Kingmaker's Sword (Rune Blades of Celi) (33 page)

I had more than enough strength to glare back. “What exactly was I supposed to do?” I demanded. “What could you have done in that fancy gown? Walloped them with one of those ridiculous satin slippers?”

“The carriage whip was weapon enough to stop the only thug who tried to get into that carriage,” she said with smug satisfaction. “I took one of his eyes out, and he won’t be seeing too clearly out of the other for a good, long time, if ever.”

Cullin held up both hands, one palm facing each of us, and cut off my retort before I could take the breath to begin. “Enough,” he said quietly. I knew that tone in his voice. He didn’t use it often, and he seldom had to use it more than once. Kerri recognized it, too. She transferred her glare to him, then subsided into grudging silence. “If you two canna refrain from going for each other’s throats, this telling will take most of the night, and Jeriad will likely thump the both of you on the head with a large stone to get some peace and quiet.” He paused significantly. “If I dinna do it first, ye ken.”

Jeriad chuckled. “See?” he said knowingly to Cullin. “I be telling ye he be better.”

Cullin looked at me, looked at Kerri, then nodded. “Right,” he said. “Now, if you’ll hold your peace, I’ll get on with this.”

“Please,” I said.

“When Kerri got back to the palace, I was in with the Ephir again,” Cullin said. “That weasel Tergal had set a man on the second floor to skewer me with an arrow as I left. Fortunately, Sion foresaw the distinct possibility Tergal would do exactly that. He grabbed the archer by the scruff of the neck and the poor wee fellow couldn’t blame Tergal fast enough. We took him to the Ephir, and the Ephir called Tergal. When I accused him of ordering his man to kill me, Tergal went into a towering snit and tried to say I deserved the arrow because of what I’d done to his nose.” He looked at me and grinned. “Actually, I believe it was your fist he encountered so abruptly,
ti’rhonai
.”

“It very well may have been at that,” I said. “The tavern was not what might be described as very well lit.”

He laughed. “Tergal is not, I understand, one of the Ephir’s favourite kinsmen, but kinsman he is, and the Ephir was caught between loyalty to his youngest cousin and a possible alliance with Tyra.”

“He chose the alliance,” Kerri said dryly. “That was about when I came storming into the Council Room and demanded something be done immediately about those four thugs.”

Cullin reached for the wineskin that lay in front of his knees. “The Lady Kerridwen can throw a fairly impressive royal rage herself,” he said. “Within half an hour, the Ephir had guardsmen scouring every inch of Honandun, and they were quite prepared to take the city apart, brick by stone by board, to find you.” He took a sip of the wine and offered it to me. I shook my head. I didn’t feel quite ready to test the staying power of my belly just yet.

“It was Cullin who thought of the sword,” Kerri said. “We left Sion calmly suggesting to the Ephir that Tergal’s head on a pole would perhaps be minimal retribution for his dishonourable act of attempting to kill the son of the Clan Laird of Broche Rhuidh. I swear I saw Tergal’s knees trembling, and the Ephir was certainly not a happy man.”

“We had a wild ride in that carriage going back to the Inn,” Cullin said. “We had surmised by then that it was Mendor and Drakon who had taken you. Tergal swore innocence to that, and it sounded like the ring of truth to me.”

“You were right about Mendor and Drakon,” I said. “They were taking me to the General. And Drakon had scheduled some entertainment for himself.” I grinned wryly at Kerri. “It would have spoiled me for next Beltane Eve.”

My attempt at humour fell remarkably flat. Kerri shuddered and Cullin’s mouth lengthened to a grim line. “One more thing to add to their account then,” Kerri muttered.

I reached out and touched her hand. “That fight is mine,” I told her. “There’s no need for you to risk your life and the search for your lost princeling over that.”

She snatched her hand away and glared at me. “Don’t you go telling me which fights I can’t choose to take up,” she said coldly. “The experience with Mendor and Drakon certainly hasn’t made you any more brilliant. Your head is just as thick as ever.” She snorted. “Solid bone. Or rock.”

