The Icebound Land ra-3

by John Flanagan

  "For that matter," he remarked, "you're not entitled to contest any of these knights until you've been properly knighted either. But I haven't noticed that stopping you."

  Since their first encounter at the bridge, the two travelers had been stopped on half a dozen occasions by freebooting knights guarding crossroads, bridges and narrow valleys. All of them had been dispatched with almost contemptuous ease by the muscular young apprentice. Halt was highly impressed by the young man's skill and natural ability. One after another, Horace had sent the roadside guardians toppling from their saddles, at first with a few deftly placed strokes from his sword and, more recently, as he had captured a good, stout lance with a balance and a feel that he liked, in a thundering charge that unseated his opponent and sent him flying meters behind his galloping horse. By now, the two travelers had amassed a considerable store of armor and weapons, which they carried strapped to the saddles of the horses they had captured. At the next sizable town they came to, Halt planned to sell horses, arms and armor.

  For all his admiration of Horace's skill, and despite the fact that he felt a grim satisfaction at seeing the bullying vultures put out of business, Halt resented the continual delays they caused in his and Horace's journey. Even without them, he and Horace would be hard put to reach the distant border with Skandia before the first winter blizzards made it impassable.

  Accordingly, five nights previously, as they camped in the half-ruined barn of a deserted farm property, he had rummaged through the piles of old rusting tools and rotting sacks until he unearthed a small pot of green paint and an old, dried-out brush. Using these, he had sketched a green oakleaf design onto Horace's shield. The result had been as he expected. The reputation of Sir Horace of the Order of the Oakleaf had gone before them. Now, more often than not, as the brigand knights had seen them approaching, they had turned and fled at the sight of the device on Horace's shield.

  "I can't say I'm sorry to see him go," Horace remarked, gently nudging Kicker forward toward the now-deserted crossroads. "My shoulder's not totally healed yet."

  His previous opponent had been considerably more skillful than the general run of highway warriors. Undaunted by the oakleaf device on the shield, and obviously not bothered by Horace's reputation, he had joined combat eagerly. The fight had lasted several minutes, and during the course of their combat, a blow from his mace had glanced off the top rim of Horace's shield and deflected onto his upper arm.

  Fortunately, the shield had taken a good deal of the force of the blow, or Horace's arm would, in all likelihood, have been broken. As it was, there was severe bruising and his arm and shoulder were still not as free moving as he would have liked.

  Barely half a second after the mace had done its damage, Horace's backhanded sword stroke had clanged sickeningly into the front of the other man's helmet, leaving a severe dent and sending the knight sprawling unconscious and heavily concussed on the forest floor.

  Now he was relieved that he hadn't had to fight since.

  "We'll spend a night in town," Halt said. "We may be able to get some herbs and I'll make a poultice for that arm of yours." He'd noticed the boy was favoring the arm. Even though Horace hadn't complained, it was obviously causing him considerable pain.

  "I'd like that," Horace said. "A night in a real bed would be a pleasant change after sleeping on the ground for so long."

  Halt snorted derisively. "Battleschool evidently isn't what it used to be," he replied. "It's a fine thing when an old man like me can sleep comfortably in the open while a young boy gets all stiff and rheumatic over it."

  Horace shrugged. "Be that as it may," he replied, "I'll still be glad to sleep in a bed tonight."

  Actually, Halt felt the same way. But he wasn't going to let Horace know that.

  "Perhaps we should hurry," he said, "and get you into a nice comfortable bed before your joints seize up altogether."

  And he urged Abelard into a slow canter. Behind him, Tug instantly increased his own pace to match. Horace, caught by surprise, and hampered by the captured horses he was leading, was a little slower to keep up.

  The string of battlehorses, laden with armor and weapons, raised quite a bit of interest in the town as they rode through the streets.

  Horace noticed again how people scurried to clear the way in front of his battlehorse as he rode. He noticed the furtive glances cast his way and more than once he heard the phrase Chevalier du Chene whispered as he passed people by. He glanced curiously at Halt.

