The Icebound Land

34

H ORACE ROSE IN HIS STIRRUPS AS K ICKER REACHED A FULL GALLOP. He held the long ash pole out to his right-hand side, at right angles to his body and the line of travel. Ahead of him, standing unmoving in the middle of the field situated in front of the castle, Halt drew back the string of his longbow until the feathered end of the arrow touched the corner of his mouth.

Horace urged the battlehorse to an even faster pace, until they had reached maximum speed. He glanced out to his right, to make sure the helmet that he had attached to the end of the pole was still in the correct position, facing Halt. Then he looked back at the small figure on the grass before him.

He saw the first arrow released, spitting from the bow with incredible force and speeding toward the moving target. Then, in an almost incomprehensible blur of motion, Halt's hands moved and another arrow was on the way.

Almost at the same time, Horace felt a double concussion transmitted down the length of the ash pole he held out, as the two shafts slammed into the helmet within the space of half a second.

He allowed Kicker to ease down to a canter as they passed Halt, taking the horse in a wide circle to come to a stop before the Ranger.

Halt now stood with his bow grounded, waiting patiently to see the result of his practice. Horace let the pole and the attached helmet dip to the ground in front of him. Both shafts, incredibly, had found their way through the helmet's vision slits and into the soft padding that Halt had put inside to protect the razor-sharp arrowheads.

As Halt took the old helmet in his hands, Horace swung his leg over the pommel and slid to the ground beside him. The grizzled Ranger nodded once as he inspected the result of his target practice.

"Not bad," he said. "Not bad at all."

Horace dropped the end of his reins, allowing Kicker to wander off and crop the short, thick grass that grew on the tournament field. He was puzzled and more than a little worried by Halt's actions.

After the challenge had been issued and accepted, Deparnieux had agreed to return their weapons. Halt claimed that he had not fired an arrow in weeks and would need to hone his skills for the combat.

Deparnieux, who practiced his own combat skills daily, saw nothing unusual in the request. So the weapons had been returned, although the two Araluens were watched closely by at least half a dozen crossbowmen whenever they practiced.

For the past three days, Halt had instructed Horace to gallop down the field, the helmet held out on the end of a pole, as he fired shafts at the eyeholes. Every time, at least one of the two shafts had found its mark. Generally, Halt managed to put both arrows through the tiny spaces he was aiming at.

Yet this was no more than Horace expected of the Ranger. Halt's skill with a longbow was legendary. There was no need for him to practice now, particularly when, by doing so, he was revealing his tactics to the Gallic warlord.

"Is he watching?" Halt asked quietly, seeming to read Horace's thoughts. The Ranger had his back to the castle walls and couldn't see. But Horace, moving his eyes only and not his head, could make out the black silhouette at one of the castle's many terraces, hunched over the balustrade watching them-as he had done every time they had taken the field.

"Yes, Halt," he said now. "He's watching. But is it wise for us to do this where he can see?"

The very faintest trace of a smile seemed to touch the Ranger's lips.

"Possibly not," he replied. "But he'd make sure he saw us no matter where we practiced, wouldn't he?"

"Yes," Horace admitted reluctantly, "but surely you don't need to practice, do you?"

Halt shook his head sadly. "Spoken like a true apprentice," he said. "Practice never hurt anyone, young Horace. Bear that in mind when we get back to Castle Redmont."

Horace eyed Halt unhappily as he eased the two arrows free from the straw and leather padding that filled the inside of the helmet.

"There's something else," he began, and Halt held up a hand to stop him.

"I know, I know," he said. "Your precious rules of chivalry are bothering you again, aren't they?" Horace was forced to nod reluctant agreement. It was a bone of contention between the two of them, and had been ever since Halt had arranged to challenge Deparnieux to a duel.

At first, the warlord had been enraged, then sarcastically amused, that a commoner might assume to challenge him.

"I am a consecrated knight," he spat at Halt. "A nobleman! I cannot be challenged to combat by any ruffian from the forest!"

The Ranger's brows had darkened at that. His voice, when he spoke, was low and dangerous. Inadvertently, both Deparnieux and Horace had leaned forward to listen more carefully to his words.

"Guard your tongue, you lowborn cur!" Halt had replied. "You're speaking to a member of the royal house of Hibernia, sixth in line to the throne and with a lineage that was noble when you and yours were scouring the kennels for scraps to eat!"

And, as he had spoken, an unmistakable Hibernian burr had accented his words. Horace had looked at him in considerable surprise. He had never had the slightest idea that Halt was descended from a royal line. Deparnieux was equally taken aback by the news. He was right, of course. No knight was obliged to honor a challenge from one beneath him. But the grizzled archer's claim to royal blood put a different aspect on matters. His challenge must be treated seriously and with respect. Deparnieux could not ignore it-particularly as it had been issued in the presence of several of his men. To refuse the challenge would undermine his position seriously.

As a result, he had accepted and the combat was set down for a week from that day. Later, in their tower chambers, Horace had expressed his surprise about Halt's background.

"I had no idea you were descended from Hibernian royalty," he said. Halt snorted dismissively as he replied.

"I'm not," he said. "But our friend doesn't know that and there's no way he can prove I'm not. Therefore he has to take my challenge as binding."

And it was this disregard for the strict conventions of chivalry that had Horace so concerned, as much as the fact that Halt seemed to be letting his enemy know exactly what tactics he had for the combat, which was now only a day away. Training in the Battleschool placed great store upon the conventions and obligations of knighthood. They were, so Horace had been taught for the past eighteen months, binding and inflexible. They placed obligations on those who would be knights, and while they gave them great privileges, those privileges had to be earned. A knight had to observe the rules. To live by them and, if necessary, to die for them.

Among the most binding and inflexible of those conventions was that of a knight's recourse to trial by combat. It was a course that could be followed only by those who were followers of one of the various chivalrous orders. Even Horace, as an unknighted warrior, wasn't, strictly speaking, entitled to challenge Deparnieux. But Halt certainly wasn't and the Ranger's cavalier attitude to a system that Horace held in the highest esteem had shocked the boy-and continued to do so now.

"Look," said Halt, not unkindly, as he put an arm around Horace's brawny shoulders, "the rules of chivalry are a fine thing, I admit that. But only for those who abide by all the rules."

"But-" Horace began, but Halt stopped him by squeezing his shoulder.

"Deparnieux has used those rules to kill, to plunder and to murder for God knows how many years. He accepts those parts of the rules that suit him and discards the ones that don't. You've seen that already."

Horace nodded unhappily. "I know, Halt. It's just I've been taught that-"

Halt interrupted him again, but gently. "You've been taught by men who are noble," he said. "By men who uphold the rules of chivalry-all the rules-and live according to them. Let me tell you, I know no finer man than Sir Rodney, or Baron Arald, for that matter. Men like that are the embodiment of everything that is right about chivalry and knighthood."

He paused, looking intently at the boy's troubled face. Horace nodded agreement. Halt had chosen two of his role models in Rodney and the Baron. Seeing that he had made his point, Halt continued: "But a murdering, cowardly swine like Deparnieux cannot be allowed to claim the same standards as men like that. I have no compunction at all about lying to him as long as it helps me bring him to the point where I can fight him-and defeat him, with any luck."

And at that point, Horace turned to him, his face still troubled, but perhaps a little less so. "But how can you hope to defeat him when he knows exactly what you plan to do?" he asked miserably.

Halt shrugged and replied, without any trace of a smile: "Perhaps I'll get lucky."