“Now get started.”
Erik didn’t look to see what the others were doing. He stood, shouldered his sack, and started to the pile of rocks. He reached the edge and bent over to pick up rocks, but de Loungville’s voice cut the air. “From the top down, von Darkmoor! I want it moved from the top down!”
Erik winced, and without comment started the dangerous climb to the top of the rock pile. Halfway up the slope, Erik heard Billy Goodwin say, “I’d like one good shot at that bastard.”
From even farther down the slope, Erik heard Biggo say, “With your luck you’d probably kick him in the heart and break your foot.” Erik couldn’t help but laugh, and suddenly he realized it was the first laugh he had experienced since Stefan had died. Suddenly his foot slipped and he half fell, slamming both knees into the rocks. As he winced in pain and regained his feet, he cursed the day he had first seen this camp, a week earlier.
Five miles to the east of Krondor, the wagon he had ridden in had turned south, leaving the heavily traveled road from Krondor to Darkmoor. But it wasn’t the main road southeast that headed toward the Vale of Dreams and the border with Kesh. Rather, they had followed an old wagon trail to what looked to Erik to have once been a farming village near a small lake, surrounded on three sides by sheltering hills. The Crown had obviously taken over this area, for several guard posts had been erected along the way and three times they had been forced to stop while Robert de Loungville had shown proper passes. Erik had been curious, for with all the guards riding with them, and the tabards of the Prince’s own Household Guard, the guards along the way had still appeared cautious.
The other thing that had piqued Erik’s interest had been how veteran those soldiers guarding the way to this camp had appeared. All the men had been older; not one smooth cheek in the crew, and many had borne scars. And most wore differing tabards, some the black with the golden eagle of Bas-Tyra, others the golden gull on brown of Crydee.
A guard sergeant at the gate had greeted de Loungville by name, many calling him Bobby, but still looked over his pass. Once inside the compound, Erik and the others had their first glimpse of the camp. A dozen men, all wearing black tunics and trousers, had been practicing with bows in a corner of the compound as the wagon had rolled through the gate, and as the large doors were swung shut, Erik caught sight of a dozen more practicing their horsemanship. He had gawked as the wagon had ground to a halt and the prisoners had been unchained.
The men had been forced to run from the wagon to stand in front of the main building for over an hour, toward what end Erik had never understood.
As he had waited, he had reveled in the simple fact of still being alive. His experience on the gallows had left him alternating between black depression and giddy elation. He had entered the compound in good spirits, which hadn’t worn off as he had waited before the nameless building.
De Loungville had gone inside for over an hour and had returned with a man who appeared to be some sort of chirurgeon, who had examined all the prisoners and had made several comments on their condition Erik hadn’t understood. For the first time in his life he had some sense of how horses felt when he examined them for fitness.
The prisoners had been run through some strange drills and asked to march around. This had brought rude comments and mocking observations from those men in black who were standing around while the prisoners drilled.
At the end of the day, they had been ordered to the second large building, the mess. Fully half the tables were unoccupied after the men in black were seated. Young boys in the livery of squires of the Prince’s court in Krondor raced between the tables heaping abundance beyond Erik’s dreams on them. Breads, hot and slathered with butter, pitchers of cow’s milk, cooled by ice brought down by riders from the nearby mountains. Meats—chicken, beef, and pork—surrounded by vegetables of every description were set down next to platters of cheese and fruit.
Erik was suddenly hungry beyond belief and ate.
He lay almost comatose in a tent next to Roo that night.
The next morning, training had begun, and they had been ordered to build the mountain. Robert de Loungville had ordered them to pick up seemingly endless piles of rocks and move them half the distance across the compound to build this hill.
His reverie was broken by Sho Pi saying, “I apologize.”
Erik reached the peak and, as he knelt and started filling the bag with rocks, said, “For what?”
“My temper got the best of me. Had I let him knock me down, we would not have to do this over.”
Erik finished loading up his sack. “Oh, I think he’d have found a reason. You just provided a convenient excuse.”