Alric's way - sample chapter

            The morning came all too soon and Alric felt horribly stiff and tired when he woke up. He could see a little of the room by the light that filtered in though chinks in the boards that made up the ceiling. The room was little more than a large wooden box with one curved wall. He could feel the ship moving on the waves and he was sure that he would look green had there been enough light to see him by. He waited for what seemed like a long while before calling “Girl?” quietly.

            The girl grunted and turned her head away, eyes still closed. Alric called again and she rolled her shoulders, unable to stretch because of the chains that held her to the wall. “Gertrude”, she muttered without looking at him, “I’m Gertrude. Friends call me Trudy but ya don’t, see?”.

            Alric remembered how much he disliked being called “boy”. “I am Alric”, he replied. He didn’t have any clear idea of what you were supposed to say to a stranger chained up next to you so he thought for a bit. “Are you from Northarbour?”, he asked?

            “Nah, never been there. Isn’t it up west somewhere?”, she replied

            “I was in Northarbour so you must have been there”, said Alric

            “Well, I didn’t see it, did I? I was down here. Do they all talk like farmboys then, in Northarbour?”, she asked.

            “Oh no, they have odd accents there”, he said.

            Gertrude laughed. “And you ain’t got a funny accent, farmboy?”

            “I am not a farmboy! Well, I have worked on a farm but that isn’t at all the same”

            “What does your father do if he don’t farm then?”, she asked

            “I don’t know. I never met him”, Alric replied.

            “Alright, what does yer mam do?”, Gertrude asked.

            “Never met her either”. Alric was not enjoying the questions.

            Gertrude thought for a moment. “Well, you ‘ad to come from somewhere, didn’t ya? Where did ya live and where did you get them fancy clothes? They don’t look right for a farm”

            “I was wearing them after visiting the Baron”, said Alric with as much pride as he could manage while sitting in chains with a sore head.

            “Oh, hobnobbing with Barons, eh? That must have been why they took you. You look like someone’s rich little boy and they must have thought that someone would pay a ransom.” Gertrude thought for a moment. “Would anyone pay to get ya back?”

            Alric didn’t have to think about that. Svensen wasn’t going to pay a copper piece to have him back. “I don’t think so. What will happen if no-one wants to pay?”

            Gertrude shrugged, making her chains jingle. “Same as will happen to me, I suppose.

            When she didn’t go on, Alric asked. “What will happen to you?”

            “Dunno”. There didn’t seem much to say after that.

 

After sitting in silence for a while, Gertrude turned to look at Alric in the half-light.  “Is there anything that you can do?”, she asked.

            The question puzzled Alric. “About what?”

            “Anything. Are you any use? ‘cept for having dinner with Barons?”

            “I can read and write”, replied Alric, a little hurt by the question.

            “Bet ya can’t read and write us out of these chains, can ya?”. Gertrude didn’t seem to be expecting an answer.

            Alric looked down at his chains. He couldn’t see well in the dim light but the locks didn’t look very complicated. “I could…  if I could reach the lock and had something to use to pick the lock with” He felt the last of his hope drain away. “I don’t suppose that there is anything useful that I can do”.

            Gertrude almost shouted the next words. “Are ya a thief?”

            Alric wondered for a moment how he could have made a worse impression on the only person who might possibly be a friend. Nothing had gone well since that mug of ale. “No, I am not a thief. I am honest” It occurred to him that he could be entirely honest and claim not to be a thief. He added, “Well, I haven’t taken anything that wasn’t mine by right”.

            Speaking with a quiet urgency, Gertrude asked, “The only honesty that matters worth a tinker’s curse right now is whether you really can pick a lock. Can ya?”

            Alric nodded and then remembered that she could hardly see him. “Yes”

            “Have you got a set of picks?”

            Alric thought for a moment. “Yes”, he answered, his heart sinking in to his boots. “They are in my pack back at the inn”.

            Gertrude seemed to stare at him in the darkness. “Then you can borrow mine.”

