The Fire Dragon. Katharine Kerr

too,’ the prince said, nodding Nevyn’s way. ‘I wanted to see you, Maddo, because I was just remembering how you and the silver daggers smuggled me from Pyrdon to Cerrmor, all those years ago. We had so little then, do you remember? And we hadn’t the slightest idea of what we were riding into.’

      ‘So we hadn’t.’ Maddyn smiled, the first time he’d felt like doing so in some days. ‘And you slept on the ground like an ordinary rider.’

      ‘I did.’ The prince smiled in return. ‘I remember sharing a fire with you and Branoic.’ The smile vanished, and for a moment the prince was silent. ‘Ah well,’ he said at last, ‘Long time ago now, but that ride began everything. And so I wanted to come thank you now that we’re about to end the matter.’ Maryn held out his hand. ‘I only wish that Caradoc were here.’

      ‘So do I, my liege, so do I.’

      As he shook hands with the prince, Maddyn felt tears in his eyes, mourning not only Caradoc but all the men the silver daggers had lost in one battle or another. It had been a long road that they’d travelled to bring the prince to his rightful wyrd.

      ‘Well,’ the prince said, ‘I’d best be gone and let you rest. It’s time to get our men ready to march.’

      Nevyn left with the prince, and Maddyn crawled back into his tent and lay down. The canvas roof, glowing from the light outside, seemed to spin around him. He’d not eaten a true meal in days, but was it hunger making him so light-headed? He doubted it. More likely it was the grief of war.

      Nevyn accompanied the prince back to the royal tent. Out in front of it, his vassals were gathering to receive their orders for the battle ahead. Gwerbret Daeryc and Gwerbret Ammerwdd stood in front of the huge red and white banners of the wyvern throne, and the rising sun gilded their mail and glittered on their sword hilts. Behind them stood the tieryns, and behind them, the men who could only claim a lordship for their rank.

      ‘Good morrow, my lords,’ Maryn said, grinning. ‘Shall we go for a bit of a ride on this lovely morning?’

      Some laughed, some cheered him.

      ‘Very well,’ Maryn went on. ‘We’re dividing our army to match Lord Braemys’s little plan.’

      Nevyn merely listened as they worked out the battle plan. Gwerbret Ammerwdd would command approximately half the army and station it, looking east, across the main road. The other half, with Maryn in charge, would make its stand facing south at the rear of the other. As an extra precaution, Maryn decided to send some twenty men a few miles north to keep a watch for any further cleverness that Nevyn’s night travels might have missed.

      ‘Good idea,’ Gwerbret Daeryc said. ‘I don’t trust this son of a Boar.’

      ‘Indeed.’ Daeryc glanced at Ammerwdd. ‘The crux is this. Your men have to hold until Braemys charges the prince. We can’t be turning our line to join your fight until then.’

      ‘I’m well aware of that.’ Ammerwdd’s voice turned flat. ‘And I think our prince knows he may trust me on the matter.’

      ‘Of course!’ Maryn stepped in between them. ‘I have the highest regard for both of you.’ All at once he grinned. ‘I think me Lord Braemys is in for a bit of a surprise.’

      ‘So we may hope,’ Nevyn put in. ‘He’s badly outnumbered, and cleverness was the best weapon he had.’

      ‘Well, it’s blunted now. Still –’ Maryn hesitated. ‘Pray for us, and for the kingdom.’

      ‘Always, your highness. Always.’

      When the army rode out, Nevyn stood at the edge of the camp and watched till they were out of sight. The cloud of dust that marked their going hung in the air, as cloying as smoke, for a long time. Perhaps, he told himself, perhaps today will be the last battle ever fought over the kingship. All he could do now to ensure it was to invoke the gods and hope. With a weary shake of his head, he walked over to the circle of wagons to meet with the other chirurgeons. They all needed to ready their supplies for the flood of wounded that would soon deluge them.

      Like the others, Nevyn would work on the tail gate of a wagon, sluiced down with a bucket of water between patients. On the wagon bed itself he arranged herbs, tools, and bandages, then put a second set of supplies into a cloth sack. Eventually, if the prince won the battle, he would go to the battlefield to see what he could do for the wounded left there.

      At the wagon to his right, Caudyr was doing the same. He was a stout fellow in the prime of life now, not the frightened lad Nevyn had first met as Grodyr’s apprentice all those years ago. Grey laced his blond hair – prematurely, really, but then he was often in pain. He had a club foot, which gave him an uneven, rolling gait for one thing but for another threw his entire body out of alignment. His hips and knees protested so badly that as he aged he had more and more trouble standing for any long while.

      Today as Caudyr laid out his supplies he looked so pale, his mouth so twisted, that Nevyn went over to his wagon.

      ‘Are you all right?’ Nevyn said.

      ‘I will be.’ Caudyr paused to stretch his back and grimace. ‘I slept wrong or suchlike, is all. It’ll loosen up in a bit.’

      Nevyn considered him, but he had nothing to offer to kill pain but strong drink, an impossibility since Caudyr would need all his wits about him.

      ‘Well,’ Nevyn said at last. ‘Try to sit down till the battle joins, at least. Though it won’t be long now. The prince will be making his stand only about a mile from here, but it’s going to take time for the Boar’s army to find us.’

      ‘Only a mile?’

      ‘He wants to be close at hand should Braemys decide to raid the camp.’

      ‘The wretched young pigling tried it last time, truly. He’s a clever man, young Braemys.’

      ‘He is. Unfortunately.’

      Both men turned and looked beyond the huddled wagons. Outside of the ring, Oggyn was marching his company of spearmen into position. Beyond the wooden wall they stood shoulder to shoulder in an overlapping formation three men deep. With long spear and shield they made a living wall and a formidable one against an attack on the baggage train. Let’s hope they have naught to do but stand there, Nevyn thought. But who knows what the gods have in store for us?

      In the hot spring sun Prince Maryn led his men to the chosen field. The army jounced and jingled down the road in a plume of dust that drifted across green pastures and rose high in the windless air, an invitation to Lord Braemys and his allies. As usual when the army marched to battle, the silver daggers rode at its head with Prince Maryn safely in their midst. As he always did, the prince grumbled and complained, too, as if after all these years of riding to war together he still feared that his men would think him a coward. And as usual, Branoic was the one to reassure him.

      ‘Ah for love of the gods, your highness!’ Branoic said. ‘If you fall in battle, all these cursed years of fighting won’t have been worth a pig’s fart.’

      ‘True spoken,’ Maryn said. ‘But it gripes my heart all the same.’

      Not far from camp lay their destination, a stretch of fallow fields beside the east-running road. When they turned off the road they found the grass high enough to swish around their horses’ legs. With the silver daggers around him Maryn stationed himself at the road, facing south. As each unit arrived he rose in the stirrups and waved a javelin at the spot where he wanted them. Warband after warband trotted across the field till the grass lay trampled into the dirt. Over a thousand riders waited in a rough formation, a curving line some six men deep, an unpleasant surprise for Lord Braemys.

      Acting at the prince’s request, Gwerbret Ammerwdd led the other half of the army past them. He arranged his units into a shallow crescent with the embrace facing east and blocking the road to greet their share of the enemy when it appeared. Their line stood at right angles to Maryn’s, like a bowstring with Maryn’s formation