Free Darwath 2 - The Walls Of The Air by Barbara Hambly Page B

her own weapons, bow and sword and spear. “I figure they camped at the ruined watchtowers where the road comes into the Vale, the ones Janus called the Tall Gates. There were several thousand when they came up the road yesterday. By the fires, I don't think there's near that many today. The Dark must have come in the night.” She turned, prickled by the older Guard's silence. “You know, we didn't have to drive them on like beggars.”
    Seya looked uncomfortable. She hadn't cared for it, either. The newcomers had been nearly frozen, in rags and starving, when they'd trudged up the valley road. It hadn't taken much of a show of force to send them on their way. But she only said, “When you put on the emblem of the Guards, Gil-Shalos, you gave up the right to have an opinion. We serve the King of Gae—in this case, Prince Altir. Or the Queen.”
    Gil folded her arms, trying vainly to warm her hands under her dark, shabby cloak. In the distance she could still see the thin plumes of bluish woodsmoke rising in the clear, freezing air. It wasn't the Queen who gave the orders, she thought. It was Alwir. But it might as well have been her Majesty, for all the difference it made.
    She thought of the Queen, a shy, dark-haired girl standing in her brother's elegant shadow. She saw the two now as they had been yesterday, standing in the dark gateway of the Keep with their guards ranged around them, the bullion on their embroidered robes flashing palely in the wan sunlight. We have neither food nor space to take you in, Alwir had said to the tall, ragged monk who had led the refugees up the Pass and who had stood at their head with his stained red robes as brown as old blood against the snow. What food we have will barely take us 'til spring.
    There had been a stirring among Alwir's guards and a leathery rattle, like a dragon's scales, of fingered scabbards. The refugees had turned away, retracing their plowed tracks through the crusted snow.
    “Look.” Seya's voice broke Gil from her reverie, and she turned her head quickly, following the older Guard's pointing finger. A single rider had appeared on the road, his tall, bony bay horse picking carefully through the slippery mess of ice-scummed potholes that was all that remained of the way. Even without the ivory braids that lay on the man's dark shoulders, Gil would have recognized the tall, thin body and the easy way he sat a horse. The colorless eyes sought the women; a gloved hand was lifted in hail and farewell.
    Gil raised her hand in answer, not certain whether to laugh or feel sadness. It was typical of the Icefalcon that he would set forth on a journey from which he might never return with no more than a wave at his closest friends. It would be a long journey and a slow one—he had only the single horse. Stock was precious in the Keep of Dare.
    As the dark woods of the Pass swallowed him again, she glanced worriedly at the blur of campfire smoke veiling the black trees and said, “You think he'll have trouble passing their camp?”
    Seya raised one eyebrow. “Him?”
    Given the Icefalcon's coldblooded ferocity, Gil had to admit it wasn't too likely.
    Seya went on. “It's more probable that Janus and the foragers will have trouble. When I left, Alwir and Govannin were still going at it hammer and tongs about how big a guard should go with the wagons and how many of them should be mounted. Alwir kept saying we can't afford to strip the Keep of any more manpower than we can help—and he has a point, considering the attack the Dark Ones made on us last week—and Govannin's on the verge of apoplexy because most of the wagons they're sending with the foragers are hers.”
    “I agree with Govannin,” Gil said. She set aside the weapons of guarding—the bow and spear—for Seya's use and shook the snow from the blanket. “The refugees didn't look as if they were in any shape to take on even a small band of armed men; but once Janus hits the river valleys, he may have to