Jaryd awoke. He hurt. He hurt very badly. That was good. It meant he was still alive. Snapped stalks of wheat pressed against his cheek. It seemed strange that he should feel that discomfort above all the other pain. He could smell horses. And leather. And sweat. And blood. That latter smell stuck in the memory with the force of an axe thrown into a tree. Quivering, it triggered other memories. Tarryn. Father.
Galyndry. Galyndry? He hadn't thought much about his sisters. Galyndry was to be married anyhow. She'd be fine. Family Nyvar meant naught to her once she married. Delya was already married. No big thing. Wyndal, though…Wyndal was fifteen. He was still in Tyree, not everyone could go to Rathynal. Wyndal had always been quiet, he wouldn't make a fuss when he found out. Who would own their land now? And who would adopt Wyndal? Maybe Family Shaty would adopt him, at least then he could be with Delya.
His mind was wandering. That wasn't good. Everyone always said his mind wandered too much. Focus, Jaryd. You'll never make a great lord of Tyree if you don't learn to concentrate. Fool. Gods, he was a fool. He'd never thought a family so fragile. It had always been such a grand thing, full of uncles and aunts, cousins…In truth, it had never been more than him, father, and his siblings. Everyone else had another allegiance. Family? What did family matter to those people? As much as honour, perhaps. Or loyalty.
He tried to move his left arm. The pain of it nearly made him pass out. He moved his right instead and rolled heavily onto his back. His ribs hurt. Surely he'd broken some. He knew the feeling well enough. He could hear horses, distant shouts and trumpets. He tried opening his eyes. That was an anticlimax. There was no rush of blinding light, for the sky above was darkening. Soon it would be black. Best that he discovered where he was, and who had won, before all light disappeared entirely.
He levered himself upright. That hurt like hell. He was reminded of countless times he'd fallen from his horse playing lagand and awoken to find people looking down on him. Only now, he seemed to be alone.
Gasping, he got his good arm down for balance and sat up. Still he could see nothing…except that there was a dead horse lying beside him, partly obscured by the grain. Enough grain still stood to block all other view. The horse, at least, was not his. That was something.
He recalled charging into the Hadryn lines. He'd had no hope of steering, nor of wielding a shield. Nor of using his left hand as a pivot on the saddlehorn for leverage to duck, dodge and lean. His only defence had been attack. He'd struck one sword that would have killed him had he not…and then…he winced, trying to recall. His head hurt, along with everything else. His helm had fallen off. He could not see it in the grain about him. A horse galloped nearby and he had no idea if it belonged to friend or foe.
A pain stabbed at his right side, worse than the others. Jaryd put his hand there and found a tear in the heavy mail. His fingers came away bloody. He recalled banners…yes, he'd seen banners ahead, near the road. He'd charged at them. There had been some very good Hadryn warriors there, black and silver with big shields. Guarding someone. They'd seen him coming, and…but try as he might, he could not recall any more than that.
He staggered slowly, agonisingly, to his feet. The mail seemed impossibly heavy and his right shoulder guard was slashed in two. He could feel the bruise on his shoulder beneath. How the hells was he still alive? Far off toward the valley was a huge mass of riders, a dark and silver line against the fading gold of the fields. Behind them were scattered many stragglers, picking amongst the fields. If Sasha had lost, Jaryd realised, the armies would be south instead, toward Ymoth. They must have won.
Dark shapes littered the torn and mangled fields. Dead men, and the occasional horse. He staggered around the dead horse, but could not find its rider. Another dead man lay near, a Falcon Guardsman. Jaryd bent, painfully, and took up the man's sword. The face was not one he recognised.
Some instinct convinced him to walk east, away from the river, toward the broken folds of forested land that ran down from the mountains. The stiffening wound on his left leg throbbed painfully…Jaryd guessed he'd probably torn the muscle once more.
In the gloom ahead, faded of colour, he saw the shape of a banner, leaning on the body of a dead horse. He limped over and found a tangled mess of bodies, Hadryn and not. One of the Hadryn was gasping, trying to live, propped against the dead horse's side. Most of his entrails were in his lap. A sergeant in Yethulyn Bears colours lay with his head split open. Jaryd limped past them, searching the bodies with his eyes. The desperate story of their fight revealed itself in their final, fallen forms. Here a desperate, heroic defence. There a defiant charge. Men had fallen from their horses and fought on the ground. One of the dead Hadryn had deep bite marks through his hand and glove, the familiar curve of human teeth. Desperate fighting indeed.
