Katharine Kerr - A Time of War

Meer began keening again, more softly, this time, but he was rocking back and forth, hands clasped round his drawn-up knees, rocking and moaning in a ghastly kind of music that had a certain beauty to it. Jahdo walked back and laid a hand on his shoulder.

‘Meer, can you travel? We’ve got to get moving, Meer. I be so scared.’

The Gel da’Thae never heard him, merely keened and rocked, all knotted with grief. Jahdo grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

‘Meer, Meer! Listen to me, Meer!’

‘Go on without me, lad. Let my house die here. Thavrae was the last hope of our house, a warrior who might win the right to claim a daughter as his own and hand over our name to her like a treasure chest. No daughters has my mother birthed, and woe woe unto our clan and kin, that the gods would wipe our name from the face of the earth. Leave me, Jahdo, and let me die with the name of our house.’

‘I’m not going to do anything of the sort. If you stay I’ll stay with you, and then I’ll die, too, and here you did promise my mother that you’d look after me.’

Meer whimpered and trembled.

‘Well, you did,’ Jahdo snapped. ‘You promised.’

Meer fell silent for a long while, then all at once laughed, a hysterical sort of rumble.

‘Jahdo, lad, one day you’ll no doubt be a great man among your people, the Chief Speaker, I’d say, wielding power with words as your people do. Very well. Bring Baki over. I’ll saddle him up first. All day we shall travel, and in the night I’ll mourn.’

Yet they made only a few pitiful miles that afternoon. Meer was exhausted with his mourning, Jahdo with the horror he’d seen and smelt, and in the hot sun it seemed they could barely put one foot in front of the other. At times Meer would burst into a mourning song, half music, half keening, only to break off in mid-phrase and fall silent again. As if they picked up his mood, the horse and mule walked head down and weary, ambling to a stop unless Jahdo yanked their lead-ropes to keep them moving.

‘It be useless,’ Jahdo said at last. ‘Just ahead does lie that little stream where we camped last night, and there’s grass for the horses here, and so why don’t we just stop?’

And there the Slavers caught them. It was still afternoon, and Jahdo was scrounging dead wood for an evening’s fire, when Gidro and Baki became restless, throwing up their heads, sniffing and snorting into the rising wind, finally whickering out a greeting. Distantly a horse answered, then another. Jahdo leapt to his feet and grabbed his grandfather’s knife, but Meer sat unmoving, hunkered down by their gear, his head on his knees. Hoofbeats sounded, riding fast, riding hard, and straight for them out of the east. Jahdo could see a plume of dust skittering along like a live thing.

‘Meer, Meer! We’ve got to run.’

Slowly the bard raised his head and turned toward the sound.

‘You run, Jahdo. Head west and hope you find those horsemen who aided your people once before. I might as well die a slave, so long as I die soon. A man is nothing without a clan, and my future holds no kin to serve the gods in my old age.’

‘Stop that! It’s needful you come, too.’

The hoofbeats came louder, tack jingled and rang, men yelled, a wordless high shriek of triumph. The dust resolved itself to a mounted squad. Meer rose to his feet, grabbing his staff, but he only leaned upon it as he waited, turned toward the noise.

‘Run, Jahdo! Grab that bag of food and run to the forest.’

Jahdo hesitated, and in that moment it was too late. With a whoop and a yell, like men driving cattle, the horsemen swept round the camp and surrounded them, about twelve of them, mailed and armed, and wearing loose long trousers tucked into high boots. When they edged their horses into the firelight, Jahdo stared in fascinated terror at their gear, but he could discern not one severed head – all the comfort he was going to get. He sobbed once, then drew himself up to full height with the knife clutched in his fist, as two of the men dismounted, tossing their reins to others in the squad. Both of them were over six feet tall, hard muscled under their mail, but one was blond and young, with a heavy moustache drooping over his mouth, and the other had dark hair, streaked with grey, and his road-filthy stubble of beard sported grey saltings as well. Each of them carried at their belts a peculiar dagger, narrow and sheathed, with three silver knobs on the pommel, and a heavy long sword.

‘A blind man and a lad?’ the blond said. ‘This is our ever so important prize?’

Jahdo goggled. He could understand their speech, a thing he’d never expected. Although they rolled every R and RH they spoke, and pronounced half their words deep in their throats, too, or so it sounded, by paying strict attention he could at least make out the main sense.

‘Any Gel da’Thae’s a rare enough thing.’ The dark-haired man was smiling. ‘I’d trust that Jill knows what she’s doing.’

Jill? That was a Rhiddaer name! Automatically he turned toward Meer, hoping for answers to these puzzlements, but the bard stepped forward at that instant and knelt at the dark-haired man’s feet.

‘If I’m the prize,’ he rumbled, ‘then let the lad go. Let him take what food we’ve got left and try to make his way home.’

The dark-haired fellow hesitated, visibly touched, but the blond strode forward, gesturing at the squad.

‘All right, saddle up those pack animals! Let’s get on our way back to the main camp.’ He turned to the dark-haired fellow. ‘Rhodry, the child can ride behind someone’s saddle, and we can load this hairy dog onto a pack horse, I suppose.’

‘Maybe so.’ Rhodry strode over to Jahdo. ‘Hand me that knife, lad.’

In sheer instinct Jahdo stabbed at him, but Rhodry caught his wrist in a huge grasp and half-lifted him from his feet. The knife dropped.

‘Here, now, you’ve got guts.’ Rhodry was smiling at him. ‘But this is no occasion for heroics, like. Are you going to behave yourself, or are we going to have to tie you up?’

Jahdo tried to think of a really good insult, but at that moment the blond man grabbed Meer’s arm.

‘On your feet,’ he snapped.

‘You leave him alone!’ Jahdo snarled. ‘You treat him with respect, too. He be a bard.’

Although the blond man started to laugh, Rhodry hit him on the shoulder and made him stop. He walked over to Meer and knelt down in front of him on one knee.

‘Does the lad speak true?’ he said, and politely.

‘He does. A bard I am, and a loremaster as well, to the twelfth level of the thirteen levels of the deepening well of knowledge, not that I’ll ever see my homeland and my master again, most like, to complete my studies.’

‘And the lad’s your slave?’

‘He is not that, but free born, travelling with me at my request.’

‘Well and good, then.’ Rhodry got up, turning to the blond man. ‘Yraen, put your saddle on that white horse, because the bard and his lad will be riding in comfort. You’ll have to make do with bareback, unless you want to clamber into that pack saddle yourself and shell your own nuts.’

‘What?’ The man called Yraen was practically spitting. ‘Have you gone daft?’

‘A bard’s a bard, lad, and due all respect.’

Laughing and calling out jeers, the other men in the squad gathered round to see what Yraen would say to that – nothing, as it turned out, because Rhodry caught his gaze and stared him down.

‘Have it your way, then.’ Yraen heaved a melodramatic sigh. ‘You stinking bastard.’

Although Jahdo expected swords to flash, everyone merely laughed. Rhodry’s laugh taught Jahdo the meaning of that old saw, that a sound could make your blood run cold. It was daft and furious, merry and murderous all at the same time, a high-pitched chortle that reminded him of ferrets in a rage. The rest of the men, however, seemed to take it for granted, as if they heard him laugh that way often. With a shake of his head, Yraen strode off to get the squad ready to ride. As Jahdo watched them, he wondered why the view had turned so hazy, wondered why he felt so trembly, all of a sudden. Then he realized that he was crying, the tears running down his face of their own accord. Still kneeling, Meer held out one enormous arm. Jahdo rushed to him and flung himself against the Horsekin’s chest to sob aloud while Meer moaned and whimpered under his breath.