A Time Of Omens Part 25

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 "Bid we fight as well as all that?" 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 amus.e.m.e.nt.

"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 b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," 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 gra.s.s, 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 la.s.s'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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.ds 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 b.u.t.t 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 pa.s.s the time until his next chance at blood. And I'm not like that, Yraen thought. Oh, by the G.o.ds, I thought I was, but I'm not. When Rhodry caught his elbow to steady him, Yraen felt as if one of the G.o.ds 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 b.l.o.o.d.y as a warrior, she was bending over a p.r.o.ne man and binding his wounds by firelight. Yraen and Rhodry watched while she st.i.tched 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?" 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 h.e.l.ls 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 G.o.ds 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.

"Well, my friend," Rhodry said. "You've made a splendid beginning, but don't think you know everything you need to know about warfare."

"I'd never be such a dolt. Don't trouble your heart"

"Is it what you'd been expecting?"

"Not in the least."

Yet he was snared by a strange dreamlike feeling, that indeed it was all familiar-too familiar. His very exhaustion opened a door in his mind to reveal something long buried, not a memory, nothing so clear, but a recognition, a sense of familiarity as he looked at the camp and his own bloodstained clothes, as he felt every muscle in his body aching from the battle behind them. Even the horror, the sheer disgust of it-somehow he should have known, somehow he'd always known that glory demanded this particular price. For a moment he felt like weeping so strongly that only Rhodry's appraising stare kept him from tears.

"Why don't you just ride home?" Rhodry said.

He shook his head no and forced himself to go on eating.

"Why not?"

He could only shrug for his answer. Rhodry sighed, staring into the fire.

"I suppose you'll feel like a coward or suchlike, running for home?"

"That's close enough." Yraen managed to find a few words at last. "I hate it, but it draws me all the same. War, I mean. I don't understand."

"No doubt, oh, no doubt."

Rhodry seemed to be about to say more, but Dallandra came walking out of the shadows. She was wearing a clean shirt, much too big for her, and eating a chunk of cheese that she held in one hand like a peasant. Yraen was suddenly struck by the strong, purposeful way she strode along; if she were as old as she looked, she should have been all bent and hobbling, from the strain of her day's work if nothing more. Without waiting to be asked she sat down next to Rhodry on the ground.

"Yraen here tells me you know our names," Rhodry remarked, without so much as a good evening. "How?"

"I'm a friend of Evandar's."

Rhodry swore in a string of truly appalling oaths, but she merely laughed at him and had another bite of her cheese.

"Who's that?" Yraen said. "Or wait! Not that odd fellow who gave you the whistle!"

"The very one." Rhodry glanced at the herbwoman again. "May I ask you what you want with me?"

"Well, only the whistle your young friend mentioned. It's a truly ill-omened thing, Rhodry, and it's dangerous for you to be carrying it about with you."

"Ah. I'd rather thought so myself. The strangest people-well, I suppose that people isn't the best word-the strangest creatures keep showing up, trying to steal it from me."

At that Yraen remembered the peculiar shadow that he'd seen out in Lord Erddyr's ward.

"You really would be better off without it," Dallandra said. "And Evandar never even meant to leave it with you. He's been much distracted of late."

Rhodry made a sour sort of face and glanced round, finding his saddlebags a few feet away and leaning back to grab them and haul them over. He rummaged for a few moments, then pulled out the whistle, angling it to catch the firelight.

"Answer me somewhat," he said. "What is it?"

"I have no idea, except it feels evil to me."

When she reached for it, he grinned and s.n.a.t.c.hed it away, slipping it back into the saddlebag.

"Tell Evandar he can come fetch it himself."

"Rhodry, this is no time to be stubborn."

"I've a question or two to ask him. Tell him to come himself."

Dallandra made some exasperated remark in a language that Yraen had never heard before. Rhodry merely laughed.

"Well, I don't want to see you dead over this wretched thing," the herbwoman went on. "So I'll give you somewhat for protection." She fumbled at her belt, where something heavy hung in a triangular leather sheath. "Here."

When Rhodry took the sheath, Yraen could see a wooden handle-you couldn't really call it a hilt-sticking out of the stained and crumbling leather. Rhodry slid the sheath off to reveal a leaf-bladed bronze knife, all sc.r.a.ped and pitted as if it had been hammered flat, then sharpened with a file like a farmer's hoe.

"Ye G.o.ds, old woman!" Yraen said. "That wouldn't protect anyone against anything!"

"Hold your tongue!" Rhodry snarled. "Better yet, apologize to the lady."

When Yraen stared in disbelief, Rhodry caught his gaze and held it with all his berserker force.

"You have my humble apologies, good herbwoman," Yraen stammered. "I abase myself at your feet in my shame."

"You're forgiven, lad." She smiled briefly. "And I know it looks peculiar, but then, Rhodry's enemies are a bit on the peculiar side themselves, aren't they?"

"Well, the one I saw was. I mean, I didn't actually see it, just its shadow, but peculiar's a good enough word."

Rhodry nodded his agreement; he was busily attaching the sheath to his belt at the right side to balance the dagger at the left. With a shake of her head the old woman got up, stretching her back and yawning.

"Ych, I'm exhausted," she remarked. "Well, have it your way, Rhodry ap Devaberiel. But I've got obligations here and now, at least till we get these wounded men to a chirurgeon, and it may be a longer time than you think before I can tell Evandar to come fetch it back. Until then, you'll be in danger, no matter how many knives I give you."

"I'll take my chances, then. I want some answers from your friend, good herbwoman."

"So do I." She laughed, as musically and lightly as a young girl. "But I've never gotten any from him myself, and so I doubt very much if you will either."

She turned on her heel and walked off into the darkness, leaving Yraen staring after her. Smiling to himself, Rhodry laced the saddlebag up again, then laid it aside right close at hand.

"Why didn't you give her the blasted thing?" Yraen said.

"I don't know, truly. She's probably right enough about Evandar not answering my questions."

"Who or what is this Evandar, anyway?"

"I don't know. That's one of the questions I want to ask him."

"Oh. Well, he and this strange hag seem to know you well enough. Here, wait a minute. She called you Rhodry ap Deva-something. What kind of a name is that? Your father's, I mean."

Rhodry looked at him for a long, mild moment.