 

Just then, the door rattled and swung open letting a sailor in. He was carrying two buckets and wore a curved sword hanging from his belt. The light from the door was blinding after the gloom of the ship’s hold. The sailor laughed at them. “So, my little mice, what is it to be first? Filling up or emptying?”. Alric didn’t understand at first but his bladder was so full that it hurt. He was just about to speak when Gertrude was quicker. “I will have the empty bucket and if you watch then me I will chuck it over ya when I am done”. The sailor laughed crudely and set the bucket down on the floor. “Will you now, you little she-mouse? We will see about that.” He drew a short knife that Alric had not noticed before and held it in his right hand while he clumsily unlocked the chain that held her to the wall. Alric looked away until he heard her shuffle back. She was chained again and Alric given his turn at the bucket.

            The other bucket was smaller and contained thin, fishy stew. The sailor drew mugs of the stew from the bucket and put them between the prisoners’ chained hands, all the time holding his knife tightly.

            “So, are you a boy mouse or a rat?” The sailor leered at Alric. “What is your name then?”

            Alric tried to think of some sort of story to tell. “My name is Ivar, son of the harbourmaster in Northarbour. He will pay well for my safe return if it is done quickly”

            “Will he now? I didn’t know that Odo had a son and I doubt that he does either.” The sailor paused. “And why would Odo’s son sound like he spent his days chasing cows?” He laughed. “Let’s see if a few days without food will make your tongue a little more truthful”

 

            As soon as Alric and Gertrude were alone again, Gertrude spat at Alric. “Idiot! Have ya never told a lie before? You lost me meals as well and for what?”

            Alric wiped his face on the shoulder of his tunic and grinned. “Well, we won’t be interrupted for a while and that means that I can work on getting these locks undone”

            The lockpicks were hidden in the heel of one of Gertrude’s boots and she had to move around until the chains were tight before Alric could get to them. The dark didn’t matter as he picked away at the heavy locks because he needed to hear and feel the inside rather than see it. His fingers were stiff and the lock was a type that he had never tried before but he remembered the book well. It had shown how these locks were made and with some time and effort, the lock clicked open. Gertrude was free of her chains by the time that the evening darkened into night. Gertrude stood and held out her hand. “The picks, hand ‘em over.”

            Alric passed the lockpicks and watched as Gertrude slipped them in to her pocket. “Aren’t you going to let me out?”

            “And why should I do that?, she asked

            “Because I helped you”

            “Don’t know that I can trust ya”, she said as if it was obvious and Alric was being stupid.

            “And if I help you some more? You may not like me but is there anyone else here who might do that?”

            Grumbling quietly, Gertrude knelt down beside Alric and started working on his chains.

 

When they were both free to stand, they stretched before rubbing their sore wrists and ankles. Gertrude walked to the door and tried the latch. She swore in surprise when it opened easily. “We were chained to the wall so I don’t think that they thought that they needed another lock” whispered Alric. Gertrude started to open the door but Alric put a hand on her arm.

“Let me. I am dressed in black and don’t have yellow hair”, he said quietly.

“Don’t get us caught, boy”, she said softly

 

Alric let himself out, opening the door just enough for his body to slide through. The door opened in to a corridor and he thought he had read that it was called a companion way. The soft leather of his shoes made almost no sound on the planks of the ship’s deck. They had been worn smooth by many feet. The passage ended in a short and steep set of stairs, almost like a ladder. Alric swayed as he walked along the corridor as the sea rolled the ship. He climbed slowly until he could see what was above him. Sails billowed in a stiff wind and the ship seemed to be moving fast. There were no lights to be seen except those of the ship and the sky was clear and filled with stars. He could hear voices, some speaking languages that he didn’t know and there were a few sailors on the bit of the deck that he could see from the hatchway. Alric hadn’t really thought about how to get away beyond getting out of the room. He stayed as still as he could and tried to think.

