The Siege of Macindaw

10

The meal was excellent, consisting of cold roast venison, some plump wood ducks and a salad of slightly bitter winter greens. There was warm, fresh, crusty bread as well. All in all, it more than lived up to Horace's expectations. He tipped his chair back contentedly and grinned at Will.

"Good food," he said. "What's for dessert?"

Will rolled his eyes to heaven.

Malcolm smiled indulgently. "He's a growing boy," he said. He had been impressed by Horace's self-effacing, cheerful demeanor. He gathered that the young man was something of a celebrity in the Kingdom and it was his experience that famous people usually behaved as if the rest of the world should step aside and be impressed by them. Nothing could be farther from the truth with Horace.

The young warrior reached across the table and poured himself another mug of black coffee. Like Will, he drank it generously laced with honey, a habit he had learned from the Ranger when they had traveled to Celtica years previously.

Malcolm winced slightly as he watched. Pleasant young man or not, if Horace and Will kept drinking coffee at this rate, he was going to run out. He made a mental note to send one of his people to the Cracked Flagon to trade for more beans.

There was a small commotion at the far side of the clearing, and they all looked up.

A file of roughly dressed, heavily armed men emerged from the forest, led by a smaller man with a withered right arm held close to his body. As Horace looked at him, he realized that the man also had a hunched right shoulder.

The new arrivals peered around the clearing uncertainly, shading their eyes from the sudden light after hours in the dimness of the woods. Some of Malcolm's people, alarmed at the sight of a group of armed men, had let out startled cries, then faded away into the forest. The Skandians, in turn, muttered among themselves at the sight of them. Each of Malcolm's followers suffered some significant form of disfigurement, and the superstitious sea wolves, who believed all forests were inhabited by spirits and ogres, closed ranks a little and made sure their weapons were free and ready for use.

Unlike the others, Trobar didn't attempt to hide. Instead, he moved to interpose himself between the new arrivals and his master. At the sight of the giant, the muttering and uncertainty among the Skandians increased. They were all big, burly men, but Trobar towered over the biggest of them.

By now, Will knew that, in spite of his terrifying appearance, Trobar was at heart a gentle person. Yet he had no doubt the giant would give his life if anyone attempted to harm the man who had taken him in and given him a home. The dog, Will noted, had gone with him. Sensing Trobar's concern, her hackles had risen, and the ruff of fur around her throat seemed to be twice its normal size.

The young Ranger rose hurriedly and stepped forward to prevent any unfortunate misunderstanding.

"It's all right, Trobar," he said quietly. "They're friends." Then, in a louder voice, he called across the clearing, "Gundar Hardstriker, welcome to Healer's Clearing."

He came up with the name on the spot, thinking that such an unthreatening name might serve to relax the situation. As he spoke and the Skandians recognized him, he could see the tension in them drop away a little. Trobar, for his part, stopped his advance across the clearing and stepped to one side. Will went forward to greet the Skandian crew. Horace followed, a pace or two behind him.

"I take it these are our men?" he said mildly.

Will glanced back over his shoulder. "Your men," he amended. "You'll command them, not me."

Horace grinned at him, not taken in for a second by that ploy. "I'll command them," he said, "as long as we do exactly what you tell us to do, right?"

He had experience with Rangers and how they operated. They claimed to be nothing more than advisers who stayed in the background. Yet he knew they were experts at manipulating any situation. He had seen Halt do it with the Skandians five years ago. Will's mentor was a master of the art of commanding while not seeming to. Horace had no doubt that his apprentice had learned the skill as well.

Will had the grace to smile at the comment."Yes. Something like that," he admitted.

Gundar had stepped forward a few paces as the two Araluens approached. He made the peace sign.

"Good pastnoon, Will Treaty," he said. "This is a strange place you've brought us to."

Will nodded."Strange, Gundar, but not unfriendly. Nobody here wishes you ill."

"Unless it's that idiot secretary," Horace put in, in an u ndertone.

"Shut up," Will told him in the same tone, then, speaking more loudly, he said, "Gundar, meet my friend, Sir Horace."

Horace and Gundar shook hands, each studying the other, each liking what he saw.

Horace was young, Gundar saw. But his face bore the signs of experience in combat – the scar and the slightly broken nose. Yet there weren't so many as to suggest that he was continually on the receiving end. Gundar subscribed to the view that a face covered in battle scars usually belonged to a man who didn't know how to duck.

Horace, for his part, saw a typical Skandian: powerful, fearless, experienced, a man who handled his massive battleax with practiced ease and who met your gaze frankly while giving you a handshake that could crack walnuts. With twenty-five men like this, he thought, he could probably just knock the castle down.

"Sir Horace is the commander for the assault?" Gundar asked, and Will nodded.

" That's right. Even a small army like ours needs a general, and Horace is trained for the job."

Gundar shrugged, content with the arrangement. "That's agreeable," he said.

In Gundar's view, a commander was really nothing more than an entrepreneur. He could worry about all the minor points like tactics and strategy. Skandians weren't interested in niceties like that. A commander's chief task, so far as Gundar was concerned, was to supply opportunities for Skandians to hit people.

