The traitors son, p.1
The Traitor's Son, page 1
part #1 of Path of the Ranger Series
The Traitor’s Son
(Path of the Ranger Book 1)
Pedro Urvi
Other Books by Pedro Urvi
THE ILENIAN ENIGMA
THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN GODS
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Dedication
To my good friend Guiller.
Thank you for all your support since day one.
Prologue
With loyalty and courage, the Ranger will guard the lands of the Realm and defend the Crown from enemies both internal and external, serving Norghana with honor and in secrecy.
There is no soldier, mage, wizard or beast who does not fear the skill of the Ranger, for his true arrow will bring death to them without their even being aware of his presence.
Excerpt from The Path of the Ranger,
the dogma of the Norghanian Rangers.
Chapter 1
“My father was no traitor, and one day I’ll prove it!” Lasgol shouted. He threw his head back to avoid the huge fist which brushed past his nose.
“Your father’s the biggest traitor the Kingdom of Norghana’s had in a hundred years!” Volgar yelled. He lunged his arm in a cross-punch that Lasgol dodged by ducking his head.
“That’s a lie!” he said. He stepped back to get out of the giant’s range, careful not to slip on the snow which covered part of the cobbled square.
“You dirty son of a traitor, I’m going to break your head open!”
Lasgol moved further away. “Leave me alone. All I want is to trade my furs and the meat from my kill, then I’ll go.” He gestured at the satchel on his shoulder, where he was carrying the half-dozen hares he had caught in his traps.
Volgar spread his arms wide. “I’ve told you often enough. Only honest and honorable people can trade here. You can’t come to the village square to contaminate it, you stinking traitor. This is a respectable village. Give me your kill and get out of here, then maybe I won’t crack your skull.”
“No way! And who are you to forbid me to do anything? I belong to this village just as much as you do.” Lasgol glanced around. He noticed that Igor and Sven, the two thugs who were always with Volgar, were approaching him from behind to bar his escape-route. In front of him was the bully, to his right was the fountain, a little to the left was the trough for the traders’ horses, and behind him the two sidekicks. They had him surrounded.
“Don’t you dare oppose me! I’m going to have to teach you a lesson!”
“You’ll have to catch me first!” Lasgol said. He was looking in every direction, searching for a way out. Volgar had intercepted him at the furrier’s door, opposite the tradesmen’s houses in the village square. Now he could see quite clearly that he had been ambushed. They had been waiting for him. It was too early for that monster even to be awake. But today was market day, and they knew Lasgol would have to come to sell his kill.
Volgar threw a left punch, but he saw it coming and dodged it with a feint. He had to go on avoiding the blows and not let himself be caught. If he stopped to exchange punches they would tear him apart. That much he had learned when he was only ten. He still recalled the tremendous beating he had been given. If they managed to catch him, he would suffer the same fate.
“Stay still and fight!” the giant shouted, his face red with rage at not being able to grab him.
“In your dreams!” Lasgol said. He was moving nimbly around his rival, being careful not to slip too much on the snow. He knew he had no chance of beating that hulk knucklehead. Although they had both just turned fifteen, Volgar was twice as broad as he was himself and a head taller. There was no-one his age as big and ugly in the whole village. And even worse, although his big body was decidedly fleshy, particularly his belly and abdomen, he also had a lot of muscle. His brute strength was enormous. And the bully knew how to use it to terrorize everybody, even those who were older than he was.
“I’m going to yank your head off!” the bully yelled, and a cloud of steam came out of his big mouth. It was quite cold that winter morning, even though spring was on its way. But here in the north of Tremia it was always cold.
“Like father, like son! Coward and traitor!”
“My father didn’t betray the realm, and I’m no coward,” Lasgol yelled back as he searched around for help. The furrier had come to his door and was watching the fight with arms folded. If a Norghanian hardly ever intervened in somebody else’s fight, nobody at all would move a finger to help him. He was the son of Dakon Eklund, the Traitor Ranger. He saw the smith put aside a sword he was hammering on the anvil and come out to watch. The butcher and his two sons came over from the other side of the square, and after them several neighbors from the little mountain village. They were not coming closer in order to intervene, they were coming to see him given a good hiding. They would cheer if that was what happened. They all despised him for who he was. They treated him like the plague.
“Your father betrayed King Uthar, he sold him out to Darthor, Black Lord of the Ice,” Sven said behind him. “You ought to be thrown out of the North. You’re soiling the white of our land with your stinking presence.”
Lasgol looked at him with half-closed eyes. Nothing he might say or do would prevent him from getting a beating. “Leave me alone, I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I’m getting tired of this!” Volgar cried. “Grab him!” His two buddies were waiting for his order. In Norghana, one-on-one fights were traditional and always respected. But Volgar had lost his patience, something that happened quite often.
“So who’s the coward? You need your friends to defeat me one-on-one? You’re the one who’s a shame on Norghana.”
“Grab that traitor! I’m going to beat him to a pulp!”
