The Quest, Part 2

Reiner awoke with a start. He had had a vivid nightmare in which Kronhof, the most famous moneylender in the Kingdom of Lothal, was piercing his left hand with a carpenter's auger as punishment for not paying his debts when, in the dream, someone had been pounding on an iron door.

When he opened his eyes he was in the pine grove, but the pain in his hand and the pounding continued. He needed a moment to remember that he was now a marked man, and another moment to realize that the horrible noise was being made by Barrister banging his frying pan against a rock as he shouted.

"On your feet, little friends! We've got a long day ahead of us."

"In a minute I'll make him swallow that frying pan!" growled Hals as he clutched his head.

Reiner struggled to his feet. His aches and pains were not due to riding. He was a gunslinger born to ride. But lack of sleep made his bones heavy as lead that weighed his body down. The pain in his hand seemed to have spread to his head, which felt as if it were on fire, although the rest of his body was frozen. His eyes hurt. Even his hair seemed to hurt.

Worse than Barrister's pounding and screaming was his alertness. To Reiner's annoyance, the man didn't seem to be affected at all by the lack of sleep. Lady Roselyn was the same way. She waited serenely outside the tent, hands clasped together, as clean and unwrinkled as if she had just officiated at morning prayers.

Barrister hurried them through the brief breakfast of bread, cheese and a little beer, and had them mounted. Last were Pavel and Hals, who sat in the chairs with much sighing and groaning, as if they had to sit on thorn bushes with their asses in the air. Less than half an hour after waking up, they were on their way again.

The rain had stopped but there was no sun. The sky was a gray, smooth, unbroken expanse from one horizon to the other, like a tarnished pewter tray hanging upside down over the world. The members of the group tucked themselves tightly into cloaks and bowed to the damp spring wind as they rode toward the Nordic Mountains.

As they made their way toward the Nordic Mountains, the mud turned to snow, the spring wind to an eternal winter blowing, the gray farm fields to white boughs, and the green trees to steep, frost-covered pines.

In the course of the day they left the desolate scrub lands of the east behind, the forest thickened and they passed a few villages, tiny communities that had gained some space from the wilderness and were surrounded by fields where winter reigned.

But although such peaceful scenery should have pleased men so far from home, the convicts' faces grew increasingly serious as the villages were deserted, looted, burned to the ground and strewn with rotting skeletons that lay like abandoned toys.

Some villages were still smoldering.

This could only mean one thing.

A new Dark Lord had been crowned.

Dark Lords were powerful champions chosen by evil forces. The counterpart of the Heroes. They were evil, vile, and ruthless villains; who had the sole aim of destroying civilization, along with all that was good and right.

The war against the Empire had officially ended months ago when the Imperial legions had finally been repulsed; it was not impossible that a horde of Nordic barbarians, led by a Dark Lord, would break through the Frozen Kingdom of Glacia, ruled by the mighty Ice Queen, and reach the northern border of the Kingdom of Lothal to begin his campaign of terror and destruction.

The endless forest of Nordland could swallow whole armies, it was possible that there were scattered groups of barbarian Rangers, on a mission to clear the way for their compatriots, prowling the forests in search of food and easy plunder.

Still worn out from the offensive of the Empire of Kaleth, the Kingdom of Lothal was too busy regrouping and rebuilding to send armies to defeat those scavengers, so it was up to the local lords to defend their people with the battered remnants of their castle guards. But there, in those remote godforsaken lands, there were no more frontier nobles, and the villagers had to defend themselves or die. The latter was more often the case.

In one village there were decapitated heads rotting on the end of stakes mounted on the palisade. The bodies decomposed where they had fallen, because there was no one left alive to bury them. The stench of death had taken over wells, barns and huts.

At noon they passed a temple of the triumvirate cult. The old priest had been crucified before it, his ribs had been ripped open and his deflated lungs flapped in the wind like wings. Pavel and Hals cursed under their breath and spat to ward off bad luck. Erich reared up further on the horse as his jaw muscles contracted. Franz flinched and looked away. Reiner was torn between the opposing impulses to avert his eyes or stare at the horror. He had never liked priests very much, but no man could look at such a thing and remain unmoved.

After lunch on horseback, a watery sun came up and the men cheered up a little. The forest moved away from the road and, for a while, they rode through a cleared area covered with fine, freshly fallen snow. The men began chatting amongst themselves and Reiner found it interesting to see the relationships being established within the group.

He was a bit surprised to see that Pavel and Hals, a pair of farmers who had never left their homeland before being called to war, got along well with the mercenary, Giano. The typical insularity of the peasantry, for whom even a different duchy was a foreign country and who were suspicious of outsiders, seemed to have been overcome by the camaraderie prevailing among all the infantrymen, and before long the three were laughing and telling each other stories of rotten supplies, terrible lodgings and even worse commanders.

Behind them, little Franz and the giant Ulf were talking in low voices: a confederacy of the men who were the butt of jokes and jests, Reiner thought. In the rear were Gustaf and Oskar, who rode in taciturn silence and with their eyes fixed on the front: a confederacy of men shunned by the others.

Barrister rode in the vanguard with Lady Roselyn. They, too, were silent: Barrister constantly alert to danger and Lady Roselyn, with her nose buried in a leather-bound book, clearly oblivious to everything around her. Reiner rode behind them and, much to his annoyance, so did Erich. It was inevitable, of course. Apart from Lady Roselyn, Reiner was the only person in the group who belonged to the same social class as Erich. He was the only prisoner Erich could recognize as his equal, the only one he would deign to talk to. Reiner would by far have preferred to exchange obscene songs and barrack insults with Hals, Pavel and Giano, but Erich had attached himself to him like a leech and chattered incessantly by his shoulder.

