Fionavar 1 (32 page)

Dave had met the look as best he could-a staring duel with a blind man-but when Gereint had turned away, expressionless, he'd felt like crying out, "What did you see, damn you?"

The whole thing unnerved him. It had been the only bad moment, though. Ivor, the Chieftain, a small, leathery guy with crinkly eyes and a considered way of speaking, had been all right.

"If Silvercloak was going to Paras Derval," he'd said, "then that is where he'll be. I will send word of you with the auberei to Celidon, and a party of us will guide you south to Brennin. It will be a good thing for some of our younger men to make that journey, and I have tidings for Ailell, the

High King."

"The urgach?" a voice had said then from by the door, and Dave had turned to see Liane again, Ivor's brown-haired daughter.

Levon had laughed. "Father," he'd said, "we may as well make her part of the tribal council.

She's going to listen anyhow."

Ivor had looked displeased and proud, both. It was at that point that Dave had decided he liked the

Chieftain.

"Liane," Ivor had said, "doesn't your mother need you?"

"She said I was in her way."

"How can you be in her way? We have guests, there must be things for you to do," Ivor had said

.bemusedly.

"I break dishes," Liane had explained. "Is it the urgach?"

Dave had laughed aloud, then flushed at the look she'd given him.

"Yes," Ivor had said. But then he added, looking levelly at Liane, "My daughter, you are being indulged because I dislike chastising my children before guests, but you go too far. It ill becomes you to listen at doors. It is the action of a spoiled child, not a woman."

Liane's flippant manner had disappeared completely. She paled, and her lip trembled. "I'm sorry,"

she had gasped, and spinning on her heel, had fled the home.

"She hates missing things," Levon had said, stating the obvious.

"There they are."

Tabor was pointing southeast, and Dave, squinting into the sun, saw the eltor moving northward across their path. He had been expecting buffalo, he now realized, for what he saw made him catch his breath, in sudden understanding of why the Dalrei spoke not of a herd, but of a swift of eltor.

They were like antelope: graceful, many-horned, sleek, and very, very fast. Most were colored in shadings of brown, but one or two were purest white. The speed of their sweep across the plain
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was dazzling. There had to be five hundred of them, moving like wind over the grass, their heads carried high, arrogant and beautiful, the hair of their manes lifting back in the wind of their running.

"A small swift," Tabor said. The kid was trying to be cool, but Dave could hear the excitement in his voice, even as he felt his own heartbeat accelerate. God, they were beautiful. The Riders around him, in response to Levon's concise command, picked up speed and changed approach slightly to intersect the swift at an angle.

"Come!" Tabor said, as their slower mounts fell behind. "I know where he will have them do it."

He cut away sharply northward, and Dave followed. In a moment they crested a small knoll in the otherwise level sweep of the prairie; turning back, Dave saw the eltor swift and the hunters converge, and he watched the Dalrei hunt, as Tabor told him of the Law.

An eltor could be killed by knife blade only. Nothing else. Any other killing meant death or exile to the man who did so. Such, for twelve hundred years, had been the Law inscribed on the parchments at Celidon.

More: one eltor to one man, and one chance only for the hunter. A doe could be killed, but at risk, for a bearing doe's death meant execution or exile again.

This, Dave learned, was what had happened to Tore's father. Ivor had exiled him, having no other mercy to grant, for in the preservation of the great eltor swifts lay the preservation of the Dalrei themselves. Dave nodded to hear it; somehow, out here on the Plain under that high sky, harsh, clear laws seemed to fit. It was not a world shaped for nuance or subtlety.

Then Tabor drew silent, for one by one, in response to Levon's gesture, the hunters of the third tribe set out after their prey. Dave saw the first of them, low and melded to his flying horse, intersect the edge of the racing swift. The man picked his target, slid into place beside it; then Dave, his jaw dropping, saw the hunter leap from horse to eltor, dagger flashing, and, with a succinct slash, sever the beast's jugular. The eltor fell, the weight of the Dalrei pulling it away from the body of the swift. The hunter disengaged from the falling beast, hit the ground himself at frightening speed, rolled, and was up, his dagger raised in red triumph.

