Free Harald by David Friedman

fireplace. She was saying something. He strained to understand. His mouth was dry; he nodded. She held the cup to his lips.

    After the fever broke the dreams changed for the better. Sometimes he was awake for hours, strong enough to lift a cup, spoon soup. Sliding away into sleep, he saw the Imperial left come down on the Order—heavy cavalry, Belkhani, twenty cacades, a forest of lances. The Ladies stood their ground, pouring arrows into the charging ranks. Watching from the hilltop, waiting for the center and right to move against him, he stopped breathing. At the last moment, impossibly late, the front ranks almost on them, up and away, fleeing for their lives. The Order's lights gradually drew away from the slower heavies; the charge ground to a halt. Two hundred yards beyond the milling lines the Ladies were again dismounted, too far for his eyes but he knew arrows were flying down the wind, Belkhani falling. A second time, a third, impossibly precise, perilously close, the line of Ladies shooting as the cavalry bore down on them, up and away before the lances closed.

    He had seen the drill over and over. This was real. The fourth charge ground to a halt, the Belkhani ranks thinned, tired horses, tired men. Their lances swung up. At the left end of the Order's line a figure raised her hand. The line of riders, mail silver in the morning sun, wheeled, shifted weapons in an instant, lances down, heartbreaking grace, the silver wave swept down on the astonished cavalry, over it, on. Three legions in front of him still untouched, four thousand light infantry on their right, but she had won him his battle. Darkness. Light. Darkness again.

    Again light. He rode the wind, the floor of the world in all directions to the sky. The stolen horses ahead. Hoofbeats behind would never catch them. He heard Conor yell.

    The bay had stumbled over something, gone head over heels, her rider flying, rolling. Harl spun the black, charged their pursuers, faces over shields, both spears leveled at him. At the last moment he leaned down the side of his horse, ducking the points, back up, spear crosswise, leaning into it, knees locked to the horse's side.

    It almost drove him from the saddle, but braced for the shock he rode it through, heard his spear snap, felt his horse driven back on its haunches. He spun the horse again, joy bubbling in his throat. Both ravens were out of the saddle, one running after his horse, the other doubled up—the spear butt must have knocked the breath out of him. Harl brought the black into a canter after the riderless horse, heading it to the left. Conor ran alongside, caught the mane, up. The herd still ahead, still moving, six horses. As he drew even, Conor turned, waved, finger sign for seven. They rode on, both laughing.

    Harald opened his eyes. The arm on the blanket was skeletal, muscles withered, skin wrinkled. A moment before he had been young, the wind in his hair, his oathbrother laughing beside him. He clenched his hand. The claw fingers moved.

    His hand. His arm. The end of the bed. He tried to move his foot; the blanket stirred. A wood wall, mud chinked. Carefully, feeling down the years, Harald put the world back together. Conor was dead of the fever ten years ago, more. Harald had fostered one of his sons.

    It was a week before he could walk, steadied by a stick. Once he could go more than a few steps he asked after the mare, stumbled out to the little stable. Gudmund showed him where his gear was hidden. A child's bow would have been more useful, but that would change. A week later, naked in the stream, he scrubbed himself clean for the first time in months. Wounds all healed, even the twisted dimple in his left calf. Thinner than he could remember, weak as a child, moving like an old man. Alive. An old man's face looked back at him out of the water, gaunt, hair and beard white. He shivered; the wind was cold. A dead leaf floated by. He looked west. Through trees, over the plain, through