Blood Of The Wizard (Book 1) Page 18

  And as it waddled back toward the lake, I laughed.

  Other men, who have sunk more fully to savagery, might have forsaken the ways of their youth and been so angry at the beast that they cut a fatty slit across its throat and watched its chubby hide go gurgling back into the water for having scared them. Who can say that I, giving more time in the wilds, might not have departed from the path of good humor?

  All I can say is that, on land, the animal was quite humorous indeed. And though Cullie and Dhal stared at me as though I had lost my mind completely, I could not stop laughing.

  “I’m glad you find our terror so awfully damned comical.”

  “Humor, my dears, may keep a fellow upright in slippery places,” I gasped, still laughing.

  “Quoting the Cutters now, I see,” she said, the faintest hint of a smile beginning to form in her eyes, despite her mouth being pressed shut

  “Indeed, I could wish a young one no better talisman against the perils of one’s own mind than time spent with—” My appreciation for Halvgar and Jickie, no less than pure love, halted me.

  But Cullie’s eyes told me he was eager to hear something of his father.

  “A man could not spend his time better than with your father, lad. He was truly a fine and merry fellow…. He was the best friend I ever had.”

  Cullfor smiled up at me.

  I swallowed, and looked at my feet a moment. “I’m certain we’ll both miss him,” I added. “And we’ll both hope we ever have half his heart!”

  Then I gave the sturdy little fellow a hug. How we dragged through the hours of that day, I could not properly set down here. Cullie’s fond happiness lasted just another moment. But it was enough that I felt suddenly ashamed of myself for only just brooding over my own woes. Hard as my life was, or might ever be, it was fortunate I had no time for thoughts of self that day, for there was no melancholy apathy in the Cullie’s eyes, none of the tears that so often benumbed his lonely father's heart in the last days of his life.

  That first full day together as, dare I say it, a family, was long, but nor weary. To be certain, Dhal and I had enough to do, finding diversion for his mind, drawing little animals on birch-bark sheets, or playing peek-a-boo. But it seemed in the end this was for nothing but our own comfort. When he smiled, it was not our doing, and when he seemed glum, there were no games or antics that could lift his little spirits.

  So the bright sun wore away, and the spring snow that came again that afternoon was strangely refreshing, the way drizzle in the summer can refresh—it gave me a faint hope that we might all one day enjoy something like a normal life together in the north. And with my courage restored, I truly believed it.

  When Cullfor became sleepy, I carried him, and we carried on until the darkness of that night became thick and nearly impenetrable.

  * * *

  We had passed several nests of what I suspected were trolls; they were larger than the goblin nest, and even more primitive, hardly more than small trees that were bent over and braided together at their crest to form something like huts. It gave me an idea.

  The snow had halted a few hours previous, and we were leaving no visible tracks. Still, as we halted at the edge of a wet and moonless forest, we were careful to find a nice secluded spot. We slunk, deep into the woods, and even deeper into a long hollow. Further away than seemed necessary, we carried on yet, back up the ravine to the opposite slope. Crooked trees jutted across our path. We would be hard to see from just a few feet away.

  Here, I took to my axe with a somewhat dwarven enthusiasm and busied myself putting together a respectable little lodge. I found a crevice of stone to serve as two solid walls. I went about felling logs for the other two, going so far as chinking them. I gather some moss between them, along with some thinner and lighter branches for a roof. Nearing midnight, at least I counted it near midnight from my exhaustion—though Dhal, feisty and contradictory by nature, maintained that it was not yet nine—we sat inside what was a comfortable little abode.

  We even built a small fire.

  As Dhal and I sat talking before it, a bit of rain pattered through the leaky roof against the pine logs I gathered to add to the fire, causing Dhal to giggle uproariously.

  Cullie’s lips, though he was long fast asleep, curled in scorn.

  “You see, you’ve upset the lad,” I said.

