Both lads agreed readily enough, and Thatch added, "We"ll help you get it, and that way we won"t be around others to tell them the secret." Gellor shook his head at that. "No, my good lads, we could never expose you to the dangers we must face for the journey, let alone the conclusion - the treasure, shall we say. In the morning you must go home.
"Yes, sir," Thatch said with a downcast expression.
"But, Thatch," the smaller lad cried in disbelief, "we can"t go back to Tusham without a trophy - and maybe even with one we can"t. Clydebo kill us for sure!"
"Now you shut your chop-trap, Shad, or I"ll - "
"Enough of that, m"lads!" the bard thundered. Thatch had stood up as he spoke and clenched his fists. Shad had been ready to fight too, when the command came. Both plopped back to the leaf-covered ground, sheepishly looking at their hands. "We"re friends here, and we don"t squabble and fight like a flock of jackdaws. Mind your manners! Now, what"s this about someone harming you?"
"Shad means Clydebo, the Chief Hunter. We ... ah ... borrowed some of his . . . things so we could come with you."
Gellor looked sternly at the two. "Borrowed? Do you mean you stole something belonging to this Clydebo?"
"I ... I guess you"d say that, sir. But we"ll bring everything back - won"t we, Thatch?" said the small lad in a pleading voice.
Thatch decided to make a clean breast of it. "We knew that you"d kill many boars - even the one that"s a devil! We"ll never get to be hunters unless someone like you will let us learn. Else I have to be a thatcher, just like my name, and Shad there"ll end up as a tailor."
"What did you take?" asked the one-eyed bard gently.
"Boar-spears, some old leggings, a lodencloak, a flatchet, and a rucksack," the tall lad ticked off the list.
"We needn"t any of his other stuff, for I"d taken a leather poke full of grub and a big knife from my uncle already,"
volunteered Shad.
At that Gord had to laugh. Thatch scowled at his small friend. Before he could say anything about this addition, Shad went on.
"Don"t be cross, Thatch. I didn"t say anything about the stuff you took from your master!"
"Master, you say? Are you a prenticed boy?" interjected Gellor.
"Aye, both Shad and I are. He to his kinfolk, though, and I to old Reed."
Stealing was bad - bad enough to get the boys flogged and bound to their victims to work out twice the value of the stolen goods, recovered or no. Stealing things from a master by an apprentice was worse still. If the master chose, he could sell the thief into slavery in redress for the crime. Worst of all, the theft from Clydebo was of relatively high value, and the goods taken were those of his livelihood. That usually meant hanging. All three of the adventurers looked at the lads in wonderment. What could these boys have been thinking of?
"That won"t matter, you see," Thatch said almost as if he had read the men"s minds. "The prentice-breaking nor the borrowing of the stuff, that is. You"re going to kill wild boars aplenty. The devil-pig that"s got everyone in Tusham scared to go into the woods, too! We"ll help, and the whole village will call us heroes! We"ll give everything back, and Clydebo will have a trophy from us to boot.
Then we can be hunters!"
"No, we can"t!" countered little Shad glumly. "Don"t you recall that they said they weren"t going to look to pig-sticking? We got in trouble for naught, Thatch."
Gellor looked grim. "Where was this Clydebo the hunter when you made free with his gear?" he asked.
"Out after game, sir," said Thatch weakly.
"They could sneak back into the village before anyone"s up," Gord said. "Then, after replacing what they stole from Clydebo, they can creep back to their own homes. They"ll have to take a few whacks, that"s sure. But a few commons or a silver n.o.ble even will soothe any feelings of anger. Besides, they can claim we forced them to show us the way through the forest and made them take thefood, too."
Chert looked doubtful. "That"s pretty thin, Gord," he said.
"It"s all we"ve got."
"No argument there," interjected Gellor. "But I like it not. The story is likely to be questioned, and these two know about . . .
other things, shall we say."
"We"d never, never betray the truth about you hunting for treasure, not boar," Thatch said earnestly.
"We can"t go back, though," Shad chimed in, ""cause we saw Clydebo in the afternoon heading back to Tusham. He"s found his spears and equipment missing for certain, and tomorrow he"ll be on our trail with a vengeance."
"That tears it! What on Oerth are we to do with you two?!" the bard demanded, his tone halfway between mirth and anger.
"Why, that"s easy!" Thatch shot back with abroad, wholesome grin. "We"ll help you get the treasure, Shad and I. Even with just a little share of it, a small part suited to boys like us, we"ll be the wealthiest folk in the whole village. We"ll tell them all how we used the spears to help kill the evil dragon that guarded the gold, and Clydebo will hang the pair on his wall in honor! We"ll pay ten times the - ".
