He nodded reluctantly.
“Then can it also be beyond the bounds of belief that we, the flesh of their flesh, have also gifts not usual to others? We were born at one birth, and always have we been locked of spirit, and sometimes of mind. When Kaththea wanted to come forth from that Place, we could do nothing else than bring her. If that makes us meat for any man’s sword, then that is the way matters stand.”
This time Godgar made me no answer, but set his horse on, pulling sharply at the leading reins. We trotted down the rough road in a thick drizzle. Nor did he speak with me again throughout that long morning. We made a noonday stop in a place of rocks where an overhanging ledge gave shelter and there was a supply of wood laid up by a blackened ring of stones to mark a known camping place.
I walked stiffly when they had me down from my horse, for they left my legs free but not my hands. They produced journey bread, dried meat and fruit, little better than field rations. And they loosed my hands to eat, though one of them stood over me until I was done, then promptly applied the lashings again. But to my surprise they did not mount up after they had eaten. Instead one of them set a fire, which we had not needed for the cooking of food, taking what seemed to me unnecessary care in just how the wood was placed. Then, when light was put to that stack of wood, he took a stand to the right of it, a cloak in his hands.
Signaling! Though the code they used was none I knew from my scouting days. Blink, blink, blink, back and forth he snapped the cloak. I stared out on the gloomy countryside, straining to read anywhere along the darkened horizon an answer to those flashes. But without result.
However, my guards seemed satisfied. They kept the fire going, after letting it die down a little, sitting about it while their cloaks and surcoats steamed dry. I watched the sodden countryside. They were waiting—for whom and why?
Godgar cleared his throat, and the sound was loud in that place, for they had not spoken more than a few words since they had dismounted.
“We wait for those who will take you to deliver to the Council guards,” he addressed me. “There will be no one then who can say that you sheltered with Hervon.”
“As you yourself said, when they question me under the Power, the Wise Ones will know all.” I could not understand why he tried the clumsy cover-up of passing me from one party to another.
“Perhaps.”
Then it came to me: there was one way in which I could not be questioned, and that was if I was delivered dead! If my body was so brought in by a middle party, there could be no connection then with Hervon’s people.
“Why leave the throat cutting to another?” I asked then. “You have a sword to your hand.”
When he did not reply I continued: “Or do you wear a rune sword which will flame out with blood on it—to be read thereafter by all men? Your lord was not one with you in this. He would not set point or edge to a man with tied wrists!”
Godgar stirred. His eyes were hot again; I had pricked him then. Hard as he was, old customs still held. And there flashed now into my mind, as if some voice spoke the words into my ears, an oath considered so potent and binding that no man who had ever borne a sword in war could break it.
“You know me—I am Kyllan of Tregarth. I have ridden with the Border Scouts—is that not fact? Have you heard any ill report of such riding?”
He might not understand the why of my asking, but he returned frankly enough:
“I have heard of you with the Scouts. You were a warrior—and a man—in those days.”
“Then listen well, Godgar and you others—” I paused, and then spoke each word that followed with emphasis and measured slowness, as my sister might have delivered one of her chants to summon the Power.
“May I be slain by my own blade, struck by my own darts, if I ever meant any ill to those within the House of Dhulmat, or to any man of Estcarp.”
They stared at me across their veils. I had given them the strongest assurance any of our calling might ever use. Would it hold?
They stirred uneasily, and their eyes went from me to each other. Godgar tugged at his helm veil, bringing it in a loose loop from his jaw as if he were about to eat once more.
“That was ill done!” he barked angrily.
“Ill done?” I shot back. “In what way, Godgar? I have given you Sword Oath that I mean you and yours no ill. What evil lies in that?”
Then I turned to his men. “Do you believe me?”
They hesitated, then he in the center spoke.
“We believe because we must.”
“Then where lies the ill doing?”
Godgar got to his feet and strode back and forth a few paces, his frown blackly heavy. He stopped and rounded on me.
“We have begun a thing for the sake of those to whom we owe allegiance. You are no one, nothing. Why must your fate be made now a shadow on our shield honor? What witchery have you used, outlaw?”
“No witchery, save that which you, and you”—I pointed to each—“and you, and you, Godgar, share with me. I am warrior bred; I did what I had to do in the support of my own allegiances. That put me outside the law of the Council. I came back here because I was laid under another command—the why of it and by whom I have no knowing. But that I meant ill by my coming no Power can prove, for it is not so.”
“Too late.” Another of the guards was standing, pointing into the open.
Dim as the clouds made the scene, the coming riders could be counted. Five . . . six of them.
Godgar nodded in their direction. “Those owe us a battle debt. But since you say you came to Hervon by chance, and have taken oath on it—well, they will turn you in living, not dead. With the Witches you can take your chances and those will not be bright. I—I am not honor broke in this, outlaw!”
“You are not honor broke,” I agreed.
“Wait!”
He who had indicated the riders now spoke more sharply.
“What is—what is that?”
Between the distant riders and our shelter there was open country, covered only with the tall grass. It was at that grass he pointed now. It rippled, was like the sea with each wave troubled and wind tossed. And through it came such a regiment as no man among us had ever seen. Prong-horns, not leaping away in alarm, but gathering with purpose towards us. A shambling bear taking no notice, a grass cat—yellow-brown, but equal to his brothers of the snow lines—smaller things we could not distinguish save for the movement in the grass . . . all headed to us!
“What will they do?” Godgar was disconcerted as he would never have been to see an armed party about to attack. The very unnaturalness of this advance was unnerving.
I struggled to my feet and none reached a hand to stay me, for they were too awed by what they now witnessed.
As the grass was agitated by a gathering of four-footed inhabitants, so was the sky filled in turn. Birds came in flocks out of nowhere, and they swooped, called, strove to reach us under the ledge. These men had endured years of war such as only warrior blood could face, but this was against nature.
I struggled to contact the minds of those closing in upon us. I found that I could contact them, yes, and read their determination—but I could not control them in any manner.
I moved away from the others, who had drawn tightly under the protection of the ledge. The birds whirred, screamed, trilled about me, but they made no move to attack. Grass dwellers gathered about my feet, and wove circles, always facing—not me—but those who had brought me here. I began to walk, out into the open and the rain, away from Godgar and his men.
“Stand—or I shoot!”
I glanced back. His dart gun was out, aimed at me. Through the air came that which I had sought—blue-green, moving swiftly, straight for Godgar’s head. He cried out, and ducked. I walked on, passing a grass cat growling deep in its throat and lashing its tail, looking not to me but to the men behind, past a prong-horn that snorted, struck the earth with blade-sharp hooves, past a gathering army in fur and feathers.