The Bristling Wood (Deverry) by Katharine Kerr

Author:Katharine Kerr
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780307760371
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

When the fire broke out in the tents, Perryn was riding around the edge of the actual battle, rounding up wounded horses and leading them to safety outside the earthworks. The meaning of the spread of smoke didn’t quite register on him until the chestnut he was riding snorted nervously and danced. Then he remembered Naddryc’s horses, tethered behind the tents. With an oath he turned the chestnut and galloped straight for the camp. At first the horse balked, but Perryn talked to him, patted him, soothed him until at last he picked up courage and allowed himself to be ridden near to the fire.

Between the burning and the earthwork, horses were rearing, screaming with that ugly half-human sound a horse makes only in terror, kicking out at the grooms trying to save them as they pulled desperately at their tether ropes. Perryn wrapped his reins around the saddle peak and guided the chestnut with his knees as he rode right into the panic. Although the chestnut trembled and threatened now and then to buck, he kept moving as Perryn talked, pouring out the words, smiling his special smile, reaching out with his one good hand, patting a horse here, slapping one there, as if he were the stallion of a herd, who asserts his control with nips and kicks as much as affectionate nuzzles. The panic began to ebb. Although the horses were dancing and sweating with gray fear-foam, they fell in behind and around him in the swirling smoke. At last the grooms cut the last tether.

“Take them out!” one yelled. “And may the gods bless you!”

With a wave and a yell, Perryn led the herd forward at a calm jog. Circling around the inner earthwork, they swept free of the burning camp just as a rain of sparks and glowing bits of canvas began to fall. Perryn called out wordlessly, and they galloped out of the breach to the safety of the meadow beyond. When he looked back, he could barely see the dun, rising half hidden in the murk. With the horses huddled around him, he waited for a good half hour until the smoke diminished to a few wisps. As he was leading the herd back, Nedd came out on horseback to meet him.

“I was looking for you,” Nedd said. “I figured that you were the only man on earth who could have saved Naddryc’s horses.”

“Oh, er, ah, well, they trust me, you see.”

For a moment they merely stared at one another.

“Er, well,” Perryn said at last. “Did you think me slain in that first scrap?”

“I did, but now I see that I wasn’t so lucky.”

“I’m not rid of you, either.”

Leaning from their saddles, they clasped hands, and they were both grinning as if they could never stop.

Back at the dun, the cousins turned the horses over to the servants, then went into the great hall, where a conference of sorts was in progress at the table of honor. While the lesser lords and allies merely listened, Benoic and Graemyn were arguing, both red-faced and shouting.

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