by David Keck
After the better part of a league, the horse began to stagger, and, as it fell out of its cantering rhythm, the drumbeat of the duke's horsemen asserted itself on the road behind them. The duke would overtake them—nothing could prevent it—but a man would not face the Bright Gates of Heaven with a lance in his back.
Dropping into the trail, he hauled his sword free and turned to face his onetime comrades. He would die on his feet.
The woman was shouting at him, but somehow he could not make out what she said. She should run. He tried to make that clear. This had nothing to do with her. It was him they were after, not some woman they had never seen, but it was as though a thunderous wind were snatching the words from his lips.
Two hundred paces down the track, the Host of Hesperand rumbled into sight. He knew them all. He could see lances by the score flickering under the canopy of branches, and hard men on big horses with Eorcan of Hesperand and his tall Peregrine Crown at the forefront. His onetime liege lord would not stop for parley. He had betrayed them all and deserved no reprieve. On Eorcan's dark lance, where there might have been a duke's banner, trailed knots of green rag, some clotted black.
Duke Eorcan raised his lance high and swept its green rags down in the ancient command to bring the charge home.
The woman was tugging at his sleeve, and again her wind-snatched voice was in his ears, vague and desperate. She would be killed, but he had no time. If she must stay, she must stand behind him. At most, he would get one swing. At best, he would sell their lives dearly. Eorcan's deadly lance was coming on.
The woman took hold of his arm. There was something strange about her touch, almost as though she were a creature of cold water. What could she have to tell him?
In a glance, he took in leaves tumbling down and a whole track full of leaves behind her: a world of brown leaves. Red. There was something wrong with that.
Before him, green leaves stormed down the track.
The woman was looking desperately into his eyes.
In an instant, lances would pitch him into the air like a sheaf of wheat. She was saying something, her lips moving.
Durand.
He blinked.
"Durand!" she said again, and, this time, he heard.
The scent of autumn filled his head.
The wall of lancers struck then—a crumbling cloud billowing round—as Durand looked into the depths of Deorwen's eyes, and she said once more, "Durand."
Eorcan and his riders were the dust of crumbled leaves and Durand clung to Deorwen, hanging on as the spent force tumbled past them in clouds. He stared down into those dark, dark eyes, now trembling with tears. They had pulled him from that black dream.
For a long time, and with the force of a convulsion, he kissed her—standing there among the autumn leaves once more, on a straggling trail where autumn Mornaway met Lost Hesperand. The Blood Moon hung pale against a blue Heaven.
The Green Lady's favor had left Hesperand.
18. Mornaway Welcome
Deorwen saw it without turning, just as they finally parted, half-wondering, half-sheepish. 'The bridge!" she said.
Durand wavered as the weight of their strange flight left him. He had been someone else. "No wonder the forest seemed so familiar," she murmured. Durand blinked. "I don't understand." "There," she said and pointed.
Durand turned and saw a glint through the trees: a bit of white masonry half a league across the tawny countryside. It was all so bright So free.
"It's the Forest Bridge," Deorwen said. One hand rested idly on Durand's hip. "It's right by—"
She hesitated, her face oddly empty. She had turned half away. "It goes nowhere anymore. Parties will ride out through the forest just to see it. High Ashes isn't far, I think."
They must already be on the Duke of Mornaway's land. There was a scent of river mud in the autumn damp. "Is it the Glass?" Durand asked.
"Aye. The Glass. They might have come this way. They'd have to cross at the bridge."
"All right," Durand said, nodding. It was possible. He touched her arm, a reassurance.
With the bright Eye of Heaven steaming the Otherworld damp from their cloaks, they led Cerlac's horse down the track. This was open country. Light blazed upon shocks of yellow grass between the trees. The country fell gently toward the river, and the two wanderers quickly lost sight of the bridge as they left the high ground. Long cords of bracken played snare. They startled a flight of pheasants. A red squirrel, inverted, watched them from the bark of a rowan tree. The earth under their feet was stiff and cool.
