A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [155]
The logic was irrefutable. While Danry was separating his men from the general mob, one of Yvmur’s riders came up to him.
“My lord? I saw your son fall. He’s dead.”
Danry could only stare at him for a long, numb moment. The lad wasn’t much older than Cunvelyn himself.
“We’ll all be dead soon enough,” Danry said at last. “I’ll see him in the Otherlands.”
That night, about two hundred men out of the original thousand took the cold ride west. The horses were too weary to do much more than walk, and no one pushed them, because they had little hope of finding more if they foundered them. They rode until they could ride no more and made a camp of sorts in the wild forest around midnight. Around a sputtering campfire of damp twigs and sticks, the remnants of Eldidd nobility gathered and tried to plan.
“We’ve got to find shelter away from the coast,” Gatryc said. “We’ll stretch his cursed supply lines thin that way. He won’t dare follow us all the way into our territory. Let him take Aberwyn! We’ll take it back again.”
“True-spoken,” Ladoic put in. “And Danry here knows the wild forest around Cannobaen.”
Danry realized that everyone was turning to stare at him. In his numb grief he couldn’t understand why.
“So I do. And that’s our best hope, right enough.”
They all nodded. With a sigh, Gatryc cradled his bandaged arm and stared at the ground. While the others talked, Danry began thinking about his son, remembering the little lad who used to toddle to him with outstretched arms and lisp a few words. When someone caught his arm, he looked up dazed.
“Did you hear that?” Leomyr said to him.
“What? You’ll forgive me, my lords. Cunvelyn fell in that battle.”
There was a quick wince of sympathy from every man there. Leomyr let him go.
“We were wondering how soon the Deverrian will hang the king,” Leomyr said. “I’m wagering he won’t wait.”
“Oh, I agree with you, for what my opinion’s worth.”
“And the king has no heirs.” Gatryc’s voice was faint. “If we want to keep the throne in Eldidd, we’d best have a man to sit on it, hadn’t we?”
Like a hot dagger through wax the words cut through Danry’s exhaustion.
“It’s a noble thing to honor a friend,” Gatryc said. “But Pertyc Maelwaedd holds the future of Eldidd in his Badger’s claws. Do you think you can persuade him to the right way of thinking?”
When Danry hesitated, Gatryc gave him a thin smile.
“I doubt if you can,” the gwerbret went on. “Danry, believe me, it aches my heart to say what I have to say. But we have to have his lad. Adraegyn’s the king of Eldidd the moment Cawaryn dies. I’ve no doubt that the Deverrian knows it as well as we do. We’re sending a warband ahead of us, the men in the best shape on the best horses to go fetch him from his father’s dun. Leomyr will captain them, because that way he can stop at Dun Gwerbyn and pick up his fresh men and suchlike. The rest of us will follow and fight a rearguard action. Keep the Deverrian too busy to make a quick strike west. And you’re staying at my side. We need your battle wisdom. Besides, I have no desire to make you watch the events at Cannobaen.”
Although it was nicely said, Danry knew that he was being put under arrest.
“My thanks, Your Grace. Though he’s betrayed us, Pertyc was my friend once. I don’t want to see him die.”
This was just unexpected enough to put everyone off guard. As they stared at him, Danry summoned a bitter smile.
“Well, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell, what do you think? That I can see the death of all my hopes, of my king, and of my own son, and still love the traitor who brought this all down upon me?”
“I think I’ve misjudged you, my friend,” Gatryc said. “Well and good, then. Here, my lords, there’s nothing more to be said. Get what sleep you can.”
As he strode off, Danry was aware of Leomyr watching him, but he had no strength to worry about the man. It’s all lost anyway, Danry thought, all we can do is die with a little bit of honor. Around three