Levon raised his own blade in response, but most of the other men were already flying alongside the swift. Dave saw the next man kill with a short, deadly throw. His eltor fell, almost in its tracks.

Another hunter, riding with unbelievable skill, held to his mount with his legs only, leaning far out over the back of a madly racing eltor, to stab from horseback and bring down his beast.

"Uh-oh," Tabor said sharply. "Navon's trying to be fancy." Shifting his glance, Dave saw that one of the boys he'd guarded the night before was showing off on his first hunt. Riding his horse while standing up, Navon smoothly cut in close to one of the eltor. Taking careful aim, he threw from his standing position-and missed. The flung blade whipped just over the neck of the prey and fell harmlessly.

"Idiot!" Tabor exclaimed, as Navon slumped down on his mount. Even at a distance Dave could see the young Rider's dejection. "It was a good try," he offered. "No," Tabor snapped, his eyes never leaving the hunters. "He shouldn't be doing that on his first hunt, especially when Levon has trusted him by taking only twenty for seventeen. Now if anyone else is unlucky. . . ."

Turning back to the hunt, Dave picked out the other new Rider. Barth, on a brown stallion, went in with cool efficiency, picked out his eltor and, wasting no time, pulled alongside, leaped from his horse, and stabbing, as the first hunter had done, brought his beast down.

"Good," Tabor muttered, a little grudgingly. "He did well. See, he even pulled it down to the outside, away from the others. The leap is the surest way, though you can get hurt doing it."

And sure enough, though Barth rose holding a dagger aloft, it was in his left hand, and his right hung down at his side. Levon saluted him back. Dave turned to Tabor to ask a question, but was stopped cold by the stricken expression on his companion's face.

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"Please," Tabor whispered, almost a prayer. "Let it be soon. Oh, Davor, if Gereint doesn't name me this summer, I will die of shame!" Dave couldn't think of a single thing to say. So, after a moment, he just asked his question. "Does Levon go in, too, or will he just watch?"

Tabor collected himself. "He only kills if the others have failed, then he must make up the numbers himself. It is a shameful thing, though, if the leader must kill, which is why most tribes take many more hunters than they need." There was pride in Tabor's voice again. "It is a thing of great honor to take only a few extra Riders, or none, though no one does that. The third tribe is known now over all the Plain for how bold we are on the hunt. I wish, though, that Levon had been more careful with two new ones today. My father would have-oh, no!"

Dave saw it, too. The eltor picked out by the fifteenth Rider stumbled, just as the hunter threw, and the blade hit an antler only and glanced away. The eltor recovered and raced off, head high, its mane blown gracefully back.

Tabor was suddenly very still, and after a quick calculation Dave realized why: no one else could miss. Levon had cut it very fine.

The sixteenth hunter, an older man, had already peeled off from the small group remaining.

Dave saw that the Riders who had already killed were racing along on the far side of the swift.

They had turned the eltor so the beasts were now running back south along the other side of the knoll. All the kills, he realized, would be close together. It was an efficient process, well judged.

If no one else missed.

The sixteenth hunter played no games. In fast, his blade high, he picked a slower animal, leaped, and stabbed, pulling it clear. He rose, dagger lifted.

"A fat one," Tabor said, trying to mask his tension. "Gereint'll want that one tonight."

The seventeenth man killed, too, throwing from almost directly over top of his eltor. He made it look easy.

"Tore won't miss," Dave heard Tabor say, and saw the now familiar shiftless figure whip past their knoll.

Tore singled out an eltor, raced south with it for several strides, then threw with arrogant assurance.

The eltor dropped, almost at their feet. Tore saluted briefly, then sped off to join the other Riders on the far side of the swift. Seeing that throw, Dave remembered the urgach falling two nights before.

He felt like cheering for Tore, but there was one more to go, and he could feel Tabor's anxiety.

"Cechtar's very good," the boy breathed. Dave saw a big man on a chestnut horse leave Levon's side-the leader was alone now, just below them. Cechtar galloped confidently towards the racing swift that the others were steering past the knoll. His knife was drawn already, and the man's carriage on his horse was solid and reassuring.

Then the horse hit a tummock of grass and stumbled. Cechtar kept his seat, but the damage was done-the knife, prematurely upraised, had flown from his hand to fall harmlessly short of the nearest animal.

