“It was a jolly good idea,” said Kialan, “though I says it as shouldn’t.”
But Brid had realized that Tholian was probably after them by now and changed to being as nervous as a cat. She turned her head back over her shoulder and implored Moril to get in among the trees quickly. Moril looked over his shoulder, too. Between the tree trunks, he could see the darkening green of the Upland and a long stretch of the road. It was empty.
“I will when we get to the top of this hill. Olob’s tired.”
The dark gathered quickly under the trees, but it was still light enough to see. Brid squawked faintly. There were people among the trees on horses, coming slowly down the hill on the cliff side. But Olob gave no sign of alarm. Moril trusted Olob and kept on the road, in spite of Brid’s imploring whispers. All the same, it was rather frightening the way that the horsemen, as soon as they saw the cart, turned toward it and increased their pace. They came fairly thudding down on them.
There were three of them. They drew up beside the cart, and Olob stopped walking. Kialan stood up and stared at the foremost rider, and the rider stared back.
“You blinking idiot! What did you have to come South for?” Kialan said, and burst into tears.
Somehow, though they would never have dreamed of addressing Clennen as a blinking idiot, Brid and Moril had no doubt that the rider was Keril. They watched Kialan jump awkwardly down, and the man dismount and hug him, and they were sure of it.
“Konian—they hanged him!” Kialan said.
“I know. We heard from a fisherman,” said Keril. “It was you I came for. I was hoping Clennen might know—where is Clennen?” he asked.
“He’s dead,” said Brid, and began to cry, too.
Moril sat on the driving seat and felt tears trickling down his face. As far as he knew, he was crying for the whole situation, because he was on his own now, and always would be.
“There’s an army,” said Kialan. “Tholian’s gathered an army to attack the North. In a valley over there. They’re probably after us now.”
Keril exchanged glances with the two other riders. “We’ve a small force in the wood. How big is this army?”
“Pretty big,” Moril said, sniffing. “There were five hundred men, divided into three troops, and a hundred horsemen in the part of the valley we saw. But that was probably only a quarter of it.”
“How do you know?” said Kialan. “Did you count?”
“No. I just know,” said Moril. “And recruits came in four batches, while we were there, twenty-three in the first, and thirty-two in—”
“Too many for us, in fact,” said Keril. “Thanks, lad. Let’s get back to our camp and get fortified.”
The Northerners’ camp was along the cliff, chosen with an eye to defense. When tired Olob dragged the cart up to it, there was already a bustle of preparation. The campfires were being put out and the two provision wagons dragged across the only place where it could be reached from the wood. These preparations should have made Moril feel alarmed, but in fact, he felt safer and happier than he had been for days. He could see by the light of the few lanterns that the mere fifty or so men bustling about had, many of them, the same dark-fair coloring as Kialan. Moril remembered now that it was something you only saw in the North. Keril was the odd man out, because he was dark, though his nose was the same shape as Kialan’s.
They were taken into a tent, where they had the best meal they had had since Markind. While they were eating, Moril gathered that the Earl had been camping here for two days. The night before, he had ridden South almost to Neathdale in hopes of meeting Clennen and hearing news of Kialan, and he had been meaning to do the same that night, too. It was Henda’s message offering to ransom Kialan that had brought him South. Up till then, everyone in Hannart had supposed that Kialan had been hanged, too.
In a tired and muddled way, they told their part, as far as Dagner’s arrest. Keril, who h
ad been sad rather than astonished at Clennen’s death and not at all surprised to hear of Lenina returning to Markind, broke in angrily when he heard of Dagner. They felt sure he was thinking of Konian, too, when he said, “Fancy hanging a boy that age! I wish I could do something—er, Moril—is that your name?”
“Not really,” said Kialan. “His name’s Osfameron. And Brid’s Manaliabrid.”
Keril forgot his anger and threw back his head and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” said Brid. She was sensitive about their names.
“Well, history repeating itself, I suppose,” said Keril. “Kialan’s the Adon, you see.”
“No, he isn’t,” said Moril. “The Adon lived two hundred years ago. Kialan told me.”
“But the heir of Hannart is always called the Adon,” Keril explained, and was sad, thinking of Konian.
Moril and Kialan looked at one another by the light of the carefully shaded lantern. Moril was thoroughly put out. If Kialan was the Adon, then he had been living the life of his dearest imaginings for nearly a month without realizing it. It had not seemed like that at all. Yet, thinking of the weird dream Kialan had told him of, he suspected that it might have been history repeating itself indeed. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.
“I didn’t sort of think,” said Kialan. “I was just me, trying to get home.” He was thinking about his dream, too. He nodded toward his father. “Tell him about the cwidder.”
Moril told Keril how he put Tholian and his army to sleep. Keril marveled a little, and he asked Kialan to confirm it, but he took it, on the whole, in the same matter-of-course way that Kialan did. “May I see the cwidder?” he said.