The Horse Lord (The Book of Years Series 1) Read online

  The Horse Lord

  Peter Morwood

  The Book of Years Series, Part One

  © Peter Morwood copyright 1983, 2016

  Peter Morwood has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in the UK in 1983 by Century

  This revised edition published in 2016 by Venture Press, an imprint of Endeavour Press Ltd.

  For my father, who had to leave early.

  And always,

  To Diane

  With acknowledgement and thanks to:

  Alistair Minnis and Diana Wynne Jones;

  Charles Redpath and David Lavery;

  Rosemary Freel and Patricia Burns;

  And my mother and sister, who put up with it all.

  With additional thanks to the test readers of this revised version:

  Michelle Drayton-Harrold, Jim Fleming, Phil Nanson, Harry Payne, Kari Sperring and Mike Whitaker

  and especially to Becky Ottery and John Welch, for editing duties above and beyond.

  Table of Contents

  PREFACE

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  PREFACE

  “…bye virtue of his lady wyfe.

  In this yeare also, being but ye eighth of ERHAL-OVERLORDE his holding of his Seate in ye citadel of Cerdor, was there war and stryfe in ye north through ye Malice and foul Usurpationes of that Sorcerer since ynamen Kalarr cu Ruruc.

  ERHAL-OVERLORDE having setten him forth with an hoste being of soche numberes as fyve thousandes of Horse and of Foote ten thousandes, he did bring defeate to his enemy and ruination utterly by force of armes at Baelen Fyghte.

  But in that field did fall and perish ERHAL, most Noble and Gentle of LORDES (this of an Arrow betwixt ye Harness joyntes) and with him dyveres soche Honourable men as ykepen oath even unto Deathe, to ye numberes of seven thousandes both hygh and humble. And of hygh-clan yfallen are…

  …And this is all their names that be yknowen slaine. Now to their sonnes hath ycomen fell Ambition where-bye each hath ycraven landes held of another for his own, and hath ytaken seizen of full many an halle and fortress each from another. Now indeed doth red War make of ALBA his dwelling-place to the dolour and exceeding Heaviness of all honest folke, and noble LORDES do slay those that were their hearth-friendes not four monthes agone.

  May-be by HEAVENES grace this lande may be delivered from sore Travail, and by ITS Endeless Mercy the people may be ysafen from blood and pestilence to live again in Peace…”

  - Ylver Vlethanek an-Caerdur

  The Book of Years, Cerdor

  PROLOGUE

  Boots thudded in rotting vegetation and slapped in patches of slushy snow. As the sound grew, a solitary figure came stumbling through the forest gloom, slumped against a tree, then slid face-downwards into the dirt and wet dead leaves.

  The runner was twenty years old, and sick with fear. His tunic was open despite the chilly air, and the neck of a once-fine shirt hung loose. Sweat glistened on his face and body, sticking sodden clothing and tails of wet hair to his skin. His chest heaved, veins beat in his throat and temples and his whole frame quivered with exertion.

  He listened, holding his breath as he lay still. At first there was nothing but the patter of raindrops and the slamming of his heart. Then he heard what might be a soft, ponderous sound, not quite drowned by the whisper of wind through autumn-bared branches. As he struggled upright his left shoulder slammed against the tree trunk, an impact that wrenched an agonised moan from between his clenched teeth.

  The broken-off arrow had stopped hurting hours ago, when all feeling left his arm, and until this new stab of blinding pain he had almost forgotten its presence. Just as he had all but forgotten how long he had been running. Exhaustion spread its seductive warmth through him, inviting sleep and cramping fatigued muscles even as he gulped the air that made them work.

  A flicker of lightning etched the world stark black and white. Brief seconds later its thunder came growling like a vast beast above the trees while images of nameless slavering things scuttled through his imagination, sniffing the air for their quarry’s scent.

  His scent.

