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Trial By Fire Chapter 7
By Teach
Rowan awoke to a smell so foreign that he at first wondered whether he might have died in his sleep. Surely the aroma now filling his nostrils was not of this earth; perhaps the dragon had come and found them in the night, and even now he was ascending to the Mountain of the Mists, to be smitten or embraced according to the will of the fickle gods.
He sat up quickly and glanced around. Wendell slept nearby, his wrinkled mouth sagging, his breath whistling in and out in the cavernous gap where his teeth had once been. On the other side, the lad Grimbley lay curled into a ball, snoring loudly.
Then he saw Cirena, kneeling in the soft earth near the fire, stirring something with a stick.
“I thought I’d never find anything for breakfast,” she said, smiling. “Nests are rare in these woods, it would seem. I hope you like rabbit.”
“I detest rabbit,” Rowan said, his face drawn into a moue of disgust.
The young girl’s reaction told Rowan that he had said the wrong thing. “Unless it’s prepared just right,” he added quickly. In truth, he had never cared in the slightest for rabbit; no matter how it was prepared, it always tasted wild and gamey and tough and a little bitter. The girl had gone to the bother of catching and killing and skinning and cooking the cursed things, though, and he felt he owed her a little kindness, at least.
“I hope you find it favorable,” Cirena said, smiling a little.
“If it tastes as it smells, it should be wonderful.” This, at least, was sincere; it did smell delicious.
“Whenever you are ready, then, consider it served.”
Grimbley stirred in his sleep, and upon realizing that breakfast was in the offing, leapt from his place on the ground, stumbled in a tangle of blanket, and rushed to the fireside.
“Rabbit again,” Grim said, a little disheartened. He had learned to look forward to something new and different every meal. With the exception of the disastrous pie, he had not been disappointed.
“Have you any gratitude?” Cirena asked.
“Indeed,” Rowan agreed. “Surely she has been at work since before dawn to have your breakfast ready.”
Grimbley looked from Cirena to Rowan and back. Something had changed; it was subtle, but it was a change nonetheless. Rowan and Cirena were no longer at odds; they seemed, in fact, to have called a truce altogether. Grim smiled, certain that he and Cirena would be allowed to ride with Rowan after all.
“I beg your pardon,” Grimbley said, calling upon his best manners. “Thank you, Cirena, for preparing this meal. Surely it will be as delightful as it smells.”
Cirena bowed her head slightly, a coy smile spreading across her face. Grimbley noticed, although he tried not to admit it, that she was beautiful when she smiled.
They ate as though condemned, and Grimbley reflected that they might be exactly that. After a time, Wendell awoke and joined them, gnawing at his portion of the rabbit and making hideous slurping sounds with his toothless mouth as he worked to pick every scrap of edible meat from the bones. Rowan, who had been considering a second helping despite his usual distaste for rabbit, found his appetite suddenly squelched. He took his leave of the others and went to pack his things.
“What do you think?” Grimbley whispered.
“About what?” Cirena asked.
“Will he let us ride with him?”
“Aye,” Wendell interrupted. “It’s in his eyes, and has been since he saw Cirena last evening.”
Grim looked from Wendell to Cirena and back, a little stunned. “What do you mean?”
“He fancies your friend,” Wendell said past a mouthful of leathery meat. “More than a trace, I would wager.”
Grimbley said nothing, but deep in his belly, he felt a pang, a feeling that he could not name. Good, he thought to himself, willing himself to remain indifferent. She can ride his horse for a while, and get her claws out of my chest.
Having that out of the way, Grim went back to his rabbit.
There were many hushed counsels in the Realm of the Five Rivers that morning. Word of Fireblood’s latest attack spread rapidly throughout the Kingdom, and many of the oldest citizens, who could remember the time when dragons reigned over all the land, knew that the deaths of the men and the sparing of the livestock were ill portents indeed. Old men sat and talked in their dooryards, discussing the relative probability that this was, indeed, the end of the world. Women whispered behind their hands, hoping to spare their children the worry of knowing that foul times had come to the realm. Children gathered in their usual dusty circles, playing Rocks and quietly comparing notes.
“I heard my mother saying that the dragon killed only men during the night,” one lad said in a conspiratorial whisper.
“I heard that the dragon has named the Realm her enemy, and that we shall all surely die before Rowan and his party can avail us of the beast,” another chimed in.
And so it went throughout the villages of the Realm, and even within the walls of his keep, King Gerald heard whispers and rumors. By the early afternoon, all of the servants within the castle wore terror-stricken faces and averted their eyes when in Gerald’s presence.
He went to Queen Vera in the early afternoon and, on this most rare occasion, asked her counsel on the matter.
“Gerald,” she said kindly, “you have sent Rowan and twenty men. What more can you hope to do?”
“More men,” Gerald ventured. “Perhaps the whole of the army.”
Vera shook her head. “All that may be done is being done. Why do you worry so? Is it because of the nonsense about Fireblood calling us to war?”
“That is what she is doing,” Gerald insisted. “I would stake the Realm on it.”
“If we are her enemy, then,” Vera suggested, “perhaps we would do well to remember that she is only one dragon.”
“One dragon can destroy us.”
“If we are not prepared,” Vera soothed. “But we are ready for anything. The men who won the Great War are still about, still valiant and vital as they were in those battles. Even a storied beast such as Fireblood cannot withstand all of the Realm’s defenses for long.”
Gerald sighed. “What do the people say?”
