Icebound Land (3 page)

T
HE TAVERN WAS A DINGY, MEAN LITTLE PLACE, LOW-CEILINGED,
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.

The tavern keeper jerked his head almost imperceptibly toward the back entrance of the building. His wife looked away to it, then back to him, her eyebrows raised in a query. “The Watch,” he mouthed carefully, and saw understanding dawn in her eyes. Stepping quietly, and still out of the Ranger’s line of sight, she crossed the back room and let herself out the rear door, closing it behind her as silently as she could manage.

For all her care, the latch made a slight click as it fell into place behind her. The Ranger’s eyes snapped around to the tavern keeper, suspicious and questioning.

“What was that?” he demanded, and the tavern keeper shrugged, rubbing damp palms on his stained apron. He didn’t try to speak. He knew his throat was far too dry to form words.

For a fleeting moment, he thought he saw a flash of satisfaction in the other man’s expression, but he dismissed the thought as ridiculous.

As the minutes dragged by, the Ranger’s insults and slandering of King Duncan grew more vivid and more outrageous. The landlord swallowed nervously. His wife had been gone ten minutes now. Surely she must have found a detachment of the Watch? Surely they should be arriving here any minute, to remove this dangerous man and stop this treasonous talk?

And, even as he framed the thought, the front door banged back on its hinges and a squad of five men, led by a corporal, forced their way into the dimly lit room. Each of them was armed with a long sword and a short, heavy-headed club hanging at his belt, and each wore a round buckler slung across his back.

The corporal appraised the room as his men fanned out behind him. His eyes narrowed as they made out the figure hunched at the table.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded, and the Ranger smiled. It was a smile that never reached his eyes, the tavern keeper noticed.

“We were talking politics,” he said, his words laden with sarcasm.

“Not what I heard,” the corporal replied, thin-lipped. “I heard you were talking treason.”

The Ranger’s mouth formed an incredulous
O
and his eyebrows arched in mock surprise. “Treason?” he repeated, then looked curiously around the room. “Has someone here been telling tales out of school, then? Is someone here a tell-tale tit, whose tongue should be…split!”

It happened so quickly that the tavern keeper barely had time to throw himself flat behind the bar. As the Ranger spat out the last word, he had somehow scooped up the longbow from behind him and nocked and fired an arrow. It slammed into the wall behind the spot where the tavern keeper had been standing a second before, and buried itself deep into the wood panel, quivering still with the force of its impact.

“That’s enough…,” the corporal began. He started to move forward, but incredibly, the Ranger had another arrow nocked already. The dully gleaming broadhead was aimed at the corporal’s forehead, the bow was drawn and tensed. The corporal stopped, staring death in the face.

“Put it down,” he said. But his voice lacked authority and he knew it. It was one thing to keep dockside drunks and rowdies in line, another entirely to face a Ranger, a skilled fighter and a trained killer. Even a knight would think twice about such a confrontation. It was way beyond the capabilities of a simple corporal of the Watch.

Yet the corporal was no coward and he knew he had a duty to perform. He swallowed several times, then slowly, slowly, raised his hand to the Ranger.

“Put…down…the…bow,” he repeated. There was no answer. The arrow remained centered on his forehead, at eye level. Hesitantly, he took a pace forward.

“Don’t.”

The word was flat and unequivocal. The corporal was sure he could hear his own heart beating, rattling like a kettledrum. He wondered if others in the room could hear it too. He took a deep breath. He’d taken an oath of loyalty to the King. He wasn’t a noble or a knight, just an ordinary man. But his word meant as much to him as it did to any highborn officer. He’d been happy to wield his authority for years, dealing with drunks and minor criminals. Now the stakes were higher, much higher. Now was the time to return payment for those years of authority and respect.

He took another step.

The twang of the bow releasing was almost deafening in the tension-charged room. Instinctively, violently, the corporal flinched and staggered back a pace, expecting the burning agony of the arrow, then the blackness of certain death.

And realized what had happened: the bowstring had snapped.

The Ranger stared incredulously at the useless weapon in his hands. The tableau remained frozen for a full five seconds. Then the corporal and his men leaped forward, swinging the short, heavy clubs that they carried, swarming over the small gray-and-green-clad figure.

As the Ranger went down under the rain of blows, no one noticed him drop the small blade he had used to sever the bowstring. But the tavern keeper did wonder how a man who had moved so quickly to defeat a stevedore twice his size now seemed to be so slow and vulnerable.

