Read Book 2 - An Ill Fate Marshalling for Free Online

cut the surface fifty yards away.
    Something exploded out of the deep. It took meat, spear, and very nearly Ragnar as the sudden jerk yanked him against the rail. The water boiled, then became still. Bragi never saw what took the rotted flesh.
    „There," Ragnar said. „You see? There's always some thing down there. When it's calmest is when you've got to watch out. That's when the big ones hunt." He pointed.
    A vast dark shape drifted past the dragonship, too far down to be discerned as anything but a shadow in the green. „That's when the big ones hunt," Ragnar said again. He began kicking and cursing his men. They decided rowing was less unpleasant than their captain's tireless sound and fury.
    Bragi flipped a clod at a weed stalk left from last year. Luck made a contact. The stalk went down.
    He rose. „When the big ones hunt," he murmured, and began walking across the hill.
    He went to a rank of graves. They contained his first wife and the children he had lost in Kavelin.
    Elana had been a special woman. A saint, to have fol lowed him through his mercenary years, to have born him a child a year, to have endured his wandering eye and affection without protest. She had been the daughter of an Itaskian whore, but she had been a lady. She remained stamped upon his soul. He missed her most when he was troubled.
    There was some barrier in him that prevented his sharing with Inger that way.
    Fiana had been both passion and a symbol of commit ment to a greater ideal. Elana had been solid, simple, family, perhaps representing that tightest, most intense and basic of human allegiances.
    Strange, he thought, staring at the line of headstones. He had not given either woman his all. He was giving Inger nothing he had given them. How vast were the resources within one man?
    He was not sure what he was giving his wife-queen. Something, to be sure. She seemed satisfied most of the time.
    He stood there a long time, remembering his years with Elana, and the friends who had given their days that special touch.
    All that was gone. He had come to the grey days, the soft, colorless days, to which his acquaintances contributed little.
    Maybe he
was
aging. Maybe, as you grew older, the highs and lows and color faded away, and it all got so oatmealy you just decided it was time to lay down and die.
    He glanced at the sun. Time had stolen away while he stretched himself on the rack of his yesterdays. Best quit fooling around, he thought. Wouldn't do for the King to be late for his game of Captures.
    He encountered the Panthers on the road. Had he been anyone else, they would have ragged him mercilessly about the Guards' chances. The Panthers were young and exciting and on a hot streak. They were the darlings of the sweet young things who devoured winners and scorned losers. They expected to be on top for years.
    One bold lad suggested as much.
    Ragnarson grinned. „And you might be in for a surprise, boy. Us old dogs know a few tricks."
    Youth received his assertion with its usual disdain.
    Was there ever a time when I was that young, that self-certain, that positive about my world arid my answers? he wondered. He did not remember being that way.
    They parted to go to their respective castles.
    The opening minutes of the game would be free of irregularities. The judges assembled the teams at their castles. They counted heads and took names. They sounded horns when the teams were ready, and winded them again to signal the opening of play.
    The stretching of rules generally began after the teams spread out to defend and attack.
    Bragi's team had cheated ahead of time. It brought to Captures some of his tricks of government. In preparation for the Panthers, a hot-blooded, round-heeled spy had been deployed.
    Bragi was late. He gave the judges his name and joined Trebilcock, who clung to the edge of the gang. The youth wore a hangdog look. The others were intent on their spy's boyfriend.
    „They're gonna bull it. They're gonna punch up the