The Knight

That brought the grin back. “We kept yours for you,” he told me. He opened a chest and held up Sword Breaker, still in her scabbard, and the scabbard still on my old sword belt. “I don’t guess you’ve forgotten this?”

That made me smile. “I remember it pretty well.”

“Clothes, too.” Kerl lifted out a double armful. “Saved ’em all for you. Put cedar shavin’s on ’em to keep the moths off, and they ought to be good as new.” He put them on the bed for me to look at.

I thanked him, and told him how much I meant it (and I really did) and said I would sleep on deck and do whatever work I could to pay for my food.

“You’ll sleep right here, sir.” Kerl sounded like he meant that, too. “This here’s your cabin just like these here are your boots, sir. Your cabin ’til you get off at Forcetti, sir, and I’m proud to give it to you.”

“I can’t pay—wait just a minute. I left money here when I went away with the Aelf. If you kept it for me too—”

Kerl could not meet my eyes. “I spent it, Sir Able. I had to. We was stove off Needam, and laid up seven weeks for repairs, sir. I’ll pay it all back, I swear. Only I can’t pay you back but a little right now.”

He opened his strongbox for me and showed me what he had, and there was so little in there, just copper and brass and four pieces of silver, that I almost let him keep all of it. Only I knew I was going to have to have something, and I took half.

A couple of days after that we came in sight of the Mountain of Fire. I was curious about it because of what Garsecg had said, and I asked Kerl and some people in the little port nearby, where we sold some cloth Kerl had not been able to sell farther south. It had belonged to the Osterlings, and they had pushed people into the opening at the top because it bypassed Aelfrice and went straight to Muspel where the dragons are. If it had just been their own people, we probably would not have cared, but they raided, and ate people they captured the way they do, and pushed in the ones they would have liked to eat most so the dragons would help them.

King Arnthor had taken the Mountain of Fire, fortified it, and left a garrison there. Some of the men-at-arms were in the town when we were, drinking and trying to pick up girls. They were the first men-at-arms I had seen, and I was anxious to see knights. There were donkeys for rent at the stable, but I had very little money and Pouk had none, so we decided to walk.

Chapter 29. My Bet

If I had known what was in store for us, I would never have gone. And if I had gone anyway, there is no way I would have let Pouk come with me. As it was, we had a nice time of it, setting out early in the morning before the sun was hot, and holding walking races for forfeits. It got warmer and we slowed down a lot, basically walking from shade to shade if you know what I mean. We were lucky, because there was a lot of shade, but we were unlucky, too, because there were a lot of bugs. The bugs were not so lucky themselves, though. We must have swatted about a hundred, and I got to wishing I could put them all together in one big bug and shoot arrows at it.

I was trying to figure out some way to do that when a farmer came along with a cart full of fruit he was taking to the Mountain of Fire. He gave us a ride, and let us eat mangos as we rode along. We promised to help him unload when he got to the mountain, but when he found out I was a knight he would not let me. When we got there, Pouk had to unload for both of us.

While he was doing that, I was talking to some of the men-at-arms there about the walls and towers and so on, and who was there. Lord Thunrolf was in charge of everything. We were already inside the first wall, a kind of little one but long, that walled off the whole side where the mountain could be climbed. I told them I was a knight, which I was, and said I wanted to go on up the road and see the big walls and towers up higher, and maybe even climb on up to the place where the smoke was coming out. Kerl had said the smoke came from Muspel, and I thought that was pretty tough to believe and it was probably just a story somebody had told him, so I wanted to see for myself.