CHAPTER 5.

BEAR STORIES.

"So then your son throws his javelin at the old tusker," Baron Poll chortled at Roland, "and he thinks himself a marksman, aims right between the eyes. But that old boar must have had a skull as thick as the King's fool's head, for the javelin hits the skull and merely grazes the beast!"

Baron Poll smiled at the memory, and Roland looked up the road. They were still half a day from Carris, riding slowly in the mid afternoon, letting the mounts catch their breath.

"So the old tusker is mad, and he lowers his snout and paws the ground, blood flowing down over his tusks. Now you know that the boars of the Dunnwood are as tall as a horse and all as s.h.a.ggy-haired as a yak. And your son, being only thirteen at the time, sees that this tusker is about to charge and hasn't the wit to do what any man should."

"Which is?" Roland asked. He'd never hunted boars in the Dunnwood.

"Why, turn his mount and run!" Baron Poll shouted. "No, your son sits there looking at the beast, making a fine target of his horse, and no doubt he's peed his breeches about now.

"Well, that old boar charges and catches his mount right under the belly with a good upper thrust that disembowels the horse and throws your son about four feet in the air.

"Now, as I said, it was about an hour past that we'd lost the hounds, and we'd been riding to find them. We could hear them yapping off in the hills, you see.

"So your son comes down off his horse, and it's sort of limping away, and the boar sees your lad standing there, and your son takes off running so fast, I swear by the Powers I thought he'd taken flight!"

Baron Poll's eyes were wide with delight at telling the story. It sounded as if he'd told this one many a time before, and he'd honed it well.

"So then young Squire Borenson, upon hearing the hounds yapping, thinks to himself--as we later found out--run to the dogs! They'll protect me!

"And so he takes off running through the bracken, with that boar right behind him.

"Now, at the time, your son had just taken two endowments of metabolism--so you can imagine how fast he's running. He's sprinting along at thirty miles an hour, shouting Murder! b.l.o.o.d.y murder!'--as if he's raising the hue and cry--and every time he slows, that boar puts the fear of death into him.

"Now, he's run about half a mile, all uphill, and I start to thinking it's about time to save his life, so I go charging up on my own mount, right behind him and the boar. But they're running so fast through the underbrush that I keep having to weave around them, looking for a clearer course, and so I never can quite get within throwing distance of that boar.

"And then your son reaches the dogs. They're all sitting down at the base of this big rowan tree, their tongues hanging out, and every once in a while one of the hounds would howl as if to have something to do to pa.s.s the time, and your son thinks, Ah, I'll climb that tree, and the dogs will promptly save me.

"Your son leaps into the tree, and all the hounds jump up expectantly, looking at him and wagging the stumps of their tails, and young Borenson shinnies up about twenty feet.

"And then the boar leaps in amid the thick of the dogs.

Now this old tusker had been around, it seemed, and it loved the dogs no better than it did your son, and seeing that the dogs were all f.a.gged out and a bit astonished to find a fifteen-hundred-pound monster in their midst, the tusker lowers its snout and throws the first dog it sees about forty feet in the air and slices another two open before they can even get to their feet.

"So the rest of the hounds--there were only about five or six of them in this little pack--decide that it's time to tuck what's left of their tails between their legs and head for the nearest pub. Then Squire Borenson starts screaming for me 'Help--you son of a wh.o.r.e! Help!'

"Well, I think to myself, that's no way to address someone you're asking to save your miserable life, such as it is. So since I can see that he's safely up a tree, I proceed to slow my horse, as if giving it a breather.

"And just then, I hear this most peculiar sound--this deafening roar! And I look up, and see why your son is screaming. It turns out that the tree he'd climbed had bears in it! Three big bears! The hounds had treed them!"

Baron Poll laughed so hard at the memory that he roared himself, and by now he was nearly weeping.

"Now your son is stuck in this tree, and the bears are none too happy to have him there, and the boar is down underneath it all, and I start laughing so hard I can hardly sit in my saddle.

