A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [150]
The gwerbret himself was on his feet, sword in hand and slashing at the man who’d broken order in his malover, but Gwar was already dead, crumpled over Rhodry’s shoulder like a sack of meal. As Yraen shoved himself forward through the mob, Rhodry slowly rose, shoving the corpse off, staggering to his feet with the reddened bronze knife in his hand. His neck bled from scratches and punctures, as if he’d been clutched by a gigantic cat.
“Chirurgeon!” the gwerbret yelled. “Get one of the chirurgeons!”
“Your Grace, it’s only a scratch.” Rhodry’s voice was choked and rasping, his face dead-pale. “But ye gods!”
Yraen managed to reach his side just as the captain of the gwerbret’s guard knelt and turned the corpse over. For a moment he stared, then he began cursing in a steady foul stream. The gwerbret looked and went pale himself. Lying at Rhodry’s feet was a creature in Gwar’s clothes, a badger-headed thing with a blunt snout and fangs. Protruding from the sleeves of its shirt were hairy paws with thick black talons. Rhodry held up the bronze knife.
“Told you not to mock the herbwoman,” he croaked. “Without this, he’d have strangled me.”
All round them men were pushing forward to see, swearing or yelping and passing the news back to those who couldn’t get close. Suddenly Yraen thought of the obvious.
“Gwar!” he snapped. “What’s happened to him, then?”
While the apprentice chirurgeon washed Rhodry’s throat clean and put a few stitches in the worst wounds, his grace’s entire warband began searching the area. It wasn’t long before they found Gwar, naked and strangled, round back of the dun. At that point the assembled warbands, battle-hardened men all of them, began to break and panic. Even though the gwerbret sent to the tieryn’s town for every priest he could find, morale washed away like sand under a tide of rumors and speculations. All his grace could do was to call the various lords to him.
“Get your men on the road,” he snapped. “We’ll settle any last things with heralds. Get your men together and riding for home, and do it now.”
The lords were entirely too ready to obey for Yraen’s taste, but he did have to wonder at himself for being one of the calmest men in the pavilion.
“I guess it’s because I saw the shadow-thing, and I was there when the herbwoman gave you that knife, and all that. Hold a moment—herbwoman, indeed! Who was she, Rhodry?”
Rhodry merely shrugged for an answer.
“He shouldn’t be talking,” the chirurgeon snapped.
“One thing, though, lad.” Rhodry immediately broke this sensible rule. “Lord Erddyr. Find him and get our hire.”
“I can’t be asking him for coin now!”
Rhodry looked at him with one raised eyebrow.
“Oh, very well,” Yraen sighed. “I’m gone already and running, too.”
Yraen found his lordship in his tent, where he stood watching his body-servant shove his possessions all anyhow into whatever sack or saddlebag presented itself. The lord was more than a little pale, and his mouth was slack as he rubbed his mustaches over and over. When he saw Yraen, however, he made an effort to draw himself up and salvage dignity.
“I owe your wages, I know,” he said. “You’re not coming back with us, are you?”
The question contained an obvious “you’re not welcome.”
“I don’t think Rhodry should ride, my lord.” Yraen was more than willing to play into the courtesy of the thing. “We’ll find an inn or suchlike to rest in, and then be on our way.”
Erddyr nodded, concentrating