Chapter Text
Chapter 3: Just Like Halt
There was silence for a couple of minutes as Halt and Will stared each other done. Halt really didn't want to go into what he did to change the Kings mind.
"Well?" Will asks.
"Will I believe you should wait. This book is bound to cover that", Crowley says coming to the rescue of his oldest friend.
Will eyed everyone. They all knew. Only he and Cassandra were really not in the loop.
"Fine. But if it doesn't come up soon. I'll be bringing this back up again", Will tells them.
"Oh joy", Halt mutters.
"What was that Halt?" Will asks him.
"Nothing. Apprentices these days have no respect for their elders", Halt retorts.
"I am no longer your apprentice Halt. And I have plenty of respect for my elders. But I also know when it is time to speak up and tell my elders if their plan is crazy", Will replies.
"You're the one that comes up with crazy plans and how on earth do you keep finding yourself in trouble?" Halt asks him glad for the subject change.
"I…"
"I'll read!" Gilan calls out to stop these two from arguing.
He quickly takes the book from Alyss and opens it to the right page.
Will sends Halt a look and Halt knew this was not over. But hopefully when the time came for Will to know the truth, he hoped Will would be equally honest with him.
Three
As the Wolfship rounded the point and reached the shelter
"Oh, great we are back to this again", Will grumbles, "Couldn't we have just stayed on Halt's bit?"
Halt was relieved and that his banishment wasn't next. He also was glad to know more of what happened to Will and Cassandra.
of the bay, the heavy swell died away, Inside the small natural harbour, the tall, rocky headlands broke the force of both wind and swell as that the water was flat calm, its surface broken only by the spreading V of the Wolfship's wake.
"Is this Skandia?" Evanlyn asked.
"No way near", Crowley tells them.
"We know that now", Cassandra states rolling her eyes.
Will shrugged uncertainly. It certainly didn't look the way he had expected. There were only a few small ramshackle huthuts on the shore, with no sign of a town. And no people.
"It doesn't seem big enough, does it?" he said.
Svengal, coiling a rope nearby, laughed at their ignorance.
Halt growls lowly at that.
"This isn't Skandia", he told them, "We're barely halfway to Skandia. This is Skorghijl"
Seeing their puzzled looks, he explained further, "We can't make the full crossing to Skandia now. That storm in the Narrow Sea delayed us so long that the Summer Gales have set in. We'll shelter here until they're blown out. That's what those huts are for"
Will looked dubiously at the weathered timber huts, They looked grim and uncomfortable.
"Where they uncomfortable?" Jenny asks.
"Yes and we were there a while", Will replies.
"How long with that take?" he asked and Svengal shrugged.
"Six seeks, two months. Who knows?"
"You were there for that long?" George asks.
"Could be. The days seemed to blend together then. So, I am not quite sure", Cassandra tells them.
"I think what Svengal said was acuate. But as Cassandra said the days seemed to blend together", Will adds.
He moved off, the coil rope over one shoulder and the two young people were left to survey their new surroundings.
"I don't think there is much to see", Sir David comments.
Skorghijl was bleak and uninviting place of bare rock, steep granite cliffs and a small level beach where the sun and salt-whitened timer huts huddled. There was no tree or blade of greed anywhere in sight. The rims of the cliffs were scattered with the white of snow and ice, The rest was rock and shale, granite black and dull grey. It was as if whatever gods Skandians worshipped had removed all vestige of colour from this rocky little world.
"Sounds horrible", Gilan states before going back to reading.
Unconsciously, without the need to battle that constant backward set of the waves, the rowers slackened their pace. The ship glided across the bay to the shingle beach, Erak, at the tiller, kept her in the channel that ran deep right up to the water's edge, until the keel finally grated into the shingle and the Wolfship was, for the first time in days, still.
Will and Evanlyn stood., their legs uncertain after days of constant .
The ship rang with the dull thuds of timber on timber as the oars were drawn inboard and stowed. Erak looped a leather thong over the tiller to secure it and prevent the rudder banging back and forth with the movement of the tide. He glanced briefly at the two prisoners.
"Go shore if you like", he told them. There was not need to restrain them or guard them in any way.
Skorghijl was an island, barely two kilometres across at its widest point. Apart from this one perfect natural harbour that had made it a refuge for Skandians during the Summer Gales, Skorghijl's coast was an interrupted line of sheep cliffs, dropping into the seas.
"So, no chance of escape", Horace states.
"No there wasn't. There was only one way off that island and that would have been the Wolfship", Will replies.
"And there was no way we could have stolen the ship and headed back to Araluan. We would probably be dead if we had done", Cassandra adds.
Will and Evanlyn moved to the bow of the ship, passing the Skandians, who were unshipping barrels of water and ale and sacks of dried food from the sheltered spaces below the centre deck. Will climbed over the gunwale, hung full length for a few seconds then dropped to the shale below. Here, with the prow canted up it had slip up the beach there was a considerable drop of the stones. He turned to help Evanlyn, but she was already dropping after him.
