The Icebound Land- Character Reaction

4

"Alright, before Horace dies of starvation," Cassandra said, earning snickers from everyone—Ulf and Wulf in particular—"How about two more chapters, and then we break for lunch?"

The others nodded agreement. Halt's gaze, Gilan noted, strayed to Wulf—or was it Ulf—before moving away again. Gilan grinned to himself, and then spoke.

"Here, Jen. I'll read next." His girlfriend passed him the book and he frowned as he read the first line to himself. Oh well, he thought, and began reading.

THE TAVERN WAS A DINGY, MEAN LITTLE PLACE, LOW-CEILINGED, smoke-filled and none too clean. But it was close to the river where the big ships docked as they brought goods for trade into the capital, and so it usually enjoyed good business.

Halt raised one eyebrow slightly, resigned to the fact that he wouldn't enjoy this chapter. Crowley saw the look and shot him a scowl, guessing what was about to happen.

Right now, though, business had dropped off, and the reason for the decline was sitting at one of the spill-stained bare tables, close to the fireplace. He glared up at the tavern keeper now, his eyes burning under the knotted brows, and banged the empty tankard on the rough pine planks of the table.

Crowley's forehead banged against the table. "Halt," he groaned. "I swear to all that's holy, if you ever do that again, I just might kill you myself."

Halt snorted. "You never had an apprentice before."

"I also have more brains than you," Crowley muttered. Not quietly enough, apparently, because Halt shot his old friend a glare.

"It's empty again," he said angrily. There was just the slightest slurring of his words to remind the tavern keeper that this would be the eighth or ninth time he'd refilled the tankard with the cheap, fiery brandy-spirit that was the stock-in-trade of dockside bars like this.

Duncan, Crowley, and Thorn raised an eyebrow. Didn't seem like one to drink when things went down, Thorn thought. Then he shrugged it away; given his own past, he couldn't really say much.

A sale was a sale, he told himself doubtfully, but this customer looked like trouble waiting to happen and the tavern keeper wished fervently that he'd go and let it happen someplace else.

Halt grimaced slightly. "I just chose the first tavern I came to," he said in defense to Crowley's flat look.

"If you hadn't have done it period, we wouldn't have had to deal with it!" the Ranger Commandant exclaimed. Halt simply shrugged.

His usual customers, with their uncanny instinct for trouble brewing, had mostly cleared out when the small man had arrived and begun drinking with such unswerving purpose. Only half a dozen had remained. One of them, a hulking stevedore, had looked over the smaller man and decided he was easy pickings. Small and drunken the customer might be, but the gray-green cloak and the double knife scabbard at his left hip marked him as a Ranger. And Rangers, as any sensible person could tell you, were not people to trifle with.

The two younger Rangers smiled; Halt was too busy ignoring everyone else, while Crowley was currently trying to burn the grizzled Ranger with his eyes.

The stevedore learned that the hard way. The fight barely lasted a few seconds, leaving him stretched unconscious on the floor. His companions hastily departed for a friendlier, and safer, atmosphere. The Ranger watched them go and signaled for a refill. The innkeeper stepped over the stevedore, nervously topped up the Ranger's tankard, then retreated behind the relative safety of the bar.

"Relative," Gilan muttered. With his bow in his hand, no we here was really safe from Halt—especially an angry Halt. Drunk...he'd never seen Halt drunk, but he figured it was the same, if not worse, as angry.