Treason in the north, p.1
Treason in the North, page 1
part #4 of Path of the Ranger Series
Treason in the North
(Path of the Ranger Book 4)
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.
Contents
Treason in the North
Pedro Urvi
Other Books by Pedro Urvi
Dedication
Contents
MAP
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
---THE END BOOK 4---
Acknowledgements
Author
MAP
Chapter 1
Lasgol heard clashing sounds of metal, followed by distant shouting. He recognized them at once.
Armed combat!
He tugged at Trotter’s reins. The good Norghanian pony stopped at the edge of the snow-covered forest, without moving out on to the plain. A cold rain mingled with thick snowflakes was falling from a black sky.
“Why are we stopping?” Viggo asked behind him. He was barely recognizable, with his hood covered with crystalline dots of snow.
Lasgol put his finger to his lips and turned his head toward his comrade.
Viggo understood the warning look. He stopped his own mount and was silent, staring around him.
It was noon, but even so, the weather did not allow them to make out much amid the dense ash forest. Lasgol concentrated and used his Gift to communicate mentally with Camu. He searched for the small pool of blue energy within his chest. When he called upon his Animal Communication skill, he caught the mind of the little creature, who was following them a few paces behind, playing in the snow of the path that crossed the great forest.
Danger, Hide and no noise, he transmitted.
Camu looked at him with his bulging eyes and eternal smile and began to camouflage himself among a clump of snow-covered ferns. An instant later he was gone from sight.
Lasgol jumped nimbly off his horse. Crouching by a tree, without leaving the shelter of the forest, he watched the scene which was unfolding near a wide bridge of rock and wood four hundred paces to the northeast.
Two groups of armed men were fighting for control of the bridge.
Viggo crouched beside him. “How many?” he whispered. He had tethered both horses to a tree further back.
“About twenty on one side, thirty on the other,” Lasgol replied in an almost inaudible whisper.
“Soldiers or militia?”
“A mixture of both.”
Viggo shaded his eyes with his hand to avoid the watery flakes that were now falling more heavily.
“I can make out Uthar’s colors in the group attacking from the East. And the colors of the Western League on the other side.”
“Yeah, it’s almost a metaphor for what’s happening in the realm.”
Viggo looked at him in puzzlement. “Don’t go all Egil on me,” he said, and grimaced.
“I mean we have an armed conflict in front of us between a bigger group on the East serving Uthar, and a smaller group on the West serving the League.”
“Huh! And why didn’t you say just that, instead of complicating it all?”
Lasgol shook his head. “I must be spending too much time with Egil.”
“You can say that again. Way too much:”
“Don’t say that, you know that deep down you’re fond of him.”
“Yeah, sure,” Viggo replied and mimicked hanging himself.
Lasgol smiled. “You’re a pain.”
Viggo gave a shrug. They watched the fighting for a moment.
Viggo readied his bow. “Whose side are we on?” he asked suddenly.
“Neither of them.”
“What do you mean, neither of them? We’re Rangers. Besides, I’m from the East. I was born there.”
“Yeah, but the East is with Uthar.”
“Right...” Viggo shrugged again. “Then we shoot against the East.”
Lasgol shook his head firmly. “We don’t shoot against anybody.”
“I’ve got an idea. What about you shooting at the East and me at the West? That way we do our duty as Rangers, and we also do the right thing, which is going against Uthar.” Viggo’s casualness suggested that this was the wisest choice they could make.
Lasgol rolled his eyes. “Nobody’s going to shoot at anybody here.”
“Spoilsport.”
The battle went on. The sound of steel against steel and the cries of fighting intensified. Several men had fallen on both sides. The Eastern forces were fighting with metal shields and spears; those of the West with war axes and round wooden shields, in the traditional Norghanian style. The soldiers wore light scaled chainmail armor. The militia wore reinforced leather jerkins decorated with the coat of arms of whichever duchy or county they belonged to. The fighting was fierce, in the purest Norghanian style. The blood had begun to stain the snow and the wood of the bridge. The wind changed, and the cries of fury and death reached them as if they were in the middle of the fight. One man was pierced through with a spear and fell into the river. Another received an axe blow in the head which went through both helmet and skull.
“We ought to join in,” Viggo insisted.
“We’re passing through, we don’t have to join in.”
“They won’t see us in the storm. We shoot, kill them all and that’s that. Battle over.”
Lasgol looked aside at his partner and saw that he had already tensed his bow and was aiming.
