The Last Light of the Sun (44 page)

“The green ones,” Thorkell repeated. Then he laughed—genuine laughter, despite where they were. “How do we tell in the dark?”

“If they bite us and we don’t die,” Alun replied. “I didn’t ask you to come. I told you—”

“You told me to go back. I know. I can’t.”

This time Alun stopped his horse, the Erling horse Thorkell had found for him. He still hadn’t asked about that. They had reached a very small clearing, a little space to face each other. The leaves overhead let a hint of the last evening light come down. It was time for the invocation. He wondered if it had been done before in these woods, if Jad’s word had ever reached so far. It seemed to him he felt a humming, just below hearing, but he was aware that that was almost certainly apprehension and no more. There were so many tales.

“Why?” he asked. “Why can’t you?”

The other man had also reined his horse. There was just enough light to see his face. He shrugged. “I am neither your servant, nor the cleric’s. My life was saved by Lady Enid at Brynnfell and she claimed me as hers. If you are correct, and I believe you are, Ivarr Ragnarson is leading the Jormsvik ships there. I value my life as much as any man, but I gave her my oath. I will try to get back before they do.”

“For an oath?”

“For that oath.”

There was more, Alun was sure of it. “You understand this is mad? That we have five days, maybe six to survive in these woods?”

“I understand the folly of it better than you do, I suspect. I’m an old man, lad. Trust me, I’m not happy being here.”

“Then why—?”

“I answered you. Will you leave it.”

The first hint of a temper, strain. Alun’s turn to shrug. “I’m not about to fight you, or try to hide. We’ll forget rank, though. I think you know more than I do about surviving here.” It was easier to say that to this man than to most others, he thought.

“Perhaps a little more. I did bring food.”

Alun blinked, and realized, with the words, that his hunger was extreme. He tried to work out the timing. They’d had bread and ale after killing the first Erling party by the stream. Nothing since then. And the
fyrd
had been in the saddle since the middle of the night before.

“Come. Get down,” said Thorkell Einarson, as if tracking that thought. “As good a place as any. I need to stretch. I’m old.”

Alun dismounted. He’d been a horseman all his life, but his legs were aching. The other man was groping in a saddle pack.

“Can you see my hand?”

“Yes.”

“Wedge of cheese. Cold meat coming. I’ve ale in a flask.”

“Jad’s blood and grace. When did you … ?”

“When we got to the water and saw the ships were gone.”

Alun considered this a moment, chewing. “You
knew
I’d do this?”

The other man hesitated. “I knew that I would.”

This, too, needed thought. “You were going to come in here alone?”

“Not happily, I promise you.”

Alun tore at the chunk of meat the other man passed him, drank thirstily from the offered flask.

“May I ask a question?” The Erling took the ale back.

“Told you, not a servant in here. We need to survive.”

“Tell the snakes, the ones that aren’t green.”

“What’s the question?”

“Is this the same wood as north, by Esferth and past it?”

“What? You think I’d be here if there was a break in the trees? Am I a fool?”

“In here? Of course you are a fool. But help me with the question, nonetheless.”

A moment, both men silent, then Alun heard his own laughter in that black, ancient wood where the tales he’d known all his life said there were spirits that sought blood and were endlessly angry. Something small skittered, startled by the noise. The dog had gone ahead, now came back to them. Alun gave him some of the meat. He took the ale flask back.

It occurred to Thorkell Einarson, squatting on his haunches beside the young Cyngael, that he hadn’t heard the other man laugh before, not once in all their time together, since the night of a spring raid.

Alun said, “You aren’t very good at a servant’s role, are you? It is the same forest. There’s a small valley on this side, I think there’s a sanctuary there.”

Thorkell nodded. “That’s how I remember it, yes.” And then, quietly, he added, “So whatever spirit you were with last night might be here as well?”

Alun imagined he felt a wind in his face, though there was none blowing. He was briefly glad of the darkness. He cleared his throat. “I have no idea,” he said. “How did you … ?”

“I watched you come out of the trees last night. I’m an Erling. My grandmother could see spirits on the roofs of half the homes in our village, summoned them to blight the fields and wells of those she hated. There were enough of those, Ingavin knows. Lad, we can swear an oath to honour the sun god, and wear his disk, but what happens after darkfall? When the sun is down and Jad is under the world, battling?”

