The Serpentwar Saga. Raymond E. Feist

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СКАЧАТЬ rode after him, not sure what de Loungville had meant, but feeling troubled by what he had said.

      They reached Calis’s camp an hour after dark. As before, he had ordered a complete fortification dug, and as de Loungville and the others approached, a guard challenged them.

      ‘Well done,’ said a weary de Loungville. ‘Now, lower the gate or I’ll rip your ears from your head.’

      No one in Calis’s company could fail to recognize that voice, so without a further remark the drop bridge was run out across the trench surrounding the camp. The horses’ hooves clattered on the wood and iron as the riders crossed, and when they reached the center of the camp, Calis stood waiting.

      ‘Zila and the bandits joined up and fired the village. Most got away.’ He glanced at Erik. ‘They killed a girl and we killed the five of them that did it.’

      Calis nodded, motioning for de Loungville to join him in his command tent. Erik took the reins of de Loungville’s horse and led him with his own to where the remounts were waiting. It took him better than an hour to cool down the horses, clean hooves and saddle marks, and bedded them down with fresh fodder. By the time he was finished, he was aching to his bones, and he knew it was more than just the fatigue of the ride and fighting. The killing of the men had been so effortless.

      As he walked back to where his companions were erecting their tent, he recalled what he had done. The first man he had struck had been an obstacle, nothing more. He hadn’t been trying to decapitate him, only to brush him aside. Luis had said something later about its being a terrible blow, as was the cleaving of the second man Erik had faced, but Erik thought it a distant act, as if someone else had been doing the fighting. He could remember the smells: the smoke of the burning village and the campfire in the clearing, the stench of sweat and feces mixed in with the iron bite of blood and the stink of fear. He felt the shock of the blows he delivered running up his arm, and the pounding of his own blood in his forehead, but it was all distant, muted, and he couldn’t find it within himself to grapple with and understand what had occurred.

      He knew he had wanted Embrisa’s killer to suffer. He knew he wanted the man to feel her pain a thousand times over, yet now he was dead, feeling nothing. If Biggo was to be believed, the man was being judged by the Death Goddess, but whatever the truth, he was feeling none of this life’s pain.

      Maybe de Loungville was right. Erik thought he was the one who was now suffering, and it made him both sad and angry. He reached the tent and found that Roo had taken Erik’s section of tent and erected it, so that the six-man dwelling was up and waiting for him.

      Erik looked at his boyhood friend and said, ‘Thank you.’

      Roo said, ‘Well, you spend enough time looking out for my horse.’

      ‘And mine,’ said Biggo.

      And everyone else’s,’ said Luis. ‘Do you think we should pay this boy for being so good to us?’

      Erik looked over at Luis, whose sense of humor was rarely in evidence, and saw that the often short-tempered Rodezian was looking at him with a rare warmth in his expression.

      Biggo said, ‘Well, maybe. Or we could do his bit with setting up and tearing down the tent, like we did tonight.’

      ‘I can manage my own weight,’ said Erik. ‘No one needs to do for me.’ He heard an irritation in his voice that was unexpected. Suddenly he discovered he was feeling very angry.

      Biggo reached from his bedroll across the narrow aisle separating the three bunks on each side and said, ‘We know, lad. You do more than your share, that’s all. No one’s said anything, but you’ve become the Horsemaster for our little company of cutthroats.’

      At the mention of the word ‘cutthroat’ Erik was struck by the image of the three men being butchered by de Loungville. Suddenly he felt sick and his body felt flushed, as if fever was coming over him. Closing his eyes a second, he said, ‘Thank you. I know you mean well …’ He paused for a moment, then stood as upright as he could in the low tent and walked away. ‘I’ll be back. I need some air.’

      ‘Guard duty in two hours,’ Roo called after him.

      Walking through the camp, Erik tried to calm himself. He found his stomach clenched and he felt as if he might be sick. Running for the privy trench, he barely got there in time to keep from fouling his pants.

      After agonizing minutes of squatting and feeling as if he was passing fire, he felt his stomach twist, and suddenly he was vomiting into the trench. When he at last finished, he felt as if he had no strength left. He went to the edge of the nearby stream and cleaned himself up, then he returned to the cookfire, where he found Owen Greylock helping himself to a bowl of stew and a hunk of bread.

      Despite having lost everything in his gut only moments before, Erik was suddenly ravenous as he smelled the stew. He grabbed a wooden bowl as Owen greeted him and watched while Erik scooped out a large bowl of stew, ignoring the hot liquid as it covered his hand to the wrist.

      ‘Look out!’ said Owen. ‘Gods, you’re going to boil yourself.’

      Erik lifted the bowl to his lips and took a long sip, then said, ‘Heat doesn’t bother me. I think it’s the years at the forge. Now, cold, that makes me hurt.’

      Owen laughed. ‘Hungry?’

      Erik tore a large piece of bread off one of the loaves on the serving table and said, ‘Can we talk for a minute?’

      Owen motioned for Erik to sit on a log that had been felled to provide a rude bench for men eating. No one else was nearby save the two men who would clean up the cook area and ready it for the morning meal before turning in.

      Owen said, ‘Where do you want to begin?’

      Erik said, ‘I want to know how you got here, but first, can I ask you something?’

      ‘Certainly.’

      ‘When you kill a man, how does that make you feel?’

      Owen was silent and then blew out his cheeks and let a long breath slowly escape. ‘That’s a difficult one, isn’t it?’ He fell silent a minute, then said, ‘I’ve killed men two ways, Erik. As my lord’s Swordmaster I was dispenser of the high justice and I’ve hung more than one man. It’s different each time, and never easy. And it depends on why I’m hanging them. Murderers, rapists, thugs, they … I don’t feel much of anything, except relief when it’s over. When it’s something dicey, like your execution was set to be, then it’s a nasty business. I feel like taking a long, long hot bath afterward, though I rarely get the chance.

      ‘When it comes to battle, things just happen too quickly and you’re usually too busy staying alive to think about it. Does that answer you?’

      Erik nodded as he munched on soggy vegetables. ‘In a way. Did you ever want to see someone suffer?’

      Owen scratched his head at this. ‘Can’t say as I have. I’ve wanted to see a few men dead, but suffer? Not really.’

      ‘I wanted to see a man feel pain today.’ Erik explained about Embrisa and how he had wanted to make her killer experience a long, slow, terrible death. When he finished, he added, ‘Then I found I could barely keep my arse closed. Flux and then throwing up. Then suddenly I’m here eating like nothing СКАЧАТЬ