Igor tried to catch Lasgol, but he managed to get away. Sven tackled him and almost brought him down.
“When I prove my father’s innocence,” Lasgol said, struggling to get away, “you’ll have to swallow your words.”
“You can swallow this!” Volgar said, and launched a right hook. Lasgol tried to dodge, but Igor grabbed his arm and Sven his waist. The punch hit him in the face like a hammer. His lip exploded with pain and his head whipped back from the tremendous force that almost left him stunned.
“I’ve got you!” Volgar said to his two buddies. “Hold him tight!”
Lasgol shook his head. Dazed, he saw the giant lunge at him. If he reached him he would batter him to a pulp. He freed his arm with a strong tug which Igor could not manage to resist. With his arms free, he hit Sven in the back with his forearms to get rid of him. Sven, in an attempt to hold on to him, caught the satchel and fell backwards with it.
“My kill!” cried Lasgol.
“Hold him!” yelled Volgar, and Igor tried to grab him by the neck.
He freed himself by leaping aside and saw Volgar’s fist fly past his eye, hitting nothing but air. Sven was smiling in triumph on the ground, and for a moment Lasgol thought about getting his satchel out of the other boy’s hands. If he lost his kill he would be in big trouble. But he forgot about it. He had to get away from there before they tore him to shreds. He took two steps forward to gain momentum and jumped to the fountain. Igor followed him. From the fountain he took a long leap to the trough.
“Stand still!” Volgar yelled. “You damn cowardly squirrel!”
Lasgol kept his balance without falling into the water and took another leap, this time to the porch of the nearest house. He hung from it, holding on tightly. He could feel the cold and damp of the snow through his tanned leather gloves. He had to take the greatest care over his next move so as not to slip and fall on his back.
“Where d’you think you’re going? Stop!”
Lasgol swung from the porch, then with one fluid movement gave a leap and climbed on to the wooden roof. He was about to make his way along it when Igor’s hand closed on his ankle. The gaunt thug tried to pull him down with him by using his own body weight. Lasgol threw himself flat on the roof and held tight. But Igor was tugging at him and he was beginning to slide. If he did, it would be the end.
“Bring him down!” Volgar yelled, and Sven tried to help.
Panic threatened to overcome Lasgol. But he managed to clear his mind. With his left boot he kicked repeatedly the hand that held his right ankle, holding on at the same time with all his might. Igor moaned, let go of his ankle and fell to the ground. Lasgol got to his feet and climbed to the apex of the roof like lightning.
There were murmurs among the spectators.
Volgar was red with fury. “Come down from there!” he yelled.
“Come and get me if you can.”
He saw Igor and Sven trying to climb on to the porch. Volgar would never make it, he was too heavy, but the other two would manage to if it occurred to them to think and help each other up. Luckily thinking was not something the three of them did very often. But just in case a miracle happened and they decided to use their heads, he was not going to stay and find out.
“That’s it. See you never!”
The giant’s face turned so red it looked as though it would burst like an overripe tomato.
“You’ll remember this!”
Lasgol turned and slid down the other side of the roof. With great care he began to jump from roof to roof, crossing the village high up. He had to be very alert, because the snow on the roofs was treacherous. If he slipped he might fall all the way down and break his skull. He focused all his attention on each jump. The fur-covered leather boots he was wearing were not slippery, but all the same he did not entirely trust them. He had a couple of moments of panic when he nearly lost his footing and fell, but with an enormous effort of concentration he reached the last house at the northern end of the village and dropped to the ground. Then he ran and vanished into the forest.
Once he was sure he was not being followed and was safe, he climbed to the top of a huge fir-tree by the river. Climbing up to high places was something he loved to do; he did not really know why. Ever since he was little he had felt attracted by heights. Perhaps it was the feeling of achievement when he reached the top, or perhaps it was the amazing views, or perhaps it was the peace he felt when he was alone at the top. Probably all these reasons combined, and maybe others he was not even aware of. The point was that whenever he could, almost instinctively, he ended up at the top of something, whether it was a tower, a hill, or as in this case, a tree. Besides, the fact that it was covered in snow, so that the ascent was more difficult, motivated him even more.
He took a deep breath of the forest’s aromatic scent. This relaxed him. He felt a pang of pain in his mouth and wiped the blood off his broken lip with the sleeve of his worn winter tunic. As he did so he realized that one sleeve of his old sealskin coat was nearly torn away. He sighed and then smiled. He would have to sew it himself. The things you learned when you were poor and hated. He could already sew, weave, cook, and a host of other things he had been forced to learn out of sheer necessity. He glanced at his thick woolen pants with their covering of fur and saw that they were still in good condition. If he had had to replace them it would have been complicated. But that was what happened with fights in the North: you ended up beaten, with your clothes in tatters.
He felt his face and legs in case he had any wounds he had not noticed. Nothing serious, he thought. It was not the first time he had been beaten, nor would it be the last. It was something he was used to. Beatings barely hurt anymore; what really hurt was the scorn. Not so much toward him ‒that he bore in silence‒ but toward his father Dakon. He had grown accustomed to it and it hurt less and less as time went on. But he could not bear it when they slandered his dead father. That he would never get used to.
