Lescari Revolution 03: Banners In The Wind (46 page)

'Thank you,' Tathrin said through clenched teeth.

Gren came back still speaking in the Mountain tongue. Sorgrad curtly replied.

'What now?' Tathrin demanded.

Once again, Sorgrad paused before responding. 'Gren thinks I should have used wizardry to bring him down.' He cut off his brother's retort with an angry gesture. 'Do you think she'd ever forgive me?'

But now Gren was looking up the highway. 'Here we go again.' Tossing aside the sword he'd just ruined, he stooped to pick up the fallen Caladhrian's blade.

'Who the curses are they?' Sorgrad glowered at the men rounding the bend in the road.

'It's Ersegan.' Forgetting himself, Tathrin tried to stand, only to find both his feet had been numbed by kneeling. With the wound by his knee, he would have fallen if Sorgrad hadn't darted forward.

That might have been preferable. Tathrin screamed as the Mountain Man's arm slid around his ribs and jarred his ruined shoulder.

'Murdering scum!' A thickset man gripping a sledgehammer broke into a run. A phalanx armed with scythes and flails followed.

Gren whooped with feral glee.

'No!' Tathrin yelled.

Sorgrad shouted something in the Mountain tongue and to Tathrin's inexpressible relief, Gren lowered his sword.

'Ersegan!' Tathrin gasped. 'Are they--?'

'All safe.' His sister's husband halted ten paces away, regarding Gren and Sorgrad with suspicion.

'Thank Saedrin.' Tathrin sagged against Sorgrad. 'And these men are friends, truly.'

'Do you want to give us a hand?' the Mountain Man invited Ersegan.

'You need a surgeon, Tath.' The farrier stepped forward, brow still creased. 'Your ma won't like this.'

Tathrin nodded. At least he could breathe easier with Ersegan's strong arms supporting his unwounded side. 'Where are they?'

'In Viscot, with my own family.' The farrier smelled strongly of stale sweat and unwashed linen.

Tathrin saw the other Carluse men were as filthy and dishevelled. He was relieved to recognise most of them.

The newcomers were gawping at the dead men in the yard.

Gren was looking at them with mistrust. 'How do you just happen to be on this stretch of road precisely when we find ourselves attacked?'

'We were hunting those scum,' retorted Ersegan. 'They torched the trees and the tavern six days ago but we managed to drive them off.' He glanced at Tathrin with a wry grin. 'Jerich had called a meeting of the Woodsmen, to discuss what we could offer the needy, what with it being the eve of For-Spring.'

'Saedrin save us,' Tathrin muttered.

Ersegan looked grim. 'He did, all but Agest, Rabold and Short Deffa. They're ashes now, poor fellows.'

Tathrin closed his eyes. 'I'm sorry.'

'You did well to drive off this gang,' Gren remarked, more friendly.

'You did better.' Ersegan glared at the dead men. 'We've been beating the bushes for these curs every day since.'

'They've been waiting for news of this burning to bring us here, one keeping watch while the others laid low.' Sorgrad sheathed his sword. 'Where have you been resting up between hunts? Not all the way over in Viscot?'

'In Geryl Brake,' Ersegan explained.

'That's a hamlet on the forest road,' Tathrin explained blearily.

'Let's get him there and we can send word to Carluse. Can your men make a litter?' asked Sorgrad. 'Now, long lad . . .'

'What?' Tathrin watched with misgiving as the Mountain mage unsheathed a dagger.

Sorgrad looked steadily at him. 'We'll leave the arrowhead for Master Welgren but I have to cut that shaft. If it gets knocked as we carry you, it'll make that wound a cursed sight worse and it looks bad enough already.'

Tathrin couldn't speak. All he could do was nod.

Even with Ersegan's massive hands holding the arrow shaft as still as he could, there were no words for how much it hurt. Every infinitesimal tremor felt like hot knives gouging Tathrin's flesh.

