The Icebound Land ra-3

by John Flanagan

  Enough, Halt thought. Satisfied that no one was looking in his direction, he nocked an arrow, drew and sighted in one economical motion and released.

  "Foldar," real name Rupert Gubblestone, had a brief impression of something flashing past, just in front of his nose. Then there was an almighty jerk on the raised collar of his cloak and he found himself pinned against the carriage by a quivering black arrow that thudded into the wood. He gave a startled yelp, lost his balance and stumbled, saved from falling by his cloak, which now began to choke him where it fastened around his neck. As the other bandits turned to see where the arrow had come from, Halt stepped away from the tree. Yet to the startled robbers, it seemed as if he had stepped out of the massive oak.

  "King's Ranger!" Halt called. "Drop your weapons."

  There were ten men, all armed. Not a single one thought to disobey the order. Knives, swords and cudgels clattered to the ground. They had just seen a firsthand example of a Ranger's black magic: the grim figure had stepped clean out of the living trunk of an oak tree. Even now, the strange cloak that he wore seemed to shimmer uncertainly against the background, making it difficult to focus on him. And if sorcery weren't enough to compel them, they could see a more practical reason-the massive longbow, with another black-shafted arrow already on the string.

  "On the ground, belly down! All of you!" The words cut at them like a whip and they dropped to the ground. Halt pointed to one, a dirty-faced youth who couldn't have been more than fifteen.

  "Not you!" he said, and the boy hesitated, on his hands and knees.

  "You take their belts and tie their hands behind them."

  The terrified boy nodded several times, then moved toward the first of his prone comrades. He stopped as Halt gave him a further warning.

  "Tie them tight!" he said. "If I find one loose knot, I'll:" He hesitated for a second, while he framed a suitable threat, then continued, "I'll seal you up inside that oak tree over there."

  That should do it, he thought. He was aware of the effect that his unexplained appearance from the tree had on these uneducated country folk. It was a device he had used many times before. Now he saw the boy's face whiten with fear under the dirt and knew the threat was effective. He turned his attention to Gubblestone, who was plucking feebly at the thong securing his cloak as it continued to choke him.

  He was already red in the face, his eyes bulging.

  They bulged farther as Halt unsheathed his heavy saxe knife.

  "Oh, relax," said Halt irritably. He slashed quickly through the cord and Gubblestone, suddenly released, fell awkwardly to the ground.

  He seemed content to stay there, out of the reach of that gleaming knife. Halt glanced up at the occupants of the carriage. The relief on their faces was all too obvious.

  "I think you can be on your way if you like," he said pleasantly.

  "These idiots won't bother you any further."

  The merchant, remembering guiltily how he had tried to shove his wife out of the carriage, tried to cover his discomfort by blustering.

  "They deserve hanging, Ranger! Hanging, I say! They have terrified my poor wife and threatened my very person!"

  Halt eyed the man impassively until the outburst was finished.

  "Worse than that," he said quietly, "they've wasted my time."

  "The answer is no, Halt," said Crowley. "Just as it was the last time you asked."

  He could see the anger in every line of Halt's body as his old friend stood before him. Crowley hated what he had to do. But orders were orders, and as the Ranger Commandant, it was his job to enforce them. And Halt, like all Rangers, was bound to obey them.

  "You don't need me!" Halt burst out. "I'm wasting time hunting these imitation Foldars all over the kingdom when I should be going after Will!"

  "The King has made Foldar our number-one priority," Crowley reminded him. "Sooner or later, we'll find the real one."

  Halt made a dismissive gesture. "And you have forty-nine other Rangers to do the job!" he said. "For God's sake, that should be enough."

  "King Duncan wants the other forty-nine. And he wants you. He trusts you and depends on you. You're the best we have."

  "I've done my share," Halt replied quietly, and Crowley knew how much it hurt the other man to say those words. He also knew that his best reply would be silence-silence that would force Halt further into the sort of rationalization that Crowley knew he hated.

  "The kingdom owes that boy," Halt said, with a little more certainty in his tone.

