R. Salvatore - The Bear

"Or to Vanguard," Bransen replied. "To the wilds of the north beyond the reach of Yeslnik's soldiers. I will gather Cadayle and Callen, and we will be gone across the gulf. To all the world the Highwayman will be dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes."

"That is how you want it?"

"Yes."

"And those who would benefit from the work of the Highwayman should be content with their miserable lot in life, because the Highwayman could not be bothered to champion them?"

"I care not," Bransen declared. "My road is my own to choose, and my responsibility is to myself and to my wife and family."

Reandu grinned just a bit, but did not let it widen to mock Bransen. But in truth, the monk didn't believe Bransen at all here, though he expected that Bransen was sincere about his own blather. Despite his protests to the contrary, Bransen cared for the common men and women of Honce.

Reandu saw no point to pressing the issue at that time, though. Bransen would have to work through this newest self-deception as he had the previous one.

With a curt bow, Bransen walked off to get some breakfast, leaving Reandu to stand alone in the middle of the monk enclave, for though he, too, was hungry, the monk decided that it would be better to give Bransen distance at that time. The young man needed to sort out what was truly in his heart and mind, and only Bransen could provide his own answers.

The army was on the march soon after, and it was a swift march indeed, as Reandu had promised. They continued east around the same ridgeline from which Bransen had levitated two nights previous, then turned southeast, a straight line for the still distant city of Ethelbert dos Entel. The sun disappearing in the west, they had just ended the march to settle in for the night when Bannagran's chariot rumbled into the midst of the monks.

Reandu rushed to greet him. Before the monk could even speak a word Bannagran told him to get into the chariot.

"There will be a parlay," the Laird of Pryd explained. "You will stand beside me."

"A parlay? With whom?"

"Climb up," Bannagran reiterated.

Reandu motioned to direct Bannagran's gaze to the side near a stretch of thick pines where Bransen loitered.

Bannagran flicked the reins to get his team moving, eight other chariots sweeping in his wake. He didn't continue through the monk enclave, nor did he turn back as Reandu had expected. Instead the chariot veered toward the young warrior standing alone by the pines.

"A parlay with Laird Ethelbert's representatives, perhaps including the ones you seek," Bannagran explained to Bransen.

Bransen rushed up, and Bannagran motioned to the next chariot in line, then set his team moving again, this time back the way he had come. Bransen had barely set his feet on the floorboards before the second chariot in line rumbled away.

The remaining seven came behind in a line, the ground shaking under the pounding hooves and rolling wheels. Cheers from the soldiers went up wherever they passed, all splendid in their shining bronze, the world trembling beneath them. Though he was not driving, Bransen felt nearly giddy with power up here. He had never done battle from such a perch, nor had he fought extensively against charioteers, but suddenly he understood why so many footmen fled before such a sight as the armored carts.

They crossed out of the vast encampment at its forward point, the intersection of the eastern and southern roads. To the south they went, Bannagran maintaining the lead.

"He is the laird," Bransen said to his driver, nearly shouting so that he could be overheard above the rumble of hoof and wheel. "Shouldn't he be in the middle or near the rear of the procession?"

"Not Laird Bannagran, nay!" the driver replied. "Never does he shield himself with his lessers. Laird Bannagran is the first to the battle and the last to leave the field."

And so you love him, Bransen thought but did not say. Despite his sour mood and their unpleasant history, he had to admit his own respect for Bannagran. He compared this laird's actions with those of the foppish Yeslnik, who no doubt would have sent others to parlay while he himself hid at the rear of his great army, surrounded by elite guards several ranks deep.

And surely Bannagran knew that truth about the fool king as well, and yet, unbelievably, the man showed such loyalty to the crown!

Bannagran pulled his chariot off the right-hand side of the road and onto a grassy lea shaded by the canopy of a line of large oak trees. Acorns of past seasons crackled under the press of the wheels, and dried leaves rustled and flew from the breeze. The three chariots immediately following with attendants turned with the laird, but with practiced precision the next three rumbled along the road right past the meeting point while the remaining two held far back to the north. As his chariot came to a stop, Bransen jumped down and moved out onto the road to watch the lead teams. They climbed a slight incline to the south to the highest point of the road, and there two pulled up while the third turned about to serve as relay for any information to the main encampment.

"Keep them tethered and ready," one of Bannagran's charioteers told the two attendants who had ridden with the third and fourth team. "If Laird Ethelbert has treachery planned we will turn it back upon him in swift manner."

Bransen noted that the man lifted his voice with that last promise to make sure that Bannagran heard, no doubt.

"Laird Ethelbert has no treachery planned," the laird replied with certainty and an obvious bit of annoyance.

The three charioteers began sorting out the proprieties of the planned meeting, while Master Reandu stayed near to Bannagran, who moved to the far side of the line of oaks and was staring off to the southwest. Bransen moved nearer to them, subtly hoping to overhear.

"It will be his surrender," Reandu was saying. "Ethelbert's men have little fight left in them. They know they cannot win."

"Laird Ethelbert is a proud man," Bannagran replied.

"Which is why he will come out to you. Never would he hand his sword to King Yeslnik. But there is no dishonor in surrendering to the Bear of Honce and the army of Pryd, not after the reputation you and your followers have rightly earned in the course of this war. Was it not Bannagran who sent Laird Ethelbert fleeing from Pryd when Ethelbert thought the field was surely won?"

Bannagran didn't respond, but Bransen knew that the sour look on his face was honest humility.

This was the man who had brought such misery to Garibond Womak, Bransen reminded himself. This was the man who came for Bransen to castrate him in some Samhaist nonsense ritual whereby Bransen's genitals would have been sacrificed so that Laird Prydae would be virile once more. And when Garibond had thrown himself down, pleading mercy for Bransen, who was still but a boy back then, Bannagran, this man before him now, had dragged Garibond away.

Later, when Father Jerak of Chapel Pryd had declared Garibond a heretic, Bransen's beloved adoptive father had been burned at the stake. And they were both complicit. Both of them! Reandu and Bannagran had been a part of that execution, if not a part of the decision itself.

Bransen had to keep reminding himself of that truth.

Bransen felt itchy, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. The world was too harsh, too vile, and even these men, to whom he had to admit some affinity, particularly to Reandu, were part of that hardness.

"Never forget that," he heard himself saying, though he hadn't meant to speak aloud, and when he did, both Bannagran and Reandu turned to regard him.

"Forget what?" the laird asked tersely.

"That you have a history of battle with Laird Ethelbert," Bransen stammered, his weakness of voice caused by desperate improvisation and not by the bubbling and babbling Stork. "Laird Ethelbert is an honorable man, perhaps, but he is one who has been bitten hard by the cold iron of Bannagran of Pryd."