Glancing from Roran to Baldor, who was likewise entranced, Horst said, “Quite a sight, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” said Roran.
“Makes you feel rather small, doesn’t it?”
“Aye,” said Baldor.
Horst nodded. “I remember when I first saw the ocean, it had a similar effect on me.”
“When was that?” asked Roran. In addition to the flocks of seagulls whirling over the cove, he noticed an odd type of bird perched upon the piers. The animal had an ungainly body with a striped beak that it kept tucked against its breast like a pompous old man, a white head and neck, and a sooty torso. One of the birds lifted its beak, revealing a leathery pouch underneath.
“Bartram, the smith who came before me,” said Horst, “died when I was fifteen, a year before the end of my apprenticeship. I had to find a smith who was willing to finish another man’s work, so I traveled to Ceunon, which is built along the North Sea. There I met Kelton, a vile old man but good at what he did. He agreed to teach me.” Horst laughed. “By the time we were done, I wasn’t sure if I should thank him or curse him.”
“Thank him, I should think,” said Baldor. “You never would have married Mother otherwise.”
Roran scowled as he studied the waterfront. “There aren’t many ships,” he observed. Two craft were berthed at the south end of the port and a third at the opposite side with nothing but fishing boats and dinghies in between. Of the southern pair, one had a broken mast. Roran had no experience with ships but, to him, none of the vessels appeared large enough to carry almost three hundred passengers.
Going from one ship to the next, Roran, Horst, and Baldor soon discovered that they were all otherwise engaged. It would take a month or more to repair the ship with the broken mast. The vessel beside it, the Waverunner, was rigged with leather sails and was about to venture north to the treacherous islands where the Seithr plant grew. And the Albatross, the last ship, had just arrived from distant Feinster and was getting its seams recaulked before departing with its cargo of wool.
A dockworker laughed at Horst’s questions. “You’re too late and too early at the same time. Most of the spring ships came and left two, three weeks ago. An’ another month, the nor’westers will start gusting, an’ then the seal and walrus hunters will return and we’ll get ships from Teirm and the rest of the Empire to take the hides, meat, and oil. Then you might have a chance of hiring a captain with an empty hold. Meanwhile, we don’t see much more traffic than this.”
Desperate, Roran asked, “Is there no other way to get goods from here to Teirm? It doesn’t have to be fast or comfortable.”
“Well,” said the man, hefting the box on his shoulder, “if it doesn’t have to be fast an’ you’re only going to Teirm, then you might try Clovis over there.” He pointed to a line of sheds that floated between two piers where boats could be stored. “He owns some barges that he ships grain on in the fall. The rest of the year, Clovis fishes for a living, like most everybody in Narda.” Then he frowned. “What kind of goods do you have? The sheep have already been shorn, an’ no crops are in as of yet.”
“This and that,” said Horst. He tossed the man a copper.
The dockworker pocketed it with a wink and a nudge. “Right you are, sir. This an’ that. I know a dodge when I see one. But no need to fear old Ulric; mum’s th’ word, it is. Be seeing you, then, sir.” He strolled off, whistling.
As it turned out, Clovis was absent from the docks. After getting directions, it took them a half hour to walk to his house on the other side of Narda, where they found Clovis planting iris bulbs along the path to his front door. He was a stout man with sunburned cheeks and a salt-and-pepper beard. An additional hour passed before they could convince the mariner that they really were interested in his barges, despite the season, and then troop back to the sheds, which he unlocked to reveal three identical barges, the Merrybell, Edeline, and Red Boar.
Each barge was seventy-five feet long, twenty feet wide, and painted rust red. They had open holds that could be covered with tarpaulins, a mast that could be erected in the center for a single square sail, and a block of above-decks cabins at the rear—or aft, as Clovis called it—of the craft.
