The Red Wyvern: Book One of the Dragon Mage (26 page)

At length, when the sun was climbing toward noon, a real distraction presented itself. Where the river curved to the east and the road followed, the squad left both to cut straight across on a narrow track between two fields. Far ahead of them Branoic spotted a smudge on the horizon.

“Dust!” he called out. “Hold up, lads!”

The squad jingled to a halt behind him. Branoic rose in his stirrups and shaded his eyes with his free hand. A lot of dust, it was, and moving purposefully down the road toward them.

“Trevyr! Head back to the prince and tell him riders are coming, a good-sized contingent but no army.”

“Done, then.” With a wave red-haired Trevyr guided his horse out of line and turned it around. “Do you want more men up here?”

“I don’t, but you’d best get back here straightaway yourself.”

Trevyr trotted off down the lane, and Branoic went back to his watching. The dust cloud came along leisurely, finally resolving itself into a column of mounted men followed by what seemed to be a pair of carts—an ally, most like, joining the muster. Branoic sent another man off with this news, but just in case the column meant trouble, he led his remaining two men back to the main road. By the time they reached it the column had come close enough for him to see the blazons on shields—a blue circle with a line of darker blue knotwork around it, and nothing that Branoic recognized.

“We’d best get out of here,” he said.

The other two silver daggers nodded their agreement, turned their horses in the road, and jogged off fast. Branoic lingered a moment to estimate the contingent’s size, about six twenties, he figured. None of them were wearing their mail, and their shields hung from their saddle bows. Just as Branoic was gathering his reins to gallop away, the lord at the head of the column called out to him.

“Are you a Cerrmor man?”

Branoic hesitated, but he had plenty of room to outrun them, and his own army would have closed much of the gap between him and it by now.

“I am.” Branoic called back. “Friend or foe?”

“Friend! Do you think I’d head toward an army of thousands otherwise?”

Branoic laughed and paused his horse to sit easy in the saddle while the lord and his men travelled the last fifty yards or so between them. When the lord waved him up, Branoic fell in beside him. The lord had a ruddy face, which collapsed toward his chin; he’d lost most of his teeth, whether to age or a blow to the face Branoic couldn’t tell.

“I’ve not had the honor of meeting you, my lord,” Branoic said.

“No doubt. My name is Daeryc of Glasloc.”

“Oh ye gods! Er, my apologies, Your Grace.”

“A bit startled, are you? I don’t blame you, lad. If someone had told me last year that I’d change allegiance, I’d have had him hanged from my walls!” Daeryc sighed with a quick puff of breath. “Cursed wars! A man can’t know his own mind anymore, eh?”

Branoic smiled politely.

“And who are you?” Daeryc said.

“Just a man of the prince’s guard,” Branoic said. “Look ahead there, my lord. You can see the dust of the army coming. I’ve got to stay out on point, so I’ll wish you luck and farewell.”

When the army paused at noon to rest the horses, Nevyn joined the prince, who was standing near his mount and eating a chunk of bread out of hand like one of his men. A servant, however, was unsaddling his horse to let it roll and would doubtless take it to water, too.

“Nevyn!” Maryn hailed him. “Did you see Daeryc of Glasloc ride in?”

“I did indeed, Your Highness. Tieryn Peddyc and his son were quite glad to see him.”

“No doubt. If you’re going to change sides of a springtime, it’s a grand thing to bring your overlord with you. Shall we see what his grace has to say for himself?”

They found Daeryc not far away, talking with Peddyc while Anasyn tended all three horses. At the sight of the prince, Daeryc sank to his knees. Nevyn hung back and allowed his vision to slip into the dweomer-sight. He studied Daeryc’s aura the entire time the lord talked and saw not a trace of treachery. If Maryn had had to depend on ordinary councillors to judge his new allies’ worth, he’d not have been able to be so generous with his pardons.

“You may rise, Your Grace,” Maryn said. “Tieryn Peddyc here has already stood surety for you.”

“Well, my thanks then, eh?” The gwerbret rose, smiling all round in an oddly tight-lipped manner—his lack of teeth, Nevyn supposed. “Your Highness, I’ll speak straight with you. Never did I think I’d come over to your side, but the real king in Dun Deverry is Regent Burcan, and that’s too bitter a truth for me to swallow.”

