Eithne's knees buckled then, as if something-or Someone-withdrew a hand that had worn her like a glove. She shook her head as Edain tried to help her, then almost fell. When he caught her in his arms the eyes rolled up in her head and she went limp; somehow he'd been expecting her to be heavier, but it was the familiar slender form he picked up, though her head rolled against his shoulder. Cold fear worse than any he'd felt in the fight clawed at his gut as he bore her over to the aid station the nuns had set up, letting the spear fall to lie in the wet trampled grass.
One of them bent over the pallet he laid her on, pushed back an eyelid, felt her forehead and took her pulse with professional briskness. He showed her how to unbuckle the brigandine along the side and draw it off.
"Just stress and exhaustion, but a bad case of it," the nun said, clucking her tongue and drawing blankets over her. "A young girl's got no business doing this! She'll be fine with sleep and a good meal-just a few little cuts and scratches and some bruising here. Now, if you're not going to help, young man, get out! She won't be waking for a good many hours, and I've got urgent cases to see to."
Edain blew out his cheeks in a whistle of relief and backed away; they were busy here, and he would be as useless as an udder on a bull.
Rudi and the local lord had dismounted, holding their horses' heads not far away as they spoke.
"Remind me never to piss your people off, Rudi," Juhel said with feeling.
He looked at the spray of dead where the Mackenzies had struck out of the fog with surprise and terror at their backs; bodies in the mud with gray fletched arrows in them, or tumbling gashed and bloodless in the cold seawater. He shook his head.
"Dad fought at the Battle of Mount Angel back in the Protector's War, and evidently he wasn't exaggerating."
While he spoke, a crossbowman with his arm in a sling came up leading a pony Edain recognized. Young Gas ton was on it again, looking none the worse except for some dirt and bruises. Garbh trotted at his heel, then dashed over to Edain and gave a single bark as if to say, The job's done.
The baron's heir gulped a little at some of the sights around him and went paler, but sat his pony proudly beside his father. Juhel looked at him for a moment with a quiet and tender delight that went oddly with the blood-splashed armor and sword, and put his hand on his shoulder.
Then he looked at Edain and smiled. "I've thanked Rudi," he said. "But I haven't thanked you yet, Master Aylward. I saw you save my son. That was bravely done, and done for strangers."
Edain felt himself blush to the roots of his hair, and shrugged awkwardly as they shook hands.
"It's a poor excuse for a man who won't fight for his host, or help out a little kid caught in a battle," he said shortly. "Besides, I didn't notice these Haida buggers telling me they wouldn't hurt me if I were to kindly stand aside."
Rudi grinned. "He's a good man to have your back," he said, and clapped Edain on his. "And that's a fact."
Juhel laughed. "I don't doubt it. Fought with you before, has he?"
"No," Rudi said. "This was your first real fight, eh, Edain?"
The younger Aylward nodded, and the Chief's son went on: "But I thought he would be someone I wanted with me if it came to one. Now I know it."
Juhel's brows went up. "If that was your first fight, I'd hate to see what you'll be like in ten years! But you did save my son; you put your back between him and those arrows. Name a reward, and if it's mine, it's yours. In honor I can't do less."
Edain drew himself up despite the burning tiredness that made him want to crawl into the nearest haystack and sleep for a year.
"I didn't do it for that, sir," he said. "I'll take your thanks, and that's all that's needed-the gods and the Three Spinners will see to any reward."
Juhel looked bewildered, and Edain cursed himself as he saw the beginnings of offense. For a fact, he didn't understand how an Association noble's mind worked. Outsiders didn't understand Mackenzies, and that was a fact too.
"There is a gift you could give him, Juhel, and one he'd value highly, though he'd never ask for it," Rudi said.
He was grinning again, like a fox for all that his totem was Raven.
"What's that?" Juhel said. "Horses? Weapons? Gold? Land, even?"
"Better than that. Write a letter to his father, telling what he did-and that he wouldn't take anything for it, either. I'll deliver it."
Edain stifled an impulse to shuffle his feet. His father wouldn't say much, just smile to himself and nod. He blushed again and fought not to grin.
"I will write, then," the baron said. He looked at the son of the Mackenzie chieftain, a long considering glance. "Your people don't have princes, Rudi, do they?"
Rudi looked a little impatient as he replied: "I'm not even really a lord, Juhel; just the Chief's tanist. My moth er's Chief, and I may be after her-if the Clan wants me, and for as long as they want me. No, no princes."
"That may be a great pity," Juhel said thoughtfully, then looked around. "Now, I'd better get to work."
Ingolf raised his brows as the story came to an end; si lence fell, save for the low crackle of the fire and the howl of the blizzard outside.
Well, I guess there is a reason Rudi picked the kid. Though from the sound of it, maybe his girlfriend would have been just as good a choice… no, too spooky.
Edain yawned enormously, breaking the quiet that had followed his tale.
"Yeah, even if we can sleep in late tomorrow, we'd better get some rest," Rudi said.
Edain nodded, mumbled something, and slept with sudden finality. Ingolf drifted off next; his last sight was Rudi dropping a careful handful of sticks on the coals.
Rudi Mackenzie knew that he dreamed. But the dream was different. .. this time he was a viewpoint, detached.
Same place, he thought.
The little overhang was still there. The trees weren't, though a few charred stumps still showed where they'd burned. Great gullies scarred the mountainside instead, the mark of torrential rains long gone; the only other vegetation he could see was a few stems of some thorny brush, and those were dead. A white-gray light pervaded everything, but he couldn't see all that far. The air held no haze-it was painfully clear-but somehow he had a sense that it was thick with a crushing weight. Thick and hot, very hot, like a sauna just at the edge of your ability to bear, so that rocks and clods glimmered in the middle distance.
A body lay under the overhang, dressed in a seamless overall of some odd silvery stuff that merged into boots and gloves of the same, and into the base of a helmet like a glass bowl. The face within was a sunken-eyed mummy's, desiccated into the texture of leather and an eternal snarl of yellow teeth, gray-white hair still stubbly on the scalp.
The dream seemed to last for a very long time. The slow heavy wind blew; now and then a piece of rock would flake off the barren mountainside and skitter downwards. Nothing else happened. Nothing else ever would.
"Huh!" He woke with a start.
"Last up, Chief," Edain said cheerfully, and handed him a bowl full of the oatmeal.
Cold sweat prickled under his arms and at the back of his neck where his hair lay on the skin. The horrors of the dream faded, leaving only an overwhelming sorrow; it was as if he felt another's grief, and that too large for a human mind and spirit to contain. Then that lifted too, as he shook his head to clear it. The little shelter was dark, just a little red glow from the fire… and a trace of cold grayish light down the improvised bark chimney.
"Storm's passed," Ingolf said, wolfing down the thick fruit studded gruel. "But it's four feet deep out there, I'd say."