C. Dale Brittain (28 page)

Roric shouted again as Goldmane reached the road and began to run even faster.
 
He turned his head slightly to look back at their pursuers, quickly being left behind.
 
She could see fierce triumph on his face.

The wind brought tears to her eyes and tore her hair loose from its braids.
 
She pressed herself against Roric’s back as the stallion’s long, smooth gait seemed prepared to eat up the miles.
 
Only a short distance before them was the sandstone cliff, and the steep road leading up away from the fields and woods directly dependent on the king.

But gathered where the road began to climb were a group of mounted men and men on foot, mostly armed housecarls, the sunlight bright on their spear points.

Roric leaned forward, brandishing his sword.
 
“Hang on!” he yelled to Karin.
 
For a horrified moment she thought they were going to try to run right through the men before them, and in the blur of faces she saw the king’s two younger sons.

At the last second Roric jerked his stallion’s head around.
 
Goldmane half reared, then started to run along the base of the cliff, all the mounted men on their heels.
 
She looked over her shoulder to see Gizor’s group a quarter mile back, some of the riders already leaving the road, cutting across to try to intercept them.

Again Roric wheeled his stallion.
 
Clinging desperately to the mane while Karin clung to his belt, he turned again toward the road, shot within two feet of the startled pursuers’ horses, and raced for the way up the sandstone cliff.

Now that way was barred only by a handful of men on foot, but among them were Dag and Nole.

“Oh, no,” thought Karin, squeezing shut her wind-blurred eyes.
 
“Not them too.”

All but one of the warriors jumped back involuntarily as the stallion bore down on them.
 
But Dag came forward, lifting his spear.
 
Goldmane reared, almost losing his riders, and came down with iron hooves flailing.
 
As the king’s son leaped away, Roric leaned over and knocked the spear from his hand with a well-aimed sword blow.

And then the stallion found his feet again, sprang through the scattered foot-soldiers, and attacked the slope before him.
 
A few spears came up behind them but fell short.
 
Twice Karin thought she was about to slide off the horse, but Roric reached his right arm back to her, the sword still in his fist, and clinging to it she was able to stay on.

At the top of the cliff, just before they entered the woods, Roric pulled up the stallion to look down.
 
No one had pursued them up the narrow road, not even the dogs.
 
But Gizor, lying bandaged in the wagon, a tiny figure far below, waved his sword at them and shouted.
 
His words were carried away by the wind.

“He knows no horse can catch Goldmane, even with two of us on his back,” said Roric.
 
Sweat was pouring off him, and his chest was rising and falling, but the stallion seemed only slightly winded.
 
“But the next time we meet, it will be a fight to the death.”

“How did you do it?” Karin asked in a small voice.
 
“Unarm Dag without having to kill him?”

He laughed a short hard laugh.
 
“He was trained by Gizor too.
 
When you’re on foot with a spear against a horseman, always go for the horse’s eyes.
 
But I knew he didn’t want to hurt Goldmane, and in that second of hesitation the horse reared and attacked
him.
 
And while watching the hooves he had no attention to spare for me.”

He slid his sword back into its sheath.
 
“We’d better put a few more miles between us and the castle, in case they follow us anyway—and I wouldn’t be sure Gizor won’t have another ambush waiting up ahead.
 
So far the only reason you and I are still alive, my sweet, is that none of these warriors besides Gizor, much less Dag and Nole, want to see you dead, and some of them are even hesitant about killing me.
 
We all know each other too well.
 
When everyone is hesitating and trying to find a way toward peace, the most ruthless person wins—and Gizor, whether he’s my father or not, is the most ruthless person I know.”

3

King Kardan stood on top of the burial mound, a fresh-cut rowan twig and his dagger in his hands.
 
The last time he had stood like this, ready to swear an oath to the massive, black-bearded king who waited at the foot of the mound, his wife had been under his feet but all his children had been alive.
 
Now both his sons were buried here, and he did not know if his daughter still lived beneath the sun.

He slowly slit the twig lengthwise, letting its red sap run out on his palm, then touched the dagger point to his finger.
 
He squeezed out a drop of blood and closed his fist, mixing it with the rowan sap.
 
From here he could see the headland above the harbor, but he was too far away to hear the sounds of his ship being readied for sea.

“I swear on rowan and steel,” he said loudly and clearly, “that I have not harmed in any way Valmar Hadros’s son, that I have not ordered any harm done to him or had word of any.
 
If I lie, may the lords of death take me living into the depths of Hel.”
 
The wind whirled his words and carried them far away.

When he descended from the mound, making his way carefully down the steep incline, King Hadros slapped him unexpectedly on the back.
 
“I believe you, Kardan.
 
You swore to me truly ten years ago, when you swore you would pay the tribute faithfully and raise no open or hidden revolt against me.”

Kardan nodded, resenting the deliberate reminder that for ten years he had been a tributary king.
 
“If we do not find Valmar,” he said stiffly, “even though I did not harm him, I shall of course pay you compensation.
 
