“Then I’ll wait,” said the werewolf. “This camp has got to be moved or the werewolves won’t be able to manage. We have to attack Pilgrim Parties sixty miles away between battles.”

“And I have to hold evil court for them eighty miles away,” King Luther called out. “It can’t be done. Come and join us, my friend.”

The werewolf glowered at Blade as he stepped over toward the hampers. Blade was rather glad that the next people to arrive were only a squad of legionaries, each carrying a spade and all running briskly in step, while a fierce officer ran behind them, chanting, “One-two, one-two, one-two.” Blade jumped up from the shale and showed them where the huts were in the camp. “No problem at all,” said the officer. “These lads do this twice a day before breakfast, don’t you, boys?”

“More like three times,” a legionary said ruefully.

“Then jump to it!” shouted the officer.

We could do with a few officers like him, Blade thought as he came out through the camp again. He wondered if Titus could lend him a few—except that it did not seem to be quite in the spirit of the rules. Blade was wondering if there was anything about it in his black book—which he hoped Kit still had safely—when he looked up to see the next arrival just dismounting from the most splendid horse he had ever set eyes on. Even the bard deigned to give a slight whistle and remark, as Blade went past him, “Now that is horseflesh.”

This latest person, as Blade saw when he was near enough, was female. She was tall enough to be an elf, but probably, Blade thought, she was something else. Her hair was brownish, and her eyes slanted a bit. Her skin was brown as well and, though she was dressed from head to foot in soft white doeskin, the doeskin was the only soft thing about her. She was as tough and stringy and fierce as dried, curried meat. He watched her put her hands on her narrow hips and look ferociously over the crowd around the hampers.

“Which of you is Wizard Derk?” she snapped.

Blade prudently hung back, out of trouble.

“None of us is, madam,” King Luther replied politely. “We’re waiting for him, too.”

“I’m Wendela Horselady, and I want Wizard Derk now,” said the lady. “He may be Dark Lord, but as far as I can tell, he must be the only person in this world who has the least consideration for animals. I’ve got to talk to him about my horses. I’ve absolutely had enough!”

“But Wizard Derk is not here yet, my daughter,” Umru said.

The Horselady looked slowly around the space by the river. By this time there were not only a large number of people there but two dozen horses, too. “You’re all using my horses,” she said. “I’ll talk to you first and then to Wizard Derk when he comes. I’ve had trouble enough finding this camp—someone’s put it in quite the wrong place—and I may as well make it worth my while. Now, listen. So many of my horses got killed last year that I had trouble meeting my quota for this year. I’ve had to send out some of the breeding stock. And that means fewer foals next year—a lot fewer, because those darned Pilgrims are so careless. Six tours have lost all their horses already, and I’m not providing them with new ones just to have those broken down—”

“Madam,” Umru managed to interrupt, “I assure you I cherish my horses, particularly the only one that can carry me.”

“—by stupid fools who think they’re just some kind of walking chairs,” the Horselady swept on. “And now you’re all coming up to this ridiculous round of battles, and there’s bound to be absolute carnage amongst the horses, because there always is, and I shall have practically none left, and most of those will be hurt in some way. Why you people can’t be more careful—”

“This really isn’t our concern,” Titus said stiffly. “Our legions mostly fight on foot.”

“Yes, I know they do!” the Horselady retorted. “Your lot is the worst of all. Your beastly legions go for the horses every time in order to get the riders off. Well, I’m warning you, if they do that this year, if a single horse gets maimed or killed—”

“Look,” said King Luther, “you can’t have a battle without any horses being hurt—”

“Yes, you can if you fight on foot!” the lady contradicted him. “And you’re going to do that, because as I said, if one single horse gets hurt, I shall simply recall the entire lot.”

“That’s surely easier to say than to do,” King Luther said. “For a start, you’d have to—”

“I’d just do this.” The Horselady put her fingers to her mouth and gave a long, warbling whistle. The heads of all the horses turned toward her. Then they all, even Barnabas’s horse, and Umru’s, and those that had been tied to stakes by King Luther’s men, trotted eagerly toward her over the shale. The bard’s horse came out of the dome at a canter and reached her first. The noise, for a moment, of hooves crashing on stones, was horrible. “You see?” the Horselady said, out of the crowd of horses. “Nothing simpler.” She patted necks and rubbed noses. “There, my loves. Go back to your borrowers for now. I’ll call you again when I need you.” All the horses obediently turned and went back to where they had come f

rom, except for the bard’s horse, which the bard caught on its way up the hill and made to stand beside him.

By this time it was dawning on Blade that he must go and warn Dad that there was a pack of trouble waiting for him when he arrived. But there was a camel now, coming around the dome of the camp. The man on its back asked the bard something, and the bard pointed to Blade. The camel came down the hill, splay-legged and knock-kneed, and stopped with a snarl beside Blade.

Blade found this arrival very hard to understand, but he gathered that this man was a personal servant of a vizir and his message was something about “the Emir acting strange.” He told him to go over to the hampers and wait. At least the Horselady, who was now walking about haranguing everybody whom she happened to be near, could not possibly worry about a camel, or so he hoped. Nor, he thought, could she have anything to say to the next two, who were coming splashing up the river on foot.

These two climbed up the bank and accosted Blade. “This camp is in the wrong place,” the first one to reach him said.

I shall scream! Blade thought. “Tell me your complaint or message, and I’ll tell my father when he gets here.”

“We’re not really together,” said the one behind. “I’m from Chell City. Something’s seriously wrong with the arrangements for the siege there.”

“And I’m from the north,” said the one in front. “I’ve come about that wretched mauve dragon. Who gave it permission to roost right in the middle of our fur-trapping drove?”

Blade persuaded them both to come and sit down with the grim priests.

“Do you use horses?” the Horselady demanded, looming up behind them.

Tags: Diana Wynne Jones Derkholm Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net