Authors: John Flanagan

Tags: #Fantasy, #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Action & Adventure, #General

The Outcasts (25 page)

BOOK: The Outcasts

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Hal nodded. “It certainly feels better than the one they issued to me.”

Erak grunted. “Anything would. Those issue weapons are pretty dreadful. And good swords are hard to come by. Thorn!” he said, distracted by the other man’s rifling through his belongings. “Are you looking for something in particular, or just planning on robbing me blind?”

“You had three or four Gallican shields,” Thorn replied. “Thought you might contribute one to the boy. They’ve issued him the wheel off an oxcart.”

“Behind that stuffed bear,” Erak told him, pointing.

Thorn looked behind the huge stuffed bear, which had been in Erak’s storehouse for some years and looked rather the worse for wear—or, rather, moths. There was a clatter of metal as he dragged a shield into view, several others falling to the floor as he did so. He left them where they lay and handed the shield to Hal. It had a wood frame, covered with a curved metal sheet and painted deep blue, with a white diagonal stripe. The top edge was a straight line. The sides started out straight but halfway down they formed into a curve so that they joined in a point at the bottom. Hal slipped his arm through the leather loop and gripped the handhold, testing the feel.

“That’s a lot lighter,” he said appreciatively.

“The Galls make good shields,” Erak told him. “Mind you, it’s a bit light to block an ax stroke directly. Try to deflect the ax as much as you can.”

“How do I do that?” Hal asked. Surprisingly, Erak looked to Thorn and it was he who answered.

“Don’t present the shield straight on to the stroke. Slant it so the ax glances off. In a pinch you can block it. But don’t do it too often.” He frowned at Hal. “Didn’t hear you thank the Oberjarl for giving you the shield,” he said.

“Oh! Yes, thank you, Oberjarl,” Hal said.

Erak grinned. “I don’t recall I had much choice. Thorn ordered me to hand it over, didn’t he?”

Thorn snorted and muttered disdainfully and Hal smiled in return.

“Well, thanks anyway. And thanks to you, Thorn, for the sword.” Thorn shrugged the thanks aside and motioned toward the door.

“It was yours by rights, anyway,” he said. “Now come on. Time you were getting back to the barracks.”

Erak held up a hand. “If you don’t mind, Thorn, I’d like a word in private with Hal. Could you wait outside for a few minutes?”

“What do you want to talk about?” Thorn asked, and Erak looked at Hal, his head inclined to one side.

“Hal, do you understand the phrase ‘a word in private’?” he asked. Hal nodded and the Oberjarl continued. “Later on, can you explain it to Thorn?”

“Oh, all right!” Thorn said, his curiosity frustrated. “I’m going. Don’t be too long.”

chapter
twenty-one

E
rak waited until the door closed behind Thorn. He looked around, saw a wooden chest with a padded top and sat down, motioning for Hal to find a seat for himself among all the clutter. When the boy was seated, on a small stool carved in the shape of an elephant, the Oberjarl regarded him for several long moments.

Hal realized that Erak wasn’t quite sure how to begin. We could sit here in silence until this elephant comes to life, he thought.

“So, Oberjarl?” he prompted.

Erak started as he realized he’d been sitting staring at the boy.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” he said and Hal frowned, puzzled by his words.

“Thank me?” he said. “For what?”

“For what you’ve done for Thorn,” the Oberjarl replied.

“What I’ve done? I’ve done nothing. He’s doing things for me.” Hal pointed to the sword and the shield, leaning against a statue of a whiskery Teutlandt king. “I’ve done nothing.”

But Erak was shaking his head. “You’ve done a lot more than you know. You’ve given him a focus for living. You mean a great deal to him.”

“Well, we’re friends, I know that, but—”

“It’s more than that, Hal,” Erak interrupted him. “He’s proud of you. He sees so much potential in you and he wants you to succeed. You’ve dragged him out of that well of self-pity and depression he dug for himself after he lost his hand. That was nearly the end of him, you know.”

