Bard I (18 page)

He read the signs at once. In the rain-soaked turf. they showed plain as black ink on a white page. Some slight rearing and stamping had been done, and the hoofprints from that place on were less deep. Someone had fallen heavily; his heel, his outflung hand and his elbow had left marks in the firm earth.

Felimid traced his movements with a somber face.

Yes. He’d gone rolling helplessly down the slope. so. and then crawled into hiding, so . . . and here he lay. He hadn’t hidden from Death.or long been cold. In appearance he was rough and wild. His own comrade must have stabbed him.

A predictable happening. One horse between two men in uncertain country is likely to breed trouble. The bard grimaced. Three deaths since dawn. Four, counting the warrior these men had reft of horse and life, and he had probably never so much as seen the sword Kincaid.

Ogma’s curse followed fast.

Felimid remembered that a man should not become so engrossed in tracking that he forgets his own vulnerable back. He remembered too that he hadn’t seen Brandubh in some time. The crow came flapping through the trees at that instant. as if Felimid’s thoughts had summoned him.

His delight when he saw the dead man was unashamed.

‘What mischief have you been working?·Felimid demanded, to cut short his raptures.

‘Serving you, master,’·Brandubh croaked obsequiously. but his eye held a mocking glitter. ‘A man from Calleva follows on your trail.’

‘What. one man only’?·

‘One only.’

‘I may know him; describe him for me.’

‘Ark! Middling tall and strongly made. with good broad shoulders and a little forked beard. Dark of hair, swart of skin. He’s finely clad for a manhunt. and rides boldly. as though he hasn’t a care. He’s armed with sword and buckler, no more.’

‘Kyle!’ Felimid said. ‘The one man I’d hoped not to see.’

‘What matter, so that you see him before he see you?’ Felimid didn’t reply. To a scavenging bird for whom one cadaver was as good as another. it mattered not at all. He couldn’t imagine such a thing as too many dead men. To Felimid, Kyle was a friend.

Brandubh hopped blithely on the slain robber’s chest. Felimid turned away, to conceal himself and watch his back trail, while he thought upon this news. Yes, Kyle was a friend, but Kyle was still his king’s man. Felimid wasn’t sure which loyalty would prove stronger in the end, but he didn’t mean to let Kyle confront such a choice.

It puzzled Felimid greatly that Kyle was alone. So Brandubh said. Well, there was no sign of him yet, and it was time to move. He whistled the crow, who came with stained beak.

The bard hunted his quarry for what remained of the day, across hills dim with cloud-shadow. He saw wild horses on the high crests with wind in their manes, or drinking from rippled pools in the woods. He saw a cluster of long barrows, and a grey standing stone like a solitary finger. He did not find the man he was tracking, although by the signs he was a scant few hours behind.

For his dinner Felimid caught frogs in a tarn and gathered leaves of burnet. Cold was that night, with flurries of rain and a raw wind gusting. Felimid slept with Prince Justin’s sword to hand. A pale dawn showed mist filling the vales.

It hadn’t fully been dispersed by the sun when Felimid found the last robber.

He was a dreadful sight, and he’d been dead since late afternoon of the day before. Fangs had ripped his throat to wreckage, even as clawed hind legs had raked out his giblets. The horse he had ridden lay nearby in a similar state.

Dragon! Felimid thought.

No creature he knew but the red dragon of the western mountains killed as devastatingly as this. Still, a dragon would have eaten, or tom off limbs and flown away with them. This was simple murder.

A wild cat might have killed for pleasure in that way.

But Felimid had never heard of a cat large enough to do this. He found tracks nearby that might have been a huge cat’s. and clotted dark splashes of rank-smelling blood in the grass. The robber had given an account of himself before he died.

Kincaid was not in the dead man’s hand. nor had he fallen anywhere nearby. Then he must have gone with the stricken killer as it bounded off.

Three miles the red clots led. They had had time to thicken after they were first spilled. and the light rains had not entirely washed them out.

At last Brandubh, scouting for Felimid, circled thrice above a slope beyond the bard’s sight; their agreed-upon signal. Brandubh filled the air with croaking for good measure.

Felimid dismounted. Tethering the horses lightly. he crept to a point of vantage. Staring across the slope. he saw what Brandubh had seen.

A shape of stained white fur lay in the grass. Out of its guts rose a foot of bright metal, sending in a silver pommel. Kincaid! The sword Kincaid. the re within reach!

