A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [156]
Danry woke long before the rest of the camp, when the moon was setting among the icy stars. He got up, moving stiffly, and looked round for the guard that he knew Gatryc had posted over him. In the dim light, he could see the young rider huddled on the ground and snoring. Danry crept past without waking the lad. In a clearing the horses were tethered; the guard there was asleep, too. Danry found his own chestnut gelding, still bridled, and led him away through the forest. Once they were clear of the camp, he set the horse’s bit and mounted bareback. He was going to have a long, hard ride to Cannobaen, but he was determined to warn Pertyc and die at his side. In his muddled state of mind, it all seemed perfectly just: he was leaving his men and horses with his allies to make up for this betrayal.
Since the horse was tired, Danry let it walk along the west-running road while he tried to think. He could lie his way across Eldidd, he supposed, claiming fresh horses and food from his erstwhile allies’ duns on the pretext of bringing them the terrible news. The road here ran through trees, which soon would thicken into a remnant of the wild forest. He would cut straight across country, he decided, to the dun of Lord Coryn, one of Mainoic’s vassals. Then he heard the sound behind him: men and horses, coming fast. He clung to his horse’s neck and kicked it as hard as he could, but the horse could only manage a jog. When he looked back he could see a squad gaining on him.
At first Danry thought it was Deverry men, closer than any of them had expected, but as they approached, he recognized Leomyr in the moonlight. It was a pathetically ridiculous race of exhausted men on exhausted horses, trotting after one another with barely the strength to yell. Sick in his heart of the farce, Danry turned his horse and rode back to meet them. Leomyr’s smirk made him draw his sword. The six riders ringed him round, jostling uneasily for position in the dim light.
“I thought so,” Leomyr said. “You’re a good liar, Danry, but not quite good enough. You’re never reaching the Badger’s hole.”
Danry shouted and kicked his horse straight for him, but a rider intervened. With two quick cuts he killed the man, swung round him, got one good blow on someone else—he couldn’t see who—before he felt the fire, slicing open his back as the five remaining riders mobbed him from flank and rear. The pain came again, burning through his shoulder to the bone, then stabbing from the side. The dim night road was swimming and dancing around him, spinning, spinning, spinning as horses reared and men yelled. The trees were swooping and falling. Danry hit the road hard, tasting dust and blood as he choked. The road went dark. He saw a light burning in the dark, but it was a light that never shone on land or sea. In it he saw his lad, reaching out to him.
The news was such a shock that for a long while Pertyc felt as muddled and sick as someone suffering from a bad fever. He was lingering over his breakfast that morning, dreading the thought of archery practice in the rain, when Nevyn came striding into the hall. The old man pulled off his wet cloak and tossed it to Adraegyn.
“They’re coming, my lord. Leomyr and eighty men, but the rebellion is over, whether the idiots will admit it or not.”
When Pertyc tried to speak, no words came. Nevyn went on, rattling off the news: the king had marched, caught the rebels by surprise, and torn them to pieces. A few desperate men were left to regroup out in the forest and fight to the death.
“And this morning, King Aeryc hanged young Cawaryn,” Nevyn finished up. “Ye gods, this all took me completely off guard! I was only idly looking for news, and found a boiling kettle spilling soup into the fire. Here I thought we had another