Raymond E. Feist - The Serpentwar Saga

Roo had been more embarrassed than angered by the incident, and when Erik had spoken to him about it afterward, he shrugged it off. He said something that had stuck with Erik ever since. He looked his boyhood friend in the eye and said, ‘Whatever happens, I have been afraid, Erik. I cried like a baby and peed in my pants when they took us to the gallows. After that, what is there left to be afraid of?’

Erik enjoyed the sea, but he didn’t think he could live the sailor’s life. He longed for his forge and horses to tend. He knew that if he survived the coming battles, that would be his choice: a forge and maybe, someday, a wife and children.

He thought about Rosalyn and his mother, Milo and Ravensburg. He wondered how they were doing, and if they knew he was alive. Manfred might have mentioned it to a guard, who might have told someone in town. But there was certainly no one who cared enough about him or his family to ensure that his mother or Rosalyn knew. He had thoughts of Rosalyn, and found them strangely neutral. He loved her, but when he imagined a wife and children, Rosalyn wasn’t there. No one was.

Roo had already made up his mind he would return to Krondor and marry Helmut Grindle’s homely daughter. Every time he said that, Erik laughed.

As the days wore on, the men became more proficient in every aspect of their training. The stories of the surviving men from the last mission and their example, their own grim determination to excel, spurred on the former prisoners to match their achievements. As well as they could aboard ship, they practiced their weapons, and on calmer days Calis worked with them on archery. The weapon of choice was a small bow used by the horsemen of the Eastland steppes, the Jeshandi. Calis had his own longbow stored in his cabin, but used the shorter weapon with ease. About half the men turned out to be good to excellent with the weapon. Roo was better than Erik, but neither youngster was among the first thirty bowmen. Those would be issued bows, Calis had said, but he wanted every man at least familiar enough with the weapon to have some chance of hitting a target.

That seemed to be the underlying pattern to the training. De Loungville and Foster would drill men with every weapon they might be forced to use, from long poll arms to daggers. Each man was marked down in a journal as to his strengths and weaknesses, but none was spared the hours of drills, even with the weapons for which he showed no aptitude. What had begun at the camp outside of Krondor continued aboard ship. Each day Erik spent a half watch using a sword, spear, or bow, a knife, mauler, or his fists, but always he was expected to improve.

The hour with Sho Pi and Nakor became the high point of the day for Erik, and the other men seemed to enjoy the exercises as well. The meditation was strange at first, but now it refreshed him and made his sleep better.

By the third month, Erik was adept at open-handed fighting, as he thought of the strange Isalani dance Sho Pi taught them. No matter how strange at first, the movements wove themselves into an arsenal of moves and counter-moves, and often without thought Erik found a sudden response, completely unexpected, coming from him during a combat drill. Once, when using knives, he almost cut Luis, who said something in Rodezian as he studied his onetime death cell companion. Then he had laughed. ‘Your “dance of the crane” has turned into the “claw of the tiger,” it seems.’ Both were moves taught him by Sho Pi, and neither had been conscious on his part.

Erik wondered what he was becoming.

‘Land ho!’ cried the lookout.

For the last two days tension on the ship had mounted. Sailors had mentioned that they were close to the point where they should be making landfall, and now every man was conscious of how long he had been confined to the ship. These large three-masted warships were provisioned well enough for the long four-month voyage, but the food was now stale or old and tired. Only Nakor’s ever-present oranges were fresh.

Erik went aloft and made ready to reef sail, as the Captain took the ship through a treacherous series of reefs. Moving past a clear patch of water, Erik looked down and saw what appeared to be part of a ship lying under ten feet of water.

An older sailor named Marstin standing next to him said, ‘That’s the Raptor , lad. Old Captain Trenchard’s ship, once the Royal Eagle out of Krondor. We sailors of the King became pirates for a time.’ He pointed toward the rocky shore. ‘A handful of us washed up there twenty-four years ago, and young Calis, with the Prince of Krondor – Nicholas, not his dad—and Duke Marcus of Crydee.’

‘You were among that party?’ asked Roo on his other side.

‘There’s a handful of us still alive. I was on my first voyage, a seaman apprentice in the King’s Navy, but I served on the best ship under the finest Captain in history.’

Roo and Erik had heard several versions of the story about Calis’s first voyage to the southern continent. ‘Where are you going once we’re dropped off?’

Marstin replied, ‘City of the Serpent River. Revenge is going to wait for you men, while Ranger is going to refit and go home with the current news. That’s what I hear, anyway.’

Scuttlebutt they called it in the navy, but it was the same gossip they’d heard. Further conversation was cut off by the order to reef the sails, and Erik and Roo got to it.

When they were done scrambling around enough to take in their whereabouts, they saw they were lying off a long, empty beach beneath a huge wall of cliffs, easily one hundred feet high. The breakers and combers indicated the area was thick with rocks, and Erik was impressed with the Captain’s ease at reaching this relatively safe anchorage.

‘Muster on deck!’ came the command, and Erik and Roo scrambled down to the deck with the others. De Loungville waited until the entire company was settled before he shouted, ‘We get off, here, ladies. You have ten minutes to get below and gather up your kits and get back up here. The boats will be putting over the side at once. We don’t dawdle. No one will be left behind, so don’t get cute ideas about dodging into the rope lockers.’

Erik was convinced the warning was unnecessary. The conversations he’d had with every other member of this company led him to judge that everyone understood there would be no quick escape from this mission. Some might not believe that everything was as Calis had said, but Nakor’s words seemed to have reached all of them, and whatever the truth of it, this band of desperate men would meet the challenge face on.

Horsemen waited at the top of the cliff. The climb had been relatively easy, as a rope-and-wood ladder had been installed on the face of the rocks. Anyone in poor health might have had difficulty with the long climb, but after four months of ship’s duty, hard upon the heels of the training at the camp, Erik had no trouble climbing with his backpack and weapons.

At the top of the bluff, Erik saw a pleasant oasis hard against the edge of the cliff. A large pool of water was surrounded by date palms and other greenery. Then he caught sight of the desert. ‘Gods!’ he exclaimed, and Roo came to his side.

‘What?’ asked the smaller youth. Biggo and the others came and looked where Erik pointed.

‘I’ve seen the Jal-Pur,’ said Billy Goodwin, ‘and it’s a mother’s kindness compared to this.’

In every direction, rock and sand greeted the eye. Save where the cliff showed ocean, there was only one color, a slate grey, dotted with darker rock. Even this late in the afternoon, the heat shimmer rising made the air ripple like bed sheets on a line, and suddenly Erik felt thirsty.

Biggo said, ‘I’d not wish this on a hound of hell.’