A Time of Omens (39 page)

An enemy rider, carrying a shield blazoned with a hawk’s head, swung past. Yraen wrenched his horse after and struck at his exposed side. Although he missed the rider, he did nick the horse, which bucked once and staggered. When the enemy wheeled to face him, Yraen caught a glimpse of pouchy eyes and a stubbled face. They swung, parried, circling, trading blow for blow while the enemy howled and Yraen found himself muttering a string of curses under his breath. The Hawksman was good, almost his match—almost. Yraen caught a swing on his shield, heard the wood crack, and slashed in through his enemy’s open guard to catch him solidly on the back of his right arm. Blood welled through his mail as the bone snapped. With one last shout, he turned his horse and fled, clinging to its neck to keep his seat.

Yraen let him go and rode on, weaving his way through the combats, looking desperately round for Rhodry. His fear had shrunk to a dryness in his mouth, a little ache around his heart, and nothing more. Under a pall of dust the battle swirled down the valley. Here and there he saw clots of fighting around one lord or another. Dead men lay on the ground and wounded horses struggled to rise. When at last he heard someone calling Erddyr’s name and someone laughing, a cold berserker’s laugh of desperation, he turned in the saddle to see Rhodry and Renydd, mobbed by six of the enemy. They were fighting nose to tail and parrying more than they dared strike as Adry’s men shrieked for vengeance and pressed round them. Yraen spurred his horse and charged straight for the clot.

Yraen slapped his horse with the flat of his blade and forced it to slam into the flank of an enemy horse. Before the enemy could turn, he stabbed him in the back and turned to slash at another. Dimly he was aware of men shouting Erddyr’s name riding to his side, but he kept swinging, slashing, hacking his way through the clot, closing briefly with one man who managed to turn his horse to face him. He parried and thrust, never getting a strike on him, until the enemy horse screamed and reared. Renydd had cut it hard from behind, and as it came down, Yraen killed the rider. He was through at last, wrenching his horse round to fight nose to tail with Renydd.

“I saw you coming into the mob,” Rhodry yelled out.

Rhodry pulled in beside him to guard his left side. Sweat ran down Yraen’s back in trickles, not drops, as he panted for breath in this precious moment of respite. It was only a moment. Five men were riding straight for them. Yraen heard them yelling at one another: there he is, get the cursed silver dagger.

Yraen suddenly remembered that he had javelins again, distributed the night before. Grabbing his sword in his left hand, he pulled one from the sheath, threw it straight for an enemy horse, and grabbed the second all in the same smooth motion. Caught in the chest, the enemy horse went down, dumping its rider under the hooves of his friends charging behind him. Yraen heard Rhodry laughing like a fiend as the clot of enemy riders swirled and stumbled in confusion. Yraen had just enough time to transfer his
sword back again before the enemies sorted themselves out and charged.

When the three of them held their ground, the enemies rode round them, circling to strike from the rear. Yraen was forced to wheel his horse out of line or get stabbed in the back. Riding with his knees, he ducked and dodged and slashed back at the man attacking him, who suddenly wheeled his horse and rode back toward the main fight When Yraen followed, for a brief moment he could watch Rhodry fight, and even in the midst of danger the silver dagger’s skill was breathtaking as he twisted and ducked, slashing with a cold precision. Rhodry’s enemy lunged, missed, and pulled back clumsily as Rhodry got a strike across his shoulder. The Hawksman wanted to kill him—Yraen could see it—this was not the impersonal death-dealing of armies but sheer blazing hatred.

“Silver dagger!” he hissed. “Cursed bastard of a silver dagger!”

When he lunged again, Rhodry caught his blow with his sword. For a moment they struggled, locked together, but Yraen never saw how they broke free. All at once his back burned like fire as someone got a glancing strike on him from behind. Barely in time Yraen wheeled his horse away, swung his head round, and made him dance in a circle till they could face the Hawksman swinging at them. Yraen stabbed, and his greater speed won. Before the enemy could bring his shield around to parry, Yraen thrust the sword point into his right eye. With an animal shriek he reeled back in the saddle, dropped his sword, and clawed in vain at the blade as Yraen pulled it free. Yraen swung and hit him with the flat, knocking him off his horse. In a flail of arms, he rolled under the hooves of a horse just behind. When that horse reared and flung itself backward, the mob of enemies pressing for them fell back, cursing and screaming for vengeance.