  "The boy is a Ranger," Crowley said coldly.

  "An apprentice," Halt corrected him, and now Crowley stood, knocking his chair over with the violence of his movement.

  "A Ranger apprentice assumes the same duties as a Ranger. We always have, Halt. For every Ranger, the rule is the same: kingdom first. That's our oath. You took it. I took it. And so did Will."

  There was an angry silence between the two men, made all the uglier by the years they had lived as friends and comrades. Halt, Crowley realized, was possibly his closest friend in the world. Now here they were, trading bitter words and angry arguments. He reached behind him and straightened the fallen chair, then made a gesture of peace to Halt.

  "Look," he said in a milder tone, "just help me clear up this Foldar business. Two months, maybe three, then you can go after Will, with my blessing."

  Halt's grizzled head was already shaking before he'd finished.

  "In two months he could be dead. Or sold on as a slave and lost forever. I need to go now while the trail is still warm. I promised him," he added after a pause, his voice thick with misery.

  "No," said Crowley, with a note of finality. Hearing it, Halt squared his shoulders.

  "Then I'll see the King," he said.

  Crowley looked down at his desk.

  "The King won't see you," he said flatly. He looked up and saw the surprise and betrayal in Halt's eyes.

  "He won't see me? He refuses me?" For over twenty years, Halt had been one of the King's closest confidants, with constant, unquestioned access to the royal chambers.

  "He knows what you'll ask, Halt. He doesn't want to refuse you, so he refuses to see you."

  Now the surprise and betrayal were gone from Halt's eyes. In their place was anger. Bitter anger.

  "Then I'll just have to change his mind," he said quietly.

  3

  A S THE WOLFSHIP ROUNDED THE POINT AND REACHED THE shelter of the bay, the heavy swell died away. Inside the small natural harbor, the tall, rocky headlands broke the force of both wind and swell so that the water was flat calm, its surface broken only by the spreading V of the wolfship's wake.

  "Is this Skandia?" Evanlyn asked.

  Will shrugged uncertainly. It certainly didn't look the way he had expected. There were only a few small, ramshackle huts on the shore, with no sign of a town. And no people.

  "It doesn't seem big enough, does it?" he said.

  Svengal, coiling a rope nearby, laughed at their ignorance.

  "This isn't Skandia," he told them. "We're barely halfway to Skandia. This is Skorghijl." Seeing their puzzled looks, he explained further. "We can't make the full crossing to Skandia now. That storm in the Narrow Sea delayed us so long that the Summer Gales have set in. We'll shelter here until they've blown out. That's what those huts are for."

  Will looked dubiously at the weathered timber huts. They looked grim and uncomfortable.

  "How long will that take?" he asked, and Svengal shrugged.

  "Six weeks, two months. Who knows?" He moved off, the coil of rope over one shoulder, and the two young people were left to survey their new surroundings.

  Skorghijl was a bleak and uninviting place of bare rock, steep granite cliffs and a small level beach where the sun and salt-whitened timber huts huddled. There was no tree or blade of green anywhere in sight. The rims of the cliffs were scattered with the white of snow and ice. The rest was rock and shale, granite black and dull gray. It was as if whatever gods the Skandians wo
rshipped had removed all vestige of color from this rocky little world.

  Unconsciously, without the need to battle the constant backward set of the waves, the rowers slackened their pace. The ship glided across the bay to the shingle beach. Erak, at the tiller, kept her in the channel that ran deep right up to the water's edge, until the keel finally grated into the shingle and the wolfship was, for the first time in days, still.

  Will and Evanlyn stood, their legs uncertain after days of constant movement.

  The ship rang with the dull thuds of timber on timber as the oars were drawn in board and stowed. Erak looped a leather thong over the tiller to secure it and prevent the rudder from banging back and forth with the movement of the tide. He glanced briefly at the two prisoners.

  "Go ashore if you like," he told them. There was no need to restrain them or guard them in any way. Skorghijl was an island, barely two kilometers across at its widest point. Apart from this one perfect natural harbor that had made it a refuge for Skandians during the Summer Gales, Skorghijl's coast was an uninterrupted line of sheer cliffs, dropping into the sea.

