Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [147]
Nothing bladed, just a weight, but it smacked the air from his lungs and made him stumble, gasping and tripping. From behind, he heard a shout and then a laugh of victory as he went down to his knees. He staggered to his feet, tried to run, wondered if the men chasing him could see in the dark like Rhodry, but the hands that grabbed his arm didn’t belong to some man of the Westfolk. He twisted free, but another Horsekin clutched his shirt, and the first smacked him hard across the head with the haft of a spear. Yraen fell, and this time he lay still, gasping into the grass, feeling blood run down the side of his face, while his captors chattered above him in a language he’d never heard.
They waited, briefly, then hauled him up, one on either arm, and began to half-drag him up the hill while he staggered and tried to keep up. At the top of the ridge, another Horsekin waited with a lantern. He held it high in one hand and pointed to his long thin nose with the other, grinning as he sniffed the air with little noises. Yraen understood; they’d smelled him out, not seen him, nor even needed to see or hear a scout to find one. The lantern light seemed to burn into his eyes and make him sick to his stomach as his captors dragged him along through the tents to a little clearing among them.
Other Horsekin came running, chortling, talking fast. His captors threw him onto his back in the dirt; one kicked him in the stomach for good measure. The man with the lantern called out, glancing round him as if looking for someone. When a Horsekin walked into the lantern light carrying a long spear, they all laughed.
“Wait!” A human man, vaguely familiar, stepped forward. “I claim this man’s death. He helped kill my brother.”
Dazed and bleeding, Yraen could only stare at him. Brother? Of course! He looked much like Lord Matyc, the same moonlight-pale hair, the same gray eyes, the same narrow face so tightly controlled that it might have been carved from stone. Yraen’s captors stared puzzled at the fellow, as if they hadn’t understood a word of what he’d said, but the guard carrying the long spear fell back as another Horsekin made his way through the circle. This one wore a long gold-threaded surcoat over his tunic and boots; a welter of charms glittered in his hair. Yraen could guess him an officer.
“I’ll defer to you, Tren,” he growled, then spoke in his own language.
All the Horsekin began babbling at once while Tren crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Yraen. Yet Yraen found it hard to believe that the lord hated him; the stance, the glare were as real as some pose a bard adopts while he sings a ballad. They seemed, however, to convince the Horsekin leader, who shouted his men into silence.
“Well, then,” the leader remarked in an oddly conversational tone, “if he helped trap your brother, he’s yours. Kill him now, any way you want.”
“Rakzan Hir-li, I choose the way of my own people.”
The rakzan bowed in a passable imitation of Deverry courtesy and stepped aside.
Tren drew his dagger and strode forward. With a wrench of his body, Yraen managed to get kneeling; he would have preferred to die on his feet, but there was no help for that now. Tren knelt just behind and to the left of him, grabbed his hair, and jerked his head back. Yraen concentrated on the pain and stared up at the night sky. Beyond the flaring torchlight, he could see the moon and a few glimmering stars. It pleased him that his last sight of the world would be the stars. Tren pulled him back to brace his body against his own chest.
“I’m sorry,” Tren whispered. “But it’s better this way. The way they treat their prisoners …”
Yraen remembered the staked cowherd and smiled. The dagger swung and bit. A red fire of pain sprang up and