Yesterday's Kings (19 page)

“They’re Durrym,” he shouted, “they’ll be making for their own land. So we ride the bank of the Alagordar and cut them off. Come on!”

He turned his troop eastward, riding hard through the cold night until he came through the edge of the woods and into the true forest, the river before him, wide and mystical. Ancient oaks grew there, and old birch, hazel and walnut, great drooping willows, and the sky hung brightly dark above, and all the world was filled with frozen snow. His men’s breath blew pale mist before their faces, and the horses gave off the sweat of their exertions.

Then night gave way to pale dawn. What few birds remained in snow-rimed Kandar set to singing as the sky reluctantly brightened. Laurens had halted his troop for a while, lest horses and men come upon the enemy weary; they had settled in a stand of frost-hung willows that surrounded a frozen pool. Now light filtered through the icicled branches and spread the surface of the pool with wan yellow, sick as a leper’s features.

Laurens checked the watchmen and kicked the rest awake.

“Up, eh! We’ve a treasure to recover.”

If we can, he thought to himself, as they rose. If the Durrym aren’t already gone across the river. He helped
himself to tea and ate a piece of cold meat, and wondered what might become of Abra, and what of his men if they encountered the Durrym.

He took his troop north along a trail crusted with ice and overhung with frozen branches. The Alagordar—too fast to freeze, or perhaps draped with Durrym magic—ran loud to their right. To the left, the forest spread rimed and silvery.

And where the frozen trees opened on a ford they saw the Durrym.

L
AURENS DREW HIS SWORD
and shouted for his troop to follow him as he charged at Abra’s captors.

They were ten against ten, he estimated; but the Durrym were mounted on higher horses, and they had bows. He ducked as an arrow whistled past his head and wished he’d thought to armor up and carry a shield, but he’d had no time.

He felt a shaft pierce his left side. It hurt, but he did not let it slow him as he plucked it out and cast the bloodied stump aside. And saw Abra carried off across the river even as he raced forward to drive his blade against the hawk-faced archer’s neck.

He saw the Durrym tumble from his charger, his body cloven from windpipe to waist. And for all it was larger and more muscular than Laurens’s horse, the Durrym animal was smashed aside by Laurens’s charge, and fell down shrilling.

Laurens turned back, sword raised, and charged again into the melee. He cut at a Durrym and saw the fey topple bloody from his mount. And then all was confusion and sword work save that he was aware of Abra clutching a Durrym’s waist as he drove his mount across the river.

And then a horn sounded, silvery as bells in the cold air. The Durrym turned away and crossed the ford in a single charge, and were gone.

Laurens bellowed at his men and swung his horse in pursuit.

They followed the same ford as the Durrym had taken. It was easy, until they reached the farther bank, where ice and snow gave way to warmth, and the ground grew sticky with the aftermath of sunlight. Willows overhung the path, trailing great branches in their way, so that they must duck under the massive limbs as birds and squirrels chattered at them angrily. Then enormous ferns concealed the trail, as if there had never been any way through here at all. There were clear hoofprints coming up from the river, where the ground was still soft, but then it grew hard and there were no more, and all Laurens could do was follow the trail as best he could through a great swath of forest that seemed to have nothing to do with Kandar’s winter. It was another country here, one that had little to do with men.

But he knew where the Durrym had gone. Save as he followed them he found himself turned around so that even as he followed where he knew the Durrym must have gone, he found himself facing the Alagordar again. He cursed and returned back along the path, and was again faced with the river. His side hurt where the arrow had gone in, but he ignored the pain and brought his troop around to retrace their path, back through the willows and alders, where deep hoofprints showed in the muddy ground; back to where the soil became hard under an impossible sun, and autumnal trees spread low branches in defiance of their passing. He took his men on, following the trail, and was every time brought back to the river. And all the time with his wounded side hurting worse.

Three more times he tried to follow, until the sun was setting. It was as if the trees and shrubs, the very foliage itself, conspired to defeat him. And he’d not spend a night in this weird country for fear of his soul.

“Durrym magic,” he declared. “She’s lost now, and we must return to the keep.” He looked back at the impossible landscape and waved his sword in frustration and fury.

The land darkened. Birds he thought were swallows hunted the overhanging sky. He heard their calling and watched them in wonderment until his head began to spin and a warrior called Drak came up beside him.

“Best we cross now, before the night comes on.”

Laurens nodded, suddenly aware of the pain in his side.

“You need tending,” Drak said. “That shaft pricked you somewhat.”

Laurens looked down and saw dark stains spreading over his shirt and breeches. Abruptly, he felt a rush of nausea, and wondered how much damage the Durrym arrow had done. He hoped it had not been venomed. “There’s a place we can rest,” he said. “A forester’s hut. I know him. Now, lead on.”

Drak nodded and waved the troop forward, riding alongside Laurens. He held his mount tight against the master-at-arms’s as they forded back into winter.

It was as if some invisible curtain hung across the Alagordar from north to south. On one side the climate was mild, on the other wintry. Laurens wondered at the Durrym’s magic that could turn aside the seasons, and what a boon that could be for Kandar.

