"No, Garreth!"
Whistler's sword had slithered from its sheath with a quick, sibilant hiss as he dropped into a fighter's crouch. Now he hovered, glaring at the tall Northerner who stared back at him unconcernedly, making no attempt to defend himself. Slowly, visibly, the tension seeped away from Garreth and he straightened up, still holding his sword ready, to look at Uther. Uther, in turn, was gazing at Owain of the Caves, a peculiar expression on his face.
"So, you give me back my life." He nodded slowly. "I accept it, and I am grateful. What will you do now? Meradoc won't thank you for your scruples. He is the one who sent you, isn't he?"
The other shrugged. "Aye, so I'll move on. Meradoc has no patience when it comes to failure, and he'll take this as a failure. If I go back to him. he'll have me killed. He's a great one for rewarding treachery with death, is Meradoc."
"So am I. . . but you did nothing treacherous here."
Owain's mouth twisted in a wry smile. "Leaving you alive to cross him? He might see that otherwise."
Uther looked about him, coming to a decision. "Sheathe your sword, Garreth. Owain, will you ride with us for a way? I want to talk more with you, but we have a party of men up there on the path, as you know, and they will start fretting if we don't soon return."
Owain of the Caves shrugged his wide shoulders. "I don't ride, but I'll walk with you awhile if you'll feed me at the end of it. The devil there destroyed my pack, and with it all my food. After that, we can talk if you like, and then come morning I'll be on my way to wherever I end up."
Uther glanced down one last time at the carcass of the bear. The blood-filled eye socket was already filled with a heaving, crawling mass of metallic-looking flies, and the buzzing of hundreds more was growing stronger as he looked. He counted quickly, estimating that six of the arrows that had killed the animal were salvageable. He nodded his head.
"Good. Then let's retrieve these arrows and get started."
Chapter FIFTEEN
It was late in the afternoon before they found a suitable spot in which to build a camp for the night. Uther had had no opportunity to talk further with Owain of the Caves since rejoining the main party that afternoon, but he had really not sought one. After introducing him briefly on their return to the curious troopers, he left the stranger to his own devices.
Owain had walked silently ever since, keeping close to Garreth's side. Garreth, for his part, showed no hostility to the man walking beside him, but neither did he go out of his way to make him feel welcome.
Some time after that, Uther's scouts reported finding some strange tracks, and he decided to ride out himself to look at them. Rather than risk wasting time, however, he checked first with Owain to determine whether the tracks might have been made by others in his party, but Owain assured him that he had travelled alone.
Less than two hours later when Uther returned, he smelled the appetizing aroma of roasting pork even before he reached the camp. Early in the afternoon, while Uther and Garreth had been dealing with the bear, one of the troopers had found and killed a young wild pig, a yearling, and now the entire squadron was hovering close to the fire, salivating over the sight of it turning on the spit. Bear meat was all very well, and few of the men doubted that some people might think it a delicacy, but for sheer delight in the mouth, nothing could compete with young pig.
After he unsaddled his horse and rubbed it down for the night, Uther shouldered his bedroll and made his way to where Garreth and Owain sat together beside a fire of their own, their backs against a long, mossy log. They shifted to make room for him between them, and Owain grunted a question.
"Did you find out who made the tracks?"
Uther straightened up in the act of stooping to lay his bedroll down. He could not decide whether Owain was interested or merely making conversation. He nodded.
"Aye. They were all made by one man, coming and going."
Owain's eyebrows went up. "One man? And your scouts had to take you out there to tell them that? Could they not work it out for themselves?"
"They had by the time I arrived, but they had to find a soft spot in the earth in order to do it. Mountainous terrain shows tracks, but not in great detail. They had to look for more than a mile in both directions before they found a watercourse with soft ground. Must have been some hermit or anchorite or madman living up here alone and walking each day to water. He wore a track eventually, and that's what my scouts found. They're not trackers, you understand, but they are the best at what they do."
"And what is that?"
"Fighting on horseback with disciplined tactics."
"Ah!" Owain nodded and returned his gaze to the fire.
Garreth met Uther's gaze and rolled his eyes, saying nothing.
Uther grinned and lowered himself to sit between them, stretching out his hands to the fire and thankful that in summer there was no need to pitch a tent. He had barely settled, it seemed, when a shout went up from the cooking fires, and it was time to eat.
Afterwards, sated with the delicious, fatty meat of the young pig, Uther sat gazing at Owain of the Caves, who in turn sat staring into the fire. Nemo Hard-Nose had shared their fire for the duration of the meal but was now gone, seeing to the first guard watch of the night. Garreth sat with his head back against the log behind him, eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the fire, breathing deeply, perhaps asleep.
Owain turned from the fire and looked away into the darkness beyond. "Fire blind," he said without looking at Uther. "You can see wondrous things in the depths of a fire, but nothing at all when you move your eyes away. You said you wanted to talk to me. Ask your questions, then. But know I might not answer them."
Garreth opened his eyes at that and sat up, stretching hugely. "Well," he said, "I might sit here all night listening to the two of you exchanging thoughts, and I might even learn something from it. . . But one thing I already know, learned long since: if I have no part to play in two men's talk, it's a waste of time, and I might as well be warm and snug abed. I'll bid you a good night and pleasant dreams, if e'er you get to rest."
Smiling, Uther watched him depart and then turned back to Owain of the Caves. "He is a good friend, Garreth Whistler."
"Mayhap. I'd be no judge of that. Ask me your questions."
Uther stirred and shifted his backside, searching for more comfort. "I have a few, but I think I know the answers to most of them already. Do you really believe that Meradoc would have you killed for not killing me? If I am any judge of men. and I believe I am. your loyalty is faultless."
That drew him a wry, sidewise look that condemned him as a fool. "You are still alive, and not even delayed in your journey. Therein lies an end to both my usefulness and my loyalty in Meradoc's eyes."
Uther shook his head. "Am I that big a threat to him?"
"Ask yourself that, not me. My only care now is staying alive. The gods served me a bitter dish today, but I learned long ago never to question what the gods offer."
Owain turned his gaze towards the fire again so that the leaping flames picked out the details of his long, clean-shaven face with its wide mouth and deep-graven jawline. Uther searched that face for signs of bitterness or anger, but he saw only a strange, almost melancholy sadness in the man's eyes.
"Meradoc demands perfection in his . . . followers," Owain said. And then, disconcertingly, he smiled—the first real smile Uther had seen from him—and reached down to pull a burning twig from the fire. He held it up to his mouth and blew at the flames before he continued, crinkling his eyes against the sting of the smoke as the tiny flames died out. "We are but few, we who do Meradoc's bidding, and for our services we are well rewarded. But as the payment for success is great, beyond a poor man's dreams, so, too, is the penalty for failure.