A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [159]
“Retreat, you stupid bastards! You can’t win! Retreat!”
And simply because he was noble-born and they were hysterical, they followed his orders and wheeled round to flee. With shouts and curses Halaberiel called off the archers and let them go, flogging a last bit of speed out of their sweating horses as they galloped for the road. Swearing, Pertyc realized that it was over. Nothing moved on the field but wounded horses, struggling to rise, then falling back.
“Open the gates, lads!” Pertyc yelled out. “Let’s see what we can do for the poor bastards they’ve left behind.”
His men cheered, laughing, slapping each other on the back. Pertyc fought to keep from weeping. He’d never expected his idea to work so well, and as he looked at the carnage below him, he suddenly understood why Eldidd men had ignored the existence of longbows for so many hundreds of years. With one last convulsive sob, he slung his bow over his back and climbed down the ladder to the cheering of his men.
Pertyc set some of the men to carrying what few wounded there were into the dun, then ordered others to start burying the dead and putting badly wounded horses out of their misery. He himself found Leomyr’s mangled body and dragged it free of a tangle of dead animals. He laid Leomyr out flat, crossed his arms over his chest, then rose, staring down at the corpse.
“I hope you freeze in the hells tonight.”
He kicked Leomyr hard in the side of the head, then went back inside the dun. Adraegyn came running and grabbed his hand.
“Can I come out now? This isn’t fair, Da, shutting me up like one of the women!”
“Tell me somewhat, Draego. Do you want to be king of Eldidd?”
“I don’t. I’d only be a usurper, not a king. Isn’t that what you said, Da? You’re always right, you know. Oh, this is splendid. Glae said you killed them all. Did you truly?”
“Most. Come along. There’s a lesson my da taught me that it’s time to teach you.”
Pertyc led him to the area just beyond the gates where the warband was piling up the bodies of the dead. Pertyc held Adraegyn’s hand tight and dragged him over to the heaped and contorted corpses. When Adraegyn tried to twist free and run, Pertyc grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him round to face the sight. The lad burst out weeping.
“This is what glory means, Draego,” Pertyc said. “You’ve got to see it. Look at them.”
Adraegyn was sobbing so hard that he could barely stand. Pertyc picked him up in his arms, carried him over to Leomyr, then set the weeping lad down.
“Do you remember Tieryn Dun Gwerbyn, Draego?” Pertyc said.
His face streaming with tears, Adraegyn nodded.
“I killed him,” Pertyc went on. “I stood on our wall and hit him twice and knocked him off his horse. You know why? Because he killed Danry. That’s what having a blood-sworn friend means, lad. Look at him. Someday you’ll be Lord Cannobaen, and you’ll have a friend you love the way I loved Danry.”
Slowly, a sniffle at a time, Adraegyn stopped crying.
“What happened to his face?” the boy whispered.
“The horses kicked his body a lot.”
Adraegyn turned away, pulled free of Pertyc’s hand, and began to vomit. When he was finished, Pertyc knelt down beside him, pulled a handful of grass, and wiped the lad’s mouth.
“Do you still think it’s splendid?”
Adraegyn shook his head in a mute no.
“Well and good, then. Once, when I was your age, your gran did to me what I just did to you. It’s part of what makes us Maelwaedds.”
Carrying shovels, servants trotted past. Adraegyn turned his face away from the sight.
“You can sleep in my bed with me tonight,” Pertyc said. “Doubtless you’ll have bad dreams.