slid down Sungold's shoulder as she had once slid down Fireheart's, and put her arms around her king and hugged him fiercely; and his arms closed around her and he murmured something, but her blood was ringing in her ears, and she could not hear what it was.
It is not very comfortable, holding someone close who is wearing a sword and various unyielding bits of leather armor, and it is less comfortable yet if both parties are so accoutered. Harry and Corlath dropped their arms after a short time and looked at each other, and each distantly thought that the other one was wearing a rather silly smile, and Harry noticed that Corlath's eyes were the color of gold.
"You are unhurt?" she said; her voice sounded tinny in her hot ears.
"I am unhurt," he said. "And you?"
"Yes," said Harry, still looking at his golden eyes. "Or no. I am not hurt."
"I am glad," her king said, and his voice was still low and shy, "to see you - here - and still - " he hesitated - "still of the Hills?"
Harry took a deep breath. "I will be of the Hills till I die, but what are you going to do to me for going off like that? And it's not their fault," she went on hurriedly, gesturing behind her, "but they would come with me even though I warned them how it was with me. Whatever you say, I will obey, but - what is it?" She stopped, for as she tried to make her apologies, or her amends, or whatever they were, she remembered that she and Corlath were not alone, and that she was a deserter. She looked up and around, but her company were only dark figures to her, dim in the fading light.
"I will return to you your sash," Corlath said, but his hands did not move to untie it from around his waist. "You should not have lost it - for I assume you lost it. If you had not, but flung it away deliberately, it would be a sign that you denied me, and Damar, and were making yourself an exile forever."
"Oh no," said Harry, horrified; and the slightly foolish and uncertain smile on Corlath's face grew into a real smile, one unlike any Harry had ever seen on the Hill-king's face before.
"No," he said. "I hoped not."
Harry whispered: "You have done me much honor - since the beginning."
Corlath replied: "I did only what I must, for the kelar gave me no choice; but I - I came to believe in you, and I did not care what the kelar said."
"Did you believe in me then, when I rode away and left you, my king, and I a king's Rider, against your orders?"
The smile faded, but his eyes were still bright yellow. "I did," he said. "Luthe ... warned me you would do something mad - and I ... feared something else, for thus a man makes a fool of himself, and will not accept the wisdom the gods send him. I did not realize what Luthe had told me - I had forgotten what the kelar had told me - till you had gone."
"Something else?" said Harry. "What did you fear?" Her heart beat more rapidly as she waited for his reply, and she hoped he would ask her such a question, that she might answer it as her heart bade her.
But Corlath looked around them. "The Outlanders you bring to my camp are not your escort home?"
Harry shook her head violently. "They are my escort home only insofar as they would bear me company in my home, in the Hills, if you will have them."
"I will have them, and be honored," said Corlath, and his eyes lingered on Jack, who sat Draco quietly between Richard and Terim, "they who stood at Madamer Gate and watched the mountain fall on Thurra. This tale they will tell, I hope, and tell often."
"And I hope I will never have to do anything like that again," said Harry, and for a moment she could not see Corlath's yellow eyes, but a demon-thing that had once been human on a white stallion with the teeth of a leopard.
Corlath looked down at the top of her bent head. "For you I hope that you do not either; the kelar strength is not a comfortable Gift.
"I saw - I watched the mountain fall. I heard you call me and knew then who it was you faced - and