Vera smiled. “Would you like the truth?”
“Absolutely not,” Gerald said emphatically. “But I should hear it, nonetheless.”
“They are saying that Fireblood has found out Rowan’s party, and has come to war with us in her anger.”
Gerald slammed his fists together in the air. “The same people who cheered Rowan and his quest! Now, I suppose, they would call for my head for sending his party on a fool’s errand!”
“No one is calling for your head yet,” Vera replied, “but who can say? The people are thinking, dear Gerald, and we both know that is not what they were meant for. That is why they need kings, to tell them what to do.”
Gerald ruminated for a moment. “I should assemble the entire Realm,” he decided, “and put their minds at ease.”
“A brilliant idea,” Vera said, smiling.
“You know, Vera,” Gerald said, his tone lightening with relief, “I believe that behind every good man, there is a strong woman.”
“Lovely words,” Queen Vera replied. “You should write them down.”
Rowan stood at the ready, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his eyes slowly scanning the forest. A few paces ahead, the ground gave way to brown, brackish water. Further along, the water appeared black, and everything beyond was hidden from view by the mists.
“What is it?” Grimbley whispered.
“Shush,” Rowan said sharply.
“He’s watching for movement,” Wendell whispered.
“What sort of movement?” Cirena asked, her voice hushed and husky.
“Any movement,” Wendell replied. “No one knows, but it is said that this swamp is home to the Wellingo.”
“The what?” Grimbley asked.
“Must we go through this again?” Rowan barked impatiently. “If you please, I should like to listen. I would not set foot in a place such as this without hearing and seeing all that there is to hear and see.”
“But what is a Wellingo?”
“A story made to frighten children,” Rowan sighed. He took a single step forward, cautious, his head cocked.
“I have never heard of a Wellingo,” Grimbley persisted.
Rowan turned swiftly to face him. “If you please!” he hissed. “I would--”
The thing sprang from the forest so swiftly that none of them saw it coming; it moved with lightning speed, gracefully, its feet light on the soft earth. Rowan leapt backward and had to pinwheel his arms to keep from falling flat on his back. Cirena shrieked, and Wendell gave a horrible, sickly grunt that seemed to come from deep within his guts. He drew his mule back quickly.
Grimbley only laughed. “There goes our midday meal.”
The rabbit sprang through the fallen leaves amid the gnarled tree roots, disappearing into the mist.
“Be still, you little toad,” Rowan growled, but Grimbley only laughed harder. Wendell joined him, a trifle embarrassed at his own reaction to their harmless visitor. After a moment, Cirena began to giggle with relief.
“Surely the Gods must favor me,” Rowan said, shaking his head in disgust, “to have arranged three court fools to amuse me on my journey. Tell me, old man, can you juggle eggs? And you, young Master Goode, do you know any bawdy verse?”
“There once was a man named Horatio,” Cirena began, but Rowan held up a hand to silence her.
The three fell silent under Rowan’s grave stare. “Does no one here sense the danger in what we have come to do?”
Grim looked at the ground and shuffled his feet. He could see Cirena in the corner of his eye, and was surprised to find that her eyes never left Rowan’s.
“You must admit,” Wendell said softly, “it was laughable.”
“Remarkably so,” Cirena added. “All of these four, out to do a heroic deed...” Just the thought got her giggling again.
Rowan turned away, discouraged and disgusted, and strode into the bog with Gethsemane in tow. He marched into the shallow water, his boots splashing heavily as he went.
“Rowan,” Wendell called after him. He urged his mule forward. “Rowan! Wait!”
Wendell and the mule hurried to catch Rowan. The old man turned back to Grimbley and Cirena. “Come along, if you mean to come along. He can be strong-willed at times like this.”
Grimbley kicked his horse’s flanks, and they began to move again.
“Your hero is not very pleasant company,” Cirena said quietly.
Grimbley agreed. “I suppose he has more in his mind than being pleasant.”
“I suppose,” Cirena conceded, “but perhaps he is a bit too grave. After all, we four just about wet ourselves over a rabbit just then.”
Grimbley smiled. “Anyone should laugh at such nonsense, I would think. Tell me, what is the rest of that verse?”
Cirena laughed softly. “Perhaps when you are older,” she said, patting Grim’s arm lightly.
The sun was straight overhead when Rowan suddenly stopped. He turned to the rest of his party and proclaimed that they would stop for a bit and have a meal before going on.
“Thank the Gods,” Grimbley said enthusiastically. “My belly has been singing troll’s cradle-songs.”
“I can attest, he speaks the truth,” Cirena said. “I have never heard such sounds in all my life. We should feed this poor lad before the thing in his belly bursts through.”
But their midday meal was sparse. Cirena could find neither rabbit nor squirrel, and they all decided that it would be better to be hungry than to try to eat the one lizard that she was able to track and trap.
“It’s red,” Grimbley observed. “Are you certain that it is not poison?”
“I am not certain of anything here,” Cirena admitted.
“Let it go,” Wendell said, his toothless mouth drawn into a tight circle of disgust. “I should rather eat Rowan’s boots.”
They settled for a few overripe berries and the thick, padded fronds of a low plant that grew at the water’s edge, a wide-leafed weed that Wendell named as an Elderfund’s Ear.
“What is an Elderfund?” Grimbley wondered.
“I have seen one,” Cirena said, her eyes alight. “A prince from the Unknown East, who came across the river to discuss trade with my uncle, brought one as a gift.”