  Will and Evanlyn moved to the bow of the ship, passing the Skandians, who were unshipping barrels of water and ale and sacks of dried food from the sheltered spaces below the center deck. Will climbed over the gunwale, hung full length for a few seconds, then dropped to the shale below. Here, with the prow canted up as it had slid up the beach, there was a considerable drop to the stones. He turned to help Evanlyn, but she was already dropping after him.

  They stood uncertainly.

  "My God," Evanlyn muttered, feeling herself sway as the solid land beneath her seemed to roll and pitch. She stumbled and fell to one knee.

  Will was in no better state. Now that the constant movement had ceased, the dry land beneath them seemed to heave and lurch. He placed one hand against the timbers of the boat to stop himself from falling.

  "What is it?" he asked her. He stared at the ground beneath his feet, expecting to see it forming and rolling into hummocks and hills.

  But it was flat and motionless. He felt the first traces of nausea gathering in the pit of his stomach.

  "Look out down there!" a voice from above warned, and a sack of dried beef thudded onto the pebbles beside him. He looked up, swaying uncertainly, into the grinning eyes of one of the crew.

  "Got the land-wobbles, have you?" the man said, not unsympathetically. "Should be all right again in a few hours' time."

  Will's head spun. Evanlyn had managed to regain her feet. She was still swaying, but at least she wasn't assailed by the same nausea that Will was feeling. She took his arm. "Come on," she said. "There are some benches up there by those huts. We might be better off sitting down."

  And, lurching drunkenly, they stumbled through the shingle to the rough wooden benches and tables that were set outside the huts.

  Will sank gratefully onto one, holding his head in his hands and resting his elbows on his knees for support. He groaned in misery as another wave of nausea swept over him. Evanlyn was in slightly better shape. She patted his shoulder.

  "What's causing this?" she said in a small voice.

  "It happens when you've been on board ship for a few days." Jarl Erak had approached behind them. He had a sack of provisions slung over one shoulder and he swung it down to the ground outside the door of one of the huts, grunting slightly with the effort.

  "For some reason," he continued, "your legs seem to think you're still on the deck of a ship. Nobody knows why. It'll only last a few hours and then you'll be fine."

  "I can't imagine ever feeling fine again," Will groaned in a thick voice.

  "You will be," Erak told him. "Get a fire going," he said brusquely. He jerked a thumb toward a blackened circle of stones a few meters from the nearest hut. "You'll feel better with a hot meal inside you."

  Will groaned at the mention of food. Nevertheless, he rose unsteadily from the bench and took the flint and steel that Erak held out to him. Then he and Evanlyn moved to the fireplace. Stacked beside it was a pile of sun-and salt-dried driftwood. Some of the planks were brittle enough to break with bare hands and Will began to stack the slivers into a pyramid in the middle of the circle of stones.

  Evanlyn, for her part, gathered together bunches of dried moss to act as kindling, and within five minutes they had a small fire crackling, the flames licking eagerly at the heavier pieces of firewood they added now to the blaze.

  "Just like old times," Evanlyn murmured with a small grin. Will turned quickly to her, smiling in return. All too clearly, he could see Morgarath's bridge looming above them once more, with the fires they had set feeding voraciously on the tarred ropes and resin-laden pine beams. He sighed deeply. Given the chance to do it over, he still would have acted as he had. But he wished Evanlyn hadn't been involved. Wished she hadn't been captured with him.

  Then, even as he wished it, he realized that she was the one bright spark in his life of misery now and that by wishing her away, he was wishing away the only small glow of happiness and normality in his days.

  He felt a sense of confusion. In a moment of extreme surprise, he realized that, if she were not here with him, life would be barely worth living. He reached out and touched her hand lightly. She looked at him again, and this time, he was the first to smile. "Would you do it again?" he asked her. "You know, the bridge and everything?"

  This time, she didn't smile back at him. She thought seriously for several seconds, then said, "In a moment. You?"

