Erak's Ransom

Chapter 13

After two days at sea, Halt was mercifully in control of his stomach once more. That didn't stop an evilly grinning Svengal from asking after his health at every possible opportunity, or offering him choice titbits from the wolfship's limited larder.

'Chicken leg?' he said, an innocent grin splitting his face. 'Bit greasy but good nevertheless. Just the thing to stick to a man's ribs.'

'Svengal,' Halt said for the tenth time, 'I am over it. Are we clear on that? I am over being seasick. And I am definitely over your attempts to make me heave my insides over the railing.'

Svengal looked unconvinced. He knew Halt's strength of mind and he was sure that he was bluffing – that, deep down, the Ranger's stomach was still in turmoil. All it needed was a little suggestive prodding.

'If it's not to your taste, I've some lovely pureed chestnut sauce you could smother it in?' he suggested hopefully.

'Very well,' Halt agreed, 'give me the chicken leg. And fetch me the chestnut sauce – and some pickled cucumbers while you're about it. Oh, and you'd better bring me a large tankard of dark ale if you have any.'

Svengal grinned, convinced that Halt was bluffing. Within a few minutes he had the required food laid out on a small folding table by the steering position. He watched expectantly as Halt bit into the chicken, chewed slowly and swallowed. Jurgen, one of the crew, filled a mug with dark ale and set it down as well, then stood by with the small cask, ready for further instructions.

'All well then?' Svengal asked hopefully. Halt nodded.

'Fine. Bit overdone and stringy but otherwise all right.' He took a deep draught of the dark ale, which he knew was Svengal's favourite and which he knew was in limited supply. He thrust the tankard out to Jurgen.

'More,' he said briefly. The Skandian uncorked the cask and let a stream of the dark foaming ale run into the tankard. Halt drank again, draining most of the beer. He wiped the back of his hand across his lips.

'Not bad. Not bad at all,' he said and held the tankard out again. The smile on Svengal's face started to fade as he saw more of his favourite tipple gushing into Halt's tankard. A joke was a joke, he thought, but this was starting to get expensive.

'How many casks of that do we have left?' he asked the crewman.

'This is the last, skirl,' came the reply. He shook the cask experimentally to check how much was remaining and Svengal's practised ear could tell from the hollow splashing sound that it was less than half full. Or, as he thought in his suddenly anxious state of mind, more than half empty. Halt took another long pull and held the nearly empty tankard out.

'Better top me up,' he said.

'No!" Svengal's anxious cry stopped the crewman as he began to raise the cask once more. 'Leave it, Jurgen.'

Jurgen nodded, hiding a grin himself. He liked Svengal. But like all Skandians, he also appreciated a good practical joke. He admired the way the short-shanked Araluan had turned the tables on his captain.

'You're sure?' he asked. 'He seems to be enjoying it.' Halt belched lightly in confirmation and took another bite of sauce-smeared chicken leg.

'He's enjoying it too much,' Svengal replied shortly. He cast an aggrieved look at Halt. 'Some people don't know when a joke has gone too far.'

Halt smiled malevolently at him. 'So I've noticed,' he replied. 'So tell me. Are we done with the questions about my health and the state of my stomach?'

'Yes,' Svengal muttered darkly. 'I was only worried about you, that's all.'

'My heart is touched by your tender concern,' Halt said, straight-faced. Then, glancing over the port railing, he pointed to a long white line of beach that was visible on the coast of Iberion.

'Would that be a good place to take the horses ashore?' he asked. He knew that if Tug, Abelard, Blaze and Kicker spent too long without exercise, their muscles would grow stiff and soft and their condition would suffer. He and Svengal had discussed the need to put them ashore every few days and give them a run.

Svengal, all business again, screwed his eyes up as he looked at the coastline.

'Good as anywhere,' he said. 'This part of the coast is a long way from any large settlements. Wouldn't want the Iberians thinking we were invading them.' He took the half tankard of dark ale that Halt offered him and drank from it. 'Thanks.'

'That's all right,' Halt told him, with the faintest trace of a grin. 'I don't like the stuff anyway.'

Svengal looked long and hard at him.

'Don't be surprised if I leave you and your precious horses ashore,' he said. 'Don't know why you need them along anyway. We'll be landing in Al Shabah to hand over the money, then sailing home again.'

'We hope,' Halt told him. 'I've learned that it always pays to be prepared for the unexpected. And a Ranger without his horse is like a Skandian without his ship.'

'Fair enough,' Svengal agreed. He glanced at the telltale – a light thread streaming from the top of the mast to gauge the direction of the wind. Seeing that there'd be no need to reset the sail, he heaved on the tiller and swung the wolfship's bow towards the long beach in the distance.

An hour later, Wolfwind's bow ran gently onto the sand, the ship coming to a halt with a sliding, grating noise.

