will turn out every dog in Lant to track you. Is the old man worth it?”
“They will turn out every dog in Lant to track the old man,” Bernal said. “Whether he is worth the risk depends on whether he lives. I am going to look after him myself. One of you will have to go south toniot.”
Roszt, the younger of the newcomers, said eagerly, “Give me a horse, and I will do it. Those bundles I stole last week had server clothing in them. I can go as a peer’s messenger.”
“Right now you can backtrack and cover my trail,” Bernal said. “If the pursuit comes this far, it will be hot. When you have done that, look after the horses.”
The younger man hurried away. Bernal and Kaynor picked up Egarn’s limp body and headed into the forest with it.
Kaynor had been scrutinizing Egarn perplexedly. “He is beardless, and he is wearing peerager’s trousers with a one-name smock. What is he?”
“I don’t know. He may be a peerager, but he has only one name.”
Kaynor was silent while they maneuvered Egarn’s light body through some dense undergrowth. Then he asked, “Don’t the rules forbid intervening in the peer’s private affairs? Inskor made it very clear we are to keep our hands off court doings unless it is something really important, and even then we are to make certain the result is worth the risk and the aftermath. This poor old crock probably did nothing more serious than sneeze in the peer’s presence, but there will be an army beating the forest tomorrow. When they find the bodies of those Lantiff and their dogs, only the evil gods of Lant know what will happen next. That was quite a deed, taking on all ten of them, but what have you gained?”
“I killed one of the dogs,” Bernal said. “He killed the rest. He is more important than all of the peer’s generals together—or he will be if he lives.”
“Be serious! An old crock like this? Probably he is the peer’s third assistant gardener wearing cast-off clothing.”
“He says his name is Egarn. I think he is the Med of Lant.”
The other nearly dropped the old man’s feet. When he spoke again, it was in tones that blended awe and skepticism. “The Med of Lant with five Lantiff and their dogs after him? What do you suppose he did?”
“I hope he lives long enough to tell us,” Bernal said soberly.
By the time the old man regained consciousness, he had been placed on a comfortable bed in a safe refuge. His arm had been bathed, treated with herbs, and rebandaged; and Bernal had a bowl of hot broth ready for him. Egarn ate slowly with Bernal assisting him. By the time he finished, he had revived sufficiently to take an interest in his surroundings.
He gazed about the small room wonderingly. It was lit by a flickering torch, and the smoke was sucked into a crack in the ceiling. There was a charcoal fire to take the edge off the cool, damp air, and skins were hung in two large openings. Comfortable chairs and beds had been improvised from branches and straw.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“In a cave,” Bernal answered.
“Are we safe here?”
“As safe as a fugitive can be in the Peerdom of Lant,” Bernal said gravely. “As soon as you are able to travel, we well take you to Easlon.”
“Across the mountains?”
“Of course.”
Egarn sank back comfortably. “I was hungry. They starved me. Is there more broth?”
“Better not overdo the eating for a few daez. You would make yourself sick.”
Bernal began to lay out rough garb that matched his own: leather jacket, pants, and mocs, with shirt and undergarments of wool. “When you feel up to it, I will bathe you and change your clothes. We need the things you are wearing. We also want your pack. I will give you another, and you can keep anything you think you absolutely must have. Just make certain you leave enough personal effects to identify you.”
Egarn gazed at him perplexedly.
“I am sending a scout south toniot,” Bernal said. “He will find a corpse in the Peerdom of Wymeff who resembles you as closely as possible. Fortunately for you—but not for Wymeff—there will be plenty of corpses to chose from. We are assuming the peer will order a massive search for you. If, in the middle of it, she receives word that your over-ripe body has been found in Wymeff, it will confuse the situation very satisfactorily.”
“I did it,” Egarn muttered.
“You did what?”
“The corpses. I did it. I made the weapons. To defend Lant, I thought, but the peer used them to destroy her neighbors. As if the len hadn’t tortured humanity enough.” He brightened. “But I got them back. I told her the lens would wear out if they weren’t replaced, and then I hid one and destroyed the rest. When I refused to make more, the peer stopped my food and then my water. When I got hungry and thirsty enough, I killed my guards with the weapon I had saved and escaped.”
“That was well done,” Bernal said. He knew, now, that he couldn’t rest until this old man was safely in Easlon.
“Some of the guards were my friends,” Egarn said despondently. “But I was afraid I would weaken if I got any hungrier. I had to escape or let her have the weapon.”
“It was well done,” Bernal said again. “Don’t look back, old fellow. Look ahead. The important thing now is to get well. Then maybe you can help us think of a few ways to have back at the Peer of Lant.”
Egarn grinned bitterly.
“What about your personal effects?” Bernal asked.
Egarn took a ring from his finger, surrendered a tooled leather belt that he wore, and then—with obviously reluctance—took a strange object from his pack. A blade snapped into view, and it was a knife.
“Jackknife,” Egarn said sadly. “And take this, it is called a coin. Anyone who knew me well will recognize them. They are the only things I have left from the place I came from, but they don’t matter now. Nothing matters.”
Bernal accepted them with a nod of approval. Next Egarn handed him a thin piece of wood with strange figures carved on it in orderly rows.
“Calculator I invented,” Egarn said. He added, when Bernal gave it a puzzled glance, “It is too complicated to explain, but my assistants will recognize it. Take it all. Take everything except the weapon. I wish you could take my memories, too—I no longer need them, either.”
One of the skins was pushed back, and Bernal’s two companions came into the room. Bernal gravely pronounced introductions: Roszt and Kaynor.
“They are so tall!” Egarn blurted. “Are they from Easlon, too?”
“They are from the Peerdom of Slorn. Their families were killed in the Lantian invasion, and now they scout for Easlon.”
“I have met people from Slorn, but they weren’t so tall and skinny. One doesn’t often meet tall people in this land.” Egarn returned his attention to Bernal. “Their families