"Enough, enough," Gellor said in exasperation. "Bring your gear to the fire and bed down with us. We"ll settle the matter in the morning. A good sleep will clear the muzziness of your tangled scheme from my head, and I"ll be able to solve the problem then."
Standing proudly as men, but still sheepish about their predicament, the two lads hurried off to bring in their weapons, provisions, and bedrolls.
"How did you net these two slippery little fish?" Chert asked the one-eyed man.
Gellor covered himself with his cloak, getting ready for sleep, as he replied. "I saw someone outside the firelight - thanks to a peep with my enchanted orb. My music has certain powers, and when I played and sang, I drew them in with a warm feeling of home and good friends. Had they been ogres, I doubt they"d have behaved differently."
"Well," Gord opined, "these lads are not ogres, and we can"t leave them to their fate."
"Would you rather they died with us fighting hardened soldiers and fell spell-binders?" Gellor grumped from his bed of leaves.
"At least with us they"ll have a chance," the barbarian said just before the two boys reappeared bearing armloads of gear. That ended the conversation for the night.
While the others were readying for travel the next morning, Gord took a sc.r.a.p of paper and wrote out a message.
"To Clydebo the Hunter," it read. "Be made aware that we have need of the service of two boys, Thatch and Shad by name.
One of these electrum pieces is to cover what was taken from you, with another just like it for good measure. And there are two more luckies here, one for each of the boy"s masters. Give them to their rightful owners. We will return soon to learn if you did!" He signed it "The Three Who Hunt Devils."
Gord tucked the message and the electrum pieces in a place where it would be evident to a keen-eyed woodsman, and made a small blaze above it just to be sure. Gellor gave a small cough, and Gord looked up, startled. Gellor pretended to be relieving himself on the tree, but the bard"s expression showed that he"d seen the whole thing. Gord gave a small shrug, and Gellor returned a disapproving look.
"You are determined to bring these boys into grief," he said with resignation. "Then be it on your head - and the curly mop of that hulking friend who supports you in this - not on mine." With that he mounted and began to ride away. There was a scramble to get the last of the gear onto the horses or slung over youthful backs, and the remaining four hurried off after the bard. Gord and Chert rode, and the two boys trotted happily after the horses.
Neither Thatch nor Shad could ride very well, but the two young adventurers gave them their turns atop their mounts anyway.
"This way you"ll learn, for learn you must!" Gord scolded the reluctant boys.
"It"ll spare your a.r.s.es some, too!" said Chert with a laugh as he recalled the pain of becoming accustomed to the saddle.
During a brief pause to get bearings, eat, and rest, the lads were instructed in the proper handling of the broad-bladed, cross-pieced spears they lugged along. Each weapon consisted of a stout shaft, one of hickory, the other of hornwood. The spears were taller than the lads, but not by much, for each was just a little over five and a half feet long. What the weapons lacked in length they made up in girth, for the shafts were as thick as quarterstaves. The steel spearheads were sharp and thick for strength and bloodletting, and their fastening cupped the shafts and extended nearly a foot past the cross-piece.
"You"d suppose," Chert told the raptly attentive lads, "that a blade a hand"s-span wide and a foot long would do for a boar, wouldn"t you?"
The boys nodded certainty as they looked, awestruck, at the wicked spearhead that the giant hillman held as if it were merely a toothpick.
"Well, you"re wrong!" Chert continued. "A maddened tusker will take this bit of steel in his chest without flinching, just to get at you. If this bar wasn"t at the base of the blade, that tusker would push himself on, running the whole d.a.m.ned spear through his vitals, just to tear you to b.l.o.o.d.y ribbons with his tusks! Then he"d trample you into mush before he fell dead on top of your guts and broken bones." There was a certain relish in Chert"s voice at this description of what could happen.
Both Thatch and Shad turned pale and looked sick upon hearing his very graphic words. They were bright and imaginative lads, and they were now beginning to reconsider their desire to be boar-killing hunters. Chert gave each a rea.s.suring swat and spoke again.
"Never mind. There is a cross-piece, so if the shaft doesn"t snap the pig"ll be held off to bleed himself to death in a squealing, foaming rage. It"s their l.u.s.t to kill that does for boars, you know. . . . Now, see the spike here at the b.u.t.t?" He moved the weapon so that the lads could get a close look at the metal-shod base. A fingerlike spike protruded from the endcap. "This is to hold the weapon solidly.