“I don’t know,” Alun said. He still seemed to feel that wind, sense the wood’s vibration, so nearly a sound. Five days’ journey, maybe more. They were going to die here, he thought.
Three things a brave man remembers at his end …

“None of us knows,” Thorkell Einarson said, “but we still have to live through the nights. It is … unwise to be so sure we’re alone here, whatever the clerics teach. You believe that spirit is kindly disposed?”

Alun took a breath. It was difficult to believe they were speaking of this. He thought of the faerie, shimmering, a light where there was none.

“I believe so.”

The other man’s turn to hesitate. “You realize that where there is one such power, there may be others?”

“I told you you didn’t have to come.”

“Yes, you did. Pass the flask. My throat’s dry. A sorrow to die with ale to hand and undrunk.”

Alun reached the flask across. His calves were sore, the long ride, crouching now. He sat on the grass, wrapped his arms about his knees. “We can’t ride all night.”

“No. How did you propose to guide yourself, alone?”

“That one I can answer. Think on it.”

The other man did. “Ah. The dog.”

“He came from Brynnfell. Can find his way home. How were
you
going to do it, alone?”

Thorkell shook his head. “No idea.”

“And you thought I was being a fool?”

“You are. So am I. Let us drink to ourselves.” Thorkell lifted the flask again, cleared his throat. “Consider sending him ahead? The dog? Ap Hywll would know … ”

“I did think about it. It seems to make sense to have him with us, and to let him run on alone if we … ”

“Find a not-green snake or one of the things that are stronger than your spirit and don’t like us.”

“Should we rest here?” Alun asked. Fatigue was washing over him.

There was an answer given to that question, though not from the man beside him. They heard a sound, movement in the trees.

Larger than a boar, Alun thought, rising, unsheathing his blade. Thorkell was also on his feet, holding his hammer. They stood a moment, listening. Then they heard a different kind of sound.

“Holy Jad,” said Alun, a moment later, with considerable feeling.

“I think not, actually,” said Thorkell Einarson. He sounded amused. “Not the god. I believe this would be—”

“Be quiet!” said Alun.

The two of them listened, in bemused silence, to a voice, behind them and a little south, moving through the trees where no moonlight could fall. Someone—however improbably—was singing in these woods.

The girl for me at the end of the day

Is the one who’d rather kiss than pray
,

And the girl for me in the morning light

Is the one who takes and gives delight
,

And the girl for me in the blaze of noon

Is the one—

“Stuff the wailing. We’re over here,” Thorkell called. “And who knows what else’s coming now, the noise you make.”

Both men put back their weapons.

Crackling sounds came nearer, branches and leaves, twigs on the forest floor. An oath, as someone collided with something.

“Noise? Wailing?” said Athelbert, son of Aeldred, heir to the Anglcyn throne.

He edged his horse into their small clearing. Straining his eyes, Alun saw that he was rubbing at his forehead. “I hit a branch. Really hard. I also believe I have been insulted. I was singing.”

“That what it was?” Alun said.

Athelbert had a sword at his hip, a bow across his back. He dismounted, stood facing the two of them, holding the reins of his horse.

“Sorry,” he said ruefully. “To be frank, my sisters and my brother take that same view of my voice. I’ve decided to leave home, out of shame.”

“This,” Alun said, “was a bad idea.”

“I’m a bad singer,” Athelbert replied lightly.

“My lord prince, this is—”

“My lord prince, I know what this is.”

Both of them stopped. A moment later, Athelbert was the one who went on. “I know what you are doing. Two men are unlikely to get through this wood alive.”

“And three are likely?”

It was Thorkell. He still had that amused tone, Alun realized.

“I didn’t actually say that,” Athelbert replied. “You do realize where we are? Likelihood? We’ll all be killed.”

“This is not your concern,” Alun said. He forced himself to be gracious. “Generous as the thought might be, my lord, I daresay your royal father—”

“My royal father will have sent outriders after me, as soon as they realized I was gone. They are almost certainly in the trees already, and terrified witless. My father thinks I am … irresponsible. There are reasons why he might hold such a view. We’d best move on or they’ll find us and say they have to bring me back, and I’ll say I won’t go, and they’ll have to draw weapons against their prince on the orders of their king, which isn’t a proper thing to force any man to do, because I’m not going back.”