“Their draft be deeper than that of an inland scow,” explained Clovis, “so you needn’t fear them capsizing in rough weather, though you’d do well to avoid being caught in a real tempest. These barges aren’t meant for the open sea. They’re meant to stay within sight of land. And now be the worst time to launch them. By my honor, we’ve had nothing but thunderstorms every afternoon for a month.”
“Do you have crews for all three?” asked Roran.
“Well now…see, there’s a problem. Most of the men I employ left weeks ago to hunt seals, as they’re wont to do. Since I need them only after the harvest, they’re free to come and go as they please for the rest of the year…. I’m sure you fine gentlemen understand my position.” Clovis tried to smile, then glanced between Roran, Horst, and Baldor as if uncertain whom to address.
Roran walked the length of the Edeline, examining it for damage. The barge looked old, but the wood was sound and the paint was fresh. “If we replace the missing men in your crews, how much would it cost to go to Teirm with all three barges?”
“That depends,” said Clovis. “The sailors earn fifteen coppers per day, plus as much good food as they can eat and a dram of whisky besides. What your men earn be your own business. I won’t put them on my payroll. Normally, we also hire guards for each barge, but they’re—”
“They’re off hunting, yes,” said Roran. “We’ll provide guards as well.”
The knob in Clovis’s tanned throat jumped as he swallowed. “That’d be more than reasonable…so it would. In addition to the crew’s wages, I charge a fee of two hundred crowns, plus recompense for any damage to the barges on account of your men, plus—as both owner and captain—twelve percent of the total profit from sale of the cargo.”
“Our trip will have no profit.”
That, more than anything, seemed to unnerve Clovis. He rubbed the dimple in his chin with his left thumb, began to talk twice, stopped, then finally said, “If that be the case, another four hundred crowns upon completion of the voyage. What—if I may make so bold as to inquire—do you wish to transport?”
We frighten him, thought Roran. “Livestock.”
“Be it sheep, cattle, horses, goats, oxen…?”
“Our herds contain an assortment of animals.”
“And why do you want to take them to Teirm?”
“We have our reasons.” Roran almost smiled at Clovis’s confusion. “Would you consider sailing past Teirm?”
“No! Teirm’s my limit, it is. I don’t know the waters beyond, nor would I want to be gone any longer from my wife and daughter.”
“When could you be ready?”
Clovis hesitated and executed two little steps. “Mayhap five or six days. No…no, you’d better make it a week; I have affairs that I must attend to before departing.”
“We’d pay an additional ten crowns to leave day after tomorrow.”
“I don’t—”
“Twelve crowns.”
“Day after tomorrow it is,” vowed Clovis. “One way or another, I’ll be ready by then.”
Trailing his hand along the barge’s gunwale, Roran nodded without looking back at Clovis and said, “May I have a minute alone to confer with my associates?”
“As you wish, sir. I’ll just go for a turn about the docks until you’re done.” Clovis hurried to the door. Just as he exited the shed, he asked, “I’m sorry, but what’d be your name again? I fear I missed it earlier, an’ my memory can be something dreadful.”
“Stronghammer. My name is Stronghammer.”
“Ah, of course. A good name, that.”
When the door closed, Horst and Baldor converged on Roran. Baldor said, “We can’t afford to hire him.”
“We can’t afford not to,” replied Roran. “We don’t have the gol
d to buy the barges, nor do I fancy teaching myself to handle them when everyone’s lives depend on it. It’ll be faster and safer to pay for a crew.”
“It’s still too expensive,” said Horst.
Roran drummed his fingers against the gunwale. “We can pay Clovis’s initial fee of two hundred crowns. Once we reach Teirm, though, I suggest that we either steal the barges using the skills we learn during the trip or incapacitate Clovis and his men until we can escape through other means. That way, we avoid paying the extra four hundred crowns, as well as the sailors’ wages.”
“I don’t like cheating a man out of honest work,” said Horst. “It goes against my fiber.”
“I don’t like it either, but can you think of an alternative?”
“How would you get everyone onto the barges?”
