Murtagh

Will you take Zar’roc with you this time?

Murtagh looked at the sword propped against the log he was sitting on. He wanted to. Entering Gil’ead unarmed wasn’t an appealing prospect. “It’ll attract too much attention. I’ll bring my dagger instead.”

Thorn uttered a hiss of disapproval. Always this problem. You should get another sword, one that you can carry wherever you go.

“That’s not a bad idea,” said Murtagh, wiping his mouth. “I’d have to enchant it, though, so it didn’t break.”

Then do so, insisted Thorn.

Murtagh eyed him. “All right. Gil’ead has a large weapons market. Or it did. I’ll see what I can find there.”

Good. Thorn dug his claws deeper into the ground.

“But in the meantime…” Murtagh hopped to his feet and walked among the trees until he found a poplar sapling—as thick as his wrist—that had died from lack of light, shadowed by the branches of the full-grown trees. He pried the sapling loose from the loam and carried it back to camp.

There, he stripped it of bark and cut it so it was a head taller than himself. “Done,” he said, hefting the staff. “Not the best wood, but it’ll do for now.”

You can fight with this? Thorn asked.

“Better, I can walk with it,” said Murtagh, and he leaned on the staff as if he had a bad knee. “If anyone looks, they’ll see my leg, not my face.”

Thorn sniffed the staff. Dull stick-claw is improvement on no dull stick-claw, I suppose. Still, try not to kick up a hive of hornets as you did at Ceunon.

“That wasn’t on purpose.”

It never is. Perhaps Ilenna can keep you from getting into trouble, hmm?

Murtagh raised an eyebrow. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted her to catch me.”

Thorn’s mouth spread in an approximation of a smile. Maybe you should let her. It might ease the fire in your belly.

Murtagh snorted. “You know what that leads to. Children.”

Hatchlings are not a bad thing.

He eyed Thorn, serious. “They are if you can’t give them the care they need. I wouldn’t inflict that on any child of mine. I’d sooner die.”

***

From the hollow, Murtagh trotted east and north until he intercepted the main road leading up to Gil’ead. There were soldiers marching along the way, and farmers driving wagons and livestock, and shuttered carriages, and a merchant caravan laden with southern goods.

Murtagh slipped onto the road and fell in behind the caravan, making no attempt to avoid the cloud of dust kicked up by the line of mules. He pulled his hood over his face, lowered his head, and adopted a limping step.

As he walked, he practiced his lies. Yes, he was Tornac son of Tereth, come from Ilirea to purchase swords and spears and shields for his master’s men. His master? One Burdock Marrisson, who had served honorably as captain in Nasuada’s army and been awarded a minor title as reward. No, he didn’t have any letters of recommendation. Why should he? Yes, he had a letter of credit to make his purchases. His horse? Stabled at the Cattail Inn, south of Gil’ead.

And so forth and so on. The story wouldn’t stand close inspection, but Murtagh hoped it would be enough to avoid trouble if trouble came looking.

In the fields alongside the road, he saw traces of the battle for Gil’ead, ghosts of past bloodshed. There along a hedgerow was where the Empire’s cavalry had massed, and even now a circle of ground was bare where horses had trampled the dirt until it was hard as fired brick. Half a ruined wagon lay rotting along the lip of a nearby ditch, the wood burnt black by spellfire. Farther to the east was where the elves had broken through the army’s defensive lines and begun to drive them away from Gil’ead.

Murtagh forced himself to stop looking, but he couldn’t stop remembering. It must have been terrifying, he thought. To be stuck on foot, with dragons fighting overhead, and ranks of elves descending upon your position…He could hardly imagine a worse situation.

As he drew closer to Gil’ead, he noticed an odd thing. Half a mile ahead of him, there was a narrow side path that ran west some distance to a large oak tree on a hilly crest. At least a third of the travelers turned aside from the road and walked to the oak, which they looked at for a long time before doing an about-face and returning to the road.

Murtagh couldn’t make sense of it. There were no stands beside the oak. No merchants or tinkers plying their trade. It was just…a tree.