Morgarten (Book 2 of the Forest Knights) (7 page)

The soldier drew his sword. “I shall have to be
careful, then,” he said. “What do you carry under this
blanket?”

Seraina stiffened beside Thomas. He could tell it
was all she could do to hold back her words.

“Firewood,” Thomas said.

“Firewood,” the soldier repeated, like it was some
exotic foreign word.

“And a few onions,” Thomas said.

The soldier nodded. And then thrust his sword point
between the blanket and the rope securing the bundle in place. The
rope sprang away, the horse skittered sideways a step, and the load
slid off and crashed to the ground.

Ruedi’s Genoese-made war bow flipped out from its
concealment and skidded to a stop at Thomas’s feet. The veteran’s
eyes picked up on the horse’s Habsburg brand in the same
instant.

He raised his sword, and then screamed in pain.

Seraina was on his other side. She had thrust her
hand behind his knee and had a hold of something, a ligament or
tendon, or God only knew what, but whatever it was, the soldier’s
face was pale with agony. He dropped his sword and leaned in his
saddle to get away from her. Thomas shuffled over and obliged him.
He grabbed his arm and yanked him from his horse. Thomas grimaced
as his stitches stretched to their limit, but held.

Thomas heard the ring of a sword being drawn from
its scabbard. He looked over his shoulder as the young soldier,
seemingly no longer under Gildas’s trance, kicked the old man to
the ground.

Seraina screamed the druid’s name and rushed to help
him. Thomas gripped the walking stick in his hands and brought it
down on the head of the soldier lying at his feet. He hit him again
for good measure, then turned to help Gildas and Seraina.

But he knew he was too far away.

As Seraina ran at the two of them, the young
soldier, with a wild look in his eyes, hefted his sword high above
his head. Gildas, having pushed himself up to his hands and knees,
looked up as the sword began its downward arc toward his neck.

Then Thomas saw fear twist the ears of the soldier’s
horse. Its eyes went wide, and before it could bolt, its master was
carried clean out its saddle by a blowing cloud of white fur.

Oppid’s momentum carried him and the soldier twenty
feet away from the terror-stricken horse. The white wolf had his
massive jaws wrapped over top the soldier’s helmet, so he lived
long enough to know he was in a nightmare. The man screamed as
Oppid stood over him, snarling, his yellow teeth dripping streams
of thick saliva. Then the wolf snapped him up by the throat, lifted
him off the ground, and shook the soldier back and forth like he
was nothing more than an old dusty blanket. The cracks of his neck
and spine splintering made Thomas look away.

The older soldier let out a groan, so Thomas hit him
again with the walking stick. Then he retrieved the soldier’s sword
and turned back to finish the man, but Seraina stepped in front and
put her hand on Thomas’s chest.

“Thomas, no,” she said.

“He will bring others,” Thomas said. “They said
there was a checkpoint near here.”

“We have two more horses, now. We will be in Schwyz
before they can send others,” Gildas said.

Thomas watched Oppid drag the broken corpse of the
other soldier into the woods. “God have mercy. Is he going to do
what I think he is?”

“At times, nature may appear cruel,” Gildas said.
“But look at it through Oppid’s eyes. True cruelty lay in letting a
perfectly good set of entrails rot in the sun.” The old man’s eyes
sparkled. “Come, Thomas Schwyzer. Let us be on our way, and leave
an old wolf his privacy. For, as those of your faith are fond of
saying, it is God’s Will.”

As they came over the last series of low, velvety
green slopes, and Schwyz lay at the head of the valley below,
Gildas slowed his horse and began to stammer excuses for not going
any further.

“Why not come in with us?” Seraina asked. “Sutter
has a warm, comfortable inn with even a few private rooms, and the
best chamois stew—”.

Gildas shook his head and the downy white hair of
his beard and head floated in the breeze. “No. It is time for me
and Oppid to be on our way.”

He slid off his horse, stroked her neck once, and
whispered something in her ear that sent her trotting off back the
way they had come. Thomas and Seraina also dismounted and, after
Thomas removed Ruedi’s war bow, they too sent their mounts away.
They would not risk any harm coming to Sutter by bringing the
Duke’s horses into his stable.