  Without answering, she impatiently kicked my knee, nearly knocking me into the live coals. There was an awkward pause. In a strange way, we still felt like a reunion of two friends who had not seen each other in too long and have not had time to gather up the loose pieces of a parted past and put them together into a reason to be together. Stronger bonds of fellowship would have been much easier with some beer.

  “Good jokes are meager comfort to the people they land on,” I admitted, though it was still impossible to talk to her without provoking my own embarrassment. Leaning back with hands clasped behind my head, I tried to hide it. I watched through half-closed eyes as her pretty face looked back into mine.

  She grinned, saying, “Being chiefly applicable when they are not needed.”

  I nodded.

  She looked into the fire, then at Cullie. He was sleeping as soundly as a hibernating bear.

  Dhal slithered beside me. Slowly, silently, she scooped at the wet ground to clear away a spot. She grabbed me, then lay beside me. With the patience of a spider, she coiled around me, rolling us over into in the muddy peat until we found a place that was soft and flat. We curled her blanket around us. Then we pulled together on boots and trousers and tightly-wrapped garments, loosening them without taking them off. For the briefest moment, we stared at each other. I ‘d grown to expect a learned sass in her eyes, but the dangerously silly, completely joyous look in her eyes was as amusing as it was unsettling. She was alive in untellable ways. She was occupying my universe.

  I swallowed.

  We shared those looks another moment. Everything was anew, and everything felt so fresh on that rainy night that I’m certain neither of us understood what we were feeling. Then came a tiny but eager breath, and spittle popped when she opened her mouth. Then we slipped against each other, our forms softly rubbing. We kissed gently, sucking knots of flesh. I felt her long, broken shudder as I lurched into her. Her feet cupped my ankles. Immersed in the warmth of one other, I found myself merging into her gorgeous figure, her joy. I nudged my weight gently deeper. Her mouth was open, and she took the lobe of my ear in her teeth and pulled me in more fully. The careful, sea-going rhythms rose, and she put a hand on the side of my face. Her teeth shining starkly around her tongue, she opened her eyes. Her look was so inviting I was weightless. Kissing her forehead, I tasted her elation. Sweat dripped off my chin. She pulled me closer, and she began to writhe and smother me in the faintest, playful snarling. Perfectly exuberant in the absurd joy, the insane, wonderful surge seemed to arc across her face, flooding my senses. I grunted. She seized me, kissing my mouth as her breathing quivered.

  As she fluttered, she looked up at me, then bit down on my shoulder. I looked down at her and kissed her the top of her head and ear, and the sensation washed through me as well.

  She closed her eyes once more before she breathed, and relaxed.

  Then she seemed to elongate, stretching. She pressed into me with a last kiss before she scooted against me, nuzzling me with her nose.

  As I lay beside her, I knew something had cleared from her mind. There were no words for it, precisely, at least none that would come to my simple mind, but I felt it too. It felt like tiny bad things in the dark parts of the mind popping, losing their warrant, or like warm fluid draining down my spine, but nothing could better describe than our slow and deep breathing, perfectly matched now.

  A perfect sleepiness was swallowing me. I felt lighter now.

  Warmer.

  Chapter 44

  At some point before dawn, the rain had soaked through the roof. The wind drove through a small split in chilling gusts.


  I got up and jammed an old rag into the hole. Then, at the entrance I heard a distant grumbling of some manner of chuckle, and was I amazed at the sound of deep, thunder-like laughter above the gentle din of rain. The low noise seemed to be coming towards our hut. Then it suddenly halted. I froze and listened more intently. Up from the wooded valley came the gentle purr of a stream over the stony bottom. The low washing sound only accentuated the sudden stillness. Suddenly, there was the shrill cry of some solitary crow, which stabbed the night with a throb of echoing loneliness.

  I got up.

  I could see nothing through the door, and lighting a pine branch, I thought better of it and, put it out. Then I slunk into the cold wet night. I thought I had exited quietly, but a turned a saw Cullfor and Dhal emerge as well. We all three stood as still and silent as a deathwatch; then the feeling of being watched hit us all at once. We each, in turn, looked out into the dark woodland behind the primitive hut.