But others had reached it before him. Gathered about the dead creature were three Downsmen. They wore braided belts, trousers of checkered weave tied closely about the ankles, and bull-hide shoes. Naked above the waist but for plaids. they wore long drooping mustaches but were shaven else. Each had his hair drawn back in a thick tress like a horse’s· tail. They were armed with long plain swords, short javelins for throwing from horseback, and round wooden targets covered with hide.

Their talk was wild. Strange words. phrases and distortions of accent filled it. Felimid caught not one word in five at his distance.

They were delighted with their find. so much was clear, but there seemed some dispute about how it should be shared. Discord was in the air. A treasure like Kincaid was sure to provoke it. but the bard knew well that if he went openly to them and claimed the sword as his own, the three Downsmen would be united against him at once. He remained where he was.

One man dragged the long sword out of the slain beast in the grass. A second drew a knife to skin the beast. The third stood sullenly, hands in his belt.

Then he moved. With a strident yell, he drew a knife and stabbed the man beside him. Ruthlessly. he tore the sword from his hand as he fell. The kneeling man acted quickly. and struck at the murderer’ groin. Shifting. on his feet. the murderer took that desperate stab in the thigh. Then beast’s blood mingled with man’s as the sword of Ogma whirred down. to send the second Downsman sprawling with a cloven skull.

Two of the horses ran off.

Leaning. against his own, the layer examined his wound. He appeared to conclude that he’d survive. He mounted without troubling to bind up the hurt, or to finish skinning the white beast in the reddened grass. Perhaps his clan’s fortress was near: perhaps he’d even been shaken by the murder of his comrades.

It had shaken Felimid. He’d seen death before. and swift sudden murder too, but this had been so casual. The murderer hadn’t paused for thought before. or remorse after. He might have been planning the deed for years.

Felimid ran back to his horses.

He found Kyle awaiting him there.

King Agloal’s master of horse sat a tall chestnut stallion with a white star and one white knee-legging. The dun and the sorrel both knew him well, of course, and had not whinneyed at his approach.

Brandubh had been as intent on the murders as Felimid, but the bard never thought of blaming him. The fault was his own. Why. Brandubh had told him that Kyle was following. For any careful man. that would have sufficed. Felimid knew he had earned whatever came of this meeting. The horse-lord’s sword was undrawn.

‘Welcome. Kyle.” the bard said. mellow-voiced. ‘As welcome as you are to me ever. this is not the very best time you could have chosen; but you must have started soon and ridden hard t o find me! Did you leave all your companions behind in sheer eagerness’?’

‘You might say so. Greetings. Felimid.’

Kyle was indeed the peacock of the king’s retinue. He wore a shirt blue as dawn. gold-bordered at sleeve and hem. under a tunic of soft maroon leather. His knee-leggings were white, with gold-studded maroon cross-­straps. Instead of a full cloak. he wore a short semi­circular riding cape of midnight blue. He was practical enough. however. to have a full cloak of grey-brown wool folded behind his saddle.

His magnificence was travel-stained and spattered. and he himself looked weary. But he was determined.

‘What madness touched you to return to Calleva? You knew what the prince is like! Bale-fire! You must have known you’d cause trouble. yet you walked into the king’s stables whistling! If you die as a result. you’ll deserve it-and less for impertinence than for pure bloody folly!’

‘Let be. Kyle. I hadn’t planned to be seen. but then my sword was stolen. and I required to borrow a strong horse to follow the man who did it. Meeting Justin was an evil accident.

‘And while we stand gabbing. just beyond this rise the man who has my sword now is running away with him! Join me. Kyle! Help me catch him. and then we’ll settle our dispute. if you like.’

The horse-lord shook his head. ‘It will not do. Felimid. I know that smooth, persuasive tongue of yours. You have cost my king gold. horses and most of all honor. You broke his heir’s arm. I tell you. his rage was magnificent For my own part. I was pleased when you satirised Justin: he’d long deserved it. But now you’ve gone too far. He hadn’t recovered his senses when I left on your trail, and for all J know is not conscious yet. He just may die.’

‘Of a little rap on the head ?’ Felimid scoffed. ‘Not he! His skull is made of solid. impenetrable bone, and he’s strong as a young bear.’