“What did it look like?”
“It was grand,” she said. “Easily the size of five horses, and its nose was long enough to touch the ground. It used its nose like a hand.”
“You are only making sport of me,” Grimbley said, astounded.
“I swear on the name of my mother,” Cirena insisted. “And it had great ears, as big as blankets. It called out with the sound of trumpets.”
“She is making sport of you, toad,” Rowan muttered.
“I have heard of Elderfund,” Wendell said matter-of-factly. “It is said that the armies from the east use them as we use horses.”
“Nonsense,” Grim said, but it was clear that he was uncertain what to believe.
They finished up their sparse meal in relative silence, each caught up within their own thoughts. Grim was struggling with himself, trying to decide whether Elderfunds were real or only a fairy-story. Rowan brooded silently; as Wendell had predicted, the warrior’s mood had not improved since the rabbit incident at the swamp’s edge. Wendell had all his energy tied up in the chore of eating his meal without the benefit of teeth.
Cirena, to Grim’s dismay, spent the entire meal casting furtive glances at Rowan. He hated that she was so interested in him, and he was angry with himself for the way it made him feel.
In the end, he went back to his berries. He was blessed with just enough youth left to care more about the emptiness in his belly than the strange new feelings in his heart.
At midday, just about the time Rowan and his party were settling down to eat, King Gerald stepped out of the upper room of the castle keep and onto the high parapet from which he routinely made proclamations before the Kingdom. Everyone for myels around had gathered to hear him speak.
“I should hope that he bears good news,” one man told a neighbor.
“I should hope I can get close enough to assail him with these rotted fruits,” the neighbor answered, holding up a worn bag. “The beshitted old goat has called the demons down upon us, and now he has come to tell us to hush and be still.”
Such was the mood in the Realm that midday; while some held out hope that Rowan’s party was well on their way to liberating the Kingdom from the terror of the dragon, many more were convinced that King Gerald has led them blindly to their doom.
It should have been no wonder, then, that arrows flew that day, and royal blood was shed.
Gerald raised his arms high, calling for quiet in the gathered crowd. He had chosen his flowing violet robe for this occasion, a true work of art that would have made any tailor envious. The gold gilding reflected in the bright sunshine, giving the old king the appearance of a God come to earth—-an effect which he hoped would keep the crowd suitably docile.
“Good people of the Realm,” he bellowed. “I bid you welcome.”
“Fall off your horse and break your back!” an old woman shouted. Two guardsmen flanked her, took her by the arms, and dragged her swiftly away, ignoring her shrieking, screaming protests. A murmur swept through the gathered crowd.
“Hold, guardsmen!” Gerald shouted, and the two soldiers stopped at once, turning to face the parapet.
The crowd fell utterly silent.
“Leave off!” the King bellowed. “This dear lady is surely no threat to the realm, and is only making known her concerns. I, too, have concerns, as should we all.”
The assembled citizens muttered amongst themselves for a moment, then fell quiet again.
“Dear lady,” Gerald went on, “why would you wish ill upon your king? For surely you must know that the dragon Fireblood has not chosen to war with us due to anything we have done.”
The old lady held her silence, seeming to consider.
“We have not affronted the great dragon,” Gerald went on, his voice explosive and theatrical. “We have done no harm, and even a great old dragon like Fireblood cannot know the intent of Rowan and his party.”
The crowd came alive then. Men and women exchanged brief bursts of conversation, and Gerald was glad to see that most were nodding, agreeing, concurring with his words.
Well done, old woman, he thought. He decided, at that very moment, to have the Captain of the Guard pay her double the agreed price, for she had done a remarkable job with the few lines they had given her. In another time, she might have been a great stage performer, so convincing was her act.
Then a great cheer went up from the crown, and Gerald could hear his name being affirmed by a people who, as his wife had pointed out, desperately wanted to be led. “There are times when people need to a little misdirection in order to find the right direction,” she had advised him, and Vera, as usual, had been right.
Not everyone in the Realm was convinced, however, and what happened next can be credited to a simple twist of fate, a convergence of circumstances. Whether it was coincidence or the work of the Gods is impossible to know.
Gerald saw the blackened melon hurtling toward his head like a gruesome, rotten cannonball. He did what anyone would have done then; he ducked below the railing of the parapet.
What he did not see coming was the arrow, launched from the bow of a hidden assassin somewhere in the deep shadows. Both projectiles would have struck him, had he not noticed the melon; as it turned out, both missed him altogether.
The crowd fell into silence then; for they loved Queen Vera as much as Gerald himself did, if not a little more, and she was in her place behind her husband when he ducked to avoid the melon.
The arrow struck home, sinking a finger’s-length into her throat. Someone on the common screamed, and someone else echoed the sentiment. Vera stood there for a moment, staring wide-eyed at Gerald, as if asking what in the name of the Gods has happened? Then she fell slowly backward, and Gerald, feeling for all the world like a man trapped in the maddening slowness of a dream, reached for her, his arms numbed with shock and horror. She slipped through his fingers and struck the hardwood planking of the parapet with a dull, lifeless thud.
He knelt beside his queen, clasping her white, soft hands in his own. Her eyes looked past him, into some unknown, invisible world. He noticed her blood slipping between the planks of the parapet, falling in fat droplets to the cobblestones below, where it splashed and puddled. The grisly painting there would not come clean for many months.