Hardly breathing, Dave turned to see what Levon would do. Beside him, Tabor was moaning in an agony of distress. "Oh no, oh no," he repeated. "We are shamed. It's a disgrace for all three Riders, and Levon especially for misjudging. There's nothing he can do. I feel sick!"

"He has to kill now?"

"Yes, and he will. But it doesn't make any difference, there's nothing he can-oh!"

Tabor stopped, for Levon, moving his horse forward very deliberately, had shouted a command to

Tore and the others. Watching, Dave saw the hunters race to turn the eltor yet again, so that after a wide arc had been described, the swift, a quarter of a mile away now, were flying back north, five hundred strong on the east side of the knoll.

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"What's he doing?" Dave asked softly.

"I don't know, I don't understand. Unless . . ." Levon began to ride slowly eastward, but after a few strides he turned his horse to stand motionless, square in the path of the swift.

"What the hell?" Dave breathed.

"Oh, Levon, no!" Tabor screamed suddenly. The boy clutched Dave's arm, his face white with terrified understanding. "He's trying Revor's Kill. He's going to kill himself!"

Dave felt his own rush of fear hit, as he grasped what Levon was trying to do. It was impossible, though; it was insanity. Was the hunt leader committing suicide out of shame?

In frozen silence they watched from the knoll as the massed swift, slightly wedge-shaped behind a huge lead animal, raced over the grass towards the still figure of Tabor's yellow-haired brother.

The other hunters, too, Dave was dimly aware, had stopped riding. The only sound was the rapidly growing thunder of the onrushing eltor.

Unable to take his eyes away from the hunt leader, Dave saw Levon, moving without haste, dismount to stand in front of his horse. The eltor were very close now, flying; the sound of the drumming hooves filled the air.

The horse was utterly still. That, too, Dave registered, then he saw Levon unhurriedly draw his blade.

The lead eltor was fifty yards away.

Then twenty.

Levon raised his arm and, without pausing, the whole thing one seamless motion, threw.

The blade hit the giant animal directly between the eyes; it broke stride, staggered, then fell at Levon's feet. Right at Levon's feet.

His fists clenched tightly with raw emotion, Dave saw the other animals instantly scythe out away from the fallen leader and form two smaller swifts, one angling east, one west, dividing in a cloud of dust precisely at the point where the fallen eltor lay.

Where Levon, his yellow hair blowing free, stood quietly stroking his horse's muzzle, having stolen in that moment, with an act of incandescent gallantry, great honor for his people from the teeth of shame. As a leader should.

Dave became aware that he was shouting wildly, that Tabor, tears in his eyes, was hugging him fiercely and pounding his sore shoulders, and that he had an arm around the boy and was hugging him back. It was not, it never had been the sort of thing he did, but it was all right now, it was more than all right.

Ivor was astonished at the fury he felt. A rage such as this he could not remember. Levon had almost died, he told himself, that was why. A foolhardy piece of bravado, it had been. Ivor should have insisted on twenty-five Riders. He, Ivor, was still Chieftain of the third tribe.

And that vehement thought gave him pause. Was it only fear for Levon that sparked his anger?

After all, it was over now; Levon was fine, he was better than fine. The whole tribe was afire with what he had done. Revor's Kill. Levon's reputation was made; his deed would dominate the midwinter gathering of the nine tribes at Celidon. His name would soon be ringing the length of the

Plain.

I feel old, Ivor realized. I'm jealous. I've got a son who can do Revor's Kill. What did that make him? Was he just Levon's father now, the last part of his name?

Which led to another thought: did all fathers feel this way when their sons became men? Men of achievement, of names that eclipsed the father's? Was there always the sting of envy to temper the burst of pride? Had Banor felt that way when twenty-year-old Ivor had made his first speech at

Celidon and earned the praise of all the elders for the wisdom of his words?

Probably, he thought, remembering his father with love. Probably he had, and, Ivor realized, it
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didn't matter. It really didn't. It was part of the way of things, part of the procession all men made towards the knowing hour.

If he had a virtue, Ivor reflected, something of his nature he wanted his sons to have, it was tolerance. He smiled wryly. It would be ironic if that tolerance could not be extended to himself.