There was a darker line to his left without any stars. He realised that they were close to land and that there were hills beyond the shore. He didn’t think that he could swim to the shore since it a fair way and he didn’t know if Gertrude could swim at all. Somehow, he had to get the ship to move closer to the land. He thought back to books that he had read and stories that Graywold had told to him. What would the heroes of those tales have done? Thomas of Ard had sailed the oceans and he had known some of the weather magic that the great shipmasters sometimes learned. Alric didn’t know any spells to control the winds. All that he had ever been able to do was make a few lights in the shade of the forest. It was then that an idea came to him. There was no sense of power within him but he remembered the way that the magic had felt. If there had been any other thought in his head then he would have tried something else but he couldn’t think of another way. He forced his heart to slow and reached in to his mind and tried to feel even a trace of the magic that had been in his mind before. All that there was in his mind was quiet and a sense of great need. Alric tried to use that need, to draw power from it. It was utterly different from the easy power that he had known before but he searched for anything that he could use. For a moment, there was a thread of magical energy, almost too fine to notice and then he felt something change inside him. It was as if a door had opened and light streamed out. Here was power, his own power. He called on it, controlling it as he had never done before and whispered the words of the spell.

 

The sailor on lookout saw the lights burning on the water, too close to the ship and unexpected. He yelled a warning to the seaman at the wheel, “Land ahoy, ahead and starboard! Hard to port! Dead ahead, hard to port”. The captain ran to the bow of the ship to see the lights for himself. The waves scattered the light, making them twinkle like the torches of a town. He shouted orders to his crew. “Hard to port! Let out the port lines and trim starboard”. The ship heeled left and rolled sharply as it lay across the waves. The captain watched as his crew hurried to do as he ordered and smiled bitterly. He was a hard master but he had trained them well.  He looked forward in to the darkness ahead of the ship, straining his eyes. He wondered if the white that he could see in the ship’s lights was foam and decided that it was waves breaking on the shore directly ahead. He felt a sudden fear and turned to shout another order but he lurched under him as the bottom hit the rocks. His cry was lost in the horrible tearing sound as the hull tore. The Captain fell forwards and felt the wooden rail hit his legs, tipping him from the deck in to dark water.

 

Alric woke to find Gertrude shaking him hard. His back and shoulder ached where he had hit the deck, thrown from the ladder by the impact. Gertrude was saying something but he couldn’t make it out over the ringing in his ears and the grinding as the ship rode against the rocks. Everything was leaning over and rivulets of seawater were running along the floor. As his head cleared, he understood her words. She was shouting “Come on” at him. He started to struggle to his feet and she ran on ahead, down the tilting passageway and up the steps without slowing her pace. Alric staggered after her, his head still thick from the fall.

            He got on deck in time to see the last of the sailors diving overboard with a barrel. The man carried it as if it were light and Alric had no idea why the sailor would want an empty barrel. He looked around for Gertrude but couldn’t see her. Thinking that she might have already dived off the ship, he went to the rail and looked in to the water. It was still deep although rocks jutted up through the waves. There were a few splashing sailors but he couldn’t see any heads with bright blond hair. Alric blinked muzzily and decided that he had to look for her. It was then that he heard a sharp curse, too high for a man. He turned and started to search the deck.

            He found her in a cabin near the wheelhouse. An oil lamp was still burning on the wall though it hung at an angle and seemed likely to spill burning oil at any moment. Gertrude was trying to unlock a chest that she had pulled from under the bunk but the lock was complicated and she was trying to hurry.

            “The ship is sinking. We have to leave!”, shouted Alric

            “Not without what’s here”, she shouted back.

            Alric looked around the cabin. Although it smelled of sea and unwashed bodies, it was rich with silks and velvets. There were crossed cutlasses on the wall and Alric grabbed one. He had swung an axe often enough when working on farms swung the sword the same way. He chopped down at the chest just as Gertrude jumped back. A second stroke splintered the wood and a third smashed the lid. Alric dropped the sword and starting pulling the bits of wood aside. There was a harsh metallic click loud even over the sound of sea and ship ruin. Alric felt a sharp pain like a splinter in his hand and looked down to see a small dart with a tuft of colourful threads sticking out of his skin. He brushed it away and was surprised by how little it hurt.

Gertrude saw the dart. “It was trapped, ya fool! The chest was boobytrapped, idiot”.

Shaking his head to clear it, Alric replied, “The whole ship is a trap. We have to get to shore.”