Vera opened her mouth to speak, but could only offer a whistling, wheezing sound from her ruined throat. Gerald held a hand to her mouth and shushed her. “Be still, my sweet,” he said softly. He then raised his head and called for his physician, and the guardsman who took the order would later tell his fellows that the gentle king’s eyes had been afire in that instant. The guard staggered backward and hurried to fetch help.
Gerald kissed his wife’s forehead softly. “Hold on,” was all he could manage. His tears slipped easily from his cheeks, mixing with her blood. After a moment, he let go her hands and stood.
King Gerald whirled to face the crowd, his hands clasped at the breast of his grand, beautiful robe. With a barbaric thrust of his arms, he ripped open the coat, baring his pale chest for the crowd. “Let the devil who let fly that arrow do so once more, that I may join her in death!” he shouted, and the gathered citizens of the Realm would swear for years to come that Gerald had never spoken so clearly before or since. His voice echoed back to him as he bellowed and roared and pounded his fists against his exposed heart. “Take me now, pestilence, for I vow that if I am let to live, I shall hunt you and kill you with these blood-stained hands!”
Guardsman pushed through the crowd, broadswords held high, charging this way and that in search of Vera’s assailant. King Gerald knew that it would be fruitless; descended of a long line of monarchs, he understood the way of the assassin all too well.
The hawk had returned.
Grimbley spent much of his time absently watching the hawk as it followed them along, taking wing in short bursts, as it had done before.
Rowan had once again mounted Gethsemane, and now he led the group slowly across the treacherously uneven ground of the bog. Wendell followed, his hat and his mule’s head bobbing each in time with the other. Grimbley and Cirena kept to the rear, moving slowly along in Rowan’s path.
“Why do you stare at him so?” Grimbley wondered aloud, apropos of nothing.
“What do you mean?” Cirena protested, but even young Grim knew that it was a girl’s game. She knew full well what he had meant.
“While we ate,” Grim explained, exasperated. “You could hardly take your eyes from him.”
“He puts me in mind of a boy I once knew,” Cirena explained with a shrug. She sat behind Grim on the horse, but he could hear the smile in her voice. “Why do you ask, dear boy? Are you envious of Rowan the Steadfast?”
“Pish,” he said, a little too forcefully, feeling his face flush.
“How very sweet,” Cirena cooed. “Master Goode is envious of the war hero, come to sweep me away.”
“Codswallop!” Grim protested.
“He is not for me,” Cirena said gently. “Our Rowan is far too caught up in his own valiant past. He cannot see past his nose.”
Grim did not bother to consider the words, but chose instead to agree eagerly.
“Still,” Cirena went on, “I would not mislead you. No man is for me, I fear. I am not the kind to marry and give babies to anyone.”
Grimbley reflected for a moment on this. “Then what are you to do? What is your destiny, if not to take a woman’s place as a wife?”
“I believe I have said,” she replied. “I intend to be the Queen of the Realm.”
Grimbley laughed. “Here we go again,” he said. “This path seems familiar.”
“Do not make the mistake of dismissing me so easily,” Cirena said gravely. “I am not the usual woman.”
“That much is certain,” Grimbley agreed.
“What do you mean by that?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” Grim replied with a shrug. “Just that you are...unlike most ladies I have met.”
“I can only take that as praise.”
“Take it how you will,” Grim replied, “but I mean to say that you are peculiar as a two-headed dog.”
She slapped playfully at Grim’s shoulder. “I may be unlike other ladies,” she said, “but you are exactly like all other boys.”
Grimbley was unsure what to make of her assertion; it sounded as thought it had been meant as an insult, but he felt a little exhilarated. He had often longed to be like other boys.
Vera lay in her own bed, covered to the throat in the finest blankets from both the Realm and from distant lands, quilts inlaid and filigreed with the finest threads of pure gold and silver. Above her bed hung a canopy of the purest silk, sold to King Gerald by traders from unknown lands to the east for a cost that most men would not have paid for a house and three horses. On the wall above her head was her likeness, painted by none other than the mysterious and talented Bohi, the dark-skinned man who had come to the Realm apparently from nowhere and had quickly become known through all the land as the greatest painter of his time.
For all of these wonderful and lavish appointments and trappings, nothing could disguise the fact that the lovely Queen Vera lay on her death-bed.
Gerald sat at her side, clutching her hands, weeping openly. She was seldom awake, and when she did rouse, she could not speak. Her lovely throat, where Gerald had so often kissed her in the private places behind the heavy doors of their rooms, had been devastated by the cruel, rough-cut head of the assassin’s arrow.
His thoughts were a torrent. He alternately loved and hated more deeply than he had ever before; he loved Vera fiercely, as if he could somehow revive her by the force of sheer will and the power of his heart. In the next moment, he fumed with vengeful hatred for the faceless filth who had lain her low.
His physician had come and gone. As word spread through the realm, seers and self-proclaimed healers had sought audience, claiming the power to restore the Realm’s beloved Queen. None had prevailed. A particularly foul-smelling toadstool of a woman with a cloth patch over one eye had sworn that Vera could be saved from certain death by taking the throat of a horse and stitching it in place of her own with fine silver thread. She had been dismissed amid fierce protest.
All at once, Gerald stood and hurried from the room. He took hold of the guard posted at Vera’s door, grasping the poor lad’s shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise. “Go and fetch the Captain of the Guard,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.
“Yes, majesty,” the guard replied. He then hurried to follow the King’s order, but more so to escape; so complete was Gerald’s anger that it radiated from him like heat. When the Captain returned, he was, not surprisingly, alone.
