The Icebound Land- Character Reaction

14

"Can I read?" Ulf asked. Wulf opened his mouth to speak, but Hal cut them off quickly.

"Ulf, you'll read, and then Wulf, you will, alright?" The book was passed to Ulf—Hal assumed it was Ulf, at least.

"WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT?" HALT SAID SOFTLY, IN A DISGUSTED tone. Ahead of them, a humpbacked stone bridge reared over a small stream. Sitting his horse between the two travelers and the bridge was a knight in full armor. Horace snorted.

Halt reached back over his shoulder and took an arrow from the quiver there, laying it on the bowstring without even looking to see what he was doing.

Crowley raised an eyebrow, as did Will and Gilan.

"What is it, Halt?" Horace asked.

"It's the sort of tomfoolery these Gallicans go on with when I'm in a hurry to be on my way," he muttered, shaking his head in annoyance. "This idiot is going to demand tribute from us to allow us to cross his precious bridge."

Horace sighed and shook his head. "Those idiotic knights," he muttered. Halt snorted.

"Idiotic is putting it mildly."

Even as he spoke, the armored man pushed up his visor with the back of his right hand. It was a clumsy movement, made even more so by the fact that he was holding a heavy, three- meter lance in that hand. He nearly lost his grip on the lance, managing to bang it against the side of his helmet in the process, an action that caused a dull clanging sound to carry to the two travelers.

Will snorted. "What kind of knight is he if he can't even hold a lance?"

Horace shrugged. "Not a very good one, that's for sure."

"Arrêtez là, mes seigneurs, avant de passer ce pont-ci!" he called, in a rather high-pitched voice. Horace didn't understand the words, but the tone was unmistakably supercilious.

"If he could speak Araluen, that would be great," Crowley said dryly. Halt raised an eyebrow.

"What did he say?" Horace wanted to know, but Halt merely shook his head at the knight.

"Let him speak our tongue if he wants to talk to us," he said angrily, then, in a louder voice, he called: "Araluens!"

Even at the distance they stood from the other man, Horace made out the shrug of disdain at the mention of their nationality. All the Araluens snorted indignantly. Then the knight spoke again, his thick accent making the words barely more recognizable than when he had been speaking Gallican.

"You, ma sewers—Crowley snickered—mah not croess ma brudge wuthut you pah meh a trebute," he called. Horace frowned now.

"What?" he asked Halt, and the Ranger turned to him.

"Barbaric, isn't it? He said, 'You, my sirs'—that's us, of course—'may not cross my bridge without you pay me a tribute.'"

"That's not exactly how you would say that," Alyss said mildly. Will grinned over at his girlfriend.

"A tribute?" Horace asked.

"It's a form of highway robbery," Halt explained. "If there were any real law in this idiotic country, people like our friend there would never get away with this. As it is, they can do as they like. Knights set themselves up at bridges or crossroads and demand that people pay tribute to pass. If they can't pay tribute, they can choose to fight them. Since most travelers aren't equipped to fight a fully armored knight, they pay the tribute."