John Flanagan - The sorcerer of the North

"I've come for my dog," he said, at length. "Heard you'd stolen her and I want her back."

He glanced at the dog as he spoke and she flattened her belly to the floor, the growling intensifying as she did so.

"Shut up, you!" he shouted at her, but the dog only snarled more, baring her teeth at him.

"You certainly have a way with her," Will said. He made a quick hand gesture and she quieted instantly.

"Very clever!" Buttle sneered, now thoroughly angry. "I'll teach her manners, like I taught her last time. Little bitch tried to bite me, so I taught her."

"With that great big spear, I suppose?" Alyss asked. "How incredibly brave of you." She leaned nonchalantly against the back of the chair she'd been sitting in, assessing the bearded man coolly. Will smiled quietly to himself at her absolute composure. Buttle, on the other hand, seemed to be enraged by it.

"Don't come the high and mighty with me, girl!" he shouted. "Not you with your little knife and your secret Courier doings!" He lowered his voice and continued, "Got a secret assignment for our Ranger, have we? I'll bet there'll be those who'll pay to know about that."

Will and Alyss exchanged quick glances. Buttle saw the exchange and continued, with growing confidence.

"Oh yes, I heard you and your plotting. Rangers and Couriers, always sneaking around with secrets, aren't you? Learn to keep your voices down when John Buttle's around, you should."

He was in control of the situation now and pleased to see that he had shattered their air of unconcern. He realized now that he had overheard something important when he had been outside the door and his criminal brain was working to see how he could profit by it. Long experience told him that when there was something that somebody wanted to keep secret, there was inevitably another somebody who would pay to know about it.

"Oh dear," said Alyss to Will. "He seems to have overheard our conversation."

Buttle laughed at her. "Overheard you, all right. And there's nothing you can do about it."

Alyss seemed to consider his words for a moment, thinking them over. Then, in a very matter-of-fact way, she replied, "It seems not. Short of killing you."

As she said the words, she flipped the long dagger, catching it by its point and taking her arm back in a smooth, flowing motion. Buttle swung instantly toward her, dropping into a defensive crouch, the spear ready to thrust…

… and heard a strange hiss-clunk! followed by a jarring sensation in both hands as Will's saxe knife seemed to leap from its fleece-lined scabbard. Without pause, it swung in a chopping arc to strike his spear just behind the steel head.

Heavy as an ax, sharp as a razor, the specially tempered blade of the saxe cut through the hard ash wood as if it were cheese. The heavy head dropped to the cabin floor with a ringing thud and Buttle stared in amazement at the spear, suddenly headless and seemingly weightless in his hands. He had a half second or so to register the fact before Will, stepping toward him and pivoting again, brought the brass pommel of the saxe thudding into his temple.

At which point John Buttle lost further interest in proceedings and sagged to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

"Very neat," Alyss said, impressed in spite of herself by the speed of Wills reactions. She reversed the dagger again and replaced it in the sheath concealed by a specially cut fold in her gown.

They smiled at each other. The dog, puzzled, whimpered slightly for attention and Alyss stooped to reassure her, ruffling the fur around her ears.

"I didn't know they trained you to throw those daggers," Will said, and she shrugged.

"They don't. The blades are much too fine to go hurling them all over the place the way you Rangers do. I just wanted to distract our friend here so you could deal with him."

Will crossed to the dresser against the wall of the cabin and rummaged in one of the drawers. He withdrew several pieces of rawhide, then move to the supine figure on the floor, rolling Buttle onto his stomach and placing his hands behind his back. Will looped two small circlets of leather over the man's thumbs, then pulled them tight through a double wooden block to secure them.

Then, using a larger version of the thumb restraints, he fastened Buttle's ankles together as well.

"Very neat," Alyss said once more. He studied his handiwork and nodded.

"One of the Rangers designed them. The loops hold the thumbs and ankles and these wooden deadeyes let you tighten them without having to bother about knots."

Alyss took up her glass and sat sideways on her chair, frowning at the unconscious Buttle. "Of course, there is still a problem. What do we do with him now?"

Will began to answer, then stopped as he realized what she was thinking.

"My assignment," he said. "He knows about it."

Alyss nodded. "Exactly. We went through all this subterfuge so nobody would know you'd been sent on a mission. Now we'll have this moron blurring it out to all and sundry."

Will regarded Buttle, who still hadn't stirred. "I can have the Baron imprison him, of course. He did threaten you, and threatening a Courier is a serious offense." But Alyss shook her head decisively.

"Not good enough. There's still the chance that he'll be in contact with other prisoners, or even his jailers. And we can't risk any word of this getting out. Damn the man! We may have to kill him, Will"

She said it reluctantly, but so calmly that Will was taken aback. He looked at her with new eyes, realizing that his old wardmate had gone through a training process every bit as tough as his own. Then a thought struck him, as memory of their earlier conversation came back to him.

"I don't think it needs to come to that," he said. "I've got an idea. Give me a hand saddling my horses and I'll tell you about it."

Gundar Hardstriker leaned into the smoke and cut a sliver of beef from the joint that was hanging over the coals. He blew carefully on the hot meat, then took a bite, nodding to himself as he tasted it. It was just about right. It was yearling beef, tender and streaked with fat, and with the smoky taste of the fire overlaying the flavor of the beef itself. He looked around the clearing next to where Wolfcloud was moored hard up against the shore. His men were busy jointing and smoking the last of the beef. The mutton had already been butchered and salted. In a few more hours, he estimated, they'd be ready. Then there'd be time for a couple of hours' sleep for all hands before full tide let them start on their delayed journey across the Stormwhite.

The flames and smoke of half a dozen fires illuminated the scene and cast weird moving shadows into the trees surrounding the clearing. Wolfcloud's savage figurehead seemed to float unsupported in the smoke, the light of the flames playing on the carved teeth of the wooden wolf's head.

"Gundar!" It was Jon Tarkson, one of his sail handlers, who called from the outer edge of the clearing. The skipper's head swiveled curiously and he made out an indistinct shape emerging from the darkness. He frowned as he realized it was the Ranger. He was mounted, which seemed to be his normal state, and he was leading a second horse, burdened with a large bundle slung crosswise.

Gundar raised his hand in greeting and started forward. He had grown to like the Ranger. He respected the young man's ingenuity in finding a solution to the situation that he had found himself facing and he admired his obvious courage.

"Welcome!" he called and Will returned the greeting, then slid down from the saddle. As Gundar strode closer, picking his way through the fires and the racks of smoking meat, he realized that the bundle slung across the second horse's back was a man-unconscious, and tied hand and foot. He jerked a thumb at the still form.