He could only hope that Master Welgren would dose him to insensibility before he did anything else. He desperately focused his thoughts on what lay beyond the apothecary's probes and lotions and wadding to keep a wound from festering.

Once Welgren had done his work, how long would it take his shoulder to heal, at least sufficiently to hunt down this man Karn? Because this war would not be over till Tathrin had had his revenge, whatever settlement Aremil might fashion for the rest of Lescar.

He lapsed into insensibility on that silent oath.

Chapter Thirty

Aremil

Carluse Castle,

Lescar,

12th of For-Spring

He negotiated the doorway to the grey-panelled room. 'How are you feeling this morning?'

Tathrin winced as Master Welgren adjusted his sling. 'I never realised how irritating you must find it, to have people always asking you that.'

'Since you mention it, yes, I do.' Resting on his crutches, Aremil grinned.

On the other side of the scales, seeing his friend arrive unconscious on a horse-litter three days before had given him a better understanding of the anguish that his own illnesses must cause others, his latest most of all.

'I can take some good from being wounded.' Tathrin supported his injured arm with his free hand. 'Even from losing my home, though by all that's holy, don't tell my father. But it'll be easier to face those who've suffered now I feel something of their pain.'

'Indeed.' Aremil wished he could say the same.

Master Welgren secured the knot behind Tathrin's neck. 'Do not be tempted to try using that arm,' he warned sternly.

'You said the wound is healing cleanly?' Concerned, Aremil searched Tathrin's face for any sign of fever.

'The wound's less of a concern than the damage that arrow did in striking his shoulder so hard,' explained the apothecary.

Tathrin looked at Aremil, about to shrug before he clearly thought better of it.

'Three thick sinews join the collarbone to the shoulder blade.' Welgren pointed to his own shoulder. 'A fall, or in this case a blow, can snap them.'

Aremil winced at that notion.

'Did you know that before you came to Lescar?' Tathrin asked sourly. 'Or from your battlefield anatomising?'

'Tathrin!' Aremil was surprised at his ingratitude.

They owed Master Welgren for more than his medical expertise. The apothecary had sought knowledge denied him by Vanam's physicians for some summers now, paying his way across Lescar by tending the ailments, real and imagined, of noble lords, their ladies and children. Inevitably, his path had crossed Charoleia's and they both benefited from that acquaintance.

Welgren didn't seem perturbed. 'No, the particular structure of the shoulder is something Col's medical scholars have seen fit to share with their humbler shopfront brethren. Since those of us soiling our hands with commerce don't share your university rivalries, we soon saw diagrams of those dissections in Vanam.'

'I see.' Tathrin said shamefaced. 'I'm sorry.'

The apothecary continued as if he hadn't spoken. 'I believe you suffered rupture of all three sinews. An incautious move and you'll be all the longer in healing.'

'I understand.' Tathrin's tone suggested this wasn't the first time Master Welgren had warned him.

'Perhaps you should stay here and rest,' ventured Aremil.

Tathrin very nearly shook his head. 'I promised I'd be at your side today. Why else endure that cursed journey and Master Welgren digging out that arrowhead with his pincers?' he said vehemently.

'You won't be fit to ride for at least another twenty days.'

As Welgren spoke, Aremil saw the annoyance in Tathrin's eyes. Annoyance and defiance.

'Where are you planning on riding?' he asked quickly. 'Aren't you staying here until we have this settlement agreed?'

'Once we have Carluse's agreement, we need to take these proposals to the other provinces.' But Tathrin wouldn't look him in the eye, gazing out of the window as he spoke.

'Indeed,' Aremil observed cautiously. 'But we have to secure Carluse's agreement first, so we should make our way to the great hall, if you're sure you're fit to come.'

'I am.' Tathrin got to his feet with an incautious speed that made him blench.

'Go carefully and good luck.' Welgren turned to tidy his marble table.

Tathrin closed the door behind them with his free hand. 'Let's not keep them waiting.'

