“There are three dead men here all together.” Morgan was surprised by the steadiness of the old man’s voice—the prince felt himself only a step or two from madness and terror. All around them stretched the empty grasslands. “And a dead horse, too.”
“But who could do this?” Morgan asked. “These were Erkynguards.” It still did not seem remotely real. “And where are the rest?” But Eolair did not answer. After a moment, the prince looked up and saw Eolair was staring out across the grassland to the north. Morgan turned and saw a troop of armored men on horseback, several dozen at least, riding along the edge of the forest toward them.
“Are they ours?” said Eolair, but the count did not sound hopeful. “My eyes are not strong enough. Can you tell?”
Morgan squinted. He could feel his blood pounding in his head. “They have no insignia I can see—no banners, either. And all of them are wearing different kinds of armor.” Even as he looked, the nearest of the riders spotted them and suddenly the whole force was riding toward them, waving axes and spears above their heads.
“Bagba bite me!” Eolair cursed. “Thrithings-men—or bandits!” He grabbed Morgan’s arm and gave him a push. “Run, my prince. Run to the forest!”
“Are you mad?” Morgan had already drawn his sword. “I can’t leave you—”
“You can and will, curse your stubbornness! You are the heir to the High Throne, young man, and it is my duty to keep you safe. My life is nothing to that. Run to the forest and hide there. If I survive, I will come and call for you. If I do not—well, try to find the Sithi again. Go!”
“No! I won’t!” The drumming of the attackers’ hooves grew louder as the horsemen swept toward like a thunderstorm, only a couple of arrows’ flights away and closing quickly.
Eolair shoved Morgan again, so hard that he almost stumbled and fell. The count had his own long, slender sword in his hand now. “By Murhagh’s bloody stump, if you do not run, Prince Morgan, I swear I will kill you myself before letting the Thrithings-men take you. Some of the clans burn prisoners alive!”
Morgan took a step toward the forest fringe, then another, but he could not imagine leaving the old man to die. “Come—we’ll both run.”
“I would never reach it,” the count said. “I am too slow. No, you must escape.”
“But I am a prince!”
“Fire does not care about such things,” Eolair cried, “and neither does a Thrithings spear.” Morgan could see little in the twilight but the count’s pale face. “Run, curse you, boy—run!”
Furious and terrified, caught between two impossible choices, Morgan at last turned and sprinted toward the trees.
At the edge of the forest, dodging through a stand of ash trees, he slowed and turned to look back. The grassy plain was all but dark now but he could see that the horsemen had almost reached Eolair. The old count waited almost patiently as they began to surround him, but Morgan could also see that several of the horsemen had broken off from the main group and were now heading up the sloping meadow toward where he stood watching.
For the briefest of moments he considered turning to meet them, contemplated a heroic although likely unknown and unsung death. Then a sudden thought of Lillia came to him, of her serious little face, and he could not imagine how she would bear the news. Born without a father, and now her brother gone too? He could not do that to her—not by choice.
Morgan turned and hurried on up the slope through the grove of ash trees, tripping on shrubs and tangling grasses as he reached the darkness of the forest. Within moments the light was mostly gone and he had to slow down to little more than a walk, but for all he knew the Thrithings-men who were chasing him knew the forest well, so he kept moving and did not stop until his legs and arms were so scratched and aching he did not think he could take another step.
As he stood trying to catch his breath without making too much noise he listened for the sound of pursuers, but could hear nothing except the pounding of his own heart. After a moment he realized he was standing beneath a large tree, its trunk many times wider than he was; from the knobbly feel of its bark, he guessed it was an oak.
If I can get up into it, I can rest, he thought. The men chasing me don’t have dogs—at least I didn’t see or hear any. They won’t find me if I’m hidden up in the branches.
He wondered what had happened to poor Eolair, alone against a company of mounted men, but it felt too freshly raw and painful, so he felt around for a suitable branch instead, then began to climb.
He had made his way a bit more than twice his own height off the ground when he reached the first great spread of branches. He worked himself a little higher up the tree, until he had found a wide place where several of the larger limbs came together, then seated himself with his back against the rough trunk. He listened again, but heard no sounds of pursuit, no sounds at all except the rapid buzz of a nightjar and the wind sighing through the treetops high above his head.
At last, frightened but exhausted, he dozed, dreaming of black butterflies in a cloud so dense it threatened to choke him. When he woke he could see the three-quarters moon high in the sky above, like a Midsummer mask peeping through the branches, and he wondered how long he had slept, and why he was in a tree. Then the entire, horrible truth came back to him, and for a moment he wanted nothing so much as to cry like a child and then be comforted. But there was nobody to comfort him. He was alone in the dark in the forest.
Something brushed the back of his neck and the side of his face—a branch or some leaves. It happened again, and he was about to reach up and push it away when he realized by its movement that it was not leaves or twigs but something altogether different, something alive. He went deadly still, fearing some venomous thing, spider or serpent. When he realized it was neither his heart did not slow, but began to race even faster, rattling like the nightjar’s call.
A hand was gently exploring his goose-pimpling skin—a hand with long, tickling fingers so thin and so cold they might have belonged to a starveling child.
52
Homecoming
“Where is my soup? Bring me soup!”
Despite the reedy thinness of his voice and the relative immensity of the wagon—it was actually two wagons joined together—the old man’s words seemed always to come to her from a mere hand’s breadth away. Hyara said a prayer for patience to the Grass Thunderer, and just to be careful, one to the stonedwellers’ martyred Aedon as well. “It’s not ready yet,” she said. “It’s still warming.”
“I don’t care. It’s warm enough.”
“It is not warm enough. As soon as you get it you’ll be complaining, so you can wait.”
“I should have pulled that spiteful tongue out of your head long ago.”
It was all she could do not to reply with something really unpleasant. She no longer feared the old man, but she did fear her husband, who was quick with a blow or even a kick and always took her father’s side. Her older sister saw her frustration and nodded toward the wagon’s main door. “Go outside, Hyara. Take them more yerut and bring in the bowls. I’ll deal with the old fool.”
Grateful, Hyara wiped her hands on her rough apron and went outside.
Her husband was out checking the paddocks to make sure the animals were secure, but the rest of his men, relatives and hangers-on, had finished their work and were gathered around the fire waiting for the thane to return. Her husband’s cousin Cudberj, who for at least this moment was the most important man in the compound, was holding forth about something that Hyara felt sure he knew little about. Her husband might be a brute, she might dream of him being gored by a bull or killed in a raid on one of the Erkynlandish settlements, but at least he was not a blatherer like his cousin.
“There you are!” Cudberj shouted when she stepped down from the wagon. “Bring us more drink, woman. My friends are thirsty.”
“I’ve sent our son to fetch more,” Hyara said. “You and the others have drained what we have, and my husband will want some when he gets back.”
The trees around the camp were full of crows, more than Hyara had seen gather at once in a long while. She thought they were much like her husband’s men, useless and loud.
“Well, then,” said another man, a young idiot with mustaches that almost reached his collar bone, “if you’ve no yerut, give us a kiss!”
Cudberj laughed loudly at this. “You’d better hope my cousin the thane doesn’t hear you say that to his wife, or he’ll have your guts for stirrups.”
Hyara couldn’t decide which she’d enjoy more at that moment, not being the thane’s wife or getting to see the thane make stirrups out of the young fool’s innards. “When the boy comes back with the jug,” she said, “make sure you leave enough for my husband or he’ll spill the offal out of all of you.”