The Battle for Skandia

by John Flanagan

  Halt shook his head. “We haven’t the time, Will,” he replied. “They’ll be on us within two weeks. You can’t train archers in that short a time. After all, the Skandians have no skill with the bow to begin with. You’d have to teach them the very basics—nocking, drawing, releasing. That takes weeks, as you know.”

  “There are plenty of slaves here,” Will persisted. “Some of them would know the basics. Then all we’d have to do is control their range.”

  Halt looked at his apprentice again. The boy was deadly serious, he could see. A small frown creased Will’s forehead as he thought through the problem.

  “And how would you do that?” the Ranger asked. The frown deepened for a few seconds as Will gathered his thoughts.

  “It was something Evanlyn asked me that suggested it,” he said. “She was watching me shoot and she was asking how I knew how much elevation to give to a particular shot and I told her it was just experience. Then I thought maybe I could show her and I was thinking, if you created—say—four basic positions…”

  He stopped walking and raised his left arm as if it were holding a bow, then moved it through four positions—beginning horizontally and ultimately raising it to a maximum forty-five degree angle. “One, two, three, four, like that,” he continued. “You could drill a group of archers to assume those positions while someone else judged the range and told them which one to go to. They wouldn’t need to be very good shots as long as the person controlling them could judge range,” he finished.

  “And deflection,” Halt said thoughtfully. “If you knew that at the second position your shafts would travel, say, two hundred meters, you could time your release so that the approaching enemy would reach that spot just as the arrow storm did.”

  “Well, yes,” Will admitted. “I hadn’t taken it that far. I was just thinking of setting the range and having everyone release at the same time. They needn’t aim for individual targets. They could just fire away into the mass.”

  “You’d need to anticipate,” Halt said.

  “Yes. But essentially, it would be the same as if I were firing one arrow myself. It’s just that, as I released, I could call a hundred others to do the same.”

  Halt rubbed his beard. He glanced at the Skandian. “What do you think, Erak?”

  The jarl merely shrugged his massive shoulders. “I haven’t understood a word you’ve been saying,” he admitted cheerfully. “Range, defraction…”

  “Deflection,” Will corrected him, and Erak shrugged.

  “Whatever. It’s all a puzzle to me. But if the boy thinks it might be possible, well, I’d tend to think he might be right.”

  Will grinned at the big war leader. Erak liked to keep things simple. If he didn’t understand a subject, he didn’t waste energy wondering about it.

  “I tend to think the same way,” Halt said quietly, and Will looked at him in surprise. He’d been waiting for his mentor to point out the fundamental flaw in his logic. Now he saw that Halt was considering his proposal seriously. Then he noticed the look of exasperation that grew on Halt’s face as he found the flaw.

  “Bows,” the Ranger said, disappointment in his voice. “Where would we find a hundred bows in time to let people train with them? There probably aren’t twenty in all of Skandia.”

  Will’s heart sank. Of course. There was the problem. It took weeks to shape and craft a single longbow, trimming the bowstave just so, providing just the right amount of graduated flex along both arms. It was a craftsman’s job and there was no way they would have time to make the hundred bows they would need. Disconsolately, he kicked at a rock in his path, then wished he hadn’t. He’d forgotten that he was wearing soft-toed boots.

  “I could let you have a hundred,” Erak said in the depressed silence that followed Halt’s statement. Both the others turned to look at him.

  “Where would you find a hundred longbows?” Halt asked him. Erak shrugged.

  “I captured a two-masted cob off the Araluen coast three seasons ago,” he told them. He didn’t have to explain that when a Skandian said season he meant the raiding season. “She had a hold full of bows. I kept them in my storeroom until I could find a use for them. I was going to use them as fence palings,” he continued. “But they seemed a little too flexible for the job.”

  “Bows tend to be that way,” Halt said slowly, and when Erak looked at him, uncomprehending, he added: “More flexible than fence palings. It’s one of the qualities we look for in a bow.”