Gildas whistled and Oppid loped out of the woods,
turning his massive head warily from side to side as he crossed the
open grassland between them.

“Luck is not one of my beliefs. But, I will wish it
to you all the same, Thomas Schwyzer.” The old man held out his arm
and Thomas took it.

“How long will you be gone?” Seraina asked. Her
voice was small and Thomas could hear the fear of abandonment in
her words.

Gildas shrugged. Oppid was at his side now, and the
old man absently grabbed and released great handfuls of the wolf’s
white coat. “As long as it takes. The others are scattered and will
be difficult to find. But I will. And when the time is right, you
must meet us on the Mythen.”

Seraina nodded once, and then dropped her chin. The
old man looked at her and his face softened.

“I will be back, my child. Remember, I too have no
small touch of the sight, and that much I have seen.”

He reached out and lifted her head. She looked up
and her eyes shimmered. A tear broke free and crawled down one
cheek. The sight of her in pain made Thomas avert his gaze.

“Ah, Seraina. Your eyes remind me so much of the
waters we lived on when you were a child. Do you remember our
lake?”

“Yes… I think so,” she said, dabbing at her eyes
with her sleeve. “But only bits and pieces. I was so young.”

“And so full of questions for one just learning to
speak. Why, why, why! How, how, how! It could have been the most
peaceful place in the world, if not for your endless
nattering.”

Seraina smiled. “I do remember. I was happy there,”
she said.

“You were, and so was I. Happier than at any other
moment in my long years. And when I look at you now, it gladdens me
to see that green lake reflected so clearly in your eyes. Somehow,
you have preserved the same wonder and innocence as back then, but
like those waters, I see the strength of steel as well. There has
never been a prouder man, than the one that stands across from you
now.”

Seraina hugged him and buried her face against his
white robe. Her shoulders shuddered and he kissed the top of her
head. After some time, he eased her to arm’s length.

“Come, now. You will upset the wolf. It is best you
say your goodbyes.”

Seraina wiped once more at her eyes and nodded. She
called the wolf by name, then dropped to her knees and threw her
arms around his neck, her fingers not even close to touching. She
forced a laugh and whispered strange words into his ear.

Thomas became aware that the old man had locked his
eyes on him. All traces of the kindness that had been in them only
moments before was gone.

“Look after her,” Gildas said. “As she has done for
you. And remember what we discussed.”

“It was not much of a discussion, as I recall,”
Thomas said.

Seraina stared after Gildas and Oppid for a long
while after they disappeared into the forest. Finally, she and
Thomas began walking down the slope toward the village.

“I do not understand why Gildas refused to stay at
Sutter’s for even one night,” Thomas said. “Surely a comfortable
bed and a hot meal would do the old man some good. Is he in that
much of a hurry?”

Seraina held out one hand and dragged it through the
waist-high grass. It was late afternoon and Thomas was beginning to
feel the autumn chill through his cloak, but Seraina did not seem
to notice.

“Gildas does not like to be around people much. Even
the smallest village unnerves him,” Seraina said.

“He cares about you, though. How did you come to be
raised by him?”

“He bought me,” Seraina said.

“Bought you? Such as at a slave market?”

“You are one to talk,” she said. “It was not like
that. I was only a baby when Gildas found me. My parents were very
poor and already had five children, so Gildas convinced them to
give me up.”

“Why did he choose you over one of the others?”

Seraina smiled. “Because I was special. Can you not
see that?” Her spirits seemed to be improving.

Thomas shrugged. “He may have been able to get two,
or even three, of the other children for the same price as one
special
one.”

Seraina slapped him on the arm. Thankfully, it was
his uninjured one.

“We are a pair, you and me,” Seraina said. “Each
sold to the highest bidder. I wonder what our lives would be like
if that had not happened…”

That was a question Thomas had never once asked
himself. He remembered almost nothing about his life before the
Long March
to the port of Genoa, where he and the other
Schwyzer children were loaded onto a ship bound for the Holy
Lands.

