John Flanagan - The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

'You can take my room, Lady Evanlyn. I'll sleep on one of the couches,' Alyss said quickly. But Evanlyn shook her head.

'We'll share the room, Alyss,' she said firmly. 'I don't want any special privileges. We may as well get used to it. A wolfship is too small for all that nonsense.'

Alyss was astute enough to recognise an olive branch when she saw one. She smiled at Evanlyn – a genuine smile for the first time.

'It'll be my pleasure to share with you,' she said.

The others had risen now and Selethen shook hands with them all as he bade them farewell.

'Good luck to you,' he said. Then he added, a little wistfully, 'It sounds like an interesting trip. I'm tempted to join you. Horace is a friend of mine as well. But…' He made a graceful hand gesture, dismissing the idea.

Halt nodded. 'You'd be welcome to join us any time, Selethen. But you have your own duties to attend to. We understand.'

Selethen made the Arridi gesture of greeting and farewell, touching his hand to mouth, brow and mouth again.

'Yes,' he said finally. 'I have my duty, and it's a hard mistress. But as I say, I am tempted.'

He smiled at them all and left to return to his own quarters.

They arrived at the docks just after first light. Gundar's wolfship, named Wolfwill in Will's honour, was moored alongside the jetty. Will frowned as he caught his first sight of her. He'd seen the ship when she'd been launched. But now there was something different about her.

'Something looks odd,' he said thoughtfully.

Halt was studying the ship too. 'Have they moved the mast?' he asked of no one in particular. 'It seems a little further aft than I remember.'

'And where's the cross-tree?' Will asked. Normally, the square-rigged cross-tree was set seven-eighths of the way up the mast, with the big square sail brailed up on it when in port. Wolfwill's mast was bare, aside from a complicated arrangement of rigging at the masthead, and what looked to be a pair of carefully rolled sails lying fore and aft on the deck at its base.

'All I know,' Evanlyn said, 'is that it's the fastest ship I've ever sailed on. Look, here comes Gundar. You can ask him.'

She pointed to where a familiar figure, huge as all Skandians were, was rolling in his seaman's walk along the jetty towards them.

'Will Treaty!' he bellowed, startling the gulls for a fifty-metre radius into squawking, screeching flight. Will braced himself as the huge figure approached. He knew what was coming but there was little he could do about it.

Sure enough, Gundar swept him off his feet in a breath-draining bear hug. Will could only grunt a greeting as he felt his ribs on the verge of giving way.

'Gorlog's beard, boy, but it's good to see you! I hoped we'd run across each other when Erak assigned us as the duty ship. How have you been? What have you been up to?'

'Le' go an' I'll try…tell you,' Will managed to grunt breathlessly. Finally, Gundar set him down. Will staggered as Gundar released him, and his friends were a little alarmed at the groaning intake of breath that was Will's first, reflexive response as his emptied lungs desperately sucked air back in.

Then, sighting Alyss, the huge seafarer seized her hand in one of his enormous fists and planted a smacking, clumsy kiss on it.

'Lady Alyss!' he boomed. 'How can you have grown more beautiful than you were?'

Evanlyn, it has to be admitted, pouted a little at this. Gundar had never commented on her looks and she was aware that alongside the elegant blonde girl, she was a little…tomboyish.

Alyss was grinning delightedly at him. 'Ah, Gundar, I see you haven't lost any of your courtly charm. You'd turn a girl's head with that silver tongue of yours.'

He beamed at her, then turned his attention to the grey-bearded, slightly built figure standing behind her.

'And you must be the famous Halt?' he said. 'I expected someone a little larger,' he added, half to himself, as he advanced.

Halt, experienced in the ways of Skandians, retreated at the same pace. 'Yes. I'm Halt,' he said. 'And I need all my ribs intact, thank you very much.'

'Of course you do.' Instead of bear-hugging Halt, Gundar contented himself with a firm, manly handshake. Halt's eyes glazed as he felt his fingers and knuckles crushed inside the island-sized fist. He shook his hand painfully as Gundar finally released it.

'Any friend of Erak's is a friend of mine!' Gundar glanced around curiously. 'But where's that shaggy pony of yours, Will?'

'We left our horses in Araluen,' Will told him.

Since the trip had been intended as a brief, ten-day mission to the Toscan capital, there had been no good reason to bring Tug and Abelard. They had been left in the care of Old Bob, the Ranger Corps horse breeder. Now, Will wasn't sure if he regretted that decision or not. He'd like to have Tug with him, but the sea journey to Nihon-Ja would be a long one, far longer than any Tug had undertaken before. There would be little chance of going ashore to exercise the horses, and he wasn't sure how they would have coped.

Similarly, Ebony, Will's dog, had been left behind with Lady Pauline. Ebony was only half trained and he felt her boisterous behaviour might cause problems with the rather starchy Toscan officials.

Gundar nodded vaguely. He had no idea of the soul searching that had gone on with the two Rangers before they decided to leave their horses behind. He glanced up the quay.

'And who's this Lenny Longshanks?' he said. 'Is he with you?'

The four Araluans turned quickly to look back up the jetty. Striding purposefully towards them, a pack slung over one shoulder, was a tall, slender figure.

'Temptation got too strong,' Selethen told them as he came closer. 'I decided to come with you.'

Nihon-Ja After George left them and headed down the back trail towards the port of Iwanai, Shukin picked up the pace.

Now, as they kept their horses in a steady canter along the narrow, muddy mountain track, Horace realised just how much George had been slowing them down and felt a guilty sense of relief that he'd convinced his fellow countryman to go his separate way.

The rest of the party, all of them skilled horsemen, managed easily and the local ponies, somewhat smaller than the battlehorse that Horace was used to, were sturdy and long winded. Best of all, he thought, as his mount slithered, slid and then recovered himself, they were sure-footed beasts, well used to these sloping, rough mountain trails.

One of the escort noticed the stumble and saw Horace suddenly sit up straight in the saddle before the horse recovered his footing. He rode up close beside him.

'Leave it to the horse, Or'ss-san,' he said quietly. 'He's used to this sort of terrain and he'll manage by himself.'

'So I noticed,' Horace said, between clenched teeth. When the uneven ground gave under his horse's hooves again, he forced himself to remain loose and supple in the saddle, instead of tightening his muscles and bracing himself, and trying to haul the horse's head back up again. The horse grunted as he recovered. Horace had the uncomfortable feeling that it was a grunt of grudging appreciation, as if the horse were saying to him: That's better. Just sit easily, you big bag of bones, and leave the work to me.

He reached forward and patted the horse's neck. The animal responded by shaking its head and mane.

They rode on, maintaining a steady canter for half an hour, then letting the horses walk and trot for the next twenty minutes. It was similar to the forced march pace of the Rangers, which Horace had learned from Halt and Will in their travels together. And while at first he begrudged the time spent at the slower pace, he knew that in the long run they would cover more distance in a day this way.

The sun was a milky presence, glowing weakly through the scudding grey clouds that passed over them. When Shukin judged it was pretty well directly overhead, he signalled a halt at a spot where the trail widened and formed a small, level clearing.