O
N THE BARREN, WINDSWEPT ISLAND OF
S
KORGHIJL,
W
ILL
was running. He had done five laps of the shingle beach. Now he turned toward the steep cliffs that reared above the tiny harbor. His legs burned with the effort as he forced himself to climb, the muscles in his thighs and calves protesting. The weeks of inactivity on the wolfship had taken their toll on his fitness and now he was determined to regain it, to harden his muscles and bring his body back to the fine-tuned edge that Halt had demanded of him.

He might not be able to practice his archery or knifework, but he could at least make sure his body was ready if the chance came to escape.

And Will was determined that such a chance would come.

He drove himself up the steep slope, the small stones and shale slipping and giving way under his feet. The higher he went, the more the wind plucked at his clothes until, finally, he reached the top of the cliff and was exposed to the full force of the north wind—the Summer Gales, as the Skandians called them. On the northern side of the island, the wind drove the waves against the unyielding black rock, sending fountains of spray high into the air. In the harbor behind him, the water was relatively calm, sheltered from the wind by the massive horseshoe of cliffs that surrounded it.

As he always did when he reached this point, he scanned the ocean for some sign of a ship. But as ever, there was nothing to see but the relentlessly marching waves.

He looked back into the harbor. The two large huts seemed ridiculously small from here. One was the dormitory where the Skandian crew slept. The other was the eating hall, where they spent most of their time, arguing, gambling and drinking. To the side of the dormitory, built against one of the long side walls, was the lean-to that Erak had assigned to him and Evanlyn. It was a small space but at least they didn’t have to share with the Skandians, and Will had rigged an old blanket across one end to provide Evanlyn with a little privacy.

She was sitting outside the lean-to now. Even from this distance, Will could see the dispirited slump in her shoulders and he frowned. Some days ago, he had suggested that she might like to join him in his attempt to keep fit. She had dismissed the idea out of hand. She seemed to have simply accepted their lot, he thought. She had given in, and over the past few days, their exchanges had become increasingly waspish as he tried to boost her spirits and talked about the possibility of escape—for he already had an idea forming in that direction.

He was puzzled and hurt by her attitude. It was unlike the Evanlyn he remembered from the bridge—the brave, resolute partner who had run across the narrow beams of the bridge to help him without any thought for her personal safety, then tried to fight off the Skandians as they closed in on them.

This new Evanlyn was strangely dispirited. Her negative attitude surprised him. He would never have picked her as someone who would quit when the going got tough. Maybe that’s how girls were, he told himself. But he didn’t believe it. He sensed there was something else, something she hadn’t told him. Shrugging away the thoughts, he started down the cliff once more.

The downhill run was easier than uphill, but not by too much. The slippery, treacherous surface beneath his feet meant that he had to continually run faster and faster to maintain his balance, setting off miniature landslides as he went. Where the uphill course had burned his thigh muscles, now he felt it in his calves and ankles. He reached the bottom of the slope, breathing hard, and dropped to the shingle to do a series of rapid push-ups. His shoulders were burning after a few minutes but he kept at it, forcing himself past the point of pain, blinded by the perspiration that was running into his eyes until, eventually, he could continue no longer. Exhausted, he collapsed, his arms unable to bear his weight, and lay facedown on the shingle, panting for breath.

He hadn’t heard Evanlyn approaching as he was doing the push-ups. Now he was startled by the sound of her voice.

“Will, it’s a waste of time.”

Her voice didn’t have the argumentative tone that had been so much in evidence in the last few days. She sounded almost conciliatory, he thought. With a slight groan of pain, he pushed himself up from the shingle, then rolled over and sat, dusting the wet sand from his hands.

He smiled at her and she smiled in return, then moved to sit beside him on the beach. “What’s a waste of time?” he asked. She made a vague gesture that included the beach where he had just been doing push-ups and the cliff he had climbed and descended.

“All this running and exercising. And all this talk of escape.”

He frowned slightly. He didn’t want to start an argument with her, so he was careful not to react too vehemently to her words. He tried to keep a reasonable, neutral tone.

“It’s never a waste of time to stay in shape,” he said.

She nodded, conceding that point. “Perhaps not. But escaping? From here? What chance would we have?”

He knew he would have to be careful now. If it seemed he was lecturing her, she might well retreat into her shell again. But he knew how important it was to keep hope alive in a situation like this and he wanted to impress that fact on her.

“I’ll admit it doesn’t look too promising,” he said. “But you never know what tomorrow may bring. The important thing is to stay positive. We mustn’t give up. Halt taught me that. Never give up because, if an opportunity arises, you have to be ready to take it. Don’t give up, Evanlyn, please.”