Three long tortuous years had gone by since that fateful day. The day of the King’s Betrayal, the day of his father’s death. The day Lasgol’s life was torn apart forever and became a nightmare he could not wake up from, no matter how hard he tried.
He heard a faint sound to his left and turned his head slowly. A squirrel was watching him curiously. Seeing it, he remembered the kill he had lost. He sighed and shook his head. He had been coming back from collecting the traps he had set in the underbrush when he had been ambushed. Now he had to go back to his master’s home without the coins he should have got. That was going to cost him dearly. His master Ulf would make him sleep outside, or something worse. Sleeping outside in the midst of the cold winter in the most northerly realm of Tremia, famed for being frozen three-quarters of the year, might have been considered an inhuman punishment in the eyes of half the civilized world, but it was not so in Ulf’s. Unfortunately Lasgol had already endured it.
He put his hands over his mouth and mimicked Ulf. “It’s good for the character,” he told the squirrel, imitating Ulf’s deep, hoarse voice. “A Norghanian must be able to sleep even on a block of ice. Not for nothing are we the People of the Snow.”
The squirrel ran off, leaping from branch to branch until it disappeared among the trees. He smiled as he watched it into the distance. I must stop speaking out loud. I sound crazy. But what can you do when you have no friends and everybody avoids you, insults you or tries to beat you? He shrugged. His father had taught him to avoid self-pity. “Always keep a positive attitude, no matter how difficult the situation. Always look ahead, and be optimistic.” Most likely his father had not foreseen a situation like this one. But he would follow his advice, just as he had always done.
He glanced up at the sun among the clouds, which were threatening a storm. I’d better face the punishment as soon as possible. He climbed down from the tree as fast as he could. He always did it like that, going up as well as going down. He was training his muscles and his coordination. Strong hands and sure footing were essential, particularly for someone like him who was not strong. Lasgol looked at himself and shook his head. He was not the archetypal Norghanian, if anything the opposite. The Norghanians were tough, fierce men, tall and strong like the oaks of the North, doughty warriors trained in the use of the axe and round wooden shield. Their skin was white as the snow that covered their land, their eyes were pale as the northern sky, their hair blond as the weak rays of the sun of their country. And though Lasgol was blond and blue-eyed, he was not tough or fierce. He did not know how to use the war-axe and shield, and above all he was not tall or muscular, rather the opposite.
He shrugged and smiled, because there was one thing he certainly was: very fast and agile, more so than anybody else he knew. For this reason, whenever he could he trained his body to make the most of his advantages and build up the strength he lacked. They may all be as tall and strong as bears, but I’ve never seen a bear catch a squirrel. He burst out laughing and turned back to the village.
When he arrived, he made sure there was no danger waiting for him in the streets and made his way to Ulf’s house. He took the main street, which was wider and would allow him to escape more easily in case of fresh trouble. He passed his old home and stopped to look at it, as he always did. It was a building of wood and stone in the Norghanian style, surrounded by a modest wall, bigger and more luxurious than the other houses in the village. Both the house and the several acres of land and forest behind it had belonged to his father. It had been the family property. But not anymore.
The village of Skad was a mining community in the northwest. Most of the houses in the village were simple, and the only one that looked as if it belonged to a rich merchant, or perhaps a nobleman, was his father’s. There was a reason for this: his father had been neither rich nor a nobleman, but nor was he an ordinary man either. He had been First Ranger of Norghana. It was a feat very few men had been able to achieve. They could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
He sighed, and for a long moment remembered the good times when he and his father had lived there and been happy. It seemed that a whole lifetime had gone by, and yet it had only been three years.
“What are you looking at?” came a voice. “Have you forgotten all over again that this isn’t your house any longer?” He came back to reality. From the old entrance in the middle of the wall a guard was gesturing for him to go away. Beside him another guard was glaring sourly at him.
“Go on your way,” the second one said.
“I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“I told you to go, my lord doesn’t want to see you around staring at the house like a stuffed dummy. It makes him angry.”
Lasgol was about to reply but he thought better of it and bit his tongue. When his father had fallen into disgrace, the King had stripped titles and land from him and his descendants; such was Norghanian law. Lasgol had lost his father, his home and everything they had owned. Count Malason, the lord of that county, had handed over house and lands to his second cousin Osvald, nicknamed The Whip, for his love of that instrument, which he always wore coiled around his waist ready to be used, and who was in charge of managing the two mines, of iron and coal, in the area.
“All right, I’m going.”
He walked to his present “home”. It was the old house of a retired soldier which stood by itself in the northern part of the village. It was small and had seen better times, but it was solid and the roof still held. And what was more important, the fireplace gave out enough heat to mean they did not freeze to death when the temperature plunged, which often happened every winter. He stopped in front of the door and hesitated between going in and turning back. He was afraid of Ulf’s rage. He began to turn around.
