John Flanagan: The Icebound Land

He would be a lord, with a castle, and men-at-arms and servants to do his bidding!

"Two things." Halt interrupted his thoughts. "You'll release those people in the cages immediately. As for the rest of the castle servants and slaves, I'll give them their choice of whether they stay or go. I'll not bind them to you in any way."

The captain's heavy brows darkened at the statement. He opened his mouth to protest, then hesitated as he saw the look in Halt's eyes. It was cold, determined and utterly without pity.

"To you or your successor," he amended. "The choice is yours.

Argue about it and I'll put the choice to whoever replaces you after I kill you."

And as he heard the words, Philemon realized that Halt would have no hesitation in carrying out the threat. Either he or the muscular young swordsman on the battlehorse would have no trouble taking care of him.

He weighed the alternatives: jewels, gold, a well-stocked castle, a force of armed men who would follow him because he would have the wherewithal to pay them and a possible lack of servants.

Or death, here and now.

"I accept," he said.

After all, Philemon realized, most of the servants and slaves would have nowhere to go. The chances were good that the majority would choose to stay on at Chateau Montsombre, trusting to a weary fatalism that things couldn't really be much worse and they might just possibly be a little better.

Halt nodded slowly. "I rather thought you would."

E VANLYN WAS CONCENTRATING HARD. T HE TIP OF HER TONGUE protruded through her teeth and there was a small frown on her face as she began to trim the piece of soft leather to the correct shape.

She couldn't afford to make mistakes, she knew. She had found the piece of leather in the stable lean-to and there was only just enough for the purpose she had in mind. It was soft, supple and thin. There were other odds and ends of harness and tack in the shed but they were dried out and stiff. This was the piece she needed.

Evanlyn was making a sling.

She had finally given up trying to learn any skill with the bow.

By the time she could hit the side of a barn, she thought, she and Will would have been long dead from hunger. She sighed. Being brought up as a princess had definite disadvantages. She could do fine needlework and embroidery, judge good wine and host a dinner party for a dozen nobles and their wives. She could organize servants and sit for hours, straight-backed and apparently attentive, through the most boring official ceremonies.

All valuable skills in their right place, but none of them was much use to her in her present situation. She wished she had spent a few hours learning even the rudiments of archery. The bow, she admitted ruefully, was beyond her.

But a sling! That was a different matter. As a little girl, she and her two male cousins had made slings and wandered through the woods outside Castle Araluen, hurling stones at random targets. She recalled that she had been pretty good too.

On her tenth birthday, to her intense fury, her father had decided that it was time for his daughter to stop being a tomboy and to begin to learn the ways of a lady. The wandering and slinging ceased. The embroidering and hostessing began.

Still, she thought, she could probably remember enough of the technique to serve her now, with a little practice.

She smiled a little, remembering those privileged days at Castle Araluen. They were a far cry from all this. These days, she had new skills, she thought wryly. She could drag a pony through thigh-deep snow, sleep rough, bathe a lot less frequently than polite society might think appropriate and, with any luck, even kill, clean and cook her own food.

That is, of course, if she could get the damn sling right. She shaped the soft leather patch around a large round stone, wrapping the stone in it and pulling the soft leather tight to create a pouch. She wrapped and released over and over again, forcing the shape of the rock into the leather. Her hands were starting to ache with the effort and she seemed to recall that, as a child, servants had done this part for her.

"I'm not really much use, am I?" she said to herself.

In fact, she was selling herself short. Her reserves of courage, determination and loyalty were vast, as was her ingenuity.

Unlike someone raised to these conditions, she might not always find the best way to solve their problems. But somehow, she would find a way. She would never give in. And it was that strength of purpose and ability to adapt that would make her a great ruler, if she were ever to make her way back to Araluen.

She heard a noise behind her and turned. Her heart sank as she saw Will standing close to her. His eyes were empty, his expression blank.

For one awful moment, she thought he was looking for another dose of warmweed and she felt a real surge of fear. It had been two weeks since his last dose of the drug. When she had given him that, the packet was left virtually empty. She had no idea what would happen the next time the need clawed at him.

Each day, she lived with the constant dread that he would ask for more, mixed with a desperate growing hope that perhaps he was cured of the addiction. Since the day he had unstrung the bow, she had looked for some further sign of awareness or memory from him. But in vain.

He pointed to the water jug on the bench and she heaved a sigh of relief. She poured him a mug of water and he shambled away, his mind still locked in that faraway place only addicts know. Not cured, she thought, but at least the moment she was dreading had been postponed a little longer.

Her eyes blurred with tears. She dashed them away and turned back to her work. Earlier, she had cut two long thongs from the saddle pack, and now she attached one to either side of the pouch. She placed the stone in the pouch and swung the sling experimentally. It had been a long time, but it felt vaguely familiar. The weight of the rock felt comfortable and it nestled securely in the pouch. She glanced across at Will. He was huddled against the wall of the cabin, his eyes closed, lost to the world. He'd stay like that for hours, she knew.

"No point wasting any more time," she said to herself, then called to Will, "I'm going hunting, Will. I'll be a while."

She collected a supply of pebbles and set out. Her previous attempts with the bow had taught her that the local wildlife tended to give the cabin a wide berth now that it was inhabited. Bitter experience in the past, she thought. It was certainly nothing to do with her attempts at hunting.

As she went, she took the opportunity to practice her technique, loading a rock into the sling, whirling it around her head till it made a dull droning sound, then releasing to cast at nearby tree trunks.

At first, the results were less than encouraging. The velocity was fine but the accuracy was sadly lacking. But as she continued to practice, her old skill began to return. More and more often, the stones she flung slammed into their targets.

She did even better when she loaded two stones into the sling, doubling her chances of a hit. Eventually, satisfied that she was ready, she set out, heading for a clearing by a stream, where she had seen rabbits feeding and sunning themselves on the warm rocks.

She was in luck. A large buck rabbit was sitting on the rocks, eyes closed, ears and nose twitching as he basked in the sunlight and the heat of the sun-warmed rock beneath it.

She felt a thrill of satisfaction as she loaded two of the larger stones into the sling and began to whirl it above her head. The dull, droning sound built as the sling gathered speed and the rabbit's eyes came open as he heard it. But he sensed no danger in the sound and remained where he was. Evanlyn saw his eyes open and resisted the temptation to cast instantly. She let the sling whip around two or three more times, then released, following through with a full arm cast, straight at her target.