It was all he could afford to say, for immediately there was Efanor riding close as the column formed. He said, “Good you should mention it,” to Uwen, and put Danvy across the stream, as the standards, his and Efanor’s, grouped to move to the front.
“What was that?” Efanor asked, overtaking him. “What do you fear?
Heryn? Or some other?”
“At Emwy,” he said, “men of ours died for reasons I suspect were Heryn’s malfeasance if not his maleficence. We have men in the region now trying to find answers. Our father may well fall in with them—or fall afoul of them, gods know. But by what this shepherd says we have every hope of overtaking him before he can ride into Emwy. His start is longer but our horses are fresher.”
“What happened there?” Efanor said. “What happened at Emwy? A plague on your evasions!”
“Treason,” he said. “Bluntly, treason, brother. Heryn is dealing with the Elwynim. No evasions. And high time you should ask. Heryn’s a thief and the son of a thief. He’s either conniving with certain of the Elwynim to kill me, or conniving simply to keep profitable hostilities going. If I knew which, I’d have beheaded him before this.”
“On what proof?” Efanor asked. “On what damned proof, brother mine?”
“The books. His books. I’d written to Father. If anyone read my reports. Or if my men, gods help them, ever got through to him.”
“And the reports of Elwynim marriage offers?”
“Is that what brought this on?”
“That? That, do you say, as if it’s nothing?”
“It’s nothing until I answer the offer, one way or the other, and I’ve not answered it, nor would have answered it without Father’s advisement.
But that was not my report. Who said so? Heryn?”
“I heard it in Father’s camp. Last night.” Efanor lifted a gloved hand.
“I know nothing. No one takes me in confidence.”
He bit his tongue. He did not say what he thought, which was bleak and accusatory: At least you knew Father was coming. At least you heard, brother, at least he aimed no inquiry at you, after setting you to investigate your host.
Or was Heryn to spy on me?
“Was it not,” he said instead, as they rode knee to knee, “the way Grandfather dealt with his sons? And did we not swear together Father should never do the same to us?”
“Yet here we are,” Efanor said. “And you suspect me, and never a reason for it. I swear to you, I did come to warn you, as well as to secure the books, brother.”
“There was no warning of this whim of our lord father’s?”
“None.”
“I believe your word, brother. Forgive my doubting nature.”
Forgive that the desire of their father’s heart was for Efanor to succeed him as King of Ylesuin, and forgive that no few of the northern and eastern lords their father played off one against the other likewise wanted Efanor to succeed to the Dragon throne, for much the same reasons as Lord Heryn would doubtless prefer Efanor.
How could he say to Efanor, They do not love you. They believe you a fool. Wake up from your pious dream. You have duties besides your own salvation. The kingdom needs a prince with his wits about him.
And yet that blunt challenge of Efanor’s just now had rewakened hope in him. The younger brother he had known in childhood had played their grandfather’s game right well, by seeming not to have an opinion. Facing every direction was surely Efanor’s chief attraction to certain lords, as his piety attracted priests. But he had known his brother’s real nature, before manhood added reticences and other considerations, and—dare he remotely hope?—possibly even the veneer of his piety. If that were in any degree a pretense, Efanor might be many things, but not, toward the ambitions of the northern barons, at least, a fool.
Desperate as they were to overtake, they could not push the horses to the limit and have anything left for fight or pursuit: already the column was threatening to string apart, the slower horses and the heavier riders making the difference. They held to their sensible pace, slacked back a little at intervals, then picked up the pace and kept moving, steadily, riding with all the skill they had. The sun declined another hour at such a rate, and it was a question in Cefwyn’s mind whether they dared assume their father had gone to Emwy, and whether they might save more time going overland and through the haunted precinct; or whether the easier going of the road would make up for the distance.
He gambled on the road as the better choice, and they went another hour on.
Then as they came atop the rise, with the turn toward Emwy a ridge away from them, there appeared a haze of dust above the hills. Cefwyn saw it at the same moment Efanor and several of the other men called out. There were riders ahead. They could believe it was the King’s party.
But they still dared not ask the horses for more than they were giving.
They kept moving, and the interval lessened. They were on the rise of the hill between them and the other force, the horses hard-breathing on the climb when, under the noise of their own horses, they heard the hammering of arms that was like no other sound on the gods’ earth.
“Ambush,” Cefwyn exclaimed, and bitter fear was in his mouth, for here in one place were both Princes of Ylesuin, and the King was under attack. “Efanor, take ten of your guard and ride clear!” No, Efanor began to say. But:
“Brother,” he said sharply, “ride back to Cevulirn on the road, and take Tristen and his man with you. Too many of the Marhanen are at risk here. Come for us with that force. You can trust Cevulirn.”
Efanor dropped back then, and Cefwyn turned his head and shouted at Uwen to take Tristen and ride with him. He saw them fall behind, and turned his attention forward, for they were coming over the hill, with the woods and the road and the embattled forces perhaps two, three hundred in number, before them.
He rode hard then, hard as he dared to have his guard around him as he came down toward the fray. He saw light horsemen, well-armed, with no colors evident, attacking the bright scarlet of the Dragon banner. He set his shield on his arm, he drew his sword, and rode into the oncoming horsemen, Kerdin and other men with him.
The meeting was a blur of motion, of bone-jarring impact to wrist and elbow as his sword struck, a flash of bodies in the press, racket of arms and the squall of angry horses on every hand as they plunged into the motley-armed lines.
Like quicksilver, the bannerless attackers melted aside from their charge and let them see the center, where red and motley engaged in a crush that threatened to overwhelm with numbers the knot of men and red banners. There was the King his father. There was the danger.
Cefwyn hauled on the reins to turn Danvy to that quarter and plied the spurs, wishing to the gods at this moment for Kanwy and not Danvy under him. The light horses were faster in pursuit, and they would not have been here in time—but they could not deliver the shock of heavy horse in driving straight for that embattled center, where the King’s banner was, and where the enemy would resist—while the hostile outriders skewed aside from them and let them through. He knew he was riding into a trap and a trick older than the Amefin hills, to fold in on them when they reached that center, but for his father’s life, he had no choice.
“Sound our presence!” he bade Kerdin. “Loud as you can!” He hoped to gain his father’s attention and have his father try to fall back toward him, but he dared not stop his own charge for fear of losing momentum and bogging down in a separate envelopment.
Danvy stumbled and regained his feet on the rutted roadside as Cefwyn pushed him for more speed, and more attackers, nightmare sight, came down from their right flank, down off a hillside.
Then he had view of a red horse, black rider, sweeping along the side of that hill toward those threatening riders—it was Tristen, with Uwen close behind: perhaps Efanor as well, was his instant, frightened thought.