  “Well, I suppose you’d know,” Erak said casually. “Anyway, I’ve still got them. There must be thousands of arrow shafts as well. I thought they’d come in handy one day.”

  Halt reached up and laid a hand on the massive shoulder. “And how right you were,” he said. “Thank the gods for the Skandian habit of hoarding everything.”

  “Well, of course we hoard,” Erak explained. “We risk our lives to take the stuff in the first place. There’s no sense in throwing it away. Anyway, do you want to see if you could use them?”

  “Lead on, Jarl Erak,” Halt said, shaking his head in wonder and lifting an eyebrow at Will.

  Erak set out toward the large, barnlike storehouse by the docks where he kept the bulk of his plunder.

  “Excellent,” he said happily, rubbing his hands together. “If you decide to use them, I’ll be able to charge Ragnak.”

  “But this is war,” Will protested. “Surely you can’t charge Ragnak for doing something that will help defend Hallasholm?”

  Erak turned his delighted smile on the young Ranger. “To a Skandian, my boy, all war is business.”

  24

  EVANLYN HAD BEEN WAITING FOR HALT AND WILL TO LEAVE Ragnak’s War Council. As the two gray-cloaked figures, in company with the burly Jarl Erak, emerged from the Great Hall and walked across the open ground that fronted it, she started forward to intercept them. Then she stopped, uncertain how to proceed. She had been hoping that Will might come out by himself. She didn’t want to approach him in front of Erak and Halt.

  Evanlyn was bored and miserable. Worse, she was feeling useless. There was nothing specific she could do to contribute to the defense of Hallasholm, nothing to keep her mind occupied. Will had obviously become part of the inner circle of the Skandian leadership, and even when he wasn’t in meetings with Halt and Erak, he was off practicing with his bow. It sometimes seemed that he used his practice sessions to avoid her. She felt a little flare of anger as she recalled his reaction when she asked him to teach her to shoot. He’d laughed at her!

  Horace was no better. Initially, he’d been happy to keep her company. But then, seeing Will constantly practicing, he’d felt guilty and began spending time on the practice field himself, honing his own skills with a small group of Skandian warriors.

  It was all Will’s fault, she thought.

  Now, as she watched him talking with his old teacher, and saw the two of them stop as Will made a point, she realized with a sense of sadness that there was a part of Will’s life from which she would always be excluded. Young as he was, he was already a part of the mysterious, close-knit Ranger clan. And Rangers, she had been told since she was a small child, kept themselves to themselves. Even her father the King had been frustrated from time to time by the closemouthed nature of the Ranger Corps. As the realization hit home, she turned sadly away, leaving the two Rangers, master and apprentice, to their discussion with the Skandian jarl.

  Morosely, she kicked at a stone on the ground in front of her. If only there were something for her to do!

  She stood uncertainly, undecided about where to go next. She turned abruptly to see if Will and Halt were still where she’d last seen them. They had moved on, but her sudden turn brought her into unexpected eye contact with a familiar, though unwelcome, figure.

  Slagor, the thin-lipped, shifty-eyed wolfship captain whom she had first seen on the rocky, windswept island of Skorghijl, had just emerged from one of the smaller buildings that flanked Ragnak’s Great Hall. He stood now, st
aring after her. There was something in his look that made her uncomfortable. Something knowing, something that boded ill for her. Then, as he realized she had seen him, he turned away, walking quickly into the dark-shadowed alleyway between the two buildings. She frowned to herself. There had been something suspicious about the Skandian’s manner, she thought. Half because she wanted to know more, and half because she was bored, with nothing constructive to do, she set out after him.

  There had been something in the way he looked at her that told her it might be better if he didn’t know she was following him. She moved to the end of the alley and peered cautiously around, just catching sight of him as he turned right at the rear of the building. She paralleled his path, moving cautiously to the next alley, pausing, then peering around again. Once more, she caught a quick glimpse of Slagor and she guessed from his general direction that he was heading for the quays, where the wolfships docked. Realizing that her own actions might appear highly suspicious, she glanced quickly around to see if anyone might be watching her. Apparently not, she decided. Still, she crossed back to the far side of the street before following in the pursuit of the wolfship skirl.

