chief danger is that Velox will break a leg, or overturn in his enthusiasm. I think as it gets darker we will even be safe from bowmen."
"They won"t have bowmen."
Morlock shrugged.
"Shut up!" Ambrosia insisted.
Velox spotted another group of hors.e.m.e.n deeper in the hills. Snorting, he lowered his head and-as they fell toward the ground-struck off with all four hooves, bounding toward the hapless enemy.
After dispersing the greater part of the cavalry wing, Velox seemed to grow restless, and even a little bored. At that time, well after full night had risen into the sky, Morlock managed to persuade the charger to direct his bounds toward the smudge of light on the western horizon that was the imperial city.
"That was rather easy," said Wyrtheorn suspiciously.
"New horizons," Ambrosia speculated. "Think of all the traffic he can disrupt in the city. What do you say, Morlock?"
Morlock grunted. From Ambrosia"s viewpoint his expression looked even more saturnine than usual.
"I see what you mean," said Wyrtheorn reflectively. "I hadn"t thought of that."
Ambrosia held her silence through two more long leaps. Not even Velox screamed. The lifeless hills below issued no noises into the night air; the only sound was the chill persistent sea breeze, whispering over the dead lands toward the south.
Eyeing the western horizon she said finally, "We"re not headed directly for the city, are we?"
"Gravesend Field, I think," said her brother, in a burst of volubility.
Ambrosia grunted.
It became obvious as they left the Dead Hills behind them (a ragged shadow on the moonslit eastern horizon) that Morlock"s guess was correct. Velox"s leaps over the plain separating them from Gravesend were the long low ones that covered the most ground in the least time, and he had resumed his enthusiastic screaming.
"You know what it is," the dwarf said, in a speculative tone of voice.
"Say it," Ambrosia replied.
"He"s not satisfied with the outcome of the joust. You saw how Morlock got knocked right off his back. Maybe that"s a point of pride with warhorses."
"My fault," Morlock said matter-of-factly. "I never was a great spearman. You may be right, though."
"Is your warhorse wounded by self-doubt? Your palfrey pained with an inexplicable distress? Your charger changeable in his moods? Consult Brother Wyrth, ministering to the emotional needs of the equine even now in yonder booth!"
Morlock grunted.
"Well, it might pay better than being your apprentice."
"Anything would. I suppose Urdhven and his soldiers will have left Gravesend by now."
Ambrosia resisted the temptation to grunt enigmatically. "Think again, brother. Note yon trail of dust the sea breeze is carrying south."
"Urn. Well observed."
The trail of dust was now somewhat distorted by the wind, but clearly its trail began in the Dead Hills and led toward the edge of Gravesend Field, the anchor building now visible, black against the night-blue western sky.
"A messenger?" Wyrth guessed. "From the cavalry war-leader to Urdhven."
Ambrosia laughed aloud. "What would you give, Wyrtheorn, to hear the delicate phrasing of that message? "You see, Your Worship, there was this horse ...""
"Ah, Lady Ambrosia, what wouldn"t I give? An aethrium spike for each of Urdhven"s lordly earlobes. A bowl of chicken blood for his slightly shopworn golem. A stirrup-cup of phlogiston to lend, shall we say, a mellow glow to his last and longest ride-"
"Morlock!" Ambrosia shouted. "What are you doing?"
Her brother had leaned forward abruptly and was speaking in a low voice to Velox. In the silence following her cry, Morlock"s brisk lilting syllables rang clear.
"Westhold dialect, isn"t it, Lady Ambrosia?" Wyrth remarked. "I never could follow it, but I"m not the horsey sort."
"Oh, Wyrth, you"re lying to me again."
"No, really. But I guess Morlock is putting the finger (or the hoof?) on our Lord Protector. That must be him standing there, at the edge of the lists...."
They struck the ground; Velox pushed off with something like deliberation, changing their direction slightly, putting them in a short high leap. Velox screamed again, the cry of battle. They would next strike the ground within Gravesend Field.
Had Velox not been screaming Ambrosia would have pounded on Morlock"s crooked shoulders and demanded an explanation. She would have advocated the course of prudence, deliberation, and the better part of valor.
Uselessly! After all, she realized, that rug had already been pulled out from under their feet. It was too late to think of caution when you had spent the early evening chasing cavalry detachments through the hills on the back of a battle-mad, laughing, middle-aged flying horse. Wasn"t it?
Morlock looked back over his crooked shoulder and gave a crooked grin. Then, turning, he threw back his head (nearly braining her) and began to chant loudly in Dwarvish. Wyrth joined in at the third syllable. Ambrosia herself recognized the song, though she did not know Dwarvish well. It was perhaps the most common "Praising of Day," sung each day at dawn by the dwarvish clans of Thrymhaiam. She didn"t know the words, but she wordlessly lent her own cracking voice to the simple tune.
Heolor chain vehernanl choran harwellanclef
null wyrma daelu herial hatathclef
feng fernandef modhlind vemarthal mo we;
Rokh Rokhlanclef hull veheoloral morwe.
Dal sar drangan an immi yrend ek atlani,
dal sar deoran an kyrrend knyllorana-*
So singing, they returned to Gravesend Field.
*Blindly Death takes hold of the timid and the brave;
vermin devour the evil and good alike;
Maker and miner sleep in the same silence;
dragon and dragonkiller fall under the same fell.
There is one darkness that ends all dreaming,
one light in which all living will awake-