Kurtz, Katherine - Deryni Chronicles 03 - High Deryni

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For MARGARET FRANCES CARTER:

because every mother

with an offspring who writes

should have a book from her Author-Chili

A Del Rey Book

Published by Ballantine Books

Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of

Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of

Canada Limited, Toronto.

ISBN 0-345-34766-8

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition; September 1973 Eighteenth Printing: June 1991

Cover Art by Darrell K. Sweet

HIGH DERYNI

CHAPTER ONE

The sword liereaveth, at home there is death.

Lamentations 1:20

The name they had given the boy was Royston Royston Richardson, after

his father and the dagger he clutched so fearfully in the deepening twilight

was not his own. Around him in the fields of Jennan Vale, the bodies of the

dead lay stiffening among the rows of newly ripening grain. Night-birds hooted

in the deathly silence, and wolves yipped in the hills away and to the north.

Far across the fields, torches were being lit in the streets of the town,

beckoning the living toward what slim comfort numbers might afford. Too many

dead of either side lay cold at Jennan Vale tonight The battle had been brutal

and bloody, even by peasant standards.

It had begun in the middle of the day. The riders of Nigel Haldane,

uncle to the boy-king Kelson, had approached the outskirts of the village just

past noon, royal lion banners billowing crimson and gold in the noonday sun,

the horses sweating lightly in the early summer heat. It was only an advance

guard, the prince had said. He and his troop of thirty were merely to scout a

route for the royal army's march toward Coroth to the east no more. For

Coroth, rebellious Duchy Corwyn's seat of local government, was in the hands

of the insurgent archbishops, Loris and Corrigaru. And the archbishops, aided

and supported by the zealot rebel leader Warin and his followers, were urging

a new persecution of the Deryni: a race of powerful sorcerers who had once

ruled all the Eleven Kingdoms; the Deryni: long suppressed, long feared, and

now personified by Corwyn's half-Deryni Duke Alaric Morgan, whom the

archbishops had excommunicated for his Deryni heresy but three months before.

Prince Nigel had tried to reassure the folk of Jennan Vale. He had

reminded them that the king's men did not plunder and pillage in their own

lands; young Kelson forbade it, as had his father and Nigel's brother, the

late King Brion. Nor was Duke Alaric a threat to the peace of the Eleven

Kingdoms even if the archbishops had ruled otherwise. The belief that the

Deryni as a race were evil was superstitious nonsense! Brion himself, though

not Deryni, had trusted Morgan with his life time and again, had esteemed the

Deryni lord so much that he had created him King's Champion, over the protests

of his Royal Council. There was no shred of evidence that Morgan had ever

betrayed that trust, then or now.

But the Vale-folk would not listen. The revelation of Kelson's own half-

Deryni ancestry at his coronation last fall, though unknown even to Kelson

before that day, had opened the door of distrust for the royal Haldane line a

distrust which had not been eased by the young king's dogged support of the

heretic Duke Alaric and his Deryni priest-cousin, Duncan McLain. Even now it

was rumored that the king still protected Duke Alaric and McLain; that the

king himself had been excommunicated as a result; that he and the hated Duke

Alaric and a host of other Deryni warriors planned to march on Coroth and

break the back of the anti-Deryni movement by destroying Loris and Corrigan

and the beloved Warin. Why, Warin himself had predicted it.

So the local partisans had led Nigel's troops the long way around Jennan

Vale, luring them with the promise of ample water and grazing for the royal

armies which would follow. In the fields green with half-ripe wheat and oats,

the rebels had fallen on the troops in ambush, cutting a swath of death and

destruction through the surprised royalist ranks. By the time the king's men

could disengage and retreat with their wounded, more than a score of knights,

rebels, and warhorses lay dead or dying, the lion banners stained and trampled

amid the ripening grain.

Royston froze with his hand on the hilt of his dagger for just an

instant, then scuttled past a still body and continued along the narrow

cartway toward home. He was only ten, and small for his age at that, but this

fact had not prevented him from doing his share of the plundering this

afternoon. The leather satchel slung over his shoulder bulged with food and

bits of harness and such other light accoutrements as he had been able to

gather from the fallen enemy. Even the finely etched dagger and sheath thrust

through his rude rope belt had been taken from the saddle of a dead warhorse.