 

Gertrude grabbed four heavy canvas bags from the chest and forced two of them on to Alric. “C’mon, we have to leave!”. They ran toward the door of the cabin but the decking shifted under them, toppling Alric. He grabbed Gertrude and tried to stand but the floor wouldn’t stay put. She started to shout something but a cracking sound, so loud that it seemed to fill the world drowned out her words. The walls of the cabin started to twist and the floor tore under their feet, tipping them in to the darkness below. They fell and dark water swallowed him, cold and foul. There were things floating in the water with him, boxes and barrels torn loose as the ship broke up around them. Salt water stung his eyes as he looked in to the darkness, trying to find a way out of the flooded ship’s hold but there was only a glimmer of light from above. The ship was loud with the sounds of tearing wood and waves breaking. A scream cut through the noise, close and desperate. The water was rising and Alric felt his strength failing. The ship shuddered and something fell from above him, trailing fire. It was the oil lamp from the cabin above and it tumbled, spraying burning oil on to the water below. Alric ducked his head under the water to escape the flames but knew that he couldn’t hold his breath for long. He looked up through the water and saw a patch with no flames and pushed his head up in to it. He looked around to try to find Gertrude but saw instead a grey rat, swimming straight for his face. He swung his hand at it in disgust and felt a dragging weight before he remembered that he still held the canvas bags. He hit the rat and the bag spilled out of his hand. The screaming had stopped and he still couldn’t see Gertrude. The pain from his fall seemed less real and the chaos in the ship seemed to slow as if it were all happening far away. When the ship moved under him again, he tipped under the water as if in a dream. In the light of the burning oil, Alric saw a flash of gold in the shadows and it was strangely beautiful. He staggered through the fire and water to where he had seen it and looked again. It waved like a flag under the water and dimly he realised that it was golden hair. It was so beautiful to him and he felt happy to have seen it. Everything seemed dreamlike and Alric wondered if this was how it felt to die. He wanted to see the girl again and ducked his head under the water to see her better.

            The water was cold and somehow it made his head clear a little. The sounds of the ship were muted by the water as Alric tried to think. Gertrude, he thought, her name is Gertrude. She seemed to be trying to lift something heavy and Alric knelt to help her. She was holding on to heavy bags and Alric realised that he was holding a bag just like them. He tried to take one of hers in his free hand so that she could lift the other. She let him take it but his hand was numb and it slipped through his fingers to fall deeper in to the dark hold. Gertrude heaved at the other bag and stood, leaving Alric under water. He blinked owlishly and stood up, standing clear of the water. Flames still flickered on the water and he could see more clearly now. Gertrude was shouting but her words seemed to come from far away. He could see a huge hole in the side of the ship where a rock had broken through the hull and suddenly he wanted to leave this place very much. He reached out to Gertrude and together they splashed and floundered out of the ship and towards the shore. The stars seemed brighter to Alric and they were dancing over his head. He laughed and rushed ahead through the shallower water, grabbing at the reflections of the stars as if he was playing a game. After what seemed like a long time, he stood on the shingle of the beach and looked up again at the sky. He laughed once more and the world seemed to tip as if he were still aboard the ship. He landed on his side on the cold, hard stones and everything faded away.

 

 

            He woke to find himself lying on the ground, his torn clothes almost dry. He was cold and very thirsty but his head was clear. Gertrude was beside him, watching him with a strange expression. He licked his dry lips and felt the sea-salt that covered his face.

The sun was low, nearly on the horizon and he whispered “Sunrise”. His voice sounded strange and hoarse to him.

            “No”, said Gertrude, “Sunset. We’ve been here all day”

            Alric tried to sit up but a wave of dizziness forced him to lean back. “Where are we?”

            “I don’t know. South, maybe. Would’ve frozen if we had gone north”.

            Alric smiled. “We will know soon. The stars will be out”.

            “How do ya feel? Head still full of moonbeams?”, asked Gertrude.

            Alric thought about the question. He felt numb though he must have been bruised by the many falls. “I don’t hurt anywhere but I feel weaker than a newborn calf. I must have hit my head when I fell.”

