The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [16]
By the time that Gerran saddled his horse, twenty men from the warband had begun to assemble in a ward flaring with torchlight. Gerran rode through the mass of men and horses, sorted out the riding order, and decided which men would lead the packhorses with the supplies. Behind them would come oxcarts with full provisions, but the carts traveled so slowly that they would doubtless only catch up to the troop in time to provision their ride home. Gerran was just telling the head carter about the route ahead when he saw the gerthddyn, mounted up and walking his horse into line. Gerran assigned him a place at the end of the riding order, and Salamander took it cheerfully with a small bow from the saddle. Gerran jogged back up the line and fell in next to Cadryc.
“Your Grace?” Gerran said. “What’s that magpie of a minstrel doing along?”
“Cursed if I know,” Cadryc said. “He begged me to let him ride with us for vengeance. Must be a good heart in the lad, for all he dresses like a stinking Deverry courtier.”
“Vengeance? For what?”
“Now, that’s a good question.” Cadryc paused, chewing on his mustaches. “He must have lost kin or suchlike to the raiders.” He shrugged the problem away. “I don’t see your foster brother anywhere. I thought he’d have the decency to come see us off at least.”
“Well, your Grace,” Gerran said, “suppose he’d been happy to stay behind? Wouldn’t that have ached your heart?”
Cadryc turned in the saddle, stared at him for a moment, then laughed, a rueful sort of mutter under his breath. “Right you are, Gerro,” the tieryn said. “Let’s get up to the head of the line. Sun’s rising.”
Panting, swearing, the ten men left behind on fort guard hauled on the chains that opened the heavy gates. With one last heave and a curse, they swung them ajar, then dropped the chains and ran out of the way. Cadryc yelled out a command and waved his men forward at the trot.
The warband traveled south through the tieryn’s rhan, that is, the vast tract of half-wild country under his jurisdiction, within which he could bestow parcels of land in return for fealty and taxes. Near the dun, the freeholds of the local farmers stood pale green with wheat, but ahead lay the pine forests, covering the broken tablelands of Arcodd province and beyond. The plateau itself stretched for nearly two hundred miles. To the west, it sloped down into lands marked on no Deverry map. To the north it steadily rose until it became the foothills of the Roof of the World.
To the south, where the warband was heading, lay the rich farmland of the Melyn Valley, but once the men reached the edge of the forest cover, they turned west onto the dirt road that had so surprised Neb. Cadryc had levied a labor tax on his farmers to hack it out of the forest. No one had grumbled. They could see that its purpose was their safety.
A few hours before sunset, the warband rode up to an open meadow. Cadryc called a halt, then leaned over his saddle peak to stare at the trampled grass.
“Someone’s been here recently,” the tieryn said. “Ye gods! If the raiders have found this road—”
“Your Grace?” Salamander trotted his horse up to join them. “Allow me to put your mind at rest. I’m the culprit. It was on this very spot, it was, that Neb and Clae found me.”
“Ah. Well, that’s a relief!” Cadryc turned in the saddle. “Gerran, have the men make camp.”
They’d just gotten settled when Lord Pedrys, one of Cadryc’s vassals, rode in to join them. He brought ten men and supplies with him, and as usual, the young lord was game for any fight going. When Cadryc, Pedrys, and Gerran gathered around the tieryn’s fire to discuss plans, Pedrys had an inappropriate grin on his blandly blond face.
“I wonder if we’ll catch them?” Pedrys said. “If the bastards are this bold, we’ve got a chance.”
“Just so,” Cadryc said. “If nothing else, we can see if Lord Samyc’s still alive. He’s only got five riders in his warband, but I can’t see him sitting snug in his dun while scum raid his lands.”
“True spoken,” Pedrys