Yet acceptance was not total. Inevitably, there was one Skandian who looked at Horace and saw only his youth. In typical Skandian fashion, he wasted no time making his views known.

"It may be agreeable to you, Gundar," he said in a loud voice, "but I'm not taking orders from a boy who's still wet behind the ears."

Will heard Horace give vent to a small sigh – there were equal amounts of exasperation and boredom in the sound. Quietly, Will hid a smile. Horace had plenty of experience in dealing with this particular situation.

A less confident man than Horace might have blustered and shouted and attempted to enforce his authority on the Skandian. Which, of course, would have been the wrong approach entirely. Skandians placed little value on words.

Instead, Horace smiled and stepped forward, gesturing for the Skandian to do likewise.

He was a big man, perhaps a few centimeters shorter than Horace, but broader in the shoulders and in the body. Horace noted with interest that he was the bearer of many scars. Horace shared Gundar's opinion about such men. His hair was long and gathered in two tarry pigtails, one on either side of his head. His long beard was a tangle of greasy whiskers and bore visible evidence of his last few meals. He carried a massive battleax and a large round oaken shield that looked more like a wagon wheel than a shield. Perhaps it had begun life that way, Horace thought.

The Skandian ignored Horace's smile, keeping his face set in a tight scowl of disapproval as he responded to Horace's gesture and stepped to meet him.

"And your name is?" Horace asked mildly.

"I'm Nils Ropehander," the man replied in a loud, aggressive voice. "And my life's too important to place it in the hands of a boy"

There was no doubt that the last word was intended as an insult. Horace, however, continued to smile.

"Of course it is," he said reasonably. "And may I say, that's a lovely hat you have."

Like most of the Skandians, Nils Ropehander wore a heavy iron helmet, adorned with two massive horns. As Horace mentioned it and gestured toward it, it was only natural for the Skandian's eyes to glance upward.

As he did so, he momentarily broke eye contact with Horace, which was what the knight intended. Horace stepped forward, grabbed a horn in each hand and lifted the helmet clear of his head. Before the man could properly protest, Horace had slammed the unpadded heavy iron headpiece back down, causing Nils's knees to buckle and his eyes to cross slightly under the impact. The Skandian staggered for a second, but that was long enough. He felt an iron grip seize hold of his beard, and he was jerked violently forward.

Horace stepped forward too, into the off-balance Skandian's path. The heel of his right hand, fingers spread upward, slammed forward into the Skandian's broad nose, making solid contact. At the exact moment that he struck, Horace released his left-handed grip on the beard so the Skandian was hurled backward, sprawling, on his back onto the hard ground.

One inevitable side effect of a solid blow to the nose, as Horace knew, was to fill the eyes with unavoidable tears. As Nils scrabbled on the ground, blinded by tears, he heard a slithering sound of metal on leather. Then he felt a strange prickling sensation in his throat. There had been something familiar about that sound, and instinct told him not to move. He froze and, as his vision cleared, he found himself staring up the glittering length of Horace's sword, its point held lightly just beneath his chin.

"Do we need to take this any further?" Horace said. The smile had gone. The young man was deadly serious, and Nils knew his situation was a very unhealthy one. Horace moved the sword slightly away from his throat to give him room to answer.

The Skandian shook his head and spoke thickly through the blood that was running down the back of his throat from his nose.

"Nuh… no fur'der."

"Good," said Horace. He rapidly sheathed the sword, then held his hand out to Nils, helping the burly sea wolf to his feet. The two stood, chest to chest, for a few seconds, and a look of understanding passed between them. Then Horace slapped the Skandian on the shoulder and turned to his shipmates.

"I think that settles things?" he said. There was a chorus of approval and agreement from the others. They all knew Ropehander's propensity to complain and object to any change in routine, and they felt the young knight had handled the situation perfectly. They were impressed by his startling speed, his strength and his expert grasp of Skandian debating tactics. Skandians invariably preferred a good thumping to any amount of well-reasoned argument.

Horace looked around the bearded, approving faces and grinned at them."Let's see what a bunch of bad bargains I've been given as an army. Step closer," he said.

Grinning in turn, the Skandians moved around him in a half circle. Horace gestured for them to make room for Will.

"He's not too big," he said, "but he can turn very nasty if he's excluded."

The grins widened as they made room for the Ranger. Horace, hands on hips, paced around the circle, frowning as he studied them. They were a scruffy bunch, he thought, and none too clean. Their hair and beards were overlong and often gathered in rough and greasy plaits, like Nils's.

There were scars and broken noses and cauliflower ears in abundance, as well as the widest assortment of rough tattoos, most of which looked as if they had been carved into the skin with the point of a dagger, after which dye was rubbed into the cut. There were grinning skulls, snakes, wolf heads and strange northern runes. All of the men were burly and thickset. Most had bellies on them that suggested they might be overfond of ale.

All in all they were as untidy, rank-smelling and rough-tongued a bunch of pirates as one could be unlucky enough to run into. Horace turned to Will and his frown faded.

" They're beautiful," he said.