Nor was he squeamish about picking over dead bodies at least not in

daylight. Scavenging was a way of life for peasant folk in time of war; and

now that the peasants were in revolt against their duke indeed, against even

their king it was an urgent necessity as welL The peasants' weapons were few

and crude: mostly pikes and scythes and clubs, or an occasional dagger or

sword gleaned from just such an activity as Roys-ton now pursued. Fallen

soldiers of the enemy could provide more sophisticated weaponry, fighting

harness, helmets, even gold and silver coinage on occasion. The possibilities

were unlimited. And here, where the retreating enemy had picked up their

wounded and the rebels had cared for their own, there were only dead men to

worry about Even so young a boy as Royston was not afraid of dead men.

Still, Royston kept a watchful eye as he walked, quickening his pace to

make a wide detour around another stiffening corpse. He was not timid in the

least; such was not the way of the country-bred folk of Corwyn. But there was

always the very real possibility that he might come upon a dead enemy who was

not really dead and that he did not like to think about.

As though in answer to his growing mood, a wolf howled, much closer than

before, and Royston shivered as he headed for the center of the cartway again,

beginning to fancy he could see movement in every bush, every ghostly tree

stump. Even if he need not fear the dead, there would be more dangerous, four-

legged predators prowling the fields once night fell. These he had no desire

to meet.

Suddenly a movement caught his eye ahead and to the left of the path.

Hand tightening on his weapon, he dropped to a crouch and let his other hand

fumble among the rocks in the roadway until it could close on a fist-sized

stone. He had held his breath as he dropped to the ground, and his voice was

hoarse and quavering as he craned his neck to peer into the bushes. "Who's

there?" he croaked, "Say who ye be, or I'll come nae closer!"

There was a second rustling in the bushes, a moan, and then a weak

voice: "Water... please, someone..."

Royston eased his satchel farther around his back and stood warily,

slipping his dagger from its sheath. There was always a chance that the caller

was a rebel soldier and therefore a friend one could have been missed all

afternoon. But what if he were a royalist?

Inching his way closer, Royston approached until he was even with the

bushes that had moved, rock and dagger poised, nerves taut. It was difficult

to make out definite shapes in the failing light, but suddenly he knew that it

was a rebel soldier lying in the brush. Yes, there was no mistaking the falcon

badge sewn to the shoulder of the steel-grey cloak.

The eyes were closed beneath the plain steel helm; the hands were still

But as Royston leaned closer to look at the man's bearded face, he could not

control a gasp. He knew the man! It was Malcolm Donalson, his brother's

closest friend.

"Mal" The boy crashed into the brush to drop frantically by the man's

side. "God ha' mercy, Mal, what's happened to ye? Are ye hurt bad?"

The man called Mal opened his eyes and managed to bring the boy's face

into focus, then let his mouth contort in a strained smile. He closed his eyes

tightly for several seconds, as though against excruciating pain, then coughed

weakly and tried to look up again.

"Well, me boyo, it's about time ye found me. I feared one of them

cutthroat rascals would get to me first and finish me off t' get me sword."

He patted a fold of his cloak beside him, and the hard outline of a

cross-hilted broadsword could be seen through the bloodstained cloth. Young

Royston's eyes went round as the shape registered, and then he lifted the edge

of the cloak to run his fingers admiringly along the length of bloody blade.

"Ah, Mal, tis a bonny sword. Did ye get it off one o" the king's men?"

"Aye, the king's mark is on the hilt, lad. But one o' his kinsmen left a

piece o' steel in m'leg, curse him. Take a look an' see if it's, stopped

bleedin' yet, will ye?" He raised himself up on his elbows as the boy bent to

look. "I managed t' wrap me belt around it 'fore I passed out th' first time,

but aiiiie! Careful, lad! Ye'll start me bleedin' againl"

The cloak wrapped across Mal's legs was stiff with dried blood, and as

the boy lifted it away to look at the wound it was all he could do to keep

from fainting. Mal had taken a deep swordthrust to his right thigh, beginning

just above the knee and extending upward for nearly six inches. Somehow he had

managed to improvise a bandage before applying the tourniquet which had saved

his life thus far; but the bandage had long outlived its usefulness, and now

glistened a brilliant red. Royston could not be sure in the failing light, but

the ground beneath Mal's leg looked damp, stained a deeper, redder hue.