"He curses me soundly--we were never friends, you know--and orders me to come rescue him. Well, I'm two years his elder, and at fifteen I figured I'd rather be d.a.m.ned than ordered about by a boy who'd been twelve two weeks before. Keeping a goodly distance from the tree, I shout, 'Did you call me a son of a wh.o.r.e?'

"And your son cries, 'I did!'

"Well, it didn't matter that he spoke the truth," Baron Poll continued. "I was not about to be so cursed by a thirteen-year-old. So I shouted up at him, 'Call me 'sirrah, or you can save yourself! "

Baron Poll fell silent, became thoughtful.

"What happened then?" Roland asked.

"Your son's face became dark with rage. We'd never been friends, as I said, but I never had guessed how much he hated me. You see, I'd always ridden him mercilessly when he was a child, d.a.m.ning him for a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and I think he saw through me. He knew I was of low parentage, so he thought I should treat him better than the other boys did not worse. So I deserved his hatred, I guess, but I never knew a boy could hate so much. He said, 'When you're dead, if you die with honor, then I'll call you 'sirrah! But not a moment before!'

"Then he drew his knife," Baron Poll added more soberly, "and climbed farther up that tree and started laughing and going at the bears himself."

"With nothing but a knife?"

"Aye," Baron Poll said. "He had endowments of brawn and stamina in his favor, but he was still not much more than a boy in stature. The bears had climbed out onto some big limbs, and I don't know a man in his right mind who would have fought them thus. But your boy went after them, maybe just to prove to me that he could do it.

"I think he would have killed them, too. But the bears saw him coming and jumped first. So when the boar saw bears dropping like plums from the tree, he decided to give up on your son and go hunt acorns, instead...." Baron Poll chuckled at the memory.

"That was when I first realized that young Squire Borenson would someday become captain of the King's Guard," Baron Poll continued. "Either that or he'd get himself killed. Maybe both"

"Both?" Roland studied Baron Poll's face now. The man was enormous--three hundred pounds of fat, all covered with hair as dark as night. But his expression was thoughtful.

"Men who become captain of the King's Guard seldom keep the post long. You know that King Orden's family was attacked by a.s.sa.s.sins three times in the past eight years?"

Three attacks in eight years seemed like a lot. In recent history, Roland had never heard of anything like it. When he'd given his endowment of metabolism into the King's service, he'd never quite imagined that he would waken to such dark times--his own king dead, the whole kingdom of Mystarria under attack from invaders.

"I hadn't known," Roland said. Having been asleep for twenty years, he hadn't really had a chance to catch up on recent history. He wondered if Orden had had any local troubles--neighbors who might have wanted him dead. "Who sent the a.s.sa.s.sins?"

"Raj Ahten, of course," Baron Poll said. "We could never prove it, but we've always suspected him."

"You should have sent an a.s.sa.s.sin down to waylay him," Roland replied, seething with righteous indignation.

"We did--dozens of them. Among all the kingdoms of Rofehavan, we've sent hundreds, maybe even thousands. We've tried to kill him and his heirs, wipe out his Dedicates and his allies. And the Knights Equitable spent their own forces, as well. d.a.m.n it, this is no little border skirmish we're engaged in."

It was astonishing that one Wolf Lord could repel so many attacks and still be as powerful as Raj Ahten was rumored to be.

Yet evidence of it was everywhere. All this afternoon, as Roland and Poll had been riding, they'd met peasants fleeing from the north. Men and. women pulling carts loaded with bundles of clothes, some sc.r.a.ps of food, and the few valuable possessions they had to their name. They also saw signs of recent movements of armies--Mystarria's warriors heading north into battle.

Roland fell silent.

"Uh-oh," Baron Poll muttered. "What do we have here?"

They rounded a bend and looked down a rise. On the road ahead, a horse was down. Broken leg by the looks of it. The beast had its head up, looking around weakly, and its rider was trapped half underneath it. The man was dressed in the garb of a king's messenger--a leather helm and green cloak, a midnight-blue vest with the image of the green knight on its chest.