“I can imagine,” Hal said thoughtfully. “It must have been a terrible thing to face up to.”

“Worse than you can imagine.” Erak paused once more and Hal sensed he was trying to decide whether to continue any further. Then he nodded slightly to himself as he came to a decision.

“How much do you know about Thorn?” he asked.

Hal thought, then shrugged. “Well, not a lot, really. He was a friend of my father. He was a member of your crew. But then he became a bit of a drunk after he lost his hand—”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Erak interjected and Hal continued.

“Yes. Then my mam gave him a bit of a talking-to and he straightened himself out …”

“That she did,” Erak said, smiling. Hal looked up.

“When my mam gives you a talking-to, you tend to listen,” he said, with heartfelt sincerity. He’d been on the receiving end of more than one in his life.

“Since then, he’s helped around Mam’s eating house, doing odd jobs and chores. But …” He paused, trying to frame his thoughts into words. Lately, he’d been seeing hints of a different side to Thorn.

“But what?” Erak prompted.

Hal frowned. “He seems to know a lot about fighting, and weapons and so on.” He indicated the sword and shield beside him.

“He should,” Erak told him. “He was the Maktig.”

“Thorn?” Hal’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Thorn was the Maktig?”

The Maktig, or the Mighty One, was the highest pinnacle of achievement a Skandian could aim for—the champion warrior of all Skandia. To be the Maktig, a warrior had to possess superlative strength, agility, speed and endurance. He had to excel with all weapons—ax, sword, spear and saxe knife. And with no weapons. He had to beat all comers in a grueling annual challenge for the position. The Maktig was revered and respected throughout the country. The Maktig was a larger-than-life figure—a hero worthy of the great sagas.

The Maktig was definitely not a tattered, shabby, tangle-bearded tramp sleeping in a grubby, evil-smelling lean-to.

“Gorlog and Orlog!” Hal muttered. Orlog was Gorlog’s lesser-known brother, only invoked in moments of great stress or surprise. “Thorn was the Maktig?” He still couldn’t believe it.

“Three years running,” Erak told him.

“WHAT?” Hal’s voice cracked. As far as he knew, nobody had ever been Maktig for more than one year. It simply couldn’t be done.

“Nobody else has ever achieved that,” Erak told him, confirming his thought, at least in part. “The second year, the man he beat was his best friend, Mikkel. Your father. Mikkel was good, but his ax skills weren’t quite up to scratch.” He nodded toward the sword. “He was a swordsman. But Thorn was immensely strong and skillful with all weapons. And he was fast. So very fast. Fast and powerful and deadly. I doubt there’ll ever be another to achieve what he did.”

He let Hal absorb this amazing news for some seconds. Then he continued, with a sad note in his voice.

“That’s why it hit him so hard when he lost that hand. When someone’s raised up so high, they have a long way to fall. In one stroke, Thorn lost his ability, his status, his sense of worth and his career. He went from being a man everyone looked up to, to a man everyone pitied. What made it even worse was that, when Mikkel was dying, he asked Thorn to protect you and your mother. Thorn couldn’t see how a one-armed man could do that. He felt he’d let down his friend. And you, and your mam.”

“No wonder he started drinking,” Hal said, almost to himself. He looked around the treasure room, his gaze lighting on the trunk at the back that belonged to Thorn.

“He was lucky you were a friend—and you kept him from squandering all his treasure,” he said.

Erak pursed his lips uncomfortably. “I owed him that.”

“Because you were his skirl?” Hal asked. In the few days he had spent as a brotherband skirl, he had begun to realize that in a crew, loyalty traveled both ways. A skirl had to be loyal to his crew, just as they had to be loyal to him.

“Partly,” Erak agreed. “But mainly because I was the one who cut off his hand.”

The terrible words were said almost casually, and for a moment or two, Hal didn’t realize their import. Then his jaw dropped.

“You?” he gasped. “But … I thought he lost it in battle? I just assumed that …” He paused. He didn’t really know what he’d assumed.

