The Knight

I went forward anyway.

If you ever read this, you are going to say it was because of what Sir Ravd had said. You will be mostly right—that was a lot of it. I wanted to be a knight. I wanted to be a knight more than I ever wanted to make the team or make the honor roll. I do not mean that I only wanted to call myself a knight the way I had been doing, or make other people call me one. I wanted to be the real thing. There were a couple of people on our team who were there because we could not find anybody good. There was a person on the honor roll who was there because his whole idea was to be there. He took gut courses, and if he did not get an A, he went to the teacher and argued and begged and maybe threatened a little until she raised his grade. The rest of us knew it, and I did not want to be a knight like that. This was the big test. This was one behind in the ninth, two out, and a man on second. It was not the way I would have chosen if I could have chosen, but you never get to choose.

That was only the smallest part of it, though. Let me tell you the truth right here. I thought Bold Berthold was dead. I thought his body was someplace around where his hut had been and I just had not been able to find it. I might not have found Disira’s if it had not been for Ossar, and there would not have been anything like that to tell me where Bold Berthold was. If I had been there, I might have run away when the outlaws came, and I might have tried to get Bold Berthold to run away too; but I knew Bold Berthold pretty well by that time, and he would not have done it.

The Angrborn had hurt him so much it seemed like he should be dead. He could not stand up straight. His hands shook, and sometimes it was so bad he could hardly feed himself. He could be kind of crazy, forgetting things that had happened a little while ago or remembering things that had never happened. He had been so sure I really was his brother Able that I had to answer to his name, and sometimes he had almost made me think it was true—and he thought I was still Able when I came back older-looking and bigger than he was.

All that was true, and there was more; but you could not scare him. The outlaws could have killed him, and I thought probably they had, but they would have to. They would not have scared him, and he would have protected Disira and Ossar until he died.

So Bold Berthold was dead.

He had taken me in when I had no place to go. He had loved me like his brother, and taught me everything he knew—how to farm, how to handle cattle and horses and sheep. How to hunt, and how to set snares. How you fought with a spear if a spear was all you had, and how you fought with a club if a club was all you had. He had not known a lot about shooting a bow, but he had taught me what he knew about that, too, and he had understood when I practiced and practiced, and helped me every way he could. When you have to hit what you are aiming at if you want to eat, you get to be a pretty good shot pretty quickly. When you have got to hit it or somebody who loves you will not eat either, you learn all the other stuff: how to get in a little closer, how to miss that branch without missing the deer, and how to follow a wounded deer even when it seems like it is hardly bleeding at all, because sometimes they bleed inside.

How to guess where it will go before it decides itself. Once I had a wounded deer go to a hiding place where I was hiding already and get so close I could grab it and throw it down. I had learned all that fast, like I said, and I owed it to Bold Berthold, every bit of it. The guys who killed him were going to have to deal with me, and I was not old or sick.

There was Disira, too. I had never been in love with her. I loved Queen Disiri, always, and nobody else; and if you do not understand that, you will never understand all the things I am going to tell you at all, because that was always the main thing. Just about everything else changed as time went on. I made new friends and lost old ones. Sir Garvaon taught me how to use a sword, and Garsecg showed me how I could be stronger and quicker than I had ever known—quiet sometimes, or so fierce and wild that brave men who saw me ran. But that never changed. I loved Disiri and nobody else but Disiri, and there was never a minute in the whole time when I would not have died for her.

There was one other thing, and I am going to talk about it, too. I knew I was just a kid inside. Toug always did think that I was a man, even when I told him I was not. His father thought I was a man, too (and so did Ulfa), younger than he was, but a man, and I was a lot bigger. I knew it was not true, it was just something Disiri had done, and I was really a kid. There were a lot of times when I wanted to cry. That time when I was coming up on those outlaws and looking for men hiding behind rocks or up in the trees like Aelf with every step I took, that was one of them. There was another one when I really did cry, and I’ll tell you about it in a minute. When you are a kid and you are in a tight place like I was you ca

So I did not. I just kept going toward the big cave, one slow step at a time, and thinking, well, if they kill me they kill me and it will all be over.

But the main thing was still Disiri. That is how it has always been with me, all through going to Jotunland and the River Battle and everything that happened. I loved her and I wanted her so bad it tore me up.

If you do not understand about Disiri, it will not matter what you understand, because you will not understand a thing. The outlaws were between me and her, and anything that came between us was going to get shoved out of the way and stamped into the mud, and that was the way it always was, the whole time.

Chapter 14. The Broken Sword

I had told Gylf to keep way behind me, and I had told old man Toug to stay back, too; but neither of them were very good at it. The first thing I knew old man Toug was right beside me (and scaring me so much I just about put an arrow through him) trying to whisper something. And when I turned around to see what it was, Gylf sneaked past me, not making hardly any noise but going fast.

“See the black rock?” Old man Toug pointed with his spear. “When we get there, they’ll see us if they’re there, and we’ll see them.”

I pointed behind us. “You see that round rock off to one side?”

He nodded.

“You go back there and wait, or I’ll take away your spear and stick it up your nose. Get going!”

He did, and I stood there and watched until he was all the way to it.

About then Gylf came back. He did not say anything, but I knew from the way he looked and the way he had come back so fast, that the outlaws were right up ahead. I made him get behind me, but he would not go back to the round rock. As soon as I started going forward again, he was right behind me.

Pretty soon something happened that I had not figured on at all. One of them stood up on a big rock maybe fifty paces ahead and asked who I was and did I want peace or a fight. I pulled the arrow back to my ear and let it go so fast he had no time to duck down. It got him in the chest and went right through, and he fell off his big rock.

I still had not seen the rest of them, but they had seen him, and I heard them yell. I ran to the black rock because it looked like I could climb it, and went right up it like a squirrel, scared half to death the whole time and thinking I was going to get an arrow in my back. When I got up on top I lay down flat, sort of hugging the rock.

They came around it, and it was not six or seven like we had been talking about, it was more like twenty. They saw old man Toug standing back there where I had told him to wait, and they went for him, shouting and waving spears and swords. He dropped his spear and ran like two hares, and I got up fast, shot the last one, and got two in front of him, all in a lot less time than it takes me to write the words. The last had a bow and a quiver, and when I saw the quiver I jumped.