Roland's Path Read online

  The inevitable conversation began, and the usual things that are said between a boy and a girl were said. Roland was not charming, although he thought himself to be. He spoke as most young men do. He spoke of the things that interest him. He had not learned yet that others, those of the fairer sex in particular, preferred topics other than tactics and philosophy.

  The tavern girls knew their roles well, however. After all, there were some tactics not found in Roland’s books. Seemingly in awe of the boys and their talk of hunting, and warfare, the young ladies listened intently…and kept the ale flowing. Roland was preparing to dismiss his afternoon and evening plans of further practice and reading to spend that time with a voluptuous young brunette. One that he had spent a few evenings with before. Was Jaqualyn perhaps her name?

  He was starting down that path when the sounds of a disturbance in the street made their way through the veil of perfume forming over Roland’s eyes and thoughts. He made his way to the front porch of the tavern for a view of the street. The brunette, whose name Roland even now might not be able to recall, bustled along behind.

  A large man in polished mercshyeld armor that shone in the sun with its unique smoky tint rode a war-horse down the street dragging three prisoners behind him. Mercshyeld, a composite steel named so for Merc the god that kept the flames of the sun stoked and the old title of Shyeld a knight quested by means of the old Code, was notable to be sure. However, a man that possessed both such fine steel and one of the magnificent horses bred for war…that would be the topic of conversation in this corner of the world for months to come. The three prisoners were tied at the neck and running to keep up with the trotting gate of the mighty horse.

  “Who is that big one?” the brunette asked Roland catching up to him on the porch. She hoped to regain the attention of the young man that had been so suddenly taken from her. They watched as the knight rode toward the shire reeve’s stout built stone jail and Velryk’s office.

  “He is Sanderland,” Roland replied over his shoulder. “He is a paladin.”

  “Why does he not wear the colors of the lord of our land, nor those of the king?” She asked.

  “He is a Paladin of Silvor, a god of the hunt,” Roland said, pointing out the symbol of the Horn of the Hunt on the shield that the man carried. “Paladins only serve their god and their church, not lords nor even kings.”

  “So, he’s the holy sort?”

  “Holier than thou, perhaps,” Roland said as he stepped into the street, not realizing the double meaning his words might have had to the young woman. His mind was now on other business. The double entendre was not lost on Eldryn though. He marveled at his friend who in one moment could master a situation and in the next manage to fit both of his feet in his mouth.

  Roland, perhaps due to his youth, could be thoughtless. Eldryn knew there was no malice in his friend. He bore this girl no ill will, in fact, Eldryn knew Roland liked her quite a bit. Roland was just sometimes…thoughtless.

  Sanderland was six feet eight inches of lean muscle. His hair was short cut and of a light brown. His eyes were of light hazel caged behind lids that wore an almost constant look of disdain.

  He had spent his life in the service of Silvor, or of those who claimed to speak for the god, and had received the promotions within the church to reflect it. Paladins, like other officers of the church, were forbidden to own any property. However, he lived in three houses that belonged to the church, he had eight war steeds when most warriors could not afford one, and he had the best armor and weapons money could buy. A breast plate and greaves of mercshyeld adorned Sanderland, while a finely crafted bastard sword of high steel hung at his side rich with the etchings of Silvor’s Holy symbols, the signal horn and stag. Of course, all of those items belonged to the church.

  Sanderland dismounted in front of the shire reeve’s office and stood at the hitching rail expectantly. Roland approached him from behind, still smelling of ale and sweat.

  “What can I do for you, sir paladin?” Roland asked.

  “You can show me to the reeve,” Sanderland replied in an even, if dismissive, tone.

  “He is out of town, hunting men. His deputies are far flung. I am the reeve’s son; may I assist you?”

  Roland hated taking a servant’s position for Sanderland. Roland had no reason to dislike Sanderland, but there was something in Sanderland’s manner, he was too sure of himself. Roland would discover later it went beyond that. Although he couldn’t articulate it now, he would later realize it was Sanderland’s treatment of the common folk that he detested.