The messenger had pa.s.sed them not an hour before, shouting for them to get out of his way. Now the fellow wasn't moving.

Roland and Baron Poll raced forward. The low spot in the road was muddy from rains two days past--not so muddy that you'd notice it right off, but Roland could see where the horse had slid as it rounded the bend, skidding a hundred yards. After skidding, the horse had apparently twisted its leg and gone over. Riding a force horse at full speed--one with three endowments of metabolism could be dangerous. A horse that tried rounding a bend at sixty miles an hour could misplace a foot, charge full speed into a tree.

The messenger obviously was dead. The man's head rested at an unsightly angle, his eyes were glazed. Flies danced in the air around his tongue.

Roland hopped down, grabbed the fellow's message case from within his tunic, a long round scroll pouch made of green lacquered leather. The injured horse looked up at Roland, uttered a cry of pain. Roland had seldom heard that sound from a horse.

"Show the beast some mercy," Baron Poll said.

Roland took out his short sword, and when the horse looked away, he gave it a killing stroke.

Roland opened the message case, pulled out the scroll, and studied it for half a second. He did not know how to read or write more than a few words, but he thought he might recognize the wax seal. He didn't.

"Well, open it up," Baron Poll said. "At the very least, we must find out where it should go."

Roland broke the wax seal, opened the scroll, found a hastily penned missive. He recognized some of the words: "the," "a," "and." But Roland couldn't figure out the larger words no matter how hard he squinted.

"Well, out with it, d.a.m.n you!" Poll cried.

Roland gritted his teeth. He wasn't a stupid man, but he wasn't educated, either. He hurled the message at Baron Poll. "I can't read."

"Oh." Baron Poll apologized, taking the scroll. He appeared to read it all in a glance.

"By the Powers!" he shouted. "Keep Haberd was overwhelmed at dawn by reavers--thousands of them: They sent news to Carris!"

"I doubt that Duke Paladane will rejoice to hear more bad news," Roland said.

Baron Poll bit his lower lip, thinking. He looked south, then north, obviously worried about which way to go. "Paladane is the King's great-uncle," he said, as if Roland might have forgotten over the past twenty years. "He rules now as regent in the King's stead. But if he's put under siege at Carris, as seems likely, there will be d.a.m.ned little that he can do about the reavers. Someone should take this news back south to the Courts of Tide, to the counselors there, and to the King."

"Surely more than one rider was sent," Roland said.

"We can hope," Baron Poll said.

Roland made to mount his horse, but Baron Poll cleared his throat loudly, nodded toward the dead messenger. "Best grab that man's purse. No need to let it go to the scavengers."

Roland felt queasy robbing a dead man, but he knew that Baron Poll was right. If they didn't get the fellow's purse, the next man on the road would. Besides, he told himself, if he was going to deliver the King's message, he ought to get a messenger's pay.

He cut the purse loose, found it to be heavier than expected. The man was probably carrying his life savings.

Roland shook his head. This was twice in one week that he'd found himself in possession of a small fortune. He wondered if it were some sort of sign that this war would go well for him.

He leapt onto his horse and shouted to Baron Poll, "I'll race you!"

Then he put his heels to horseflesh and they rode like a storm in its fury. Baron Poll had the faster mount, but Roland knew that the fat man's beast would tire sooner.

On a hillside a dozen miles north from where Roland and Baron Poll had found the dead messenger, Akhoular the far-seer stood in the crook of the branches of a tall white oak. He leaned his head against one limb and watched two men race north along a muddy road in the early afternoon.

These were not peasants, he knew, fleeing the battle to come at Carris. Nor were they mounted soldiers riding to war.

They did not appear to be king's messengers, for they were not wearing the proper livery. Yet Akhoular had to wonder....

His men had killed several couriers in the past week, disposed of the bodies along the roadsides. Perhaps the king's messengers were becoming wiser, traveling in disguise.

