CONNERY

FIRST INTERLUDE

Black barked, and Amergein jumped back, his fear palpable in his racing heart and sweating palms. The warrior looked lethal even though badly wounded and propped up against a tree. Amergein stared at him. He had been sure the man was dead. The blood pooling about him seemed about the same as the blood Amergein saw the last time his father sacrificed a pig. How could a man who had lost so much blood still be alive?

“Do you have water or mead?” the corpse asked. Amergein just stared with his mouth agape. “I said, would you have a dropeen of water, girl?”

Girl? I am not a girl, he thought but did not say. He continued to stare, unable to move his feet or his mouth.

“Water girl. Are you deaf? I’ve been lying here these past eight hours without a drop.”

Amergein looked down at the sword across the warrior’s knees and then back at the hard stare. Although less nervous than he had been, he was unsure what to do. It seemed the man was near death, beyond any threat.

“Do you hear me?” the warrior asked.

“Yes, lord, I hear you. But I am not a girl. I am a man. Amergein, named for the bard.” The warrior laughed and shook his head, grimacing at the pain.

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“A man, do you say? Well, man, do you have water? If no water, I would settle for mead. Just a drop would be enough.” Amergein proffered his water bottle.

“Don’t take too much; it will cause cramps,” he said, wondering why. Why should he care if the warrior got cramps?

“You want my sword, boy? You’ll have to earn it.”

“What do you mean?” Amergein tried to affect an innocence he did not feel. The warrior caught him stealing, and he felt shame welling up.

“Just now, you were trying to take the sword. You can have it, but there is a price attached.”

“What price?” he asked as he thought, I can just wait for you to die and take it anyway, his momentary shame forgotten.

“I don’t want this story to go untold,” the warrior said, indicating the valley of the dead below them. “If I tell it to you, you will be the custodian of the truth.”

“You want me to be a bard for your story?”

“No, boy, not a bard. I want you to tell the real story, not some flowery rendition.”

The youth nodded his understanding while thinking of how he could best tell the story. He could forget the trinkets in the wain and travel the Five Kingdoms, storytelling in village feast halls and maybe even the halls of chieftains and kings. Father would be impressed if he returned with a gold torc.

“Do you have mead to help lessen the pain?”

Amergein started. In his growing excitement, he had almost forgotten the man was there. He put on a false smile and looked at the warrior. He would need to keep him alive, at least for the time it took the story to be told, well, the gist of it anyway. He could piece together the rest from the other heroic tales he knew.