The men of his menie were camped outside. Only his arms-man sat on a low stool polishing a battle helm with a dirty rag. A pot hung on its chain over the flames, and from it came a scent to bring juices into my mouth, though in other days I might have thought such a stew poor enough fare.
He turned his head as I shut the door behind me, to regard me with that sharp, measuring look that was one of his principal weapons against his own kind. Tired and worn as I was, I stiffened my will and went to meet him firmly.
“Kerovan of Ulmsdale.” He did not make a question of that, rather a statement
I raised my gloved hand in half-salute as I would to any of the lords commanding.
“Herewith.”
“You are late.”
“I was on scout I rode from camp at your message,” I returned levelly.
“So. And how went your scout?”
As tersely as I could, I told him what my handful of men and I had seen.
“So they advance along the Calder, do they? Yes, the rivers make them roads. But it is of Ulmsdale that I would speak. So far they have only landed in the south. But now Jorby has fallen – “
I tried to remember where Jorby might lie. But I was so tired it was hard to form any map picture in my mind. Jorby was port for Vastdale.
“Vastdale?” I asked.
Lord Imgry shrugged. “If it has not yet fallen it cannot hold out. But with Jorby in their hands they can edge farther north. And Ulmsport is only beyond the Cape of Black Winds. If they can strike in there and land a large enough force, they will come down from the north and crack us like a marax shell in a cook’s chopper!”
This was enough to push aside the heavy burden of my fatigue. The force I had brought south with me was a small one, but every man in it had been a grievous loss to Ulmsdale. And since then there had been five deaths among our number, and three so sorely wounded they could not raise weapons now, if ever. If the enemy invaded at Ulmsport, I knew that my father and his people would not retreat, but neither could they hope to hold for long against the odds those of Alizon would throw against them. It would mean the ruinous end of all I had known.
As he spoke, Lord Imgry took a bowl from the table, scooping into it with a long-handled ladle some of the simmering stew. He put the steaming bowl back on the table and made a gesture.
“Eat. You look as if you would be the better for it.”
There was little grace about” that invitation, but I did not need much urging. His armsman rose and pushed his stool over for me. On that I collapsed rather than sat, reaching for the bowl, too hot yet to dip into, but, having shed my riding gloves, I warmed my chilled hands by cupping them about its sides.
“I have had no news out of Ulmsdale for – “ How long had it been? One day in my mind slid into another. It seemed that I had always been tired, hungry, cold, under the shadow of fear – and this had gone on forever.
“It would be wise for you to ride north.” Imgry had gone back to the fire, not turning his head toward me as he spoke. “We cannot spare you any force of men, not more than one armsman – “
It rasped my pride that he would deem me fearful of traveling without an escort. I thought that my services as scout must have proved that I could manage such a ride without detaching any force save myself from his company.
“I can go alone,” I said shortly. And began sipping at the stew, drinking it from the bowl since there was no spoon offered me. It was heartening and I relished it.
He made no protest. “Well enough. You should ride with the morn. I shall send a messenger to your men, and you can remain here.”
I spent the rest of the night wrapped in my cloak on the floor of the house. And I did indeed ride with the first light, two journey cakes in a travel pouch, and a fresh mount that Lord Imgry’s armsman brought to me. His lord did not bid me farewell, nor did he leave me good-speed wishes.
The way north could not be straight, and not always could I follow any road if I would make speed, taking mainly sheep tracks and old cattle paths. There were times when I dismounted and led my horse, working a way along steep dale walls.
I carried a fire touch with me and could have had a fire to warm and brighten the nights I sheltered in some shepherd’s hut, but I did not. For this was wild country, and we had already heard rumors that the wolves of the Waste were raiding inland, finding rich pickings in the dales where the fighting men had gone. For my mail and weapons, my mount, I would be target enough to draw such.
Mainly I spent the nights in dales, at keeps where I was kept talking late by the leaders of pitiful garrisons to supply the latest news, or in inns where the villagers were not so
openly demanding but none the less eager to hear. On the fifth day, well after nooning, I saw the Giant’s Fist, that beacon crag of my own homedale. There were clouds overhead, and the wind was chill. I thought it well to speed my pace. The rough traveling was wearing on my horse, and I had been trying to favor him. But if I dropped down to the trader’s road, I would lose time now, so I kept to the pasture trails.
Not that that saved me. They must have had their watchers in the crags ready for me to walk into a trap. And walk into it I did, leading my plodding horse, just at the boundaries of Ulmsdale.
There was no warning given me as there had been that other time when death had lain in ambush. So I went to what might have been slaughter with the helplessness of a sheep at butchering time.
The land here was made for such a deed, as I had to come along a narrow path on the edge of a drop. My horse threw up its head and nickered. But the alert was too late. A crashing blow between my shoulders made me loose the reins and totter forward. Then, for a moment of pure horror, I was falling out and down.
Darkness about me – dark and pain that ebbed and flowed with every breath I drew. I could not think, only feel. Yet some instinct or need to survive set me scrabbling feebly with my hands. And that urge worked also in my darkened mind, so that even though I could not think coherently, I was dimly aware that I was lying face-down, my head and shoulders lower than the rest of me, jammed in among bushes.
I believe that my fall must have ended in a slide and that those bushes saved my life by halting my progress down to the rocks at the foot of the drop. If my attackers were watching me from above, they must have thought I had fallen to my death, or they certainly would have made a way down to finish me with a handy rock.
Of such facts I was not then aware, only of my pain of body and a dim need to better my position. I was crawling before I was conscious of what I must do. And my struggles led to another slide and more dark.
The second time I recovered my senses it was because of water, ice cold with the chill of a hill spring as it washed against my cheek. Sputtering, choking, I jerked up my head, trying to roll away from that flood. A moment later I was head-down once more, lapping at the water, its coldness adding to my shivering chili, but still clearing my head, ordering my thoughts.
How long I had lain in my first fall I did not know, but it was dark now, and that dusk was not a figment of my weakened brain I was sure. The moon was rising, unusually bright and clear. I pulled myself up to a sitting position.
It had not been Waste outlaws who had attacked me, or they would have come to plunder my mail and weapons and so finished me off. The thought awoke a horror in me. Had Lord Imgry’s suggestion already come to a terrible conclusion here? Had the invaders moved in to occupy Ulmsdale, and had one of their scout parties met me?