Daeghrefn glanced angrily at Verminaard, who met his gaze directly. The first of the speakers had broken protocol, had addressed this supplanter rather than the rightful Lord of Nidus.
The pale eyes of the young man met the dark eyes of the older. Daeghrefn felt a chill pass down his back, and he shivered involuntarily. He might as well be staring at his old friend-his old enemy-Laca Dragonbane.
Graaf continued, his voice acquiring resonance and
strength. "And indeed there is no song of the harp this evening, gold string and sound of heaven, to gladden even the harshest voice with song. No song of the harp, for Robert the seneschal did not return from Neraka Forest."
Daeghrefn winced. Robert had always been the harper at the Minding-a surprising talent, for the rough old soldier had played like a bard.
"But here is the way your servant remembers," Graaf announced, his voice gaining power and confidence as he stepped away from the table. "To the best of his saying, these things he remembers.
"We had searched for Verminaard, Son of the Storm-crow," the grizzled sergeant began, raising his cup in the ceremonial stance of the scop, the teller, the rememberer. "We had searched for Aglaca, Son of the West. We had searched for them south of the forest where the victims of banditry hang dried and blackened like unpicked grapes, where wild cats roam in the bleeding woodland, where the trees scream of murder and conspiracies."
He took a deep breath and handed the cup to Tangaard. The burly young cavalryman drank fully, with a defiant glare at Lord Daeghrefn, then stood, raised the cup, and continued the story.
"It was then that the fire from the south overtook us," Tangaard began. "It caught us like beasts at the edge of the forest, at the forest's edge where Fittela fell. Then came the ogres, mark-steppers, man-eaters, falling on Thunar, finest of swordsmen, then upon Ullr, wielder of hammers, dear to Majere and fierce Kiri-Jolith."
Tangaard could no longer speak. The men kept respectful silence. It was well known that Tangaard and Ullr were the oldest and best of friends.
Mutely, glaring with rage at Daeghrefn, the young man handed the cup to Mozer.
Where Mozer had found the courage to join in the Minding, none could say. He was the softest of the men
who had traveled with Daeghrefn-an aristocrat's son from Sanction, and he had gibbered and wept in the midst of the burning forest. Yet something had happened to him on the fire-struck plains. His eyes were deeper now, strangely fathomless, and he drank from the cup wearily and reverently, as a pilgrim might at the altar of some ancient shrine.
"Asa the Bright One, Longbow of Lemish, fell to the fire in a cauldron of cedar…."
Aglaca, standing in a shadowy corner of the hall, dropped his head. He had almost forgotten Asa's love of the bow-the big, gap-toothed westerner, ready with laughter and arrows.
"Asa the Bright One," Mozer continued, "and after him Reginn, Son of the Smith and the Hammer of Reorx. None can remember a stronger hand, the foe of rock, the destroyer of ramparts. Fallen to fire, to the leveling blazes, and abandoned deep in Neraka's forest."
Furtively, without looking at the Lord of Nidus, Mozer extended the cup toward Aglaca, beckoning him toward the hearth and the table.
Aglaca shook his head, waving away the invitation. He could not speak of what he had seen.
Aglaca had looked away, or tried to look away, on the fire-torn fields south of Nidus when Verminaard offered to cover their retreat. He had known well what would happen, but the men in his charge were stunned and weakened, and if the dazed ogres had come to themselves before he and Judyth could get the men into the castle…
So he had left Verminaard to cover their retreat. He was not proud of it.
His back to the battlefield, Aglaca had heard the sound of the mace as it whirled and roared, had heard it descend on the stunned, defenseless ogres, the wet, breaking sound of metal against powerless bone, Verrninaard's
exultant cries as again and again he brought down the black, shimmering weapon.
Aglaca shuddered and clenched his fists. He had secreted Judyth in the elaborate garden, far from the notice of Verminaard, Daeghrefn, Cerestes-the whole evil lot of them. She was hidden for a while, but she was hardly safe. And if anything happened to him, she would be as good as dead in the viper's pit that Nidus had become.
And yet he would not leave, would not return to Solamnia. The gebo-naud was deeply binding, and his father's words returned to him over the miles and years: No son of mine is an oath-breaker, Aglaca. Remember that in the halls of Nidus.
And, after all, the man at that table was his brother.
The cup had passed on now, into the hands of Gundling. Perhaps the best of Daeghrefn's soldiers, this man had been a bandit himself, and a good one, but had balked at the raising of the dark temple in the midst of his village and at the ogres brought in to construct the walls around the Dark Queen's stronghold.
Gundling was a man of few illusions and fewer sympathies. And yet he was honorable, and he lifted the cup and drank from it, his eyes never leaving Lord Daeghrefn. Then slowly, sonorously, he began the end of the story.
"Out of the forest on the northern plains, where the fire had taken the last of the woodland, there we lost Aschraf, who was not yet himself in the lists of battle. Bold as a wolf, the bearer of promises, he fell to the fire, and the fire found him worthy. Robert the Seneschal, Robert the Harper, the last of our number to fall in the battle, left in the midst of fire and ogres, loyal to Nidus in the rear guard of armies. While the gates of the, castle, the gates of the ear, were closed to his cries, Robert the Seneschal drew the last sword in the burning of memories."
All of the men kept the silence. Gundling held forth the
cup, for any taker, any man who could complete the story. Aglaca looked wonderingly at the assembled soldiers: None of them remembered the dark wings over the moon, the welling, paralyzing fear that had passed across the high prairie and then vanished, leaving them scattered and dazed and forlorn.
None, that is, except Aglaca himself. And Verminaard, of course, who now sat on a stool by the fire, his gaze fixed on the guttering flames and his hands folded softly, almost prayerfully under his chin. He would not take the cup to end the story; traditionally, that was the duty of the lord of the castle.
When Daeghrefn moved toward the cup, there was a sharp intake of breath from one of the men-Mozer, perhaps, or Tangaard. Slowly the Lord of Nidus extended his hand, grasped the jeweled goblet, drank the dregs of the wine…