'You'll hardly be rushing anywhere if you're walking with me.' Aremil made his way cautiously through the salon still crowded with pallets.

He could have been relieved to see how few patients remained if he hadn't known those worst wounded in that last battle for Parnilesse were being tended in Brynock.

'I honestly thought that was my last fight,' Tathrin said unexpectedly.

'Against Reniack?' Aremil concentrated on skirting an awkwardly placed chair.

Tathrin nodded. 'I was all set to do as Captain-General Evord said after that.' He raised his hand to shield his injured shoulder as they went through the door to the staircase. 'To stay out of harm's way and delegate fighting with the brigands to my best lieutenants.'

Aremil was relieved to see a little smile tug at Tathrin's mouth.

It vanished. 'Until I heard about my parents' inn. Even Evord couldn't expect me to set that aside.'

Had Tathrin's mother and father visited him this morning? Aremil desperately wanted to ask but didn't dare. Failla had told him they'd arrived in Carluse Town late last night after the farrier Ersegan had rushed back to Viscot with his news. Bad news but not nearly so ill as it could have been.

Aremil couldn't decide who had the best or the worst of this particular spread of runes.

His parents were no better than strangers, now fled to some Tormalin haven surely beyond recall. Search his innermost heart as he might, all Aremil could feel was relief that one fewer intransigent duke remained to complicate their efforts to bring this upheaval to an end. A conclusion that would validate all that they had done, heralding a peace to balance the scales against lives lost and suffering endured.

Was the price of that to be Tathrin left so bereft? Once a beloved son now so reviled, his honourable motives entirely misunderstood?

They reached the bottom of the wide stone staircase.

Tathrin studied Aremil as he descended the final step. 'You look tired.'

Since Aremil could shrug, he did. 'Hammering out this settlement has cost a lot of lamp oil.'

That and he'd lain awake long after all the candles were snuffed last night buffeted by Tathrin's dreams. He had been imploring his father not to blame him for the loss of the inn. But Master Sayron had simply continued picking through the ruins of his livelihood, unable even to hear his son.

After Aremil had finally slept he had woken with the stink of burning in his nostrils and indignation acid in his stomach. How could Tathrin's parents fail to see their son's heroism? Or were those Failla's thoughts, rather than his own?

Once this settlement was agreed, Aremil decided, he must work still harder with Branca to learn how to shield his innermost self.

The keep's main door opened and Tathrin shied away to protect his wounded side.

Aremil made what passed for a bow on his crutches. 'Mistress Serafia.'

'Master Aremil.' She smiled at Tathrin. 'My Aunt Derou sent word. You're to dine with your parents and my Uncle Ernout at her table tonight. She won't accept excuses,' she warned.

'Very well,' Tathrin said tightly. He glanced at Aremil. 'They're staying with Master Ernout. He and my father are acquainted through the Woodsmen.'

'Oh, I see.' As Aremil spoke, he caught an echo of Tathrin's indignation.

His father had striven to frustrate the dukes since before his children were born. How could he blame Tathrin for succeeding where the Woodsmen's stealthy campaign had failed? Or was that the true root of his resentment?

Aremil blinked. 'If you'll excuse us, Serafia. We must get to the hall.'

'Of course.' She held the door for them both.

Aremil took a breath of air, refreshing after sickroom staleness and Tathrin's bad-tempered thoughts. Outside, the path had been swept clear of a late flurry of snow.

'Don't slip.' Tathrin forced a grin. 'I can't catch you.'

'I'll be careful,' Aremil assured him.

They proceeded slowly along, Tathrin matching Aremil's pace.

'How do you think your proposals will be received?' Tathrin was looking ahead to the castle's great hall.

'We've weighted the runes as far as we can.' Aremil couldn't restrain a little cynicism. 'Every fifth man or woman will be one of Ernout's allies primed with arguments in our favour.'

Tathrin nodded. 'Assuming it's all agreed, Kerith takes to the road for Sharlac before going on to Abray?'