  As she slid unobtrusively from building to building, she saw him several more times, confirming her first impression that he was heading for the docks. That was logical. Presumably his ship was among the fleet moored there. Probably Slagor had some ship’s business to attend to, she thought. The suspicious manner that she had noticed was probably nothing more than his normal shifty-eyed demeanor.

  Then she cast the doubts aside. There had been something else: something knowing. Something calculating.

  Evanlyn was, naturally, constantly aware of her precarious position here in Hallasholm. Ragnak might have no interest in punishing a recaptured slave. But if her real identity were to become known, his reaction was a foregone conclusion. He had vowed to kill any member of the Araluen royal family. Now it seemed important to her to find out what had been behind Slagor’s look. She quickened her pace and hurried down one of the narrow connecting alleys, emerging in the broad waterfront thoroughfare that Slagor had taken.

  He was twenty meters ahead of her as she peered cautiously around the end of the building. His back was turned and she realized that he had no idea that she had been following him. To the left, the masts of the moored wolfships formed a forest of bare poles, bobbing and swaying with the movement of the water. On the right of the street were a series of waterfront taverns. It was toward one of these that Slagor was hurrying now, she realized.

  Some instinct made her ease into a doorway as the skirl reached the tavern entrance. It was as well she did, for he turned and looked back the way he had come, apparently checking to see if anyone had followed him. She frowned to herself as she shrank into the shadows of the doorway. Why should Slagor be nervous, here in the middle of Hallasholm? Certainly he was one of the less popular wolfship captains, but it was unlikely that anyone would actually do him harm. There was obviously something going on, she thought, and she determined to get to the bottom of it. Close by, moored to one of the timber quays, she saw Slagor’s ship, Wolf Fang. She recognized it by the distinctive carved figurehead. No two wolfships had the same figurehead and she remembered this one all too well from the day when Wolf Fang had come limping into the anchorage at Skorghijl. With it had come the news of Ragnak’s Vallasvow against her father and herself, so she had good reason to remember the grotesquely carved icon.

  For a moment, she hesitated in the doorway. Then, the door behind her opened and two Skandian women emerged, shopping baskets in hand. They stared at the stranger on their doorstep and she hurriedly apologized and moved away. Behind her, she heard the angry comments of the women as they headed for the market square. She was too obvious here, she realized. Any moment, Slagor might emerge from the tavern and see her. She glanced uncertainly at the ship, then came to a decision and, moving at a half run, she made her way down the waterfront to the quay where Wolf Fang was moored. It was reasonable to assume that Slagor might come here eventually, and then she might get an inkling of what he was up to.

  There was an anchor watch aboard, of course. But it was just one man and he was at the stern, leaning on the bulwark and staring at the harbor and the sea beyond. Crouching below the level of the high prow, she approached the ship and vaulted lightly over the railing, her soft-shod feet making virtually no sound as she landed on the planks of the deck. She dropped immediately into the rowing well, set below the main deck, where the rowing crew would normally sit to wield their heavy, white oak oars. The area was deserted at the moment, and she was concealed from the sight of the solitary guard at the stern. But it was only a temporary hiding place and she looked now for a better one.

  Right at the prow of the ship was a small triangular space, screened by a canvas flap. It was large enough to accommodate her if she crouched, and she moved quickly into it now, letting the canvas screen fall back into place behind her. She found herself sitting on coils of stiff, coarse rope, and something hard jabbed into her side. Shifting to a better position, she realized that it had been the fluke of the anchor, and the coils of heavy rope were the anchor cable. With the ship moored alongside the quay, they weren’t in use. This would be as good a hiding place as any, she thought. Then she wondered if she might not be wasting her time here. Odds were that Slagor had simply come this way to visit the tavern and that after he’d drunk his fill of the harsh spirits the Skandians favored, he’d probably head on back to his lodge.

