R. Salvatore - The Bear

"In Alpinador, a band of powries fought beside us in our struggle with Ancient Badden, for they, too, would have perished by his hand. It is possible that they are among this force, but by word of the courier it seems that the whole of the Weathered Isles have emptied onto the shores of Honce. This is not the doing of Dame Gwydre-never would she set such a scourge upon the land as that."

"Bransen the Highwayman will support our claims," Milkeila added. "He was there with us when we battled Ancient Badden. The powries of Lake Mithranidoon were the ones who first rescued him after his fall from the glacier."

Reandu's face screwed up incredulously at that strange information. "Bransen is gone," he replied. "To the north, I expect, and his wife at St. Mere Abelle." He paused, shaking his head. "He was there? Beside powries?"

"Common enemies make for unexpected alliances," said Cormack. "Perhaps now again, and with an alliance that will remind the folk of Honce that we are all brothers. Press your Laird Bannagran, I beg. Fate has given us a chance to heal the wounds of a land torn by war."

Reandu looked across the way toward the distant command tent of Bannagran. The monk made certain that he was in that tent with the laird when other couriers came up from along the long line of the marching army to confirm the news and order the recall of Bannagran's forces.

Reandu seized the moment, imploring Bannagran to take the offer of Laird Ethelbert to march beside Honce allies against their common foe.

The Bear of Honce offered a simple and short answer: "Shut up."

Bannagran's turn to the west was immediate, breaking camp that very afternoon. Laird Ethelbert's troupe rode hard to the south, arriving in Ethelbert dos Entel only a few hours later. Ethelbert immediately convened his generals and explained the shifting situation.

Myrick and Tyne took the same line as Affwin Wi, begging their laird to stay put, to let the powries aid their cause, but Kirren Howen stood quietly, doubt clear on his face.

"You remember those skirmishes along the black rocks of the coast," Ethelbert said.

The old general nodded. "Laird Prydae and his champion Bannagran showed well in the fighting," Kirren Howen replied. "Glad I was to be on their flank, for even then the men of Pryd Town fought better than any others-except our own, of course-Laird Delaval's soldiers included. I am not surprised that Bannagran, the Bear of Honce, has risen to such prominence among the ranks."

"Powries striking all along the river, they claim," said Ethelbert.

"They need us," Cormack dared interrupt. Several hard stares turned on him for speaking out of turn, but Ethelbert didn't look his way and kept exchanging his glance with Kirren Howen.

"Had Laird Bannagran agreed to secure our march, it might have been an opportunity to heal Honce," the general remarked.

"Indeed," was all that tired old Laird Ethelbert could manage in reply. "It might have been."

The finality of his tone stopped the budding protests of Myrick and Tyne before they could begin to mount.

"Then make it so," Cormack tried one last time to press upon them.

"If powries are climbing from the Masur Delaval, then the Mirianic Coast is not secure," Kirren Howen pointed out.

"And without the guarantee of Laird Bannagran, I would not risk a man of Ethelbert dos Entel," Ethelbert added. "Even with Bannagran's word of honor, which he did not grant, I would be a fool to put my garrison on the field near to the superior numbers of treacherous Yeslnik. You see the world with the optimism of a priest, truly, but I view it through the eyes of responsibility."

"If we do not go forth and aid against the powries, when they are defeated Yeslnik will send Bannagran and many thousands back against us," Cormack reminded. "We cannot hope to win."

"Then mayhap we should hope that the miserable bloody caps will kill enough of Yeslnik's men to deter him from that march. Or enough, perhaps, so that we can steal the advantage and destroy them all."

Cormack wanted to argue, and so obviously did he tense that Milkeila grasped his forearm and gently squeezed.

"Your bargaining is not with me, young brother," Ethelbert continued. "You wish to turn Laird Bannagran from the side of the fool Yeslnik. Go then, and quickly, and catch up to his march. If the ways of the world turn the Bear of Honce from the cause of the idiot king, he will ever have a potential ally here in Ethelbert dos Entel. We do not forget the days of yore when Bannagran and Laird Prydae fought on our flank."

He was looking at Kirren Howen as he finished, and the general nodded his complete agreement.

It was something, at least, Cormack silently mused. With Ethelbert's blessing, and that of Father Destros, he and Milkeila started out soon after, back to the northwest. Two others watched their departure. Affwin Wi and Merwal Yahna did not offer any such blessing or words of encouragement.

"I do not trust this Bannagran," Merwal Yahna remarked.

"Trust?" the woman asked as if the notion was ridiculous.

"If Ethelbert and Bannagran, and thus Yeslnik, unite against the powries, then this young king will demand retribution for the death of Delaval," Merwal Yahna clarified. "They will only find true alliance through the action of mock justice."

Affwin Wi laughed at him. "Fear not, for Ethelbert will not turn against me."

"He is a desperate man" Merwal Yahna said. "We should leave now. For Jacintha."

But Affwin Wi was shaking her head. "This work is lucrative and enjoyable. You fear these barbarians? We have Jhesta Tu hunting us back in Behr, and I would rather face the whole of Yeslnik's army than hide again in the shadows of Jacintha's streets. We will not leave."

"When a peace is brokered, we will be sacrificed to it," Merwal Yahna warned.

Affwin Wi wore a wicked smile. "Peace?"

"So let there be no peace," Merwal Yahna said, reading her perfectly.

Affwin Wi and Merwal Yahna were called to Laird Ethelbert's side again late that afternoon for a continued discussion of their options.

The three remaining followers of Affwin Wi, led by Moh Li, a man sorely injured by Bransen in the fight that had driven the Highwayman from Affwin Wi's gang, departed Ethelbert dos Entel soon after sunset, following the path of Cormack and Milkeila.

Every step he took moved him farther from his sword, from the artwork, the legacy, of his mother, Sen Wi. That thought nagged at Bransen and pulled against him like an invisible rope, but he stubbornly kept going. He focused instead on what lay ahead, on Cadayle, his beloved, pregnant with his child.

His thoughts were spinning, though. The sight of Cormack and Milkeila and their news of an alliance among Gwydre and Ethelbert and Father Artolivan had rattled him and brought him a level of discomfort more profound than he had expected or understood.

"It is not my fight," he told himself repeatedly, always trying to increase his pace. When crossing a forest he took to the trees, thinking to run across the branches as he had that night he had gone hunting for Ethelbert's scouts.

But he was not nearly as graceful; the gemstone magic was not flowing through him consistently or powerfully. And his line of ki-chi-kree shivered. Instances of the Stork pulsed through him, terrible moments when he feared that all of his coordination would flee, leaving him flailing and helpless upon the ground.

Still he kept going. What he lacked in speed he made up for with endurance, walking long into the night and moving again at first light. He didn't recognize the trails this far to the east, though, and so he kept his road straight to the north. To the gulf, he figured, then a turn to the west and St. Mere Abelle. He passed by several villages, not razed like those in the south or those closer to the coast where Milwellis had wound a path of destruction similar to that of King Yeslnik on their respective retreats from Ethelbert dos Entel.