Still, Royston kept a watchful eye as he walked, quickening his pace to make a wide detour around another stiffening corpse. He was not timid in the least; such was not the way of the country-bred folk of Corwyn. But there was always the very real possibility that he might come upon a dead enemy who was not really dead—and that he did not like to think about.
As though in response to his growing mood, a wolf howled, much closer than before, and Royston shivered as he headed for the center of the cartway again, beginning to fancy he could see furtive movement in every bush, every ghostly tree stump. Even if he need not fear the dead, there would be more dangerous, four-legged predators prowling the fields once night fell. These he had no desire to meet.
Suddenly a movement caught his eye ahead and to the left of the path. Hand tightening on his weapon, he dropped to a crouch and let his other hand fumble among the rocks in the roadway until it could close on a fist-sized stone. He had held his breath as he hunched closer to the ground, and his voice came out hoarse and quavering as he craned his neck to peer into the bushes.
“Who’s there?” he croaked. “Say who ye be, or I’ll come nae closer!”
There was a second rustling in the bushes, a moan, and then a weak voice: “Water…please, someone…”
Royston eased his satchel farther around his back and straightened warily, easing his dagger from its sheath. There was always a chance that the caller was a rebel soldier, and therefore a friend—one could have been missed all afternoon. But what if he were a royalist?
Inching his way closer, Royston approached until he was even with the bushes that had moved, rock and dagger poised, nerves taut. It was difficult to make out definite shapes in the failing light, but suddenly he knew that it was a rebel soldier lying in the brush. Yes, there was no mistaking the falcon badge sewn to the shoulder of the steel-gray cloak.
The eyes were closed beneath the plain steel helm; the hands were still. But as Royston leaned closer to look at the man’s bearded face, he could not control a gasp. He knew the man! It was Malcolm Donalson, his brother’s closest friend.
“Mal!” The boy crashed into the brush to drop frantically by the man’s side. “God ha’ mercy, Mal, what’s happened to ye? Are ye hurt bad?”
The man called Mal opened his eyes and managed to bring the boy’s face into focus, then let his mouth contort in a strained smile. He closed his eyes tightly for several seconds, as though against excruciating pain, then coughed weakly and tried to look up again.
“Well, me boyo, it’s about time ye found me. I feared one o’ them cutthroat rascals would get to me first an’ finish me off t’ get me sword.”
He patted a fold of his cloak beside him, and young Royston managed to make out the hard outline of a cross-hilted broadsword under the bloodstained cloth. His eyes went round as the shape registered, and then he lifted the edge of the cloak to run his fingers admiringly along the length of bloody blade.
“Ah, Mal, ’tis a bonny sword. Did ye get it off one o’ the king’s men?”
“Aye, the king’s mark is on th’ blade, lad. But one o’ his kinsmen left a piece o’ steel in m’leg, curse him. Take a look an’ see if it’s stopped bleedin’ yet, will ye?” He raised himself up on his elbows as the boy bent to look. “I managed t’ wrap me belt around it ’fore I passed out th’ first time, but—aiiiie! Careful, lad! Ye’ll start me bleedin’ again!”
The cloak draped across Mal’s legs was stiff with dried blood, and as the boy lifted it away to look at the wound it was all he could do to keep from fainting. Mal had taken a deep sword-thrust to his right thigh, beginning just above the knee and extending upward for nearly six inches. Somehow he had managed to improvise a bandage before applying the tourniquet, which had saved his life thus far, but the bandage had long outlived its usefulness and now glistened a brilliant red. Royston could not be sure in the failing light, but the ground beneath Mal’s leg looked damp, stained a deeper, redder hue. Whatever its source, Mal had lost a great deal of blood; there was no doubt about that. Nor could he afford to lose much more. Royston’s vision began to blur as he looked up at his friend again, and he swallowed with difficulty.
“Well, lad?”
“It—it’s still bleedin’, Mal. I don’t think it’s goin’ tae stop by itself. Ye’ve got to have help.”