Durand turned his mind to the others: those they had left in Hesperand. He had seen a man mauled. He remembered another running full-force into a tree. There had been more. If Lamoric did not find his way from the trees, Durand was lost once more with a hard winter coming. And now he must think about Deorwen as well.
"The bridge is the only crossing for leagues," she said. "And if worse comes to worst, there may be help for us."
They heard the Glass pounding away, hidden down a gorge somewhere beyond tawny banks of fern. The air grew damper, and the white bridge hove into view, matched towers of ivy-wrapped stone guarding either end. It looked more like Hesperand than Hesperand.
"No wonder," Deorwen breathed.
Then Durand heard cursing.
At first, he could see nothing beyond the. round towers. With a cautioning hand raised to Deorwen, he trotted up to the nearest of the great stone drums, and stole a look under the gates.
There, in the midst of the span, stood Sirs Ouen, Berchard, and Badan, all fighting with a gray warhorse. The animal, its ears spinning, balanced on planks slapped over a gap in the bridge deck. Heremund the skald perched on a railing, urging them on.
Durand stepped out.
For a moment, no one noticed him, then Heremund happened to glance up. His mouth opened.
"Durand!" he said, after a moment. He seemed more astonished than pleased.
Durand grinned.
All four men looked up, gape-jawed as cattle, then recognition flickered over the whole lot. Everyone dropped what they were doing and tottered over the broken bridge to catch Durand in their arms and pound his back.
"We thought you were dead for sure," said Berchard.
Ouen winked. "When we thought of it at all."
"Off rescuing damsels," Durand said, indicating Deorwen with a sweeping gesture through the bridge gates.
Turning, he saw that Deorwen had hung back from the old gates and only now appeared, a hood pulled up over her head. "Hells!"
The howl was Badan, left behind. As he shouted, the planks detonated. Everyone turned in time to see Badan, forgotten at the warhorse's bridle, plunge through the deck of the bridge.
"Badan!" shouted Berchard.
Everyone dropped the welcome and slid into place around the hole, sprawling on hands and knees. The big horse hit in an explosion of water that shot spray ten fathoms high and over the bridge on both sides.
"Badan," Berchard gasped. It seemed a ridiculous way to die.
A hand flashed from the hole, catching the one-eyed campaigner by the collar. "I'm right here, you daft, blind, stinking whoreson." The fuming knight climbed Berchard's back hand-over-hand out of the ravine and onto the deck. It took every man to keep Berchard from following the horse.
Badan's face was splotched with rage. "What do you mean leaving me with that harebrained monster? Did you reckon it was just going to stand there while you kissed half-wit here hello?"
Berchard tried to throw an arm around Badan, but Badan shrugged him off. "Next one you can take across yourself. I'm done."
The others stood watching him go, until, finally, Ouen dusted his hands.
"Shouldn't we get the horse?" Durand said.
Big Ouen smiled, quirking an eyebrow. "One of Badan's, and he's been rubbing me raw since daybreak."
With the sudden appearance of these four, Durand had forgotten all the others. He caught the big man's arm. "What of all the rest?"
"And Lady Bertana?" Durand glanced back to Deorwen, now a hooded, downcast shape.
"She'll be cursed glad to see your friend there. Been driving us mad with questions. Have we seen her? Are we looking? A maid with red hair? But enough of that." Ouen glanced over Durand to Deorwen.
"Come along," Ouen said, "we're waiting on news from High Ashes. If Moryn's really managed to get the Herald, His Lordship's got a fight on his hands."
DURAND FOLLOWED THE others across the river. Deorwen would not take his arm. Tugging her close for a moment, Durand pressed her: "What is the matter? Have I done something?"
She shook him free.
"Durand."
Under his feet, the old bridge was falling to pieces. Great gaps had opened in the bed, and, even for men to pass, sections had to be bridged with planks.
At midstream, Berchard pointed downriver. Badan's scalp flashed as he herded a flock of grooms along the riverbank, chasing the "harebrained" gray. The Eye of Heaven sparkled from the water.
