felt as if his whole plot were cursed.
Gareth turned away, pulled the hood over his face, and hiked twice as fast, praying he had not been discovered.
“Gareth?” called out the voice.
Gareth had no choice. He froze in his tracks, pulled back his hood, and turned and looked at his brother, who came waltzing merrily towards him.
“What are you doing here?” Godfrey asked.
Gareth opened his mouth, but then closed it, stumbling, at a loss for words.
“We were going for a hike,” Firth volunteered, rescuing him.
“A hike, were you?” one of Godfrey’s friends mocked Firth, in a high, feminine voice. His friends laughed, too. Gareth knew that his brother and his friends all judged him for his predisposition—but he hardly cared about that now. He just needed to change the topic. He didn’t want them to wonder what he was doing out here.
“What are you doing out here?” Gareth asked, turning the tables.
“A new tavern opened, by Southwood,” Godfrey answered. “We had just been trying it out. The best ale in all the kingdom. Want some?” he asked, holding out a cask.
Gareth shook his head quickly. He knew he had to distract him, and he figured the best way was to change the topic, to rebuke him.
“Father would be furious if he caught you drinking during the day,” Gareth said. “I suggest you set down that and return to court.”
It worked. Godfrey glowered, and clearly he was no longer thinking about Gareth, but about father and himself.
“And since when did you care about father’s needs?” he retorted.
Gareth had had enough. He hadn’t time to waste with a drunkard. He succeeded in what he wanted, distracting him, and now, hopefully, he wouldn’t think too deeply about why he had run into him here.
Gareth turned and hurried down the trail, hearing their mocking laughter behind him as he went. He no longer cared. Soon, it would be he who had the last laugh.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Thor sat at the wooden table, working away at the bow and arrow laid out in pieces. Beside him sat Reece, along with several other members of the Legion. They were all hunched over their weapons, hard at work on carving the bows and tightening the strings.
“A warrior knows how to string his own bow,” Kolk yelled out, as he walked up and down the rows of boys, leaning over, examining each one’s work. “The tension must be just right. Too little, and your arrow will not reach its mark. Too much, and your aim will not be true. Weapons break in battle. Weapons break on journeys. You must know how to repair them as you go. The greatest warrior is also a blacksmith, a carpenter, a cobbler, a mender of all things broken. And you don’t really know your own weapon until you’ve repaired it yourself.”
Kolk stopped behind Thor and leaned over his shoulder. He yanked the wooden bow out of Thor’s grasp, the string hurting his palm as he did.
“The string is not taut enough,” he chided. “It is crooked. Use a weapon like this in battle, and you will surely die. And your partner will die besides you.”
Kolk slammed the bow back down on the table and moved on; several other boys snickered. Thor reddened as he grabbed the string again, pulled it as taut as he possibly could, and wrapped it around the notch in the bow. He’d been at work on this for hours, the cap to an exhausting day of labor and menial tasks.
Most of the others were training, sparring, sword-fighting. He looked out and in the distance saw his brothers, the three of them, laughing as they clacked wooden swords; as usual, Thor felt they were gaining the upper hand while he was being left behind in their shadow. It was unfair. He felt increasingly that he was unwanted here, as if he were not a true member of the Legion.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it,” O’Connor said beside him.
Thor’s palms were chafed from trying; he pulled back the string one last time, this time with all his might, and finally, to his surprise, it clicked. The string fit neatly in the notch, Thor pulling with all his might, sweating. He felt a great sense of satisfaction with his bow now as strong as it should be.
The shadows were growing longer as Thor wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and wondered how much longer this would go on. He contemplated what it meant to be a warrior. In his head, he had seen it differently. He had only imagined training, all the time. But he supposed this was also a form of training.
“This was not what I signed up for, either,” O’Connor said, as if reading his mind.
Thor turned, and was reassured to find his friend’s constant smile.
“I come from the Northern Province,” he continued. “I, too, dreamed of joining the Legion my entire life. I guess I imagined constant sparring and battle. Not all of these menial tasks. But it will get better. It is just because we are new. It is a form of initiation. There seems to be a hierarchy here. We are also the youngest. I don’t see the nineteen-year-olds doing this. This can’t last forever. Besides, it’s a useful skill to learn.”
A horn sounded. Thor looked over and saw the rest of the Legion gathering together, beside a huge stone wall in the middle of the field. Ropes were draped across it, spaced every ten feet. The wall must have been thirty feet tall, and piled at its base were stacks of hay.
“What are you waiting for?” Kolk screamed. “MOVE!”
The Silver appeared all around them, screaming, and before Thor knew it he and all the others jumped from their benches and ran across the field to the wall.
Soon they were all gathered there, standing before the ropes. There was an excited buzz in the air as all the Legion members stood together. Thor was ecstatic to finally be included with the others, and he found himself gravitating to Reece, who stood with another friend of his. O’Connor joined them.
“You will find in battle that most towns are fortified,” Kolk boomed out, looking over the faces of the boys. “Breaching fortifications is the work of a soldier. In a typical siege, ropes and grappling hooks are used, much like the ones we have thrown over this wall, and climbing a wall is one of the most dangerous things you will encounter in battle. In few cases will you be more exposed, more vulnerable. The enemy will pour molten lead on you. They will shoot down arrows. Drop rocks. You don’t climb a wall until the moment is perfect. And when you do, you must climb for your life—or else risk death.”
Kolk took a deep breath, then screamed out: “BEGIN!”
All around him the boys broke into action, each charging for a rope. Thor sprinted for a free one and was about to take it when an older boy reached it first, bumping him out of the way. Thor scrambled and grabbed the closest one he could find, a thick, knotted twine. Thor’s heart pounded as he began to scramble his way up the wall.
The day had turned misty, and Thor’s feet slipped on the stone. Still, he made good time and couldn’t help but notice he was faster than many of the others, nearly taking the lead as he scrambled his way up. He was, for the first time today, starting to feel good, starting to feel a sense of pride.
Suddenly,