Akhoular had five endowments of sight. Even from a mile away, he could make out the men's determined faces. The younger fellow, a big man on a fleet-footed horse, bore a dark green leather message case on his wrist. The fat fellow was well armed.

Yes, the messengers were getting wiser. They were riding now without the king's colors, and this one had a knight to guard him.

Akhoular whistled to the camp at the base of the tree. He was growing short on men. He'd lost three a.s.sa.s.sins this week. Yet he called a young man, a Master in the Brotherhood of Silent Ones.

"Bessahan, two riders! They carry a message," he said. He pointed toward the road, though the a.s.sa.s.sin below him would not be able to see through the forest.

Akhoular said, "They ride fast toward Carris. You must kill them."

"They shall not reach Carris," Bessahan a.s.sured the far-seer. The Silent One leapt onto his force horse and drew his dirty brown hood low over his face. With one hand, he reached back behind the saddle and checked to make sure that his hornbow was still tied to his saddlebags.

He spurred his horse and raced down the mountainside.

CHAPTER 6.

AMONG THE PETTY LORDS.

"Here now, that's much better," Sir Hoswell said. Myrrima watched her arrow arc into the air and hit its target eighty yards distant. Her shot fell a foot low of where she wanted, but it was the third time in a row that she'd hit within the red circle of cloth pinned to the hayc.o.c.k, and she felt proud.

"Good, milady," Sir Hoswell said. "Now if you do that ten thousand more times, you will internalize it. Learn to shoot that distance, and then learn to shoot farther and farther. Soon you'll shoot with your gut, not your head or hands."

"I'll have to raise my aim," she corrected. The thought of shooting ten thousand more times worried her. Already her fingers and arms were sore from the labor. "That shot wouldn't have stopped an Invincible."

"Pah," Sir Hoswell said. "Maybe you wouldn't have killed him, but you would have made an eunuch of him. And if stopping him from rape was your aim, he'd definitely walk with a limp in more appendages than one."

Myrrima glanced sideways at him. Sir Hoswell smiled broadly. He was a wiry man with a bushy moustache, a thin beard, and the heavily lidded eyes of a lizard as it lies half-asleep on a warm stone. His smile would have been pleasant if his teeth hadn't been so crooked.

Sir Hoswell stood close, too close. Myrrima could not help but feel uncomfortable. They were in a glade in a narrow valley not far from the tents put up by petty lords of Heredon. Yesterday hundreds of boys had been practicing archery here, but today was the day of the great feast. Trees hunched close within fifty yards on either side of her, and Myrrima could not help but feel alone and vulnerable.

She'd known Sir Hoswell nearly all her life--he was from Bannisferre, after. all--yet somehow today she did not trust him. It was growing late in the afternoon, and she wondered if she should head back to the castle.

The oak trees on the hills here formed a natural barrier that shielded them from view. Myrrima had no other witness present. She knew that being alone with a man other than her husband might seem scandalous, but now that she'd decided to prepare herself for war, she did not want to attract Borenson's attention. If her husband guessed her intent, she feared he'd forbid her. She needed someone to teach her martial skills.

Sir Hoswell had been a friend to her father, and he was a fine bowman. When she'd found him here practicing his skills, she'd asked him to give her lessons for the afternoon, and he'd agreed. With the endowment of wit her mother had granted her two weeks past, Myrrima found that she was learning the basic skills of archery much faster than she'd thought possible.

"Try again," Sir Hoswell urged her. "And this time, pull that bow back harder. You need to hit him firm, to get deep penetration."

Myrrima drew an arrow from her quiver, glanced at it quickly. The fletcher had done a hasty job. One of the white goose feathers wasn't glued and tied properly. She wetted her finger with her tongue and smoothed the feather into place, then took the arrow firmly between her fingers, placed its notch on the bowstring, and drew the arrow back to her ear.

"Wait," Sir Hoswell said. "You need to work on a firmer stance."