“Have them meet Clovis a league or so down the coast, out of sight of Narda.”
Horst sighed. “Very well, we’ll do it, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Call Clovis back in, Baldor, and we’ll seal this pact.”
That evening, the villagers gathered around a small banked fire in order to hear what had transpired in Narda. From where he knelt on the ground, Roran stared at the pulsing coals while he listened to Gertrude and the three brothers describe their separate adventures. The news about Roran’s and Eragon’s posters caused murmurs of unease among the audience.
When Darmmen finished, Horst took his place and, with short, brisk sentences, related the lack of proper ships in Narda, how the dockworker recommended Clovis, and the deal that was brokered thereafter. However, the moment Horst mentioned the word barges, the villagers’ cries of ire and discontent blotted out his voice.
Marching to the forefront of the group, Loring raised his arms for attention. “Barges?” said the cobbler. “Barges? We don’t want no stinking barges!” He spat by his foot as people clamored with agreement.
“Everyone, be quiet!” said Delwin. “We’ll be heard if we keep this up.” When the crackling fire was the loudest noise, he continued at a slower pace: “I agree with Loring. Barges are unacceptable. They’re slow and vulnerable. And we’d be crammed together with a complete lack of privacy and no shelter to speak of for who knows how long. Horst, Elain is six months pregnant. You can’t expect her and others who are sick and infirm to sit under the blazing sun for weeks on end.”
“We can lash tarpaulins over the holds,” replied Horst. “It’s not much, but it’ll shield us from the sun and the rain.”
Birgit’s voice cut through the crowd’s low babble: “I have another concern.” People moved aside as she walked to the fire. “What with the two hundred crowns Clovis is due and the money Darmmen and his brothers spent, we’ve used up most of our coin. Unlike those in cities, our wealth lies not in gold but in animals and property. Our property is gone and few animals are left. Even if we turn pirate and steal these barges, how can we buy supplies at Teirm or passage farther south?”
“The important thing,” rumbled Horst, “is to get to Teirm in the first place. Once we’re there, then we can worry about what to do next…. It’s possible that we may have to resort to more drastic measures.”
Loring’s bony face crumpled into a mass of wrinkles. “Drastic? What do you mean, drastic? We’ve already done drastic. This whole venture is drastic. I don’t care what you say; I won’t use those confounded barges, not after what we’ve gone through in the Spine. Barges are for grain and animals. What we want is a ship with cabins and bunks where we can sleep in comfort. Why not wait another week or so and see if a ship arrives that we can bargain passage on? Where’s the harm in that, eh? Or why not—” He continued to rail for over fifteen minutes, amassing a mountain of objections before ceding to Thane and Ridley, who built upon his arguments.
The conversation halted as Roran unfolded his legs and rose to his full height, silencing the villagers through his presence. They waited, breathless, hoping for another of his visionary speeches.
“It’s this or walk,” he said.
Then he went to bed.
THE HAMMER FALLS
The moon floated high among the stars when Roran left the makeshift tent he shared with Baldor, padded to the edge of the camp, and replaced Albriech on watch.
“Nothing to report,” whispered Albriech, then slipped off.
Roran strung his bow and planted three goose-feather arrows upright in the loam, within easy reach, then wrapped himself in a blanket and curled against the rockface to his left. His position afforded him a good view down and across the dark foothills.
As was his habit, Roran divided the landscape into quadrants, examining each one for a full minute, always alert for the flash of movement or the hint of light that might betray the approach of enemies. His mind soon began to wander, drifting from subject to subject with the hazy logic of dreams, distracting him from his task. He bit the inside of his cheek to force himself to concentrate. Staying awake was difficult in such mild weather….
Roran was just glad that he had escaped drawing lots for the two watches preceding dawn, because they gave you no opportunity to catch up on lost sleep afterward and you felt tired for the rest of the day.