Whatever its source, Mal had lost a lot of blood; there was no doubt about

that. Nor could he afford to lose much more. Royston's vision began to blur as

he looked up at his friend again, and he swallowed with difficulty.

"Well, lad?"

"It it's still bleedin', Mal. I don't think it's going to stop by

itself. Ye've got to have help."

Mal lay back and sighed. "Ah, 'tis nae good, laddie. I cannae travel

like this, and I dinnae think ye can get anyone t' come out here wi' night

fallin'. It's that bit o' steel that's causing the trouble, it is. Mayhap ye

can get it out yerself."

"Me?" Royston's eyes went round and he trembled at the thought. "Aie,

Mal, I cannot! If I even loosen the tie, ye'll start bleedin' all over again.

I cannae let ye spill out yer life because I dinnae know what I'm doin'."

"Now, don't argue, lad. Ye "

Mal broke off in mid-sentence, his jaw dropping in amazement as he

stared over Royston's shoulder, and the boy whirled on his haunches to see two

riders silhouetted against the sunset not twenty feet away. He rose cautiously

as the two men dismounted, gripping his dagger just a bit more tightly. Who

were the men? And where in the world had they come from?

He could make out little detail as the two approached, for the setting

sun was directly behind them, turning their steel helms to red-gold. They were

young, though. As they drew closer and bared their heads, Royston could see

that they were scarcely older than Mal certainly no older than thirty or so

and one was dark and the other fair. Steel-grey falcon cloaks swung from the

shoulders of both men, and each wore a longsword at his side in a worn leather

scabbard. The fairer of the two tucked his helmet in the crook of his left arm

as he stopped a few yards away and held his empty hands away from his weapons.

The darker man stood back a pace, but there was a kindly smile on his face as

he watched the boy's reaction. Royston almost forgot to be afraid.

"It's all right, son. We wont hurt you. Is there anything we can do to

help?"

Royston studied the men carefully for an instant, noting the grey

cloaks, the several weeks growth of beard on both men, their apparent

friendliness, and decided he liked them He glanced at Mal for reassurance and

found the wounded man nodding weakly. At Mal's signal he stepped back to watch

as the two men stooped down across from him. After a second's hesitation, he

too knelt at the side of the wounded man, his eyes dark with worry as he

wondered what the two strangers could do.

"Ye be Warin's men," Mal stated confidently, managing a trace of a smile

as the darker of the two men put down his helmet and began stripping off his

riding gloves. "I thank ye for stopping what with the darkness so near and

all. I'm Mal Donalson, and that's Royston. That steel's goin' to have to come

out, ain't it?"

The darker man probed at Mal's wound gently, then got to his feet and

returned to his horse.

"There's steel in there, all right," he said, pulling a leather pouch

from his saddlebag. "The sooner we get it out, the better. Royston, can you

borrow a horse?"

"We have nae horse," Royston whispered. He watched wide-eyed as the man

slung a water skin over his shoulder and returned. "Could could we nae carry

him home on one of yours? It's nae far to my mother's house, I promise."

He glanced anxiously at both men as the darker one knelt across from him

again, but this time it was the blond man who spoke.

'Tm sorry, but we haven't time. Can you get a donkey? A mule? A cart

would be even better."

Royston's eyes lit up. "Aye, a donkey. Smalf the Miller has one he'd let

me borrow. I can be back before it's full dark."

He scrambled to his feet and started to move off, then paused and turned

to peer down at the two men once more, his eyes sweeping over the falcon

cloaks with admiration.

"Ye be the Lord Warin's men," he said softly. "Ill bet yer on a special

mission for the Lord himself, and that's why ye cannae tarry long. Have I

guessed rightly?"

The two men exchanged glances, the darker one freezing in his place. But

then the blond man smiled and reached up to slap Royston's arm conspiratorily.

"Yes, I'm afraid you have guessed rightly," he said in a low voice. "But

don't tell anyone. Just go and get that donkey, and we'll take care of your

friend."

"Mal?"

"Go, lad. I'll be all right These men be brothers. They be on the Lord

Warin's business. Now, scat"

"Aye, Mal."