You see the boar. It charges! You lower the spear and aim the point, so! See how the b.u.t.t is grounded? You can use a tree or the like too, depending on where you are."
"No use when mounted," Gord pointed out. "Clydebo goes afoot, but boar-spears for horsed hunting are longer and lack the spike."
"Now notice the difference when you"re fighting with this spear rather than setting up for a charging tusker," Chert said. And so it went for all that day and the next while they kept a watch for signs of danger and the outlaw"s road through the forest.
There were swine around, of that there was no doubt. They heard them and occasionally caught glimpses of the great wild pigs dashing away at their approach. None attacked, though, as if even the tuskers feared to encounter them. This disappointed the boys and Chert too, for the hillman still thought a loin of boar roasted over their evening fire would be most toothsome.
It was the afternoon of the second day that brought their first incident. Chert was riding in the lead, Gellor at the rear, withGord and the boys going in between. As they rounded a corner where a game trail swerved past a ma.s.sive yew and entered a small clearing, a piglet dashed across the path. Reflexively, Chert drew his bow and sped an arrow after the creature. The shaft pierced the piglet, which squealed shrilly as the projectile pinned it fast to the ground. There was an answering grunt and deeper squeal as the sow poked her head out from the brush. The barbarian had nocked another arrow, but before he could react, a deeper voice came from almost beside him.
"The boar!" Gord called, and he swung his spear down in the direction of the noise as he said it. There was a flash of reddish brown, a ridged back covered with bristles, and then the impact as the spear-point took the animal high on his shoulder. Although the boar was not large for his kind, no more than a few hundred pounds and a bit over three feet high, he was ferocious enough for the young thief. The impact nearly knocked Gord from his saddle as the blade he had lowered plowed a gory furrow along the animal"s back before finally lodging in the beast"s hindquarters and forcing the boar to the ground.
The boar voiced his fury in terrible snorts and squeals, kicking himself erect and trying to slash horse and rider with his ma.s.sive, twisted tusks. Chert dared not spare an arrow on the creature, for at any time the sow, nearly as big as its mate, might charge too.
Thatch and Shad acted before Gellor could come to Gord"s a.s.sistance. Although neither of the boys knew exactly what to do, they acted instinctively and stabbed at the boar"s flank with their own weapons. The great animal threw himself toward these new tormentors, knocking both lads down by the force of his reaction. By then, however, Gord had let loose the shaft of the spear and whipped out his sword. It plunged into the boar"s neck at the same instant that Gellor"s spear pierced the animal"s evil heart, and the boar collapsed with a final, shrill grunt. At that the sow ran off, her line of sounders trailing behind in a rush of squealing and grunting piglets, and was quickly lost in the forest.
"Nice work!" the big barbarian said.
"That was a near thing, Gord," Gellor commented. "Be more careful in the future, both of you," he admonished his friends.
Then he eyed Thatch and Shad. They"d picked themselves up, brushed the dirt and leaves from their clothing, picked up their fallen spears, and now leaned upon them with expressions of a comical sort. Studied nonchalance and pride, intermingled with surprise at their own daring and fear - both of what could have happened to them and what their adult companions would say - fought with each other in varying and changing degree. Most of all, however, their desire for acceptance was evident.
"You were brave, lads," Gellor said. "But you were very lucky, too. Next time remember what Chert and Gord have been teaching you!"
That broke the tension, and the two boys laughed and danced in ritual fashion around the dead boar, pretending to stab it and placing their feet triumphantly upon the mammoth carca.s.s.
"Enough of that child"s play!" called Chert to the rollicking pair. "Go bring me that piglet - and mind you, save the arrow too," he added sternly. "When that"s done, you"re going to learn how to skin and dress pigs."
They made camp early, and at last the brawny hillman got his fill of pork - both piglet and slices of boar. Eat as they did, all five of them, they could not make much of a dent in the succulent stuff. Pig meat would be on the bill of fare for quite a few meals to come, but they were too happy to think of so dull a matter as that during or after die feast.
Both Thatch and Shad proudly displayed a pair of tushes as they went on the next day. Gord had drilled the teeth and thonged them, so each boy had a necklace displaying a trophy. The hide and most of the meat was abandoned perforce. If they had tried to take the stuff it would have spoiled in a day or two. Some creatures of the forest would eat well, and they had sufficient for today and tomorrow.