  “I have three criminals here,” Sanderland said as he looked over the boy before him with impatience plainly scrawled on his face.

  Roland looked over the three ‘criminals.’ He saw an older man bent slightly in the back whose long hair and beard were well graying with a definite note of evil in his eyes. He was wrapped in a simple, yet dirty, brown cloak. Although, Roland surmised, the evil look could just be that the old fellow felt the same about Sanderland as Roland himself did.

  He saw a young woman who possessed a cold, dead gaze. She moved easily, with agile steps that barely disturbed her short cut black hair from where it had been combed. She carried her six-foot frame ready for combat. She too was dressed simply in a spun dress and well-worn boots. This one would gladly kill you in your sleep, Roland thought. Although it didn’t seem to him that she would shy from a battlefield either.

  The third was a young, slight man in a green spun shirt similar to the one that the woman wore, and leather pants that barely made it past his knees. He looked like he was trying to be tougher than perhaps he was capable. Less than half way between five feet and six in height, this young man seemed tired and… frightened. Brown eyes drooped beneath his shock of collar length brown hair. In spite of the circumstances, Roland liked this third prisoner. Roland’s intuition was rarely strong, or to be trusted, but he liked this third one all the same.

  “Spies,” Sanderland said. “I picked them up in the mountains to the north, near the coast.”

  Roland saw that they there were intended to appear as a family, but he noted the details that gave them away. After all, it was at Velryk’s knee that he had been taught. Roland approached each of them and examined their hands and faces closely.

  Roland mentally listed the calluses on the slight man’s thumb and forefinger, most likely from practice at dagger throwing. The small man also had scars on his knuckles and seemed to have unusually well-muscled forearms.

  Roland noticed that the old man’s hands were soft, except for the part that usually turned a page or held a quill. Here was either a mage, or a scholar. Probably a mage given his apparent mission and the fact that Sanderland had taken the precaution of fixing a collar of green glass around the older man’s neck. Lexxmar, a material that was rare and expensive, was said to be able to mute a wizard’s abilities in the arts.

  No group of spies would be complete without a dedicated bruiser. Roland noted the tightly muscled frame of the young woman. She had hair that was as black as a soulless night and skin as pale as its heavenly companion, the moon. She was wearing a dress now and was beauty defined in it, but Roland could see enough of her shoulder to see the marks from hours spent in armor. Here was a woman with radiant beauty, and a heart of ice to compliment it.

  Of the three, Roland could only convict the old man and younger woman in his heart. The young common man looked trapped, if anything.

  “From Tarborat?” Roland directed toward Sir Sanderland as much to the three captives.

  “I would assume,” Sanderland replied. “I’ll just want them held here until the local Cleric of Silvor can interrogate them. Just held, do you understand me, boy?”

  “I understand, sir,” Roland said through gritted teeth.

  Sanderland noted the muscles that corded along Roland’s jaw and he smiled slightly at that.

  “I should be returning in a week to ten days for these three. I will then take them to a prepar
ed priest. See that they are well kept,” Sir Sanderland said as he remounted his greater war-horse.

  “And boy,” Sanderland began with no friendship in his tone, “say hello to your father for me.”

  “You will be taking their equipment with you then?” Roland asked, thinking that he might already know the answer to that question.

  It was Sir Sanderland’s turn for anger spawned of embarrassment.

  “They had only what you see on them.”

  “All the way from Tarborat with not so much as a skinning knife between them?” Roland asked.

  “I’ll not be questioned by a boy,” the Paladin said with an edge.

  Sir Sanderland wheeled his war-horse and started down the street at a trot.