A silence followed this.

“Why?” Thorkell asked finally, the amused tone gone. “Prince Alun is right: this is no Anglcyn quarrel, Erlings raiding west of the Wall.”

Alun could see clearly enough to observe Athelbert shaking his head. “That man—Ragnarson?—killed my father’s lifelong friend, one of our leaders, a man I knew from childhood. They led a raid into our lands during a summer fair. Word of that will spread. If they get away and—”

Alun’s turn to interrupt. “They didn’t get away. You killed fifty or sixty of them. A ship’s worth. Drove the rest from your shores, running from you. Word of
that
will spread, to the glory of King Aeldred and his people. Why are you here, Prince Athelbert?”

It was almost impenetrably black now, even in the clearing, the trees in summer leaf blocking the stars. Cafall had stood up too, the dark grey dog virtually invisible, a presence at Alun’s knee.

After a long time, Athelbert spoke. “I heard what you said, before, by the river. What you believe they intend to do. The farmhouse, women there, ap Hywll, the sword … ”

“And so? It is still not your—”

“Listen to me, Cyngael! Is
your
father the haven and home of all virtues in the world? Does he rise from a fevered sickbed to make a slaughter of his enemies? Does he translate medical texts from Jad-cursed
Trakesian?
By the time he was my age,” said Athelbert of the Anglcyn, speaking with great clarity, “my father had survived a winter hiding in a swamp, had broken out, rallied our scattered people, and retaken his own slain father’s realm. To the undying glory of King Aeldred and our land.”

He stopped, breathing hard, as if he’d been exerting himself. They heard wings overhead, flapping from one tree to another.

“You are unhappy with him for being a good man?” Thorkell said.

“That is not what I am saying.”

“No? Perhaps not. Help me then, my lord. You want some of that same glory,” said Einarson. “That is it? Well, that is fairly sought. What young man with a beating heart does not?”

“This one!” said Alun sharply. “You both listen to
me.
I have no interest in any of that. I need to get to Brynnfell before the Erlings. That is all. The coastal path goes to Arberth and it takes almost four days, at speed, then four or five more to get north to Brynn’s farm. I
did
that journey this spring, with my brother. The Erlings know exactly where they are going because Ragnarson’s with them. No warning we send along the coast will beat them to Brynnfell. I’m here because I have no choice. I’ll say it again: I didn’t even
want
you to come,” he said, turning to Thorkell.

“And I’ll say it again, though I shouldn’t have to: I am the servant of Lady Enid, wife to Brynn ap Hywll,” the Erling replied calmly. “If Ivarr gets to that farm she’ll die in the muck of her own yard, hacked apart, and so will any others there, including her daughters. I have
done
such raids. I know what happens. She saved my life. I swore an oath. Ingavin and Jad both know I have not kept every promise I made, but this time I will try.”

He was silent. After a moment Alun nodded. “That’s you. But this prince is just … chasing his father. He’s—”

“This prince,” said Thorkell, “is entitled to make his own choices in life, reckless or otherwise, as much as we are. A third blade is welcome as a woman in a cold bed. But if he is right and outriders are following him, we need to move.”

“He should go back,” Alun repeated, stubbornly. “This is not his—”

“Talk to me if you have anything to say. You’ve said
that
three times,” Athelbert snapped. “Make a triad of it, why don’t you? Set it to music! I heard you each time. I am not turning back. Will you really refuse aid? Even if it might save lives? Is it so certain you aren’t thinking of glory?”

Alun blinked at that. “I swear by Jad’s name, it is certain. Don’t you see? I do not believe it is
possible
to do this. I expect to die here. We have no idea where water is, or food, what path we might find, or not find. Or what will find us. There are tales of this place going back four hundred years, my lord Athelbert. I have a reason to risk death. You do not.”

“I know those stories. The same tales are told on this side. If you go back far enough, we used to sacrifice animals in the valley north of here, to whatever was in the wood.”