Murtagh

Murtagh scooped up his bedroll and fell in next to Gert as the stocky man headed away from the courtyard, toward a stone structure attached to one of the barracks. It looked more like a square-sided watchtower than a house, but Murtagh guessed the tower contained the officers’ living quarters.

As they walked, Gert said, “Where’d you learn to handle a sword like that, boy?”

“There was a man in our village who had some experience soldiering when he was young. He taught me as I was growing up.”

The guard grunted, and Murtagh wondered if he believed him. The skills Murtagh had demonstrated hardly matched those of the average foot soldier. But Gert had the good manners not to inquire further.

The interior of the tower was cool and dark, illuminated only by the occasional arrow slit or wall-mounted torch (few of which were lit). The stones smelled of damp, and the smell reminded Murtagh of the bolt-hole tunnel he had used when meeting Carabel: a mossy, moldy scent that spoke of caves deep underground and of dripping stalactites and blind fish nosing against cold rocks.

Gert led him straight through the building to a closed door by one corner. He knocked and said, “It’s me, Cap’n. Mind if’n I come in?”

“Enter,” answered a man from within, strong and clear.

Gert gave Murtagh a stern look. “You wait here now an’ don’t move.” Then he pulled open the door and stepped through.

Murtagh glanced up and down the stone hall. It had an arched roof similar to some of the dwarf tunnels around Tronjheim. There was a low wooden bench against one wall, but he decided it was better to stand. Next to the bench was a planter full of artfully arranged bundles of dried baby’s breath.

He wondered who had requested the flowers.

Gert kept him waiting for over ten minutes. Then the door swung back open, and the weaponmaster poked his head out. “Cap’n will see you now.”

Murtagh hefted his bedroll and walked in.

The captain’s study was a modest affair, as such things went. Murtagh had seen officers commission or commandeer far more ostentatious chambers in order to flaunt their family’s wealth or improve their chances of climbing the ranks of power at court. Wren’s tastes were more restrained, if somewhat unusual.

The walls were the same bare stone as the outside, but they were lined with racks of scrolls, over which hung maps of Gil’ead, maps of the Empire, and maps of Nasuada’s new queendom, the Spine, and Alagaësia as a whole. A broad table dominated one side of the room, and even more maps—these pinned with small flags and carvings of soldiers—lay strewn across it, along with scrolls and piles of parchment covered with writing.

The captain himself sat behind the desk, marking runes on a half sheet of vellum. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, with a touch of grey at his temples and a few fine wrinkles about his eyes from years spent drilling in the sun. Lean, focused, with an intelligent and perceptive gleam to his gaze, he struck Murtagh as the sort of man who could both plan a campaign and execute it, while also earning the love of his men.

His hair was neat, his tabard and jerkin neater. Even his nails were clean and trimmed. The one flaw in his appearance was his hands; the knuckles were swollen and the fingers twisted with arthritic distortion in a way Murtagh had only seen before among the extreme elderly.

On the wall behind the captain was the room’s most notable feature: two lines of wooden masks mounted on the stone. They weren’t the ornate party masks of the aristocracy, with which Murtagh was well acquainted. Rather, they were rough, barbaric-looking creations that evoked the faces of different animals: the bear, the wolf, the fox, the raven, and so forth, including two animals that he didn’t recognize. In style and execution, they resembled no tradition he was familiar with; if pressed, he would have said they had been crafted with the crudest of stone tools.

And yet the masks had a certain entrancing power; Murtagh found his gaze drawn to them as a lodestone drawn to a bar of iron.

Wren put down his quill and, with a slight grimace, flexed his hand. He eyed Murtagh. “So you’re the one who caught Muckmaw.”

At the back of the room, Gert slipped out and closed the door.

Murtagh stood at attention and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“How did you manage it, son?”

The run to Gil’ead had given Murtagh plenty of opportunity to think of an answer. As always, the best deception was the one that hewed most closely to the truth.

He adopted a somewhat abashed expression. “Truth be told, I weren’t trying to. I were out fishing for eels, and Muckmaw grabbed my bait and pulled me into the water. I’m not ashamed to say, I thought my last moments were upon me. I saw the fish come at me, and I tried to use my dagger on him, but it just bounced off his hide.”

Wren nodded, as if this were expected. “And then what?”