He was here in my castle under my protection.”

Hadros rested a hand on his shoulder, and his eyes flashed from beneath heavy eyebrows.
 
“I shall take no compensation for my oldest son.
 
If he is safe, well and good.
 
If he is dead, his killer shall pay the blood-guilt with his own blood.”

He still had his hand on Kardan’s shoulder, either in fellowship or as a veiled threat, as they started slowly back toward the castle.
 
“Now,” he said, “tell me more of what your daughter said of Valmar’s disappearance.”

“
You
do not believe such stories?” asked Kardan in surprise.
 
“All she said was that he had left with a Wanderer, one who had often been seen on Graytop over the years—where in fact no Wanderer has ever been seen.
 
I know some of your beliefs and practices are different north of the channel, but even you cannot believe that the lords of voima ever appear in the flesh to mortals.”

“I would not have believed it a short time ago,” the other king said very quietly, “but Roric went to their land and returned again.”

Sensing a gap in Hadros’s confidence, Kardan asked quickly, “Who
is
this Roric, anyway?
 
Where did he come from?
 
And what assurance can
you
give me that he has not kidnapped my daughter at your orders?”

Kardan expected the other king to reply heatedly, but when he answered it was still in that ominously quiet tone.
 
“Roric is my foster-son, raised in my court; he was found at the castle gates as a baby.
 
If he has kidnapped Karin it was certainly not at my orders!
 
You should know I do not war on women.”

He took his hand from Kardan’s shoulder to pull a ring from the pouch at his belt.
 
“I gave him this when he reached manhood and we swore our oaths to each other.
 
I ordered him, just the other day, to forget Karin, not to come here.
 
He threw his ring at my feet, defied me, and came anyway.”
 
Hadros chuckled grimly.
 
“Maybe the only reason I did not run him through on the spot is because I would have done the same at his age.”

“You must know him well,” said Kardan, hearing the desperation in his own voice and scarcely caring.
 
The two kings had stopped walking to face each other.
 
“What will Roric do to her?
 
You have, what is it, another two or three sons besides Valmar?
 
Karin was all I had left.”

Hadros smiled, suddenly and surprisingly.
 
“You fear the lad will hurt her?
 
Not very likely.”
 
He turned to walk again; there was a slight limp in his gait.
 
“Roric first asked, it must be two months ago now, for my permission to woo her.
 
I refused it, of course.
 
But she told me she intends to marry him—he must have spoken to her anyway.”
 
He watched Kardan’s face as he spoke, and smiled again, although with tight lips.
 
“She never said anything to you about that, eh?”

“No.”
 
Kardan looked straight ahead as they walked.
 
They were almost back to the castle now.
 
Karin intending to marry Roric!
 
If he had appeared suddenly last night, he must be the unexpected assailant whom his guards had almost said was a wight, and she must have decided at once to go with him.
 
But why had she said nothing to him?

“You don’t like it that she didn’t tell you?” asked Hadros, in a tone of commiserating fellowship that seemed intended to drive home that he knew Karin far better than her own father did.

Kardan did not answer.
 
The other king seemed willing to forget that they had once been sworn enemies, but he himself was not yet ready to become friends with the man who had defeated him ten years ago and who must now, somehow, be behind the disappearance of his daughter.

“Well, Kardan, I think there are things neither Valmar nor Roric has told me either.”
 
Hadros shook his head.
 
“By this time, I had expected—as had you—to be watching my sons and my young warriors reach manhood, with all the energy and courage I had twenty-five years ago, and all the wisdom I could give them now.
 
It has not worked out quite as I hoped, but we may have to make the best of what we have.
 
I fear you and I are too old, my friend, to start over.”

Inside, Kardan left Hadros seated in the hall with an ale horn while he went to change out of his ceremonial clothing.
 
He was furious both with the king and with Karin, as well as with Roric, this foundling who had grown up to be one of Hadros’s warriors.
 
How could she have deceived him like this, living here with her father in her own home, back in the kingdom she would someday rule as sovereign queen, saying nothing about the man she apparently hoped to marry?

“Why had you not fitted out your ship this spring?” Hadros demanded as he rejoined him.
 
“If it had been in the water we could have followed them.
 
Such a good ship is a shame to leave under the tarpaulins when the ice is off the channel!
 
When I saw all you had ready were those little skiffs, I knew we could never catch my ship.”

“I was too busy preparing for the All-Gemot,” said Kardan testily, seating himself on the bench beside Hadros.
 
He did not add what Hadros must surely remember, even if he feigned to forget, that he
had
had a longship in the water this spring, the ship which his eldest son and Queen Arane’s heir had broken against the Cauldron Rocks.
 
“Unlike some kings I could mention,” he added, “I do not need a ship to go to war or raiding in the southlands every summer.”

“Most kings do not anymore,” agreed Hadros, looking at his ale.

“And I knew that if my ship
was
ready for sea, some young hothead among the retinues of the Fifty Kings might decide to steal it.
 
At least it is still here, unlike yours!”