Deorwen would not even walk with him.
"I was sure," said Heremund. "I felt something. Something in the forest." There was dread in his face. "But here you are, alive." He shook his head.
Durand opened his mouth at this, but could think of no reply.
Meanwhile, Deorwen had slipped behind him with her head ducked low, as if she were ashamed of him or herself or something.
The survivors crowded the far side of the bridge like refugees from a war. Bedraggled people huddled around the last of the supply barrels.
"Nearly all of us have come through. But I felt something out there," Heremund continued, half-whispering. "But there's been nothing to do but wait. Waiting for survivors. Waiting for news."
The skald tried something like a grin. "Lamoric's been pacing himself a ditch up there, thinking maybe that the Herald's moved on. They've sent for word."
They tightroped the last few planks.
Friends and strangers looked up as Durand set foot on the bank, every eye dull. A man wiped his nose along his sleeve. Half of these men had likely lost someone out there, and Durand wasn't the man they hoped to see.
But the Knight in Red tramped toward him, battle helm in place.
For several heartbeats, he just stood there. Coensar stalked up after him.
"My Lord," said Durand, dropping to his knee.
Lamoric neither moved nor spoke. He might have been a wooden figure. Durand could just hear hard breathing.
Finally, the red helm dipped.
"Durand," Lamoric said.
"I'm glad that—" Durand began.
"Good. Good," said Lamoric. The young lord seemed to glance among the staring faces, then mumbled something that might have been, "Check with Guthred for your things," and left them standing there. He had not seemed angry.
Heremund was rubbing his jaw.
"There's something in the wind, mark me." Again, he put on a smile. "Let's see about getting your things. You had that Cerlac's horse?"
As Heremund spoke, Durand realized that Deorwen had started away, leaving without a word. He darted the few steps to catch her.
"Whatever it is I've done, I'm sorry for it."
She wouldn't stop, and he was left watching her back, the cloak clasped around her shoulders.
Among the survivors, Lady Bertana had spotted her handmaiden. The woman wept.
Distracted Heremund caught Durand's sleeve. "You'd best leave her be, I think." He stopped. "Ah. What's this now?"
A troop of mounted horsemen broke into the clearing: peers and sunburnt huntsmen both. At the head of the company rode a grim-faced captain with shoulders as square as if he had a roof beam under his tunic.
"What is this?" the skald muttered.
Every man in Lamoric's conroi had his eyes on this man, and, for a moment, Durand forgot both Deorwen and the skald.
Without a word, the big stranger hurled himself down from his saddle and stalked up to Lord Moryn.
"My Lord" he said, dropping to one knee. "On your feet, Sir Waer."
Waer stood, taking in the scratches and green bruises that marked Lord Moryn's face. "You should not have left me back," he concluded grimly.
In the abruptly silent crowd, no one missed a syllable.
"How is the shoulder?" asked Moryn.
"Mended before the Blood Moon rose."
"Good. Good."
Waer looked none too pleased.
"I have brought with me the Knight in Red," Moryn added. The big man's dark eyes swiveled, unimpressed. Across the camp, Lamoric bowed. "We got your message, Lordship," Waer reported. "We fought at Red Winding," said Moryn. "Aye, Lordship."
"I intend to fight him once more at High Ashes."
Waer nodded. "If the man wants a fight, Lordship, I'm sure we can oblige him."
All the men in Lamoric's retinue were listening now. Ouen licked his lips, for an instant like a lizard. They might still have crossed Hesperand for nothing but the long road home.
'The Herald's come," Waer finished.
While corsair-grins spread through Lamoric's camp, the big man only stuck his foot back in the stirrup iron and swung into his seat.
Heremund was shaking his head.
DURAND SAW NO chance to get Deorwen alone on the ride for High Ashes. The track was narrow and the company large.
He fingered the green veil and waited.
The skald kept up his muttering.
