The King's Name Read Online Free PDF Page A

They sang old Isarnagan songs about feuds and battles and impossible quests. Their voices blended well together. Then they trailed off and we rode on in silence again.
    I could have slept if I had let myself. I did not seem to be getting any worse, but nor could I detect any improvement. I hated being carried along like a sack of turnips. From time to time I tried to sit up and failed.
    Occasionally I coughed. I could twitch my knees and move one hand, the whole arm if I tried really hard. It was horrible to be so weak. The worst of it was not being able to talk at all. I had always been well until then, and had suffered no more hurt than battle-cuts and bruises, which soon healed. I had thought aging meant being slower at thirty-eight than I had been at eighteen, which could be made up by having better technique.
    That poisoning was my first taste of real infirmity. I hated it. I tried not to think what I would do if the land could not help me and if I must live in this state forever. The Vincan answer would have been to kill myself. I
    could not take that way out. I had responsibilities; I had made promises to Derwen, to my people, and to
    Urdo. There was nobody else ready to care for the land. It would be five years before Gwien was old enough.
    Five years of only being able to twitch my fingers, grunt, and drool seemed a daunting prospect.
    We were near the borders of Derwen but not yet over them when we heard the pursuit. They were mounted and noisy. I could see nothing but dark branches, but they sounded to me like half an untrained pennon crashing along, ten or fifteen people. Without discussion we all put on a spurt. They continued on after us.
    After a while I heard a voice calling out: "Who rides in Magor?"
    That was not an ala challenge. "I think the truth will serve best," Conal said. "That way it will be more difficult for them to say they took us for brigands or raiders in the dark. In any case, it may be Emlin and his people."
    "We are not at war with them, and you are a herald from Atha," Emer agreed. I tried to shout a Page 12

    warning and managed a few strangled syllables, but it was too late.
    "Ap Gaius, armiger of the ala of Magor, Emer ap Allel, the queen of Dun Morr, Sulien ap Gwien, praefecto of the High King and Lord of Derwen, and I am Conal ap Amagien, herald of Oriel, called Conal the Victor."
    I could hardly believe that he had forgotten the prohibition Emer had placed on him, that to give any part of his name when he was with her would mean death. I tried to spur Beauty on, and he found some more speed from within him somewhere as a shower of arrows fell around us. One of them skittered off one of the shoulder plates on my armor.
    "Annoying," Conal said.
    "I do wish there had been time to go for my sword," Emer said.
    "Take Sulien's, she can't use it at the moment," Conal said. Then Emer was beside me, drawing out my sword. I grunted permission, but when it was gone I felt naked and disarmed.
    My shield was on the side of the saddle, but she didn't take it. I hoped she had Emlin's.
    Then the first of them were among us. That is the only battle of my life in which I did nothing. I gave no orders, killed nobody, and suffered no wounds, I simply rode straight on as fast as I could. I caught glimpses of Emer and Garian and Conal fighting. Conal leapt from the saddle straight at one of them, knocking him back onto the ground. That trick would never have worked on an armiger who was used to his horse, and only a madman would have tried it. Conal laughed and brandished a sword he had acquired in the encounter. He must have been practicing riding since that duel at Thansethan. I saw him take down another man with the sword. He had no shield, and of course he was still wearing the tunic and breeches he had worn for dinner in the hall.
    None of the pursuers seemed confident on their horses. Some of them had bows, and most of them had swords, but none of them seemed to have spears. They were not armed like