  It seemed Dahl saw something for she made a waving motion with her hand. But I could not understand what it was she meant us to do.

  “Look,” she whispered.

  I had seen much on this journey, and yet there was still room for awe in my numb mind—in fact, I could scarcely believe what I was seeing.

  It was a family of trolls.

  I pulled Cullfor closer and looked. There were two adults, as five men mashed together and baked to a sturdy, muscular firmness. They strode gently, hardly making a sound. The female was carrying a small troll child, which was not unlike a dwarf in size. They stroked its head lightly and shunted themselves between the little one and our spying as they passed. I have always held that however menacing a thing may be, if it handles the sick or the young with gentleness, there is much goodness under the rough surface. In mind, I could see them conversing, even laughing, before they stumbled upon our hut, then went silently by, hoping to not disturb us. Thoughtlessness and stupidity, while not unique to mankind or dwarfdom, seem the root for half the unkindness and sorrow of life. People may speak of paving the deepening paths to the frozen depths with good intentions, but I will never be convinced that it not would be truer to blame thoughtlessness and stupidity. That was all that I had heard of trolls, that they are dull and brutal, that their deadened sensibilities leave them no choice but to eat anyone they see, to treat their young as mere things… things weaker than themselves.

  Then something that I would count as near miraculous occurred. The large male, which had flesh like the bony, plated armor of something that had strayed out of hell, nodded to me.

  Then it and turned and disappeared with its family into a thick brake of cedar.

  I can compare the change in my thoughts to a winter that comes without autumn’s soft warning. All at once, everything I knew of the beasts was counted false.

  I nearly gasped at the changes in my own mind.

  While the russet and green foliage still folded around them, I could only shake my head and smile.

  Chapter 45

  I hung onto the sight of the troll family as long as I could. In truth I was probably like a drowning man, clinging to a water-soaked log. I could hear the snapping twigs and branches growing fainter and fainter. I have no idea why, exactly, but I wanted to keep watching them. Perhaps I wished to hold on to my sense of wonder.

  In time, reality began to slowly began to creep back to me—and it was a harsh reality at that….

  The trolls were not the ones making the noise.

  Already, dwarven rangers were visible on a far hill. I could hear the army behind them, moving in large ranks.

  I grunted.

  One of them turned. I was certain he saw us.

  Man is not a deer, but under stress every creature is moved to fight or flee. I should have froze and made certain whether he had seen us or not. But my feet were already moving.

  The din of clamoring voices were added to by the shouts of approaching warriors. Then we all heard the galloping of a multitude of horses and the whining yells of countless dogs.

  It seemed next like all of dwarfdom was on the outskirts of the forest. We might yet have a chance, I thought, but the dwarven warriors were very near. Putting all my strength in gathering up Cullfor, I burst through the underbrush. An errant step, though, and I went sliding down a small cliff. Cullfor giggling, I was running breathlessly haste over fallen logs and across noisy creeks, through the wooded valley. The branches, which reached out like the bands of pursuers, caught and ripped my clothing to shreds. I had on a good pair of boots, but I had broken a toe in my fall. My left foot was bleeding through the leather.

  How long or how far I ran, I do not know. I think it may have been an hour. All I knew is that we were going deeper and deeper into the Trollwood. Dhal was keeping good pace. She never fell, and she was never more than two steps behind us. It was not just my legs that burned, but my lungs and my mind.

  Suddenly, another gleam of water flashed through the foliage. A wide stream appeared, muddy and sluggish. My heart was beating painfully. There was a roaring in my ears, and at every step I took, the landscape swam in blackness before me. The trees were racing into the background.

  Already, I had reached the limit of my strength.

  I sank down to rest, but I could hear them coming now. We were pursued. There was no mistaking that fact.

  With the most intense fear I have ever experienced in my life, I gathered Cullfor and broke into another terrified run. The river was marshy and brown, but I gulped down a drink.