"If you were in Crownheim, the capital of the Kingdom, you must know my cousin, he is the son of Count Omderholt, of the Duchy of Bergland. He was trying to become a Knight. A damned good horseman. Spent a lot of time at the Shield and Pennant tavern."

"I'm afraid I didn't mix much with the knights, it wasn't my style. I was in school at the time."

Erich grimaced.

"School? Gods, I learned enough from my tutor, were you studying for a priest?"

It was an understandable question. It was little known that in the temples to the six great gods there was such a thing as an education system.

"Literature, when I studied something. Mainly, I was there to escape Draeholt."

"Huh? What's wrong with Draeholt? The hunting is excellent. I once hunted a wild boar there."

"Oh, did you?"

"Yes. A damned fine animal. Did you say your last name is Blackbrick? I think I once met your father at a hunt held at Draeholt. He's a jovial old geezer."

Reiner grimaced.

"Ah, yes, he always gets most jovial when he kills lesser beings."

A rustling sound was heard in the dry grass at the roadside. Giano instantly aimed his crossbow and fired. A rabbit leapt from its hiding place and sped across the road. Before Giano could do more than let out a cry of annoyance, Franz raised the bow slung over his shoulder, took an arrow from the quiver and fired, all in one graceful motion. The rabbit somersaulted through the air and landed on the melting snow, inert, with a three-foot shaft stuck between the shoulder blades.

The whole group turned to look at the youngster with renewed respect. Even Erich gave a brief nod of his head.

"That was an accurate shot. The boy will make a good lookout."

Franz nimbly jumped down from his horse, retrieved the arrow and handed the rabbit to Giano, who had three others he'd killed earlier hanging from the saddle's bridle.

"One more for the stew." He said with an affected smile.

"Thanks, kid." Giano said. "Thank you very much." He hung up the rabbit along with the others.

When Franz remounted, Reiner leaned over to Erich.

"Wanna bet who hunts next?"

Erich pursed his lips.

"I never bet, except on horse races. Have you seen the breeds Count Schlaeger is breeding at Helmgart? Damn good runners."

And so it went on and on. Reiner groaned. There he was, loose in the world, free from prison, his neck safe from the gallows, at least for the time being. But was he allowed to enjoy that? No. Apparently, the gods had a nasty sense of humor. Now Erich was talking about his father's annual hunting ball. It was going to be a long trip.

Finally, just before sunset, Barrister ordered a halt in the lee of a low boulder and the men set about planting camp. Reiner found it curious that they all found a task to perform without apparently communicating. Pavel and Hals lamented about how sore they were from riding as they fetched water from a nearby stream and foraged for wild carrots and dandelion for stew. Reiner took charge of the horses. Ulf pitched Lady Roselyn's tent and then helped the others with theirs. Franz and Oskar gathered wood and lit the fire. Gustaf skinned and deboned the rabbits with a passion that Reiner found disturbing, while Giano seasoned the stew and talked endlessly about his great cooking skills.

The stew was delicious, they devoured it with delight as they stood hunched close to the fire; though it had an excess of garlic for Reiner's taste.

"Let's draw lots for the tents." said Captain Barrister between big mouthfuls. "I won't tolerate anyone pulling rank or fighting over who gets to sleep with whom. To me, you're all scum."

The men wrote their names on a tree leaf and stuffed them all inside a helmet. There were five tents: a more comfortable one for Lady Roselyn, a small one for Captain Barrister, and three cavalry tents in which four men could sleep squeezed together, so the nine men could occupy the tents in threes. A luxury. But when the helmet reached Franz, he passed it without tucking his blade inside.

"Don't you know how to write your name, boy?" asked Barrister.

"I'll sleep alone," replied Franz.

Around the fire all heads were raised.

Barrister frowned.

"You will sleep with the others. There are no tents left over."

"I'll sleep under my cloak." His eyes were fixed on the fire.

Reiner smiled.

"We're not all inverts in the army, boy."

"As long as there's one, that's enough."

"Soldier." said Barrister with soft menace in his tone. "Men who sleep alone have a tendency to vanish. Sometimes they run away. Sometimes they're taken by something. I won't allow either. I need every man I have for this crazy Quest. You..."

"Captain, please!" said Hals. "Let him sleep alone. The last thing we need is an upset boy cutting our throats for turning us over in our sleep."

A chorus of voices nodded around the fire. Barrister shrugged his shoulders. It gave the impression that the value the company placed on Franz, and which had increased after his demonstration of archery prowess, had dropped dramatically once again.

When they each drew a sheet, among which there was a blank one for Franz, Reiner ended up sharing a tent with Pavel and Ulf; Hals, Giano and Oskar occupied another; and Erich and Gustaf were left with the third to themselves.

Barrister took the first watch and the others went to sleep immediately, almost dead tired after the night and day's riding. It took Reiner a while to fall asleep, however.

He couldn't stop thinking about the bunch of madmen and miscreants that made up the company. He could not understand why Baron Ulburt had entrusted them with such an important mission and the life of a woman he obviously loved very much.

Why had he not deployed a squad of knights to escort her?

Reiner eventually drifted off into restless dreams without having found a satisfactory answer to his questions.