  He fled again through another flurry of rain until something struck at his leg and made him flinch, almost tumbling headlong before he recognised his own taiken longsword. The scabbard had worked loose while he ran, and another minute would have slipped it free from his weapon-belt. Though he fumbled to run his hand into the complex hilt he didn’t dare stop, even though his left arm was powerless to halt the weapon’s crazy wavering.

  Its blade was barely drawn when he fell.

  The storm was to blame. Great banks of cloud had drifted up in silence to vent their fury in thunder and lightning directly overhead. Blinded and deafened, he didn’t even see the tree-root that jerked both feet from under him. His out-flung hand wrenched sideways as his sword dug deep into the mud with most of his weight behind it. A ringing metallic snap told its own story. Only a jagged splinter of steel remained in the hilt; the rest had gone. With a sound half sob and half curse he flung its remnant away and reeled on.

  Rain began to fall in earnest, drumming a knee-high haze from the ground and laying curtains of shifting grey across the forest. When a tree loomed suddenly from that murk, the crooked branches that raked his back tore a renewed spatter of blood from his wound, a ragged scream from his throat and the last strength from his legs.

  The running was over.

  Death hung at his hip; a shortsword for them…

  And a black tsepan dirk for himself. A dirk whose presence shamed him, because he should have used it hours ago while there was still honour in the act. Instead he had been afraid. Instead, he had run away. Now all its needle point would grant was escape from being taken alive.

  He straightened with an effort, wanting to be standing when they found him rather than grovelling in the dirt. Though he fell again twice on ground hammered to greasy mud by the downpour, at last he remained steady enough to draw his remaining blade. Not the dirk, not yet. That still waited in its sheath. There would be no dignity in its use, no ceremony or ritual phrases, only a single hasty stab. It would be enough. They would be cheated.

  And then he waited, and nothing happened but the steady fall of rain that washed away the little courage he had left. Even his curses were swallowed by another long rumble of receding thunder. His shoulders drooped and at last he began to cry, softly, like a child.

  Suddenly he stiffened and wiped his face with one muddy sleeve, aware he was no longer alone. Panic welled up again, and he would have tried to run one last time, if only he knew which way was safe.

  Then a hand out of the darkness gripped his injured arm. With a croaking gasp he lashed out and staggered away, but made just two swaying strides before his knees gave way and a deeper black than the night closed in around his eyes.

  Footsteps padded closer, but even as they stopped beside his head the sound faded to silence…

  CHAPTER ONE

  Autumn sunshine warmed Gemmel’s whitewashed cottage and gilded its thatched roof. It made him smile, because in the fifty years since he’d first come here he often compared the modest dwelling with his other home beneath Glaselyu Menethen, the Blue Mountains that shaded the western horizon. On days like this such criticism was out of the question.

  The loc
als called him an-pestrior, the wizard, and he was content to let them do so since the Alban language had no words to adequately describe the real power he could command. Yet in the past few years he had done little to warrant their title, caution or respect. Gemmel Errekren had retired from active sorcery, and he was bored. During his years of exile he had performed spells, had travelled known lands and some unknown, had learned the martial arts of half a dozen kingdoms, had…

  There lay the problem. Everything had been done, was completed, past tense, and now tedium gripped him in soft and cloying paws.

  The sun dipped behind a cloud and brought him yawning out of his reverie. He eyed the changing sky and decided it was time he at least prepared something to eat.

  *

  Outside was dark and blurred with rain, a curtain of drops briefly sparkling as they passed through the wash of lamplight from the cottage windows. Inside was snug and smelling of hot food as the master of the house sat down to his meal.

  Then Gemmel hesitated with a cup of wine halfway to his lips, because a sound from the distant forest had nothing to do with any storm. It was more like the howling of a wolf. He set the cup down with a sharp little click and turned to stare out into the night, because there were words in this wolf’s howl. His eyes glinted green in the lamplight and a smile curved the thin mouth framed by his neat white beard. Perhaps the world was less dull after all.

