He stared at his empty hand, a thought repeating itself with a strange, calm detachment. I dropped my sword.
The Free Sword stepped closer, sword drawn back for a hard thrust to Vaelin’s neck, then twisting in an oddly elegant pirouette, blood gushing from his part-severed neck as Nortah dragged his horse to a halt a few feet away, Snowdance following in his wake, teeth and claws already bloody.
Vaelin stood, taking stock of their surroundings. The charge had carried them almost to the centre of the Volarian ranks, combat raging on all sides as the Nilsaelins stabbed with their lances and Orven’s guardsmen hacked with their swords. A fresh arrow storm was falling somewhere to the west, indicating the Eorhil had found a stubborn pocket of Varitai resistance.
Lord Orven’s voice sounded nearby and Vaelin saw him rallying his men for a charge at a dense knot of Free Swords, fighting with all the desperation of doomed men. A loud whinny sounded and he saw his riderless horse plough into the Volarians, rearing and stamping, teeth bared as he screamed. The Volarian knot soon broke apart as Orven’s men charged home, Nilsaelins spurring in to join the slaughter.
“No foolishness?” Nortah asked, looming above with a reproachful glare.
Vaelin looked down at his empty hand, flexing the fingers and feeling the chill rise again. Something nuzzled his shoulder and he turned to find his horse, snorting loudly and tossing his head, a fresh cut on his nose. “Scar,” Vaelin said, running a hand over his snout. “Your name is Scar.”
? ? ?
“Hold still,” Dahrena admonished as he winced from the sting of the ointment she applied to his back. His tumble from the saddle had left him with a spectacular bruise from hip to shoulder, not to mention the constantly repeated words that plagued him on the journey back to Warnsclave. I dropped my sword.
“Hasn’t your legend grown enough already?” Dahrena went on, working the ointment into his skin, her fingers moving in hard tense circles. “You have to charge into every army you find? Now, apparently, with a Dark-commanded horse.”
“Hardly,” he groaned, sighing in relief as she rose from his side, going to the small chest holding the various pots and boxes containing her curatives. “I suspect my new horse just likes to fight.”
He had taken a basement room in the one structure left standing in Warnsclave, the harbour-master’s fortresslike house rising from the base of the mole, entirely built of granite and too substantial to be easily torn down. The queen and her retinue occupied the upper floors whilst the army made camp amidst the ruins, the ranks swelling yet again as more people trailed in from the surrounding countryside.
“Like his master,” Dahrena muttered, making him wince again. This was the first cross word between them since Alltor, stirring fears their bond might not be so immune to injury after all. The battle had been brief, hardly surprising given the odds, the Volarians running after no more than a quarter hour of combat, the time it took to cut down the Varitai. The surviving Free Swords fled in all directions, soon hunted down by the Eorhil whilst the Nilsaelins finished off the wounded and engaged in the time-honoured soldier’s treat of looting the dead. To his surprise Vaelin was greeted with grave respect as he walked the field, soldiers offering bows and raised lances in salute. Do they choose not to see? he wondered. Preferring to believe in a man of foolish courage and a Dark-led horse rather than a weakened fool who can’t stay in the saddle and drops his sword.
“I came close to dying today,” he told her, his tone flat, reflective. She didn’t turn but her back stiffened. “You know I lost my song,” he went on. “When you brought me back. Without it . . . I dropped my sword, Dahrena.”
She turned, a frown of anger on her face. “Is that self-pity I hear, my lord?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Just honest words . . .”
“Well, I have some honest words for you.” She came to him, kneeling to clasp his hands, small slender fingers working to clasp his own. “I once saw a boy fight like a savage to win a banner in some dreadful game. I thought it cruel then, in truth I still do. But the boy I saw that day did not hear a note from his song, otherwise I would have felt it. You were always more than your gift.” She took a firmer grip on his hands. “A gift is not muscle, or bone, or a skill learned since boyhood, a skill I cannot believe has dulled in but a few weeks.”