Sword of Neamha Page 5

  “Seven of us. A young man joined us just after dark,” the brihetin replied, stirring the embers of the fire. “He is one of your men, I believe.”

  I could see Cavarillos stiffen, his face changing involuntarily. “Who?”

  I took a step towards them, entering the small circle of light thrown by the reawakening fire.

  “Here I am, Cavarillos.”

  “Cadwalador!” He replied, advancing toward me. “My brother. I feared the Dumnones had caught you and the wench.”

  His words were full of the same friendship I had known before. Yet something rang false. I couldn’t lay my finger upon it. But I knew. The time had come.

  He couldn’t have helped seeing the javelins in my hand, the sword strapped at my side. As he advanced, I saw the glitter in his eyes, understood his gesture of friendship. It was a ploy. I took a step backward, my eyes locked with his. “I call no traitor my brother,” I replied, taking one of the javelins in my right hand.

  “Traitor?” the brihetin asked, coming up beside Cavarillos. “This man was the leader of the army from Mediolanium. He—”

  He never got a chance to finish the sentence. Cavarillos turned on him with a quickness that even I never expected, drawing his sword from its scabbard and disemboweling the man with it, one motion. The noble screamed and collapsed backward upon the hard soil, blood pouring from his body.

  I drew back my javelin, hurled it at my friend, acting instinctively, without thought. The barbed head sank into Cavarillos’ shoulder, twisting under the weight of the shaft.

  With an angry curse he ripped the javelin from his flesh, tossing it away. He called to the two mercenaries with him, ordering them to kill the brihetin, just now rising from their beds. I looked back to where Tancogeistla lay, awake but helpless. He was my leader, my general, my kinsman. The die had been cast.

  I dodged backward, ducking as Cavarillos tossed his own javelins in my direction. I could have taught him many things in their use, as he had taught me all my skill with the sword. I was glad I hadn’t.

  It would be little enough to save me. I caught a brief glimpse through the darkness as one of the brihetin fell, cut down before he could even grasp his weapons. Cavarillos had the advantage of surprise.

  He was upon me before I could throw my second javelin. He knew my strengths and weaknesses just as well as I did. Perhaps better.

  I jerked my sword from its scabbard, ducking his first slash. The advantages were all his. He still had his shield. I had lost mine at Ictis.

  “I knew from the first that you would never stand with me, Cadwalador,” he hissed, his blade ringing against my own. “You weren’t fooling anyone.”

  I tried to ignore him. It was another ploy, a trick to throw me off-balance. He kept forcing me back, across the clearing, towards Tancogeistla. His attacks were relentless. He had never shown me the half of his skill.

  His blade sunk deep into the flesh of my forearm, which I had tossed up to protect my head. A red spray erupted from severed veins, spattering my chest with my own life-blood.

  I gritted my teeth, fighting against the pain, struggling to muster the force to meet his next blow. I was growing weaker. I saw one of the mercenaries fall behind him, killed by the swords of the brihetin. Tancogeistla’s bodyguards, at first bewildered by the sudden attack, were rallying to my aid. It wasn’t going to be soon enough.

  His sword caught mine, clanging out with the clearness of a bell. I could see the look in his eyes. “You should have stayed with me,” he whispered, twisting his blade suddenly. It wrenched the longsword from my grip, sending it spinning into outer darkness. There was no hope for me to retrieve it in time.

  “I am sorry, brother.” It was a prayer, a eulogy over my death. A death that had become as inevitable as the rising of the sun. A sunrise I would never live to see.

  A blur erupted from the darkness to my right, a form flitting out of the night. Inyae. She threw herself on Cavarillos, small fists beating against his mighty chest. I grasped my final javelin, well aware I could never match him with the sword, even if I was able to find it.

  She was a distraction, nothing more. A fly buzzing around his ear. A woman that had sacrificed herself for me. He jerked her around, pulling her arms behind her body, using her as a shield.

  My javelin was poised to throw. He looked at me across her shoulder, that familiar, feral grin spreading across his countenance. “Go ahead,” he invited me. “Throw it.”

