Kerr, Katherine - Deverry 06 by Kerr Katherine

Author:Kerr, Katherine
Language: eng
Format: epub

“News?” Rhodry turned cold, guessing it just from the grim looks on their faces.

“He was on his way to a big alardan down south somewhere, but he never reached it.”

Rhodry grunted like a man kicked in the stomach. Staring at the ground but unseeing, he dropped his horse’s reins and walked a few steps away while the others went on talking to the banadar. He heard himself speak, realized that he was shaking his head in an instinctive denial while he muttered no, no, no, over and over. Oldana’s death was very sad, but to have Aderyn gone shook his entire world. The old man had always been there, wise and strong and full of good counsel, ever since those days long ago when Rhodry as a lad of twenty rode to war as cadvridoc for the first time, back in the old days, when he was heir to Aberwyn. Calonderiel caught up with him and grabbed his arm.

“How?” Rhodry said. “Did they say?”

“In his sleep. As peaceful as you’d want, or so they heard. Well, he’d lived a full life, after all, not like poor little Oldana, and no doubt he’s gone to join those Great Ones that dweomerfolk speak of.”

“True spoken.” Without thinking, Rhodry slipped into Deverrian. “But it aches my heart all the same.

Will his apprentice succeed him?”

“He will, but he’s up north somewhere. Shall we ride after him? The gods only know when we’d catch up with him, and I think you’re in too much danger for us to wander aimlessly about, my friend.”

“So do I. I think me that I’ve been given an omen as well as sad news.”

“You’re going to leave us?”

Rhodry hesitated, staring off at the horizon and the endless sea of green, rippling in a rising wind. For years his entire life had been bounded by grass and grazing, the herds and the seasons of the year, the vast freedom of following the herds and the grass. To go back to the lands of men, to cities and to farms—what would he do there?

“Staying here would put you all in danger,” he said aloud. “Evandar—I suppose that’s the Guardian who

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spoke to me that night—Evandar seemed to think that leaving was my only choice. And without Aderyn . . . ” He let his voice trail away. “Well, I sold my sword once before. I can do it again.”

“Ye gods! Not that!”

“What choice do I have?”

“I don’t know. But let’s shelter here tonight anyway. Don’t go rushing into some decision you’ll regret.”

“Good advice. Done, then.”

But that evening, as they sat around a fire with their hosts, Rhodry barely listened to the talk and the music round him. As much as he hated to leave the Westlands, he felt Deverry pulling at him, the memories of his native land rising in his mind as easily and as vividly as his native language had come back. All at once he realized that he was thinking of his ride east as “going home.

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