“If you two are finished, mayhap I can continue?” Cullin said. He waited, but neither Kerri nor I had much more to add. Cullin nodded and went on. “We went back to the inn to get the swords and our horses. Kerri changed out of her ball gown while I got my sword, then got yours, too. I couldna do anything with it, of course, and for a while, we thought that Kerri might not be able to, either.”

“Cullin suggested helpfully that it seemed to work better for you when you swore at it,” she said, and glowered at me again. “You show no respect, Kian dav Leydon. I’m surprised the sword didn’t slice off your hand for you after that.”

I grinned. “I was in no mood for its nonsense when I invoked its magic,” I said. “I take it you managed, though.”

“Finally, I had to go through my sword to yours,” she said, nodding. “But, yes. I made it work. And it led us straight out of the city.” She dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap. I noticed her knuckles whiten as she knotted her fists together. “Then, the next morning,” she continued in a softer voice, “the sword just went still.” She looked at me. “Before that, I could almost sense your presence. I believe I could have even without the sword. I think it had to be the bond—”

“I know. I felt it, too,” I said.

“Then the link just seemed to fade out and die away,” she said. She glanced at Cullin, then back to me. “We thought you were dead then,” she said. “The sword could tell us nothing, either.”

“Dergus and his spell,” I said. “It was the next day Drakon told me you were both dead, and I believed him only because I couldn’t feel the link with the sword, or with Kerri, any more. It was not—” I paused, searching for the right words. “—one of my better nights,” I finished inadequately.

“I can vouch for that,” Cullin said fervently. “We had been following the sword’s lead until then. After that, we had to track by sight. Not the easiest country on the continent to track across. We had to take it verra slowly.” He looked at me, his mouth set into a grim line. “At the very least,
ti’rhonai
,” he said, “we were going to exact vengeance for you, and I vowed I would see you home.”

I looked at Jeriad, who had been sitting quietly, like a fascinated child listening to a bard’s tale. “You told me they were searching for me,” I said, only now realizing what he had meant. “I thought you were telling me it was the General out there, too, as well as Mendor and Drakon.”

Jeriad looked affronted. “I be telling you others be searching for ye,” he said indignantly. “Not the black sorcerer or his men.
Others.
” He nodded toward Kerri, then Cullin. “Others, lad. Others.”

“And he found us,” Cullin said, smiling. “We encountered a troop of three or four Maeduni mercenaries—”

“Four,” Kerri interrupted. “There were four of them.” She gave me her smug smile. “Two each.”

Cullin laughed. “We were, fortunately, less startled upon meeting them than they were at meeting us.”

“What happened?” I asked.

Kerri smiled, mildly complacent. “Their bodies might wash up somewhere around Trevellin,” she said negligently. “Or there may possibly be some well-fed fish in the Shena for the next while.”

“That was when Jeriad came bounding out of the reeds,” Cullin said. He grinned. “Like to stop my heart right there and then. Neither of us had heard him approaching.”

“I told them ye needed them, boy,” Jeriad said with quiet dignity. “I knew both great swords had power. I told them ye be in mighty need of them.”

“I heard your voice,” I said to Cullin. “In the dream. I heard your voice telling Kerri to give something to me. The sword?”

He nodded. “We couldna even tell if you were breathing when she put it into your hands.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “It must have been a terrible dream.”

“It was.” I told them about the grey and lifeless wilderness, and about the enemy who stalked me through it.

Kerri shuddered when I had finished. “I think I saw part of it,” she murmured. “When I put the sword into your hands. All dead and grey and bleak as lost hope.”

“Aye,” I said. “And when you gave me the sword, it began to change back to a living place.”

“Was it the General in the dreams, Kian?” Cullin asked. “Was it the General you fought?”

I tried to recall the face of the man I had seen both in Trevellin and in Frendor. “No,” I said slowly. “Not the General. Someone else, I think, but Maeduni, too. Like the General. He was somehow familiar, but I can’t recall ever seeing the face waking.” I looked at Jeriad and remembered something else. I took a deep breath. “Jeriad, would you please fetch my sword for me? Take it out of the scabbard and bring it to me. I have to see something.”

Kerri started to rise. “I’ll get it,” she said.