  My hands trembled involuntarily. I looked into her eyes and saw the fear there once again, the terror I had saved her from once. His sword nestled against her throat, its blade still wet with my blood.

  Time stood still…

  Chapter VI: Treachery

  My gaze lifted and I stared into the eyes of Cavarillos. The brihetin were still occupied with the last of his mercenaries. I was the only one who threatened him. But his cause was lost. And he knew it.

  “I warned you not to stand against me, Cadwalador,” he stated, a trace of sadness in his voice. “Together we could have achieved much.”

  “Treason is worse than death,” I snapped back.

  “All my life I have survived by choosing the winning side, going with it. It is the life of the mercenary. And I’ve never been wrong.”

  “Until now.”

  “That is your view. Now lay down the javelin, Cadwalador. Before I slay this woman.”

  I hesitated, and he moved the sword higher, until its tip pricked the skin of her throat. He wasn’t bluffing. I knew him too well for that.

  “Will you leave now?” I demanded. “I can let you go before they get here. Give me the girl and leave.” I glanced over his shoulder to where the brihetin were fighting, bargaining with everything I had left. A lump rose in my throat, nearly choking me. If there was any way to save her, I must try it. She had saved me in the ambush.

  He seemed to consider my proposition for a moment. “All right,” he nodded. “Throw the javelin over here. Underhand.”

  I obeyed wordlessly, taking my javelin by the shaft and pitching it to him. He smiled as it touched the ground and released Inyae, shoving her toward me.

  She had not taken two steps before he stepped up behind her, driving his sword into her body before I could cry a warning. She screamed, staggering toward me. I could see the tip of the sword protruding from between her ribs. It had gone completely through her.

  I felt as though I was in a dream, as though when I had gone to sleep beside her a few hours earlier. When I had learned her name. This was all a dream. A sad, twisted dream.

  In a haze I saw Cavarillos pull his blood-stained sword from her body and smile at me through the night. A death’s head smile. The face of a killer unmasked.

  She collapsed into my arms, sobbing with pain, her life-blood soaking her garments, staining my chest. Her breath was coming in short gasps, each one an effort. Her lungs had been pierced.

  In the vision I saw Cavarillos spring to the back of one of the brihetin’s horses, straddling it bareback. He turned to wave a mocking farewell to me before vanishing into the night. A dark horseman.

  I was crying too, with rage at my own foolishness, with fear at my helplessness now. She was dying, I could see it in the way her eyes were glazing over, the agony on her face.

  Words came from her lips, but nothing I could understand. I had never been able to. Now I never would.

  The nobles surged past me, their swords still drawn, past where I sat on the hard sod, cradling Inyae in my arms, to the place where Tancogeistla still lay. The drunkard she had been sacrificed for.

  I looked down into her pale face, into the now-listless green eyes glazed with death. She lay still, her head lying limply against my chest, fiery tresses flowing over her shoulders.

  Her spirit had departed. What remained was the shell of the woman that I had loved, the woman that had risked her life for me twice. And I had failed her…

  A hand fell on my shoulder. I heard a voice through the mists tha
t surrounded me. “Tancogeistla wishes to speak with you.” One of the nobles.

  I obeyed numbly, laying Inyae’s corpse gently on the earth as I rose. But for the look of agony on her countenance, but for the dark-red stain of her torn garments, I could have imagined her asleep. With all my heart, I wished she were.

  They had propped Tancogeistla up with his back against a rock. He looked up at me in the glare of the fire the brihetin had rekindled.

  “Thank you, my son. I owe you my life.”

  I nodded wordlessly, striving to restrain my emotions. “But for you, he would have been accepted into my camp as a friend. And he would have slain me before anyone could stop him.” He paused, seemingly to regain his energy before going on. The wounds had sapped his strength. “Three of my bodyguards died this night. The traitor Cavarillos stole one of their horses. I am giving you one of the others. You will ride in my bodyguard.”

