Petrodor: A Trial of Blood and Steel, Book 2 (69 page)

Opposing her was Harvyd Iryani—older and taller. Jaryd spied his father, Lord Iryani, nearby and recalled him dining at the Nyvar table, sharing laughter and wine with his father. Other men, other lords, their sons, their daughters…all had dined at his table, or played lagand with him and his brothers, or gossiped with his sisters.

Jaryd halted the mare before them and she reared, wary of all the drawn steel.

“Jaryd!” his sister cried. “Have you gone mad!”

Jaryd's eyes searched the crowd as he whipped the mare into several tight, wheeling turns, sending men scampering back from her dangerous hindquarters. This was a warhorse, and she'd been trained to kick when men with swords came too close. Then he saw him—Great Lord Arastyn—behind several armed cousins, staring in disbelief.

“You!” he snarled, pointing with his bloodied sword. “Treacherous scum! You can have your great lordship, you can wear that golden cloak, no matter how blood-spattered it be, I care nothing for the title now. But I demand revenge!
You murdered my little brother
!”

“Jaryd!” came Galyndry's sobbing cry. “Jaryd, no he didn't! It was all a big mistake, Jaryd…”

Jaryd whirled the mare once more. “How much did they pay you, bitch?” he roared at her. “Does all that gold and finery lessen the pain? Do golden coins truly soak up the pools of a brother's blood? Will you cry with pleasure tonight as you're fucked by a man whose hands are red with Tarryn's blood?”

Galyndry collapsed into the arms of her wedding brood, sobbing hysterically. The priest and his assistants, clutched their books and holy symbols, silent and pale.

“Jaryd,” came a new voice, more measured. Wyndal stepped into the open between the horse and the altar. He was grandly dressed like the others, slimmer than his elder brother, not as tall, and nearly blond against his brother's light brown. “Jaryd, you've no right to do this. A girl is married once in her life. You can't ruin it.”

“I came for you,” Jaryd said thickly. His voice caught in his throat. “I heard they were going to murder you too. But it was a trap. Wasn't it, brother?”

Wyndal's eyes darted. His tongue licked his lips. Jaryd stared in disbelief. Cowardice was something for tales and stories. An insult to be hurled in good humour or in bad. It was something that happened to other people. In the tales, cowardice afflicted the least honourable, the most arrogant, or the
one who, in some other way, broke with the code. Cowardice did not happen to good people. It did not happen to one's brother, not unless that brother was a villain from the tales…which Wyndal, for all his and Jaryd's differences, was certainly not.

Jaryd wanted to throw the accusation in Wyndal's face, to scream at him, to berate him as he'd berated Galyndry…but somehow, suddenly, it seemed pointless. He was wailing at the wind. This was the world of lords. He'd never understood it. Wyndal, Galyndry and Delya…one moment they'd been of Family Nyvar, the most powerful family in Tyree, and then Nyvar's loyal retainers had abandoned them. They had no loyal peasantry, no standing army to defend the family name, just a loose affiliation of friends and allies kept strong through intermarriage. Lose a key ally, and have all the others switch their allegiances to
him
, and there was nothing to break the fall.

Jaryd could fight. Fight, and ride. It was all he'd ever been truly good at. Wyndal had the skills, but not the passion. And the girls…were just girls. What was he asking them to do? To die fighting? To surrender their necks to the chopping block? To add their corpses to Tarryn's and give him more siblings to avenge?

“You leave him alone,” said Delya, emerging from the wary crowd to stand by Wyndal's side. She was tall, his eldest sister, and wore shimmering scarlet, bare at the shoulders and lined with fur. Her voice was trembling. “Jaryd, it's not as you think—Great Lord Arastyn had no choice, the other lords would
never
accept you as heir.”

“Then kill
me
, not Tarryn!” Jaryd stared around at the sea of faces and the drawn steel. “Which of you has the balls?” He pointed his sword at Arastyn. “I've challenged you to a duel already, and you refused! I repeat my challenge! Prove to your people that you're a man, and not just a killer of small boys!”

Only the presence of his brother and sisters was keeping him alive now, Jaryd knew. There were enough capable warriors surrounding him, swords in hand. They could cut down the mare, and he would follow. But they would not do it before his siblings. The fear in their eyes was not fear for themselves but for their position and their allegiances. It was precarious to be a lord in Lenayin—to look powerless was to invite ridicule, to look tyrannical was to invite rebellion. Jaryd's lip curled in contempt of them all.