            Gertrude looked him as if he had said the most ridiculous thing ever. She grabbed his hand and squeezed and there was a jolt of pain. Alric looked down and saw the red mark where the dart had hit him. “Don’t ya know nothing? Rich men don’t care for thieves. Tha dart was drugged and ya were away with the fairies”. Alric tried to think about this but it was hard to concentrate. Soon he was asleep again.

 

Alric woke to find Gertrude sitting beside him, staring in to the night. He had been dreaming of the village, of the time when he had lived with Graywold. The night air was cold and Alric shivered as he awoke. He pushed Gertrude away and sat up. He felt hungry but stronger and his head was clearer. “How long did I sleep?”, he asked.

            “Hours. It’s late”, she replied

            Alric looked up at the sky and matched the patterns of the stars. “A few hours before dawn. Why didn’t you wake me?”

            Gertrude said nothing but seemed to shrink into herself, her arms tight around her body.

            “Gertrude?”, said Alric.

            “We’ve no food and we’re lost. We gonna starve, aren’t we?” Alric could hear tears held back when she spoke.

            Alric swallowed and wondered what he could say to comfort her. He tried to sound as cheerful as he could. “We will find something. Food comes from the land, not the cities, you know”.

            “Ya sure? We won’t starve?”. Gertrude was desperate to believe him.

            Alric yawned. “We will find food in the morning. We will do well enough”

 

Alric felt a touch on his hand and folded his hand around Gertrude’s. They lay beside each other on the hard shore until they fell asleep. He did not dream again that night.

 

Alric woke up to find that he was alone, cold and very thirsty. He looked around but didn’t recognise anything. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t remember anything after staggering ashore and but he had woken up hundreds of paces from the sea. There was short sea-grass here and it was still pressed down where he had slept beside Gertrude. Alric went to look for her.

            He found her by the shore, looking out to sea and the wreck of the ship. She looked at him but didn’t speak at first. Alric moved beside her and went to take her hand again but she stepped away. As the silence became awkward, Gertrude spoke, more to break the silence than because she had something to say. “Most of the ship’s still there”

            Alric looked but it was hard to know what was under the water. “Have you seen any of the sailors?”

            Gertrude gestured over to the left. “There is one over there”

            Alric looked over and saw a body on the edge of the waves, his face twisted away from them at an odd angle. “Is he dead?”

            “Reckon”, replied Gertrude.

            Alric nodded, wondering what to say. Finally, he said, “We will need food and water if we are to get to a farm. There may be tools on that man and there will be some from the ship, I am sure of it. We need to gather what we can”

            Gertrude nodded.

            Alric looked at the wreck. “I can’t swim very well. Can you?”

            “Never tried ‘cept when we were in the water the other night.”

            “Then we will need a rope to pull so one of us can pull the other back. Let us try the closest first”, said Alric. He walked slowly towards the corpse and then stopped.

            “Even seen a dead man before?”, asked Gertrude.

            Alric was about to say that he hadn’t but then he remembered that he had sat with Graywold. That had been a very different death than this bundle that had once been human. He didn’t want to explain so he knelt beside the body and tried not to look at its face. He quickly found a knife and a packet of soaked tobacco. There was also a purse with a few small coins but Alric left that. Stealing money from the dead seemed worse than taking things that they would need.

 

They worked all that morning and in to the afternoon. Gertrude found a rope from the ship’s rigging and between them, they managed to salvage a small barrel of hard biscuits and some salt pork from the ship. There were also clothes, too big and soaked but better than nothing. Gertrude only had a smock that was torn and faded while Alric’s fine black clothes were ripped in many places. At last, Alric found a bigger barrel that was too heavy to move. It looked like it might hold beer and while Alric didn’t ever want to drink beer again, they needed something if they were not to die of thirst. They finally got it to shore and found that it was filled with water. At last, Alric was able to drink and wash the salt from his skin. He went up the beach and chewed a little salt pork while Gertrude washed. There was more water than they needed but no way to carry it. It was late in the day before they had gathered all that they could so they decided to start out the next day.

 

Alric made a fire out of driftwood and they talked as they sat by the fire. There was a little light from the spitting yellow flames of the salt covered wood.