Horns rang out over the battlefield. The mob ahead hesitated, turning toward the insistent shriek. Yraen started to edge his horse toward them, but Rhodry’s voice broke through his battle-fever.

“Let them go!” Rhodry yelled. “It’s the enemy calling for retreat this time.”

The field was clearing as Adry’s men and allies galloped
for their lives. Yraen saw Lord Erddyr charging round the field and screaming at his men to hold their places and let them go. Panting, sweating, shoving back their mail hoods, Yraen, Rhodry, and Renydd brought their horses up close and stared at each other.

“Look at them run,” Yraen said.
“Bid
we fight as well as all that?”

“We didn’t” Renydd panted. “They’ve got naught left to fight for. Rhodry killed Lord Adry in that first charge.”

Rhodry bowed to him, his eyes bright and merry, as if he’d just told a good jest and was enjoying his listener’s amusement.

“I shamed myself before the battle,” Yraen said to him. “Will you forgive me?”

“What are you talking about, lad? You did naught of the sort.”

But no matter how much he wanted to, Yraen couldn’t believe him. He knew that the feel of tears on his face would haunt him his whole life long.

Picking their way through the dead and the wounded, what was left of the warband began to gather around them. No boasting, no battle-joy like in a bard song—they merely sat on their horses and waited till Erddyr rode up, his face red, his beard ratty with sweat.

“Get off those horses, you bastards,” Erddyr bellowed. “We’ve got wounded out there!” He waved his sword at the clot of men that included Yraen. “Go round up stock. They’re all over this cursed valley.”

Gladly Yraen turned his horse out of line and trotted off. Down by the stream the horses that had fled after losing their riders waited huddled together, blindly trusting in the human beings who had led them into this slaughter. When the men grabbed the reins of a few, the rest followed docilely along. Yraen rode farther downstream, ostensibly to see if any horses were in the stand of hazels near the water, but in truth, simply to be alone. All at once, he wanted to cry again, to sit on the ground and sob like a child. His shame ate at him—what was wrong with him that he’d feel this way in the moment of victory?

Yraen found one bay gelding on the far side of the copse. He dismounted and slacked the bits of both horses to let them drink, then fell to his knees and scooped up
water in both hands. No fine mead had ever tasted as good. When he looked at the bright water, rippling over the graveled streambed, he thought of all those bards who sang that men’s lives run away as fast as water. It was true enough. The evidence was lying a few hundred yards behind him on the field. He got up and tried to summon the will to go back and help with the wounded. All he wanted to do was stand there and look at the green grass, soft in the sun, stand there and feel that he was alive.

Far down the little valley, he saw a single rider, trotting fast, and leading what seemed to be a pack mule. Mounting his own horse, he jogged down to meet her, for indeed, the rider turned out to be a woman, and an old white-haired crone at that. Her voice came as a shock, as young and strong as a lass’s.

“Yraen, Yraen,” she called out. “Where’s Rhodry? Has he lived through this horrible thing?”

Yraen goggled, nodding his head in a stunned yes. She laughed at his surprise.

“I’ll explain later. Now we’d best hurry. I fear me there’s men who need my aid.”

Side by side they jogged down the valley as fast as the pack mule could go. Out on the field, dismounted men hurried back and forth, pulling wounded men free, putting injured horses out of their misery. Near the horse herd, Lord Erddyr knelt next to a wounded man. When Yraen led Dallandra over, Erddyr jumped to his feet.

“A herbwoman!” he bellowed. “Thank every god! Here, Comerr’s bleeding to death.”

Yraen turned his horses into the herd and left Dallandra to her work. He forced himself to walk across the battlefield, to pick his way among the dead and dying, simply to prove to himself that he could look upon death without being sickened, just as a real man was supposed to do, but he found it hard going. At last he found Rhodry, kneeling by Lord Adry’s corpse and methodically going through his pockets, looting like the silver dagger he was.

“A herbwoman’s here,” Yraen said. “She just rode out of nowhere.”

“The gods must have sent her. Did you hear about Comerr? Tewdyr got in a blow or two before he died. Tewdyr’s son is dead, too.”

“I figured that.”

Rhodry slipped a pouch of coin into his shirt under his mail and stood up, running his hands through his sweaty hair.