They stood uncertainly.
"My God", Evanlyn muttered, feeling herself sway as the solid land beneath her seemed to roll and pitch. She stumbled and fell to one knee.
"Where you alright?" Duncan asks his daughter.
"I was fine Dad. It was just after being on that ship for days and throw a storm that land felt unsteady for just a little bit", Cassandra replies.
Will was in no better state. Now that the constant movement had ceased, the dry land beneath them seemed to heave and lurch, He placed one hand against the timbers of the boat to stop himself from falling.
"What is it?" he asked her. He started at the ground beneath his feet, expecting to see it forming and rolling into hummocks and hills. But it was flat and motionless. He felt the first traces of nausea gathering in the pit of his stomach.
"Look out down there!" a voice from above warned, and a sack of dried beef thudded onto the pebbles beside him.
He looked up, swaying uncertainly, into the grinning eyes of one of the crew.
"Got the land-wobbles, have you?" he said, not unsympathetically, "Should be all right again in a few hours' time"
Will's head spun. Evanlyn had managed to regain her feet. She was still swaying, but at least she wasn't assailed by the same nausea that Will was feeling. She took his arm.
Alyss looks at Cassandra and frowns.
"Come on", she said, "There are some benches up there by those huts. We might be better off sitting down:
And, lurching drunkenly, they stumbled through the shingle to the rough wooden benches and table that were set outside the huts.
Will sank gratefully onto one, holding his head in his hands and resting his elbows on his knees for support. He groaned in misery as another wave of nausea swept over him.
Crowley and Gilan chuckle.
"Your like Halt but on land", Gilan laughs.
Will rolls his eyes, "I am NOT bad"
"It doesn't sound like it", Alyss teases.
Evanlyn was in slightly better shape. She patted my shoulder.
"What's causing this?" she said in a small voice.
"It happens when you've been on board ship for a few days", Jarl Erak had approached behind them. He had a sack of provisions slung over one shoulder and he swung it down to the ground outside the door of one of the huts, grunting slightly with the effort.
"For some reason", he continued, "your legs seem to think you're still on the deck of a ship. Nobody knows why. It'll only last a few hours and then you'll be fine.
"I can't imagine ever feeling fine again", Will groaned in a thick voice.
"You will be", Erak told him, "Get a fire going", he said brusquely. He jerked a thumb towards a blackened circle of stones a few metres from the nearest hut, "You'll feel better with a hot meal inside you"
"That was nice of him", Pauline comments, "Slaves are not normally treated that well"
"We know", Will and Cassandra mutter together.
Everyone looks at them.
"We took the kindness when we could because it was unlikely, we would be getting much more of it", Will tells them.
Many grimace. Will was right. They probably wouldn't be getting much kindness anytime soon.
Will groaned at the mention of food. Nevertheless, he rose unsteadily from the bench and took the flint and steel that Erak held out to him. Then he and Evanlyn moved to the fireplace. Stacked beside it was a pile of sun and salt dried driftwood. Some of the plants were brittle enough to break with bare hands and Will began to stack the slivers into a pyramid in the middle of the circle of stones.
Evanlyn, for her part, gathered together bunches of dried moss to act as kindling, and within five minutes they had a small fire crackling, the flames licking eagerly at the heavier pieces of firewood they added now to the blaze.
"Just like old times", Evanlyn murmured with a small grin. Will turned quickly to her, smiling in return.
"We cherished the smiles we shared. As they got farer and farer in between", Cassandra speaks up.
"There was not much to smile about for several months", Will added.
"I believe the first time we actually truly smiled was when Halt and Horace showed up", Cassandra tells them.
Giving Horace and Halt a smile and so does Will.
"Thank you for that", Will adds, "I nearly forget what it was like to smile"
Everyone looks sadly at the pair of them. This was only the beginning of the twos journey as a slave. And they wondered what horrors they had seen. They guessed they were going to find out.
But did they want too?
All too clearly, he could see Morgarath's bridge looming above them once more, with the fires they had set feeding voraciously on the tarred ropes and resin-laden pine he still would have acted as he had.
Many give him looks of pride.
"I wouldn't change it as we saved many people", Will says quietly.
"Even though you were turned into slaves?" Duncan asks.
"Yes Dad even then. I want to be known as the Queen who puts her people first. I wouldn't change a thing as long as my people were safe", Cassandra states firmly.
"Exactly there were innocent lives at stake and I couldn't let they die. I am a Kings Ranger and I serve the King as much as I do the people of Araluen", Will states firmly.
Everyone gives they looks of pride.
Cassandra would make a great Queen when it was her time to ascend the Throne and Will would make a great Commandant for the Crops if he wanted too.