“You summoned me, my--”
“Go into the villages. Take every man you can spare. Empty every home, every hovel, every wenching-house and tavern. Question every living thing within the Realm, from the West River to the Eastern Wasteland.”
“Sire?”
“I want that miserable creature’s head on a stake outside the window of my bedchamber,” Gerald continued. “Question everyone, is that clear? No man, woman, or child is to be spared. Leave no stone unturned, Captain, for this assassin could not have done this without someone having seen him.”
“My King,” the Captain said soothingly, “perhaps it would be best--”
Gerald turned so swiftly and so suddenly that the Captain, a veteran of the Great War as well as a half-dozen border skirmishes, feared, for a moment, that his life was in danger. He instinctively stepped back from the force of Gerald’s wrath.
“I have no need of your counsel, Captain, on what would be best!”
The Captain bowed deeply and fled from the castle. He wondered what would become of the Realm; surely the sort of inquisition the King proposed would lead to great unrest.
Rebellions had risen over far less serious matters.
For such an ugly, dark place, Grimbley mused, the swamp has a sort of queer beauty about it.
He had taken to studying the scenery, about him as he rode, observing the flowing lines of the gnarled tree trunks and the peculiar but somehow beautiful bluish color of the thick mist. The leaves of the forest canopy were an astounding shade of green, as seen through the fog, and even the gray light breaking through to the surface, while not exactly pretty, was at least interesting and uncommon.
So lost was Grimbley in his thoughts that the great, hairy paw that grasped his forearm was a complete surprise.
He nearly fell from his horse, and if it had not been for Cirena, he most likely would have done. She clutched him tightly, shrieking at the thing that had seemed to come from nowhere and now held poor Grim by the arm.
Gethsemane reared and turned about as Rowan drew his sword and prepared to run the thing through. Wendell’s donkey brayed and shuffled off into the mists, and Grim was dimly aware of a loud splash followed by the sound of Wendell bellowing in surprise.
Rowan spurred his mount and charged.
The great, hairy thing held fast to Grimbley’s forearm, but Grim could see in its peculiar green eyes that it was afraid. He felt an instant of irrational pity.
Rowan surged ahead, sword at the ready, head lowered, eyes narrowed. Great clots of earth flew up from Gethsemane’s hooves, tracing erratic arcs in the thick, foggy air.
Grimbley looked from Rowan to the trembling creature beside him. There was more than just fear in beast’s eyes now; it was terrified. The thing released its grip on Grim’s arm and took a cautionary step backward, unsure where to go.
Rowan raised his blade, cocking his arm behind his head. He drew himself up high in the saddle and let go a deep, throaty cry so primal that Grim felt his skin ripple with gooseflesh.
“NO!” Grimbley shouted, although in that instant he did not completely understand why.
Rowan reined his mount to the right and lowered his sword. Hooves made a sound like thunder as they passed. Rowan turned his horse about and came to a stop, leveling his eyes at the creature.
He pointed the tip of his blade at the creature’s throat in silent warning. “Rowan, wait,” Grimbley pleaded.
“I am waiting,” Rowan replied, “but for how long, I cannot say.”
“Spare you me,” the great beast said then, startling Grim and Rowan. It sounded like a lion with a mouthful of gravel, and its words came out garbled and with great difficulty, as if it was unaccustomed to speech.
“Give me a reason to spare you,” Rowan challenged.
The creature looked around, eyes wide and wild. It fixed its gaze on Grimbley, and he could not help but feel that the poor beast was looking to him for help.
“It has let me go,” Grim offered.
“I am for letting of it go,” the creature agreed, nodding its head comically.
“What brought you to take hold of him at all?” Rowan demanded.
“I am told of doing this! Not of a wanting to!”
Rowan lowered his blade, but only slightly. “Who told you to?”
Before the creature could reply, a shriek filled the thick air. Cirena squeezed Grimbley’s middle so tightly that he could not breathe.
“WELLINGO!” Wendell shouted, and Grim heard the splashing sounds of someone on the run, moving toward them.
Rowan urged his horse toward the sound of Wendell’s voice, sword ready once more.
Wendell appeared then, his hat bobbing madly atop his wiry head. The little mule brayed and honked as it came.
Rowan rode toward Wendell. “Where is the thing?”
“There!” Wendell shouted. Rowan turned to see that the old man was pointing at the creature that had seized Grimbley.
Grim looked at the sad beast. It stood perhaps the same height as Grimbley himself, and was nearly as wide as it was tall. Its body was covered with wavy, matted fur. Its huge hands ended in three stumpy fingers each, and its feet were as big as dinner plates.
“That’s a Wellingo?” Grimbley wondered.
“Run for your lives!” Wendell shrieked, still plodding along on the slow, witless donkey.
“Run from what?” Cirena laughed. “It is more afraid of us than we are of it.”
The creature looked around nervously. “I am for leaving of you now,” it ventured.
“Stay a bit,” Grimbley said gently.
“Have you a name?” Cirena asked sweetly, leaving her perch behind Grim and climbing down from the horse.
“I am known of as being Lobberapugulus,” the thing offered.
“May I call you Lob?” Cirena asked, her voice soft and sweet.
“This is ridiculous!” Rowan bellowed. “Send the foul thing on its way.”
“Yes!” Wendell agreed, still shaking all over. “Get rid of it!”
“I have a better idea,” Grimbley said. “We should take it for a prisoner.”