They were still congratulating themselves when they came upon the mutilated corpse of a woman who had been killed only hours before. Just beyond the body was a well-beaten trail that ran north and south.
Chapter 23.
"Losels!" little shad exclaimed in horror as he saw the awful remains. He ran away to the bushes, and shortly thereafter the others heard sounds of vomiting.
Chert looked at the body and felt sickened himself, even as hardened to such things as he was. "What do you think, Gord?" he asked.
"Gellor is the one to ask," said the young adventurer, averting his eyes from the blood and gore.
"Why did he mention "lost ones" - losels - when he viewed this terrible thing that"s been done?" the bard asked Thatch.
The boy stood and stared at the gruesome sight as if transfixed. If he heard Gellor"s question, Thatch made no reply. The bard took him firmly by the shoulders and turned him so that he faced away from the body and had to look at the man, whose kind expression bolstered him. "Come now, Thatch my lad!" said Gellor softly. "It is terrible, I"ll grant you, but as a hunter and treasure-seeker you"ll have to grow to accept such sights - just never like them!"
"Yes . . . sir," Thatch gulped and stammered, tears springing from his eyes. "I ... I can stand butchering and dressing, Master Gellor, but . . . but what was done to that woman..."
"Never mind that now. There"s nothing we can do to save her. She is dead, and that"s a fact. I want to know why Shad cried "losels" when he saw the body. Do you know why?"
"We"ve heard it before, sir, in the village. We didn"t see anything - they wouldn"t show us - but just a week or so back two of the local folk, a woodcutter and his wife, were found butchered most terribly. The priest of Pholtus told us that losels did such work.
What with the devil-pig and the losels, n.o.body"s wanted to go far from Tusham lately."
Neither lad knew exactly what losels were, although Shad said he had heard one of the village elders state that they were part man and part ape. Gellor set all of them straight.
"I have some small experience with them," he told his companions. "They are hybrid things, these losels are, that much is true. They"re not human at all, though. The losel is a mixture of ore and boreamandrill - the thick-furred northern baboons of vicious nature and sly cunning. Once we encountered a small tribe of them in the Fellreev Forest, but at that time I thought them a sport confined to that place."
"How do you know that the perpetrators of this . . . foulness . . . are actually losels, as the lads seem to believe?" Gord asked.
"There seem to be no clues here."
Now Shad had sufficiently composed himself to volunteer information. "It"s the fingers - the losels take them," he managed tostammer. "That"s just as we were told!"
"It"s what I"ve seen before, Gord," agreed Gellor. "It seems that these fiends are here in the Vesve now too, and that points directly at a purpose. If Iuz didn"t want these losels here, they"d never have crossed westward to this woodland from distant Fellreev - it"s a hundred leagues and more from fl there to the beginning of the upper forest, and we"re no more than in the center of the place now."
"Let"s bury the remains," Chert said harshly, "so we can be looking to even the score a bit with these ore-apes."
Not long thereafter they were moving rapidly up the hard-packed earth of the trail. The five went northward, Chert trotting now well in advance of the others, Gord, likewise dismounted, served as the rear guard. Thatch and Shad rode behind the bard, clutching their weapons and looking grim. They were rapidly changing from carefree village lads to hardened men, and the three adults didn"t like the manner of their forced maturity. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do to soften the shock of such experiences, and they knew that worse was in the offing.
About an hour after noon Chert ran back and signaled a halt. Gord hurried ahead to join the group and hear what the barbarian had to report.
"I got a glimpse of a foraging party ahead," said Chert. "About five or six rogues wearing forester"s green. They didn"t see me at all, though, for they were busy toting a stag they"d brought down. One of them was b.i.t.c.hing about not getting a fair share of the kill, so I"d say that there must be a big bunch of his pals up ahead - not too far ahead, either."
Gellor didn"t seem surprised. "This path is too hard and beaten to reveal much, although the marks of the horses some ride stand out clearly enough. Any idea how many there might be?"
"Not really," the barbarian said, "although the way the tracks are spread to either side of the trail, I"d make a stab at a party of more than a score - could be two or three times that many, though."
"Let"s stay back for now," Gord suggested. "Tonight I"ll see about finding a member of that bunch who"ll tell us what we need to know."
Shad was puzzled. "How you do that, Master Gord? There aren"t going to be any of them who"ll want to talk to us to help us."
"They will after I bring them back here and persuade them a bit," Gord said in an offhand manner.
"Persuade?" queried Thatch.
"Sure!" Chert said to the boy with a wink, and then made a stabbing and twisting with his hand. "Persuade!"