The Lightstone: The Silver Sword: Part Two. David Zindell

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СКАЧАТЬ look and said, ‘If travelers came through the Wendrush offering food to their hosts, what would they think?’

      ‘Ha,’ Kane said, ‘if travelers came through the Wendrush offering food to the Kurmak, they’d likely be put to the sword for the insult of it.’

      Although Atara didn’t respond to this remark about her people, her grim face suggested it might be true.

      ‘I have an idea,’ Maram said. ‘It’s time we began inquiring if anyone hereabouts knows of a road through the mountains. If anyone happens also to offer us shelter and also has enough food, we’ll accept. Otherwise we’ll ride on.’

      It was a good plan, I thought, and the others agreed. We spent the next few hours riding from farmhouse to farmhouse, even as the rain grew stronger. But none of the Surrapamers knew of the road we sought. Most of them did offer us lodgings for the night, even though their sunken faces and bony bodies told us that this was an act of pride and politesse they could ill afford. It amazed me that they were willing to succor us at all, for we were strangers from distant lands of which few had heard; we were girt for war and riding across their fields at a time when many of their kinsmen had been taken by war – and many more might soon be. I thanked our stars that all their knights and warriors had ridden off, and so left these brave people little more than goodwill, and faith in our goodwill, with which to face us.

      But as the day faded toward a gray, rainy evening, it seemed that I had given my thanks too soon. Just after we had knocked on the door of yet another farmhouse, a company of armed men came thundering down the road from the east and turned onto the farm’s muddy lane. There were twenty of them, and they all wore rusted mail with no surcoat to cover it or identify their domains or houses. Shabby knights they seemed, and yet their lances appeared sharp enough and their swords ready at hand. Although they were quite as gaunt as the rest of their countrymen, they sat straight in their saddles and rode with good discipline.

      ‘Who are you?’ their leader called out to us as his large war horse kicked up clots of mud and came to a halt ten yards from us. He himself was a large man, with a thick gray beard and braided gray plaits hanging down from beneath his open-faced helmet. ‘What are you doing in our land?’

      The door of the house having been shut behind us, I stood by Altaru as he stomped about and eyed this man’s horse ferociously. My companions had already mounted their horses; Atara was fingering her strung bow while Kane cast his black eyes on the men before us.

      I gave the knight our names, and asked him his. He presented himself as Toman of Eastdale; he said that he and his men had been riding off to join King Kaiman at Azam.

      ‘We’d heard there were strange knights about,’ Toman said, studying my surcoat and other accouterments. ‘We were afraid you might be Hesperuk spies.’

      ‘Do we look like spies?’ I said to him.

      ‘No, you don’t,’ he admitted graciously. ‘But not everyone is who they seem. The Hesperuks haven’t won half our kingdom through force of arms alone.’

      I pulled myself on top of Altaru and patted his neck to steady him. To Toman, I said, ‘We’re not Kallimun priests, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

      ‘Perhaps not,’ he said, ‘but that is for the King to decide. I’m afraid you’ll have to lay down your arms and come with us.’

      At a nod from him, four of his knights rode up by his side with their lances held ready. Toman looked from Atara to Maram and then back at me. ‘Please give me your sword, Sar Valashu.’

      ‘I’ll give you mine,’ Kane growled as his eyes flashed and his hand moved quick as a snake’s to draw his sword.

      ‘Kane!’ I said. With almost miraculous control, Kane caught himself in mid-motion and stared at me. ‘Kane, don’t draw on him!’

      But all of Toman’s knights had now drawn their swords. Unlike their armor, they showed no spot of rust.

      ‘You must understand,’ Toman said to me, ‘that we can’t allow you to go armed about our land – not with the Hesperuks knocking on our doors, too.’

      ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘but we’ve no desire to go riding about Surrapam at all – only to find a way to leave it.’

      I explained that we were journeying to the Library at Khaisham; I told him that we had made vows to seek the Lightstone along with a thousand others in King Kiritan’s hall in Tria.

      ‘We’ve heard of this quest,’ he said, pulling at his beard. ‘But how do we know that you have truly set out upon it?’

      I nudged Altaru forward, then drew forth the medallion that King Kiritan had given me. At the sight of this circle of gold, Toman’s eyes held wonder but no greed. Then, at my bidding, my companions approached to show their medallions as well. Toman’s knights, gathering around us, suddenly put away their swords at his bidding.

      ‘We must honor the impulse behind this quest, even if we do not believe in it,’ Toman said. ‘If you truly oppose the Crucifier, you’d do better to come to battle with us.’

      ‘That appears to be the thought of most of your countrymen,’ I said. Then I told him of meeting Thaman at Duke Rezu’s castle in Anjo, and his plea to the Valari.

      ‘You know Thaman of Bear Lake?’ one of Toman’s men asked in surprise. He was scarcely eighteen years old, and proved to be Toman’s grandson.

      ‘It seems you do,’ I said to him.

      ‘He’s my betrothed’s cousin,’ the man said, ‘and a great warrior.’

      Our acquaintance with Thaman finally decided Toman. He smiled grimly at us and said, ‘Very well, you’re free to go, then. But please leave our land before you frighten anyone else.’

      ‘We’d leave it faster if we knew of a road through the mountains.’

      Toman pointed off through the rain and dense greenery surrounding the farm and said, ‘There is a road – it’s about ten miles southeast of here. I would show it to you, but we’ve another hour before it’s dark and must ride on. But my other grandson, Jaetan, will take you to it if you tell him of our meeting and my wishes.’

      He proceeded to give us directions to his estate. Then he said, ‘Well, we’re off to the assembly at Iram. Are you sure you won’t join us?’

      ‘Thank you, no – we have our road, and it leads east.’

      ‘Then farewell, Sar Valashu. Perhaps we’ll meet in better times.’

      And with that, he and his men turned their horses and rode off down the road to the west.

      Toman’s ‘estate’, when we found it an hour later, proved to be nothing more than a rather large, fortified house overlooking a barn and fields surrounded by a high fence of sharpened wooden poles. As he had promised, his family provided us shelter for the night. Toman’s daughter and two grandsons were all that was left to him, his son having died in the battle of the Maron and two granddaughters taken by fever last winter. Toman’s second grandson, Jaetan, was a freckle-faced redhead about thirteen years old – too young to ride off with his brother to war. And yet, I thought, I had gone to war at that age. It gladdened my heart, even as I filled with not СКАЧАТЬ