His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) (30 page)

He said, in a thick, harsh voice, “No.”

“Don’t be a fool. Torien Risto had friends enough among
the army command. Some of them will be willing to help you if you can
keep yourself alive long enough.”

He struggled to bring his scattered thoughts together.

“No,” he said again. He tried to say it more firmly this
time. “No, I’d rather stand trial than run, Aino.”

“This is just politics, Risto. You know that. You accomplish
nothing by staying here.”

“Aino—”

Aino leaned in towards him to speak low and swiftly at his ear.

“You think that’s what your father would want? Or Muryn?
Think, Risto. They’d want you to live. A court martial in Rien
and then it’d be to Choiro for a public execution. You know
that. You think either of them would want that for you?”

Tyren said nothing.

Aino let go the colt’s bridle and straightened again in his
saddle.

“Listen to me, Risto,” he said again. He spoke less
sharply now. “Your father and the priest both. They died for
nothing if you stay, if you die.”

He looked at Aino in silence. Then he turned his face away and
pressed his heels to the colt’s belly. He was too exhausted,
too numb to put together the words for an argument, to explain
himself in a way Aino would understand. Maybe if there were more
time, if he’d the clarity that would come with time. Right now
there was nothing left in him but dumb weariness, defeat.

They kept on through the city, down towards the western gate. When
they’d come within sight of the gate-wall Aino reined up his
horse and turned in his saddle so he faced Tyren directly.

“There are provisions for a few days in your saddlebag,”
he said. “Not much, but the best I could do. Enough to last you
into the hills. You’ll want to avoid the road.”

He bent down and loosened the sheathed sword that was strapped across
the fore-horns of his saddle. He held it out to Tyren, hilt-first.
“You’ll need this,” he said.

Tyren made no move at first. Then he knotted the colt’s reins
together and let them go and reached with his freed left hand to take
the sword. He moved it to his right hand when he’d taken it. He
held it a moment, testing the weight, the balance. There was a sudden
dryness in his mouth, a keen tension in his muscles. The numbness had
fled away at the familiar feel of the grip against his fingers.

Aino, watching him, seemed amused, though he was sitting his saddle
stiffly now. “Are you going to use it?” he said.

Tyren didn’t immediately reply. He sat there with the fingers
of his right hand tight round the grip, his left hand ready on the
sheath, and he warred with himself inside a little while. Easy enough
to do the thing. Aino had no other weapon ready, wouldn’t have
the time to react if he made a move now. Easy enough to do. They
wouldn’t even know it up on the gate-wall in all likelihood:
the shadow of the gate-house was deep and black here. And what else
was there to use this freedom for? He could have his vengeance, at
least. It wouldn’t matter then whether he stayed or ran. At
least he’d have accomplished that.

Do it, he thought, savagely. It’s what he expects of you, after
all. Do it because there’s no difference between your way and
his, in the end—no use pretending there’s any difference.
Do it because it’s the easiest thing, because you’re too
much a coward to do otherwise. Spit upon what Muryn lived for and do
it.

He loosened his fingers from the grip. He held the sheathed blade
across his saddle while he unwrapped the belt. Then he buckled the
belt on his hip. He gathered up the colt’s reins again and
looked back to Aino.

“Not like that,” he said.

“I can’t promise you another chance,” said Aino.

He shook his head tightly. “That doesn’t matter.”

Aino was silent a moment. Then he said, “Due west into the
mountains, Risto. Luck and you’ll have five, six hours of an
early start. I wouldn’t count on more than that.”

He’d backed his horse away and turned to ride back eastward, to
the fort, before Tyren could reply. Tyren didn’t watch him go.
He took the colt on down to the gate. When the doors had been
opened—again without challenge, because the watchmen knew
better than to challenge a Guardsman—he took the colt onto the
west road and ran him on the road until the torch-light from the
gate-house had faded to darkness round them. Then he reined up and
dismounted and rid himself of the black-crested helmet in the long
dry-yellow grass edging the road. Afterward he took the colt over the
northward embankment and into the green woodland that swept up
eventually to the hills.