            “We can’t head east because of the sea so that leaves North, South and West. Do you know much of this land?”, asked Alric.

            “Not much, ‘cept that Tadis is on the east coast”, replied Gertrude.

            Alric tried to think of maps that he had seen. “Do you come from Tadis? It is a port town, I think”

            “Biggest town in the whole north, so it is.”, said Gertrude.

            Alric poked at the fire. “How many days were you on the ship for?”, he asked.

            “Dunno”, replied Gertrude, “Maybe three or four”

            Alric wished that he knew how far a ship could sail in four days. However far it was, he was sure that it was too far to walk. “It is a fair way off then. We could head inland and look for a farm but we could walk within a mile of the fields and not know”

            “Don’t fancy that then. How can we be sure not to walk by somewhere?”

            Alric thought about it for a moment before an idea came to him. “We can be sure that a fishing village will be on the shore. We can follow the coast”

            Gertrude chewed on a bit of salt pork. “Well, up or down then?”

            “North is the way home and there are raiders to the south. We need to head north”

             

 

They started as soon as it was light enough to see and took what food they could carry. It would dull but they wouldn’t go hungry for several days. Alric was worried about the water. He tried emptying most of the water out of the barrel but it was still too heavy to carry. They left after drinking as much as they could and all the food that they could carry.

            As they walked, the world seemed very quiet and Gertrude wanted to talk, more to fill the silence than anything else. She told Alric of the town of Tadis where she lived and Alric listened carefully. He thought that she must be boasting about the size of Tadis since no place could be as large. To hear her tell it, the town had to be nearly twice the size of Northarbour. After a while, Alric realised that she had told him a great deal about where she lived but nothing about her life. He didn’t know where to start when asking about someone’s life. All the people that he knew had always been there, in the village.

 

            “What were you doing on the ship, Gertrude? Where they going to ransom you as well?”, he asked.

            Gertrude laughed and shook her head.

            Alric wondered what to say next. “Did they want you for something then?”

            Gertrude looked at him strangely. “Ya ask a lot of questions, don’t ya? Where’d ya come from?”

            Alric told her about the village and the people that he knew. It all seemed very ordinary compared to the city where Gertrude had been born but she seemed happy to listen. It was only when Alric mentioned his old master that she stopped him.

            “See! I knew ya was like me. Sounds like ya had a better master than me though.”, she said.

            Alric remembered and smiled. “Yes, Graywold was a kind man. I miss him.”

            “Pah! I don’t miss mine at all. He was all grubby hands and stealing the bread from your mouth was old Sammy. Cheated us blind, he did. Took liberties with the girls if he could but I never let him. Mind, that is what caused the trouble, I reckon”

            “Your master had more than one pupil?”, asked Alric

            “Pupil? Wouldn’t have called us that though he did teach some of ‘em. We were his gang, weren’t we? We stole it and he sold it. Kept most of the money for himself to, the old skinflint”

            Alric stopped walking and looked at her. “You were a thief?”

            Gertrude stared back. “And you aren’t? Mighty handy with my lockpicks ya are for an honest boy”. She laughed. “Nah, ya worked for a master and at the same trade as me.”

            Alric realised that his mouth was hanging open and closed it. “My master was a great and wise man. He knew all of the tales of the lands and he had books of magic! He wasn’t some common thief.”

            Gertrude sniffed. “There are some who would say that a sorcerer is worse than a thief.”

            After that, they walked in silence until night fell.

 

When they stopped to camp, they spoke only when they had to and even then, grunts were more common than words. Alric gathered a little driftwood and made a fire that burned fitfully and gave little heat. After a while, he stretched out to sleep although he was cold and the ground was hard. Even so, he was tired and almost asleep when he Gertrude said, “I don’t hold with sorcery. Everyone says that they can turn to evil and often do”.

            Alric thought about this for a moment. “There can be evil in any man but if not for sorcery, we would still be chained up in the ship’s hold with bad fish stew to eat.”

            “I don’t know that salt port and hard biscuits are any better. I am thirsty, Alric”

            “So am I”, he replied.

