The Black Prince: Part II by P. J. Fox Read Free Book Online

Deformed, somehow, for demonstrating that they could think and feel about things other than sashes and slippers and strewing rushes.
    He thought about that now, as he stood in the rain with his arms crossed and surveyed the camp. Strange, what came to one’s mind in times of stress. He’d thought they might lose Isla over the winter, when she’d been so weak. Strong in mind she might be, but she’d never been strong in constitution. Always too thin, and too pale.
    Rowena, on the other hand, had always been strong. And wasn’t that always the way of it: the best died early while the worst kept on. And on. Hart would have gladly traded Rowena’s life for Bjorn’s. Or for that of any of the men he’d known, who’d passed on to whatever lay beyond this world. Save maybe for that of his father. Who, he supposed, must be dead by now too. Or if not dead, then close. He wouldn’t discover the earl’s fate until he next returned to Caer Addanc.
    The roads, always dangerous, had grown terrifying and he couldn’t risk sending a scout, who might be captured and tortured for information, home on purely personal business.
    He’d have to imagine that Isla was well, and Lissa, and concentrate on other matters.
    Like how to navigate this canyon.
    They’d camped above it, giving the men time to sleep and the scouts time to form, together, some guess at its size.
    “Never,” Arvid marveled, “have I imagined such a place. Truly this is the stuff of dreams.”
    “Then dream of a way to cross it.”
    The canyon was beautiful. But treacherous. Like a great gash that had been cut into the earth, the edges ragged. Only water flowed through it instead of blood, so clear as to be invisible as it passed over a bed laid with innumerable rounded stones. The water wasn’t deep; even Rudolph could wade through it without much of a problem.
    The problem was reaching it.
    The walls had been carved by some divine hand from black stone that was already greening with a thousand different lichens. Spring was coming upon them, as they moved further south and nearer the coast. Come summer, there would truly be beauty beyond measure here.
    “We can’t scale it. It’s a sheer drop.” And even if they could, their horses couldn’t. And they needed their horses. They’d lost another one the day before, a spare owned by a surly Southron who’d already begun demanding compensation. Which he’d get, if he lived long enough to collect it.
    Hart wouldn’t kill him. He’d point him at House Salm and tell him its inhabitants held the purse strings. An hour of his pointless yelling and they’d surrender, just to have it stop.
    “We might be able to build a bridge across.”
    “We’d spend longer hewing these trees into something usable than we would just going around.” And they’d get sick, spending so long in one place. This place was wet, even without the rain. Which beat down on Hart’s head, flattening his short hair into a sort of helmet that dripped endlessly into his eyes. Arvid, beside him, looked like a bear that had lost a battle with a lake.
    Arvid grunted. “That remains to be seen.” He coughed, wiped his mouth, and then spit. “These fine walls might have inspired the halls of Bragi, high above, but I’d trade them this night for a bed.”
    Hart blinked more water from his eyes.
    “I hope this isn’t another fool’s errand.”
    Hart hoped the same. “The loyal servant learns to love the lash,” was all he said.
    “Oh, spare me your Ymir-loving bullshit.” Arvid spat again. Ymir was his people’s name for the Dark One, and was thought by them to have taken the form of a frost giant. His both character and intentions were of the purest evil, formed even from the venom that dripped down into the abyss between the worlds. When he was finally slain, his bones became the mountains of the North.
    Further proof, if such was needed, that all good derived from evil.
    Hart glanced at his friend, then went back to studying the