A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [126]
“Over by the hearth,” Renydd said.
Rhodry cursed and shoved their way through until at last they could lay him down flat on the floor in a line of other wounded men, then started back outside to fetch anyone else who needed to be carried. Once the wounded were all brought in, they had the horses to tend.
Degedd’s small dun was crammed from wall to wall with the remnants of his allies’ army, so crowded that Rhodry felt a surge of hope. Although they’d fled the battle, the war wasn’t over yet. By the time Rhodry and Renydd returned to the great hall, Rhodry’s head was swimming. They got a couple of chunks of bread and some cold meat from a servant, then sat on the floor and gobbled it silently.
Up by the hearth of honor, the womenfolk were still working. His wrist bound and splinted, Lord Degedd sat on the floor with the other noble lords—Erddyr, Oldadd, and Comerr—and talked urgently. Although the hall was filled with men, it was oddly silent in a wordless chill of defeat. When Renydd finished eating, he leaned back against the curve of the wall and fell asleep. Many of the men did the same, slumping against the wall, lying down on the floor, but the noble lords leaned close together and went on talking. Rhodry thought he was going to ache too badly from his fall to sleep straightaway, but he was too exhausted to stay on his feet. He’d been awake and riding for the entire cycle of a day.
When he sat down next to Renydd, the captain stirred, looked at him blearily, then leaned against his shoulder. Rhodry put his arm around him just for the simple human comfort of it. All at once his weariness caught up with him. His last conscious thought was that they were all shamed men tonight, not just him.
Rhodry woke suddenly to Lord Erddyr’s voice. With a grunt, Renydd sat up straight next to him. Erddyr was on his feet in the middle of the hall and yelling at the men to wake up and listen to him. Sighing, cursing, the drowsy warband roused itself and turned toward their lords.
“Now here, lads,” Erddyr said. “I’m going to ask you a hard thing, but it has to be done. We can’t stay here tonight and get pinned like rats in a trap. We’re leaving the wounded behind and riding back to my dun.”
A soft exhausted sigh breathed through the hall
“I know how you feel,” Erddyr went on. “By the Lord of Hell’s warty balls, don’t you think I’d rather be in my blankets than on the back of a horse? But if we stay, those horseshit bastards have us where they want us. Degedd can’t provision a siege. We’ve got to have time to collect our men on fort guard, and then we can make another strike on the bastards. Do you all understand? If we stay here, we lose the war and every scrap of honor we ever had. So, are you riding with me or not?”
Cheering as loudly as they could manage, the men began to get up, collecting shields and gear from the floor.
“Save your breath,” Erddyr called out. “And let’s ride!”
A few hours before dawn, Yraen went out for his turn on watch. Yawning and cursing, just on general principles, he climbed up to the catwalk and took his place next to Gedryc, the nominal captain of the fort guard, who acknowledged him with a nod. Together they leaned onto the rampart and looked over the hills, dark and shadowed in the moonlight, to watch the road. In about an hour, just as the moon was setting, Yraen saw a somewhat darker shape moving on the dark countryside, and a certain fuzziness in the air over it—probably dust.
“Who’s that?” Gedryc snapped. “Don’t tell me it’s our lord! Oh, ye gods!”
In a few minutes more the moving shape resolved itself into a long line of men on horseback, and something about the slumped way they sat, and the slow way that the horses limped and staggered along, told the tale.
“A defeat,” Gedryc said. “Run and wake the dun, lad.”
As Yraen climbed down the ladder, he felt a sudden sick wondering if Rhodry was still alive. Somehow, before this moment, it hadn’t really occurred to him that a friend of his