There was a quick hiss of steel on leather as Horace drew his long sword from its scabbard and wheeled Kicker to face his charging opponent.
‘I won’t be a minute,’ he told Halt, then Kicker bounded away, reaching full stride in the space of a few metres.
Following the failed escape attempt, Will and Evanlyn were forbidden to move more than fifty metres from the huts. There was no more running, no more exercising. Erak managed to find a new range of tasks for the two captives to undertake, from re-weaving the rope mattresses in the dormitory to re-sealing the lower planks along Wolfwind’s hull with tar and pieces of frayed rope. It was hot, unpleasant work but Evanlyn and Will accepted it philosophically.
Confined in this fashion, they couldn’t help noticing the growing tension between the two groups of Skandians. Slagor and his men, bored and seeking distraction, had called loudly for the two Araluans to be flogged. Slagor, licking his wet lips, had even offered to carry out the task himself.
Erak, very bluntly, told Slagor to mind his own business. He was becoming increasingly weary of the sneering, bragging manner in which Slagor conducted himself, and of the sly way his men cheated and taunted the crew of Wolfwind at every opportunity. Slagor was a coward and a bully and when Erak compared him to the two captives, he was surprised to find that he had more in common with Will and Evanlyn than with his countryman. He held no grudge against them for their attempted escape. He would have tried the same thing in their place. Now to have Slagor baying after their hides for his own warped amusement somehow brought Erak closer to them.
As for Slagor’s men, it was Erak’s firm opinion that they were a collective waste of Skorghijl’s fresh air.
The situation exploded one night during the evening meal. Will was placing platters and several carving knives on one table. Evanlyn was ladling soup from a large pot at the other, where Erak and Slagor sat with their senior crewmen. As she leaned between Slagor and his first mate, the skirl suddenly lurched back in his chair, throwing his arms wide as he laughed at a comment from one of his men. His hand jolted against the full ladle, spilling hot soup onto his bare forearm.
Slagor bellowed in pain and grabbed Evanlyn by the wrist, dragging her forward, twisting her arm cruelly so that she was bent awkwardly over the table. The soup pot and ladle clattered to the floor.
‘Damn you, girl! You’ve scalded me! Look at this, you lazy Araluan swine!’ He shook his dripping arm close to her face, holding her with his other hand. Evanlyn could hear his breath rasping in his nostrils and she was uncomfortably aware of the unwashed smell of him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said hurriedly, wincing against the pain as he twisted her arm further. ‘But you knocked against the ladle.’
‘My fault, was it? I’ll teach you to speak back to a skirl!’
His face was dark with rage as he reached for the short three-thonged whip that he carried at his belt. He called it his Encourager and claimed that he used it on lazy rowers – a claim disbelieved by those who knew him. It was common knowledge that he wouldn’t have the nerve to strike a burly oarsman.
A young girl, however, was a different matter. Especially now that he was drunk and angry.
The room went silent. Outside, the ever-present wind moaned against the timbers of the hut. Inside, the scene seemed to be frozen for a moment, in the smoky, uncertain light of the fire and the oil lamps around the room.
Erak, sitting opposite Slagor, cursed to himself. On the far side of the room, Will quietly set down the pile of platters. His gaze, like everyone else’s, was riveted on Slagor, on the unhealthy flush of alcohol on his face and in his eyes, and the way his tongue kept darting out between his crooked, stained teeth to moisten his thick lips. Unnoticed, the apprentice Ranger retained one of the knives – a heavy, double-edged knife that was used to carve portions of salt pork for the table. Around twenty centimetres in length, it was not unlike a small saxe knife, a knife he was more than familiar with, after his hours of training with Halt.
Now, finally, Erak spoke. His voice was pitched low and his tone was reasonable. That alone made his own crew sit up and take notice. When Erak blustered and yelled, he was usually joking. When he was quiet and intense, they knew, he was at his most dangerous.
‘Let her go, Slagor,’ he said.
Slagor scowled at him, furious at his order, and the confident tone of command behind it.
‘She scalded me!’ he shouted. ‘She did it on purpose and she’s going to be punished!’
Erak reached for his drinking cup and took a deep draught of ale. When he spoke again, he affected a sense of weariness and boredom with the skirl.
‘I’ll tell you once more. Let her go. She’s my slave.’
‘Slaves need discipline,’ said Slagor, darting a quick glance around the room. ‘We’ve all seen that you’re not willing to do it, so it’s time someone did it for you!’
Sensing his distraction, Evanlyn tried to twist out of his grip. But he felt her move and held her easily. Several of Wolf Fang’s crew, those who were most drunk, chorused agreement with his words.
Erak hesitated. He could simply lean over and knock Slagor senseless. He could do it without even leaving his seat. But that wouldn’t be enough. Everyone in the room knew he could best Slagor in a fight and doing so would prove nothing. He was sick and tired of the man and he wanted him humiliated and shamed. Slagor deserved no less and Erak knew how to accomplish it.
