The Burning Bridge

35

W HAT HAD, A FEWMINUTESBEFORE, BEEN A BATTLEFIELD NOW became a confusion. The Wargal army, released in an instant from Morgarath's mind control, now milled mindlessly about, waiting for some force to tell them what to do next. All sense of aggression had left them and most of them simply dropped their weapons and wandered off. Others sat down and sang quietly to themselves. Without Morgarath's direction, they were like little children.

The group struggling to escape up Three Step Pass now stood mute and unmoving, waiting patiently for those at the front to clear the way.

Duncan surveyed the scene in bewilderment.

"We'll need an army of sheepdogs to round up this lot," he said to Baron Arald, and his councillor smiled in reply.

"Better that than what we faced, my lord," he said, and Duncan had to agree.

The small inner circle of Morgarath's lieutenants was a different matter. Some had been captured, but others had fled into the waste-lands of the fens. Crowley, the Ranger Corps Commandant, shook his head as he realized that he and his men faced many long, hard days in the saddle after this. He would have to assign a Ranger task force to hunt down Morgarath's lieutenants and bring them back to face the King's justice. It was always this way, he thought wryly. While everyone else could sit back and relax, the Rangers' work continued, nonstop.

Horace, bruised, battered and bleeding, had been taken to the King's own tent for treatment. He was badly injured after his insane leap under the battlehorse's hooves. There were several broken bones and he was bleeding from one ear. But amazingly, none of the injuries were critical and the King's own healer, who had examined him immediately, was confident that he would make a full recovery.

Sir Rodney had hurried up to the litter as the bearers were preparing to carry the boy off the field. His mustache bristled with fury as he stood over his apprentice.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" he roared, and Horace winced. "Who told you to challenge Morgarath? You're nothing but an apprentice, boy, and a damned disobedient one at that!"

Horace wondered if the shouting was going to continue for much longer. If it were, he could almost wish to be back facing Morgarath. He was dazed and sick and dizzy and Sir Rodney's angry red face swam in and out of focus in front of him. The Battlemaster's words seemed to bounce from one side of his skull to the other and back again and he wasn't sure why he was yelling so much. Maybe Morgarath was still alive, he thought groggily, and as the thought struck him, he tried to get up.

Instantly, Rodney's glare faded and his expression changed to one of concern. He gently stopped the wounded apprentice from rising. Then he reached down and gripped the boy's hand in a firm grasp.

"Rest, boy," he said. "You've done enough today. You've done well."

Meanwhile, Halt shoved his way through the harmless Wargals. They gave way without any resistance or resentment as he searched desperately for Will.

But there was no sign of the boy, nor of the King's daughter. Once they had heard Morgarath's taunt, the Araluens had realized that if Will were still alive, there was a chance that Cassandra, as Evanlyn was really called, might have survived as well. The fact that Morgarath hadn't mentioned her indicated that her identity had remained a secret. This, of course, Halt realized, was why she had assumed her maid's name. By doing so, she prevented Morgarath's knowing what a potential lever he had in his hands.

He pushed impatiently through another group of silent Wargals, then stopped as he heard a weak cry from one side.

A Skandian, barely alive, was sitting leaning against the bole of a tree. He had slumped down, his legs stretched straight in front of him in the dust, his head lolling weakly to one side. A huge stain of blood marked the side of his sheepskin vest. A heavy sword lay beside him, his hand too weak to hold it any longer.

He made a feeble scrabbling gesture toward it and his eyes beseeched Halt to help him. Nordal, growing weaker by the moment, had allowed his grasp on the sword to release. Now, weak and almost blinded, he couldn't find it and he knew he was close to death. Halt knelt beside him. He could see there was no potential danger in the man; he was too far gone for any treachery. He took the sword and placed it in the man's lap, putting his hands on the leather-bound hilt.

"Thanks:friend:" Nordal gasped weakly.

Halt nodded sadly. He admired the Skandians as warriors and it bothered him to see one laid as low as this-so weak that he couldn't maintain his grip on his sword. The Ranger knew what that meant to the sea raiders. He rose slowly and began to turn away, then stopped.

Horace had said that Will and Evanlyn had been taken by a small party of Skandians. Maybe this man knew something. He dropped to one knee again and put a hand on the man's face, turning it toward his own.

"The boy," he said urgently, knowing he had only a few minutes. "Where is he?"

