A Stolen Crown Read Free

cut away the roots on the entrance. He swung it with its blunt side forward and smashed the heavy lock several times before it broke and clattered to the floor. He smiled at Brian and Diller.
    “Me father, he was a locksmith,” the fat man joked. Diller laughed and Fergus grinned down at him. "Ye do make some sounds, don't ya lad."
    The big man pushed the door open and, inside they found a complete cache of weapons, enough to outfit an entire regiment of Bordermen and more than enough to supply Kaleb’s men. Racks of longbows and crossbows lined one wall while a variety of swords, daggers and axes lined another. Neatly hung were coats of armor and chainmail that, despite being dirty from the years of dust, were still slick with the oil that had been applied to keep away the rust. Brian found a pair of battle axes, much larger than the ones he had grown fond of when he had trained with his friend Aaron and the old man, Tarnath. After wiping the heavy oil from them so they would not slip from his hands, he swung them handily and tested their balance. The steel blades were worked with inlaid patterns so intricate they were hard to look at. A matching pair, Brian could tell that they were of a high quality and decided that he wanted them both so he stuck the handles into his belt and reached for a long bow.
    "Ye think ye can handle both them axes at the same time?" Fergus asked him.
    "I might have to practice a little," Brian said confidently, though he knew the big man had a point. Even Fergus, at his size, thought the axes were a little large, but Brian insisted they weren't that heavy.
    "We'll have to put you on a training regimen, boyo," Fergus told him and then said it was time that they get going.
    When they emerged from the hidden outpost, all three of them were laden with weapons enough to share with the others when they returned to camp. Diller had found a shorts word that was to his liking and Brian helped him fix the scabbard to his belt after they had loaded their horses with the rest of their find. Fergus closed the large stone door by pushing on another stone block and then gathered some brush to cover the signs that they had been there. Satisfied with the day’s adventure, they set off for camp to tell Kaleb the good news. If the other outposts were as well equipped as this one, they would not be short on weapons and armor, nor housing for the winter, now that the snows were starting to fall. The only thing they needed now was greater numbers if they were to take back Kaleb’s land from Baron Manfred.
    *****
     
    The snow did not stop falling for several weeks and dropped a thick blanket over the mountains that made any real kind of travel impossible. Aaron and the princess started keeping track of the days by scratching lines on the rock walls of their winter home. By the end of the first week, the snow was almost waist high and in places it had drifted to stand taller than Aaron. Several weeks later, the skies cleared and the sun re-emerged, bathing the mountain landscape in a glitter of tiny ice crystals.
    Most of their time was spent improving their accommodations or searching for food. Luckily, Aaron discovered a sack of dried fruit in a stray saddlebag that they were able to mix into the horse oats they had been reduced to eating. Ariana was worried that they might get the sailor-sickness if they ran out of fruit but when she explained what sailor-sickness was, Aaron told her that he knew of a tea made from the needles of evergreens that had the same restorative effect. Still, their food supplies were quickly running out and, even with rationing what they had left, it would not last through the winter.
    One afternoon, Aaron disappeared for an exceptionally long time and, worried about him, Ariana got tired of waiting and decided to have a look. It was a cold and blustery day and a strong wind that kicked up had whipped the snow into his tracks. Soon she could not tell which tracks were recent and which