‘Men have died before this of little raps on the head. Yes. even mighty men who had erst survived fearful wounds to the bod y. I’m sorry. Felimid; it will not do. I’m my king’s man. I must take you back.’

Felimid’s flexible, tutored mouth smiled, but–although less solemn-his eyes held a look as determined as Kyle’s. ‘Not all of me, dear man. My head, maybe – but you arc going to have to take it. How shall it be? Horsed. or on the ground’?’

Kyle sighed. ‘Let’s fight horsed.’

Felimid mounted the dun. Of his two beast. it was the fresher. having been spelled by the sorrel. and he knew it better than he did the sorrel. Hanging his harp on the empty saddle. he took his oval buckler and settled it in place. Kyle had already done so. His was of bronze, with an enamelled blue triskele in the center; Felimid’s was of heavy hardwood. braced and banded with iron.

The smells of earth, grass and rain. the wild sweep of the sky, the living horseflesh between his knees. all seemed particularly vivid to the bard then. To face losing them at the hand of a friend was ridiculous. And why? ‘I’m my king’s man.’ It wasn’t a good enough reason!

‘When you are ready. Kyle.’

Kyle attacked without further gab. His chestnut leaped forward. impelled by his spurs. The dun curvetted aside.

Sword crashed on sword. on buckler. on buckler again. with harsh metal shouts. as the trained warhorses turned closely about. guided by their riders’ knees. Kicking with his unspurred heels. Felimid made the dun spring clear, turning his body to look back as Kyle struck after him. With buckler and blade, Felimid turned the horse-lord’s backhand cut. Then he wheeled the dun sharply.

For a heartbeat’s passage, he and the dun were side-on to their adversaries. The chestnut dropped its wide­stretched mouth towards Felimid’s thigh. He saved himself by clouting it with his buckler, the while he parried a head-cut from Kyle, blade against blade.

Metal cried out again. and again. The horses’ hooves threw up bits of earth. Their eyes rolled. They neighed battle-cries.

Their riders sweated, violently intent. One soon felt the strain. With stirrups lacking, merely to stay mounted was masters’ work. To give and parry sword-strokes as well was to risk being hurled from the saddle by each blow.

Felimid loosed his grip on the handle of his buckler. He skimmed it at Kyle, swift and hard. The horse-lord knocked it away with his own buckler as Felimid closed with him. Because of the distraction. Kyle’s slash came a fraction late, and ill-directed. Felimid caught it on his own blade with ease.

His free right hand seized Kyle’s sword-arm. Shortening his grip on his borrowed sword, he struck the horse­lord’s elbow sharply with the pommel. As Kyle’s bronze buckler smashed at him, he reached across the horse­lord’s body to strike again with his pommel-this time at the point of an unarmoured shoulder, where the bones of the joint lay close beneath the skin. Kyle’s blow with the buckler lost force.

That rap to the elbow had sent his entire sword-arm numb. Felimid twisted Kyle’s weapon from his hand as easily as if he’d been a child. Smiling, he put some distance between them, holding up two bloodlessly shining swords. Kyle stared. So suddenly that he couldn’t at once believe it, he’d been disarmed.

His incredulous brain followed the sequence, working out what had happened, and how. He swore.

‘My victory. Kyle!’ Felimid laughed. ‘What say you? I can kill you easily if you fight on. and I fancy I can catch you if you make a race of it. But I’ve no such wish. Instead, I want your word that you will help me catch this thief who now has Kincaid–and that you’ll do nothing to hinder my going where I please when I have Kincaid again.’

‘No!’ Kyle said thickly. He sat rubbing his sword-arm to restore its capacity for movement, wincing. ‘If you’re meaning to kill me, set about it. I’ll not be false to my undertakings.’

‘By Cairbre’s fingers!’ Felimid swore, exasperated.

‘Are your wits clotted suet, that the heat of fighting melts them, and have they run liquescent out of your cars? You came here to capture me for King Agloval.

Well. success has not been yours as I view it. To talk of killing you was an error, as I’ve no such intention . . . but listen. I can take you captive now. if it suits me, although you may yet force me to wound you first. But take you captive I can. Then. I might sec that you cease to trouble me by giving you to the nearest clan of Downsmen. with my recommendation that they hold you for ransom! You can aid me, and remain free, or put us both to further trouble. It’s your own free choice. In neither case will you now take me back to Calleva. face it. The difference is that in the second case. your king will get even more shame and expense.’