The Serpentwar Saga. Raymond E. Feist

as Handy could be, he also could be very amusing given anything remotely like an audience. ‘One lost his temper and died in a sword drill. The other …’ He glanced at Jadow.

      ‘Ah, that was bad, man. Roger was his name,’ supplied the Valeman.

      ‘Right. Roger. He was hung when he killed a guard, trying to escape.’

      ‘How long ago was that?’ asked Erik.

      ‘More than a year, man,’ said Jadow. He ran a hand over his bald pate, which he kept free of hair by dry-shaving with a blade every morning. While most of it was naturally hairless, the little fringe around the ears was persistent enough that Erik winced each time he saw the man give himself a trim.

      ‘A year!’ asked Billy Goodwin. ‘You’ve been at that camp a year?’

      Jadow grinned. Man, consider the alternative, don’t you see?’ He laughed, a deep-throated version of a child’s delight. ‘The food was sumptuous, and the company’ – he cast a mock-baleful look at Jerome – ‘diverting, if nothing else. And the longer we were there …’

      ‘What?’ asked Roo.

      It was Biggo who answered. ‘The longer they weren’t headed toward wherever it is de Loungville and the Eagle are taking us.’

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘You’ve been playing soldier for a year, then?’ asked Luis.

      ‘More, and I don’t call it playing when men die,’ said a man named Peter Bly.

      Jerome nodded. ‘We thirty are what’s left of seventy-eight who were put through the false hanging over the last year and a bit.’

      Sho Pi said, ‘Then this would explain why Corporal Foster and … what is Robert de Loungville’s real rank – when first I saw him, I took him for a noble – does anyone know?’

      Jerome shook his head. ‘Sergeant is all I’ve ever heard. But I’ve seen him give orders to a Knight-Captain of the King’s own. He’s the second in command, after the elf.’

      ‘Elf?’ said Erik.

      Luis said, ‘What some of the older guards call the Eagle. It’s no joke. They call him that, but there’s no disrespect in it. But they say he’s not human.’

      ‘He does look a little odd,’ said Roo.

      Jerome laughed, and Jadow said, ‘Look who’s talking about looking odd!’

      All the gathered men laughed and Roo flushed with embarrassment, waving off the remark. ‘I mean, he doesn’t look like the rest of us.’

      ‘No one looks like the rest of us,’ said Sho Pi.

      ‘We know what you mean,’ said another man whose name Erik didn’t know.

      Jadow said, ‘I’ve never been to the west, though my father fought there against the Tsurani in the Riftwar. Man, that was some fighting, to hear the old man talk. He saw some elves at the battle in the valley in the Grey Towers, when the elves and dwarves betrayed the treaty. He said the elves are tall and fair, though their hair and eyes are much like yours, from brown to yellow, don’t you know? Yet he said there is something uncommon about them, and they carry themselves with a different grace – as if dancing while the rest of us walk, is what he said to me.’

      Sho Pi said, ‘The man called Eagle is that. He is one I’d not wish to face.’

      ‘You?’ said Erik. ‘You’ve taken swords out of armed men’s hands. I would have thought you were afraid of no one.’

      ‘I have taken the sword from an armed man’s hands, Erik. But I never claimed I was fearless when I did so.’ His expression became reflective. ‘There is something very dangerous in the man called Calis.’

      ‘He’s stronger than he looks,’ said Jerome with a frank look of embarrassment. ‘Early on, in the training, before he left everything to Bobby de Loungville, that’s when I thought to bully him and he knocked me down so hard I thought he’d broken my skull.’

      ‘Too thick, man, much too thick,’ said Jadow, and the others laughed.

      ‘No, I mean it. I pride myself on taking a blow with the best, but I’ve never felt anything like it, and I was certainly surprised.’ He looked at Sho Pi. ‘As surprised as I was when you twisted my thumb that time. Same thing. I moved, and suddenly I was on my back and my head was ringing like a temple gong.’

      Jadow said, ‘He never saw the blow, man. And neither did I, truth to tell. Calis is fast.’

      ‘He’s not human,’ said another, and there was general agreement.

      A warning creak on the companionway stairs had the men scrambling for their bunks before Corporal Foster was through the hatch. As he touched boot to deck, he shouted, ‘Lights out, ladies! Say good night to your sweethearts, and get your rest. You’ve a full day tomorrow.’

      Before Erik could get completely under the woolen blanket, the lantern was doused, and the hold plunged into gloom. He lay back and thought what it must have been like to live in that camp for a year, to see men you didn’t know come in and see them die. Suddenly something Sho Pi had started to say registered.

      Erik whispered. ‘Sho Pi?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘What were you about to say, about something explaining why Foster and de Loungville were doing something or whatever, when you asked about de Loungville’s rank?’

      ‘I was going to say that having so many men fail, even after the testing before and during their trials, even after having the woman read minds, explains why they are so worried about the six of us.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘More than half the men saved from the gallows died before we got to the camp. By rights, three or four of us – you, me, Roo, Billy, Biggo, and Luis – we shouldn’t be on this ship. We should be dead. De Loungville’s taking a chance. Even after all of this, we still might fail.’

      Erik said, ‘Oh, I see.’

      He lay back, and sleep was a long time coming as he thought, Fail at what?

       • Chapter Eleven • Passage

      Erik yawned.

      While things were never dull on Trenchard’s Revenge, there were moments of boredom, and this was one. He had finished his exercises with the other men, who formed what he now understood was Robert de Loungville’s handpicked band of ‘desperate men.’ Evening chow was over, and he felt like some fresh air. While the others were lounging in their bunks belowdecks, Erik waited by the fore rail, overlooking the bowsprit, listening to the sounds of the sea as the ship sped through the night.

      The deck officer called out the hour’s orders, and the lookout above answered that all was clear. Erik smiled at that. How the man knew all was clear was beyond him, unless he had some magic device allowing his mortal eyes to pierce the darkness. What he meant, thought Erik, was he couldn’t see anything.

      Yet that wasn’t entirely true. There was a sea of stars above, with the little moon just rising in the east, and the middle and large moons not due to rise until just before morning. The familiar pattern of the stars above gave silver highlights to the water below. A half mile to starboard, the Freeport Ranger was holding a parallel course, her presence marked by lights upon her bow, stern, and masthead. Any other ship in the night should be running under lights as well, so if they were near, they’d stand out like a beacon.

      ‘Fascinating, isn’t it?’

      Erik turned, startled that he hadn’t heard anyone approach. Calis stood a few feet away, gazing at the sky. ‘I’ve been on ships any number of times,