They splashed across the ford with dying sunlight warm on their backs and cold against their faces as they climbed the farther bank into frozen snow. Here, all the timber was frosted and hung with icicles, the trail frozen
hard, and all the undergrowth caught down beneath the weight of snow. Laurens looked back and saw the river running free and clear, and wondered if its gurgling was Durrym laughter. He ducked beneath an ice-hung branch and cursed volubly as the hole in his side protested the movement. He glanced down and saw the stain on his breeches descending farther. His boots darkened, and his mount’s side was tainted. He gritted his teeth and pushed through the winter-hung woods as pain filled him. He watched frosted oaks spin above, and all the stars he could see combined to turn his world into a whirligig of pain and frustration and disappointment. He spat, wondering if he spat out blood, and urged his troop onward.

Worse, it was night here: the early darkness of Kandar’s winter. Moonlight dappled the frozen ground in harlequin patterns of light and shade that tricked his eyes and started up an even greater turning in his head that he struggled to ignore as he forced himself upright in his saddle.

He was embarrassed to find himself leaning against Drak, but the soldier’s arm was the only thing—were he honest—that held him astride his mount.

“You’ll not make the keep like this,” Drak said bluntly.

Laurens sighed, acknowledging the inevitable. “So we must do as I said and find Cullyn. Hold me up, eh? And I’ll show you where.”

If I can, he thought, as he watched the forest whirl about his head.

C
ULLYN WAS GROOMING
Fey as the troop rode in. He’d taken the big stallion for a gallop now that the forest trails were frozen hard enough to make for safe running,
and the horse was lathered from the exercise. It raised its head and whickered as it sensed the approaching riders, and Cullyn turned from his grooming to gasp as he saw Laurens drooping in his saddle, held upright by a younger man whose face was lined with concern.

“What’s amiss?” He left Fey to fret as he vaulted the fence and ran toward them. “Laurens?”

“I got pricked.” The master-at-arms grinned at Cullyn, who thought his face was very pale. “I need a place to rest a while.”

“I’m Drak,” the young soldier said, and ducked his head at Laurens. “He took a Durrym arrow in his side, and brought us here. He said you’d succor him. He’ll not make the keep so wounded.”

“My apologies,” Laurens grunted, “but I could think of nowhere else.”

“You’re welcome,” Cullyn returned, and held out his arms as Laurens slumped, taking the weight Drak let down until Laurens was on the ground and leaning against him. Drak sprang clear of his saddle and swung an arm around Laurens.

“I can walk,” the master-at-arms protested, and promptly fell between them. “Dammit, I’ve had worse hits than this.”

They carried him into the cottage and set him on Cullyn’s bed.

Laurens protested as they stripped off his shirt to examine the wound, which was bloody, gouged through by a warhead arrow, and worse for his tearing it out. Cullyn fetched what was almost the last of his honey wine and fed Laurens a big cupful. The older man drank it gratefully.

“Can you help him?” Drak asked.

“Perhaps.” Cullyn studied the wound. “I’m no healer, and he’d be better off in the keep.”

“He’ll not make that distance,” Drak said, “else I’d have taken him there.”

“I’ve herbs and poultices.” Cullyn stared at the bloody hole. “And I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you.” Drak set Laurens’s stained breeches aside. “What can I do?”

“Stoke that fire.” Cullyn indicated the hearth. “Set water to boiling, then leave the rest to me.”

“And the men?” Drak spoke over his shoulder as he drove an iron into the fire. “They’re hungry and cold.”

Cullyn sighed as he envisioned his winter’s supplies eaten. “There’s not enough room in here for all of you—and they’d best stay clear of Fey—so let them bed where they can. I’ll bring them food later.”

Drak nodded and went out to the waiting soldiers, and Cullyn looked to Laurens.

The man’s face was gray with pain, which was not surprising—Cullyn had seldom seen a worse wound. It was as if a boar had tusked him, thrusting through his side to open holes in front and back. Blood decorated his ribs and sweat beaded his forehead, running down the channels of his face to gather in the grizzle of his beard. He held his teeth clenched as Cullyn fed him more honey wine and lifted the pot from the fire, then fetched herbs that he set to boiling, and when they were ready set them on the wounds.

Laurens grunted and his body lurched as the steaming poultice settled on his flesh.

Cullyn wrapped the holes in moss and spiderwebs and tore up a sheet for the bandage that he wound about Laurens, who sighed gustily and settled back with a mumbled, “Thank you.” And closed his eyes.

Cullyn left him, going out to find the troop settled in the yard. He went to his smokehouse and fetched a side
of cured pork that he gave them, along with sufficient wood from his stack that they might build a decent fire.

“Shall he live?” Drak asked.

Cullyn shrugged. “Likely, but he’ll not be fit to ride for a while.”

“We need to get back to Lyth,” Drak said. “How long before he can ride?”

“Days,” Cullyn answered. “That wound needs to heal. Put him on a horse and he’ll bleed to death.”

“We’ve not that much time.” Drak wiped an anxious hand across his face. “You know what’s happened?”

Cullyn shook his head, and Drak explained. Cullyn gasped: “Abra?”

“Taken by the Durrym,” Drak expanded. “Or seduced by them. By Lofantyl, at least.” He slapped his sword’s hilt angrily. “And to think we had the Durrym bastard in our dungeons! Per Fendur was right: we should have kept him chained. Or slain him straightaway.”

Cullyn offered no answer, thinking of the friend he’d known, and of Abra; and decided that he would speak of all this with Laurens, whom he trusted. So he bade Drak good-night and returned to the cottage where Laurens slept feverishly, and waited for a clearer morning, when Drak left with the troop.

“We’ll leave him here,” he said, “until he’s fit enough to ride. But I must go tell Lord Bartram that his daughter’s lost to the fey folk. Doubtless Lord Bartram will reward you for your aid.”