  "What's that they're saying about chains?" he asked. Halt gestured toward the oakleaf symbol on the shield hanging at Horace's saddlebow.

  "Not chain," he told the young warrior, "They're saying chene.

  That's their word for 'oak.' They're talking about you: the knight of the oak. Apparently your fame has spread."

  Horace frowned. He wasn't sure if he was pleased about that or not.

  "Let's hope it doesn't cause any trouble," he said uncertainly.

  Halt merely shrugged.

  "In a small town like this? It's hardly likely. More the opposite, I'd expect."

  For it was a small town, barely more than a village, in fact. The single main street was narrow, with hardly room for their two horses to move abreast. People on foot had to press back out of the way, stepping into the side streets to let the horsemen pass-then remaining in that position as the small string of battlehorses clopped quietly along behind them.

  The street itself was unpaved, a mere dusty track that would quickly turn to thick gluey mud in the event of any rain. The houses were small, mostly single-story affairs, which seemed to have been built on something less than the normal scale.

  "Keep your eyes open for an inn," Halt said quietly.

  Traveling with a notorious companion was a novel experience for Halt. In Araluen, he was accustomed to the suspicion and sometimes fear that greeted the appearance of a member of the Ranger Corps. The mottled cloaks with their deep cowls were a familiar sight to people in the kingdom. Here in Gallica, he was quite pleased to notice, the Ranger uniform, along with the distinctive weaponry of longbow and double knives, seemed to evoke little or no interest.

  Horace was a different matter entirely. His reputation had obviously gone before them and people eyed him with the same edge of suspicion and uncertainty that Halt had become used to over the years.

  The situation pleased Halt quite well. In the event of any trouble, it would give him and Horace a decided edge if people had already decided that the main danger came from the strapping young man in armor.

  The fact of the matter was that the grizzled older man in the nondescript cloak was a far more dangerous potential enemy.

  "Up ahead there," Horace said, rousing Halt from his musing. He followed the direction of the boy's pointing finger and there was a building, larger than the others, with a second story leaning precariously out over the street, rather uncertainly supported by uneven oak beams that jutted out at first-floor level. A weathered signboard swung gently in the breeze, with a crude depiction of a wineglass and a platter of food marked on it in peeling paint.

  "Don't get your hopes too high about a nice soft bed for the night," Halt warned the apprentice. "We may well have slept softer in the forest." He didn't add that they would almost certainly have slept cleaner.

  As it turned out, he had done the inn an injustice. It was small and the walls weren't quite true to the perpendicular. The ceiling was low and uneven and the stairs seemed to lean to one side as they made their way up to inspect the room they had been offered.

  But at least the place was clean and the bedroom had a large, glazed window, which had been flung wide open to let in the fresh afternoon breeze. The smell of freshly plowed fields carried to them as they looked out over the higgledy-piggledy mass of steeply pitched roofs in the town.

  The innkeeper and his wife were both elderly people, but at least they seemed welcoming and friendly to their two guests-particularly after they had seen the store of arms and arm
or piled on the riderless horses lined up outside the inn. The young knight was obviously a man of property, they decided. And a person of considerable importance as well, judging by the way he left all dealings to his manservant, the rather surly fellow in a gray-and-green cloak. It suited the innkeeper's sense of snobbery to assume that people of noble birth didn't deign to interest themselves in such commercial matters as the price of a room for the night.

  Having ascertained that there was no market within the town where they might be able to convert their captured booty into money, Halt allowed the inn's stable boy to bed their horses down for the night.

  All except Abelard and Tug, of course. He saw to them personally, and he was pleased to note that Horace did the same for Kicker.

  Once the horses were settled, the two companions returned to their room. Supper wouldn't be ready for an hour or two, the innkeeper's wife had told them.