  Was it the pounding in my ears that suggested they were coming?

  I stopped and listened. There was no sound but the lapping of water, or rush of wind through the leaves. I went down into the stream, slower now, but distinctly heard a dwarven war whoop.

  There was a beaver dam in the middle, which had made the water sluggish and treacherous-looking. But we had to try to cross. With the blood flowing from my feet, dwarven rangers could track me for miles.

  I looked across the river as we waded in. I had a vague hope of running along the water to throw our pursuers off the trail, but I didn’t have the strength to go much further. The shouts of our pursuers sounded nearer. They knew how close they were, because in classic dwarven style, they were shouting that they had sighted their quarry.

  I grabbed Cullfor’s head and turned it to me.

  “Can you hold your breath?”

  He nodded, a playful look still in his eyes.

  “Okay then… now.”

  I plunged in and floundered underwater toward the dam. The soft ooze felt good on my feet as I snared Dhal’s hand, swimming blindly.

  Soon we emerged from the water.

  We were inside the dam, and we were fairly well obscured from view. But there were enough branches in it to entangle us with any movement whatsoever—and we were not completely hidden. Daylight broke through in several places, and I found that I was facing exactly where we had first waded in. I stared through a rotted knot-hole, breathing heavily.

  Dhal, thanks be to the heavens for her, pulled some mud up from the bottom and rubbed it on each of our faces.

  I rubbed on a bit more and looked ahead.

  A dwarf in in a green ranger’s cape ran out from the tangled foliage of the river bank. He saw the mud settling where we had been floundering and gave a shrill yell of triumph. Instantaneously, the woods were ringing, echoing and re-echoing with the hoarse, wild warcries of the dwarves.

  Band after band burst from the leafy cover and dashed in full pursuit after the scout, who had now crossed the stream. Some of the hunters still wore the longshirt of the cutters, and some really were cutters. But the swiftest were the other rangers, who tore forward into the stream as if completely unimpeded. The last dwarven form to appear among the trees of the river bank was the king himself. King Bhiers. There was such an ominous calm about him. He wore a simple, crowned helm. Black and white streaks of hair spilled from it like an ashen landslide.

  The dwarf king sat silently on his mount, an
d I sensed that he knew his rangers had been foiled.

  Would they return to the last marks of our trail? That thought sent the blood from my head with a rush that left me dizzy, weak and shivering. I looked to the river. The floating branches turned lazily over, lapping in the sluggish current. There was a bit of green slime oozing from a cluster of beaver lodges of the far side. As a ranger came pattering back through the brush from the opposite bank, two of the irritated animals left with a great splash of their tales.

  In the distance, a score of brazen throats screeched out their baffled rage.

  Two more came back. They went about looking into every hollow log, under fallen trees. A fourth began searching through clumps of shrub growth, where a man might hide, and into the swampy river bed.

  Should we wait to be smoked out of our hole like badgers?

  It didn’t matter. It was only a matter of time. Again I looked hopelessly to the river.

  The rest of the dwarves had returned to the far bank and were eagerly searching, looking down against the steep little bank or else scanning the limbs of trees above.

  Suddenly, the king a gave a slight cough, and it seemed the entire world froze, silencing itself. When he had every dwarf’s attention, he rolled his eyes and pointed bemusedly at us.

  Everything in me went numb.

  They began stepping into the water, moving to surround us. I hugged Cullfor, and I kissed Dhal. I had all but counted the course of my life as run dry, when a tremendous, thundering splash resounded nearby.

  I turned to see a large, uprooted tree. It was settling into the water. Then another splashed resounded. In the next moment they came from everywhere, along with massive stones. I gathered Dhal closer, holding her tight. Her face was a snarl of fright. She was shaking. She rocked back and forth, and there was a noise like a hint of laughter squeaking out.

  There was a score of dwarves coming, holding taut bows. I could them searching the woods, the sky, everywhere for the source of the enormous missiles, and yet they came in for us.