The Serpentwar Saga: The Complete 4-Book Collection

Roo rolled to his feet, his dagger pulled from within his shirt. Murderous anger flashed in his eyes as he stepped forward. Stefan struggled with hysterical strength and Erik felt his grip loosen. As Roo reached them, Erik heard a distant voice shout, ‘Kill him!’ and as Roo drove home the blade, Erik realized the voice commanding Stefan’s death was his own.

Stefan stiffened and bucked once, then went limp, and even when Roo yanked free his blade, the son of the Baron did not twitch. Erik felt his skin crawl with an otherworldly sense of disgust, as if he were holding something profoundly unclean, and he let go. Stefan fell limply to the ground.

Roo stood over him, holding the still-bloody dagger, and Erik saw rage-was still in his friend’s expression. He said, ‘Roo?’

Roo blinked and looked down at his blade, then at Stefan. He wiped the blade on Stefan’s shirt and put it away. Frustration and anger still pumped through Roo’s mind and body; in need of another target to vent them on, he aimed a vicious kick at Stefan’s body. The toe of his boot struck ribs, breaking them. With a final gesture of contempt, he spit on the corpse.

Suddenly the anger drained out of Erik. ‘Roo?’ he repeated, and his friend turned to face him.

Erik’s expression was one of confusion and Roo’s a mask of equally confused anger; a third time Erik said his friend’s name. Roo finally answered, his own voice hoarse with excitement and fear. ‘What?’

‘What have we done?’

Roo looked blankly at Erik a moment, then looked down at Stefan. Instantly what had just occurred registered on him. He rolled his eyes heavenward and said, ‘Oh, gods, Erik. They’re going to hang us.’

Erik glanced around, and the sight of Rosalyn shook him back to more pressing needs than concern over his own fate. He crossed the distance between Stefan’s body and hers and knelt beside her. She lived, but her breath was shallow and labored, and he moved her to a more upright position. He watched helplessly, not knowing if he should cover her up, or see if he could stop the bleeding from her nose, or what. Then she moaned slightly.

Roo appeared with a fancy cloak, obviously Stefan’s, and covered her. ‘She’s in danger,’ said Erik.

‘So are we,’ answered Roo. ‘If we stay, they will arrest us and hang us, Erik.’

Erik looked as if he were about to pick up Rosalyn, but Roo said, ‘We must get away!’

Erik said, ‘What do you mean?’

Roo said, ‘We’ve killed the Baron’s son, you idiot.’

‘But he abused Rosalyn!’

‘That doesn’t give us a warrant to execute him, Erik. Do you want to go into court and swear that this was only about Rosalyn? If it had been anyone else in the entire world but your own half brother …’ He left the thought unfinished.

‘We can’t leave her here,’ said Erik.

The sounds of men shouting echoed through the night. ‘She won’t be undiscovered for long. This orchard is going to be swarming with the Baron’s soldiers in a few minutes.’ As if to punctuate the observation, Erik could now hear distinct voices as the men advanced toward the orchard.

Roo looked ready to run at a moment’s notice as he looked around the glade. ‘We didn’t have to kill him, Erik. If we are put in the dock and made to testify, we can’t honestly say we had to kill him.’ Roo put his hand on Erik’s arm as if to drag him from the scene. ‘I wanted him dead, Erik. You did, too. We murdered him.’

Erik found it almost impossible to keep events clear in his head. He knew he had felt something close to murder in his heart as he wrestled with Stefan, but now that was a distant memory, and events were jumbled.

‘I’ve got my money, here’ – he indicated his travel bundle – ‘so we can make for Krondor and buy passage to the Sunset Islands.’

‘Why there?’

‘Because if a man lives for a year and a day in the islands and commits no crime, he’s pardoned for whatever he did before he came there. It’s an old law from when the islands came into the Kingdom.’

‘But they’ll be looking for us.’

Rosalyn stirred, with a faint moan of discomfort. Roo leaned down and asked, ‘Can you hear me?’

