“This close to your camp?” Darin and Gerik asked in one voice.
“Even so. The closer to the enemy’s camp, the greater the honor in a successful ambush.”
“We shall have to see that none of your enemies gain honor this day,” Darin said. It was one of those speeches of his in which each word came down like a hammer on a stone. Hearing him, it was hard to believe he ever laughed.
Darin’s next words were a proposal that he take the rearguard. Pirvan suggested otherwise, as the vanguard was even more dangerous in the face of an ambush, and also that if Darin were dismounted he would be hard put to overtake his comrades.
With no more than a frown, the big knight obeyed, and afterward Hawkbrother took Pirvan aside, as the others watered their mounts and prepared for the final stage of the journey.
“Your blood-son seems to obey you less than your name-son.”
It took Pirvan a moment to realize that no insult was intended by implying that Gerik was hotheaded and that Darin was Pirvan’s bastard. Hawkbrother had only been a warrior chief, speaking plainly of the strengths and weaknesses of a friendly chief’s warriors.
“Darin is ten years older than Gerik. You are old for your years, so do not judge my son harshly, if you please.”
“But Darin-”
Pirvan did not know what the Free Riders thought of minotaurs. Besides, there was no time to give anyone short of a god the full story of Darin’s upbringing as heir to Waydol.
“He is the son of an honorable warrior, whom I defeated in combat and with whom I afterward swore blood brotherhood. Had I died in our last battle together, he would no doubt have fostered Gerik as I have fostered Darin.”
Pirvan could not hold back a smile, at the thought of what Waydol and Darin together might have made of Gerik. Perhaps not a better fighter, but certainly a man quicker to come to a decision.
But the gods had it otherwise, he realized, and the knights are the better for having Darin’s strength joined to theirs.
“Your pardon, if I have given offense,” Hawkbrother said.
“Idle curiosity may give offense. Seeking to learn a friend’s strengths and weaknesses never should,” Pirvan said.
“Teach that to my brothers,” Hawkbrother said with an edge in his voice, “and some may wish to name you chief of the Gryphons when my father dies.”
Before Pirvan could reply, he heard Eskaia hailing them; the watering was about done and the saddling-up beginning.
Krythis and Tulia had taken their bows with them when they went trysting. This probably deceived few, as there was hardly game large enough for a slingshot, let alone one of the great elven bows, within half a day of Belkuthas.
The citadel’s herds made short work of the grass and leaves, and the shepherds’ bows and spears made short work of wolves and bears. Birds and squirrels thrived, but they were left in peace, by the strict command of the citadel’s master and mistress, their dwarven allies, and Sirbones, their priest of Mishakal, who said little for months on end but healed almost every day and wielded more power than he would ever have dared seek.
Certainly lord and lady did not deceive their daughter. She met them at the postern gate. She wore her usual garb of loosely cut trousers over low boots and a tunic cut high but also fitted snugly. She was half a head taller than even her father, and Krythis said she had the look of his mother, the ranger, who could look all but the tallest men in the eye.
Rynthala ran her eyes over her parents’ garb, then twirled a lock of her father’s hair on one tanned finger.
“A heavy dew this morning, eh?”
Krythis and Tulia had learned not to blush at anything their daughter said, since the days when she could truly be called “little Rynthi.” Otherwise they would have spent much of the time from that day to this blushing.
“Something like that,” Tulia replied levelly.
“Thinking that you will miss having a child about the place when I am gone?” Rynthala went on, as if her mother had not spoken. “You needn’t have waited so long, for I-forgive me. My tongue and my wits aren’t always in step.”
“They have ranger blood, and rangers go their own pace,” Krythis said, but he put an arm around Tulia’s shoulders as he spoke, and felt her quiver. She had borne three children before Rynthala, and not one of them had lived past its third year. Rynthi had taken off the curse, for she seemed to have all her siblings’ vitality added to hers, but there’d been no live births and one miscarriage since Rynthala.
“It is ill-omened to speak of leaving home on this day,” Krythis said with a severity that was not entirely feigned. “Also, have you been at the dwarf spirits? If you have, I will summon Sirbones, and he will-”
“-have nothing to do here,” Rynthala replied. “Please, Father, Mother. I can be just as rude sober as most people when drunk, as you well know.”
Tulia smiled faintly. “As long as you know it, no husband will be tempted to seek death by telling you.”
“I hope if the gods want me wed, they will send me a man who always speaks and hears the truth,” Rynthala said. “But perhaps that kind of fortune does not come twice to the same family.”
She embraced her parents; her arms were nearly long enough to span both of them together. Then she frowned. “Sirbones is fretting about the amount of dwarf spirits at hand. He suggested a small spell on the casks-”
“No,” Krythis said. “I will not so insult our guests, and if Sirbones disobeys me he can resume his travels.
“Besides, our guests are a pretty hardheaded lot. If they get drunk and fall down, it’s more likely the stones will break than their skulls. As for brawls and the like, if Sirbones cannot patch up a cracked rib or a cut lip, perhaps Mishakal should take his staff back.”
“Shall I tell him that?” Rynthala said with an impish grin that made her look about fifteen.
“Gods, no!” Tulia said, then laughed and hugged her daughter back. “Tell him our guests are not the sort to spoil this day for you, and he can trust them to do what is right.”
“I can and will,” Rynthala said, and turned, then broke into a run. She could go from standing to running as swiftly as a great cat, and keep up a blistering pace long enough to run down a deer or make a centaur sweat.
“Husband,” Tulia said. “Did you listen to yourself, just then?”
“Eh?”
She repeated Krythis’s words about Sirbones, and this time the half-elf flushed in a way that his daughter could not have made him do. Then he nodded.
“Well, at least she comes by that forward tongue honestly.”
“Honesty does not stand against blood feuds, nor make men courageous enough to face such a tongue.”
“Some men, perhaps. But they do exist, or otherwise how would I have come to be, and then gone on to wed you?”
With one fist, Tulia punched her husband in the ribs, and then tickled him with the other hand. They followed their daughter’s footsteps.
By dawn, High Captain Zephros (he had promoted himself the moment they were out of sight of Aurhinius’s banner) thought he and the three hundred men with him were safe from pursuit.
They were, at least as far as Gildas Aurhinius or any of the other captains of tax soldiers were concerned. The men, however, were still as likely as not to end up feeding the carrion birds, through too little desert-craft or too many Free Riders coming upon them unexpectedly.
Zephros also faced certain other dangers-if one can speak of “facing” danger one does not know of, and indeed can barely imagine.
Two of his captains wished to be in his place because they thought the men under him deserved a better leader, such as one of them. Nor would Kiri-Jolith, who in matters concerning war and warriors knows all, have disagreed.
Three others wished Zephros dead for reasons of their own. One was a Karthayan, seeking the blood of the man who had slain his compatriot, the Black Robe Rubina, on the north shore of Istar ten years ago. Another served the kingpriest, and thought Zephros should die for his ambitions as a warning to those who might share them. A third wished to avenge kin, dishonored by one of Zephros’s intrigues.