Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 1 - The Fort at River's Bend

His eyes swung to meet mine. 'Then what happened to the floor?"

"It collapsed, that's all. This fort has been here since the days of the Emperor Hadrian, remember? That was hundreds of years ago ... hundreds of years before even your Great-grandfather Varrus was born. A wooden floor will last for a long time, if it's cared for and maintained, but it will rot and decay quickly, like anything else, if it's left to the mercy of the weather, as this one was. A tree will fall and rot away to almost nothing in one man's lifetime. A flat, solid wooden floor will dry out and rot in much less time than that, if it's not-looked after. The doors would have gone first, fallen off their rusted hinges, and once they were gone, the wind and rain and damp were free to do their damage."

"Oh." His eyes had moved away and he was looking over my shoulder now, to where the southern shoulder of the Fell behind me seemed to scrape against the sky. "Would enemies attack from up there?"

I turned to look where he was pointing. "Why don't you tell me? Would they?"

His brow clouded and he moved to the wall, where he suddenly became a small boy again, lodging a toe awkwardly between two stones and straining to pull himself up to peer over the top of the parapet that barely reached my shoulder. He made the ascent on his second try and hung there, arms duelling the top, his toes pinched inward side by side in a narrow crack in the stonework, his head moving from side to side on its impossibly slender neck as he scanned the ground beyond. The mountain top he had been looking at was half a mile away from us on the other side of a steep gully, on the far side of the road from Ravenglass. He remained there for a long time, looking out silently, the wind ruffling his dark brown hair with its golden streaks. Finally he grunted and released his hold, dropping backwards to the parapet walk.

"No, they wouldn't. Can we go down now?"

"Lead the way. Why wouldn't they?"

"It's too far away, and too difficult. Anyone stupid enough to come down from there to attack would deserve to be defeated." He was skipping nimbly down the steep, narrow stone steps to the ground; I was following much more carefully. When I reached the bottom, he walked beside me, his eyes on the ground now, looking for anything that might be there waiting to be found.

"Why would they be stupid?"

He had lost interest in the far mountain top as a source of peril and was totally absorbed in scanning the ground about his feet, so that he answered without looking up at me. "Because they would have to climb up there first. That would be stupid, when there's no need. And they'd be visible for much too long on the way down ... then they'd have to climb back up from the gully before they could become dangerous to anyone. By then they'd be dead."

The red sandstone columns of the eastern gate-tower were looming in front of us by this time, and he darted ahead of me to disappear into the passageway. By the time I emerged from the portals after him, he was already half a hundred paces ahead of me, running up the long, overgrown but clearly discernible roadway that led to the flatfish drilling area beneath the frowning escarpment of the mountainside. In the south-eastern distance, I could see a tiny ribbon of the road that crested the pass between this peak and its neighbour and continued to its end by the town Derek had told me of, by the side of the Great Mere. At the crest of the road the boy stopped running, and stood, looking about him. I lengthened my stride to catch up to him.

"It's flat, Merlyn," he said as I reached him. "Why didn't they build the fort up here?"

He was right. We were standing on the edge of an area that was as flat as the great campus training ground beneath the hill of Camulod, although much smaller.

"It's more than simply flat, Arthur. It's been flattened deliberately, by men. But it's not big enough to hold the fort. You see that ramp over there?" He looked to where a narrow, sloping ramp led up to a slightly higher area that overlooked the space beneath. He nodded, slowly, his face showing puzzlement. "That's been built up, too. Can you guess why?" He shook his head, slowly. "I'll give you a hint. Think of Camulod."

Arthur shook his head, frowning. "I don't know what you mean, Merlyn ... unless you're talking about the campus. But then it doesn't make sense, Why go to all the trouble to clear just enough ground for a training area? Why not do it properly the first time, and build the camp on the flat area?" He answered his own question immediately, his whole face lighting up in a smile. "Because of time! They couldn't! This was done long after the fort was built, when there was time to do it at leisure. So it is only a training field. And that's the reviewing stand up there, just like the one built into the hillside of Camulod."

He was gone in a moment, his long, slim legs flashing as he ran and climbed to the reviewing stand, from which he looked down at me. Then, seeing that I had turned to look elsewhere, and apparently thinking himself unwatched for the moment, he became the child again, raising his hands formally and throwing himself into an unsuccessful handstand. He could not quite succeed in bringing his feet together, so that for a long, ludicrous moment he teetered there, reversed, his legs scissoring wildly before he toppled, slowly, the wrong way, to land flat on his back at great disadvantage to his dignity. Quick as a flash, he was on his feet again, dusting himself off and glancing at me almost furtively to see if I had noticed his misjudgement. I gave no sign, and he strode to the edge of the reviewing stand closest to me, drawing himself erect and frowning fiercely.

"Attenn-shun! Dress files and form your ranks on the right of line! Wait for it, Britannicus, wait for it! Hutt!"

I drew myself to attention and snapped a punctilious salute, which the boy returned with equal gravity.

"Permission to retire, Commander?" I asked.

"Permission granted. Dismissed."

I saluted again, spun about and began to make my way towards the gates again, hearing his feet flying over the ground to catch up with me.

"Will this place be ours, Merlyn? Will we live here?"

I looked at him. He was walking almost sideways now, gazing up at me with wide, anxious eyes, the full circles of his gold-flecked irises completely visible. His lean rump bore unmistakable traces of his hand-standing misadventure.

"It's possible, as I said earlier, but would we wish to? That's what we have to ask ourselves. That's why we're here today ... to answer that question."

"I would!"

I grinned. "I know you would, but that's only because it's an abandoned fort on a high mountain pass and the weather's still fine. As you said yourself, earlier, it'll be very different up here in the rain and snow. I promise you, you'd be even more aware of that with the cold winds howling through all the cracks in the walls and everything frozen solid, including your hands and feet. The adventures you think you could have here with your friends in the summertime are hardly sufficiently strong grounds for having all of us move up here to live permanently. I hope you will agree with that?"

His face fell and he lowered his head. He remained silent until we had entered the fort again and swung right, following the perimeter walk towards the northern gate. But it was not in his nature to give up without a fight. "We could fill in all the cracks in the walls, could we not?"

I laughed aloud. "Aye, perhaps we could, lad, and mount new doors and spread skins over those to keep the draughts out. All of that we could do, although it would entail months and months of work by every single person among us, including you and your friends. But there would still remain the matter of survival, of living from day to day." I stopped and laid my hand on his shoulder, waiting for him to look up and meet my eyes. "Look, Arthur, I'm not saying we will not stay here. We may well do exactly that. But you heard what I said to the others before we came in here, did you not?" He nodded.