Read Online The Aebeling by Michael O'Neill - Free Book Online

the medallion and suddenly felt the silence grow in the room. He looked up to see the elders looking towards him in shock; but their eyes were on the medallion.
    Brina spoke but no sound was heard, and she cleared her throat. Still croaky, she said ‘That is a special gift she has given you. Sherric was the last to wear that medallion, and he was wearing it when he died. However, it was not on Sherric’s neck when they recovered his body, and it cannot be removed without permission. No one knows what happened to it and it was considered lost forever – I can’t even guess how or where she found it.’ She looked around at the other elders and they shook their heads. ‘She is a special child; it seems that she knows more than what she tells us – or more than she yet understands. I presume she knows what she is doing. What is done cannot be undone; and what is given, cannot be taken back.’ She paused, and then added. ‘It is probably apt that the last person to be called Feorhhyrde was also the last person to understand the language of the Twacuman; but I don’t know that Caewyn knows that. All that is missing is the Torc.’
    There was silent contemplation until Conn spoke. ‘Torc?’
    ‘The Torc of the Casere – created for the first Casere, and lost with the last – nearly three hundred years ago.’
    ‘Sherric seemed to lose a lot of things…’
    ‘No – it was Goibniu. He was the last Casere. He was a descendant of Sherric, and ancestor of the Healdend in Silekia. It too has disappeared.’
    She seemed unwilling to provide more information so Conn let it lie. Finally, he asked. ‘When do we leave?’
    ‘Soon,’ Brina answered, ‘you should leave as soon as you are able, when a path through the mountain is clear of snow, but before the snow melts and the lake is unable to be crossed. Where would you go, Abrekan?’
    ‘I will go back to Lykia; the Earldom of Tabae is on the border, and Eaorl Octa is a good man. I think I can rely on him to be welcoming.’
    Brina nodded in agreement. ‘It is good to go where there is a welcome.’ She looked at Conn then back at Abrekan. ‘There might be places where the welcome is not so warm.’
    Brina bid them farewell, and they stood and walked to the exit.
    At the doorway, the Aebeling called out. ‘Feorhhyrde?’
    Brina had used his new title – not without hesitation. Conn turned around. She smiled. ‘There is one last thing. Ingeulfur was my ancestor. Caewyn and I are the only ones left in Halani who descend from the Priecuman Casere of Meshech. There was never many, but we are the last. Somehow that seems significant.’ She turned and retired to her room at the end of the building, leaving Conn to follow Derryth down the ramp to prepare for his departure.
     
     
    It took them over a week to get ready; Conn now had almost eighty horses and with Abrekan’s forty donkeys, the four of them had a lot of animals to handle – including a pack of dogs – though he was leaving half behind for the moment. Some were being trained to take care of chickens while other cared for goats or pigs.
    Derryth and Elva and a dozen wiga were to guide them out of Halani and into Lykia and Tabae; after which they would be on their own. Horses and donkeys with packs only travel thirty miles a day, and it would be at least a seven day ride to the Cotlif of the Eaorl – the last four on their own.
    ‘But,’ Abrekan added, ‘with all the animals we have, I fear it might take even longer. It will take us hours to load and unload every day.’
    ‘Are there no villages on the other side?’ Conn asked. ‘Where we could get some help?’
    ‘No – not for almost two days; the outlying areas of nearly all Eaorldoms are deserted. The populations were never that big to start with but over the last twenty years, they have been devastated by pestilence and famine.’
    There was a crowd of people to watch the convoy of animals leave the village, and as they rode past the main