“We have no provision for keeping prisoners,” Rowan argued.
“It lives in the swamp,” Cirena said. “It could show us the way.”
“Happily I would be to show to you the way,” Lob replied, nodding, his eyes wide with excitement.
“We can surely find our own way,” Rowan argued. “We have no need of this...thing.”
“We cannot see five paces before us,” Cirena countered, and Grimbley knew from her tone that the argument was already won.
Wendell, who had gained a measure of control over his trembling, prodded his mule forward a pace or two. “He isn’t what I expected of a Wellingo,” the old man admitted. “Mayhap he could be of some service.”
Rowan considered this for a long moment. “We have no horse for him,” he said at last, and to Grim it appeared that Rowan was grasping for an excuse to leave the poor thing behind. “It would slow our progress.”
“But--” Grim began, but before he could say more, Lob had bolted away, bent low, loping on all fours, his long arms and short legs scissoring as he went.
“He runs as fast as any horse!” Cirena shouted. She sounded almost triumphant.
“Very well,” Rowan said, resigned. “It may follow along so long as it is swift, and it will forage for its own meals.”
Lob had returned from his sprinting exhibition, and now clapped his thick hands together twice and hooted excitedly.
Grim smiled at the pitiful thing. “Come along, then, Lob,” he said. “The day is slipping past.”
Lob grunted and charged away again, loping through the fog, knuckles dragging the damp earth. Soon he was no more than a dark shape in the fog.
Cirena hurried mounted Grimbley’s horse. “We shall have to keep pace,” she admonished.
“Let it outpace us,” Rowan grumbled, “and we shall have no further business with the blasted thing.”
“You are not known for your kindness, I would wager,” Cirena scolded.
“Well...” Rowan began, then had to search for words. “It smells of offal,” he finished at last.
“And...and rotten meat,” Wendell added. “Probably the flesh of some hapless wanderer who strayed into its path!”
Cirena could not help herself; she began to laugh out loud. “I am quite certain that is not the case,” she said. “I cannot imagine the poor thing eating a hapless rabbit that strayed into his path, let alone a man!”
Grimbley drove his boots into his horse’s flanks. “In any case,” he shouted, “I should like to let him lead us from this forsaken place!”
Wendell and Rowan watched as Grimbley’s horse thundered ahead in pursuit of Lob, and they exchanged a look of doubt and distrust. At last, Rowan sighed and spurred Gethsemane, and they surged forward into the mist. Wendell and his mule hurried along behind, bouncing and jittering and shouting for the rest of the group to slow down.
Last in the line was the great hawk.
Grim and Cirena rode along at a fast walking pace, with Lob strolling, fully upright, alongside. They had caught up to him, which had been no easy chore, and had persuaded him to slow down. Now the group was whole again; even Wendell had managed to catch up.
“Why do people believe the Wellingo to be fierce and hateful?” Cirena asked.
“They are!” Wendell shouted from somewhere behind her.
Lob was nodding. “Wellingo are known of being fierce and hateful because of they are being fierce and hateful.”
“What about you?” Grimbley wondered. “You aren’t so bad, now that we have got to know you.”
Lob shook his head. “Olders are not liking of me,” he said. “Not learning of the old ways, and not killing of one single man.”
“You have never killed anyone?” Cirena asked.
Lob lowered his head. “Am trying for the killing a man on many times,” he said weakly, apologetically. “Finding again and again I am being unable.”
“There is no shame in that,” Grim soothed.
“There is being great shames in that!” Lob spat back, eyes wide. “Olders say we are of our job in protect of the swamp. Lob is fail, and fail again.”
“You’ve got a big heart,” Cirena ventured. “It would be difficult, I should think, to kill a man for no real reason.”
“Yes!” Lob shouted eagerly. “Not knowing how to understood the real reason. Not knowing for why puny man can make danger for the swamp.”
“Perhaps man and Wellingo should come to a better understanding,” Grimbley thought aloud.
“Indeed,” Rowan interjected. “And our squat, stinking friend could act as liaison.”
Cirena turned to Rowan. “Would you maybe shut up your mouth, so that sharp and hateful tongue cannot get out?”
Rowan said nothing more.
“You know,” Cirena went on, her attention now turned back to Lob, “it is possible. You are a Wellingo unlike the others. Perhaps, if there is a man unlike other men, you could make peace.”
Lob seemed to consider this. “Wellingo are thinking of sacred duty, protect of the swamp is known from the word of the Gods.”
Cirena considered this. “I should imagine there are a great many things to protect a swamp from, other than men.”
Lob slipped away into deep thought, concentrating so hard that it seemed to hurt him. Finally, he spoke up:
“Men are known of being hungry. Always wanting for more than the full of a belly. Wellingo are knowing much of men. We are being afraid of men taking of the swamp for to building a castle or the village.”
“Men are not all--” Grimbley began, but was cut off by an unearthly, inhuman cry, deep and hoarse, echoing through the trees.
Lob dropped down low, his knuckles sinking into the spongy ground. He roared in return, and Grim saw for the first time the horrific creature of legend. Sharp, cruel fangs jutted from the corners of Lob’s mouth, and his eyes narrowed to tiny slits. The fine, wavy hair at the back of his neck stood on end and his back arched. The transformation was instantaneous and quite startling.
“The party of hunting for the men,” Lob explained, then shouted a string of guttural sounds that Grim could not decipher; he could only guess that Lob was speaking his native tongue.