Mal lay back and sighed. “Ah, ’tis nae good, laddie. I cannae travel like this, and I dinnae think ye can get anyone t’ come out here, wi’ night fallin’. It’s that bit o’ steel that’s causing the trouble, it is. Mayhap ye can get it out yerself.”
“Me?” Royston’s eyes went round and he trembled at the thought. “Aie, Mal, I cannot! If I even loosen the tie, ye’ll start bleedin’ all over again. I cannae let ye spill out yer life because I dinnae know what I’m doin’.”
“Now, don’t argue, lad. There’s nae one el—”
Mal broke off in mid-sentence, his jaw dropping in amazement as he stared over Royston’s shoulder, and the boy whirled on his haunches to see two riders silhouetted against the sunset not twenty feet away. He rose cautiously as the two men dismounted, gripping his dagger just a bit more tightly. Who were the men? And where in the world had they come from?
He could make out little detail as the two approached, for the setting sun was directly behind them, turning their steel helms to red-gold. They were young, though. As they drew closer and bared their heads, Royston could see that they were scarcely older than Mal—certainly no older than thirty or so—and one was dark and the other fair. Steel-gray falcon cloaks swung from the shoulders of both men, and each wore a longsword at his hip in a worn leather scabbard. The fairer of the two tucked his helmet in the crook of his left arm as he stopped a few yards away and held his empty hands away from his weapons. The darker man stood back a pace, but there was a kindly and concerned smile on his face as he watched the boy’s reaction. Royston almost forgot to be afraid.
“It’s all right, son. We won’t hurt you. Is there anything we can do to help?”
Royston studied the men carefully for an instant, noting the gray cloaks, the several weeks’ growth of beard on both men, their apparent friendliness, and decided he liked them. He glanced at Mal for reassurance and found the wounded man nodding weakly. At Mal’s signal he stepped back to let the two men stoop down across from him. After a second’s hesitation, he, too, knelt at the side of the wounded man, his eyes dark with worry as he wondered what the two strangers could do.
“Ye be Warin’s men,” Mal observed, managing a trace of a smile as the darker of the two men put down his helmet and began stripping off his riding gloves. “I thank ye for stopping, what with th’ darkness sae near an’ all. I’m Mal Donalson, and the boy is Royston. That steel’s goin’ t’ have to come out, ain’t it?”
The darker man probed gently at Mal’s wound, then got to his feet and returned to his horse.
“There’s steel in there, all right,” he said, pulling a leather pouch from his saddlebag. “The sooner we get it out, the better. Royston, can you borrow a horse?”
“We have nae horse,” Royston whispered. He watched wide-eyed as the man slung a water skin over his shoulder and returned. “Could—could we nae carry him home on one o’ yours? It’s nae far tae me mother’s house, I promise.”
He glanced anxiously at both men as the darker one knelt across from him again, but this time it was the blond man who spoke.
“I’m sorry, but we haven’t time. Can you get a donkey? A mule? A cart would be even better.”
Royston’s eyes lit up. “Aye, a donkey. Smalf the Miller has one he’d let me borrow. I can be back before it’s full dark.”
He scrambled to his feet and started to move off, then paused and turned to peer down at the two men once more, his eyes sweeping over the falcon cloaks with admiration.
“Ye be the Lord Warin’s men,” he said softly. “I’ll bet yer on a special mission for the Lord himself, and that’s why ye cannae tarry long. Have I guessed rightly?”
>
The two men exchanged glances, the darker one stiffening slightly, but then the blond man smiled and reached up to slap Royston’s arm conspiratorially.
“Yes, I’m afraid you have guessed rightly,” he said in a low voice. “But don’t tell anyone. Just go and get that donkey, and we’ll take care of your friend.”
“Mal?”
“Go, lad. I’ll be all right. These men be brothers. They be on the Lord Warin’s business. Now, scat.”
“Aye, Mal.”
