out through the doors and saw what there was to see. Its passing left behind a kind of hollowness: a space notyet filled by anything. He had been quite certain, in fact, from the moment he’d heard Dai’s first cry, but there was knowing, and knowing.
The attack was over. There hadn’t been enough of the Erlings to cope with Brynn’s warband here and their own Cadyri, even with the element of surprise. It was obviously to have been a raid on an isolated farmhouse—a large, specifically chosen farmhouse, but even so, this had been meant to kill Brynn ap Hywll, not meet his gathered force. Someone had erred, or had very bad luck. He’d said that himself, inside. Before he’d come running out into the yard to see the body lying here not far from the open doors. Not far at all.
He stopped running. Others were moving, all around him. They seemed oddly distant, vague, blurred somehow. He stood very still, and then, with an effort that took a great deal out of him, as though his body had become extremely heavy, Alun went forward again.
Dai hadn’t had anything but the knife in his belt when he’d gone out, but there was an Erling sword in his hand now. He was face down in the grass and mud, a dead raider beside him. Alun went over to that place, where he lay, and he knelt in the mud and put down his own blade, and took off his helmet and set it down, and then, after another moment, he turned his brother over and looked at him.
Not cheap, the selling of his life, the “Lament for Seisyth” went. The one the bards sang, at one point or another, in the halls of all three provinces during those winter nights when men longed for spring’s quickening and the blood and souls of the younger ones quickened at the thought of bright, known deeds.
The axe blow that killed Dai had fallen from behind and above, from horseback. Alun saw that by the light of the torches moving through the yard now. His blood andsoul did not quicken. He held a maimed body, terribly loved. The soul was … elsewhere. He ought to pray now, Alun thought, offer the known, proper words. He couldn’t even remember them. He felt old, weighted by grief, the need to weep.
But not yet. It was not over yet. He heard shouting still. There was an armed Erling in the yard some distance away, his back to the door of one of the outbuildings, holding a sword to a nearly naked figure in a half-ring made by the Arberthi warband and Alun’s own companions.
Still on his knees, his brother’s head in his lap now, blood soaking into his leggings and tunic, Alun saw that the captive figure was Brynn ap Hywll, being held—in the most savage irony he could imagine—exactly as his daughter had been, moments before.
The clerics taught in chapel (and text, for those who could read) that Jad of the Sun did battle in the night under the world for his children, that he was not cruel or capricious as the gods of the pagans were, making sport of mortal men.
You would not have known it tonight.
Riderless horses moving in the yard among the dead; servants running after them, taking their reins. Wounded men crying. The flames seemed to have been put out except for one shed, burning down at the other end of the farmyard, nothing near it to be claimed by fire.
There had been more than fifty fighting men sleeping here tonight, with weapons and armour. The northmen could not have known or expected that, not in a farmhouse. Bad luck for them.
The Erlings had fled or were taken, or were dead. Except one of them held Brynn now, with nowhere to go. Alun wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but he was about to do something.
You go. I don’t think I am equal to this. Not the voice, the brother, he’d known all his life. And for a very last word, a command, torn from him: Go!
Sending Alun away, at the end. And how could that be their last shared moment in the god’s world? In a life Alun had lived with his brother from the time he was born?
He set Dai’s head gently down and rose
The attack was over. There hadn’t been enough of the Erlings to cope with Brynn’s warband here and their own Cadyri, even with the element of surprise. It was obviously to have been a raid on an isolated farmhouse—a large, specifically chosen farmhouse, but even so, this had been meant to kill Brynn ap Hywll, not meet his gathered force. Someone had erred, or had very bad luck. He’d said that himself, inside. Before he’d come running out into the yard to see the body lying here not far from the open doors. Not far at all.
He stopped running. Others were moving, all around him. They seemed oddly distant, vague, blurred somehow. He stood very still, and then, with an effort that took a great deal out of him, as though his body had become extremely heavy, Alun went forward again.
Dai hadn’t had anything but the knife in his belt when he’d gone out, but there was an Erling sword in his hand now. He was face down in the grass and mud, a dead raider beside him. Alun went over to that place, where he lay, and he knelt in the mud and put down his own blade, and took off his helmet and set it down, and then, after another moment, he turned his brother over and looked at him.
Not cheap, the selling of his life, the “Lament for Seisyth” went. The one the bards sang, at one point or another, in the halls of all three provinces during those winter nights when men longed for spring’s quickening and the blood and souls of the younger ones quickened at the thought of bright, known deeds.
The axe blow that killed Dai had fallen from behind and above, from horseback. Alun saw that by the light of the torches moving through the yard now. His blood andsoul did not quicken. He held a maimed body, terribly loved. The soul was … elsewhere. He ought to pray now, Alun thought, offer the known, proper words. He couldn’t even remember them. He felt old, weighted by grief, the need to weep.
But not yet. It was not over yet. He heard shouting still. There was an armed Erling in the yard some distance away, his back to the door of one of the outbuildings, holding a sword to a nearly naked figure in a half-ring made by the Arberthi warband and Alun’s own companions.
Still on his knees, his brother’s head in his lap now, blood soaking into his leggings and tunic, Alun saw that the captive figure was Brynn ap Hywll, being held—in the most savage irony he could imagine—exactly as his daughter had been, moments before.
The clerics taught in chapel (and text, for those who could read) that Jad of the Sun did battle in the night under the world for his children, that he was not cruel or capricious as the gods of the pagans were, making sport of mortal men.
You would not have known it tonight.
Riderless horses moving in the yard among the dead; servants running after them, taking their reins. Wounded men crying. The flames seemed to have been put out except for one shed, burning down at the other end of the farmyard, nothing near it to be claimed by fire.
There had been more than fifty fighting men sleeping here tonight, with weapons and armour. The northmen could not have known or expected that, not in a farmhouse. Bad luck for them.
The Erlings had fled or were taken, or were dead. Except one of them held Brynn now, with nowhere to go. Alun wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but he was about to do something.
You go. I don’t think I am equal to this. Not the voice, the brother, he’d known all his life. And for a very last word, a command, torn from him: Go!
Sending Alun away, at the end. And how could that be their last shared moment in the god’s world? In a life Alun had lived with his brother from the time he was born?
He set Dai’s head gently down and rose
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