At the last moment, when the cavalry was only a few yards away from the table, someone shouted, “Whoa! Whoa there! Rein in your horses. I say, rein in your horses!” And, with a clatter of buckles and creaking leather, the champing line of animals reluctantly slowed to a halt.
And still, Roran kept his eyes angled downward.
He sipped the pungent mead, then tossed the bones again and caught two of them on the back of his hand, where they lay rocking on the ridges of his tendons.
The aroma of freshly overturned soil wafted over him, warm and comforting, along with the distinctly less pleasant smell of lathered horseflesh.
“Ho there, my fine fellow!” said the same man who had ordered the soldiers to halt. “Ho there, I say! Who are you to sit here this splendid morning, drinking and enjoying a merry game of chance, as if you hadn’t a care in the world? Do we not merit the courtesy of being met with drawn swords? Who are you, I say?”
Slowly, as if he had just noticed the presence of the soldiers and considered it to be of little importance, Roran raised his gaze from the table to regard a small bearded man with a flamboyantly plumed helm who sat before him on an enormous black war-horse, which was heaving like a pair of bellows.
“I’m nobody’s fine fellow, and certainly not yours,” Roran said, making no effort to conceal his dislike at being addressed in such a familiar manner. “Who are you, I might ask, to interrupt my game so rudely?”
The long, striped feathers mounted atop the man’s helm bobbed and fluttered as he looked Roran over, as if Roran were an unfamiliar creature he had encountered while hunting. “Tharos the Quick is my name, Captain of the Guard. Rude as you are, I must tell you, it would grieve me mightily to kill a man as bold as yourself without knowing his name.” As if to emphasize his words, Tharos lowered the spear he held until it was pointing at Roran.
Three rows of riders were clustered close behind Tharos. Among their numbers, Roran spied a slim, hook-nosed man with the emaciated face and arms—which were bare to the shoulders—that Roran had come to associate with the spellcasters of the Varden. Very suddenly, he found himself hoping that Carn had succeeded in making the air shimmer. However, he dared not turn his head to look.
“Stronghammer is my name,” he said. With a single deft movement, he gathered up the knucklebones, tossed them skyward, and caught three on his hand. “Roran Stronghammer, and Eragon Shadeslayer is my cousin. You might have heard mention of him, if not of me.”
A rustle of unease spread among the line of horsemen, and Roran thought he saw Tharos’s eyes widen for an instant. “An impressive claim, that, but how can we be sure of its veracity? Any man might say he is another if it served his purpose.”
Roran drew his hammer and slammed it down on the table with a muffled thump. Then, ignoring the soldiers, he resumed his game. He uttered a noise of disgust as two of the bones fell from the back of his hand, costing him the round.
“Ah,” said Tharos, and coughed, clearing his throat. “You have a most illustrious reputation, Stronghammer, although some argue that it has been exaggerated beyond all reason. Is it true, for example, that you single-handedly felled nigh on three hundred men in the village of Deldarad in Surda?”
“I never learned what the place was called, but if Deldarad it was, then yes, I slew many a soldier there. It was only a hundred ninety-three, however, and I was well guarded by my own men while I fought.”
“Only a hundred ninety-three?” Tharos said in a wondering tone. “You are too modest, Stronghammer. Such a feat might earn a man a place in many a song and story.”
Roran shrugged and lifted the horn to his mouth, feigning the action of swallowing, for he could not afford to have his mind clouded by the potent dwarf brew. “I fight to win, not to lose.… Let me offer you a drink, as one warrior to another,” he said, and extended the horn toward Tharos.
The short warrior hesitated, and his eyes darted toward the spellcaster behind him for a second. Then he wet his lips and said, “Perhaps I will at that.” Dismounting his charger, Tharos handed his spear to one of the other soldiers, pulled off his gauntlets, and walked over to the table, where he cautiously accepted the horn from Roran.
Tharos sniffed at the mead, then downed a hearty quaff. The feathers on his helm quivered as he grimaced.
“It’s not to your liking?” Roran asked, amused.
“I confess, these mountain drinks are too harsh for my tongue,” Tharos said, returning the horn to Roran. “I much prefer the wines of our fields; they are warm and mellow and less likely to strip a man of his senses.”
“ ’Tis sweet as mother’s milk to me,” Roran lied. “I drink it morning, noon, and night.”
Donning his gloves once again, Tharos returned to the side of his horse, hauled himself into the saddle, and took back his spear from the soldier who had been holding it for him. He directed another glance toward the hook-nosed spellcaster behind him, whose complexion, Roran noticed, had acquired a deathly cast in the brief span since Tharos had set foot on the ground. Tharos must have noticed the change in his magician as well, for his own expression became strained.
“My thanks for your hospitality, Roran Stronghammer,” he said, raising his voice so that his entire troop could hear. “Mayhap I will soon have the honor of entertaining you within the walls of Aroughs. If so, I promise to serve you the finest wines from my family’s estate, and perhaps with them I will be able to wean you off such barbaric milk as you have there. I think you will find our wine has much to recommend it. We let it age in oaken casks for months or sometimes even years. It would be a pity if all that work were wasted and the casks were knocked open and the wine were allowed to run out into the streets and paint them red with the blood of our grapes.”
“That would indeed be a shame,” Roran replied, “but sometimes you cannot avoid spilling a bit of wine when cleaning your table.” Holding the horn out to one side, he tipped it over and poured what little mead remained onto the grass below.
Tharos was utterly still for a moment—even the feathers on his helm were motionless—then, with an angry snarl, he yanked his horse around and shouted at his men, “Form up! Form up, I say.… Yah!” And with that final yell, he spurred his horse away from Roran, and the rest of the soldiers followed, urging their steeds to a gallop as they retraced their steps to Aroughs.
Roran maintained his pretense of arrogance and indifference until the soldiers were well away, then he slowly released his breath and rested his elbows on his knees. His hands were trembling slightly.
It worked, he thought, amazed.
He heard men running toward him from the camp, and he looked over his shoulder to see Baldor and Carn approaching, accompanied by at least fifty of the warriors who had been hiding within the tents.
“You did it!” exclaimed Baldor as they drew near. “You did it! I can’t believe it!” He laughed and slapped Roran on the shoulder hard enough to knock him against the table.
The other men crowded around him, also laughing, as well as praising him with extravagant phrases, boasting that under his leadership they would capture Aroughs without so much as a single casualty, and belittling the courage and character of the city’s inhabitants. Someone shoved a warm, half-full wineskin into his hand, which he stared at with unexpected loathing, then passed to the man directly to his left.