As the boy hurried out of sight down the road, the darker man opened his leather pouch and began removing bandages and instruments. Mal tried to raise his head slightly to see what he was doing, but the blond man pushed his head gently back to the ground and supported it there before he could get a good look. He felt a cool, wet sensation as the other man began washing away the caked blood on his leg, and then a faint ache as the tourniquet was tightened ever so slightly. The blond man shifted on his haunches and glanced at the sky.
“Do you want more light? I can make a torch.”
“Do,” the second man said with a nod. “And then I’ll need your assistance. It’s going to take both of us to keep him from bleeding to death.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The blond man nodded at Mal reassuringly, then got to his feet and began rummaging in the bushes near Mal’s head. Mal twisted around and watched in silence for several seconds, wondering how the man planned to get a torch burning out here, then glanced back at the man who was working on his leg. He winced as the man prodded the wound and accidentally jarred the steel, then coughed weakly and tried to clear his throat.
“By yer speech, ye be strangers here,” he began tentatively, trying to take his mind off what the man was doing and was about to do. “Have ye come from far tae aid the Lord Warin?”
“Not from too far,” the darker man replied, bending closer over the wounded leg. “We’ve been on a special assignment for the past few weeks. We’re on our way to Coroth.”
“Coroth?” Mal began. He saw that the blond man had found a length of branch which suited him, and was now wrapping the end with dry grass. He wondered again how the man planned to light it.
“Then, ye’ll be goin’ directly to th’ Lord Warin himself—aiie!”
As Mal cried out, the darker man murmured, “Sorry,” and shook his head as he continued working. Light flared behind Mal’s head as the torch caught, but by the time he could twist around to look again, the torch was already burning brightly. The blond man steadied it where he had jammed it into the ground beside Mal’s leg, then knelt down and began removing his gloves. Mal’s face contorted in bewilderment, his eyes watering from the smoke of the torch.
“How did ye do that? I saw nae flint an’ steel.”
“Then you missed it, my friend.” The man smiled and patted a pouch at his belt. “What other way is there? Do you think I’m Deryni, that I can call down fire from heaven simply to light a torch?”
The man flashed him a disarming smile, and Mal had to grin, too. Of course the man couldn’t be Deryni. No one who served the Lord Warin could be a member of that accursed race. Not when Warin was sworn to destroy all those who trafficked with sorcery. He must be delirious. Of course the man had used flint and steel.
As the blond man turned his attention to what his colleague was doing, Mal chided himself for his foolishness and turned his head to look up at the sky. A strange lethargy was stealing over him as the men worked, an inexplicable, floating feeling, as though his very soul were hovering a little way outside his body. He could feel them probing in his leg, and it hurt a little, but the pain was a thing apart, a warm, disjointed sensation that was somehow alien. He wondered idly if he was dying.
“I’m sorry if we hurt you,” said the blond man. The low voice cut through Mal’s meanderings like the steel in his leg, and he was suddenly back in the moment. “Why don’t you try to tell us what happened? It might help to take your mind off what we’re doing.”
Mal sighed and tried to blink the pain away. “Aye, I’ll try. Let’s see. Aye, ye be on a mission for th’ Lord Warin, so ye could nae know what happened here.” He winced as the blond man shook his head.
“Well, we won for today.” He laid his head back and stared up at the darkening sky. “We routed thirty o’ the king’s men led by Prince Nigel himself. Killed nigh a score, an’ wounded the prince, too. But it will nae last. Th’ king will just send more men, an’ we’ll be punished for risin’ against him. It’s all the fault o’ Duke Alaric, cursed be his name!”
“Oh?” The blond man’s face, bearded though it was, was handsome and calm, and not at all threatening. Still, Mal felt a cold shiver in the pit of his stomach as he met the slate-gray eyes. He looked away uneasily, unable to decide just why he felt so uncomfortable talking about his liege lord this way to a total stranger, but he found his gaze returning to the man’s face. What was there about the man’s eyes that seemed so—compelling?
“Does everyone hate him as much as you do?” the man asked softly.
