Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

“Cerrmor men, are you?” the Boar yelled. “But I see Wolf blazons with you.”

“You do, because the Wolves have appealed to the true king to defend their ancestral lands.”

“Hah! The true king in Dun Deverry has awarded me these lands by right of blood feud.”

“It all comes down to king against king, doesn’t it?” Dannyn gave a good-humored laugh. “You piss-proud excuse for a noble swine.”

With a howl Burcan hurled his javelin straight at him. Dannyn calmly bounced it off his shield into the dirt. Shouting, screaming, the Boarsmen charged as javelins arched up and whistled in the sun. As she spurred her horse forward, Gweniver drew her sword. She wanted Burcan himself, curse him, and curse Dannyn, too, who was trading blows with the lord in the midst of the battle. The lines met, the men peeling off, whirling around each other in a hacking, shouting mob of single combats. Gweniver’s laughter started as she cut and slashed her way through. Just as she reached Dannyn’s side, the hidden warband broke free of the trees and plunged onto the Boar’s rear. A shout went up, but there was no way that the Boarsmen could escape the trap.

“Gwen!” Dannyn shouted. “He’s yours!”

Guarding himself with a fling of his shield, Dannyn wrenched his horse round and let her close with Burcan. She heard her hatred well out of her mouth in a long laugh as she caught his swing on her shield and thrust in, only to have him parry with his blade. For a moment their swords hung locked as she stared him in the face and laughed. She saw him turn pale with fear, and as always, the sight of cowardice drove her into a red fury. She broke free, thrust again, and realized that everything had turned very slow.

Slowly she glided her sword round to cut up from below; slowly Burcan’s blade drifted toward hers and turned it back, just as if they moved in a dance—some courtly grave circling that made every movement, every moment, preternaturally sharp—so they traded blows. A noise like wind swept over them, a dark night wind howling and sweeping the battle sound away. When Burcan made a clumsy thrust that she blocked on her shield, she realized that he was out of time to the dance. Ever so slowly his horse tossed its head and blocked its master’s thrust. Urging her horse with her knees, she leaned and crept round to the flank position. Before he could turn, she struck in a leisurely drift. Her blade floated down onto his shield arm so slowly, so lightly, that it seemed unbelievable when he swore, swayed, and dropped the shield. The wind whined and moaned as she thrust forward, her arm and sword like a single spear biting into his side. With a choking scream of pain, he wrenched his horse’s head around as if to flee, but again he misjudged the dance.

She was there to block his way. Leaning in the saddle, clutching the peak with both hands, he stared at her while blood oozed ever so slowly down his side.

“Mercy,” he whispered. “I’ll cede your claim.”

Gweniver hesitated, but she saw her father, riding next to her and watching with sorrowful eyes. With a straight cut she slashed the Boar across the eyes, heard him scream, slashed back from the other and saw him fall, sliding off his horse, hitting the ground hard as around them horses reared and bucked to avoid trampling him. Her father saluted her with a shadowy sword, then disappeared. At that same instant the world came back, the wind turning into the screaming, shouting battle noise.

“Gweniver!” It was Ricyn’s voice. “To Gweniver!”

Suddenly her men were all around her, fighting hard, yelling, driving back the Boarsmen who were on the verge of mobbing her. Silver horns sang out as the enemy line broke and fled in rout with Dannyn’s men charging after.

“Well played, my lady!” Ricyn crowed. “Oh, well played!”

So it was over, then. Her long summer’s hatred lay trampled with Burcan on the bloody field. As dazed as if she’d been struck on the head, she lowered her sword and wondered why she wasn’t weeping in joy. Ricyn certainly was. All at once she knew that she would never weep again, and that the Goddess had claimed her utterly.

After the army had rested from the battle, Dannyn left fifty men with Gwetmar as reinforcements, then led the remainder back to Cerrmor. As they rode through the gray, rain-slick streets of the city, he felt melancholy settle round him like a wet cloak. Unless the new head of the Boars did something utterly foolish, the summer’s campaigning was at an end. When they reached the dun, he reported to the king, then went up to his chamber and took a bath. He was just dressing again when Saddar the councillor came to the door to request a word with him.

“Show him in,” Dannyn said to his page. “We’ll see what the tedious old fart has to say for himself.”

Grinning, the lad did as he was bid, but Saddar told him to stay out in the corridor while he and the captain talked.

“Now, here,” Dannyn snapped. “Why did you order my lad away?”

“Because what I have to say is too grave a thing to trust to young ears.” The councillor sat himself down unasked in a chair and smoothed his black robes. “I know, of course, that I can trust Lord Dannyn’s discretion in this. Indeed, I’ve come here in the hopes that you’ll lay my suspicions to rest and tell me that I’m quite mistaken to have them.”

If that’s true, Dannyn thought to himself, then it’ll be the first time in his useless life that he wanted to hear he was wrong.

“What suspicions?” he said aloud.

“Ah, the thing is so vile that I can hardly bear to say it aloud.” Saddar did indeed look quite distressed. “A matter of sacrilege, or I should say, possible sacrilege. Far be it from me to insult a lady who might well be blameless.”

He looked at Dannyn as if he expected him to understand exactly what he meant.

“What lady?” Dannyn said.

“Lady Gweniver, of course. I see that I’d best be blunt, no matter how deeply it pains me to do so. Now you’ve been in her company for months, my lord. Have you noticed how—well, on what intimate terms she seems to be with her captain? It would be a grave and horrible thing if she broke her sacred vows. I’m sure that doom would come upon us all if the Dark Goddess were wrathful. Please, I beg you to tell me that their friendship is only the sort of close tie that warriors often have with a fellow.”

“As far as I know, it is. By the hells, old man, her men would murder her, I’ll wager, if they thought she was committing sacrilege. They know their lives depend upon her.”

“Ah, well, then that relieves my heart.” He sighed dramatically. “It was just that matter of the blood vow, you see, that—”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Why, Lady Gweniver swore a blood oath with young Ricyn. Surely you knew that.”

Dannyn felt his rage flare up like an oil-soaked fire.

“I didn’t, at that.”

“Oh. Well, I did wonder, seeing as his lordship is often distracted by matters of war. But you can see my concern.”

With an inarticulate growl Dannyn paced to the window, grabbed the sill with both hands, and stared blindly out while he trembled in fury. No matter what he’d said to the councillor, he suddenly believed that she’d broken her oath of chastity, that she and Ricyn had profaned themselves, and probably many a time. He never even saw the councillor leave, which was a pity, because Saddar was smiling to himself in a most undistressed way.

It was only later, when he was calm again, that Dannyn took the somewhat maddened next step in his line of thinking. If Gweniver had already broken the vow, why by all the gods shouldn’t he have her, too?

It was a few days later that Nevyn happened to be crossing the ward while Gweniver was assembling her warband near the gates. He paused to watch as she and Ricyn mounted their horses. They made a handsome pair, both golden-haired and handsome. And doomed, he thought to himself. Oh, ye gods, how long can I bear to stay here and watch their Wyrd? As he walked on, his heart was so heavy with his brooding that he nearly ran into Dannyn.