“They’re more than four hundred paces away, they’re moving, and you’re going to release with a storm raging, when you aren’t exactly our best archer... are you really sure you’re going to hit the targets?”
Viggo thought for a moment. “The officers who’re barking orders, yes, I’m sure of that. I’ve improved a lot with the bow.”
“You’ve improved a bit. Not a lot. You’d miss at this distance. And we’re not going to step in.”
“Oh, you’re such a wet blanket. It’d be fun to see their surprise at seeing their officers falling and not knowing what’s going on. What’s more, they’re not carrying bows, and even if they spotted us, by the time they caught up with us we’d have killed more than half of them.”
“We’re not going to kill anyone,” Lasgol said, and his voice was firm and definite.
Viggo gave up. “Fine...” he said, and lowered his bow.
The fight went on. The eastern forces were gaining the upper hand. The men of the west were fighting with all they had, but there were fewer of them.
“It’s awful to watch Norghanians fighting Norghanians,” Lasgol said with real feeling.
“Civil wars are like that.”
“I can’t believe we’ve reached that extreme.”
“King Uthar isn’t going to hand over the kingdom to the Western League and the Peoples of the Ice.”
“I wish there was some way of stopping this madness...”
“Killing Uthar?”
“That’d be a good start, but I think it’s quite a difficult thing to manage. He’s taken cover in Norghania, the capital, and he’s regrouping his forces. Or at least, that’s what people are saying.”
“No sooner said than done. He’s only got the Invincibles, the Ice Mages, the Rangers, and the best of the Norghanian army with him. It’s a piece of cake.”
“Sure, really easy.”
“I trust Darthor and the Western League. And above all, the Peoples of the Frozen Continent and their creatures and monsters of the ice.”
At the mention of his mother, Lasgol wished he were with her now. But there was no way he could be. Soon, though. It was still not the time for another encounter. It was such a short time ago that they had said goodbye.
“Darthor and the League are regrouping and getting ready, the same as Uthar,” Lasgol said, wishing that some solution could be found to stop it. “Soon the conflict will be on a bigger scale... it’ll be horrible...”
“We could always let Uthar win.”
“Never!”
Viggo smiled. “Easy, man, I was just twisting your arm a bit. I don’t want you to go soft on me.”
“No need. I know perfectly well what’s at stake for us, for the Western League, for all Norghana. Uthar must fall. He’s an impostor, a murderous shifter.”
“And the King.”
“And the Rangers are with him.”
“I’m surprised Dolbarar’s given us a few weeks’ rest, with things as they are,” Viggo said. He waved his hand toward the fighting, which was ending. The westerners, defeated, were withdrawing, while the easterners secured the position.
“Yeah... I believe he’s done it for a reason.”
“So we can clear our heads and relax?”
“No. So that those westerners who don’t want to go on fighting can go home and not come back.”
“Huh... I hadn’t thought of that. He’s smart, the old man.”
“And he has a good heart.”
“Yes. Anyone else wouldn’t have allowed it. He’s letting desertions go unchallenged, and Uthar won’t like that.”
“The realm’s splitting in two. Men choose sides, they choose allegiances. Let’s hope Dolbarar’s actions don’t come back to bite him.”
“We’ll soon know. For the moment, let’s make the most of the four weeks. They’ll fly past, and we’ll have to come back for more training.”
“This’ll be the fourth year... the last one before we graduate as Rangers.”
“And choose an elite specialty.”
“If we’re chosen.”
“Yeah, because we won’t be chosen. We aren’t that good.”
“That’s what I think... maybe Ingrid.”
Viggo nodded. “Miss Bossy-Boots might manage it, yes.”
“Don’t tease her so much. Deep down you like her, however much you pretend otherwise.”
“No way!”
The fighting ended, and the easterners tended to their wounded. The Westerners they found alive had their throats cut ruthlessly.
Lasgol shook his head. The sight filled him with an impotent rage.
Viggo raised his bow. “We’re still in time,” he said. “They deserve to die, if only for what they just did.”
“I know. But we’re not judge and executioner.”
“If you let me, that’s what we could be today.”
“No, my friend, let’s move on. We’ve seen enough. If there’s justice, they’ll pay for it.”
“You’re too good,” Viggo said, shaking his head. “Someday it’ll be the death of you.”
They exchanged glances. Viggo’s was cold, deadly. Lasgol knew he himself did not have it in him and his partner was right; one day he would pay dearly for that lack. He only hoped that day would be as long as possible in coming.