“Weel, t’ be perfectly frank, none o’ us here at Jennan Vale really wanted to rise against th’ duke,” Mal found himself saying. “He was a good enough sort before he started dabblin’ in that accursed Deryni magic. There were even churchmen who called theyselves his friend.” He paused for an instant, then slapped his palm against the ground for emphasis.
“But th’ archbishops say he’s o’erstepped the bounds even a duke may go. He an’ that Deryni cousin o’ his desecrated th’ Shrine o’ Saint Torin last winter.” He snorted contemptuously. “Now there’s one who’ll pay in th’ Hereafter—that McLain: a priest o’ God, an’ Deryni a’ the while.
“Anyway, when they would nae surrender theyselves to the judgment o’ the Curia for their sins, an’ some o’ the Corwyner folk said they’d stand by the duke an’ his kinsman even if they was excommunicated, th’ archbishops put th’ Interdict on all o’ Corwyn. Warin says the only way we can get it lifted is to capture th’ duke and turn him over to th’ archbishops in Coroth—an’ help Warin rid the land o’ every other Deryni, too. That’s the only way to—aiiie! Careful o’ me leg, man!”
Mal sank back, half-fainting, against the ground, dimly aware through the haze of pain that both men were now bent intently over his leg. He could feel hot blood streaming down his thigh, the pressure of the bandage one man applied, the surge of new blood as that bandage soaked through and had to be replaced by a fresh one.
Consciousness was fading with the ebbing blood when he felt a cool hand on his forehead and heard a low voice say, “Just relax, Mal. You’re going to be fine, but we’ll have to help you along a little. Relax and go to sleep…and forget all of this.”
As awareness slipped away, Malcolm Donalson heard the second man murmuring words he could not understand, felt a warmth creeping into his wound, a soothing calmness pervading every sense. Then he was opening his eyes, a bloodied sliver of metal clutched in his hand, and the two men were packing up their belongings in the brown leather pouch. The blond man smiled reassuringly as he saw Mal’s eyes open, and raised the wounded man’s head to put a water flask to his lips. Mal swallowed automatically, his mind whirling as he tried to remember what had happened. The strange gray eyes of the blond man were only inches away.
“I—I’m still alive,” he whispered dazedly. “I thought I’d died, I really did.” He glanced at the sliver of metal in his hand. “It—it’s almost like a miracle.”
“Nonsense. You fainted; that’s all. Do you think you can sit up? Your ride is here.”
As the man eased Mal’s head back and stoppered the flask, Mal became aware of others standing nearby: the boy Royston holding the tattered lead of a scruffy donkey; a thin, fragile-looking woman with a rough-woven shawl over her head who could only be the boy’s mother. Abruptly he was aware of the sliver of metal still clutched in his fist, and he glanced up at the blond man again, avoiding the gray eyes.
“I—I dinnae kn
ow how to thank ye,” he stammered. “Ye saved—”
“There’s no need,” the man replied with a smile. He held out a hand and assisted Mal to his feet. “Leave the bandages in place for at least a week before you try to change them, and then be careful to keep the wound clean until it’s healed. You’re lucky that it wasn’t as bad as it looked.”
“Aye,” Mal whispered, moving dazedly toward the donkey and limping heavily.
As Mal reached the side of the donkey, Royston threw his arms around his friend in a brief hug, then held the animal’s head while their two benefactors assisted Mal to mount. The woman stood back fearfully, not understanding what had happened, yet eyeing the falcon cloaks on the pair with awe and respect. Mal steadied himself against their shoulders until he could ease his leg to a comfortable position, then sat more erect and held precariously to the animal’s wispy mane. As the two men stepped back, Mal glanced in their direction and nodded, then raised his hand in farewell. The sliver of metal still glittered in his clenched fist.
“I thank ye again, good sirs.”
“Think you can make it now?” the darker man asked.
“Aye, if the beast does nae go mad an’ dump me in a ditch. Godspeed ye, friends. An’ tell th’ Lord Warin we stand ready to do his biddin’, next time ye see him.”
“I will that,” the blond man replied.