The Matter of Manred Continues...
I would not sell myself so cheap as to be nothing more than a pawn in such a fickle game. If peace and goodwill are to come of our marriage, then peace and goodwill must go into it first. And so I tell you true, a...
The cool rain fell hard on him. He was laying on the ground, over the body of the Foreigner against whom Corvac had thrust him.
Eowain twisted. His cheek and chin burned, and it seemed fire oozed down his neck and shoulder. He twisted again and his ankle shrieked agony at him. Gritting teeth, Eowain rolled over. Down every fiber of his left side, caustic vitriol sizzled in the rain. He straightened his leg out. More pain lanced through him. Is it broken, after all, my ankle?
Down the hill, his cousin Tnúthgal shouted, urged on his bandits to finish them. His cousin wrenched a spear loose from the fallen sorcerer. The spear of Findtan. The weapon of his father, a man of good fame. His cousin balanced his father's spear in his hand, drew it back for a throw.
Is this how it ends, Eithne? He'd never considered that he might not succeed against his cousin. Never considered that he might not defeat the bandits. Never considered that he couldn't drive back the Cailech-men, or put a spear through Toryn the Stout. Do you doubt me still, Eithne? He'd always imagined that this ended with him facing her, on two strong legs, on a sunlit hill in the spring-time.
But that suddenly seemed unlikely to him. He knew this was about himself as much as it was about Eithne then. He knew that whatever fortunate thayn the drymyn's coelbreni foretold, it was true. For good or ill, he and Eithne had been freighted with some dread portent that he still could not understand.
He lifted himself up to his elbows. Eowain would have stood if he thought he could, but lighted globs in many colors flickered in his sight and threatened his equilibrium.
Tnúthgal drew back the spear of Findtan and let it fly. To Eowain, the spear seemed of a sudden to travel as if through a fibrous molasses of threads and colors, each thread vibrating with the melodic frequency of a harp string. He knew every curled line inscribed on the blade, the river salmon crest of the Donnghaile clan etched into the steel and iron, prayers for courage and victory burned into the curvilinear designs along the hard ashen shaft.
He even knew that iron shod heel it wore, blunt-spiked and weighted, stamped with the mark of the master weaponsmith who'd assembled it, and the mark of his father Findtan, once-King of Droma, who'd commissioned it. He knew that spear.
So he knew it would pull to the left.
—33—
Look for the next installment in this Continuing Tale of The Matter of Manred: The Romance of Eowain.
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