Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [172]
“Are you hurt?”
“No. Just weary.”
“So we all are, so we all are.”
They were sitting in the common room of the underground inn, which Brel had commandeered for a hospital and command post both. It held, just barely, all the wounded dwarves in its chambers and hallways. On a table near the hearth, by the leaping light of fire and torches, the chirurgeon they’d brought with them was still stitching wounds, whistling tunelessly under his breath as he did so. Garin felt like screaming at him to shut up.
“Drink this.” Brel shoved a tiny glass stoup of herbed liquor under Garin’s nose. “It’ll bring the blood back to your head.”
Garin took the stoup and tried a cautious sip—bitter, fiery, but invigorating. The scent knifed into his nose and made him remember other times he’d drunk in this inn.
“I wonder if Rori lived through the fight,” Garin said.
“Good question. He’s a berserker, after all.”
Garin nodded, gulping down another mouthful of pale fire.
“Well, Cengarn’s free,” Brel went on. “And we’ve fulfilled our obligation, but I’ll tell you something, Envoy. If our gwerbret rides after the murdering scum, I say we join him.”
Garin tossed off the last of the liquor and saluted him with the empty stoup.
“So do I.” He wiped his mouth and mustaches on the back of his hand. “I’ll tell him that, too. We’ll be meeting in council tonight. Here, help me up. I’d best go attend upon his grace. By the Thunderer! I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”
Once he was on his feet, Garin could keep moving, though the liquor and the aftermath of the day’s battle made the firelight dance round him in golden waves. Outside, it was cooling off, and blessedly dim with twilight. The streets, though, were still crammed with livestock and refugees, prudently waiting for dawn to leave the shelter of the walls. The stench of dung and urine hung thick in the air as Garin dodged cows and children, sidestepped camps and cooking fires. Every now and then, he stepped over a wounded man, too, who’d managed to drag himself inside the walls.
Cadmar’s ward was mobbed. Wounded men, wounded horses, servants rushing back and forth, soldiers searching for friends, women weeping—the dwarf could barely push himself through and reach the door of the great hall. Inside, packed into the torchlight, the men who could still stand stood round or perched on tables, swilling ale, gobbling chunks of cold meat. The elven archers huddled together, drinking more than eating, across the hall by open windows. No one, men or Westfolk, seemed to be talking much.
Garin slipped in and kept to the wall, inching round the curve until he could see the table of honor and count up the noble-born. The two gwerbrets still lived, relatively unscathed, but then, no one would have let them lead charges. Prince Daralanteriel stood next to Cadmar’s chair, his face smeared with dirt and cold fury as he clasped a silver goblet so tightly in one hand that Garin feared it might smash. Calonderiel sat next to Tieryn Magryn. This lord, that lord—many accounted for, Lord Erddyr with his head bandaged and blood streaking his beard, the child-lord, as Garin thought of Gwandyc, looking wide-eyed and pale, but no sign of Comerr and Nomyr.
All at once, Garin broke out grinning. Sitting at the end of the table, speaking to no one, was Rhodry, with a young lad in a dirty shirt standing behind him like a page. Garin started over, dodging through clusters of people until the gwerbret noticed him.
“Here!” Cadmar hauled himself to his feet. “Let the envoy through! Someone find him a chair.”
Garin took the chair, but he waved away mead—he didn’t fancy pouring it down on top of the medicinal.
“Rori!” he called down. “It gladdens my heart to see you!”
Rhodry smiled and waved.
“Our berserker’s a friend of yours, Envoy?” Cadmar said.
“He is, Your Grace. It gladdens my heart to see you and so many of your lords alive, too. Uh, is Tieryn Comerr—?”
“Dead? He is, and Lord Nomyr and young Peddyn, too, which aches my heart. Our