As the boy hurried out of sight down the road, the darker man opened his

leather pouch and began removing bandages and instruments. Mal tried to raise

his head slightly to see what he was doing, but the blond man pushed his head

gently back to the ground and held it there before he could get a good look.

He felt a cool, wet sensation as the other man began washing away the caked

blood on his leg, and then a faint ache as the tourniquet was tightened ever

so slightly. The blond man shifted on his haunches and glanced at the sky.

"Do you want more light? I can make a torch."

"Do," the second man nodded. "And I'll need your assistance in just a

few minutes. It's going to take both of us to keep him from bleeding to

death."

"Fll see what I can do."

The blond man nodded at Mal reassuringly, then got to his feet and began

rummaging in the bushes near Mal's head. Mal twisted around and watched in

silence for several seconds, wondering how the man planned to get a torch

burning out here, then glanced back at the man who was working on his leg. He

winced as the man prodded the wound and accidentally jarred the steel, then

coughed weakly and tried to clear his throat.

"By yer speech ye be strangers here," he began tentatively, trying to

take his mind ofi what the man was doing and was about to do. "Have ye come

from far to aid the Lord Warm?"

"Not from too far," the darker man replied, bending over the wounded

leg. "We've been on a special assignment for the past few weeks. We're on our

way to Coroth."

"Coroth?" Mal began. He saw that the blond man had found a length of

branch which suited him, and was now wrapping the end with dry .grass. He

wondered again how the man planned to light it

"Then, ye'll be going directly to th' Lord Warin himself aiie!"

As Mal cried out, the second man murmured, "Sorry," and shook his head

as he continued working. Light flared behind the injured man as the torch

caught, but by the time Mal could look around again the torch was already

burning brightly at his side. The blond man steadied it where he bad jammed it

into the ground beside Mal's leg, then knelt down and began removing his

gloves. Mal's face contorted in bewilderment, his eyes watering from the smoke

of the torch.

"How did ye do that? I saw nae flint and steeL"

'Then, you missed it, my friend." The man smiled and patted a pouch at

his belt. "What other way is there? Do you think I'm Deryni, that I can call

down fire from heaven simply to light a torch?"

The man flashed a disarming smile and chuckled, and Mal had to grin too.

Of course the man couldn't be Deryni. No one who served the Lord Warin could

be a member of that accursed race. Not when Warin was sworn to destroy all

those who trafficked with sorcery. He must be delirious. Of course the man had

used flint and steel.

As the blond man turned his attention to what his colleague was doing,

Mal chided himself for his foolishness and turned his head to look up at the

sky. A strange lethargy was stealing over him as the men worked, an

inexplicable, floating feeling, as though his very soul were hovering a little

way outside his body. He could feel them probing in his leg, and it hurt, but

the pain was a thing apart, a warm, disjointed sensation that was somehow

alien. He wondered idly if he were dying.

"I'm sorry if we hurt you," said the blond man. The low voice cut

through MaTs wanderings like the steel in his leg, and he was suddenly back in

reality. "Try to tell us what happened. It might help to take your mind off

the pain."

Mal sighed and tried to blink the pain away. "Aye, I'll try. Ah, yes. Ye

be on a mission for the Lord Warin, so ye could nae know what happened here."

He winced as the blond man shook his head.

"Well, we won for today." He laid his head back and stared up at the

darkening sky. "We routed thirty of the king's men led by Prince Nigel

himself. Killed a score, and wounded the prince, too. But it will nae last.

Th' king will just send more men, and we'll be punished for rising against

him. It's all the fault of Duke Alaric, cursed be bis namel"

"Oh?" The blond man's face, bearded though it was, was handsome and

calm, and not at all threatening. Still, Mal felt a cold shudder pass through

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ForMARGARETFRANCESCARTER:becauseeverymotherwithanoffspringwhowritesshouldhaveabookfromherAuthor-ChiliADelReyBookPublishedbyBallantineBooksCopyright(c)1973by(CatherineKurtzAllrightsreservedunderInternationalandPan-AmericanCopyrightConventions.PublishedintheUnitedStatesbyBallantineBooks,adivisionofRan...

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Kurtz, Katherine - Deryni Chronicles 03 - High Deryni

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