I caught her arm and shook my head slightly. Puzzled, she settled back and watched as Jeriad bounced up and scuttled across the room to where the sword hung on the wall. He pulled it free using both hands, and, holding it like a banner pole before him, brought it back to me.

“What’s on the blade, Jeriad?” I asked quietly.

He frowned and leaned back to see better. “Be markings,” he muttered. Then he grinned widely and let go of the hilt with one hand so he could reach out and touch the runes. The sword was too heavy and he nearly dropped it. Cullin reached out a quick hand and caught it deftly by the hilt before it hit the floor. Jeriad dropped into a crouch and ran one finger along the blade, tracing the markings. He chuckled. “Be a Celae Rune Blade,” he exclaimed. “Ye carry a Celae Rune Blade, boy, and ye be a Tyr. This be passing strange.”

I took the sword from Cullin, wrapping my hand around the plain leather of the hilt. I turned to look straight at Kerri. “His mother was Celae,
sheyala
,” I said. “He has some magic, and I believe he’s much younger than he looks.”

Kerri paled. Her hair, bound in a long braid that fell across her shoulder, snapped as she turned to stare at Jeriad. “Him?” she asked faintly.

“He sees the runes,” Cullin said softly. He raised his eyebrow at me. “Are ye sure,
ti’rhonai
?”

“No,” I replied. “I’m not sure at all. But I think there’s a possibility.” Jeriad still crouched on the floor beside me, his hand slowly stroking the blade, a distant expression on his oddly youthful face. “Jeriad?”

He looked up.

“Jeriad, will you tell us about your mother?”

His eyes narrowed as he looked back and forth between Kerri and me. Finally, he shook his head. “Tell her,” he said, pointing his chin at Kerri. “Be Celae, her. Tell her, I will.”

Cullin sat
cross-legged, elbows on his knees and fingers tented beneath his chin. We heard the quiet murmur of voices through the hide curtain across the chamber door as Kerri and Jeriad spoke together in the cave where the fire burned. Occasionally, Jeriad’s chortling laughter rose above the soft whisper of sound. I wished I could hear what they were saying.

Cullin stretched to ease the cramps of sitting motionless for a long time. “He seems a most unlikely candidate for a prince,” he said, voicing my own thoughts.

“Aye,” I said. “Most unlikely indeed.”

He grinned. “Even more unlikely than you.”

I made a sour face. “Mayhap,” I agreed reluctantly. “But I canna help feeling the sword drew me here.” I glanced toward the hide curtain. “And he knew the sword for what it was,
ti’vati
. That’s more than I did for all the years I carried it.”

He picked up the sword and pulled it partway out of the scabbard to examine the blade, then turned it over to look at the other side. Finally, he shook his head. “I see no runes on this blade,
ti’rhonai
,” he said. “I never have.”

I reached out and traced the engraved figures with my finger. “There,” I said. “It reads,
Take up the Strength of Celi.
”

One red-gold eyebrow rose ironically. “Celi, is it?” he said. “And you a Tyr.” He turned the sword. “And what of this side?”

Again, I traced the runes. “Here,” I said.

“And they say?”

I shook my head. “I dinna ken,” I said. “I can’t read that side.”

He glanced at me quizzically. “Yet you can read the other.”

“From the dream.”

“It’s strange dreams you have,
ti’rhonai
.” He thrust the blade home in the scabbard and got to his feet to hang it back on its peg.

I was about to reply when Kerri and Jeriad came back into the chamber together. Jeriad glanced at me, his expression troubled, then turned to Kerri, watching her worriedly through the shaggy fringe of unkempt hair.

“May I tell them, Jeriad?” Kerri asked, her voice more gentle than I’d ever heard it. “Would you allow me to tell Kian and Cullin what you told me?”

“Be making us enemies, the lad and I,” Jeriad muttered.

“No,” she said. “You saved his life. He won’t be your enemy.” She looked at me. “Kian?”

I’m quick enough when I have to be. I met Jeriad’s anxious eyes. “Nothing you could say can make me your enemy,” I told him. “Even if you wished to be an enemy, I could not consider you one after what you’ve done for me.”