R. Salvatore - The Bear

"I am done with this war," he stated flatly. "To you I am a coward, then."

When Reandu didn't immediately reply, Bransen turned and walked away. "You are the bravest man I have ever known, Stork," he heard Reandu say softly behind him, and the weight of that, along with the tender reference to that helpless creature he had been, nearly cut Bransen's legs from under him.

But stubbornly the Highwayman kept going. He didn't slow until he was long out of the encampment, far up the northern road. Who is that?" Bannagran asked Reandu as they watched the approach of Laird Ethelbert and his entourage. It was the same group as the previous day but with the notable addition of a man dressed in the colors of King Yeslnik. He wasn't chained, but the look on his face and his position between the dangerous man and woman from Behr spoke volumes regarding his status.

When the group turned onto the lea, the warrior woman grabbed the prisoner hard by the wrist and twisted until a grimace appeared on his face.

Bannagran glanced all around at the many warriors and archers he had prepositioned. Unsure of how Laird Ethelbert would take his refusal of alliance and knowing now that the man had brought his assassins with him, Bannagran had duly prepared for all possibilities.

"A gift?" Bannagran asked. "A prisoner exchange?"

"A man we found wandering the road," said Ethelbert. "Searching for you." He turned to Affwin Wi and nodded, and the fierce woman shoved the poor and obviously terrified man forward.

"To recall you," Laird Ethelbert went on. "He comes with word of a powrie army swarming out of the Masur Delaval and laying waste to the riverside settlements. We had to take him captive, of course. I have a particular fear of spies in these dangerous times. Surely you understand."

Bannagran looked from Ethelbert to the courier. "It's true, Laird Bannagran," the man said with an obvious Delaval accent. "Hundreds of the little rats, and oh, but they've killed a few and more."

"Your King Yeslnik's kingdom is being assailed before it can even be formed," Ethelbert added.

"King Yeslnik bids you return with all speed-and with his army," the courier added. He glanced back at Ethelbert, who nodded for him to proceed. From his belt he produced a rolled parchment and handed it over to Bannagran. The seal was broken, but the two halves very much resembled the wax press of King Yeslnik.

Bannagran handed it to Reandu, who pulled it open and read it quietly to him. "… with all haste," Reandu finished a few moments later.

Bannagran paused and let the news sink in. "Convenient for Laird Ethelbert," he said at last. "To turn me away with your city gates nearly in sight."

Ethelbert looked to the courier. "Perhaps the old ones, or Blessed Abelle, favor me," he admitted. "But surely I have no love of powries, and this is not my doing."

"I cannot disagree," Bannagran replied, but he added the caveat, "if this man is who you claim, and if his words are true. Else, it is, indeed, your doing."

"Then you will march back to my gates even angrier," the old laird said sourly.

"There are more couriers, laird," the captured page interjected. "Most riding east along the road. They should reach the end of your long line this very day, if they have not already."

"And then you will turn for home," Ethelbert reasoned. "Only to turn back yet again and come against me once more, I expect. I do believe you will kill half your men simply from marching while my army rests and prepares."

Bannagran stared hard at him but did not respond.

"Or we could march beside Laird Bannagran," Cormack offered. "Joined in common cause against the powrie marauders."

Both Ethelbert and Bannagran looked at Cormack as if he had surely lost his mind.

"Give them a tent and food," Bannagran called to his men, and to Laird Ethelbert he added, "You may remain as my guest while I confirm this tale. Perhaps you will find yet another unlikely reprieve, albeit a temporary one."

With Ethelbert's and Bannagran's permission, Cormack and Milkeila did not remain with Laird Ethelbert and his entourage, going instead with Bannagran and Master Reandu. Cormack did not surrender his notion of joining the forces together in common cause.

"This could be our chance to end this miserable war," he pleaded with Bannagran. "An opportunity for the men of Honce to remember that they are brothers and that there are enough enemies in the wider world without them battling each other."

"Who are you?" Bannagran asked dismissively, and he walked away.

"It is not so misplaced a notion," Reandu said when he was alone with Cormack and Milkeila. "I would welcome such a resolution."

"Your own resolution, that of the church, I mean, might be harder to discover," Cormack replied. "You march with Yeslnik, thus with Father De Guilbe."

"You know him?"

"He led my mission to Alpinador," Cormack admitted. "Indeed, it was his fight with me, his determination that I be banished from the order-even executed for my crimes-that precipitated his wider argument with Father Premujon of Chapel Pellinor and ultimately with Father Artolivan, both of whom judged my cause and course correct."

Reandu stared at him and nodded, recalling all that Bransen had told him of the battle in Alpinador.

"Father De Guilbe is no voice of a just god," Milkeila dared to add.

"I bid you to reconsider your course, Master Reandu," Cormack said. "Father Artolivan and the brothers at St. Mere Abelle have spoken of you as a beacon of light in this dark night."

The skepticism on Reandu's face was clear to see.

"It is true," Cormack insisted. "I was sent to Ethelbert dos Entel to forge the alliance with Laird Ethelbert, but that alone would not suffice. Nay, to Pryd Town I was to go, to speak to you and implore you to show Laird Bannagran the justice of our cause and the injustice of Yeslnik's road. You are a man of honor, so claims Father Artolivan and Brother Pinower, and, as such, you would understand the truth of Dame Gwydre. Alas, but it saddens me to see you in the service of King Yeslnik and Father De Guilbe."

"I am no friend to De Guilbe," Reandu heard himself replying, and he could hardly believe he was speaking the thought aloud. As telling to Cormack as the words themselves was his pointed omission of De Guilbe's title, something a long-serving master of the order would never do by mistake.

Reandu, so frustrated and teetering between fear and hope, pressed on. "I serve Laird Bannagran. I serve Pryd Town, my home. If they march to war, then my brethren and I are compelled to travel beside them and tend their wounds. But whatever the outcome of this campaign in the east, I deign not to return to Chapel Pryd. My road is to St. Mere Abelle, and how that new name rolls sweetly from my lips! My fealty and that of the monks who have joined me on this march-the whole of Chapel Pryd's brothers-is to Artolivan, Father of the Order of Blessed Abelle."

Cormack and Milkeila both brightened at that surprising and welcomed revelation. "Then speak to Bannagran, your laird and your friend."

"He will not betray King Yeslnik for Laird Ethelbert," Reandu replied, and when Cormack moved to argue, he added, "Or for your Dame Gwydre, whom he does not know."

"But will he allow Laird Ethelbert to bring forth his army to join in the fight against the powries?" asked Milkeila.

"The word of a powrie force is true, then?" Reandu asked.

"The courier was from King Yeslnik, yes," said Cormack. "And by that man's words and not just the letter from Yeslnik, the powries swarm the banks of the Masur Delaval."

"It is rumored that they assailed Palmaristown at the behest of Dame Gwydre," Reandu warned, but Cormack was shaking his head with every word.

"I see doubt on your face, brother," Reandu added.