“So I’ve heard from many a lord,” Maryn said. “The Boar must be a hard man.”

“Hard? Huh!” Daeryc spat, as if in thought. “Rotten to his kidneys, I’d say.”

“Tell me somewhat,” Maryn said. “Here you are, riding to join us as free as a bird, but they must be finishing the muster up in Dun Deverry.”

“They finished it some days ago, Your Highness. But once Burcan realized that our Peddyc here wasn’t coming back from his wife’s burying, he remembered Dun Hendyr. I’m Peddyc’s overlord, and so he sent me and some of his own men to take the dun. When we got there, the place was empty. So I left Burcan’s loyal men there on fortguard and rode out south.” Daeryc paused for effect. “There’s naught like sending a fox to guard a henhouse, eh?”

Maryn allowed himself a good laugh while Daeryc stood grinning at his own joke.

“Well, then,” Maryn said. “The regent must be riding our way.”

“True and twice true, Your Highness,” Daeryc said. “I’m just cursed glad I got here before he did.”

When the battle came, it came on ground of the Boar’s choosing. An army as large as Maryn’s needed a prodigious amount of water, and that need pinned them to the river road. About two miles south of Camrydd Bridge, the river curved toward the east before curving back straight north. In the embrace of water lay long green meadows. Burcan left his camp a few miles behind and disposed his men to block the road to Dun Deverry.

Nevyn scried them out and brought the news to Prince Maryn not long after dawn. While the riders pulled on mail and helm, the baggage train prepared to defend itself. During battles Oggyn commanded the camp; he knew the job well and performed it better—not that anyone but Nevyn gave him much glory for it. In a storm of oaths and shouting, the carters drove the loaded carts into a circle. Whips cracked and more oaths flew as they tried to back their teams into a close formation. Yelling back and forth, the servants carried supplies into the middle and the ostlers brought the extra horses, dancing and snorting with excitement, inside as well. On the outside of this improvised wall, the spearmen drew up in close ranks, leaning on their spears and yawning in pretended indifference.

Off to one side the chirurgeons had commandeered a few of the wagons, then unhitched their teams and sent them back to the circle. On the relatively clean wagon gates they could lay patients. Nevyn joined them there as they readied their supplies of water and the firewood to heat it with. After so many years of watching Death feast, Nevyn could no longer bear the sight of battle. He did however keep his horse saddled and ready, in case the prince should need either his dweomer or his healing arts—the Wildfolk would come tell him if his own intuition should fail. When he tied the gelding to a wagon tree, Caudyr, the silver daggers’ chirurgeon, came limping over to meet him. He had a club foot, Caudyr, which as he aged pained him more and more.

“Are you ready?” Nevyn said.

“As ready as any one can be,” Caudyr said. “Which means not very.”

The camp fell silent to watch the riders mount up, making the meadow roil with horses and plume with dust. Horns rang out as the various lords tried to collect their men into some semblance of order. They would have to ride in a spread formation; Burcan could send his men charging into a column broadside and earn himself a cheap victory, otherwise. Up at the head of this swarm the Red Wyvern banners bobbed along, dipping now and again as their bearers settled themselves on horseback. The prince Nevyn couldn’t see at all.

Horns shrieked; the lords screamed a last few orders; men shouted in answer. The front of the army lurched forward. The men in the first ranks set off, while those in the middle began jockeying for position, and those in the rear simply waited for a chance to move. It took a long time for all of them to be gone. For a while more Nevyn could see the dust cloud that marked their going and hear the jingling tack and shouting. Slowly the dust settled and the silence with it. Oggyn, wearing a hauberk and carrying a spear in one hand, came striding over to him.

“Well, let’s pray for the best, eh?” Oggyn said.

“Just that,” Nevyn said. “Not much more we can do now.”

Oggyn nodded with a decisive wag of his beard and went back to his men. The waiting stretched on while the sun climbed with the promise of a hot day. All at once Nevyn heard birds cawing and looked up to see ravens flying overhead, heading fast toward the battlefield.

“Ah,” Nevyn said to Caudyr. “It’s begun.”

