"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
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.
Nobody moved. This was dangerous talk. For a normal citizen to abuse or insult the King in public like this would be a serious crime.
For a Ranger, a sworn member of the kingdom's special forces, it was close to treason. Anxious glances were exchanged. The few remaining customers wished they could leave quietly. But something in the Ranger's calm gaze told them this was no longer an option. They noticed now that the longbow he had leaned against the wall behind him was already strung. And the quiver beside it was full of arrows. They all knew that the first person to try to go through the front door would be followed in rapid time by an arrow. And they all knew that Rangers, even drunk Rangers, rarely missed what they aimed at.
Yet to remain here while the Ranger berated and insulted the King was equally dangerous. Their silence might well be taken as acquiescence should anyone ever find out what was going on.
"I have it on good authority," the Ranger continued, almost jovially now, "that good King Duncan is not the lawful occupant of the throne. I've heard it said that he is, in fact, the son of a drunken privy cleaner. Another rumor has it that he was the result of his father's fascination with a traveling hatcha-hatcha dancer. Take your pick. Either way, it is hardly the correct lineage for a king, is it?"
A small sigh of concern passed from someone's lips. This was becoming more and more dangerous by the moment. The tavern keeper shifted nervously behind the bar, saw a movement in the back room and moved to get a clearer view through the doorway. His wife, on her way into the taproom with a plate of pies for the bar, had stopped as she heard the Ranger's last statement. She stood white-faced, her eyes meeting her husband's in an unspoken question.
He glanced quickly at the Ranger, but the other man's attention was now focused on a wagoner who was trying to make himself inconspicuous at the far end of the bar. "Don't you agree, sir:you in the yellow jerkin with most of yesterday's breakfast spilled upon it:that such a person doesn't deserve to be king of this fair land?" he asked. The wagoner mumbled and shifted in his seat, unwilling to make eye contact.