The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [90]
By then the entire Red Wyvern army had advanced up the slope from the flat and taken the crest. The fighting spread to the north as the prince’s men drove the regent’s from the high ground and scattered them down the other side. More and more riders fled the field in a disorganized scatter.
“Maryn is going to claim the victory here,” Maddyn said at last.
“So it seems,” Nevyn said. “We’d best get back to camp. I need to get ready for the wounded.”
The sun hung well past its zenith by the time that the last of the regent’s forces broke and fled. By then the brunt of the fighting had shifted away from the prince. As his allies from the rear lines forced their way onto the crest, their fresher warbands drove the exhausted units in Burcan’s army away from Maryn and the banners of the Red Wyvern. In this lull Branoic lowered his shield and allowed himself to pant for breath. Beside him, Lord Anasyn was doing the same. A flower of red blood bloomed on the lord’s cheek and a bruise was swelling around it.
“Naught serious,” Anasyn gasped when Branoic pointed. “Just a flick of a blade.”
Branoic nodded, then returned to watching the field. Around them the battle had broken up into little clots of fighting between the victorious Red Wyvern forces and men who could neither flee nor hold their position. Branoic rose in the stirrups and with his height got a good look round. Most of the regent’s army was retreating with the Boars falling in to guard its rear. Not far from the silver daggers’ position, though, one Boarsman rode slowly alone, lurching back and forth in the saddle. When his horse stumbled, he dropped his shield; silver trim caught the sunlight and flashed.
“Oho!” Branoic said as he pointed him out. “I think that’s some lord of the Boars.”
“Some lord?” Anasyn snapped. “By the hells, it’s Gwerbret Tibryn himself.”
They exchanged a glance, grinned, then kicked their tired horses to a lope and charged after the gwerbret. Anasyn rode round in front to guard while Branoic grabbed Tibryn’s horse’s reins. Tibryn had lost his helm, and blood sheeted down the side of his face from a wound that had half-torn his scalp off. A flap of hair and flesh both hung grotesquely over one ear. He stared at them both as if he had no idea who they were or where they all might be.
“Let’s get him back,” Anasyn said. “Before they come after us.”
At his voice, Tibryn clutched his saddle peak with both hands to steady himself and peered at the Ram shield.
“Traitor” was the only word he spoke.
By the time Nevyn and Maddyn rode into camp, the battle had long since ended. Exhausted men led exhausted horses out to tether; others carried wounded friends to the chirurgeons; those who’d come through unscathed were heading for the carts to fetch food for the rest. Down at the river’s edge men and horses alike waded out into the cleansing water to drink their fill after the thirst of battle. Nevyn rose in the stirrups to look around for the prince, but a servant came running up to him.
“My lord! Caudyr sent me to you. They’ve got a prize, and they’re trying to keep him alive.”
Nevyn dismounted, flung his reins to Maddyn, and hurried off after the servant. At Caudyr’s station Branoic stood watching while Caudyr himself stitched a wound in the right thigh of a man lying on the wagon gate. Caudyr had already wrapped the fellow’s head tightly with bandages, but blood was oozing through. Their prize lay mercifully unconscious, a middle-aged man with a broad face that seemed familiar.
“That’s not Burcan, is it?” Nevyn said.
“It’s not, my lord,” Branoic said. “His brother.”
Nevyn washed his hands in the bucket of water Caudyr had ready nearby, then took a place on the other side of the gate.
“It looks like you’ve done what you can for him,” Nevyn said.
“No doubt.” Caudyr looked up, then paused to wipe the sweat from his arm on his shirtsleeve. “I mostly wanted your opinion. Think he’ll live?”
“How much blood has he lost?”
“A hellish amount. And this wound here goes deep. A