Mikahl wasn’t sure how long he had slept. It was still dark, and the fire was nothing more than a pile of glowing embers when he woke. Above the natural and chaotic chorus of insects and other nocturnal creatures of the forest, the rhythmic, snorting growl of Loudin’s snoring filled the night.
Mikahl’s aching body protested as he sat up. He almost cried out from the pain caused by the movement, but he managed to bite it back. As he caught his breath, the faint outline of Windfoot and Loudin’s roan jostling on their picket lines caught his eye and startled him.
He spent a few minutes rolling and rubbing his neck and shoulders, and then craned his head back. He searched the underside of the forest’s thick canopy for any sign of the sky. He wanted to see the moon, or at least a few stars. He found neither. He harrumphed with frustration, went to his saddle bags, and rummaged for some food. Ironspike was there; safe in its leather sleeve, and the sight of it caused his curiosity to take a hold of him.
He checked to make sure that Loudin was sleeping deeply; by the sound of the snoring, Mikahl was confident that he wouldn’t wake anytime soon. Dawn was still a few hours away, so this was about as much privacy as he could expect to ever have. He took a deep breath, shoved the hunk of cheese he was eating into his mouth, and held it between his teeth. With his hands now free, he unstrapped the leather bag that protected, and concealed the sword, and carried it back to his bedroll.
He’d seen the sword a thousand times, while it was hanging menacingly from King Balton’s hip. He even got to handle it, but only when he was cleaning and polishing it. The blade had served as a warning to those who thought to cross the old man, and it gave comfort to those who looked to him for protection. Mikahl remembered cleaning the battle gore from its gleaming surfaces a few years ago, after one of the battles up in Coldfrost. More recently, he had wiped away a Dakaneese sell-sword’s blood from its razor edge after he had been beheaded for robbing and killing a Portsmouth merchant. Mikahl had polished the sword’s beautifully etched blade and its jeweled hilt a score of times, and could remember every single one of them. All of those memories caused him to think about King Balton. He started to take the sword out of its protective cover but stopped as a flood of warm, salty tears poured over his swollen cheeks.
He missed his king. The old man had been wise and kind. Except for the time Mikahl had gone exploring off into the Northwood without telling anyone where he was going, he had never so much as cuffed him on the head. Most young squires got whacked regularly, when they messed up, or caused problems. When Mikahl did wrong, he usually got a fatherly lecture.
Mikahl missed the castle too. The room he shared with the King’s two Royal Pages was warm and close to the kitchens. He had ruled the roost there. He tried to wipe away his tears, but found that his face hurt too badly to touch. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway, already more tears were falling. It was as if a dam had broken inside him. The idea that King Balton was dead, and that he could never go back home again wouldn’t leave his mind. It was a long time before sleep found him again, but thankfully it did.
He woke, groggily, to the smell of cooking meat, and was still clutching the covered King’s sword as if it were Lissy, the cook’s skinny niece, who often snuck into his chamber back in the castle when the nights were cold. The idea that he had taken the sword out of its place on his saddle, and that it was semi-exposed, brought him out of his slumber quickly. He didn’t begin to relax until the bundle was secured back in its place.
The old hunter watched him curiously out of the corner of his eye but said nothing about the peculiar behavior.
The breakfast meat was tough and stringy, but filling. Mikahl didn’t ask what it was, because the animal’s innards, and its pelts, still sat at the edge of the camp, and he didn’t want Loudin to know that he didn’t recognize the remains. He didn’t want to be thought of as a fool. He searched his memory for any sort of a creature that had fur such a bright shade of red, but couldn’t think of any. This lack of knowledge only served to remind him of how far out of his element he was.
He needed Loudin, he realized then. The hunter said he knew a giant, and Mikahl wanted desperately to ask him about that, but he hadn’t yet. He decided that he would offer Loudin his share of the proceeds from the lizard’s skin, and the bag full of golden coins he had hidden deep in Windfoot’s saddle bags, as payment to guide him into the mountains. He hoped that after he finished his current business at Summer’s Day, that Loudin would be employable. He was finding that he didn’t relish the idea of venturing into those infamously treacherous mountains alone.