“What should we do?” Cirena asked breathlessly.
But Rowan had already decided. He rode ahead of the group, bouncing lightly in the saddle, with his sword held high.
“NOT TO BE DOING THAT!” Lob shouted, but he spoke too late. Six shadowy figures appeared on the trail where trees and bushes had been only an instant before. The hunting party encircled Rowan and Gethsemane, howling and yipping. The creatures exchanged croaking sounds, gibberish to the ears of man, but Grim knew that they were instructing each other how best to keep the warrior contained and contemplating the best way to kill him.
Grim drew his small dagger, but Lob was well ahead of him, loping along the forest floor, snarling. Spittle flew from his lips as he bared his teeth in warning.
The hunting party froze.
The largest of the six—-presumably the leader—-drew its lips back, showing two jagged, crooked rows of keenly sharp teeth. With a shriek, it leapt forward, meeting Lob halfway between Rowan and the place where Grimbley’s horse stood.
They collided, headfirst, long arms waving and reaching and grasping for purchase. Lob took hold of the other creature’s head, squeezing it with all the force his powerful arms could muster. The rest of the hunting party moved forward to join the fray.
Grimbley drove his horse ahead, brandishing his dagger and making a peculiar sound that was more like a terrified scream than a war cry.
Lob managed to encircle the hunter leader’s neck in the crook of his sinewy arm, and gave a violent, wrenching twist. Grim could hear the sickening sound of the creature’s neck snapping. It went to the ground in a lifeless heap.
Lob turned to the remaining five, snarling and growling at them as they approached. Rowan spun his sword deftly, turning it upside-down, and leapt from the saddle. He drove the blade deep into the back of one of the hunters as they passed. The mortally cleft beast screamed and fell flat, sliding in the mud, and came to rest with its eyes open, the startled expression still frozen on its face.
Rowan charged after the remaining four, sword high. Grimbley arrived on the scene, leaning down beside his horse with is dagger thrust awkwardly forward. Wendell and his mule followed close behind.
“Give me a weapon!” Cirena cried, her eyes filled with a peculiar light, as an animal that smells blood.
Wendell, also unarmed, urged his reluctant mount into the midst of the melee. He made a sound in his throat, a mix of a click and a hum, and the little donkey spun slightly to its left and kicked backward with both feet. Another of the hunting party went down, howling in agony and clutching its rapidly-swelling head Rowan turned his sword and released the thing from all further misery with a decisive stroke.
Rowan now stood face-to-face with the remaining three. Two of the hunters flanked him, moving slowly, and before he could act, they had leapt forward, seizing him with their long arms. The third bent down and found a large, flat stone and grasped it with thick fingers. With a sucking sound, the rock gave up its place in the mud.
Lob lurched forward, bent low, and speared the rock-bearer in the ribs with his hard, bullet-shaped head. The creature rolled away, howling. Lob leapt over the wounded beast and made a grab for one of the two creatures that held Rowan. The thing let go at once, scurrying away a few paces before turning back to make a stand against the lone Wellingo and its companions.
The other creature released Rowan, as well, and with a low, defeated sound, turned and fled into the swamp. The last of the hunters hesitated only a moment before fleeing after it.
Rowan ran to his horse and clambered into the saddle, intent on catching and killing the last two creatures.
“You would not catching of them,” Lob warned. “They are of being faster than you and on your horse.”
Rowan ignored the warning. He urged his horse forward.
“They are to do the making of a trap,” Lob persisted. “Leaving them to go, and you are to be living for the fight another day.”
Rowan hesitated, holding Gethsemane back, considering Lob’s words. At last, he stood down, drawing his horse back toward the place where the rest of the party had gathered.
“That was amazing,” Cirena said, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts. She stared at Rowan with an expression Grim had not seen before, and he suspected that few people had seen her that way in the whole of her life. It came to him then, as obvious as it should have been all along; Cirena was smitten.
He turned to Lob, praising the creature’s courage and making a fuss over the minor wounds in his hairy, muscular flesh. Rowan looked at the creature with a new measure of respect, and even the stubborn, superstitious Wendell had to concede that Lob had been the instrument of their deliverance.
“Never to come back in of this swamp,” Lob said, his face drawn and haggard. “Never a part of Wellingo again, from after this day.”
“You’ve made yourself an outcast on our account,” Grim said with wonder.
Lob said nothing for several moments. Finally, with a melancholy one would never have expected from one reputed to be the deadliest of all creatures, Lob sighed and began to walk again.
“I am always having great skill at being outcasted,” he said.
Darkness came swiftly to the swamp. The rest of the world might still have been enjoying the orange glow of sunset, but the heavy canopy of the forest blocked out the last of the day’s light, enshrouding Rowan and his party in an uncommon darkness.
Rowan stopped his horse quite suddenly, for no clear reason. After a moment of silent contemplation, he declared that the party would stop for the night.
He dismounted, in the dying light, and turned to Lob. “Go and fetch us something to eat,” he ordered.
Lob raced away obediently, disappearing swiftly into the gloom. Grimbley set about gathering wood for the fire, and Wendell, swaying on the back of his tired mule, scouted a few paces ahead to make certain that the campsite was secure.
They did not eat supper that night; they feasted. Quite some time after he was dispatched, Lob returned to the camp with seven rabbits, two squirrels, a badger, and scores of roots and berries. He carried the entire menu on a sheaf of bark, like a crude tray, which he had stripped from a great old oak.
