The Webbing Blade

IN TRAINING

THE HOBBLESMAN picked out another cloak from within his wardrobe. It matched the one that he wore. He informed Lou that it might not be the wisest move for him to go out striding through the streets of Ilsnare in his skuller’s uniform.

That would simply lead to his recapture.

The hobblesman fitted Lou out with a sword, a shield, and a crossbow, which he had him put on beneath his cloak.

Lou felt weighed down under the load of arms, and his nostrils were thick with the smell of highly polished steel and the leather of the straps.

When he walked, he could hear the blade of the sword scrubbing against its sheath, and his footsteps seemed to be twice as loud from all the weight he was carrying.

Before they left the hobblesman’s house, the hobblesman gave Lou another few bread rolls to take on the journey.

But before they’d even reached the front hall of the house, Lou had devoured them all.

* * *

Their trip through the city was eerie for Lou. He couldn’t help but glance round himself every couple of footsteps, sure that there would be a Royal Guard ready to grab him, to slap him into chains and drag him off . . . well, wherever they’d taken Sully and Rut, and the rest of the villagers.

Lou watched the hobblesman closely as they skittered through the market stalls, passed the tangy odour of fish hanging up, and the freshly baked, sugary-smelling buns.

As they wandered on past the soup kitchen, Lou was almost certain that his stomach was going to physically stop him, force him to buy a bowl. And he supposed that it was his force of will which dragged him onwards, which kept him going.

They proceeded on their way to the outer fringes of the city, and then out through the gates, manned by a pair of Royal Guards who looked much less interested than those that had been at the main gates when they’d come along Capital Road.

Still, the guards did approach them. One of them grunted something about identification papers, but the hobblesman simply reached into his robe and withdrew a small purse, which clinked with grung.

Coins.

And he handed it over into one of the guard’s lazy hands. Then Lou and the hobblesman simply wandered on.

The hobblesman leaned back into Lou and muttered, under his breath, “This is the north-west entrance. If you’d really known what you were doing around Ilsnare, you never would’ve come in the south entrance. That was your mistake.”

As they passed through those stone pillars, and the lazy-looking guards on either side, Lou felt his heart swelling up in his throat, and his blood pumping hard into his head.

They had been so naïve.

If only he’d opened his eyes, spoken more in the fields with the other working hands, then maybe they might’ve avoided getting into trouble. And yet, surely Sully should’ve known? Hadn’t he said that he had visited Ilsnare before, or had he said that he’d been born here? Lou couldn’t really remember. But he swore that he’d never make the same mistake again.

They emerged out on the plains, and Lou heard the birdsong in the air, sharp in his ears, and he felt the softness of the earth beneath his feet. This was so different from the hard road they’d trodden for the past few days. And he felt his heart lighten a little to be out of Ilsnare.

Getting out of the city was like having a noose loosened from his neck.

It was still around midmorning, so the sunlight still made the dew on the long grass glisten, and Lou could smell the dampness in the air—that freshness he always remembered from his early-morning journeys out to the fields.