Free The Path of Anger by Antoine Rouaud Page A

mournfully. ‘Your army was so surprised it couldn’t react in time . . . It was routed.’
    ‘How could that be . . . ?’ Dun-Cadal whispered, tight-faced and overwhelmed; the once proud and arrogant military leader suddenly an injured man reeling on top of a scrawny horse.
    ‘You’ll need to cross the enemy’s lines to rejoin your men,’ the boy said. ‘You’re lost out here, behind the rebels holding the borders of the Saltmarsh.’
    Dun-Cadal leaned over the horse’s neck, one hand gripping the saddle pommel, and stared at the lad. He was well and truly stuck out here, all on his own. No one even knew he was still alive.
    ‘You should have told me sooner,’ he snapped. ‘Godsfuck, why didn’t you tell me sooner?’
    ‘How would knowing have changed anything?’
    The insolent little imp gave him a strange smile that was at odds with his severe gaze.
    ‘You’re going to need me,’ he added.
    ‘For what? Now you want to help me escape the Saltmarsh as well as saving my life?’
    Dun-Cadal’s voice had risen in both anger and despair. He tried to think things through, searching for a solution, any way out. But his leg was incredibly painful, an agony which ran up his thigh and bored its way through his guts to strike at his heart. The lad was right; he was not yet fit enough to ride.
    ‘You’re a knight.’
    He gave Dun-Cadal a determined look.
    ‘Teach me to fight.’
    ‘What?’ exclaimed the general, startled.
    ‘Teach me to fight and I’ll help you escape from the Saltmarsh and find your troops.’
    ‘Because you think the two of us will be able to cross the enemy lines, just like that?’ Dun-Cadal asked in a mocking tone.
    He placed a feverish hand on his damaged ribs. If he stayed on the horse any longer he was in danger of keeling over.
    ‘It’s possible,’ the boy insisted. ‘You have no idea what I’m capable of.’
    ‘I don’t know anything about you! I don’t even know your name!’
    ‘You can give me whatever name you like,’ the boy said evasively. ‘Teach me to fight. You won’t be sorry.’
    He didn’t move an inch, his shoulders slightly hunched but his dark eyes looking up at the knight, standing his ground without a hint of fear.
    ‘You, fight? At your age you want to take up arms?’
    ‘I’ll be a knight before you know it.’
    ‘Such confidence! It takes a long time to become a knight, lad.’
    ‘I can do it.’
    ‘You won’t be any use to me crossing enemy lines.’
    ‘I can do it,’ the boy insisted.
    Each time the knight raised his tone, the boy answered in a low but firm voice.
    ‘You’re starting to annoy me!’ bellowed Dun-Cadal as he drew on the reins. ‘You’re only a child! Stay in your place and stop dreamingof ridiculous things. The situation is too complicated for me to train you now.’
    ‘I’m not a child!’ The boy pointed an accusing finger at the general. ‘And you won’t get far like that and you know it! But you’d rather go and tempt the demons out there than stay here and give your wounds time to heal. You could use all that time to teach me to fight, but no, you’d rather go and throw yourself into death’s arms on your own. Who cares that I know where the rebels are located, how many there are and how to get past them! And the two of us, together we can do it!’
    Out of breath, his mouth twisted in anger, he lowered his arm. He was on the edge of tears.
    ‘And I’m not a child,’ he repeated.
    The horse snorted. It seemed tired too. Reluctantly, Dun-Cadal accepted the idea that he could not undertake the journey on his own.
    ‘Do you even know how to wield a sword?’ he asked.
    The boy nodded and they went back to the cart. Dun-Cadal needed the lad’s help to dismount and, one arm around the shoulders of his young rescuer, he hobbled back to his blanket. Only when he was finally lying down did the pain in his leg subside . . . for the moment. He raised it with the help of an old crate to ensure the blood would