  He stood up, took a sheathed dagger from where it hung over the fireplace and hooked it to his belt. The razor-edged blade, iron rather than steel and inlaid with glyphs of pure silver, was effective against any foe human or otherwise. There were several other weapons, though he had vowed long ago not to use them without good reason, and even those sounds from the forest were insufficient justification to unclip such dreadful things from their racks. But before he stepped out into the rain-swept night he drew the dagger, just in case.

  The noise continued barely long enough for him to guess its source. Then it faded away and the hiss of falling water filled his ears once more. Despite the deluge he moved slowly, ready with sharp metal or matter-ripping spells if anything sprang from the darkness. Neither was needed. A new sound reached him and Gemmel hesitated, then sheathed his blade and walked on, peering warily through the gloom for the source of that heartbroken sobbing.

  It came from a ragged figure crying like a hurt child as the sky opened overhead. Moved to pity, Gemmel put one hand to the stranger’s arm, and almost lost fingers when a shortsword hacked at them. The muddy-faced young man wrenched away and tried to run, but after only two wobbling paces went down in a heap.

  Gemmel blinked, then with a surge of strength ill-matching his venerable appearance he lifted the slack-limbed body and bore it carefully back to his house. At every stride he felt warm blood soaking through his sleeve.

  The evening was more interesting already.

  *

  Gemmel’s guest lay on a hastily cleared table while he boiled water and rummaged for long-forgotten jars and bottles. Once filthy clothing came away from the injury, he swore at how earlier attempts to free a deep-driven arrow had mangled its clean puncture. He also damned the oversight that had left his best healing materials under the mountains, then shrugged and resigned himself to the means at hand. A groan made him turn around. The young man’s eyes were open, wide and white in a mask of bloodied mud.

  “Get out!” he gasped. There was unlikely authority in that weak voice, enough to make Gemmel stare. “Followed! Can’t lose them! Kill me clean… And… Run…!”

  The warning took his last reserves of strength, because the staring eyes unfocused and rolled shut as his head thudded back against the table. Gemmel didn’t doubt him. He seized a few items and ran from the house. But not to escape.

  He was, after all, a wizard.

  The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and wind was shredding the remaining clouds. Instinct mingled with forlorn hope raised the old man’s gaze toward the remote glint of stars, searching…

  Then he snorted and strode around the cottage, muttering under his breath. At each compass-point he stopped, drew a pattern in the air and flicked pinches of dust from each of the leather bags he carried. Pattern and dust both glittered like sparks for an instant afterwards. At the front door he raised one hand as he pronounced one of the lesser Charms of Concealment, and a haze the translucent blue of alcohol flame shimmered briefly as the spell took effect. When it faded from sight Gemmel felt more at ease. Now he had enough time to patch up his visitor so they could both get clear of whatever was out there. But charm or no charm, once inside he bolted the door.

  Before long the broken arrow was out, the wound stitched and bandaged and his blanket-wrapped patient settled in a chair by the fire. Apart from the cleaned shoulder where he had been working, muck still caked the young man’s skin and clothes. Knowing Albans better than they knew themselves, Gemmel went out to stoke his bath-house stove, turn the pine tub right-side-up and make up the couch in his small library with sheets and a clean quilt. When he re-entered the front room his guest’s eyes opened again, then squeezed shut as pain seared his torn back. Gemmel offered a wooden beaker.

  “Drink this,” he ordered. “To ease the effects of the surgery.” The young man put back its bitter contents in a single face-twisting gulp, and Gemmel watched him relax as the throb of stitched muscles faded to no more than a dull ache.

  “It works,” he said. “For shelter freely given and aid unasked, I offer you my tha-ngh!” The attempted bow and decorous phrases stumbled on a grunt and click of teeth as one last twinge from torn flesh worked through the drug, but he managed a wry little smile. “Excuse my poor manners. I can’t—”

  “Save your manners until you’ve rested.”