He sighed now, as if tired of the whole business, and leaned forward across the table, speaking slowly, as he might to a less than intelligent being. Which, he reflected, was a pretty good summation of Slagor’s mental capacities.
‘Slagor, I’ve had a hard campaign and these two are my only profit. I won’t have you responsible for the death of one of them.’
Slagor smiled cruelly. ‘You’ve gone soft on these two, Erak. I’m doing you a favour. And besides, a good whipping won’t kill her. It’ll just make her more obedient in future.’
‘I wasn’t talking about the girl,’ Erak said evenly. ‘I meant the boy there.’
He nodded across the room to where Will stood in the flickering shadows. Slagor followed his gaze, as did the others.
‘The boy?’ He frowned, uncomprehending. ‘I have no intention of harming him.’
Erak nodded several times. ‘I know that,’ he replied. ‘But if you touch the girl with that whip of yours, odds are he’ll kill you. And then I’m going to have to kill him to punish him. And I’m afraid I’m not prepared to lose so much profit. So let her go.’
Some of the other Skandians were already laughing at Erak’s speech, delivered in such a matter-of-fact tone. Even Slagor’s men joined in.
Slagor’s brows darkened and drew together with rage. He hated being the butt of Erak’s jokes and he, and most of the others, thought Erak was merely belittling him by pretending that the undersized Araluan boy could possibly best him in a fight.
‘You’ve lost your wits, Erak,’ he sneered now. ‘The boy is about as dangerous as a field mouse. I could break him in half with one hand.’
He gestured with his free hand, the one that wasn’t locked around Evanlyn’s upper arm.
Erak smiled at him. There was no trace of humour in the smile.
‘He could kill you before you took a pace towards him,’ he said.
There was a calm certainty to his voice that said he wasn’t joking. The room sensed it and went very quiet. Slagor sensed it too. He frowned, trying to work his way through this. The alcohol had confused his thinking. There was an element here he was missing. He started to speak, but Erak held up a hand to stop him.
‘I suppose we can’t actually have him kill you to prove it,’ he said, sounding reluctant about the fact. He glanced around the room and his eyes lit on a small brandy cask, half empty, at the far end of the table. He gestured towards it.
‘Shove that cask over here, Svengal,’ he asked. His second in command put one hand against the small cask and sent it sliding alo
ng the rough table to his captain. Erak examined it critically.
‘That’s about the size of your thick head, Slagor,’ he said, with a thin smile. Then he picked up his own belt knife from the table and quickly gouged two white patches out of the dark wood of the keg.
‘And let’s say they’re your eyes.’
He pushed the keg across the table, setting it beside Slagor, almost touching his elbow. A murmur of anticipation went through the men in the room as they watched, wondering where this was leading. Only Svengal and Horak, who had served with Erak at the bridge, had some slight inkling of what their Jarl was on about. They knew the boy was an apprentice Ranger. They had seen, at first hand, that he was an adversary to be respected. But he had no bow here and they hadn’t seen what Erak had: the knife that Will was holding concealed against his right arm.
‘So, boy,’ Erak continued, ‘those eyes are a little close together, but then so are Slagor’s.’ There was a ripple of amusement from the Skandians and Erak now addressed them directly. ‘Let’s all watch them carefully and see if anything appears between them, shall we?’
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 centre of the gap between the two gouged out patches. The keg actually slid backwards a good ten centimetres 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 only followed him 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 round 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. He 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.
The battle, if you could call it that, lasted no more than a few seconds.
The two mounted warriors spurred towards 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 picked 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 centred 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 manoeuvre 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 metres away, the sword arced down from its rest position, the point describing a circle in the air, then, as the lance tip came towards 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 realised 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 upwards 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 round 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 Araluans, 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 metres. Then, realising 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 realised 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, unco-ordinated 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 towards 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 moustache 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.
‘None of that, thank you,’ the Ranger said. He reached under the man’s chin and Horace realised that he had the smaller of his two knives in his hand. For a moment, the horrified boy was convinced that Halt meant to cut the man’s throat. Then, with a deft stroke, Halt severed the leather chin strap holding the helmet on the other man’s head. Once the strap was cut, Halt dragged the helmet off and tossed it into the bushes at the roadside. The knight let out a small mew of pain as his moustache ends tugged free of the still-closed visor.
Horace sheathed his sword, finally sure that there was no further threat from the knight. For his part, the vanquished warrior peered owlishly at Halt and at the figure towering over them both on horseback. His eyes still wouldn’t focus.
‘We shell continue the cermbet ern foot,’ he declared shakily. Halt slapped him heartily on the back, setting his eyes spinning once more.
‘The hell you will. You’re beaten, my friend. Toppled fair and square. Sir Horace, knight of the Order du Feuille du Chêne, has agreed to spare your life.’
‘Oh … thenk you,’ said the unsteady one, making a vague, saluting gesture in Horace’s direction.
‘However,’ Halt went on, allowing a grim tone of amusement to creep into this voice, ‘under the rules of chivalry, your arms, armour, horse and other belongings are forfeit to Sir Horace.’