The lifting slings were rigged once more and the horses were hoisted over the side into the shallow water. Tug looked balefully at Halt. He'd been enjoying himself for the past two days, quietly swaying from side to side in his comfortable, padded pen, eating at regular intervals, dozing in the sunshine and generally taking it easy while the wolfship bore him along. It wasn't the first time he and Halt had disagreed on the subject of how much rest a horse should have, how many apples it should be allowed to eat or how much exercise it really needed.

Still, it felt good to have firm ground underfoot once again and they hadn't been on board ship long enough to develop what the Skandians called the 'land wobbles' – where the ground seemed to rock and heave beneath you like the moving deck of a ship.

Tug shook himself all over, vibrating from his ears and short mane to his shaggy tail in the way horses do. Then he stood patiently as Will slipped a bridle over his nose. They weren't going to bother saddling the horses. Bareback would be fine for the current purpose. Evanlyn watched a little enviously as her four friends scrambled onto their horses. There had been no reason to bring a horse specially for her. If she needed to ride, they could buy a horse at Al Shabah. But Kicker and the three Ranger horses were all specially trained. No locally purchased horse would have the skills or the stamina they possessed. If the three Rangers or Horace needed horses, they needed the ones they were used to.

'Take it easy for the first few hundred metres,' Halt told the others. 'They'll want to run but we don't want them to strain anything.'

And indeed, in spite of Tug's initial displeasure at having his sea voyage interrupted, he found that he did want to run. He wanted to show Abelard and Blaze – and that big, dumb, musclebound battlehorse – just who was who when it came to speed.

He strained against the reins as they moved off, heading south. But Will held him in, allowing him only to walk at first, then to trot, then finally releasing him into a slow canter.

The four horses swept down the long curving beach in line abreast, cantering side by side, each one of them tossing his head and pulling stubbornly at the reins. Each one convinced that he was the fastest, most sure-footed, longwinded creature in the horse world. They rolled their eyes at each other, snorting and challenging each other – and accepting the challenges the others were throwing out. But the firm hands on their reins stopped them cutting loose.

Tug felt the blood coursing through him and the stiffness flowing out of his legs. He felt good. He felt alive. He felt he was doing what he was born to do. The sand underfoot was firm without being too hard. It flew in showers of wet clods behind him. The salt air filled his lungs and he breathed it deeply. He felt Will's hands relax a little and he surged forward, for a few moments moving ahead of the other horses until their riders allowed them to accelerate a little and Will checked his own increasing speed. Still shoulder to shoulder, the four horses went to a full canter along the beach.

On the high stern of the wolfship, Evanlyn stood on the railing, shading her eyes to watch them as they dwindled into the distance. She hated being left behind like this. Horace had offered to let her ride behind him but she had declined, It wasn't the same. She didn't want to be a passenger. She wanted to ride with her friends.

Svengal heaved himself up onto the railing with her, staring after the riders.

'I really don't know how you do it,' he told her quietly. He had watched the Araluans mount, then move away, sitting easily as if each was suddenly part of the animal itself. It was a skill he knew he would never, ever master. It looked like such fun, he thought. But it had nothing to do with the clutching, lurching, fearful clumsiness he felt when he ascended to a horse's back.

She saw the slight wistfulness in his eyes and patted his hand.

'It's not hard. It just takes practice,' she said. 'I could teach you.'

But he shook his head. 'It's the practice that's the hard part,' he replied, absentmindedly rubbing his backside, where his muscles still had a faint memory of the ride to Redmont and back.

'Skipper!' Axel called down, from the lookout position on the cross tree of the mast. Svengal looked up and saw his arm outstretched to the north.

'We've got company,' Axel continued. Svengal shaded his eyes. Far to the north, on the low hills inland from the beach, he saw a glint of sunlight on metal – a helmet or a shield. A small cloud of dust could be seen as well. Riders, he thought. And quite a lot of them. He shrugged. It wasn't too surprising. Even though this was a sparsely inhabited part of the coast, the Iberians would have patrols out, and the sight of a beached wolfship would be a matter for investigation. The riders were still at least an hour away, he estimated. There was plenty of time to recall the four Araluans, load the horses aboard and sail away. But it was best to be careful.

'Better call them back,' he told a crewman, standing by with a ramshead horn for that purpose.

The man nodded, took a deep breath and blew two long blasts – the agreed recall signal.

Three kilometres down the beach, Halt heard the long mournful blasts. He reined in, signalling the others to do the same, and swivelled in the saddle, looking back along the beach to the ship. From his position, he couldn't see the approaching horsemen. But he knew Svengal would have a good reason for sounding the recall.

'Time to get back,' he said. 'Let's give them a… '

Before he could finish the statement, Will and Tug were away, the little horse's legs churning as he shot to a full gallop within the space of a few strides. Blaze was close behind him and Horace and Kicker lumbered behind the other two, slowly building to the battlehorse's thundering full speed.

'… run,' Halt said to nobody but himself. Then he touched Abelard with his knee and the finely trained horse shot away like an arrow from a bow. He'd catch Kicker, Halt knew. But there was no way he'd make up ground on Blaze and Tug.

Particularly Tug…