Everyone looked at Lob in wonder when he arrived, unable to believe how much he had gathered in such a short time. “We shall eat like nobility this night,” Cirena said, and clapped gleefully.
“Indeed,” Rowan said. “This is more than we can eat, I should think.”
Grimbley said nothing, but he disagreed. He felt certain that he could have eaten everyone’s share, given enough time. He was famished.
“I don’t think I want any of that, Wendell said with disgust, pointing at the badger. “What in the name of the King is it?”
Lob shrugged. “We know of calling it shoof-ma’haka. Good of tasting, and plenty for there to eat of.”
“It’s a badger,” Cirena declared. “And I won’t be eating any, either, I’m afraid.”
Lob smiled and looked from Rowan to Grimbley, clearly in anticipation.
“Yes,” Rowan said, suddenly understanding, “you may take my share.”
“And mine, as well,” Grim said, his face twisted with distaste.
Lob hooted and snatched up the badger, clenching it in his teeth. He loped away on all fours and sat with his back to the group, eating quite loudly.
“I should be surprised to be hungry by the time the meal is cooked,” Rowan said softly, “having to listen to that while I wait.”
“I think I shall go and look for more sticks,” Grimbley announced, “in case the fire begins to fail.”
“I shall help you,” Rowan offered. “The swamp is dark, and one might become lost.”
“You are both terrible,” Cirena said. “Childish, brutish, boorish, and terrible.”
“I am, indeed,” Rowan replied, nodding. “But it is a blessing. Being so brutish and boorish excuses me from having to listen to that thing, sucking the meat off that foul creature’s bones.”
“He’s only hungry,” Cirena scolded. “You should not make so much sport of him. He did save our lives, after all.”
“You make it sound as though the beast fought alone. It is not as though I sat knitting while your beloved Lob did the dirty job.”
Cirena laughed. “So envious, like a little boy.”
“I am not envious.”
“Of course not,” Cirena mocked.
“I am not! Look at him, after all. What is there to envy?”
Grimbley could not help but laugh a little, and Rowan soon joined him. After a few moments, Wendell was laughing along, as well.
“Children, the lot of you,” Cirena muttered, disgusted.
All joking aside, they had to admit—-all of them, even Rowan and Wendell—-that Lob had done a spectacular job of providing for them. Grimbley had a full belly for the first time in days, and was grateful to the creature once again.
“A wonderful meal,” Wendell said, surprising everyone. “You are quite the cook, and that thing—-Lob, there, is quite the gatherer.”
“I suspect I should not be hungry until the end of time,” Rowan said, and belched. Cirena grimaced.
“I should not be hungry until breakfast, in any case,” Grimbley smiled.
“How long, do you think, until we leave the swamp?” Rowan called to Lob, who had finished his badger and was idly licking the fingers of one hand while toying with the dead animal’s eyeballs with the other.
“Thinking of to be going out of the swamp on the morrow.”
“Good,” Cirena said. “I would like nothing more than to keep from spending another night here. I am not certain I shall sleep at all, in this place.” She scooted toward Rowan, ever so slightly, and tilted her head forward just enough that he could put an arm around her shoulders and offer her comfort.
Rowan took no notice. He tossed aside the last bone from one rabbit and plucked another from its place on the spit.
“Look there,” Grimbley said all at once. “The hawk that has followed us these many miles is making camp with us, as well.”
Cirena nodded, but Rowan did not. “That is no hawk,” he corrected. “Only an old crow, probably come to pick over what bones we leave behind.”
As if alarmed at having been noticed, the crow lifted off from the branch on which it had been perched and flapped its wings with great effort, hovering.
It seemed to study Rowan and his party for a moment, then gave a piercing call and disappeared into the blackness of the forest.
“I should like nothing better than to leave this swamp behind,” Cirena said again.
“I cannot disagree,” Rowan said.
Wendell held the end of a stick to the fire until it came alight, then produced a pipe from the inside folds of his coat and lit it with the burning twig. He puffed at the pipe furiously until the bowl began to glow.
“What in the name of the Gods are you burning in that thing?” Rowan grumbled.
“My own blend,” Wendell answered proudly. “Clove and garlic, with just a hint of daisy root.”
“Daisy root?” Grimbley asked.
“Yes,” Wendell explained, as if Grimbley were a newborn, “it gives body to the smoke.”
“I suspect I shall never in my life meet anything so foul as that smell,” Rowan said, his face screwed up tightly.
“Pipe-plant is too dear for a man whose hands are too old to work,” Wendell lamented. “I make do with what I have.”
“Perhaps you could try a different blend,” Cirena offered, holding her nose. “Something with...cherry blossoms would be nice, I should think.”
“Pish. Cherry blossom would stink.”
“Gods forbid,” Grim muttered under his breath.
“I should like to think, being the authority on dragons here, that I would be appreciated.”
“We are grateful to have you along,” Cirena conceded.
“Just not your pipe,” Rowan added. “I think that I shall lie down now, and hope that the smell does not invade my dreams.”
Cirena watched as Rowan stretched out on the spongy ground. “I should sleep, as well,” she said softly.
In the end, Grimbley stayed awake well into the night, talking with Wendell on a great many subjects (but mostly they spoke of sheep and dragons).
It was Grimbley who was most surprised of them all to awake the next morning and find Wendell gone.
Feedback is greatly appreciated!
©2004 James Clark
9/13/2004 9:03:59 PM
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