Nordal frowned. The words struck a chord in his memory, but everything that had ever happened to him seemed such a long time ago and somehow unimportant.

"Boy," he repeated thickly, and Halt couldn't help himself. He shook the dying man.

"Will!" he said, his face only a few centimeters from the other's. "A Ranger. A boy. Where is he?"

A small light of understanding and memory burned in Nordal's eyes now as he recalled the boy. He'd admired his courage, he remembered. Admired the way the boy had stood them off at the bridge. Without realizing it, he actually said the last three words.

"At the bridge:" he whispered, and Halt shook him again.

"Yes! The boy at the bridge! Where is he?"

Nordal looked up at him. There was something he had to remember. He knew it was important to this grim-faced stranger and he wanted to help. After all, the stranger had helped him find his sword again. He remembered what it was.

":Gone," he managed finally. He wished the stranger wouldn't shake him. It caused him no pain at all, because he couldn't feel anything. But it kept waking him from the warm, soft sleep he was drifting into. The bearded face was a long way from him now, at the end of a tunnel. The voice echoed down the tunnel to him.

"Gone where?" He listened to the echo. He liked the echo. It reminded him of:something from his childhood.

"Where-where-where?" the echo came again, and now he remembered.

"The fens," he said. "Through the fens to the ships."

He smiled when he said it. He'd wanted to help the stranger and he had. And this time, when the warm softness crept over him, the stranger didn't shake him. He was glad about that.

Halt stood up from the body of Nordal.

"Thank you, friend," he said simply. Then he ran to where he'd left Abelard grazing quietly and vaulted into the saddle.

The fens were a tangle of head-high grasses, swamps and winding passages of clear water. To most people, they were impassable. An incautious step could lead to a person sinking quickly into the oozing mire of quicksand that lurked on every side. Once in the featureless marshes, it was easy to become hopelessly lost and to wander until exhaustion overcame you, or the venomous water snakes that thrived here found you unawares.

Wise people avoided the fens. Only two groups knew the secret paths through them: the Rangers and the Skandians, who had been raiding along this coastline for as long as Halt could remember.

Surefooted as Ranger horses were, once Halt was truly into the tangle of tall grass and swampland, he dismounted and led Abelard. The signs of the safe path were minute and easy to miss and he needed to be close to the ground to follow them. He hadn't been traveling long when he began to see signs that a party had come before him and his spirits lifted. It had to be the rest of the Skandians, with Will and Evanlyn.

He quickened his pace and promptly paid the consequences for doing so, missing a path marker and ending chest-deep in a thick mass of bottomless mud. Fortunately, he still had a firm grip on Abelard's reins and, at a word of command, the stocky horse dragged him clear of the danger.

It was another good reason to continue leading the horse behind him, he realized.

He backtracked to the path, found his bearings and set out again. In spite of his seething impatience, he forced himself to go carefully. The marks left by the party in front of him were becoming more and more recent. He knew he was catching them. The question was whether he would catch them in time.

Mosquitoes and marsh flies hummed and whined around him. Without a breath of breeze, it was stiflingly hot in the marshes and he was sweating freely. His clothes were soaked and sodden with stinking mud and he'd lost one boot as Abelard had hauled him out of the quicksand. Nevertheless, he limped on, coming closer and closer to his quarry with every sodden step.

At the same time, he knew, he was coming closer and closer to the end of the fenlands. And that meant the beach where the Skandian ships lay at anchor. He had to find Will before the Skandians reached the beach. Once Will was on one of their wolfships, he would be gone forever, taken back across the Stormwhite Sea to the cold, snowbound land of the Skandians, where he would be sold as a slave, to lead a life of drudgery and unending labor.

Now, above the rotting smell of the marshes, he caught the fresh scent of salt air. The sea! He redoubled his efforts, throwing caution to the wind as he chanced everything to catch up with the Skandians before they reached the water.

The grass was thinning in front of him now and the ground beneath his feet became firmer with every step. He was running, the horse trotting behind him, and he burst clear onto the windswept length of the beach.

A small ridge in the dunes in front of him blocked the sea from his sight and he swung up into Abelard's saddle on the run and set the horse to a gallop. They swept over the ridge, the Ranger leaning forward, low on his horse's neck, urging him to greater speed.

There was a wolfship anchored offshore. At the water's edge, a group of people were boarding a small boat and, even at this distance, Halt recognized the small figure in the middle as his apprentice.