XVIII

Much of the first part of that ride from Rien westward passed in a
blur. It was raw, wooded land, this, for miles and miles past the
city—the farms and little flag-stone villages were all
clustered tightly along the road, south of him, and he was careful to
avoid those. He headed west and a little north. He ran the colt when
the ground permitted it, but that wasn’t often. The footing was
rocky, uneven, the trees too close. For the most part they walked,
and the only comfort was the thought that pursuit would have to do
the same. He rested every so often to let the colt graze or drink,
and to ease the pain flaring up in his side—knew, at length, he
must have opened up the newly healed gash again; he could feel hot
wetness seeping through his tunic. He reined up the colt and slid
from the saddle and sat a while against the bole of a tree with the
saddlebag in his lap. He found bandage cloth after a short search and
wrapped up the wound tightly. Then he mounted again, gritting his
teeth against the pain.

There was a bitterness growing inside him now. For a moment there,
under the gate with Aino, he’d had clarity—had had the
sudden fierce desire to live, to find something worthwhile to live
for. That had cooled now, faded into the darkness round him. Anger
and frustration had settled in its place. He should have ended
it—should have killed Aino and ended it there. At least there’d
have been clear, immediate purpose to that. Now he’d nothing
except the vague aim of keeping west, losing himself in the hills—no
real point or reason to it except to survive, to exist. Better if
he’d ended it there in Rien.

When morning finally came he was in unfamiliar hill country. There
was a heavy mist lying in the low places between the hills and the
sun was not yet out and it was briskly cold. He rode leaning forward
across the colt’s withers, holding a hand against the wound,
unable to keep himself fully upright. He stopped the colt on the bank
of a thin, icy-cold mountain stream and got down stiffly from the
saddle and knelt on the black-sand bank to drink from his cupped
hands. He rinsed the wound afterward, gingerly, wincing a little at
the cold. He bandaged it with a fresh cloth. Then he stood and leaned
heavily against the saddle while the colt drank, looking across the
wild timber country to the snow-capped mountains. More than a full
day’s ride still. Less and less likely he’d make it. The
bleeding hadn’t stopped, and the pain had worsened; the old
bone-deep soreness had started again in the knee.

He mounted again, when the colt had drunk his fill, and he rode
forward along the stream with his head bowed.

By noontime the air was wet with drizzle and rain clouds were
thickening overhead. The rain came softly at first, then strong and
steady. His cape was soaked through, and his tunic and leggings
beneath, but in truth he was glad for the rain—it would help
hide his trail.

He rode in the rain until the last of the daylight had gone in the
overcast sky. It was probably quite early still, maybe the eighteenth
hour, but he knew he couldn’t make it further without some
rest. The stream was still rushing noisily east-to-west alongside
him. There was a sheer-faced cliff along the opposite bank, smooth
rock blackened by the rain, and a long, low cave at its base—a
dry place, room enough in which to lie down. He could get a few
hours’ sleep, at least. He couldn’t afford more than
that.

He crossed the stream and tethered the colt on the pebbly bank
outside the cave and took down the saddle and crawled under the rock
face with the saddle and the bag. The cave opened up a little further
in; he could sit upright with his back against the curving cave wall.
He put down the gear and took off his cape, spreading it out so it
would dry. Then he unbuckled the sword and propped it up beside him.
The pain from the wound was gnawing at him but he ignored it long
enough to eat a supper of some bread and dried figs from the pack.
Then, strengthened a little by the food, he opened up his tunic to
look at the wound. The bandage was soaked through with blood and he
groaned aloud as he pulled it away from his skin. The wound itself
was hot, swollen—had been irritated by the rubbing of the
bandage as he rode. Blackness pressed at the corners of his eyes. He
blinked it away and wet a cloth with water from his water-skin and
dabbed at the wound carefully, clenching his teeth as he did so. He
rinsed it with some wine from the bag afterward and bound it up again
and pulled his tunic back on. Then he lay stiffly down on the cape
and closed his eyes and slept.