  "We'll use the time to take a look at that arm of yours," Halt told Horace. The younger man sank gratefully onto the bed and sighed contentedly. Contrary to Halt's expectations, the beds were soft and comfortable, with thick, clean blankets and crisp white sheets. At a gesture from Halt, the apprentice stood up and pulled his mail shirt and tunic over his head, grunting slightly with pain as he had to raise his arm above shoulder height to do it. The bruising had spread across the entire upper arm, creating a patchwork of discolored flesh that ran from dark blue-black to an ugly yellow around the edges. Halt probed the bruised area critically, feeling to make sure there were no broken bones.

  "Ow!" said Horace as the Ranger's fingers probed and poked around the bruise.

  "Did that hurt?" Halt asked, and Horace looked at him with exasperation.

  "Of course it did," he said sharply. "That's why I said 'ow!'"

  "Hmm," Halt muttered thoughtfully, and seizing the arm, he turned it this way and that while Horace gritted his teeth against the pain.

  Finally able to contain his annoyance no longer, he stepped back away from Halt's grasp.

  "Are you actually hoping to accomplish anything there?" he asked in a peevish tone of voice. "Or are you just having fun causing me pain?"

  "I'm trying to help," Halt said mildly. He reached for the arm once more, but Horace backed away.

  "Keep your hands off," he said. "You're just poking and prodding.

  I can't see how that's supposed to help."

  "I'm just trying to make sure there's nothing broken," Halt explained. But Horace shook his head at the Ranger.

  "Nothing's broken. I've got some bruising, that's all."

  Halt made a helpless gesture of resignation. He opened his mouth to speak, planning to reassure Horace that he was really trying to help, when matters were taken out of his hands-literally.

  There was a brief knock at the door; then, before the sound had died, the door was flung open and the innkeeper's wife bustled in with an armful of fresh pillows for the beds. She smiled at the two of them, then her gaze lit upon Horace's arm and the smile died, replaced instantly by a look of motherly concern.

  She let go a torrent of Gallican that neither of them understood, and moved quickly to Horace's side, dumping the pillows on his bed. He watched her suspiciously as she reached out to touch the injured arm.

  She stopped, pursed her lips and met his gaze with a reassuring look.

  Satisfied, he allowed her to examine the injury.

  She did so gently, with a light, almost imperceptible touch.

  Horace, submitting to her ministrations, looked meaningfully at Halt.

  The Ranger scowled and sat on the bed to watch. Finally, the woman stepped back and, taking Horace's arm, led him to sit on the edge of the bed. She turned to address the two of them, pointing to the discolored arm.

  "No breaking bones," she said uncertainly. Halt nodded.

  "I thought as much," he replied, and Horace sniffed disdainfully.

  The woman nodded once or twice, then continued, choosing her words carefully. Her command of the Araluen tongue was inexact, to say the least.

  "Bruisings," she said, "bad bruisings. Need:" She hesitated, seeking the word, then found it. "Herbs:" She made a rubbing gesture with her two hands, miming the act of rubbing herbs together to form a poultice. "Break herbs:put here." She touched the injured arm once more. Halt nodded agreement.

  "Good," he told her. "Please go right ahead." He looked up at Horace. "We're in luck here," he said. "She seems to know her business."

  "You mean I'm in luck," Horace said stiffly. "If I'd been left to your tender mercies, I probably wouldn't have an arm by now."

  The woman, hearing the tone of the voice but not understanding the words, hurried to reassure him, making crooning sounds and touching the bruise with a feather-soft hand.

  "Two days:three:no more bruisings. No more pain," she reassured him, and he smiled at her.

  "Thank you, madam," he said, in the sort of courtly tone he imagined a gallant young knight should use. "I shall be forever in your debt."

  She smiled at him and, in mime again, indicated that she was going to fetch her stock of herbs and medicines. Horace rose and executed a clumsy bow as she left the room, giggling to herself.

  "Oh, puh-lease," said Halt, rolling his eyes to heaven.

  19

  T HE HEAT IN R AGNAK'S DINING HALL WAS INTENSE. T HE LARGE number of people present, and the huge, open fire that stretched almost the full width of one end of the room, combined to keep the temperature uncomfortably warm, in spite of the deep snow that lay on the ground outside.