Sometimes, late at night, he would catch a glimpse
of a tall man cutting wood, or a woman with sandy hair, standing in
a black earth garden and wiping her brow with the back of her arm.
But they were fleeting images, just as likely to be based on dreams
as reality.

Perhaps the only true memory he could claim of those
early years, was that of a shivering boy trying to spread a small
blanket over the half-frozen bodies of his dead parents. Since that
was what he usually saw whenever he attempted to remember his
parents, he eventually stopped trying altogether.

“My parents died when I was very young,” Thomas
said. He was not sure why he had said that.

“I know,” Seraina said.

When he looked at her with confusion on his face,
she added, ”You talked out loud, and often, when you were stricken
with the blood fever.”

“Ah,” he said.

“In fact, I think you talked more when you were at
death’s feet than you do now.”

“Perhaps my silent nature is the reason the
Hospitallers paid more for me than Gildas did for you,” Thomas
said. He found himself smiling, and if the scar on the left side of
his face tightened, he did not notice.

“Oh, ho! The fox bares his teeth,” Seraina said.
“Speaking of Gildas, what was it that you and he
discussed
when I was gone?” If anyone looked like a fox at that moment, it
was Seraina.

Thomas shook his head and tried to keep his eyes
locked on the thatched roof of Sutter’s house in the distance.

“Was it about me?” Seraina asked, innocently. But
her grin and the tilt of her head told Thomas she knew that it
was.

***

Seraina saw Sutter cutting wood behind the inn as
she and Thomas approached across a field. He straightened up when
he saw them coming and, after shielding his eyes from the sun to
get a better look, shouted something toward the kitchen window.
Within seconds, both Vreni and her daughter Mera ran out the back
door.

Seraina left Thomas behind and ran to meet the two
women with tearful embraces all the way around. By then Sutter was
there, and even the gruff innkeeper wrapped his long arms around
Seraina.

Mera had her crying under control by the time Thomas
limped up, but one look at him and her pretty features began to
waver. She ran at Thomas, as though it were a race to get to him
before her tears exploded, and threw her arms around his neck. She
got her head on his chest just in time.

Seraina looked on as Thomas held his arms out to the
side for an uncomfortable moment, but then in small jerky
movements, managed to put them around the girl and comfort her as
best he could.

“I am so sorry Thomas,” Mera said. “None of us
deserved to have Pirmin taken from us, but you least of all.”

Thomas said nothing, but Seraina was sure she saw
his arms squeeze the girl a little tighter.

While Vreni and Mera disappeared upstairs to make up
two rooms, Seraina and Thomas sat with Sutter at the small kitchen
table, since it was the dinner hour and there were a few guests in
the main room.

“You have been to Altdorf, then?” Sutter said to
Seraina.

She nodded. “More men flock to Noll’s fortress every
day, from all corners of the Forest Regions,” Seraina said. “If
Leopold comes next year, he will be in for a surprise.”

Sutter’s mouth became hard. “That is good to hear.
And what of Landenberg?”

Seraina feared he would ask about the Vogt of
Unterwalden. “The Council will meet and decide his fate,” she
said.

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment and then
lowered his voice to a whisper. “He should be hung.”

Seraina could feel Sutter staring at her, but she
could not be sure because her own eyes refused to leave her
fingers. “I know how you feel, and if it is any consolation, Noll
punished the man. I saw his injuries.”

“That will not stop him from coming right back here
and terrorizing us all over again.” He paused. “I have given this
some thought. I am going to join the Confederate Army.”

Seraina could not believe what she was hearing, but
it was Thomas who responded first.

“No, that is a very poor decision. Look around you,
Sutter. You have a business, a family, and both need you more than
any band of Melchthal’s. If you go to Altdorf, you throw all of
this away.”

“I believe in what Noll is doing,” Sutter said.

“War is for young men,” Thomas said.

“You serve this cause better by staying alive,”
Seraina said. “Your family needs you.”

Sutter closed his eyes and massaged his temples with
one hand. “You are both right. I am not thinking straight these
days.” A dry laugh forced itself from his chest. “I am just a
tired, old innkeeper.”