* * *

He knew, when he woke, that he’d slept more than the few hours
he should have allowed himself: morning light was already trickling
in through the cave mouth. Knew, too, from the bitter coldness of the
air, the aching in his temples and his throat, the thing must have
progressed to fever inside him. For a little while he just lay there,
thick-headed, unwilling to make himself get up. Then realization
sharpened inside him. He wasn’t alone: there were the ashes of
a small fire a little way across the cave floor, and packs which
weren’t his sitting against the far wall. And the sword—when
the sudden panic had made him struggle up to see—was gone from
beside him.

“Easy,” someone said to him, lazily.

The speaker was an older man; there was silver-gray scattered freely
through his dark hair and his close-trimmed beard. He’d spoken
the word in Vareno, but he was Cesino clearly enough: he had the
frost-gray eyes of the mountain people, was dressed in tunic and
leggings of rough brown wool, with a short wool cloak draped round
his shoulders and clasped on his left shoulder with a pin of carved
bone. He was sitting cross-legged at the fire-pit and there was an
old Vareno cavalry sword slung across his back, a flint knife
sheathed at his belt.

“Easy,” he said again. “I’ve dressed that
nick for you. You’ll set it to bleeding again, moving like
that.”

Tyren settled back stiffly against the cave wall with a hand pressed
to the wound. “Who are you?”

“Morlyn. My name’s Morlyn. But surely that doesn’t
mean much to you, Lord Risto.”

“You know my name?”

“I know your name,” Morlyn said. “I know a good
deal about you, Tyren Risto. Mægo told me a little. The rest,
I’m proud to say, is my own work.”

Tyren’s mouth went dry as dust, his heart cold and heavy as a
lump of iron in his chest. “You were in Souvin? With Sarre’s
rebellion?”

“I was there,” said Morlyn.

There were footsteps on the gravel outside the cave and another
Cesino ducked in through the cave mouth. A young man, this one, near
to Tyren’s own age. He looked at Tyren coolly, sticking out his
chin a little as he did so. He spoke to Morlyn in Cesino. “Can
he move, then?”

“If it’s necessary,” answered Morlyn, in the same
tongue. He spoke with the same lazy patience in his voice. “The
wound is nothing bad—or it’ll be nothing bad, once it’s
treated properly. Though it would be better if he rested a while
longer. There’s some fever.”

The other shook his head, once, impatiently. “No, we need to
move now. They’re beyond us for a little while, following the
trail I left, but they’ll circle back quickly enough.”

Morlyn said nothing for a moment. Then he nodded. “Very well,”
he said. “Get him up. I’ll do the work here, cover the
tracks.”

The young one came over to Tyren and took him by the left elbow and
hauled him up. Tyren didn’t resist it—was too sluggish
with the fever and with the pain in his side to resist it, to try to
run.

“Better to tie his hands,” said the young one to Morlyn.

“No need for that,” said Morlyn. He’d knelt and was
carefully covering the ashes of the fire with the pebbly black sand
of the cave floor.

“Don’t be a fool,” said the young one, through shut
teeth.

“Use a bow-string, then, if it’ll put your mind at ease,”
said Morlyn. “No need for it, though. He has no weapon now and
he won’t be trying to run.”

The young one let go Tyren’s arm and went to the packs and took
out a bow-string and brought it back. He held Tyren’s hands in
his right hand while he looped the bow-string round Tyren’s
wrists with his left—in and out and round again, firmly, but
loosely enough the blood might flow. When he’d finished he took
Tyren by the elbow again, took him out through the cave mouth to the
bank of the stream. Tyren blinked and stumbled in the sudden bright
daylight, the blood pounding in his head, and the young Cesino
prodded him forward impatiently. The colt was still tethered there on
the bank and the Cesino pushed Tyren over to him, indicating with a
sharp gesture of his right hand that Tyren should mount. He did so,
looping his bound hands round the far horn of the saddle, bending
dizzily forward over the withers when he’d gotten up, and the
Cesino took the colt’s reins, and they walked along the bank a
while, westward, until the cliff face had run down. Then the Cesino
took the colt to the left, south, into the trees. Morlyn came after
them at a short distance, moving slowly so as to cover their tracks.
The ground sloped upward going away from the stream. That afforded
them a good view as they went on. Tyren looked back over his
shoulder. He could see dust rising over the pine trees on the far
side of the stream. Three, four miles away; further, supposing the
wind had carried it along.