David Gemmell - Quest for Lost Heroes

Chareos rose and slid the sabre back in its scabbard.

" am sorry,' he said and Kiall stopped, his shoulders sagging. Chareos moved to him. 'I mean it. I am not a man who likes women very much, but I do know what it is to be in love. Were you married long?'

'We were not wed,' Kiall told him.

'Betrothed?'

'No.'

'What then?' asked Chareos, mystified.

'She was going to marry another man. His father owns the whole of the east pasture land and it was a good match.'

'But she loved you?'

'No,' admitted Kiall. 'No, she never did.' The young man hauled himself into the saddle.

'I don't understand,' said Chareos. 'You are setting off on a quest to rescue a woman who doesn't love you?'

'Tell me again what a fool I am,' Kiall said.

'No, no, forgive me for that. I am older than you, and cynical, Kiall. But I should not mock. I have no right. But what of her betrothed? Is he dead?'

'No. He has made an arrangement with Ravenna's father and now he will marry her younger sister, Karyn — she was not taken.'

'He did not grieve for long then,' Chareos observed.

'He never loved her; he just wanted her because she is beautiful and her father is rich — he breeds pigs, cattle and horses. He is the ugliest man I ever saw, but his daughters have been touched by Heaven.'

Chareos picked up the boy's sabre and handed it to him, hilt first.

Kiall gazed down at the blade. 'There's little point in my carrying this sword. I have no skill with such things.'

'You are wrong,' said Chareos, smiling. 'You've a good hand, a fast eye and a proud heart. All you lack is tuition. I'll supply that — as we search for Ravenna.'

'You'll come with me? Why?'

'Never count the teeth of a gift horse,' answered Chareos, moving to the grey and stepping into the saddle. The horse trembled.

'Oh no,' whispered Chareos. The stallion bucked violently, then reared and twisted in the air and Chareos flew over his head to land in the snow with a bone-jarring thud. The stallion walked forward to stand over him. He pushed himself upright and remounted.

'A strange beast,' observed Kiall. 'I don't think he likes you.'

'Of course he does, boy. The last man he didn't like he trampled to death.'

Chareos touched his heels to the stallion and led the way south.

He stayed some lengths ahead of Kiall as they rode through the morning, aware that he had no answers which the boy would understand. He could have told him of a child thirty years ago who had no hope, save that a warrior named Attalis had rescued him and become a father to him. He could tell him of a mother also named Ravenna, a proud, courageous woman who had refused to leave the husband she adored, even for the son she loved. But to do so would mean sharing a secret that Chareos carried with shame — a duty unfulfilled, a promise broken. He felt the fresh breeze whispering against his skin, and could smell the trees and the promise of snow. He glanced at the sky.

There was nothing he could say to Kiall. The boy was happy. The legendary Blademaster had agreed to accompany him and in Kiall's mind success was assured.

Chareos' thoughts turned to the farm-girl and the man who loved her — just as he had loved Tura, a hopeless one-sided emotion. Yet even now, after the bitterness and the pain, Chareos would walk through a lake of fire if Tura needed him. But she did not need him… she never had.

No, the one in need was a pig-breeder's daughter. He twisted in the saddle and looked back at Kiall, who smiled and waved.

Returning his gaze to the mountains ahead, Chareos remembered the day Tura had left him. He was sitting alone in the small courtyard behind the house. The sun was sinking behind the clouds, which seemed to burn like red fire. Finn had found him there.

The bowman sat alongside him on the stone seat. 'She didn't love you, man,' said Finn, and Chareos had wept like a child. For some time Finn sat in silence, then he placed his hand on Chareos' shoulder and spoke softly. 'Men dream of many things, Blademaster. We dream of fame we can never know, or riches we can never win. But the most foolish of all is the dream of love, of the great abiding love. Let it go.'

'I can't,' answered Chareos.

'Then mask it, for the troops are waiting and it is a long ride to Bel-azar.'

The stag dipped its head to the stream, its long tongue lapping at the clear water. Something struck it a wicked blow in the side; its head came up and an arrow sliced through one eye, deep into the brain. Its forelegs buckled and it dropped to the earth, blood seeping from its mouth.

The two hunters rose from the bushes and splashed across the stream to the carcass. Both were wearing buckskins, fringed and beaded, and they carried curved hunting-bows of Vagrian horn. The younger of the men — slight, blond-haired, with wide eyes of startling blue — knelt by the stag and opened the great artery of the beast's throat. The other man, taller and heavily bearded, stood watching the undergrowth.

There's no one about, Finn,' said the blond hunter. 'You are getting old, and starting to imagine things.'

The bearded man swore softly. 'I can smell the bastards — they're hereabouts. Can't see why. No raiding for them. No women. But they're here, right enough. Puking Nadren!'

The smaller man disembowelled the stag and began to skin the carcass with a double-edged hunting-knife. Finn notched an arrow to his bow and stood glaring at the undergrowth opposite.

'You are making me nervous,' the younger man told him.

'We been together twenty years, Maggrig, and you still read sign like a blind man reads script.'

Truly? Who was it last year said the Tattooed Men were hunting? Stayed guard for four days and not a sight of the head-hunters?'

They were there. They just didn't want to kill us right then,' said Finn. 'How long you going to be quartering that beast?'

Just then four men rose from the bushes on the other side of the stream. They were all armed with bows and swords, but no arrows were notched and the blades were scabbarded.

'You want to share some of that?' called a lean, bearded man.

'We need it for the winter store. Deer are mighty scarce these days,' Finn told him. Maggrig, kneeling beside the carcass, sheathed his hunting-knife and took up his bow, sliding an arrow from his quiver.

'There's two more on this side,' he whispered.

'I know,' said the older man, cursing inwardly. With two Nadren hidden in the undergrowth behind them, they were trapped.

'You are not being very friendly,' said the Nadren warrior as he and the others began to wade towards the hunters.

'You can stop there,' Finn told him, drawing back the bow-string. 'We are in no need of company.' Maggrig, confident that Finn could contain the men at the stream, notched an arrow to his bow, his blue eyes scanning the undergrowth to the rear. A bowman rose from the bushes with his arrow aimed at Finn's back. Maggrig drew and loosed instantly, his shaft flashing through the man's throat, and the raider's arrow sailed over Finn and splashed down into the water before the four men.

'I didn't order him to do that,' said the lean man across the water, waving his arm at the men alongside him. They began to back away but Finn said nothing, his eyes fixed on them.

'The other one is ready to chance a shaft,' whispered Maggrig. 'Do you have to stand there inviting it?'

'Hell's Gates, I'm tired of standing around in the cold,' said Finn. 'Make the whoreson show himself.' Maggrig drew back on the bow-string and sent an arrow slicing into the bushes. There was a yelp of surprise and a bowman reared up with a shaft through his upper arm. Finn spun on his heel and sent a second arrow into the man's chest and he fell face down into the undergrowth. Finn swung back, but the men across the stream had vanished into the bushes.