“Sure you don’t want to go back to your father’s dun?”

“Ah, hold your tongue! And know in my heart for the rest of my life that I’m a coward and not fit to live?”

“Yraen, you pigheaded butt end of a mule! Do I have to tell you all over again that you’re not the first lad to break down after his first battle? I—”

“I don’t care what you say. I shamed myself and I’ll feel shamed till I have a chance to redeem myself.”

“Have it your way, then.” With a hideously sunny grin playing about his mouth, Rhodry looked down at the corpse. “Well, what man can turn aside even his own Wyrd? I’d be a fool to think I could spare you yours.”

In that moment Yraen suddenly saw that Rhodry was a true berserker, so in love with his own death that he could deal it to others with barely a qualm. The intervals of peace, when he was joking or courtly, were only intervals, to him, things to pass the time until his next chance at blood. And I’m not like that, Yraen thought. Oh, by the gods, I thought I was, but I’m not. When Rhodry caught his elbow to steady him, Yraen felt as if one of the gods of war had laid hands upon him.

“What’s so wrong?” Rhodry said. “You’ve gone as white as milk.”

“Just tired. I mean, I…”

“Come along, lad. Let’s find a spot where you can sit down and think about things. I’ll admit to being weary myself.”

The army made a rough camp down by the streamside. One squad rode out to fetch the carts and the packhorses; another circled on guard in case Adry’s men returned. Since the shovels were all with the pack train, the remaining men couldn’t bury the dead. Although they lined the corpses up and covered them with blankets, still the birds came, drawn as if by dweomer to the battlefield, a flapping circle of ravens that cawed and screamed in sheer indignation, that men should drive them away from so much good meat. With the work done, the men stripped off mail and padding, then found places to sit on the ground, too weary
to talk, too weary to light fires, merely sat and thought about dead friends. It was close to twilight before Yraen remembered the herbwoman.

“Here’s an odd thing. She knew our names, Rhodry. The old herbwoman, I mean. She asked if you were still alive.”

Rhodry flung his head up like a startled horse and swore.

“Oh, did she now? What does she look like?”

“I don’t know. I mean, she’s just this old woman, all white and wrinkled.”

Rhodry scrambled up, gesturing for him to follow.

“Let’s go find her, lad. I’ve got my reasons.”

Eventually, just as the falling night forced the exhausted men to their feet to tend to fires and suchlike, they found the herbwoman at the edge of the camp. By then the carts had come in, and she was using one of them as a table for her work while servants rushed around, fetching her water and handing her bandages and suchlike. As bloody as a warrior, she was bending over a prone man and binding his wounds by firelight. Yraen and Rhodry watched while she stitched up a couple of superficial cuts for one of Adry’s riders, then turned the prisoner back over to his guard.

“Old
woman?” Rhodry said. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

“I’ve not. Have you? I mean, what are you talking about? She looks old to me.”

“Does she now?” All at once Rhodry laughed. “Very well. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Rhodry! What by the hells are you talking about?”

“Naught, naught. Here, I thought for a while there that it might be someone I know, you see, but it’s not. Let’s go pay our respects anyway.”

Wearing only a singlet with her brigga, Dallandra was washing in a big kettle of warm water while a servant carried off her red and spattered shirt. To Yraen she looked even older with her flabby, wrinkled arms and prominent clavicle exposed, but Rhodry was staring at her as if he found her a marvel.

“Well met, Rhodry,” she said, glancing up. “I’m glad I didn’t find you under my needle and thread.”

“And so am I, good herbwoman. Have you ridden here from the Westlands to find me?”

“Not precisely.” She shot a warning glance in the servants’
direction. “I’ve too much work to do to talk now, but I’ll explain later.”

“One last question, if you would.” Rhodry made her a bow. “How fares Lord Comerr?”

“I had to take his left arm off at the shoulder. Maybe he’ll live, maybe not.” Dallandra looked doubtfully up at the hills. “The gods will do what they will, and there’s naught any of us can do about it.”

Yraen and Rhodry made a fire of their own, then ate stale flatbread and jerky out of their saddlebags, the noon provisions they’d never had time to eat before the battle. Yraen found himself gobbling shamelessly, even as he wondered how he could be hungry after the things he’d seen and done that day.