  “And bathed. I stink.”

  “You’re the one to mention it, but yes. You do. Now tell me, as a courtesy from guest to host. Who are you?” Gemmel had thought the young man’s eyes were a hazel-green colour; now he watched the warmth leach from them until they were grey and cold and flinty.

  “Who wants to know?” A sharpness to the demand, for it was no less, made Gemmel check that no weapons were within reach.

  “The man who took a broken arrow from your back.”

  “I beg pardon.” A blush coloured the pale, mud-smeared face, as if the words had been harsh criticism instead of a mere reminder. “That was—”

  “Understandable.” This time the young man did make an awkward bow despite how the action hurt him, and Gemmel wondered what he would say next. It came as a surprise.

  “My name is Aldric. I’m a… I was a kailin-eir of clan Talvalin.”

  Gemmel was glad Aldric hadn’t been watching his face. The expression which flicked across it like the shadow of a bird’s wing might have prompted too many questions. He felt his breath catch in his throat, and wondered what trick of fate brought a highborn warrior of that clan to his door after so many years.

  No bad blood lingered between him and the Talvalins, or he wouldn’t chance living where he did. He had parted from them with gratitude on the Alban side, combined with a freezing politeness that showed they would be equally grateful never to see him again. Gemmel had taken the hint to heart. It was best not to antagonise people with short tempers, long swords and a newly-reinforced distaste for the Art Magic. Any mention of him would soon have been erased from their Book of Years, and later generations would know nothing of it.

  He hesitated a second time as his house-guest’s appearance took on new meaning: not the mud or the blood so much as what was beneath them. Kailin-eir he claimed to be, and highborn he certainly was, but young enough that even a highborn wouldn’t be allowed such clothing and accoutrements. So he wasn’t merely highborn, he was high clan, and that meant a relative whether close or distant of Lord Haranil himself.

  Aldric didn’t look the part, yet little details indicated rank and status. That flash of chilly arrogance, then a literally-painful apology; the excellent quality of shortsword and d
irk; a tunic where ornamental stitching glinted gold wherever mud had dried enough to flake away; and a crest-collar showing as its wearer moved. Only his hair was wrong. Instead of three neat high-clan braids, it was an untidy mop hacked crudely short at ears and neck.

  “Indeed. Then Aldric-eir, I grant you the shelter of my house, and protection from the troubles of the world outside. Food would only make you sick after the pain-ease, but there’s hot water for the tub and clean linen on the guest-bed.”

  “Why?” The single word was laden with puzzlement, but not as much suspicion as before.

  “I’ve received similar kindness in the past. It’s only right to return it.” The wizard waved a dismissive hand. “Wash and sleep. You’ll have more questions in the morning, and I’ll be more inclined to answer them.” He opened a jar, stirred a spoonful of its contents into hot water, added some honey and held out the potion. “This will help. It might even bring pleasant dreams.”

  It occurred to Aldric as he undressed, with much hesitation as jabs of muscle-deep discomfort cut through the pain-ease, that he hadn’t asked his benefactor’s name. He dismissed the matter. If the lean old man with the white beard meant him harm, there had plenty of opportunities. The bath was as pleasant as he could manage when he still hurt all over, and washing off away the dirt and the sweat and the smell was worth a few aches.

  When at last he lay back on the couch and pulled its thick down quilt to his ears, he fell asleep almost at once.

  *

  Gemmel glanced towards the silent guest-room, put more logs on the fire and settled back into his cushioned chair. There was a generous pinch of ymeth, dreamdust, mixed with the sleeping-draught. Simple, fast, and proof against lies, it freed an unconscious mind and memory for probing by any wizard with the necessary skill. It also caused a splitting headache, which Gemmel was willing to tolerate. Not asking his guest’s permission was also tolerable, though what the Alban would say if he ever found out would be another matter. There had been occasions in the past when ruthless expedience had saved both time and lives, and Gemmel suspected this might be another.