“Why don't you get down off your horse, boy,” came Lord Paramys's voice, “and we'll talk like reasonable men.”

Jaryd laughed. “Aye, I'm sure that's exactly what'll happen once I get down off my horse.” He whipped the mare into another fast circle, sending men once more scampering for distance. “Look at you all. Frightened little fools, each clinging to your precious titles like a drowning man to a log in a
spring flood. The flood swallowed my family, and washed the earth bare, as if they'd never been. If the great Family Nyvar can disappear, how much faster can yours? I'd laugh at you if the spectacle weren't so pathetic. I've
seen
the real Lenayin. I've seen how men lived before wealth and titles and lust for power came and took their honour, and their courage. Those Lenays know you for the frauds that you are. One day soon, even your Verenthane countrymen will share that contempt, and then you'll have nothing.”

His stare settled back on Arastyn. The hatred was not so intense now. He wanted very badly to kill him. But he also wanted…What did he want? Come to that, why was he even here? Why come crashing into this temple to ruin his sister's wedding? Were all these fools worth his blood and sweat? When he'd left the only people who meant anything to him standing in the lane, cursing him for an ungrateful fool? He invoked their name, to drive the point home to these thick-headed idiots, to tell them of the perspective he'd gained out in the wilds of Valhanan…but only now did he realise how much that experience had meant to him.

They were leaving without him. Heading back to Baerlyn, and Lynette, who would surely be sad if he did not return, whatever her complaining. Andreyis too. And Jaegar, who would shake his head and think of something wise to say, no doubt. And the village girls who had whispered and giggled when he came near. And a princess who'd watched him leave in the alley just now, with something close to tears…

Jaryd blinked. The fury was fading fast. Sofy had said
what
to him? Dear spirits, what was he doing
here
?

He wheeled the mare about once more and kicked with his heels. There were yells from behind, and men ran to close the temple doors, but they were too late. He clattered out into bright sunshine, and slowed the mare so that she did not slip too badly on the steps. There were fewer townsfolk present now, but enough remained to scatter in panic from his path. Again, Falcon Guards stood their horses still, making no effort to pursue. About the edge of the square, Jaryd glimpsed more men on horseback, not in armour or guard colours. They were heading away, back toward the inns and the stables. That was worse, Jaryd knew. He had little time.

He rode the mare as fast as he dared on the streets, holding her wide and diving into the corners so as to lessen the skid of her hooves. Even so, she staggered and slid so hard he swore he would fall…only she recovered, avoided collision with the wall and continued. Random townsfolk darted aside, and then there was the bridge before him, with fields and orchards across the river and Falcon Guardsmen blocking the way. Yet, even as he rode, they reined aside, waving him on.

“Go, M'Lord!” one of them yelled and, as he flashed by, Jaryd recognised none other than Sergeant Garys of the Udalyn campaign. “They're ahead of you!”

Jaryd cleared the bridge's rise, then cut alongside the road to where soft turf made galloping easier, sparing a wave to Sergeant Garys as he did. The turf was torn from previous hooves, freshly made. He was not far behind.

He rode the gentle slope out of town between the stone wall and the paved road, occasionally risking the pavings where the gap between stone and an irrigation ditch became too narrow. The mare shied and flinched, but she seemed to get the idea. Soon he was flying along a flat stretch between barren fields and thriving green orchards, Algery lost behind green folds of trees and pasture.

He flashed by several carts on the road, then some travelling horsemen and then the pavings stopped and he could race down the road's centre without fear, tearing up clods of earth in his wake. To his left now came Chereny Wood. Up ahead would be the little stream he recalled. Sure enough, here came the small bridge, and he slowed the mare, to the horse's snorting surprise, and turned her off the road and onto the stream bank. It was wide enough for a gallop, until it emerged back onto the road, saving time.

Past some obscuring hedges that lined the road, he caught a glimpse of a horse's backside at a gallop. An acceleration, and several bends, and he was on them. Teriyan saw him first, riding at the rear, red hair flying. He grinned, waved, and gave a whoop of delight. Jaryd grinned back, closed alongside as the road took another gentle bend past a farmhouse, and clasped the older man's hand.