Finally, the company broke from the forest into a great bowl of turned earth and open pasture where the Glass slithered into the evening shadows of a proper valley. Commanding the Glass was High Ashes itself, a fort of wooden palisades cunningly locked in the river's elbow. He remembered Lord Moryn calling this his father's "hunting lodge." Though it was no stone castle, the tower-topped hill and river site made the place a fortress. To pry Duke Severin from the place might require a thousand men.
A thousand men or the arrival of his son.
In a robe of supple wool and sable, the duke tottered from High Ashes, trailing an entourage of wellborn liegemen. A man of seventy winters, the duke was no longer as tall as his son, though he had something of the same stiff posture. But where fierce Moryn was lean and quick as a greyhound, Severin was brittle as a sack of branches.
He smiled.
"My son, I am very happy to see you."
Moryn knelt, setting his clasped hands between his aged father's palms in the ancient gesture of homage. "I am only sorry that I was forced to delay my arrival."
The old man touched his son's shoulder. "Word of your trials has reached me." His smile faltered. "You are the first man of our line to travel Duke Eorcan's lands since they fell."
"But I am here now."
"Yes." Force returned to the frail smile. "Yes, and I am greatly pleased." He trembled as he turned. "Now, you must rise, and tell me of these gentlemen whom you have brought with you. I do not recognize these arms."
He peered toward Lamoric.
"Father," Moryn answered, "these men belong to this knight in red. He has hidden his own face and colors to fight in the tournaments. They call him The Knight in Red.'"
"Knight in Red! I am pleased to welcome you to our gathering," said the duke. "It has been our custom to keep this a small tournament, principally of our own followers, but I think our men will welcome the opportunity to pit themselves against such outlandish foes. And before the ancient Herald of Errest himself! You will, no doubt, require good food and warm beds."
Taking the duke's lead, Lord Moryn turned to the company. "Red Knight, sleep within our walls, and join the feast in—"
"I am sorry," said Lamoric. His horse was dancing. "I am sorry, but it is impossible."
Duke Severin was confused. Moryn raised his chin.
"In any case," Lamoric continued, "we would happ
ily make our camp in the pasture here." 'The pasture," Moryn managed.
Waer looked ready to tramp over and knock Lamoric down. But the old duke spoke up: "You may pitch your tents where you will, I am sure. If that is what you wish."
"It is, Your Grace."
'Then so be it."
Durand's mouth opened. He felt a mad impulse to flatten Lamoric himself. How was he to find a chance to speak with Deorwen now, with all the guests in the feasting hall and him bedded down in a pasture?
"SET UP CAMP," Coensar said, and the same fools who had dropped the warhorse went to oversee the establishment of their encampment below High Ashes, Guthred looking on with a skeptical eye.
Durand trailed in their wake, feeling trapped.
Berchard led their straggling line past wrestling peasants, men lifting great round stones, and a group casting spears to arrive at a space of empty pasture. High Ashes was a fairground sort of place that day.
"Well," Berchard said, finally, "this looks as good a place as any. Few stones, thick turf." He hopped up and down on his toes. "It's likely a better bed than they'll have up in the castle."
It could not have mattered less to Durand, and none of the others bothered to argue. Guthred tramped past, squinting at the ground, getting set to issue orders. With all the fairground activity, none of them had noticed the strange gang of workmen digging nearby. Abruptly, one rangy villager in a dark cap hopped off his riverside seat and strolled over. He left a half-dozen of his fellows standing with shovels and mattocks on some sort of ridge.
"I wouldn't pitch that here, Your Lordships, not if I were you."
Berchard thrust out his bearded chin. "Would you not?" "I would not, and that's a fact," the rangy villager affirmed. Berchard nodded: fair enough. Somewhere wrestlers were shouting. Or the men heaving the great stones.
"And why would you avoid this spot, then, if you were we?"
"Well. All through here? It's about to go under."
Berchard paused. "Under?"
"Aye."
Ouen lowered a long arm across Badan's chest; the bald knight had already started to snarl.