Weatherwitch: Book Three of The Crowthistle Chronicles Read Online Free PDF Page B

Narngalis.
    “The best of warriors,” said Ronin.
    “Aye,” said Gunnlaug. “None shall dispute his worthiness.”
    “But many shall mourn,” said Kieran of Slievmordhu. “Many shall mourn.”

    It was just as the search party was mounted and accoutred and about to depart that Gearnach came back. The knight arrived haggard, bloodstained and weary at the door of the hunting lodge, in the cold, cobalt light of early dawn. Triumphantly he held aloft a gruesome object; the severed head of a Marauder, which he gripped by the roots of the hair.
    “I took him!” he proclaimed, his voice rasping with fatigue. “I took him.”
    He staggered, and fell into the arms of the attendants, who bore him indoors to ply him with wine and water. The princes were avid to hear his tale, and indeed the knight refused to eat a bite until he had recounted the story, with the bloody head propped up before him on the table, its eyes glazed and its jaw horribly askew.
    “I pursued him without rest,” Gearnach said grimly. “Through thicket and briar, over tor and down dale, though it seemed every unseelie wight in Grïmnørsland was abroad—duergars lurking behind every rock, hobyahs crouching on every bough, drowners beckoning from shadowy streams, fuathan pinning me with their unwinking stares as I ran by. A waterhorse came at me from a black pool deep in some ferny hollow. Once, three maidens in misty robes beseeched me to join their dancing beneath the trees, where human bones, paler than their gowns, lay glimmering. I am too canny to be tricked, but never have the charms I carry stood me in such good stead—my amber talisman, my steel weapons, the four-leafed clover and red verbena stitched into the hem of my shirt, and all the rest. No wicked wight could stop me. All night I hunted him, and at the end I had my way.” He downed a swig from histankard and wiped his mouth with a filthy sleeve. “I would not let him escape,” he informed his enthralled audience. “Had I not caught him I would be roaming the wildwoods seeking him yet. A wrong has been righted.”
    “Why so zealous, Two-Swords?” Gunnlaug asked. “You might have let the cur go, and saved yourself some trouble.”
    Gearnach turned to the questioner and fixed him with a flinty gaze. “My Lord, he tried to abduct one who was in my charge. No thing, foul or fair, man or un-man, shall do dishonor to me or mine and not suffer for it.”
    Gunnlaug barked out a short laugh of approval at this vindictive creed.
    When the tale had been told, a basin of clear water was fetched. Conall Gearnach laved his bearded face and brawny hands before falling ravenously on a repast of bread and meat. Meanwhile four of the princes went out deerhunting. Out of respect for Halvdan’s deceased footboy, Walter, Kiernan and Ronin had been reluctant to embark on the jaunt, but Gunnlaug was insistent and eventually proved persuasive.
    Halvdan remained at the lodge, his arms and ribs bandaged. He watched his brother and companions disappear down the gravel path, the golden glow of morning stretching their shadows long upon the ground. Afterwards he went to the stables to greet his horse and ensure that it was comfortably housed. Many thoughts were disquieting him, and his wounds throbbed painfully.
    He was concerned about the intrusion of Marauders so far west, and wondered what had given rise to their enterprise; but more than that, as he ran his mind over the trials he had endured at the hands of the brigands, he mused upon what would have befallen had Conall Gearnach not come to his rescue. His death would have been certain, the length of his suffering open to conjecture. To the knight’s sheer stubbornness and impetuous courage he owed all. Two-Swords could be violently impulsive at times, but that trait could actually be an advantage in a warrior. Moreover, the knight was amongst the most chivalrous of men. Indeed, in Halvdan’s opinion Gearnach was more honorable by far than the master