The girl didn’t answer. Roo said, ‘They’ll probably think we’re going to Kesh. A man can hide in the Vale of Dreams and get across the border without much trouble.’ The vale, the border between Great Kesh and the Kingdom, was a no-man’s-land of smugglers, bandits, and garrisons along both sides of the frontier. Men came and went and few questions were asked.

Erik moved his shoulder experimentally and felt light-headed when a stabbing pain answered his movement. ‘This isn’t right,’ he said.

Roo shook his head. ‘If we stay here, we will be hung. Even if we had twenty witnesses, Manfred would make sure we were found guilty.’ Roo looked around as a distant shout split the night. ‘Someone’s coming. We have to go now!’

Erik nodded. ‘I should go back to the inn –’

‘No,’ said Roo. ‘They’ll expect that. We must go down the old western trail. We’ll go all night and cut into the woodlands at daybreak. If they send the dogs after us, we had better be across a dozen streams or more before noon.’

‘Mother –’ began Erik.

‘She’ll be safe,’ Roo interrupted. ‘Manfred has no reason to trouble her. You were always the threat, not your mother.’ A shout from the far side of the orchard caused Roo to swear. ‘They’re on the other side already. We’re trapped!’

Erik said, ‘There!’ He pointed to an old tree both had played in over the years. The centerpiece of the old orchard, the tree was heavily shrouded in leaves and might offer possible haven.

They crossed the short distance to the tree and Roo said, ‘How’s your shoulder?’

‘Hurts like blazes, but I can move it.’

Roo didn’t hesitate but scampered up the tree. He moved as high as he could, leaving the slightly heavier lower branches for Erik. By the time Erik was out of sight, torchlight and lanterns could be seen coming close.

Roo shook for a moment as he lost balance, then regained it, and Erik was now almost sick with pain, fear, and disgust. Stefan’s death was still unreal to him; he could see the dark shape of his body on the ground and expected him to rise up in a moment, as if this were all some mummery put on at a festival.

Then a soldier with a lantern saw Rosalyn. ‘Master Greylock! Over here!’

Through the leaves, Erik could barely make out the figures that rushed to where Rosalyn and Stefan lay a few yards apart. Then he heard Owen Greylock’s voice. ‘He’s dead.’

Another voice asked, ‘How is the girl?’

A third said, ‘She’s in a bad way, Swordmaster. We should get her to the chirurgeon.’

Then Erik heard Manfred’s shout of rage. ‘They’ve killed my brother!’ An almost inaudible oath and a sobbing cry was followed by ‘I’ll kill him myself.’

Erik caught a glimpse of Owen Greylock’s slender form between the nearby leaves and heard the Baron’s Swordmaster say, ‘We’ll find those who did this, Manfred.’

Erik shook his head. The three soldiers who had seen him and Roo run after Stefan and Rosalyn would certainly place them at the scene. A soldier said, ‘I know there was bad blood between the bastard and your brother, but why did they beat the girl?’ Erik knew then that they had already been identified.

Erik felt his anger rise again. A familiar voice said, ‘Erik wouldn’t harm Rosalyn.’ Nathan was there!

‘Are you saying my brother did this, Master Smith?’

‘Young sir, I only know that this girl is as gentle a soul as the gods have placed upon this world. She was a sister to Erik and one of Roo’s few friends. Neither boy would harm her.’ Then he pointedly added, ‘But I can certainly imagine them killing anyone who did.’

Manfred’s voice rose in anger. ‘I’ll have no excuse for black murder, Master Smith. No member of my family would do this.’ Manfred raised his voice to a shout of command: ‘I want every man on his horse and combing the countryside, Swordmaster. If those two murderous dogs are found, I want them held until I can join whichever soldiers find them. I don’t want them hung until I’m there to watch.’

Nathan’s voice cut through the muttering of the gathered soldiers. ‘There will be no hanging them out of hand, young lord. That’s the law. And as you are a member of the family that is wronged, neither you nor your father can sit in judgment; when caught, Erik and Roo are to be bound over to a King’s justice or magistrate.’ Then Nathan’s tone became warning. ‘Erik is a guild apprentice, so if you really want troubles, young sir, try to put my apprentice into a noose without due writ.’

‘You’d bring the guild into this?’ asked Manfred.