shoulder and her arm resting on his chest. He wondered if she could feel the rapid beating of his heart through all the clothing he wore. Flinn found himself putting his arms around her.
“Tell me about your days as a mercenary, Flinn. There aren’t any tales about that,” Jo mumbled sleepily, her breath warming his body.
“There’s not much to tell, really,” he said quietly. Lost in thought, he began rubbing his thumb back and forth where it rested on Jo’s arm. “I was dismissed from the castle with literally only the clothes on my back. I had no money, and only a little food. I quickly became impoverished. There’s not much call for a former knight.”
“Save as a sell-sword,” Jo added. One of her fingers kept curling and uncurling a leather thong on his shirt.
“Exactly,” Flinn sighed. “I met Braddoc in a tavern in Rifllian, over by the Radlebb Woods. We… we hit it off, though not immediately. He didn’t care about my fall as a knight, though he’d certainly heard all about it.” Flinn’s voice grew bitter. The months following his dismissal from the order had been the hardest ones of all to live through. Every town, every village tavern, had heard the tale of his supposed disgrace, and many people greeted him with jeers and even rotten fish or vegetables. His humiliation had been complete by the time he reached the town of Rifllian.
“Go on,” whispered Jo. Flinn wondered if the young woman was falling asleep, though he detected a certain tenseness in her back.
“I entered the Flickertail Inn that night in a foul mood.” Flinn gave a snort. “I was spoiling for a fight, and Braddoc and his cronies knew it. They knew who I was, of course, and that only made them all the more eager. Anyway, I insulted them-they were obviously mercenaries by the looks of them. I told them that even I wouldn’t stoop so low as to take up their profession.” The last words rolled out bitterly.
In the darkness he felt Jo turn to look at him, but the tent was swathed in blackness and he couldn’t see her eyes. She kept her hand on his chest, and Flinn found himself wanting to touch it. Biting his lip, he took hold of her hand.
“Go on,” Jo whispered.
“Braddoc and the others beat me up. Worse thrashing I’d ever had, too,” Flinn added. “But after it was over, Braddoc reached down and gave me a hand standing up. He offered to buy me a meal and a mug of ale, and I accepted. I was starving, and I think he knew that. Over our food he told me about himself and why he had joined the others. He asked me to join him, and I did. That was the beginning of my days as a mercenary.”
Jo snuggled against his chest again, sleep overtaking her. “Why’d Braddoc become a sell-sword?” she mumbled.
Flinn stroked her hair and said, “Another time, Jo. It’s time to sleep.”
Her only response was light breathing.
Flinn had always had the innate ability to awaken whenever he chose, be it dawn, the middle of the night, or a half hour after closing his eyes. He opened his eyes now at early dawn. The shelter was still dark with night, but the time had come to break camp. Slowly he eased his way out of the furs to give Jo and Dayin a few more precious moments of sleep. He left the shelter and walked about, stretching his muscles.
Dawn approached slowly; darkness still lay heavily on the valley by the river and the surrounding Wulfholdes. The warrior arched his back, feeling the bones slip into place. The hills were silent-strangely silent. Flinn scanned the land, west, south, east, and north.
The hairs on the back of his neck rose.
More than a dozen shapes-each darker than the hills surrounding them-were moving toward the encampment. Flinn’s senses newly aroused, he heard the rustle and clink of chain mail on leather as the shapes shifted position. They were slowly advancing, though their movements were still cautious. Good, thought Flinn. They aren’t sure of us. We can still escape this situation. He was acutely conscious of the ford behind him, and he cursed himself for not having pushed farther inland last night. Whatever was coming at him wanted to cross the Castellan, and this was the only ford for miles around.
The slowly dawning sunlight glinted off metal axes and spearheads. The shapes trudged nearer, their faces forming in the darkness. Their teeth jutted forward from protruding lower jaws, and their snouts were pushed back and flattened.
Flinn slowly reached out and pulled back the tent flap. “Break camp-now!”
Chapter IX
A war-drum sounded from a distance, its single beat reverberating through the early morning air. Its tone left no doubt that a tribe approached from the north, on the near side of the river. The drum sounded a second time, then a third. Each successive beat was louder than the one before, and the third beat was answered by a single piercing tone from a horn to the northwest. Two factions will soon join at the ford, thought Flinn. Jo and Dayin scrambled out of the tent and joined Flinn where he stood. All three gazed northward at the Wulfholdes.
“Orcs!” Flinn hissed, a shiver passing through him. “From the sounds of the drums, two tribes are on the move!” He jerked his thumb behind him and added, “Jo, get the animals ready.” As he and Dayin began tearing down the tent, Flinn kept a sharp eye to the north. If the orcs attacked, he’d give the command to mount up and race back to Bywater. Even without saddles and bridles, Flinn and his friends should still be able to escape with the griffon, the horse, and the mule. He considered leaving behind the shelter and the other supplies and fleeing the moment Johauna had the animals ready, but the orcs’ march seemed unnatural. Why haven’t they attacked? Flinn asked himself anxiously. Breaking camp gave him an excuse to find that answer.
Dawn was breaking, but the overcast sky still revealed little light. Anxiously Flinn eyed the orcs surrounding them to the north and the river that lay to the south. The orcs were agitated. One orc warrior pointed his spear toward the camp. Another orc held up a staff tipped with a tattered red rag. “Banner of the Rooster,” Flinn muttered. The orc with the Rooster staff hit the gesturing orc and shouted something. The scant Orcish he knew told him the orcs were bickering over what to do. “Why are they hesitating?” Flinn wondered aloud. “They could easily overrun us.” He turned and quickly began loading Fernlover. Then Flinn made out the words “…only south of, not north.” The orc clearly spoke of the Castellan, but why? Were they awed by the sight of humans entering the Wulfholdes in winter? Did their orders forbid a fight north of the river? If so, why?
In a sudden flash of intuition, Flinn decided not to break for the ford and return to Bywater. He had already failed to avert the dragon attack-he would not bring two tribes of orcs down upon the beleaguered folk of Bywater. Besides, if Flinn, Jo, and Dayin continued south, the orcs would only dog their heels. By traveling north, they might elude the orcs in the wild roughness of the Wulfholdes. If they kept the Castellan to their right, the river could guard their flank from the tribe to the east. The only orcs that could harry them would be those from the northwest-the Rooster’s tribe. “One orc tribe is better than two,” Flinn observed as he shifted a bundle on Fernlover’s back, “Especially if the northeastern tribe is Greasetongue’s.” They would get no quarter if they met up with Greasetongue.
Flinn tied the last knot and secured the tent on Fernlover’s back. He’d thought again about leaving behind their supplies and racing away to elude the orcs, perhaps to the west. But he had no clue as to what might be coming from that direction. Better to face the known threat than the unknown, he thought. He grimaced. Even if we manage to evade the scouts here at the river and those in the surrounding hills, we’re likely to die in the Wulfholdes, he thought. The hills are treacherous enough at any time of the year, and doubly so during the cruel winter months. “I was stupid to bring Jo and the boy,” Flinn muttered savagely to himself.
Flinn tightened Ariac’s girth strap, hoping they could get moving before the orcs’ argument ended. But then the orcs bunched together and began to move again. Are they clearing a route for us to leave-or preparing a mass attack? Flinn asked himself caustically.
Another drumbeat echoed through the hills, coming from farther west than had the first drum sounds. This drum was answered from the east by three beats in quick succession. Hastily Flinn mounted up.
“Follow me without fail!” he hissed, his eyes flashing at Jo and Dayin. “Don’t show any fear, and whatever