“It was the voyage when your father died. We were caught in an early storm off Cape Shelter on the way home. Just blew up out of nowhere. Before I knew it, we were taken aback and dismasted. There was a tangle of wreckage over the side, dragging us down. Thorn was the first one to get there and start cutting it loose. He reached over the side to clear a piece of mast and his right hand became tangled in the mess of ropes. Then we got it cut free before we realized he was caught up in it. The mast was going over the side and he was going with it. I only had seconds to act.”

“You cut off his hand?” Hal said, horrified at the decision the Oberjarl had been faced with.

Erak nodded. His expression was bleak.

“I had to choose. Let him lose his hand or his life. Later, he told me he wished I’d let him go over the side with the mast.” He shook his head at the memory.

“I don’t think I’d have the courage to do what you did,” Hal said. Erak shrugged.

“It wasn’t so brave,” he said. “It wasn’t my hand. Anyway”—he gathered himself, shaking off the memory of that terrible day—“that’s why I’m so glad to see Thorn with an interest in life. He can see you have abilities far beyond his, and he wants to help you.”

“My abilities? But he was the Maktig! What can I do?”

“You’re a thinker. A planner. And you’re rapidly becoming a leader from what Sigurd tells me. Look, I can go out into the street and find at least a hundred men who are good axmen. But leaders? Thinkers? They don’t come along too often and Thorn knows it. He sees it in you.” He smiled. “We had a little bantam rooster of a fellow through here a few years back who helped us see off the Temujai. He was a leader and a planner.”

“That was the Ranger, wasn’t it? From Araluen?”

“That’s the one. I actually got to like him, in spite of myself. Thing is, we need people like him. And you,” he added.

Hal shook his head thoughtfully. “I’d never thought of myself that way.”

“Well, start doing so,” Erak told him. “On top of everything else, you’re a fine helmsman. Very few men could have brought that ship in the way you did the other day. That’s a skill that can’t be taught.”

Hal grinned. “My knees were like jelly while I was doing it,” he said. “I was terrified I’d ram
Wolfwind
.”

“And you should have been,” Erak agreed. “I didn’t say you were smart, just skillful.”

Hal grinned. “Point taken,” he said. Then he became serious. “Thanks for telling me about Thorn, Erak.”

“That’s all right. I felt it was time you knew. But don’t tell Thorn you know. He doesn’t like to be reminded of what he once was. It hurts too much to remember.”

“How could people have forgotten that he was the Maktig?” Hal asked, but Erak merely pulled a face.

“It was a long time ago, almost twenty years—before you were born. People age and other people forget. And after all, Thorn hasn’t exactly behaved in a way that would make them want to remember, has he? People don’t like it when they think their idols have let them down.”

“I guess that’s true,” Hal said. “Thank you again. I won’t let on to Thorn that you told me.” He paused, then said, “I suppose I’d better be going or I’ll miss the dinner call at camp.”

Erak waved a hand toward the door. Hal collected the sword and shield and picked his way through the jumbled treasures.

“How do you like my fountain?” Erak called after him.

Hal looked again at the naked little boy posed on the edge of the marble bowl.

“It’s very … artistic,” he said.

Erak screwed up his face thoughtfully. “I can’t get it to work. Maybe you could look at it sometime? I hear you’re good with things like that.”

“Maybe,” Hal said doubtfully, reaching for the door handle. Time he got out of here, he thought. But as he opened the door, Erak had one last thing to say.

“Hal,” he called. “Thorn has big expectations of you. Don’t let him down.”

Outside, he found Thorn waiting, kicking idly at the dust in the street. Several small children were standing at a safe distance, staring at him. They had never seen such a ragged, untidy figure in their lives. He looked up as Hal emerged from the Great Hall, glaring at him suspiciously.

“So what was all the talking about?” he demanded.

Hal shrugged. “Nothing much. He asked how the training was going.”

Thorn’s suspicions were somewhat assuaged, but not completely. He thrust his face closer to Hal’s. “Did he say anything about me?”

BOOK: The Outcasts

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