A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [27]
“Now then, I’ll give you two copper pieces for him. That’s a generous price, my lord.”
His face dead white, Degedd tried to speak, failed, then simply nodded his agreement. Aderyn untied his coin pouch and counted the coppers into the lord’s broad but shaking left hand, as the right seemed to pain him.
“Your chamberlain will doubtless think you’ve made a fine bargain. And, of course, if you and your men return straight to your lands, there’s no need for anyone to ever hear this tale.”
Degedd forced out a tight sour smile. Doubtless he didn’t care to be mocked in every tavern in Eldidd by the story of how one herbman had bested him on the road, especially since no one would believe that the herbman had done it with magic. With a cheery wave, Aderyn mounted his horse and rode away, with Ibretin and the mule hurrying after. About a mile on, they looked back to see Lord Degedd and his warband trotting fast—away back south. Aderyn tested the dweomer warnings and felt that indeed, all danger was over. At that he laughed aloud.
“If nothing else,” he told Ibretin, “that was the best jest I’ve had in a long time.”
Ibretin tried to smile but burst into tears instead. He wept all the way back.
That night there was as much of a celebration in the camp as their meager provisions would allow. Aderyn sat at the biggest fire with Wargal and his wife while the rest of the villagers squatted close by and stared at him as if he were a god.
“We have to let the goats rest a day or they’ll stop giving milk,” Wargal said. “Is that safe, Wise One?”
“Oh, I think so. But you’d best travel a long ways north before you find a place to settle down.”
“We intend to. We were hoping you’d come with us.”
“I will for a while, but my destiny lies in the west, and I have to go where my magic tells me.”
After three more days of slow, straggling marching, the luck of Wargal’s tribe turned for the better. One afternoon they crested a high hill to see huts of their own kind spread out along a stream, prosperous fields, and pastures full of goats. When they came up to the village, the folk ran to meet them. There were only seven huts in the village, but land enough for many families. After a hasty tribal council, their headman, Ufel, told Wargal that he and his folk were welcome to settle there if they chose.
“The more of us, the better,” Ufel said. “Our young men are learning a thing or two from the cursed Blue-eyes. Someday we’ll fight and keep our lands.”
Wargal tossed back his head and howled a war cry.
Their journey over, the refugees camped that night along the streambank. The villagers brought food and settled in for talks to get to know their new neighbors. At Ufel the headman’s fire, Wargal and Aderyn drank thin beer from wooden cups.
“I take it your folk have lived here for some time,” Aderyn said. “May you always live in peace.”
“So I hope. We have a powerful god in our valley, and so far he’s protected us. If you’d like, I’ll show you his tree on the morrow.”
“My thanks, I would.” Aderyn had a cautious sip of the beer and found it suitably weak. “I don’t suppose any of the Blue-eyes live near you?”
“They don’t. And I pray that our god will always keep them away. Very few folk of any kind come through here—one of the People every now and then, that’s all.”
“The who?”
“The People. The Blue-eyes call them the Westfolk, but their own name for themselves is the People. We don’t see many of them anymore. When I was a little child, they brought their horses through every now and then, but not recently. Probably the demon-spawn Blue-eyes have tried to enslave