  Roland stepped inside the stout little building behind the three. He moved in front of them and unlocked the cell door to a large iron cage. There were seven inhabitants in that cage already. Two horse thieves from several lands away, one murderer that had three partners that Velryk hunted even now, two purse snares, and two men still too drunk to stand from the night before. He double checked his head count and made correction on the chalk board near the cage to account for the new prisoners.

  Roland saw the look exchanged between the mage and the female fighter. He mistook it for some type of plot to escape.

  “You will do well not to test me,” Roland said as he bowed the iron bars of the cage in his bare hands. “As of now you are simply to be kept, however, should you attempt to escape I would be duty bound to use whatever means necessary to ensure that you remain in custody.”

  Roland fixed each of them with his gaze. He found, however, that the mage seemed uninterested, the fighter unimpressed, and the slight man, that he presumed was a thief, preoccupied.

  Roland, ego bruised, returned to the tavern to find Eldryn standing in the door with an extra mug in his hand.

  “I thought you might need a hand there for a moment,” Eldryn said as he looked down the street toward Sanderland’s dust.

  “A hand with what?” Roland asked, genuinely bewildered.

  “It looked as though you were trying to prod him into a fight,” Eldryn said.

  “Me prod him? He was the one looking to embarrass me. That is always the way with those ‘Holier than thou’ soldiers.”

  “Didn’t your father teach you anything about respecting a knight’s authority?”

  “He taught me to judge a man by the man, not by the brush or emblem he wears.”

  “That chip on your shoulder is going to bear your mighty frame to the ground some day.”

  “What do you know of it?” Roland asked sharply.

  “I know that your pride is as dangerous to you as it is to any other man. Do you forget that we are still boys?”

  Roland swelled at that and Eldryn thought for a moment he would strike him. Then Roland let the wind out of his lungs and lowered his head.

  “You are right, El. We are still boys and unproven warriors, but not even a pig enjoys being called swine.”

  “Our time will come,” Eldryn assured with a patience that was his custom.

  The two young men went inside, finished their meals, and drank three more mugs of ale before rising. Then they walked to the front steps of the tavern where Eldryn took a wrap of smoking leaf from his vest. He offered it to Roland who simply bit the end off of it and worked it into his jaw. Eldryn fired the remaining smoking leaf on the ever-burning lamp next to the door of the tavern. Both boys enjoyed their man’s habit in the cool afternoon on the front porch of the tavern watching the time pass with the traffic of the market street.

  Across the street in the jail a familiar scene played itself out. This time, however, it ended differently. One of the horse thieves, probably a man of the Great Men line but long since pure by the look of his size, sauntered over to the slight man brought in by Sanderland. The smaller of the spies, who was sitting in the corner of the large cell, seemed not to notice him.

  “I am Greely,” the horse thief said, looking down at the boy who was maybe fifteen years of age. “While you are here you will give me your food dish when it comes. If you hesitate, or report it, I will beat you without mercy. Is that clear little man?”

  “I am The Shanks,” the slight man said politely. “I assure you that I will not hesitate.”

  The Shanks’s words were spoken with a calm and agreeable tone. The sort of tone one lady may use to address another in a house of worship. The tone camouflaged the nature of this little fellow.

  The Shanks was sitting with his legs outstretched as Greely stood over him. The Shanks hooked the toe of one foot behind Greely’s right leg and kicked Greely’s right knee swiftly with his other foot. Greely’s knee crackled as the kneecap, and the surrounding cartilage, was shattered and separated. The resulting shards of bone pushed into the muscles and tendons that bound the joint.

  Greely gasped and toppled to the ground. He held his leg, barely able to stifle a scream as he bit into the cuff of his shirt. They all knew that if a fight broke out and the alarm was raised then they would likely all get beaten, and the ones marked to be hung would find themselves marching toward the gallows ahead of schedule.

  The Shanks continued to sit in the same position, and appeared as though he hadn’t stirred a muscle. This was not his first time as a captive, and when one is bound by iron the world inside is much the same regardless of the continent.