  He nodded. Then he sighed again, thinking of all that they had left behind. Unnoticed by the two young people, Erak had seen the little exchange. He nodded to himself. It was good for each of them to have a friend, he thought. Life was going to be hard for them when they reached Hallasholm and Ragnak's court. They'd be sold as slaves and their life would be hard physical labor, with no respite and no release. One grindingly hard day after another, month in, month out, year after year. A person living that life would need a friend.

  It would be going too far to say that Erak was fond of the two youngsters. But they had won his respect. The Skandians were a warrior race who valued bravery and valor in battle above all else, and both Will and Evanlyn had proved their courage when they'd destroyed Morgarath's bridge. The boy, he thought, was quite a scrapper. He'd dropped the Wargals like ninepins with that little bow of his. Erak had rarely seen faster, more accurate shooting. He guessed that was a result of the Ranger training.

  And the girl had shown plenty of courage too, first of all making sure the fire had caught properly on the bridge, then, when Will finally went down, stunned by a rock hurled by one of the Skandians, she'd tried to grab the bow herself and keep shooting.

  It was difficult not to feel sympathy for them. They were both so young, with so much that should have been ahead of them. He'd try to make things as easy as possible for them when they reached Hallasholm, Erak thought. But there wasn't a lot he'd be able to do. Then he shook himself angrily, breaking the introspective mood that had fallen over him. "Getting damn maudlin!" he muttered to himself. He noticed that one of the rowers was trying to sneak a prime piece of pork from a provision sack nearby. He moved quietly behind the man and planted his foot violently in his backside, lifting him clean off the ground with the force of the kick.

  "Keep your thieving hands to yourself!" he snarled. Then, ducking his head under the doorway lintel, he went into the dark, smoke-smelling hut to claim the best bunk for himself.

  4

  T HE TAVERN WAS A DINGY, MEAN LITTLE PLACE, LOW-CEILINGED,

  smoke-filled and none too clean. But it was close to the river where the big ships docked as they brought goods for trade into the capital, and so it usually enjoyed good business.

  Right now, though, business had dropped off, and the reason for the decline was sitting at one of the spill-stained bare tables, close to the fireplace. He glared up at the tavern keeper now, his eyes burning under the knotted brows, and banged the empty tankard on the rough pine planks
of the table.

  "It's empty again," he said angrily. There was just the slightest slurring of his words to remind the tavern keeper that this would be the eighth or ninth time he'd refilled the tankard with the cheap, fiery brandy-spirit that was the stock-in-trade of dockside bars like this. A sale was a sale, he told himself doubtfully, but this customer looked like trouble waiting to happen and the tavern keeper wished fervently that he'd go and let it happen someplace else.

  His usual customers, with their uncanny instinct for trouble brewing, had mostly cleared out when the small man had arrived and begun drinking with such unswerving purpose. Only half a dozen had remained. One of them, a hulking stevedore, had looked over the smaller man and decided he was easy pickings. Small and drunken the customer might be, but the gray-green cloak and the double knife scabbard at his left hip marked him as a Ranger. And Rangers, as any sensible person could tell you, were not people to trifle with.

  The stevedore learned that the hard way. The fight barely lasted a few seconds, leaving him stretched unconscious on the floor. His companions hastily departed for a friendlier, and safer, atmosphere.

  The Ranger watched them go and signaled for a refill. The innkeeper stepped over the stevedore, nervously topped up the Ranger's tankard, then retreated behind the relative safety of the bar.

  Then the real trouble started.

  "It has come to my attention," the Ranger announced, enunciating his words with the careful precision of a man who knows he has drunk too much, "that our good King Duncan, lord of this realm, is nothing but a poltroon."

  If the atmosphere in the bar before this had been anticipatory, it now became positively sizzling with tension. The eyes of the few remaining customers were locked on the small figure at the table. He gazed around, a grim little smile playing on his lips, just visible between the grizzled beard and the mustache.

  "A poltroon. A coward. And a fool," he said clearly.