The Black Raven - Katharine Kerr [88]
All at once lightning did flash, and in the brief glare Branoic could see that the battle on the meadow was disintegrating into chaos. The prince’s forces were falling back toward camp. The Boarsmen were galloping away northward. The lightning flashed down and struck the road behind them, as if the gods were ordering them to keep riding. They did. Maryn had stopped his berserk laughter and stood panting for breath.
“Surround the prince,” Owaen called out. “Let’s get him back to camp.”
Slipping in the sudden mud, the clumsy formation staggered back to the tents. The rain slacked, and when Branoic looked up, he saw the clouds scudding away before a fast wind. In the east the sky was turning the color of steel. He’d never been so glad to see a sunrise in his life. Nevyn trotted up and fell in beside the prince.
“My thanks,” Maryn said.
“Most welcome,” Nevyn said casually. “And from now on I think I’d best do a little scrying every night. Those blasted Boars caught me off guard.”
It took the army the entire day to get itself ordered. All morning soldiers carried a steady procession of the wounded over to the wagons where the chirurgeons had set up an improvised surgery. Without armor of any kind, the men had sustained some of the ugliest stabs and tears that Nevyn, or any of the other physicians, had ever seen. Most of the badly wounded died under their hands. No wounded Cantrae men found on the field lived to reach the chirurgeons.
When the sun had reached its height, Nevyn poured a couple of buckets of water over himself to clean up and returned to the prince’s side to find Maryn holding a council of sorts. Various lords would hurry up to him and recount their losses or tell him how the horse hunt was going. They had detailed most of their riders to go out and search for the lost mounts; some had been found, and others over the course of the day returned voluntarily to their herd. Still, several hundred head of battle-ready mounts were gone—and doubtless in Cantrae hands.
By late afternoon Nevyn and Maryn managed to sort out what had happened. Braemys’s men had crept up on the outer ring of guards and murdered them where they stood. They then had slipped in among the horses to cut tethers before the main body of Cantrae men charged the sleeping camp. If Branoic hadn’t chanced to see them and give the alarum early, Braemys might well have ridden straight through the camp and managed to kill an unarmed Prince Maryn or at the least trampled a good many of his vassals. Their tents and food would have gone up in flames as well.
“Slimy little cub!” Tieryn Gauryc snapped. “A coward and the son of a pig, all right.”
The other lords in council nodded their agreement.
“Tonight we put up double rings of guards,” Maryn said. “And when we march tomorrow, we put men at point and off to our flanks. We’d best dispose guards along the supply train, as well.”
No one argued with him.
That night passed without any further attacks, and in the morning the army set off even more slowly than before, what with all the extra scouts to come and go from the main line of march and the wounded men to nurse along. Despite the banners and the show of force, every man in the army knew that they were crawling for home, and that against all odds and despite the dweomer on their side, Braemys had scored a victory.
Since the prince sent messengers on ahead to announce his return, those left behind turned out to cheer him on the day that he marched home. His men swarmed the walls, the main wards, even the road leading uphill to the broch so thickly that Lilli went upstairs in one of the side towers rather than fight for a place. She found a window that gave her a good view down into the main ward. She had just perched on the wide stone