  It was not a question, not a request. It was an order, reminding me of my station in life. He was the Chosen Superior.

  “We ride tomorrow. First to rally what remains of our army, then north.”

  “Yes, my lord,” I managed, still numb with shock. I glanced up into the sky, above the dancing flames, to where the silvery moon shone down upon us. Another eight hours separated us from the dawn. There would be no sleep for me this night, nor for a long time to come. It was all a terrible dream—but one from which I could never awake…

  We rose on the morrow and pushed northward, joined by a few of the slingers and gaeroas that had survived. We were a small band of men, shadows of the once-great army that had been washed ashore what seemed like an eternity ago.

  It had been months since I had felt a horse between my knees, and it would have felt good—if anything could have. I rode with my left arm wrapped in a sling, bandaged to stop the bleeding from Cavarillos’ sword-cut.

  Cavarillos…

  We had seen nothing of him since he vanished into the darkness on that bloody night, riding a stolen horse. He might have joined the Dumnones, guided them in their pursuit. He might have fled to one of the other tribes that populated this wild land. There were a thousand possibilities.

  We had buried Inyae at the spot of our campsite, along with the brihetin who had fallen. I still saw her, appearing in my dreams, reliving the last few moments of her life. Horror.

  I had failed her. I couldn’t get away from that. Failed her, and she was dead.

  We rode north for weeks, slowed by the early snows of ogrosan. Foraging became harder and we slew the extra horse. The others would soon follow. It was them, or us.

  Tancogeistla’s wounds from the ambush were healing slowly. And he was still sober. I watched him from a distance, listened to his conversations with the nobles. I was not a participant in those conversations. I was merely his bodyguard, not his equal.

  Some of the men were murmuring, whispering of mutiny. But they had nowhere to go. We were all equally lost, plowing through deeper and deeper snows as the weather turned colder. One of the men was found frozen to death in his blankets. His comrades ate his body.

  I found some bugs under a rock, stripped them of their wings and ate them raw. I was too hungry to care.

  One day Tancogeistla approached me soon after we had settled in for the night, sheltered from the angry north winds by a small wooded knoll.

  “Cadwalador,” he began. He had finally learned my name. I glanced up, popping a termite into my mouth. It had an unusually fruity taste, rather enjoyable in fact. Certainly there were enough of them under this log I sat on.

  “Yes, my lord?”

  He looked weary and cold. As were we all.

  “Our scouts reported footprints in the snow to the northwest at midday. I need you to ride out and see if there are people in the area. One man will be perceived as less of a threat than the entire party of us.”

  I nodded slowly. “Should I find the area to be inhabited, do you wish me to make contact?”

  “Yes. See if you can procure food and supplies, as well as the goodwill of the inhabitants. That will be essential.”

  “As you did at Ictis?” I snapped, speaking before I thought. Tancogeistla flinched as though I had struck him, but there was no anger in his eyes. Only a tremendous sadness.

  “Their blood is on my hands, Cadwalador,” he acknowledged after a long, awkward pause, holding those hands up to the sky and gazing into the palms. “Sometimes I think I can see it. That’s what Cavarillos thought, wasn’t it?”

  His question took me off-guard. “Perhaps so—I really…”

  “Come now, my son. You were his friend. You knew, else how could you have sounded the alarm that night? He blamed me for the death of his men, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he was not alone.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

  “No he was not, my lord.”

  “It must have been a difficult choice for you to make. Between your friend and your leader, between your brotherhood with him and your loyalty to the tribe of your fathers. Between a warrior who had taught you much of his skills, and a drunken imbecile who had led your army to destruction.”

  His frank self-appraisal took me completely by surprise. It was hardly what I had been expecting. “That is hardly my opinion,” I remonstrated, “I have the—”

  He cut me off. “It is the truth. I wonder at times, Cadwalador, if we will ever see our people again? Whether we are condemned to wander the rest of our lives in this desolate wilderness? I suppose only the gods know the answers to those questions.”