“Let’s hope not,” he said, without conviction.
“Start thinking about how to solve this mess of a civil war and how we unmask Uthar.”
“Me?”
“Well, obviously. You don’t seriously think I’m going to come up with an idea myself?”
“And why d’you think I will?”
“Because you got us into this mess, and you’re the one who’s got to get us out of it.”
Lasgol was thoughtful. They would have to do something to stop the madness, however small or insignificant their effort might appear. Thousands of lives were at stake.
“I’ll try.”
“Attaboy!”
The two friends mounted again and went on their way to the West amid the snowstorm.
Chapter 2
Lasgol tugged on Trotter’s reins gently so that the strong Norghanian pony would stop before setting out across the wide snow-covered pasture-land which spread out before them. The forest was behind them, and his village of Skad was in sight ahead in the distance.
Viggo was looking at the winter landscape and the flock of sheep to one side. “Why are we stopping?”
“This is my village,” Lasgol said. He pointed to the end of the green fields, currently partly covered in white.
Suddenly they heard a commotion among the sheep, which began to move restlessly. They bleated in fright for no apparent reason. There was no-one nearby.
Viggo put his hand to his forehead and threw his head back. “Here we go again!” he moaned desperately.
“I can’t help it... you know what he’s like...”
Lasgol could not see him because he was camouflaged and practically invisible to the human eye. When he looked carefully, he made out the tiny prints on the snow and guessed his position along by the empty space the sheep were leaving between them.
“Leave them alone,” he said.
Viggo shook his head. “That animal is totally insane.”
“Don’t call him ‘animal, you know perfectly well his name’s Camu, and he doesn’t like you to call him that.”
“I don’t like him, or her, or it either, or whatever the animal is, and even so I put up with him.”
“And he does the same with you,” Lasgol said with a half-smile.
Suddenly Camu became visible amid the sheep. With a happy shriek, he bounced on all four legs in delight. The little creature wanted to play with them.
“Oh, no...” Viggo said.
The sheep fled in a stampede of bleating terror.
“Camu, don’t do that,” Lasgol reprimanded him, even though he knew that half the time the little creature paid no attention to him.
He stared back at him with his bulging eyes and eternal smile, wagging his tail and flexing his four legs as he liked to do when he was happy.
“Camu bad,” Lasgol said, and wagged his finger at him. He knew Camu understood. Whether he cared was a different matter.
Camu gave a little shriek of puzzlement, as if he had not done anything wrong. He stared back as if he did not understand why he was being reprimanded.
“Don’t play the fool,” Viggo told him. “You know perfectly well why he’s scolding you.”
Camu put his head to one side with a look of innocence, then shrieked again as if he had not done anything.
Viggo frowned thoughtfully. “He’s a top-class comedian. He ought to go into the circus, or a street theater.”
Lasgol nodded. “That’s true,” he admitted, smiling.
“Hey, suppose we sold him to a traveling circus or a theater in the capital? I bet we’d get quite a bit for him.”
Camu gave a questioning shriek, and his everlasting smile vanished.
“Don’t say that,” Lasgol said sharply. “Don’t you see he understands us?”
“I’m not really sure that creature understands us, however much you insist he does.”
“He doesn’t understand every word, but he does understand certain things. Egil’s making a study of him, and that’s one of the conclusions he’s reached.”
“I think it’s just a coincidence that he sometimes reacts to what we say in a way that makes it look as if he understood what we’re saying.”
Lasgol watched Camu, who was running and leaping all over the field. The sheep had fled in terror. Luckily there was no shepherd nearby. The mischievous little creature had grown a lot. He seemed always to do this toward the end of winter, as if he had been waiting for this moment. He had just put on this spurt of growth, and by now had reached the size of a large cat. He still climbed up on to Lasgol’s shoulders, but now the little creature’s weight was beginning to be too much. Soon, probably by the end of this new year, if he went on growing at the same rate, Lasgol would not be able to carry him at all. Egil had spent some time recording everything they found out about Camu in his notebook, as well as his size, weight and growth. His friend was doing a real field study, and enjoying every moment.
“Why are we coming down from the forest through the fields and not following the path I can see over there?” Viggo asked.
“These are dangerous times, and it’s better not to follow the roads. Besides, you and I are Rangers, and Rangers don’t often follow roads or paths. That’s what The Path of the Ranger says. Have you forgotten?”
