And as he said that, he pretended to peer closely at the keg on the table. It was almost inevitable that everyone else in the room should follow his example. Will hesitated a second, but he sensed that he could trust Erak. The message the Skandian leader was sending him was absolutely clear. Quickly, he drew back his arm in an overhand throw and sent the knife spinning across the room.
There was a brief flash as the spinning blade caught the red glare of the oil lamps and the fire. Then, with a loud thwock! the razor-sharp blade slammed into the wood-not quite in the center of the gap between the two gouged-out patches. The keg actually slid backward a good ten centimeters under the impact.
Slagor let out a startled cry and jerked away. Inadvertently, he released Evanlyn's arm from his grasp. The girl stepped quickly away from him, then, as Erak jerked his head urgently in the direction of the door, she ran from the room, unnoticed in the confusion.
There was a moment of startled outcry, then Erak's men began to laugh, and to applaud the excellent marksmanship. Even Slagor's men joined in eventually, as the skirl sat glowering at those around him.
He wasn't popular. His men followed him only because he was wealthy enough to provide a ship for raiding parties. Now, several of them mimicked the raucous yelp he had let out when the knife thudded into the keg.
Erak rose from the bench and moved around the table, speaking as he went.
"So you see, Slagor, if the boy here had aimed for the wrong wooden head, you would surely be dead right now and I would have to kill him in punishment."
He stopped, close to Will, smiling at Slagor as the skirl half crouched on the bench, waiting for what was to come next.
"As it is," Erak continued, "I simply have to reprimand him for frightening someone as important as you."
And before Will saw the blow coming, Erak sent a backhanded fist crashing against the side of the boy's head, knocking him senseless to the floor. Erak glanced at Svengal and gestured to the unconscious figure on the rough wooden floor of the hut.
"Throw this disrespectful whelp into his hutch," he ordered. Then, turning his back on the room, he stalked out into the night.
Outside, in the clean cold air, he looked up. The sky was clear.
The wind was still blowing, but now it had moderated and shifted to the east. The Summer Gales were finished.
"It's time we got out of here," he said to the stars.
16
T HE BATTLE, IF YOU COULD CALL IT THAT, LASTED NO MORE than a few seconds. The two mounted warriors spurred toward each other, the hooves of their battlehorses thundering on the unsealed surface of the road, clods of dirt spinning in the air behind them and dust rising in a plume to mark their passage.
The Gallic knight had his lance extended. Halt could now see the fault that Horace had noticed in the other man's technique. Held too tightly at this early stage, the lance point swayed and wavered with the horse's movement. A lighter, more flexible hold on the weapon might have kept its point centered on its target. As it was, the lance dipped and rose and wobbled with every stride of the horse.
Horace, on the other hand, rode easily, his sword resting on his shoulder, content to conserve his strength until the time for action came.
They approached each other shield to shield, as was normal. Halt half expected to see Horace repeat the maneuver he'd used against Morgarath, and spin his horse to the other side at the last moment.
However, the apprentice kept on, maintaining the line of attack. When he was barely ten meters away, the sword arced down from its rest position, the point describing a circle in the air, then, as the lance tip came toward Horace's shield, the sword, still circling, caught the lance neatly and flicked it up and over the boy's head. It looked deceptively easy, but Halt realized as he watched that the boy was truly a natural weapons master. The Gallic knight, braced for the expected impact of his lance on Horace's shield, suddenly found himself heaving his body forward against no resistance at all. He swayed, feeling himself toppling from the saddle. In a desperate attempt at self-preservation, he grabbed at his saddle pommel.
It was bad luck that he chose to do so with his right hand, which was also trying to maintain control of the unwieldy lance. Twisted upward by Horace's circling sword point, it was now describing a giant arc of its own. He couldn't manage his balance and the lance at the same time and a muffled curse came from inside the helmet as he was forced to let the lance drop.
Enraged, he groped blindly for the hilt of his own sword, trying to drag it clear of its scabbard for the second pass.
Unfortunately for him, there was to be only one pass.
Halt shook his head in silent admiration as Horace, the lance taken out of play, instantly hauled Kicker to a rearing, spinning stop, using his knees and his shield hand on the reins to wheel the horse on its hind legs before the Gallic knight had gone past him.
The sword, still describing those easy circles that kept his wrist fluid and light, now arced around once more and slammed into the back of the other man's helmet with a loud, ringing clang.
Halt winced, imagining what it must sound like from inside the steel pot. It was too much to expect that a single blow might shear through the tough metal. It would take a series of heavy strokes to accomplish that. But it put a severe dent in the helmet, and the concussion of the blow went straight through the steel to the skull of the knight wearing it.
Unseen by the two Araluens, his eyes glazed out of focus, went slightly crossed, then snapped back again.
Then, very slowly, he toppled sideways out of the saddle, crashed onto the dust of the road and lay there, unmoving. His horse continued galloping for a few more meters. Then, realizing that nobody was urging it on any longer, it slowed to a walk, lowered its head and began cropping the long grass by the roadside.
Horace trotted his horse back slowly, stopping level with the point where the Gallic knight lay sprawled on the road.
"I told you he wasn't very good," he said, quite seriously, to Halt.
The Ranger, who prided himself on his normal taciturn manner, couldn't prevent a wide grin breaking out across his face.
"Well, perhaps he's not," he told the earnest young man before him. "But you certainly looked reasonably efficient there."
Horace shrugged. "It's what I'm trained for," he replied simply.
Halt realized that the boy just didn't have a boastful bone in his body. Battleschool had certainly had a good effect on him. He gestured to the knight, now beginning to regain consciousness. The man's arms and legs made weak, uncoordinated little movements, giving him the appearance of a half-dead crab.
"It's what he's supposed to be trained for too," he replied, then added, "Well done, young Horace."
The boy flushed with pleasure at Halt's praise. He knew the Ranger wasn't one to hand out idle compliments.
"So what do we do with him now?" he asked, indicating his fallen foe with the tip of his sword. Halt slipped quickly down from the saddle and moved toward the man.
"Let me take care of that," he said. "It'll be my pleasure."
He grabbed hold of the fallen man by one arm and dragged him into a sitting position. The dazed knight mumbled inside the helmet, and now that he had time to notice such details, Horace could see that the ends of the mustache protruded from either side of the closed visor.
"Thank yew, sirrah," the knight mumbled incoherently as Halt dragged him to a more or less upright sitting position. His feet scrabbled on the road as he tried to stand, but Halt shoved him back down, none too gently.