  I didn’t respond. Telling him that I no longer had any faith in the gods of my people would hardly be diplomatic. I dared not abuse the sudden familiarity he had offered to me, strange though it was.

  “And perhaps the people of this area,” he added. “That is why I wish you to ride ahead.”

  “I understand,” I replied, rising slowly from my seat. “I will endeavor to report back as soon as possible.”

  “I am counting on you, Cadwalador. Of all my men, your loyalty is unquestioned. That is why I chose you for this mission.”

  I nodded once again, taking my javelins in my hand and walking quickly to my horse. I carried no sword, had not since it had failed me that night with Cavarillos. I could not even see one without seeing a vision of his blade protruding from her belly. The image haunted my dreams.

  Swinging lightly into the saddle, I took the reins in my hand and gently kicked my horse into a slow trot out of camp. What I found ahead would determine our future plans.

  The wind whipped at me as soon as I moved out from the shelter of the hill, slicing through the thin, ragged garments I wore. I might as well have been naked, for all the protection they gave.

  Soon my horse had slowed to no more than a walk, and I was unable to urge him to go faster. He was as exhausted and hungry as I was. His bones were clearly visible through his hide. I could feel them beneath me.

  It began to snow, small flakes drifting down through the darkness of night. Whatever chance I may have once possessed of locating the tracks the scouts had spoken of was rapidly vanishing. If there had been any chance to begin with.

  We wandered for hours, I and my horse. The snow was falling heavier now, accumulating on any surface that would stand still long enough. We were one of those surfaces.

  I kicked my horse in the flanks, forcing it out of its languid walk. It had been full moon when I had left the camp, but all was white now, snow obscuring the moon, the stars. I had no guides left.

  I was tired, incredibly so. And sleepy. So sleepy. I wanted to do nothing more than rest. Rest forever. Inyae, Cavarillos, Tancogeistla, the army; they were all a faint memory, fading from my mind. My mission, it no longer seemed important.

  The reins slipped from between my fingers and I suddenly felt myself sliding, falling from the horse’s back. I reached out wildly, losing my javelins. I hit the ground with a bone-rattling thud, feeling something snap in my lower leg. Pain shot throug
h my limb and I sank back into the snow, gritting my teeth, fighting to keep conscious.

  The snow opened up to welcome me, folding me in its pillowy arms. At first I struggled to regain my feet, but I found I couldn’t. My leg was broken—at least it felt that way. Maybe it wasn’t, but I no longer cared. Sleep. That was all I wanted to do. Lie back in the soft drifts of snow and rest. Forever…

  Chapter VII: Rumors of War

  I came awake slowly, dimly aware of an unfamiliar sensation that permeated my body, seeping even to my bones. It took me a moment to place what it was.

  Warmth. I was warm. It was a strange feeling. My eyes flickered open and I began to take in my surroundings. I lay on my back on a blanket, only feet away from a small fire built within a hut. I started to get up, but pain shot through my right leg and looking down, I remembered. I had broken my leg. The snowstorm, the fall, all came rushing back to my consciousness. Someone had fixed a splint on my leg, straightening it.

  Movement behind me. The form of a woman moved into the circle of firelight. Inyae. Light fell upon her face and sorrow flooded through me as I remembered. Cavarillos, Inyae, Tancogeistla. That terrible night of betrayal and horror.

  This woman knelt by my side and spoke gently to me. I shook my head, unable to understand her tongue. Where was I? How had I come here?

  Her hand felt cool as she placed it upon my brow, apparently checking for any signs of the fever that often smote one so exposed.

  She spoke again, but I could sense that she was no longer talking to me, but rather to another who had entered the hut behind me.

  Another voice. That of a man. He moved into my line of vision, a tall, powerful figure, red-haired, but clean-shaven of face. Despite the weather, he wore only leggings and a cloak draped loosely around his shoulders. Strange designs were painted on his chest.

  He spoke in the same language as the woman, apparently expecting me to comprehend. I shook my head in growing frustration. “I can’t understand a thing you are saying!” I exploded, swearing in my native tongue.