  She shrugged morosely. She had nothing better to do with her time. She might as well give it an hour or so and see if anything transpired. What that anything might be, she really had no idea. She’d followed Slagor on an impulse. Now, following the same impulse, she was crouched here, waiting to see what she might overhear if and when he came aboard.

  It was warm in the confines of the forepeak and, once she’d moved a few of the coils, the rope made a relatively comfortable resting place. She wriggled herself into a better position and rested her chin on her elbows, peering through a small gap in the canvas to see if anything was happening outside. She felt the footsteps of the sentry as he crossed to the landward side of the ship, giving up his scrutiny of the harbor, and heard him call to someone on the shore. There was an answering voice but the words were too muffled for her to make out. Probably just a casual greeting to a passing friend, she reasoned. She yawned. The warmth was making her drowsy. She hadn’t slept well the night before, thinking about Will and how their friendship seemed to be eroding with every passing day. She tried to dislike Halt, blaming him for the sudden estrangement between them. But she couldn’t. She liked the small, roughly bearded Ranger. There was a dry sense of humor about him that appealed to her. And after all, he had rescued her from the Temujai reconnaissance party. She sighed. It wasn’t Halt’s fault. Nor Will’s. It was just the way things were, she guessed. Rangers were different to other people. Even princesses.

  Especially princesses.

  She woke suddenly, thinking she was falling. She hadn’t realized that she’d drifted off to sleep, lying here on the coils of rope. But she knew what had woken her. The deck beneath her had dropped suddenly as Wolf Fang heaved herself into a short head sea. Now she could hear the creak and thump of the oars in their rowlocks and she realized, with a terrible sinking feeling, that Wolf Fang had put to sea and she was trapped on board.

  25

  BETWEEN THEM, HALT AND WILL HAD FOUND A HUNDRED SLAVES who claimed to have some level of skill with the bow. Finding them had been one matter. Convincing them that they should volunteer to help defend Hallasholm was something else.

  As a burly Teutlander forester, who seemed to have assumed the role of spokesman for them, told the two Rangers, “Why should we help the Skandians? They’ve done nothing except enslave us, beat us and give us too little food to eat.”

  Halt eyed the man’s ample girth speculatively. If some of the slaves were underfed, this one could hardly claim to be one of them
, he thought. Still, he decided to let that matter pass.

  “You might find it more agreeable to be a slave of the Skandians than to fall into the hands of the Temujai,” he told them bluntly.

  Another of the assembled men spoke up. This one was a southern Gallican and his outlandish accent made his words almost indecipherable. Will finally pieced the sounds together in sufficient order to know that the man had asked: “What do the Temujai do with their slaves?”

  Halt turned a steely gaze on the Gall. “They don’t keep slaves,” he said evenly, and a buzz of expectation ran through the assembled men. The big Teutlander stepped forward again, grinning.

  “Then why would you expect us to fight against them?” he asked. “If they beat the Skandians, they’ll set us free.”

  There was a loud mumble of consent among the others behind him. Halt held up a hand and waited patiently. Eventually, the hubbub died away and the slaves looked at him expectantly, wondering what further inducement he could offer them—what he would consider to be more attractive to them than the prospect of freedom.

  “I said,” he intoned clearly, so that everyone could hear him, “they don’t keep slaves. I didn’t say they set them free.” He paused, then added, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, “Although the religious ones among you may consider death to be the ultimate freedom.”

  This time, the commotion among the slaves was even louder. Finally, the self-appointed spokesman stepped forward again and asked, with a little less assertion, “What do you mean, Araluen? Death?”

  Halt made a careless gesture. “The usual, I suppose: the sudden cessation of life. The end of it all. Departure for a happier place. Or oblivion, depending upon your personal beliefs.”

  Again a buzz ran through the crowd. The Teutlander studied Halt closely, trying to see some indication that the Ranger was bluffing.