John Flanagan - The Icebound Land

Erak belched quietly and leaned to one side so he could scratch his backside. He was sure that Slagor's crew had brought fleas with them into the hut. It was the one discomfort they had not had to bear so far. Cold, damp, smoke and smell. But now they could add fleas. He wished, not for the first time, that Slagor's wolfship had gone down in the gales on the Stormwhite Sea.

"It's a vow," he said, unhelpfully, "that Ragnak took. Not that he had any cause to," he added. "You don't provoke the Vallas lightly.

Not if you have any sense."

"The Vallas?" Will asked. "Who are they?"

Erak looked at the dark form crouched beneath him. He shook his head in wonderment. How ignorant these Araluens were!

"Never heard of the Vallas? What do they teach you in that damp little island of yours?" he asked. Will, wisely, said nothing in reply. There were a few moments' silence, then Erak continued.

"The Vallas, boy, are the three gods of vengeance. They take the form of a shark, a bear and a vulture."

He paused, to see if that had sunk in. Will felt that this time, some comment was required.

"I see," he said uncertainly. Erak snorted in derision.

"I'm sure you don't. Nobody in their right mind ever wants to see the Vallas. Nobody in their right mind ever chooses to swear to them either."

Will thought about what the Skandian had said. "So a Vallasvow is a vow of vengeance, then?" he asked, and Erak nodded grimly.

"Total vengeance," he replied. "It's when you hate so badly that you swear to be avenged, not just upon the person who has wronged you, but on every member of his family as well."

"Every member?" said Will. For a moment, Erak wondered if there was something behind this line of questioning. But he couldn't see how information like this could help in an escape attempt, so he continued.

"Every last one," he told him. "It's a death vow, of course, and it's unbreakable. Once it's made, if the person making the vow should ever recant, the Vallas will take him and his own family instead of the original victims. They're not the sort of gods you really want any business with, believe me."

Again, a small silence. Will wondered if he had continued far enough with his questions, and decided he could try for a little more leeway.

"Then if they're so terrible, why would Ragnak-" he began, but Erak cut him off.

"Because he's mad!" he snapped. "I told you, only a madman would swear to the Vallas! Ragnak has never been too stable; now the loss of his son has obviously tipped him over the edge."

Erak made a gesture of disgust. He seemed to tire of the subject of Ragnak and the fearful Vallas.

"Just be thankful you're not of Duncan's family, boy. Or Ragnak's, for that matter." He turned back to where the firelight showed through a dozen cracks and chinks in the hut walls, casting strange, elongated patterns of light onto the wet shingle.

"Now get back to your work," he said angrily, and strode back toward the heat and smell of the hut.

Will watched him, idly sluicing the last of the plates in the cold seawater.

"We really have to get out of here," he said softly to himself.

T HERE WAS SO MUCH TO SEE AND HEAR, H ORACE DIDN'T KNOW which way to turn his head first. All around him, the port city of La Rivage seethed with life. The docks were crowded with ships: simple fishing smacks and two-masted traders moored side by side and creating a forest of masts and halyards that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. His ears buzzed with the shriek of gulls as they fought one another for the scraps hurled into the harbor by fishermen cleaning their catch. The ships, large and small, rose and fell and rocked with the slight swell inside the harbor, never actually still for a moment.

Underlying the gulls' shrill voices was the constant creaking and groaning of hundreds of wickerwork fenders protecting the hulls from their neighbors.

His nostrils filled with the smell of smoke and the aroma of food cooking-but a different aroma to the plain, country fare prepared at Castle Redmont. Here, there was something extra to the smell: something exotic and exciting and foreign.

Which was only to be expected, he thought, as he was setting foot in a truly foreign country for the first time in his young life. He'd traveled to Celtica, of course, but that didn't count. It was really just an extension of Araluen. This was so different. Around him, voices were raised in anger or amusement, calling to one another, insulting one another, laughing with one another. And not a word of the outlandish tongue could he understand.

He stood by the quay where they had landed, holding the bridles of the three horses while Halt paid off the master of the tubby little freighter that had transported them across the Narrow Sea-along with a reeking cargo of hides bound for the tanneries here in Gallica. After four days in close proximity to the stiff piles of animal skin, Horace found himself wondering if he could ever wear anything made of leather again.

A hand tugged at his belt and he turned, startled.

A bent and withered old crone was smiling at him, showing her toothless gums and holding her hand out.

Her clothes were rags and her head was bound in a bandanna that might have once been colorful but was now so dirty that it was impossible to be sure. She said something in the local language and all he could do was shrug. He had no money anyway and obviously the woman was a beggar.

Her obsequious smile faded to a dark scowl and she spat a phrase at him. Even without any knowledge of the language, he knew it wasn't a compliment. Then she turned and hobbled away, making a strange, crisscross gesture in the air between them. Horace shook his head helplessly.

A peal of laughter distracted him and he turned to see a trio of young girls, perhaps a few years older than himself, who had witnessed the exchange between him and the old lady. He gaped. He couldn't help himself. The girls, all of them extremely attractive, it seemed to him, were dressed in outfits that could only be described as excessively skimpy. One wore a skirt so short that it ended well above her knees.

Now the girls gestured at him again, aping his openmouthed stare.

Hastily, he snapped his mouth shut and they laughed all the louder.

One of them called something to him, beckoning him. He couldn't understand a word she said, and feeling ignorant and foreign, he realized his cheeks were flushing deep red.

All of which set the girls to laughing even louder. They raised their hands to their own cheeks, mimicking his blushing, and chattering to one another in their own strange tongue.

"You seem to be making friends already," Halt said behind him, and he turned, guiltily. The Ranger-Horace could never think of Halt as anything else-was regarding him and the three girls with a hint of amusement in his eyes.

"You speak this language, Halt?" he asked. Strangely, he realized, he wasn't surprised by the fact. He had always assumed that Rangers had a wide variety of arcane skills at their disposal and, so far, events had proved him to be right. His companion nodded.

"Enough to get by," he replied evenly, and Horace gestured, as inconspicuously as he could manage, to the three girls.

"What are they saying?" he asked. The Ranger assumed the blank expression that Horace was beginning to know so well.

"Perhaps it's better that you don't know," he replied eventually.

Horace nodded, not really understanding, but not wishing to look sillier than he felt.

"Perhaps so," he agreed. Halt was swinging easily up into Abelard's saddle and Horace followed suit, mounting Kicker, his battlehorse. The movement drew an admiring chorus of exclamations from the girls. He felt the flush mounting to his cheeks once again. Halt looked at him with something that might have been pity, mixed with a little amusement. Shaking his head, he led the way down the crowded, narrow waterfront street, away from the quay.