  “Understand this,” The Shanks continued in his polite tone. “You will now dance on the gallows with a significant limp. I have not the time, nor the patience, to put up with your foolishness. Therefore, if you so much as cause a foul smell that drifts in my direction, then you will not only dance with a limp, but you will do it gelded.”

  Everyone in the cell, including The Shanks’s traveling companions, reassessed the small man. The Shanks pulled a small root from the waistband of his trousers that had been concealed in the hem. He looked at the root and then looked over the other inmates.

  Roland and Eldryn had been friends since their earliest days, even before school and training at the local academy on the east side of Gallhallad. Gallhallad was the city that was home to the lord of those lands, Lord Bessett.

  Not many could afford to enter their children in the schools. Eldryn’s tuition was a reward to his family for his father’s death in service. A death they all suffered from during the battles with Tarborat. Roland knew that his father wasn’t rich, but somehow, he managed to pay for Roland’s training. This was another topic Roland had often pondered, but Velryk wasn’t the sort of man that invited questions. He was sure that it had some tie to Velryk’s service in the King’s army, but that was another subject Velryk was quiet about.

  When Roland and Eldryn were not training at the academy they spent their time learning at Velryk’s knee. Velryk and Eldryn’s father, Ellidik, were friends during their days together in the armies. Velryk never talked of it, and Eldryn’s mother only mentioned it rarely, regardless of how hungry the boys were for stories of their fathers in combat.

  Roland’s training further included reading of the great scholars, reading that was required by Velryk. Eldryn’s reading was limited to the Holy Book of Bolvii and The Code of The Cavalier. Ellidik was a cavalier of the old Code. That book was the only thing of Ellidik’s that Velryk managed to rescue from the battlefield the day that his friend fell.

  Roland had wondered often why Velryk had returned from the wars to watch over him. It was true enough that his mother had died before he was walking, but there were mothers enough that had taken in the sons and daughters of warriors abroad.

  Now, as Roland’s thoughts drifted over the past and unanswered questions, the boys enjoyed their habits in the quiet of the afternoon. They knew a peaceful silence that passed between them that only true friends can experience.

  After an hour of watching the people in the market and along the street, Eldryn spoke. It seemed Eldryn was always the one to speak first.

  “Since you father
will be away, you should eat with mother and I tonight. It has been some time since she has seen you.”

  “I must watch the jail. Father’s deputies are not the sort to leave responsible for spies. Especially spies that manage to conceal their equipment, weapons, and symbols from their captor.”

  The young men shared a laugh at Eldryn’s imagined and animated account of Sanderland explaining to one of the high clerics that he doesn’t even know for certain who the ‘spies’ work for.

  “Very well,” Eldryn began, hoping that Roland would accompany him but knowing that he would not. “I will be off. I have my afternoon exercises and my riding.”

  “Yes,” Roland replied, quietly. “I have my exercises and my reading.”

  Eldryn started up the street toward his stabled horse looking forward to the talk he and his mount would share. There were many times that a silent animal was just as good in conversation as Roland. Roland spit into the dust, hoping to look older than he was, and walked across the way to the jail.

  chapter Ii

  Escape and Pursuit

  ROLAND LOOKED OVER THE PRISONERS to find them speaking in low tones among themselves when he entered the jail. He conducted another head count and all were there. He noticed that one seemed very pale and had attempted some sort of field dressing on his right leg. He thought to inquire but remembered one of his lessons. A lesson about a serpent that feigned injury. A lesson about a trap. The fellow would hang before many more breakfasts would pass. A man facing death might try anything. He noted that one of the deputies had brought them food, and, satisfying himself that all was well, went about his own business.

  Eldryn, of course, would have been happy to talk at length with any of those jailed. Roland thought about the duality of his friend. Eldryn’s studies were focused with no time for ideas or philosophies beyond the old Code and the way of the Cavalier. But, when not at study, his conversation and interest were markedly diverse.