  It was an enormous room, long and low-ceilinged, with two tables stretching the length of it, and a third, Ragnak's head table, placed across the others at the end opposite the fire. The walls were bare pine logs, roughly trimmed and caulked, where their uneven shape left a gap, with a mixture of mud and clay that set hard as rock. More pine logs slanted up at angles to support the roof, a tightly woven layer of rushes and thatch that was almost a meter thick in places. There was no interior lining. Lighter slats of rough timber were fastened across the roof beams to support the thatch. The noise, with nearly one hundred and fifty drunken Skandians eating, laughing and shouting at one another, was deafening. Erak looked around him and smiled.

  It was good to be home again.

  He accepted another tankard of ale from Borsa, Ragnak's hilfmann.

  While Ragnak was the Oberjarl, or senior Jarl of all Skandians, the hilfmann was an administrator who took care of the day-to-day running of the nation. He made sure that crops were planted, taxes paid, raids sent out on time and that Ragnak's share of all raiding booty-a quarter of everything won-was paid promptly and reckoned fairly by the wolfship commanders.

  "Bad business all around, Erak," he said. They were discussing the ill-fated expedition to Araluen. "We should never get involved in a long-running war. It's not our game at all. We're cut out for quick raids. Get in, grab the booty and get out again with the tide. That's our way. Always has been."

  Erak nodded. He'd thought the same thing when Ragnak had assigned him to the expedition. But the Oberjarl hadn't been in any mood to listen to his advice.

  "Still, Morgarath paid us up front," the hilfmann continued.

  Erak's eyebrows raised at that.

  "He did?" It was the first he'd heard of it. He'd assumed that he and his men were fighting simply for whatever booty they could find, and the expedition had been a definite failure in that regard. But his companion nodded emphatically.

  "Oh yes indeed. Ragnak's no fool when it comes to money. He charged Morgarath for your services, and those of all your men. You'll all be paid your share."

  At least, thought Erak, he and his men would have something to show for the past few months. But Borsa was still shaking his head over the Araluen campaign.

  "You know our biggest problem?" he said, and before Erak could respond, he continued. "We don't have our own generals or tacticians.

  Skandians fight as individuals. And in that sense, we're the best in the world. But wh
en we hire out as mercenaries, we don't have our own planners to lead us. So we're forced to rely on fools like Morgarath."

  Erak nodded agreement. "When we were in Araluen, I said that his plans were too involved, too clever by half."

  Borsa jabbed a thick forefinger at him. Erak was surprised by the man's vehemence. "And you're right! We could use a few people like those Araluen Rangers," he added.

  "Are you serious?" Erak said. "Why do we need them?"

  "Not them literally. I mean people like them. People who are trained in planning and tactics-with the ability to see the big picture and use our troops to best effect."

  Erak had to agree the other man had a point. But the mention of Rangers had led his mind to the matter of Will and Evanlyn. Now he saw a way to solve the problem of dealing with them.

  "Could you use a couple of new slaves around the Great Hall?" he asked casually. Borsa nodded immediately.

  "We can always use extras," he said. "Got someone in mind, have you?"

  "A boy and a girl," Erak told him. He thought it best not to mention that Will was an apprentice Ranger. "Both strong. Healthy and intelligent. We captured them on the Celtic border. I was going to sell them so I could pay my crew something for the whole mess. But now, if you say we'll be paid anyway, I'd be happy to give them to you."

  Borsa nodded gratefully. "I can certainly use them," he replied.

  "Send them over tomorrow."

  "Done!" said Erak cheerfully. He felt a nagging weight had been removed from his mind. "Now where's that ale jug got to?"

  While Erak was deciding their fate, Will and Evanlyn had been kept locked in a hut by the quayside, close to the point where Wolfwind was moored. The following morning, they were roused by a Skandian from Borsa's staff, who led them to the Great Hall. There, the hilfmann looked them over, studying them critically. The girl was attractive, he thought, but she didn't look as if she'd done a lot of heavy work in her life. The boy, on the other hand, was well muscled and fit, if a little on the small side.