Earth Magic by Alexei Panshin, Cory Panshin

sick from my wounds so that I cannot stand, but my brains are not addled,” he said. “What safety is there for me in the West? In Palsance they would kill me as quickly as here. I will stay here until they come along and then I will seek my vengeance.”
    “No, come with me,” said Oliver. “Be Wisolf, Haldane. Use your cunning. Sick and alone as you are, you will be dead if you stay. You can play the peasant in Palsance until the times have sorted themselves. Then you can take your vengeance. But men harry the country for us now. Let us be gone. Or will you leave me to cough and hobble my way to Palsance alone? The man who saved you so that you could have your vengeance?”
    Oliver coughed tentatively to show Haldane the sickness he soon would suffer, as Haldane suffered now and did not realize. There was phlegm enough for him to venture a greater cough, a hack that shook him near to falling.
    Haldane turned the horn in his hands. “What is there for Oliver in Palsance but the enemies he left behind?” he asked.
    What would Oliver find in Palsance? The question did give him pause to think.
    A sudden sun of revelation lit Haldane’s face. He put the horn to his lips and made as if to blow. Then he looked at the horn again and said, “My grandfather Arngrim is almost as close as Palsance. He will help me gain my vengeance.”
    Oliver said, still thinking, “Arngrim is farther than Palsance. I could not walk so far.”
    But Haldane was instantly set. “I will go south along the Pellardy Road to Little Nail and there I will blow my horn outside Arngrim’s dun until he opens his gate to me, his own daughter’s son. Then I will gather a new army and return to sweep the earth clean of . . .” He could not remember all the names.
    “Of Ivor and Romund and Egil.”
    “And every traitor baron.”
    Oliver said, “And what welcome would a wizard find with Arngrim?”
    “I owe you my life,” Haldane said. “I will be your warrant with Arngrim. If you are with me, he will accept you. No Get would turn his own away.”
    Oliver took out his clay pipe and filled it with yellow weed, his aid to magic and thought, his mediator. He put punk in his firepump and struck a light. It would be the last smoke he would enjoy while spell and sickness held him. His cough had been more than effect. He could feel his chest filling and tightening now. This last pipe helped serve to calm him.
    “You could play the peasant until the times have sorted themselves, Oliver,” Haldane said. “My grandfather will have a place for a cock-eyed tiller of the soil.”
    Oliver would have need of Haldane’s strength as his own ebbed. He did not like to think of walking to Palsance alone. He thought of the life he would find waiting in Palsance. That was a certainty he had avoided before. He thought of the uncertainty that was Arngrim. At last—as always, at last—he dared.
    He finished his pipe and set it down on his bag. He said, “It seems that my adventure in Nestor is not yet over. Let us make our way to your grandfather Arngrim.”
    Haldane came to his knees and gathered his poor possessions. He was much readier to move now. The boar’s tooth he placed around his neck where it was lost in the illusion. His knife that was Marthe’s, his string that was Rolf’s, and even his horn that was Arngrim’s, he gave to Oliver who put them away in his sack. Then Haldane made to take up his sword. His wits might be mending, but they were not yet mended.
    Oliver told him, “No.”
    “I cannot leave my sword behind,” Haldane said, holding it close. At the moment he was not man enough to wield it. “It is my sword. How can I fight if we are discovered? We need my sword.”
    Oliver said, “If you carry your sword, we surely will be discovered. Whoever heard of a peasant with a sword?”
    Oliver’s objection was unanswerable and his will was stronger on this, and he overrode Haldane. But he did not stop with that. He made Haldane bury the