"Will!" he shouted, but the sea wind snatched the words away. With hands and knees, he urged Abelard onward.

It was the drumming of hooves that alerted them. Erak, waist-deep in water as he and Horak shoved the boat into deeper water, looked over his shoulder and saw the green-and-gray-clad figure on the shaggy horse.

"Hergel's beard!" he shouted. "Get moving!"

Will, seated beside Evanlyn in the center of the boat, turned as Erak spoke and saw Halt, barely two hundred meters away. He stood, precariously trying to keep his balance in the heaving boat.

"Halt!" he yelled, and instantly Svengal's backhanded blow sent him sprawling into the bottom of the little craft.

"Stay down!" he ordered, as Erak and Horak vaulted into the boat and the rowers sent it surging into the first line of waves.

The wind, which had stopped them from hearing Halt's cry, carried the boy's thin shout to Halt's ears. Abelard heard it too and found a few more yards of pace, his muscles gathering underneath him and sending him along in huge bounds. Halt was riding without reins now as he unslung the longbow and laid an arrow on the string.

At a full gallop, he sighted and released.

The bow oarsman gave a grunt of surprise and lurched sideways over the gunwale of the boat as Halt's heavy arrow slammed into him, transfixing his upper arm. The boat began to crab sideways and Erak dashed forward, shoved the man aside and took over the oar.

"Pull like hell!" he ordered them. "If he gets to close range, we're all dead men."

Now Halt guided Abelard with his knees, swinging the horse into the sea itself and thrusting forward to try to catch the boat. He fired again, but the range was extreme and the target was heaving and tossing on the waves. Added to that was the fact that Halt couldn't shoot near the center of the boat, for fear of hitting Will or Evanlyn. His best chance was to get close enough for easy shooting and pick off the oarsmen one at a time.

He fired again. The arrow bit deep into the timbers of the boat, barely an inch from Horak's hand, in the stern. He jerked his hand away as if he'd been burned.

"Gorlog's teeth!" he yelped in surprise, then flinched as a third arrow hissed into the water behind the boat, not a foot away.

But now the boat was gaining, as Abelard, breast-deep in the waves, could no longer maintain his speed. The little horse thrust valiantly against the water, but the boat was drawing alongside the wolfship and was now over a hundred meters away. Halt urged the horse a few meters closer, then stopped, defeated, as he saw the figures being hauled up from the boat.

The two smallest passengers were dragged toward the stern steering position. The Skandian crew lined the sides of the ship, standing on the rail to shout their defiance at the small figure who was almost obscured by the rolling gray waves.

On the wolfship, Erak yelled at them, diving for cover behind the solid bulwark.

"Get down, you fools! That's a Ranger!"

He'd seen Halt's bow coming up, then saw his hands move at incredible speed. His remaining nine arrows were arcing high in the air before the first one struck.

Within the space of two seconds, three of the Skandians lining the rail went down under the arrow storm. Two of them lay groaning in pain. The other was ominously still. The rest of the crew flung themselves flat on the deck as arrows hissed and thudded around them.

Cautiously, Erak raised his head above the bulwark, making sure that Halt was out of arrows.

"Get under way," he ordered, and took the steering oar. Will, temporarily forgotten, moved to the rail. It was less than two hundred meters and nobody was watching him. He could swim that far, he knew, and he began to reach for the railing. Then he hesitated, thinking of Evanlyn. He knew he couldn't abandon her. Even as he had the thought, Horak's big hand closed over the collar of his jacket and the chance was gone.

As the ship began to gather way, Will stared at the mounted figure in the surf, buffeted by the waves. Halt was so near and yet now so impossibly out of reach. His eyes stung with tears and, faintly, he heard Halt's voice.

"Will! Stay alive! Don't give up! I'll find you wherever they take you!"

Choking on tears, the boy raised his arm in farewell to his friend and mentor.

"Halt!" he croaked, but he knew the Ranger would never hear him. He heard the voice again, carrying over the sounds of wind and sea.

"I'll find you, Will!"

Then the wind filled the big, square sail of the wolfship and she heeled away from the shore, moving faster and faster toward the northeast.

For a long time after she'd dropped below the horizon, the sodden figure sat there, his horse chest-deep in the rolling waves, staring after the ship.

And his lips still moved, in a silent promise only he could hear.