The Tree of Swords and Jewels by C. J. Cherryh

Author:C. J. Cherryh [Cherryh, C. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Daw Books
Published: 1983-08-02T07:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

Retreat

They were still there, the skulkers in the brush, and sometimes arrows flew: men of Damh and perhaps the wild men of the Bradhaeth with them, lurking round the margins of the lake, in reeds and willows.

And in every hiding place of the hills sat the country men of Caer Wiell, farmers skilled with bow and spear, and sword if it came to that, grandfathers and striplings not a few, for the word was out and the archers came, not alone here, but all along the marches, bands of kinsmen and not a few bow-skilled daughters ready for any outbreaking along the border.

"Go south," Ciaran had said then to the folk of Alhhard's steading, who had come first and feathered a good many of the lurkers about Lioslinn. "You and all your neighbors, go up and down the Bainbourne, and keep a watch, in case An Beag should grow rest less."

So Alhhard's sons went and Ciaran watched them go, not without misgivings. "An Beag will carry tales," Ciaran said glumly, "and the King will hear how I make war and stir up the whole countryside. If there is some attack of An Beag they will say it was I who moved on them."

"Go back to Caer Wiell," said Beorc. "There is no more need for you to be here. Less talk if you are back where you belong, and what passes up here is my doing."

Ciaran gave that no answer. He was weary of Beorc's asking, and walked away, sheltered by the hill. He wore armor of a sort, that country folk had gotten him, of laced leather; and there was talk. There could hardly be otherwise, how their lord was faery-touched and could not bear sword or iron, how he bore an elvish stone next his heart and flinched from Damh's iron-tipped arrows. He saw their looks as he passed them in his wandering along the lines, and felt the silence they paid him as if they had seen some direr sight than a tired, graying man in motley leather. By day he had stopped and joked with them as he had talked sometimes over fences in his riding through the land, but there were always whispers in his wake: he knew it. Now he passed along the ridge without a word except some times to greet a man familiar to him, like Cuinn of his household troops or Graeg of Graeg's steading. But mostly there were whispers.

Likeliest, he thought, the folk of Caer Wiell had done a good deal of free talking to their cousins and brothers of the steadings; and there was no stopping the tale-bearing.

He wearied of it, beyond all bearing, felt solitude heaped upon his shoulders, and even Beorc resisting him, Beorc, who spoke less and less of Domhnull and took wilder and fiercer chances, flinging him self toward any point of hazard he suspected his lord might take instead. An anger burned in Beorc; he felt it in the stone, a dark thing that

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