But he wished Evanlyn hadn't been involved. Wished she hadn't been captured with him.
"I am glad I was captured with you. At least we had each other and knowing what I do know. You and I wouldn't have survived without the other", Cassandra tells him.
Will smiles softly, "I know what you mean"
They share a soft smile with each other. The bond and love between them showing to all. It was not romantic love. But the love of a brother and sister that was on display for them.
Then, even as he wished it, he realised that she was the one bright spark in his life of misery now and that by wishing her away, he was wishing away the only small glow of happiness and normality in his days.
"Same here", Cassandra tells him.
He felt a sense of confusion. In a moment of extreme surprise, he realised that, it if she were not here with him, life would barely worth living.
Everyone's eyes widen at that and they all look at Will.
Who shrugged, "It is true. She helped keep me going. She helped me not to give up and to keep fighting. When I desperately, desperately wanted too"
"You helped me keep going too Will and helped me get through our ordeal", Cassandra says.
She looked at him again, this time, he was the first to smile.
"Would you do it again?" he asked her, "You know, the bridge and everything?"
This time, she didn't smile back at him. Thought seriously for several seconds, then said:
"In a moment. You?"
He nodded. Then he sighed again, thinking of all that they had left behind.
Unnoticed by the two young people, Erak had seen the little exchange. He nodded to himself. It was good for each of them to have a friend, he thought, Life was going to be hard for them when they reached Hallasholm and Ragnak's court.
Will and Cassandra flinch at that.
"Are you both alright?" Pauline asks them.
"We will be", Will replies.
Halt raises an eyebrow at them. He knew they were lying. But he wasn't going to call them out on it. Yet.
They'd be sold as slaves and their life would be hard physical labour, with no respite and no release. One grindingly hard day after another, month in, month out, year after year. A person living that life would need a friend.
It would be going too far to say that Erak was fond of the two youngsters. But they had won his respect. The Skandians were a warrior race who valued bravery and valour in battle above all else, and both Will and Evanlyn had proved their courage when they'd destroyed Morgarath's bridge.
"It is good that you impressed him. As I get the feeling that would come in use maybe sometime in the future and considering our truce with them it did work out well", Baron Arald muses.
The boy, he thought was quite a scrapper. He'd dropped the Wargals like ninepins with that little bow of his, Erak had rarely seen faster, more accurate shooting. He guessed that was a result of the Ranger training.
And the girl had shown plenty of courage too, first of all making sure the fire had caught properly on the bridge, then, when Will finally went down, stunned by a rock hurled by one of the Skandians, she'd tried to grab the bow herself and keep shooting.
"You are brave your Highness. Very brave", Sir Rodney states.
"Thank you", Cassandra says smiling.
It was difficult not to feel sympathy for them. They were both so young, with so much that should have been ahead of them. He'd try to make things as easy as possible for them when they reached Hallasholm, Erak thought.
Will and Cassandra looked at each other. They really needed to thank Erak more for everything he had done for them.
"Did he?" George asks.
"There wasn't much he could do", Will tells them.
"But what he did end up doing saved our lives", Cassandra tells them all, 'Saved Will's life mostly', she thought, 'Without him Will would be dead and she would never have been free'
But there wasn't a lot he'd be able to do. Then he shook himself angrily, breaking the introspective mood that had fallen over him.
"Getting damn maudlin!" he muttered to himself. He noticed that one of the rowers was trying to sneak a prime piece of pork from a provision sack nearby.
"That is not going to end well", Halt states.
He moved quietly behind the man and planted his foot violently in his backside, lifting him clean off the ground with the force of the kick.
Everyone bursts into laughter at that.
"Keep your thieving hands to yourself!" he snarled.
Then, ducking his head under the doorway lintel, he went into the dark, smoke-smelling hut to claim the best bunk for himself.
"End of chapter", Gilan announces.
"So, you're now trapped on an island for six weeks. What on earth did you do there?" Horace asks them.
"We are technically slaves at that point Horace what do you think?" Will asks raising an eyebrow.
Crowley barks out a laugh, "He takes after you Halt. He even had the tone and the eyebrow raising down to a T"
Halt glares at Crowley and so does Will.
"What on earth are you talking about Crowley?" Will asks.
"You just sounded and acted exactly like Halt", Crowley laughs.
"No, I didn't"
"Yes, you did!" many around the room say.
“You are just like Halt”, Pauline states with an amused look.
"Lovely now I have everyone turning against me", Will complains, "What am I going to do?"
"Love us", Alyss states kissing him.
"I can do that for you. But don't know about the others"
"Hey!" many call back.
Will bursts into laughter and many follow. It lightens up the mood a bit. But several questions hung in the air.
What did Will and Cassandra do on that Island?
Did they get treated well?
Did Erak protect them?
And what happened when Will and Cassandra arrived at Hellasholm?