Daggerspell - Katharine Kerr [134]
Ahead, Sligyn’s squad was mobbing around Corbyn and some of Corbyn’s men, fighting ably to defend their lord. Cullyn urged his horse forward just as a fresh squad of green-and-tans galloped up.
“My lord Sligyn! The flank!”
But the enemy was riding for him, not for Sligyn. Cullyn wrenched his horse around to meet the enemy charge just as they swarmed around and enveloped him from all sides.
“The silver dagger! Get him!”
Cullyn had no time to wonder why they were mobbing a silver dagger as if he were a noble lord. A blow cracked him across the left shoulder from the flank as the man in front of him angled for a stab. Cullyn parried it barely in time and twisted away, slashing out at the man pushing in from his right. They could get four on him at once, and all he could do was twist and duck and slash back and forth. He caught a strike on his shield that cracked the wood; then he felt a stab like fire on his left side. Over the screaming battle noise he heard Rhodry’s laugh, coming closer.
Gasping with pain, Cullyn killed the man in front of him with a slash to the throat that collapsed his windpipe and knocked him off his horse, but there was another enemy waiting to take his place. A hard blow made fire run down Cullyn’s left arm. He twisted in the saddle and tried to parry, but the shield dragged his broken arm down. With a curse he let it fall and twisted back to fend a blow from the right. Rhodry’s laugh sounded louder, but still too far away.
Suddenly the man at Cullyn’s left flank screamed, and his horse reared to fall dead. Something sped through the air past Cullyn’s face. The arrow pierced the mail on the enemy at his right with a gout of blood. The man tried to turn his horse, but another arrow caught him in the back, and he went down with a cry. The mob peeled off and tried to flee, but they turned straight into Rhodry’s men, charging to meet them. In the last clear moment left to him, Cullyn saw Jennantar riding up with a curved bow in his hands. Cullyn dropped his sword and tried to hold on to the saddle peak, but his gauntlets were slippery with his own blood. He stared at them in amazement as darkness came out of nowhere, and he fell, sliding over his horse’s neck.
It seemed that he was trying to swim to the surface of a deep blue river. Every now and then, he drew close; he could see light ahead and hear what sounded like Nevyn’s voice, but every time, a vast eddying billow would sweep him back down where he would choke, drowning in the blue. All at once, he heard a voice, mocking him, a smooth little voice that poured into his mind like oil. It seemed that the voice was coming closer out of the billowing blue stuff around him. At that point he noticed a glowing silver cord that stretched from his oddly insubstantial body down to—somewhere. He couldn’t see its destination. Another wave enveloped him in a shifting, sinking blueness. The voice poured over him again, taunting, mocking him for a dead man.
Suddenly he saw Nevyn—or a pale blue image of him—a ghost, a shadow? In whatever form the old man was striding to meet him, and as he came, he was chanting in some peculiar language. The blue river seemed to slow, to hold steady. Nevyn reached out and caught his hand.
All at once, Cullyn found himself awake. A solid, fleshly Nevyn was leaning over him in sunlight. In spite of his warrior’s will, Cullyn moaned aloud from the pain burning down side and shoulder. When he tried to move, the splints on his left arm clattered on the wagon bed.
“Easy, my friend,” Nevyn said. “Lie still.”
“Water?”
Someone slipped an arm under his head and raised it, then held a cup of water to his lips. He gulped it down.
“Want more?” Rhodry said.
“I do.”
Rhodry helped him drink another cupful, then wiped his face with a wet rag.
“I tried to reach you in time,” the lad said. “Please believe me—I tried to reach you.”
“I know.” Cullyn was puzzled by his urgency. “What of Corbyn?”
“Escaped. Don’t let that trouble you now.”
The sunny sky circled and swooped around him. He fell into the darkness,