A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [31]
As the warband drew up for the charge across the meadow, something else occurred to him with the force of a blow: this warband had been waiting for them, had indeed traveled hundreds of miles to catch them here, had somehow known exactly where to find them. He remembered, then, the rumors that the Dun Deverry king would be stripping the west of men—a ruse, a trap, to ensure that no loyal Cerrmor men would be within reach as the Boar lured the true king to this meeting of Wyrd. His heart thudding, Maddyn looked wildly around, wondering if he dared ride back to tell Nevyn. As if she felt his agitation, his blue sprite appeared on his saddle peak and grabbed one of his hands in both of hers.
“Go back to the barges. Get Nevyn. Get the guards. Hurry!”
Just as she vanished, the Boars howled out a war cry and led the charge. Sod flew shredded and dust plumed as they raced across the meadow, their captain pulling ahead to face off with Caradoc as the silver daggers threw their javelins in a flat arc, points winking as they whistled home, crossing paths with the enemy darts, flying just as straight and true. As the two captains met, both troops howled out a challenge and broke position: the mobs were joined. Cursing a steady stream of the foulest oaths he knew, Maddyn rose in the stirrups and tried to make out what was happening, desperately tried to find the prince in the swirl of rearing horses and shrieking men.
As he watched, he would just spot Branoic, whose height made him stand out above the mob of riders, when some squad or clot of fighting would swarm around him and lose Maddyn the view again, but he could never see the prince, who was one of the shortest men in the pack. He rode this way and that, on the edge of terror, wondering if Maryn had been killed in the first charge, while he struggled to see through the dust and chaos. Suddenly he realized that the lighting was coming to center on Branoic, that more and more enemies were struggling to cut their way toward him as more and more silver daggers peeled off to stop them. He could only assume that Branoic was desperately guarding Maryn—perhaps even a wounded Maryn—and without thinking he drew his sword.
He was just about to spur his horse down to join in the battle when he heard hoofbeats and shouting behind him. He turned to see the last squad of silver daggers, with Nevyn at their head like a captain, galloping straight for him.
“To the prince!” Maddyn yelled. “Behind Branno! To the prince!”
Howling a war cry, the men swept past him and down the rise to slam into the fighting from the flank. Nevyn pulled up beside him.
“Look, my lord,” Maddyn gasped, half-hoarse from screaming. “Branoic must be trying to save him—that’s where the fighting’s thickest.”
Dead-pale but as calm as deaths Nevyn shaded his eyes with one hand and peered down at the screaming shoving mob.
“It’s not Maryn they’re after—it’s Branoic! Ye gods, I should have thought of that! Ah by the hells—the ruse is torn anyway, and cursed if I’ll sit here and not use the dweomer the gods gave me!”
With a snarl of rage the old man raised his arm to the sky as if he were saluting the sun with a sword, then slowly lowered his hand until he pointed straight at the battle below. Under his breath he muttered a few words in some strange