A breath of wind ghosted past him, tickling his ear and making the skin on the back of his neck prickle with an apprehension of evil. The intrusive touch frightened Roran, obliterating everything but the conviction that he and the rest of the villagers were in mortal danger. He quaked as if with the ague, his heart pounded, and he had to struggle to resist the urge to break cover and flee.
What’s wrong with me? It required an effort for him to even nock an arrow.
To the east, a shadow detached itself from the horizon. Visible only as a void among the stars, it drifted like a torn veil across the sky until it covered the moon, where it remained, hovering. Illuminated from behind, Roran could see the translucent wings of one of the Ra’zac’s mounts.
The black creature opened its beak and uttered a long, piercing shriek. Roran grimaced with pain at the cry’s pitch and frequency. It stabbed at his eardrums, turned his blood to ice, and replaced hope and joy with despair. The ululation woke the entire forest. Birds and beasts for miles around exploded into a yammering chorus of panic, including, to Roran’s alarm, what remained of the villagers’ herds.
Staggering from tree to tree, Roran returned to the camp, whispering, “The Ra’zac are here. Be quiet and stay where you are,” to everyone he encountered. He saw the other sentries moving among the frightened villagers, spreading the same message.
Fisk emerged from his tent with a spear in hand and roared, “Are we under attack? What’s set off those blasted—” Roran tackled the carpenter to silence him, uttering a muffled bellow as he landed on his right shoulder and pained his old injury.
“Ra’zac,” Roran groaned to Fisk.
Fisk went still and in an undertone asked, “What should I do?”
“Help me to calm the animals.”
Together they picked their way through the camp to the adjacent meadow where the goats, sheep, donkeys, and horses were bedded. The farmers who owned the bulk of the herds slept with their charges and were already awake and working to soothe the beasts. Roran thanked his paranoia that he had insisted on having the animals scattered along the edge of the meadow, where the trees and brush helped to camouflage them from unfriendly eyes.
As he tried to pacify a clump of sheep, Roran glanced up at the terrible black shadow that still obscured the moon, like a giant bat. To his horror, it began to move toward their hiding place. If that creature screams again, we’re doomed.
By the time the Ra’zac circled overhead, most of the animals had quieted, except for one donkey, who insisted upon loosing a grating hee-haw. Without hesitation, Roran dropped to one knee, fit arrow to string, and shot the ass between the ribs. His aim was true, and the animal dropped without a sound.
He was too late, though; the braying had already alerted the Ra’zac. The monster swung its head in the direction of the clearing and desce
nded toward it with outstretched claws, preceded by its fetid stench.
Now the time has come to see if we can slay a nightmare, thought Roran. Fisk, who was crouched beside him in the grass, hefted his spear, preparing to hurl it once the brute was in range.
Just as Roran drew his bow—in an attempt to begin and end the battle with a well-placed shaft—he was distracted by a commotion in the forest.
A mass of deer burst through the underbrush and stampeded across the meadow, ignoring villagers and livestock alike in their frantic desire to escape the Ra’zac. For almost a minute, the deer bounded past Roran, mincing the loam with their sharp hooves and catching the moonlight with their white-rimmed eyes. They came so close, he heard the soft gasps of their labored breathing.
The multitude of deer must have hidden the villagers because, after one last circuit over the meadow, the winged monster turned to the south and glided farther down the Spine, melding into the night.
Roran and his companions remained frozen in place, like hunted rabbits, afraid that the Ra’zac’s departure might be a ruse to flush them into the open or that the creature’s twin might be close behind. They waited for hours, tense and anxious, barely moving except to string a bow.
When the moon was about to set, the Ra’zac’s bone-chilling shriek echoed far in the distance…then nothing.
We were lucky, decided Roran when he woke the next morning. And we can’t count on luck to save us the next time.
After the Ra’zac’s appearance, none of the villagers objected to traveling by barge. On the contrary, they were so eager to be off, many of them asked Roran if it was possible to set sail that day instead of the next.
“I wish we could,” he said, “but too much has to be done.”