A Quest of Heroes (Book #1 in the Sorcerer's Ring)

friends laughed, too. Gareth knew that his brother and his friends
all judged him for his predisposition—but he hardly cared about that now. He
just needed to change the topic. He didn’t want them to wonder what he was
doing out here.
    “What
are you doing out here?” Gareth asked, turning the tables.
    “A
new tavern opened, by Southwood,” Godfrey answered. “We had just been trying it
out. The best ale in all the kingdom. Want some?” he asked, holding out a cask.
    Gareth
shook his head quickly. He knew he had to distract him, and he figured the best
way was to change the topic, to rebuke him.
    “Father
would be furious if he caught you drinking during the day,” Gareth said. “I
suggest you set down that and return to court.”
    It
worked. Godfrey glowered, and clearly he was no longer thinking about Gareth,
but about father and himself.
    “And
since when did you care about father’s needs?” he retorted.
    Gareth
had had enough. He hadn’t time to waste with a drunkard. He succeeded in what
he wanted, distracting him, and now, hopefully, he wouldn’t think too deeply
about why he had run into him here.
    Gareth
turned and hurried down the trail, hearing their mocking laughter behind him as
he went. He no longer cared. Soon, it would be he who had the last laugh.
     

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
     
     
    Thor
sat at the wooden table, working away at the bow and arrow laid out in pieces.
Beside him sat Reece, along with several other members of the Legion. They were
all hunched over their weapons, hard at work on carving the bows and tightening
the strings.
    “A
warrior knows how to string his own bow,” Kolk yelled out, as he walked up and
down the rows of boys, leaning over, examining each one’s work. “The tension
must be just right. Too little, and your arrow will not reach its mark. Too
much, and your aim will not be true. Weapons break in battle. Weapons break on
journeys. You must know how to repair them as you go. The greatest warrior is
also a blacksmith, a carpenter, a cobbler, a mender of all things broken. And
you don’t really know your own weapon until you’ve repaired it yourself.”
    Kolk
stopped behind Thor and leaned over his shoulder. He yanked the wooden bow out
of Thor’s grasp, the string hurting his palm as he did.
    “The
string is not taut enough,” he chided. “It is crooked. Use a weapon like this
in battle, and you will surely die. And your partner will die besides you.”
    Kolk
slammed the bow back down on the table and moved on; several other boys
snickered. Thor reddened as he grabbed the string again, pulled it as taut as
he possibly could, and wrapped it around the notch in the bow. He’d been at
work on this for hours, the cap to an exhausting day of labor and menial tasks.
    Most
of the others were training, sparring, sword-fighting. He looked out and in the
distance saw his brothers, the three of them, laughing as they clacked wooden
swords; as usual, Thor felt they were gaining the upper hand while he was being
left behind in their shadow. It was unfair. He felt increasingly that he was
unwanted here, as if he were not a true member of the Legion.
    “Don’t
worry, you’ll get the hang of it,” O’Connor said beside him.
    Thor’s
palms were chafed from trying; he pulled back the string one last time, this
time with all his might, and finally, to his surprise, it clicked. The string
fit neatly in the notch, Thor pulling with all his might, sweating. He felt a
great sense of satisfaction with his bow now as strong as it should be.
    The
shadows were growing longer as Thor wiped his forehead with the back of his
hand and wondered how much longer this would go on. He contemplated what it
meant to be a warrior. In his head, he had seen it differently. He had only
imagined training, all the time. But he supposed this was also a form of
training.
    “This
was not what I signed up for, either,” O’Connor said, as if reading his mind.
    Thor
turned, and was reassured to find his friend’s constant smile.
    “I
come from the Northern Province,” he continued. “I, too, dreamed of joining the
Legion my entire life. I guess I imagined constant sparring and battle. Not all
of these menial tasks. But it will get better. It is just because we are new.
It is a form of initiation. There seems to be a hierarchy here. We are also the
youngest. I don’t see the nineteen-year-olds doing this. This can’t last
forever. Besides, it’s a useful skill to learn.”
    A
horn