As part of the prince’s guard, Branoic and the other silver daggers rode to keep Maryn safe, not to join the general fighting. If Maryn had had his way, he would have led every charge and been long since dead, his cause failed and the Boars or their candidates invested as High Kings of all Deverry. Over the years Nevyn had persuaded him to live and conquer. Even now he grumbled, but he did stick with his guards and let Caradoc’s orders protect him. Not that they escaped the fighting—sooner or later the enemy would find the prince on the field, close in, and try to kill him.

In this flat country, and under the dust, the armies soon devolved into a blind mob, where the enemy shrank to the nearest man with a blazon you didn’t recognize. The warcries, the shouts, the screams of the men and the whinnying of the horses—they blended with the clang and thwack of weapons on mail or shields into a roar that drowned any sound but the most strident of horns. Riding at the prince’s right flank, Branoic could see even less of the overall battle than the average rider. He kept twisting in his saddle and looking for enemies heading toward them from the rear, but he could see no more than twenty feet away at the best of times and ten at the usual.

The sheer press of bodies, horse and human both, around them became frightening. In this mob an enemy could slip in from the rear and attack the prince’s horse without much warning. Since he carried his sword in one hand and his shield in the other, Branoic guided his horse mostly with his knees, and turning completely around for a good look was impossible. He could only curse and pray and swear while he swung his body back and forth in the saddle like a dancer. The sweat soaked through his shirt immediately, and not long after through the padding under his mail.

On and on it went. Although he never had a moment to look at the sky and see how the day fared, he felt the sun growing hotter still on his back. His horse began to foam, but he could do nothing for the poor beast. In all that time, they had travelled perhaps a hundred yards across the field, borne along by the fighting as the regent’s army fell back and the Red Wyvern pressed forward. The center of the regent’s line suddenly gave way. Branoic had just time to think “trap” when he heard the shouting behind him that confirmed it.

“They’re here!” he shrieked.

As he struggled to turn his horse in the mob, he saw the silver dagger behind him go down over his horse’s neck. The mount reared in panic, giving Branoic just the time he needed. He managed to lower his shield, grab his reins, and yank his horse’s head around just as the first Boarsman broke through the prince’s men to the rear. Someone killed him for his trouble, but more men with the slavering grey boar on their shields took his place.

Screaming orders at the top of his lungs, Caradoc was turning the squad to face this thrust. Branoic parried more than swung to kill and held the Boarsmen up, trapped behind their own front men, until Owaen pushed through the mob and joined him. As always in a fight, Owaen stayed dead-silent, barely breathing hard, it seemed, as he slashed into the Boar riders. Warcries sounded behind them from familiar voices as a living wall formed around the prince. Branoic killed one man, catching him off-guard and smacking him so hard across the face that the nasal on his own helmet drew blood; another smack, and down he went into the maelstrom of ironclad hooves.

As fast as they had appeared, the squad of Boarsmen pulled off and retreated, fighting past the clot of silver daggers. Suddenly the field began thinning; Branoic swung his horse around easily and realized that he could see a good ways ahead.

“The bastards are retreating!” Caradoc howled out. “But steady on, lads! Stay with the prince!”

Branoic glanced at the sky and saw that the sun had just reached its zenith.

“Huh,” Owaen grunted. “Not much of a fight.”

“They were just testing our strength, maybe.”

“Oh, now you’ve turned into a cadvridoc, have you? Reading the minds of the enemy like old Nevyn, are you?”

Owaen doubtless didn’t realize how close he came to dying in that moment. Branoic felt his sword swing up as if some demon had grabbed the hilt and guided it.

“Hold!” Caradoc forced his way in between them. “Owaen, get to the front of the squad!”

With an oath Owaen followed orders. Branoic lowered his sword and felt himself panting for breath.

“My thanks, Captain,” he said. “And a thousand apologies.”

“For a change it’s Owaen that owes the apologies, but cursed if I want him dead. Understand me?”

“I do, Captain.”

“Good.” Caradoc rose in the stirrups to look out over the battlefield. “Ah horseshit! They’re retreating in good order. And here I had hopes of a rout.”

“Let’s not give ourselves airs,” Maryn said. “We won that battle because nobody knew how to fight it. The two biggest armies Deverry’s ever seen—ye gods! That wasn’t a battle!”

“Well, truly, Your Highness,” Caradoc said. “Reminded me of a fight in a crowded tavern. That’s why you generally go outside if you’re in the mood, like, for a brawl.”

“Just so. I’ve never fielded this many men.”