leather traces from its legs and the animal bounded to its feet. He brought the horse to Odovar. With much heaving and grunting, the warrior managed to mount the tall horse. Odovar’s face was ash-gray now, and beads of sweat stood out on his brow.
Hoe on his shoulder, Tol prepared to return to the onion field now that Odovar had found a mount. However, the warrior chief tossed the reins to him, saying, “Lead him, boy. If I try to ride, I’ll fall off for sure.”
The sun was nearly at its apex. By now, his mother and sisters, laden with spring bulbs, would have set out for the onion field. He had to get back. His father would be angry when he saw he hadn’t finished his work.
He tried to explain this to Lord Odovar, but the warrior interrupted him-or perhaps hadn’t even heard him, so pale and sickly did he look.
“Go east,” Odovar said, his breathing labored and loud. “Whatever happens…go east. Get me… to Juramona. My people will… reward you well.” He then slumped forward, unconscious, arms hanging limply on either side of the horse’s neck.
Tol twisted the reins in his hands, mind working furiously. He could leave the wounded marshal here and return to work, but the man would likely die if he did. On the other hand, Odovar’s request was daunting. Tol had never been more than a day’s walk from home, and then only with his father. He had no idea what lay beyond the green hills east of the farm.
Juramona. The very word seemed mysterious and remote, like a mountain on Solin, the white moon. Could Tol actually go to Juramona? Could he leave his family and make such a fantastic journey?
It was Odovar’s mention of a reward that finally settled the question. If Tol returned home with gold, his father wouldn’t beat him for abandoning his chores half done.
Laying the reins over one shoulder and his hoe on the other, Tol began the trek east.
The land beyond the hills was flat and dotted with trees. From time to time Tol spotted riders in the distance. Since he couldn’t identify them as friend or foe, he hid himself and Lord Odovar until they had gone by.
Mid-afternoon found Tol’s stomach knotted with hunger. He should’ve been home eating his mother’s beans and cabbage. Instead of enjoying that hearty fare he was wandering this endless expanse of grassland, leading a horse with a dying man on it. This was not how he imagined the day would go when he awoke that morning.
He entered a grove of pines. The horse, until now placidly following Tol’s lead, began to pull away toward the left. Tol smelled water too, so he let the horse choose the path. They soon came to a small brook.
Tol tied the reins to a sapling and fell on his belly to lap the cold water alongside the animal. Looking up from his drinking, he saw that although Odovar’s eyes were still closed, his color had improved. His butter-colored mustache puffed in and out with each breath.
Tol wandered out of the pines, kicking through the tall brown grass in search of anything edible-nuts, seeds, windfall fruit. There was nothing. The land hereabouts was as clean as his family’s root cellar come spring.
As he stood bemoaning his hunger, he suddenly heard voices. A line of spearpoints advanced through the trees. Tol dropped to his knees. He couldn’t get back to Odovar without being seen, so he waited nervously to learn who the strangers might be.
They were warriors, though not so richly armed as Grane or Lord Odovar. Their helmets were simple pots, and their breastplates boiled leather studded with bronze scales. Most were bearded. Each carried a spear with a short strip of cloth tied behind its head, and each wore a similar strip of cloth tied around his left arm. The cloths were red.
Tol popped up so suddenly the lead horses reared. Spearpoints swung down, aiming for his chest.
“Who goes there?” demanded the rider in the center of the group of ten. His helmet bore a brass crest and his auburn whiskers were sprinkled with gray.
“Friend! Friend!” Tol cried, holding his hands high.
“It’s only a peasant boy,” said a nearer warrior. He lifted his spear away from Tol’s face. “Too bad he’s not a rabbit. I could eat a rabbit just now.”
“I could eat a peasant brat, myself,” said another, and the company laughed.
“My lords, who is your master?” Tol asked quickly, wondering if men of war did indeed eat children when they could not get rabbits.
“We serve the marshal of the Eastern Hundred,” said the one with the gray-flecked beard and brass-crested helm. “Odovar of Juramona-or was, till he perished this day in battle.”
Relief coursed through Tol and he cried, “No! He lives yet!”
Brass Helm guided his mount closer. “What say you, boy? Have you news of Lord Odovar?”
“He lives! He is yonder, in those pines!”
Plainly unimpressed, the elder warrior called out, “My lord Odovar! Are you there? It is Egrin, of the Household Guards!”
Wind sighing through the grass was the only answer.
“He is there,” Tol insisted, “but hurt. A man named Grane hit him on the head.”
The name echoed through the mounted men like a thunderbolt.
“Grane!” Egrin exclaimed. He gestured, and one of the men thrust his spear through the collar of Tol’s jerkin. Using the pommel of his saddle as a fulcrum, he hoisted the boy up onto his toes.
Ignoring Tol’s protests, Egrin snapped, “Watch him. The rest of you, spread out. This smells like treachery to me. If it’s a trap, spit that boy like a partridge and get out of here. Report back to Juramona. Understand?” The warrior holding Tol nodded.
The riders made a half-circle and approached the pine copse quietly. Egrin went in, and let out a shout.
“By the gods! Lord Odovar is here!”
Tol found himself dropped unceremoniously to the ground. His erstwhile captor spurred forward, joining his comrades by the brook. Fingering the hole in his good leather shirt, Tol followed.
Egrin had Odovar sitting upright on the chestnut horse and was holding a waterskin to his lips. The burly chieftain gulped the contents. His face reddened, and he pushed the neck of the skin away.
“Mishas preserve me!” he spluttered. “You give a dying man
Egrin smiled and pulled a hide-wrapped bottle from his saddlebag. “Applejack, my lord?” he said, offering it to his commander. Odovar drew the stopper and took a long swig.
“I rejoice at your survival, my lord,” said Egrin. “We thought you dead in the ambush.”
“So I would have been, if not for this boy.” Odovar wiped droplets of hard cider from his mustache with the back of a dirty hand. He told the company Tol’s name, then drained the bottle and demanded an account of the battle from Egrin.
The veteran soldier reported that he and his men, sent by Odovar to scout the woods ahead of the main band, had been cut off by a superior force of Pakin warriors. When it looked like they would cut their way through anyway, a wall of fire leaped up between them and the Pakins, driving Egrin back. By the time he rallied his men and returned, the Pakins had vanished, and there was no sign of Lord Odovar, alive or dead.
“Strange to say, my lord, after the fire had gone, there were no ashes or coals, no sign of burning at all,” Egrin finished.
They exchanged a meaningful look and Odovar said, “So, Grane is using his magic against us. We will return to Juramona at once. The Pakins may move to strike there.”
Egrin formed up the men and took the reins of Odovar’s horse himself.
Through all this Tol had been squatting to one side, watching and listening. So the great lord Grane, whoever he was, had magic on his side. That explained the strange creature he’d drawn from the small pouch on his saddle. Tol knew little of magic. His parents spoke of it only to curse it, but the rare passing mage or itinerant cleric who stopped at the farm for water or food seemed kindly enough to Tol. One had even done tricks to amuse him and his sisters, levitating stones and making doves appear from his floppy hat.
As the warriors set out, Tol stood. It was nearly dusk, and a bite in the air announced the cold night to come. He would have a long, chilly walk back to the farm.
A big roan horse blocked his path. Tol looked up and saw Egrin studying him.
“What about the boy, my lord?” the elder warrior asked. “What shall we do with him?”
“Eh? Do with him?” repeated Odovar, his words slurred by cider and fatigue. He shook his head as if to clear it and said forcefully, “Bring him!”
