Dream Finder

He looked set to compound his mistake by apologizing, but Ryllans had wrapped a strong arm about his shoulders and was instructing him before he could speak.

'That was a good move…'

Estaan, rubbing his ribs, nodded in agreement.

’ … but you forgot what you were doing. You weren't fighting him for fun, for exercise. You were fighting him to stop him from killing you. The instant that threat was dealt with you should have looked to ensure he did not repeat it. In this case you should have had your foot on his sword and your blade at his throat. Then, perhaps you might have been able to pause a little, if it was only him you were dealing with.'

'I know, I know,’ Antyr managed to stammer.

'Only here,’ Ryllans said, tapping Antyr's head. ‘You've got to know it here.’ He tapped his stomach. ‘Or you're dead.'

Antyr nodded energetically.

'Learn this, Antyr,’ Ryllans went on, still holding Antyr tightly as if to squeeze the lesson into him. ‘The most dangerous time in close-quarter fighting is when your opponent goes down. You relax, thinking it's over. He however, is galvanized by his danger and…’ He drew his finger across his throat. ‘Fighting is cruel and horrible beyond belief. The difference between living and dying depends on your willingness to accept and implement immediately, whatever your survival demands. You must understand this totally if you're going to carry a sword with a view to defending yourself with it.'

He released his pupil, who muttered an awkward acknowledgement.

'How is he?’ Ryllans asked Estaan bluntly. ‘I see he's graduated to a training sword.'

Estaan smiled and nodded. ‘He's no sword-master, nor ever likely to be, but he's better than average,’ he replied. ‘And much better than he was a few days ago. I think he has a more realistic measure of his own worth now. He knows to run away unless he's cornered and he's had enough battle experience to realize that other resources will come to his aid if that happens.'

Ryllans nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Keep him at it.'

Antyr glanced from one to the other as they spoke, like someone awaiting sentence, then he turned to the Duke as if to a higher court.

But Ibris deemed the matter beyond his jurisdiction. ‘I apologize, Antyr,’ he said. ‘I should have known the Mantynnai would knock you into shape when I gave them the job of looking after you. They take it as part of their protection for you that you have to be trained to look after yourself.'

'I think I volunteered for it, sir,’ Antyr replied.

The Duke seemed doubtful. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But you'd have ended up doing it anyway.'

He signalled an end to the discussion with a gesture and then motioned Antyr towards a bench at the side of the hall.

'I want you to listen to Ryllans’ tale,’ he said, as he sat down. ‘I doubt you'll understand it any more than I did, but ask him any questions you like and don't feel obliged to make any comment about what you hear. I just want you to know everything that I know about this business. Whether or not it's important remains to be seen.'

Later, the Duke spoke privately with Feranc.

'Have you anything to tell me that I need to know?’ he asked.

Feranc shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, simply.

Ibris looked at him anxiously. ‘Your land has suffered greatly and strangely since you left, Ciarll,’ he said. ‘Armies raised, battles fought, civil war. Strange powers at work. Haven't you to tell me that you regret leaving; that perhaps if you'd stayed, events might have been different?'

Unexpectedly, Feranc smiled, though sadly. ‘I've no regrets,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘Events would have been different if I'd stayed, but for better or for worse, who can say? Who can say which side I'd have joined? I'd no close kin, and I was young and tormented.'

Ibris opened his mouth to speak, but Feranc continued. ‘I'm curious to know what happened, very curious, and perhaps one day I'll be able to speak with Ryllans and the others about it at leisure. But it's of no importance.’ He turned to the Duke. ‘More important at the moment is the presence of the two men that Ryllans saw.'

'Could they be your countrymen looking to bring their old enemies to justice?’ Ibris asked incredulously.

Feranc nodded. ‘It's possible,’ he replied. ‘But we'll know for sure if we find them.'

'If we find them?'

'If they've come so far, then they're no ordinary king's men and if they're who I think they are, then if they don't wish to be found, they won't be,’ Feranc said.

A brief look of irritation passed over Ibris's face. ‘You're their kind, Ciarll. Just find them. And soon.'

Feranc looked mildly surprised at Ibris's tone.

'Yes, it's that important,’ Ibris said sharply, answering the implied reproach. ‘Despite my curiosity about these shades from times long gone, my real concern is still for the problems we have here and now. And these people-if they're Ryllans’ people, your people-have faced and defeated this … power … that assails us. We must recruit them as allies.'

Chapter 32

It was a cold, bright, sunny day when the first divisions of Ibris's army marched out of Serenstad on their journey to Whendrak. The sky was cloudless, and a slight breeze fluttered the buntings and pennants that had been draped about the city for this occasion.

A flag-draped podium had been erected on a rocky outcrop on the far side of the river, and from it, Ibris and various other dignitaries were reviewing the troops as they passed over the bridge.

A large crowd had gathered and the many boats in the harbour were also crowded with spectators. There was a comforting amount of cheering and applause, but it was encouraging in tone, not joyous, and the predominant mood was one of anxiety.

After so many years of comparative peace and growing prosperity, the sudden flaring of Bethlarii hostility had come as a peculiarly awful shock to the Serens, and many could still not yet properly accept it.

It did not help that nothing had presaged this adventure; no increasingly acrimonious exchanges between envoys, no rumours of villages being raided, or trades routes blockaded, no formal denunciations, challenges or declarations. In fact, nothing which would serve to rouse the population into a mood unequivocally in favour of military action.

But it was the possibility that the reason for the aggression might be religious which caused the real concern. Trade and land were matters that the Serens could understand fighting for if need arose. But some bizarre deity …?

'This is the information I have received, and it is beyond dispute,’ Ibris told a subdued and hushed joint meeting of the Sened and the Gythrin-Dy following the return of Arwain's Mantynnai with their unhappy confirmation of the Bethlarii's intent.

'I need hardly mention that when many of us here were younger, fighting the Bethlarii was almost an annual occurrence, on one pretext or another. Fortunately, times have changed and we've all become a little wiser. Indeed, I'm sure that, despite our many differences, no one here will dispute that these are enlightened times. Times in which the sword and the bow are no longer regarded as acceptable tools of disputation. Fortunately too, however, despite this absence of hostilities, we have remembered that no city, no community, no man even, can lightly set aside those same tools or turn completely away from the idea of such conflict, as there will always be those who would seek to impose their will upon us by such means.'

There were murmurs of agreement about the chamber.

'Thus we have continued to give due note to martial skills, maintaining our army and making service a necessary social duty for all our young men. Not to menace our neighbours. But to show that as we value the hope of the future, so, by maintaining our strength, we remember the lessons of the past.'

He had concluded his speech by an appeal for unity between the many quarrelsome factions of the two