Bard I by Keith Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

evade any number of blundering sea-wolves in a forest this vast, I’m not trying.’ He caressed her hip and thigh through layers of clothing.
    ‘But two cannot go swift as one. And if Kisumola is indeed guiding them on our track, all my forest craft won’t be enough to throw them off. No. I must settle it completely, now.’
    ‘God go with you.’
    ‘No Christian prayers!’ Felimid said sharply. ‘No offence, but it’s more likely they a re to work against me. Try not to fret, for I’ll come back. My oath as a bard.’
    He smiled.
    ‘Just give me your oath as a bard to come back whole.’
    ‘I’ll submit me to a most thorough tally of limbs and organs when you see me next,’ Felimid promised; and again he was gone.
     
    The bard moved eagerly through the frosty forest in the light of dawn. A gnarly maze it was. Each thicket and tree looked just like the last. Ninety men and nine out of a hundred who tried to move in it by night became hopelessly lost; but Felimid mac Fal. as a child. had had the little dark people of the hills for playmates. Far from being lost. he was precisely where he wanted to be.
    He followed a blatant. trampled trail. Eleven ponies and six hounds had made it. The riders were Jutish sea­wolves, for certain. Felimid’s examination of their last night’s camp-site assured him of that. The way they had roused, evidently before dawn, to doggedly follow the trail of Felimid and Regan made a final proof which the bard did not really need; their blind, stamping ignorance of forest craft and forest ways sufficed.
    Their ponies were of little help here. Often the Jutes had to dismount and lead them, hacking a way through the brush with their heavy, single-edged knives. Felimid heard the hounds baying as they plunged through the snow on his almost two-days-old scent. Behind the dogs, closer to Felimid, sounded the crackling and crashing of icy thickets. Then he came upon the straggler.
    The man had hung his horse’s reins on a bush. He was pissing in clouds of steam, his back to the bard. Felimid felt an insane urge to creep upon him. drop a hand on his shoulder and shout in his ear. How he’d jump!
    A more sober notion was to cut his throat; more sober, but just as mad. Although it would reduce the number of his enemies by one, it would infallibly betray him to the other ten. At present they didn’t know he had doubled back and was now behind them.
    No. The harp Golden Singer was the weapon to use here. Her voice could bring laughter. sorrow or sleep upon men as Felimid chose. If he followed them until they stopped for a meal, and then played them the sleep strain, he could deprive them of their weapons and leave them to survive or perish, as they pleased.
    Even if they Jived, they would have to turn back to the Isle of Thanet. Whatever befell, they would be no threat any longer to himself and Regan; and all done as neatly. without bloodshed, as a bard of Erin could wish.
    It had entered the bard’s mind to do that very thing in Oisc’s burg itself, the night he and Regan escaped. With Golden Singer in his hands again, and his blood leaping with irresponsible joy, the temptation had been hard to resist. However, to harp enchanted sleep upon a burg of four hundred souls would be to waken magics better left undisturbed. And as each use of magic took its toll from the wielder, magic was not a weapon handled idly. But now Jutes had come into the forest, which was more Felimid’s realm than theirs, a realm where magic thrived, and they numbered one less than a dozen. But he must choose his time with care . . .
    The hounds in the lead set up a sudden frenzied clamour. Felimid heard the raised voice of King Oisc himself. What? The bard had not reckoned that one would lead the hunt in person! He must be enraged indeed – or maybe he’d anticipated good sport!
    ‘By Wotan, I think we have them!’ Oisc shouted. Felimid smiled to himself. it was not a pleasant smile. The straggler finished at last.