Another dead horse, a dappled grey. This one, Jaryd saw as he limped around the dead animal's head, had a rider trapped beneath it, caught by the right leg. The horse's head was half severed by a single blow. The horse must have fallen hard and taken its rider down with it, even harder. The rider had that look, splayed on his right side, an arm outstretched, twisted and half conscious. Like a man who had fallen from a great height onto hard ground. His clothes were lordly, over his mail, with decorated stitching on his leather gloves and silver embroidery on his belt.
Banners. He'd charged this way, seeking banners. Lordly banners. Jaryd took another two steps. The half-conscious man seemed to register the boots before him and looked up, his helm askew. “Help me!” demanded a thin, anguished voice. “Help me, I'm hurt!”
A northern accent. A familiar, petulant tone. Now he remembered. “There's many hurt, Lord Usyn,” said Jaryd, hoarsely. “Help yourself.”
Usyn stared up at him. Perhaps the darkening overcast remained bright enough for silhouette, because the Great Lord of Hadryn's eyes seemed to widen with recognition. “Jaryd Nyvar!” He sounded almost relieved. “Master Jaryd, you must…you must help me up. My father was on good terms with your own. You are heir to the great lordship of Tyree. Great lords should always conduct themselves with honour, even in battle.”
“And with what honour have you conducted this battle, Lord Usyn?” Jaryd asked. In the distance, trumpets blared again. “I saw the bodies in Ymoth. You attempt the slaughter of an entire Lenay people, and you speak to me of honour?” The fury was with him again. They were all the same, these nobles. His so-called peers and comrades. Everything he'd ever aspired to be, it was all a lie.
“You would stand there and snarl at me, while I lie wounded?” Usyn looked about, desperately, and found his sword on the ground nearby. He snatched it, and tried wriggling free from the horse's weight…and nearly screamed. “Have you…” he gasped, desperately. “Have you no honour?”
“My father and brother are dead,” Jaryd said tonelessly. “Family Nyvar is no more. We were betrayed. If that is the honour of Verenthane nobility, then no, Lord Usyn, I have no honour. I reject your honour. I am a man already dead, and I have no fear of anything any longer.”
“You would kill me?” Usyn asked. There was fear in his voice, a high, thin quaver. “Like this? Defenceless? I am not your enemy! Why…why do you ride with these…these people! You have the blood of the chosen in your veins! The nobility of Lenayin! The masters of the land!”
“The nobility of Lenayin slew a ten-year-old boy for daring to be frightened. Your honour is horseshit. Or worse. At least horseshit has uses.”
“I didn't do it!” Usyn screamed. “I didn't kill your damn brother! You can't…you can't accuse me of…”
“Of vanity? Of power lust? Of murder? Of massacres and hatred? I know only too well what you are, and what you've done, Usyn. I know because I was once of your kind. I've been so stupid, and so blind, that I didn't realise what they'd do until it was too late. For that, I deserve death. And if I do, I'm quite certain you deserve worse. Look about you.”
Some men were groaning, amidst the tangles of wheat. A little further, someone was sobbing. Torchlights now moved across the fields, riders searching for wounded.
Usyn was crying, Jaryd saw with surprise. He'd thought him many things, but not a coward. Yet it did not surprise him too greatly. They were all hypocrites and fakes, all the nobility.
“I just…” Usyn sobbed, his face contorted, “…wanted to be worthy of my father! I…I wanted to be a great lord of Hadryn! I wanted him to be proud of me, and…and I want to see my sister again, and…”
He lashed his blade in sudden fury at Jaryd's leg. Jaryd leaped back, with the barest moment to spare, and hurled his sword point first for Usyn's throat. It struck, and Usyn died with a horrid gurgling, drowning fast in his own spurting blood.
Jaryd turned away, unable to face the sight. He put his good hand to his head and stared across the battlefield, to where the tips of the northern mountains continued to glow, long after the light had fled the land below.
In a clump of wheat nearby, he heard a man coughing. He walked and found it was a Goeren-yai villager, with a bloodied face and a sword thrust through his side. Not deep, though. He might yet live. Jaryd sheathed his borrowed sword and managed to haul the man upright with one arm, long enough to dump him over one shoulder. Then he stood, muscles, ribs and leg shrieking protest, and began limping toward the river.