Teriyan just looked at him for a moment. Then resumed his stance, wordlessly. The next time he attacked, it was faster and harder. Two blows had Jaryd reeling, and the third took his leg from under him. Then he was on his back, blinking into that darkening blue sky, with Teriyan's stanch pressed point-first into his chest.
“You're an angry little bunny, aren't you?” Teriyan observed. “You really think your grand revenge will come sooner for all your puffing and blowing?”
Jaryd knocked the stanch aside and climbed slowly to his feet. He ached and throbbed all over. He'd run that morning, performed the most tiring stable chores after that, then practised taka-dans and knife throwing beneath the old vertyn tree at the ranch, then gone hunting with bow and arrow for game in the wild hills. He'd only managed a rabbit, but it was all experience. When he had been heir of Tyree, he'd always believed that enemies were most honourably killed in single combat, preferably when challenged to a duel. Lately, however, he'd become less fussy. If the Great Lord Arastyn of Tyree died by formal challenge or by an arrow shot from the bushes in the dark, he cared not either way. Arastyn had invoked Sylden Sarach, an old law, and had dissolved Jaryd's family, stripped him of noble title and perhaps, though no one was certain, even murdered his father.
Jaryd cared little for his lost title. He had not relished the prospect of becoming Great Lord of Tyree in the first place. He had never loved his father, nor had his father loved him. His sisters and younger brother had seemed to accept their fate willingly enough, and Jaryd found in their willingness nothing but contempt for them. Wealth was often nice, but now that he lacked it, he found that he did not miss it particularly. And as for status, every Lenay man worth the name knew that the only true status in Lenayin was honour, and the only true honour came from courage, steadfastness and skill with a blade.
Jaryd did not seek revenge for any of these lost, petty things. When they invoked Sylden Sarach, Arastyn's men had killed Jaryd's little brother Tarryn. For that, all would die.
“Lad, look at you,” Teriyan sighed. “You're a mess. Even Sasha didn't work this hard, and she's harder to keep still than a bobcat with a bee up its arse.”
“I'm fine,” Jaryd muttered, straightening with difficulty. His back was suddenly stiff, and his shoulders hurt-muscle, bone and all. “I grow stronger.”
“Aye, you do. One day soon you'll be so strong, you'll be dead.” Jaryd stretched, gingerly, trying not to wince at the various accumulated pains. Teriyan shook his head. “Look, why don't we grab a meal at the Steltsyn instead? I'll bet it's a damn sight better than whatever mess Lynnie's cooked up for you, and I'll tell you how I read that last overhead cross so easily-”
“I don't need your pity!” Jaryd snarled at him. “I can feed myself, I can train myself, I can claim revenge myself! And I will!”
He stalked off, trying not to limp. Teriyan watched him go, eyes faintly narrowed, stanch across his shoulders, muscular arms hung on the ends.
As Jaryd rode back to the Baerlyn main road, he could smell dinner wafting through town, or smoke that rose from stone chimneys above brown slate roofs. Children looked at him as he passed, guardedly, which was most unlike Lenay children anywhere. Jaryd thought they'd been warned not to bother him. Which suited him fine.
He passed Parrachik's, the moneylender where wagons were waiting down the side lane, and Torovan merchants in bright shirts and broad hats were seated about a table on the verandah, sipping wine with Parrachik himself. All looked at the once heir of Tyree as he passed. All nodded, cautiously, as Jaryd's dark stare passed over them. He felt that he would burn alive from the heat of his shame. He wanted to strike the heads off those smug bastards, but none of it mattered. He deserved his shame. His little brother Tarryn was dead. He, the big brother Tarryn had so looked up to and adored, had been incapable of protecting him. The men who had killed Tarryn would all die screaming, and until that blessed day arrived, all other concerns were as nothing to him. For that day he worked, and strove, with every fibre of his being.
Past the Steltsyn Star, the inn bustling as the meals were prepared and the fires lit, and Jaryd dug in his heels. His horse was a fine chestnut gelding, taken from a fallen Hadryn cavalryman at the Battle of Ymoth after Jaryd's own horse had been felled. It was good to have a horse of his own. He wanted as little of Baerlyn's, or Sashandra Lenayin's charity, as he could possibly accept.
It was nearly dark by the time he reached the ranch, and he saw lamplight glowing from the house windows as he galloped across the open, grassy slope, and then came the barking of the boarhounds. Jaryd skirted the huge, broad vertyn tree, and its surrounding vegetable gardens and chicken run, and headed for the stables.
He stabled his horse in the empty place once reserved for Sashandra's big black, and trudged on weary legs down the grassy slope toward the glowing lights. On the rear verandah, the boarhounds, Kaif and Keef, sniffed at him and wagged their tails-Jaryd gave them each a scratch between the ears, and pushed through the rear door into the kitchen.
Beyond the kitchen, a visitor stood before the fireplace, a cup in hand. He was a young man, dressed in plain travelling clothes, yet even that could not hide the refinement of his bearing. There was a silver clasp at his collar, and a neck chain too. His short red hair shone faintly in the firelight, his skin pale, his features fine, a light dusting of freckles across nose and cheeks. He looked at Jaryd, and his light green eyes registered at first surprise, and then caution. Finally, he gave a weak, sheepish smile.
“Jaryd,” he said.
“You,” said Jaryd. “You get the fuck out of this house.” The young lordling's face fell. The extra horse must have been stabled with the others, Jaryd realised, but he hadn't noticed. Damn he was tired.
“You can't boss him about,” said Lynette from Jaryd's side in the kitchen, “this isn't your house.” Jaryd stared at her, blankly. Stupid pest of a girl. He hadn't seen her either, there at her kitchen bench chopping vegetables. She had long, tangled red hair, a flaming red unlike this new arrival's pale rose. She was skinny and freckled, and a pain in the neck. Worst of all, she was Teriyan Tremel's daughter, a dear friend of Sashandra's, and was in fact, if not in title, the person-most-senior for the entire gods-damned ranch. At sixteen summers.
Jaryd didn't mind taking instruction from a woman beneath a roof, least of all in the kitchen. That was the way through most of Lenayin-men ruled outside, and women ruled within. But this brat was a horsewoman too, and an annoyingly good one, even if she couldn't see the point of lagand. Around the ranch, all of his victories at grand lagand tournaments, all of his fame as a rider and a horseman and victor in countless swordwork contests, all counted for nothing.
“Aeryl, don't mind him,” Lynette called, returning attention to her vegetables. “He's just grumpy all the time. You've my invitation to stay, and Andreyis's too.”
“M'Lady,” said Aeryl with a light bow. “Jaryd come, share a drink with me.” Earnestly. “It's so good to see you, I can't tell you how…”
He stepped forward, and Jaryd drew his sword. “They sent you, didn't they?” Aeryl stared at the naked steel. “They sent you to talk with me, just like they sent Rhyst to talk with me while they murdered my little brother!”
“Jaryd, you stupid fool!” Lynette yelled at him. “Put it away right now! Andreyis!”
“Jaryd, I swear, I wasn't even at Rathynal, my sister was ill in childbirth, we were not certain that she would live-”
“Liar! You're all the same, all the Tyree nobility, all a mob of liars and murderers and honourless thieves!”