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 ground trembled beneath Eowain's hand. Over him, a gelding leaped, spurred to glory by his own brother, the golden-haired son of Findtan, Lorcán Half-Hand.
Lorcán's spear went through Tnúthgal, impaled the sorcerer as well, and drove them both to the ground with a force that snapped the spear of Lorcán in half, killed his steed, and threw his brother from the saddle.
The rest of the Horse of the King's Company of the Shield thundered over him. Lingering gloom vanished, and the pelting rain slowed its relentless journey back to the distant sea. He heard the shrieks as remaining elements of Cailech-men and bandits were crushed under the war-horses of the grassy Gasirad hills of Droma. His kingdom.
These were his men. And by the Gods, I'll die on my feet in front of them. Eowain twisted himself around, leveraged himself up to his knees, then rose on his left foot. Pain burned through his leg and stabbed at his eyes. A detached voice, cold and military, the voice of his arms-master as a young man, spoke to him in his mind: You are going into shock.
Eowain gritted his teeth and swayed up-right on his one good leg. With a grunt, he wrenched the spear of Findtan loose from the soil. The steel sang against a rock as it came free and shimmered in the light of day and spring water that rose from the heart of the well at the Vale of Thaynú.
He turned the spear over and planted the butt of the spear in the mud. With pragmatic care, he hobbled, with his father's spear for a crutch, to the bodies of his cousin and the sorcerer.
Lorcán's spear had taken Tnúthgal through the right lung and the sorcerer behind him through the belly. The sorcerer grinned with blind, dead, lizard-like eyes. His mouth moved and worked around a dead tongue. The hiss of a death-rattle passed his lips.
Then the sorcerer went silent. The sorcerer went still.
Tnúthgal lay upon him, bound to the sorcerer by Lorcán's spear. He laughed and choked up blood into his own fork-braided beard. "Go on then. If one son of Findtan isn't enough to kill me. Go on then! Make it two." His teeth showed white and yellow like corn amid the streams of rain-slick blood in his mouth. "The mother's sons of saintly Findtan."
Every day as a king, he'd been required to render judgments. The right or wrong of a property dispute, the proper body-price for a farmer injured by another man's negligence.
But Eowain had waited long for that judgment, and pronounced it with the air, the rain, the earth, and the setting sun for his witnesses.
"Tnúthgal Fork-Beard son of Ruadan, of the Clan of the Donnghaile of Droma, I find you guilty of treason against the crown and people of Droma, and the honor of the Goddess Echraide, by whom our people swear. As King of Droma, I sentence you to death."
Eowain turned the spear of Findtan around, and put his father's spear through his treacherous cousin's heart, and the heart of the sorcerer beneath him. They keened their portentous death-shriek together.
—33—
Look for the next installment in this Continuing Tale of The Matter of Manred: The Romance of Eowain.
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