The Battle for Skandia- Character Reaction

2

"Here, Jesper." The book was passed along to the next Skandian, who began reading.

THE TWO RIDERS EMERGED FROM THE TREES AND INTO A CLEAR meadow. Down here in the foothills of Teutlandt, the coming spring was more apparent than in the high mountains that reared ahead of them. The meadow grasses were already showing green and there were only isolated patches of snow, in spots that usually remained shaded for the greater part of the day.

A casual onlooker might have been interested to notice the horses that followed behind the two mounted men. "Hello, Halt and Horace," Gilan said. They might even have mistaken the men, at a distance, for traders who were hoping to take advantage of the first opportunity to cross through the mountain passes into Skandia, and so benefit from the high prices that the season's first trade goods would enjoy.

Halt snorted. "If it had worked out as planned, then maybe."

But a closer inspection would have shown that these men were not traders. They were armed warriors. The smaller of the two, a bearded man clad in a strange gray and green dappled cloak that seemed to shift and waver as he moved, had a longbow slung over his shoulders and a quiver of arrows at his saddle bow.

His companion was a larger, younger man. He wore a simple brown cloak, but the early spring sunshine glinted off the chain mail armor at his neck and arms, and the scabbard of a long sword showed under the hem of the cloak.

"All of that would have given you away had you been hiding," Halt said.

Completing the picture, a round buckler was slung over his back, emblazoned with a slightly crude effigy of an oakleaf. Halt smirked.

Their horses were as mismatched as the men themselves. The two men in question raised an eyebrow. The younger man sat astride a tall bay—long-legged, with powerful haunches and shoulders, it was the epitome of a battlehorse. "Clumsy," Halt coughed, and Horace rolled his eyes. A second battlehorse, this one a black, trotted behind him on a lead rope. His companion's mount was considerably smaller, a shaggy barrel-chested horse, more a pony really. The Rangers snorted indignantly. But it was sturdy, and had a look of endurance to it. Another horse, similar to the first, trotted behind, lightly laden with the bare essentials for camping and traveling. There was no lead rein on this horse. It followed obediently and willingly. The Rangers all smiled.

Horace craned his neck up at the tallest of the mountains towering above them. His eyes squinted slightly in the glare of the snow that still lay thickly on the mountain's upper half and now reflected the light of the sun.

"You mean to tell me we're going over that?" he asked, his eyes widening. Halt snickered. Halt looked sidelong at him, with the barest suggestion of a smile. Horace, however, intent on studying the massive mountain formations facing them, failed to see it.

"You missed an important moment, Horace," Will said with mock seriousness. Horace grinned.

"Not over," said the Ranger. "Through."

Horace frowned thoughtfully at that. "Is there a tunnel of some kind?"

"I was not looking forward to that if you'd have said yes," Horace said, shuddering.

"A pass," Halt told him. "A narrow defile that twists and winds through the
lower reaches of the mountains and brings us into Skandia itself."

Horace digested that piece of information for a moment or two. Then Halt saw his shoulders rise to an intake of breath and knew that the movement presaged yet another question. He closed his eyes, remembering a time that seemed years ago when he was alone and when life was not an endless series
of questions.