 

Neither of them slept much that night and they were still tired when morning came. There were heavy clouds and the world seemed to have been painted in shades of grey and black. Even the grass that grew on the edge of the shore looked faded and tired. They ate breakfast but neither of them had much appetite and the salt port made them drier than ever. They started their walk with as few words as possible and trudged on.

            It was after midday when they Alric spotted the boat. It was far from shore but its sail could be seen against the dark water. Gertrude walked on and Alric had to call her back to see it. It was only a fishing boat and too far out to see them but it was the first sign of other people that they had seen since the wreck. They walked on with a little more hope after that but they saw no other sign of people before it became too dark to go on.

            There wasn’t much food for their evening camp and they were too thirsty to talk much. Alric had been sure that they were near a village when he had seen the boat but they had walked for hours without seeing any trace of a town or village. They were just settling to sleep when the rain started. Gertrude started to sniffle and Alric felt like joining her. He wondered if he had any way to catch the rain water but the only container was the small barrel that contained the last of the biscuits. He wrapped the biscuits in his cloak and opened the barrel to catch as much of the rain as it could. The night was the wet, cold and sleepless for them both. The rain kept on in to the morning and the dawn was bleak and grey. The barrel had caught a few inches of water only but Alric shared it with Gertrude. The biscuits had been soaked by the night’s rain and were barely worth eating but they forced them down before walking on through the heavy drizzle.

            “Alric? What ya said about sorcery, did ya mean it”, asked Gertrude as they walked along.

            “Yes”, he replied, “What about it?”. He didn’t feel up to another argument.

            “Are ya really a sorcerer?”

            “I know a few spells but not enough to be any use to us. I can’t summon up a meal or conjure a horse out of nothing if that is what you want”

            “But ya can do magic, right?”, asked Gertrude.

            Alric nodded.

            “Show me”. Gertrude paused. “Please”

            Alric had never done any magic where anyone could see except for the time on the boat. He suddenly felt afraid that he couldn’t do it again and felt a powerful urge to prove his ability to himself. He thought of the first spell that he had cast and whispered the words to himself. After a moment, a small spot of light appeared in his capped hands. “There”

            Gertrude looked at the light, fascinated by the tiny thing. Her expression changed and she looked afraid. “Do ya think that we will ever find somewhere, before we starve?”

            Alric tried to sound convincing but he was tired, wet and far from certain. “Yes, I think so. If we keep walking then we should find somewhere and we can hunt for food if we need to. There will be rabbits and other things inland a little way. We will find somewhere, I am sure, but I don’t know that they will help us.”

            Gertrude looked in to his eyes. “Oh, they will help us. People are greedy. I knows that for a fact”.

            Alric thought of the silver coins. “They might just rob us”.

            “Nah”, said Gertrude, “most people are too scared to steal”. She paused before continuing. “People don’t trust sorcerers in Tadis. Don’t reckon that there is anywhere that much likes them. Better not to say who you are when we find folk”

            Alric nodded, glad that she still thought that they might find help.

            They plodded on, following the line of the shore but a little way inland. The going was easier on the short grass and there was scrapes made by rabbits here and there. Alric sorted through the few things that he had been able to salvage from the ship and made a crude sling from a strip of cloth and some string. He had a proper leather sling at home but that was far away and no help now. There were any number of round stones on the pebble beach and he scooped up a few as he walked.

            When the light started to fade, Alric and Gertrude stopped. They had walked on later the night before but they were tired and their spirits were low. Alric walked off a little way and sat down on the grass with his sling in his lap. He waited and watched as the first grey rabbits started to appear. He knew that it was a mistake to hurry and waited until they seemed a little less wary of him. Suddenly, he whirled the sling and a stone flew at the nearest rabbit. It fell a little short but he slipped another pebble in to the sling and tried again. His aim was better this time and he hit a rabbit squarely, stunning it. As he ran towards it, the last of the other rabbits disappeared from view. Alric grabbed his prize and quickly finished it off before heading back to Gertrude.

            They ate the last of the rabbit for breakfast and made a start on the journey north. They had slept well with full stomachs and the walk seemed easier for that.