She was shaking her head again but not in argument.

“You’re missing my point. I haven’t given up. I’m just saying this is a waste of time because it’s not necessary. We don’t need to escape. There’s another way out of this.”

Will made a show of looking around, as if he might see this other way she was talking about.

“There is?” he said. “I don’t see it, I’m afraid.”

“We can be ransomed,” she said, and he laughed out loud—not scornfully but in genuine amusement at her naïveté.

“I very much doubt it. Who’s going to ransom an apprentice Ranger and a lady’s maid? I mean, I know Halt would if he could, but he doesn’t have the sort of money it would take. Who’s going to pay out good money for us?”

She hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision.

“The King,” she said simply, and Will looked at her as if she’d lost her senses. In fact, for a moment he wondered if she had. She certainly didn’t seem to have too firm a grip on reality.

“The King?” he repeated. “Why would the King take the slightest interest in us?”

“Because I’m his daughter.”

The smile faded from Will’s face. He stared at her, not sure that he had heard her correctly. Then he recalled Gilan’s words back in Celtica, when the young Ranger had warned him that there was something not quite right about Evanlyn.

“You’re his—” he began, then stopped. It was too much to comprehend.

“His daughter. I’m so sorry, Will. I should have told you sooner. I was traveling incognito in Celtica when you found me,” she explained. “It had become almost second nature not to tell people my real name. Then, after Gilan left us, I was going to tell you. But I realized if I did, you’d insist on getting me back to my father immediately.”

Will shook his head, trying to catch up with what he was hearing. He glanced around the tiny, cliff-bound harbor.

“Would that have been so bad?” he asked her, with a touch of bitterness. She smiled sadly at him.

“Think, Will. If you’d known who I was, we never would have followed the Wargals. We never would have found the bridge.”

“We never would have been captured,” Will put in, but she shook her head once more.

“Morgarath would have won,” she said simply.

He looked into her eyes then and realized she was right. There was a long moment of silence between them.

“So your name is…” He hesitated and she finished the sentence for him.

“Cassandra. Princess Cassandra.” Then she added, with a rueful smile, “And I’m sorry if I’ve been behaving like a bit of a princess over the past few days. I’ve been feeling bad because I hadn’t told you. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“No, no, that’s all right,” he said vaguely. He was still overwhelmed by her news. Then a thought struck him. “When are you going to tell Erak?”

“I don’t think I should,” she replied. “This sort of thing is best handled at the highest levels. Erak and his men are little more than pirates, after all. I don’t know how they’d react. I think it’s best if I remain as Evanlyn until we reach Skandia. Then I’ll find a way to approach their ruler—what’s his name?”

“Ragnak,” Will said, his mind racing. “Oberjarl Ragnak.” Of course she was right, he thought. As Princess Cassandra of Araluen, she would be worth a small fortune to the Oberjarl. And since Skandians were essentially mercenaries, there was no doubt that she would be ransomed.

He, on the other hand, was a different matter. He realized she was talking again.

“Once I tell them who I am, I’ll arrange for both of us to be ransomed. I’m sure my father will agree.”

And that was the problem, Will knew. Perhaps if she could appeal to her father in person, he might be swayed. But the matter would be in the hands of the Skandians. They would tell King Duncan that they had his daughter, and set a price for her ransom. Nobles and princesses might be ransomed—in fact, they often were in times of war. But people like warriors and Rangers were a different matter. The Skandians could well be reluctant to release a Ranger, even an apprentice Ranger, who might cause trouble for them in the future.

There was another side to it all too. The message would take months, perhaps the best part of a year, to reach Araluen. Duncan’s reply would take an equally long time to make the return trip. Then negotiations would begin. In all that time, Evanlyn would be kept safe and comfortable. She was a valuable property, after all. But who could say what might have happened to Will? He could be dead by the time any ransom was paid. Evanlyn obviously hadn’t thought that far ahead. She was continuing with her previous thought.

“So you see, Will, there’s no point to all this running and climbing and trying to find a way to escape. You don’t need to do it. And besides, Erak is getting suspicious. He’s no fool and I’ve seen him watching you. Just relax and leave it all to me. I’ll get us home.”

He opened his mouth, about to explain what he had been thinking. Then he shut it again. Suddenly he knew that she wouldn’t accept his point of view. She was strong-willed and determined—used to having her own way, he realized now. She was convinced that she could organize their return and nothing he said would change her mind. He smiled at her and nodded. But it was a thin parody of his normal smile.

In his heart, he knew he was going to have to find his own way home.