Chapter 3: Furdick, Soldier

"The journey resumes with joyous cries," was Furdick's sardonic jest as they left Shurrud. The others made no reply, but the sun did indeed shine brightly on their going. Behind them a small knot of villagers watched, a couple of them calling out encouraging words. Even Frittis, Urvache's pretty barmaid, waved and blew kisses. He smiled ruefully at the memory of how she had smiled and flirted their second night at the inn.

"Be off!" Furdick had repulsed her, though not unkindly. Quickly recognizing that he was impervious to women's wiles, she had turned her attention to the others. Bartan had been selected as her final target.

"Here, let me fill your mug," she had offered, brushing against him provocatively. "Are you really from Pordigran?"

"Not me," Bartan had laughed. "I'm from Ashimoll. It's a much nicer place to live."

"Better than Pordigran?" Frittis had widened her eyes expressively. "But surely you've been there."

"A couple of times." He'd yawned and stretched his big body, flexing his muscles to good advantage. "Oh, it's nice to visit all right, but there's too many people there to suit me."

"But, isn't that where you're going?"

"They ain't never going there," a villager had laughed coarsely. "So don't get your hopes up. Aintcha heard? They're going out into the deep woods. Then nobody ain't gonna see them no more!"

"Don't you bet your life on that," Bartan had growled, but Frittis had already drawn back from him, her face white under its smudges of dirt.

"He's funning," she'd whispered. "Tell me he's just funning me. Nobody never goes into the deep woods."

"Oh, we're going all right." Bartan's laugh had been deep and infectious. "And we're coming back. Coming back with gold, and jewels, and all kinds of magical things. Give me a kiss, and I'll bring you a ruby to hang from your ear, or a gold and silver bird that sings when you tell it to."

She'd slipped away from his grasp, her automatic smile troubled. "You bring yourself back. Then I'll give you a kiss, and it won't cost you no ruby."

Once outside Shurrud, the road called Browwai forked. They took the left, the Rau'rd branch, pausing a moment to salute the standing stone that divided the roadway. Like so many customs the reason was lost in the mists of time. Still, nobody failed to mutter a prayer in passing.

The road headed almost due rau'rd, skirting the edges of a dreary expanse of swamp. In places Furdick could trace the course of the old road out under mud and reeds, where the track now swung wide to avoid the sucking marsh.

"The swamp's bigger than it was when the road was built," he commented as they walked along in their normal marching order. "Must have been a long time ago."

"This road's at least a couple thousand years old," Darrick answered. "Maybe more. From the looks of what pavement's left, some parts of it could even be from the Last Elvish Emirate."

Furdick was silent, counting the centuries on his fingers. Why, that would make this road more than one hundred centuries old! The Darvish Empire had risen twenty centuries ago. The Klaamett Theocracy had its beginnings forty centuries before that, and the Final Elvish Emirate had dwindled to nothing another forty centuries earlier, after lasting almost two hundred centuries. He shook his head, dizzied by the sudden realization of just how old this land was that he'd been born in.

"A long time indeed," Darrick smiled, guessing his thought. "But an hour to you means just as much as an hour in their lives meant to them. Yes, you're right. The very land has shifted and changed over the centuries. We'll find desert and swamps where the maps in The City showed forests and plains."

The swamp receded to their left as the road climbed to surmount a low ridge. From its crest they saw ahead of them a peaceful looking valley where stone fences marked off one plot of fertile ground from the next. Some were being tilled and planted, while others had been left fallow and used to graze animals.

Once more the sound of horns heralded their approach. This time the horns were friendly voices, and the farmers merely looked up from their tasks and waved greetings. They ate their noon meal in the door yard of one such farm, the holding of the farmer Mulgran. He and his three sons ate with them, passing weighty comments on the state of the weather and the prospects for this year's crops. In the background, the farm's wives and smaller children gaped and whispered.

"Don't you ever worry about what's out there?" Darrick asked. "There's only a couple more farms between you and the woods."

"Course not," Mulgran blustered, but his eyes betrayed his unease. "My father worked this farm, and his father before him. Yeah, there's outlaws and such, but that's the way things is."

The day stayed cool, and they made good time. The air was keen with the tang of winter just departed, yet the fields they passed were already showing lines of green. By evening the plowed fields were behind them. They camped on the far side of a ridge, and now there were no more farms on ahead.

"Rough country," Furdick said to nobody in particular.

"Brush, mostly. Not many trees." Baysil relaxed against the side of a boulder, rubbing his leg. "Not bad country as long as we have the old road to follow."

"If we can find it," Kargh growled. "Not many booted feet have passed this way lately."

"We'll have work for your new axe, that's for sure," Bartan grinned.

"My axe is for wolves and Orc necks! I came to fight, not to cut brush."

"We'll all cut brush," Anji soothed. "Axes, swords, knives or whatever. There'll be enough brush to cut for all of us."

"We'll change off," Darrick said curtly. "Nobody can cut brush all day. Even if they could, they'd be too tired to fight when something jumped us."

The talk went on about the fire, but Furdick gave it less than half his attention. They weren't easy with each other yet. That would come only with the passage of time. If it ever did, that is. You rubbed against your fellows. Worked, fought, played together. Either you fitted together or you didn't. Sometimes you found someone you fitted well with. Then you had a team, two strong fighting men who guarded each other's backs. Closer than a marriage, and just as demanding.

He wrenched his thoughts away from that line, but the wound was too fresh, and his mind circled back to it in spite of him. He and Alwon had grown up on neighboring farms. Worked together, played together. Chased the girls together, before finding each other of more interest. Finally they'd run off together, away from the frowns and whispers. First they had been caravan helpers, then guards. They'd fought in a couple of small campaigns, always ending up far from the main action, the good loot.

Then had come their chance for gold and glory. There'd been an uprising, an obscure Lord declaring his holdings independent of the old Duke's rule. They'd marched off, singing and shouting to each other of the things they'd do to the rebels. Outside the town's walls, the first flight of arrows had ended it.

Furdick had taken an arrow through the shoulder. He remembered Alwon bending over him. Bending lower, and lower still. The familiar warmth of his strong body, a warmth that leaked out with Alwon's life blood.

There'd been no one since. He'd never cared for women, with their soft bodies and lying promises. Neither had he found anyone to take Alwon's place. Most of those he'd met were worse than the women, shrewish and bickering. The rest already had companions, or else weren't interested in a simple fighting man.

He awoke, the night far gone. Someone tugged at his shoulder, and for a moment he didn't know where he was. "Alwon?" But no, that was gone forever.