LITMIR.BIZ

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scum!’

      Maddyn merely looked at him. With a long sigh Aethan rubbed his face with both hands.

      ‘And so are we. That’s what you mean, isn’t it, Maddo? Well, you’re right enough. All the gods know that the captain of a free troop won’t be in any position to sneer at the scars on my back.’

      ‘True spoken. And we’ll have to try to find one that’s fighting for Cerrmor or Eldidd, too. Neither of us can risk having some Cantrae man seeing us in camp.’

      ‘Ah, horseshit and a pile of it! Do you know what that means? What are we going to end up doing? Riding a charge against the gwerbret and all my old band some day?’

      Maddyn had never allowed himself to frame that thought before, that some day his life might depend on his killing a man who’d once been his ally and friend. Aethan picked up his dagger and stabbed it viciously into the table.

      ‘Here!’ The tavernman came running. ‘No need to be breaking up the furniture, lads!’

      Aethan looked up so grimly that Maddyn caught his arm before he could take out his rage on this innocent villager. The tavernman stepped back, swallowing hard.

      ‘I’ll give you an extra copper to pay for the damage,’ Maddyn said. ‘My friend’s in a black mood today.’

      ‘He can go about having it in some other place than mine.’

      ‘Well and good, then. We’ve finished your piss-poor excuse for ale, anyway.’

      They’d just reached the door when the tavernman hailed them again. Although Aethan ignored him and walked out, Maddyn paused as the taverner came scurrying over.

      ‘I know about one of them troops you and your friend was talking about.’

      Maddyn got out a couple of coppers and jingled them in his hand. The taverner gave him a gap-toothed, garlicscented grin.

      ‘They wintered not far from here, they did. They rode in every now and then to buy food, and we was fair terrified at first, thinking they were going to steal whatever they wanted, but they paid good coin. I’ll say that for them, for all that they was an arrogant lot, strutting around like lords.’

      ‘Now that’s luck!’

      ‘Well, now, they might have moved on by now. Haven’t seen them in days, and here’s the blacksmith’s daughter with her belly swelling up, and even if they did come back, she wouldn’t even know which of the lads it was. The little slut, spreading her legs for any of them that asked her!’

      ‘Indeed? And where were they quartered?’

      ‘They wouldn’t be telling the likes of us that, but I’ll wager I can guess well enough. Just to the north of here, oh, about ten miles, I’d say, is a stretch of forest. It used to be the tieryn’s hunting preserve, but then, twenty-odd years ago it was now, the old tieryn and all his male kin got themselves killed off in a blood feud, and with the wars so bad and all, there was no one else to take the demesne. So now the forest’s all overgrown and thick, like, but I wager that the old tieryn’s hunting-lodge still stands in there some place.’

      Maddyn handed over the coppers and took out two more.

      ‘I don’t suppose some of the lads in the village know where this lodge is?’ He held up the coins. ‘It seems likely that some of the young ones might have poked around in there, just out of curiosity, like.’

      ‘Not on your life, and I’m not saying that to get more coin out of you, neither. It’s a dangerous place, that stretch of trees. Haunted, they say, and full of evil spirits as well, most like, and then there’s the wild men.’

      ‘The what?’

      ‘Well, I suppose that by rights I shouldn’t call them wild, poor bastards, because all the gods can bear witness that I’d have done the same as them if I had to.’ He leaned closer, all conspiratorial. ‘You don’t look like the sort of fellow who’ll be running to our lord with the news, but the folk who live in the forest are bondsmen. Or I should say, they was, a while back. Their lord got killed, and so they took themselves off to live free, and I can’t say as I’ll be blaming them for it, neither.’

      ‘Nor more can I. Your wild men are safe enough from me, but I take it they’re not above robbing a traveller if they can.’

      ‘I think they feels it’s owing to them, like, after all the hard work they put in.’

      Maddyn gave him the extra coppers anyway, then went out to join Aethan, who was standing by the road with the horses’ reins in hand.

      ‘Done gossiping, are you?’

      ‘Here, Aethan, the taverner had some news to give us, and it just might be worth following down. There might be a free troop up in the woods to the north of us.’

      Aethan stared down at the reins in his hand and rubbed them with weary fingers.

      ‘Ah, horseshit!’ he said at last. ‘We might as well look them over, then.’

      When they left the village, they rode north, following the river. Although Aethan was well on the mend by then, his back still ached him, and they rested often. At their pace it was close to sunset when they reached the forest, looming dark and tangled on the far side of a wild meadowland. At its edge a massive marker stone still stood, doubtless proclaiming the trees the property of the long-dead clan that once had owned them.

      ‘I don’t want to be mucking around in there when it’s dark,’ Aethan said.

      ‘You’re right enough. We’ll camp here. There’s plenty of water in the river.’

      While Aethan tended the horses, Maddyn went to gather firewood at the forest edge. A crowd of Wildfolk went with him, darting around or skipping beside him, a gaggle of green, warty gnomes, three enormous yellow creatures with swollen stomachs and red fangs, and his faithful blue sprite, perching on his shoulder and running tiny hands through his hair.

      ‘I’ll have to play us a song tonight. It’s been a while since I felt like music, but maybe our luck is turning.’

      Yet when it came time to play, Maddyn’s heart was still so troubled that he found it hard to settle down to one ballad or declamation. He got the harp in tune, then played scraps and bits of various songs or practised runs and chordings. Aethan soon fell asleep, lying on his stomach with his head pillowed on folded arms, but the Wildfolk stayed to the last note, a vast crowd of them stretching out beyond the pool of firelight across the meadow. Maddyn felt awed, as if he were playing in a king’s court, the great hall crowded with retainers. When he stopped, he felt more than heard a ripple of eerie applause; then suddenly, they were gone. Maddyn shuddered profoundly, then put the harp away.

      After he had banked the campfire, Maddyn paced a little way into the meadow out of restlessness and nothing more. He could see the forest edge, looming dark not far from them, and even more, he could feel its presence, like an exhalation of wildness. He was sure that more than human fugitives lived there. It occurred to him that while the long wars were a tragedy for human beings, to the Wildfolk they were a blessing, giving them back land that men had once taken and tamed. As he stood there in the silent meadow, it seemed that he heard faint music, an echo of his own. Again he shuddered convulsively, then hurried back to his safe camp.

      On the morrow the blue sprite woke him just at dawn by the expedient method of pulling his hair so hard that it hurt like fire. When he swatted at her, she laughed soundlessly, exposing her needle-sharp teeth. Nearby Aethan was still sleeping, but restlessly, turning and stretching like a man who’ll wake any moment.

      ‘Listen carefully, little sweet one,’ Maddyn said to the sprite. ‘Somewhere in that forest are a whole lot of men like me and Aethan, warriors with swords. They’ll have lots of horses, too, and they live in a stone house. Can you lead me there?’

      She thought for a long moment, then nodded her agreement and promptly disappeared. Maddyn decided that either she’d misunderstood or had

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