Ahead was Sofy, skirts pulled high to clear the saddle, but riding mostly on her stirrups anyhow. Jaryd was somewhat astonished at how well she held her balance—big horses like these ones were vastly different to Sofy's little dussieh, especially at speed. She peered back at him through a blowing veil of hair, and grinned also. Jaryd took her hand, at full gallop, and leaned to kiss it. Sofy laughed. Jaryd thought she might have hugged him, but was wise enough not to attempt it.

He exchanged happy greetings with Byorn, then assumed the lead from Ryssin and took them off the main road, down a narrower way between pasture walls. They were close to the southern edge of Algery Valley, where folded slopes lifted from the valley floor, blanketed with trees, and emerged at points above in sheer, rocky outcrops. For a while he set them a steady pace, allowing the horses some respite. The trees came down into the valley, and he took them along a well-remembered horse trail that ducked down to a low stream that poured off the valley side. There he bid them halt for a moment and water the sweating horses. Amidst the trees, and in a sheltered fold of land, there was no chance of being seen.

“Well?” Teriyan demanded.

“Well what?” said Jaryd, examining the mare for any sign of lameness.

“Well, did you kill anyone?”

Sofy, too, had briefly abandoned her horse to come and listen. She leaned against the mare's side with less eagerness than Teriyan. It was a more mature, pained expectation than Jaryd might have anticipated from the girl he'd first met in Baen-Tar, and come to know on the road to the Udalyn Valley.

“Several,” Jaryd said flatly, feeling a foreleg that had surely bruised, on pavings, collisions with opposing mounts, or temple doors. “No one I immediately recognised, and all trying to kill me at the time. No one inside the temple, though.”

“You got
into
the temple?” Teriyan asked.

“Aye.”

“On the horse?”

“Aye.”

“With the wedding still in progress?”

“Aye,” said Jaryd, a touch irritably. “What's your point?”

“We're fucked!” said Teriyan, with feeling. “That's my point! You made Arastyn and company look like a right bunch of turkeys now! They'll send everyone they've got after us!”

“Aye,” Jaryd said shortly, and shrugged. “Maybe. They won't have the Falcon Guard helping them, that's for sure.”

“That's still every damn nobleman who can sit ahorse, and a bunch of townsmen too!”

“For sure, but can they track?” Jaryd pointed ahead. “Another twenty folds and the valley turns north, then we're into the horse trails straight to Valhanan. Once there, we can find a stream, ride up it, climb out on some rocks—this lot can't track in the woods to save their lives, they're city folk.”

“They've dogs,” Teriyan objected.

Jaryd shook his head. “Good for game but bad for horses, and in poor shape too.”

“Why not go south into the forest here?” Sofy asked, pointing upstream into the thick trees. “Why stay in the valley where they can chase us?”

“Because thirty folds south,” said Jaryd, “is Talyekar Ridge, which is pretty much impassable, so we'd have to go east anyhow. If we go east through this forest, we'll do it slowly, while our pursuers in the valley will do it quickly. They'll get well ahead of us, then cut us off. Best to make fast ground while we can, it's easier to lose them while they're close behind than it is to avoid them when they're already ahead of us, setting up ambush.”

Sofy nodded, biting her lip.

“Sounds like a plan,” Teriyan said roughly and smacked the younger man on the shoulder. “Glad you decided to join us after all!” He said it with a reprimand that promised retributions to come, but with humour all the same. Jaryd smiled and set to adjusting his saddle.

Sofy put a hand on his shoulder. “You didn't get your revenge?” she asked.

Jaryd shook his head. “No. But some Goeren-yai say that revenge is the only sustenance that will not perish with age.”

Sofy did not look particularly amused at that. “Then why come back?” she asked.

Jaryd looked at her. Her long hair was tangled and windblown, yet it did not suit her ill. Her big, dark eyes were earnest. Questioning. “Since Tarryn was killed, I've been thinking only of reasons to die,” he said simply. “Lately, I thought of some reasons to live.” He kissed her on the cheek.

Sofy stared at him, astonished.

“Mount up,” he told her. “We have to move. And don't tell anyone I did that, or I'll have Prince Koenyg joining the long line for my severed head.”

“Oh, you'll have many more than Koenyg!” Sofy said brightly, retreating to her horse. “You'll have the archbishop for one, he'd be furious. And my brother Wylfred, he'd be most upset.” All of a sudden she was bubbly again.