The Fellowship of the Talisman (20 page)

The knife in his hand sliced through the bonds that held Duncan's hands, then he turned to the feet and slashed the rope that held the ankles. He thrust the knife toward Duncan.

“Here,” he said, “take this. You'll have need of it.”

The old bee master rose and started for the willows.

“Wait, man!” whispered Duncan. “Stay and go with us. If the Reaver finds you out …”

“Nay. My bees. The bees still have need of me. They would be lost without me. And no one will notice. They all lie as if dead, badly in their cups.”

Duncan surged to his feet. His legs seemed dead beneath him, numb from being bound so long. Old Cedric was already gone, vanishing in the willows.

Duncan ran to Conrad, pushed at him so he could reach his arms.

“What goes on, m'lord?”

“Quiet,” Duncan whispered.

He cut the cords that bound Conrad's arms and handed him the knife.

“Free your legs,” he said, “then cut loose the others. The second guard is coming back. I'll take care of him.”

Conrad grabbed the knife. “Thank dear God,” he said.

As he ran toward the willows, Duncan could hear the shuffling tread of Robin returning, floundering through the sand. Duncan stooped to scoop up the claymore that Einer had dropped. It was an awkward, heavy weapon that did not fit his fist. His numbed fingers had some difficulty grasping it, but finally he managed to get a good grip on it.

Robin began talking to Einer even before he rounded the willows.

“I took an unbroached cask of it,” he crowed triumphantly. “No one noticed. Or I don't think they did. All of them are slobbered.”

He grunted, shifting the cask from one shoulder to the other. “We have enough to last out the night,” he said. “More than enough to last the night. There'll be some left over we can wash our feet in if we feel the urge.”

He came around the corner of the clump of willows, and Duncan stepped swiftly forward. The stroke had no finesse, no fanciness, no swordsmanship. He simply crashed the edge of the claymore down on the top of Robin's head. The skull split with the sound of a ripe melon popping; the rusty iron stopped only when it reached the breast bone. The violence of the iron striking the heavy bone set up a vibration that made Duncan's forearm tingle. Robin made no sound. He fell like a tree before an axe. The cask hit the ground and bounced, rolling for a ways, its contents slopping in it.

Duncan bent over the body, reached for the hilt of Robin's blade and jerked it free. Then he ran for the manuscript, and with the two weapons tucked beneath his armpit, held by the pressure of his arm, he picked up the manuscript, folded it once, unneatly, and thrust it inside his shirt, where it lay against his skin.

Andrew was free, staggering about on unsteady legs, and so also was Meg. Conrad was bending over Tiny, carefully cutting the cords that held the big dog's jaws together. Duncan ran for Daniel, roped between two trees. As he approached, the horse shied away. Duncan spoke to him softly. “It's all right, Daniel. Take it easy, boy.” He slashed at the ropes and as they came free, the horse lunged forward, then stood trembling. Beauty, already freed, trotted up, dragging the rope that had been her halter.

Conrad was moving toward Duncan, and Duncan held out one of the claymores toward him. Conrad raised his hand to show he had his club. “They left it lying there beside me.” Duncan tossed one of the claymores to one side.

“What the hell's the matter with Andrew?” he asked. The hermit was stumbling about, looking at the ground.

Duncan hurried to him, grasped him by the arm. “Come on,” he said. “We must get out of here.”

“My staff,” gasped Andrew. “I must find my staff.”

He made a sudden lurch forward. “Ah, there it is,” he said.

He grabbed it up and thumped it on the ground.

“Where to, m'lord?” asked Conrad.

“Back into the hills. We'll have a better chance there.”

Conrad sprinted forward, snatched up Meg, threw her on Daniel's back. “Hang on tight,” he said. “Stay low so a branch doesn't scrape you off. You'll have to cling with all your might, for you haven't got a saddle. I don't even know where the goddamn saddle is.”

16

They halted in the clearing on the top of the rocky ridge where they had stopped the night before to watch the Wild Huntsman careen across the sky. The moon was low in the west and a few birds were beginning to stir and twitter in the woods below them. Meg slid off Daniel, grateful for the halt, and Andrew sat down on a small boulder.

“They're all beat out, the both of them,” Duncan told Conrad. “Maybe we should hole in here and wait to see what happens.”

Conrad looked around. “Good place,” he said. “We could get our backs against those rocks and hold them off, should they come upon us. Better than being caught out in the woods.”

He held out his wrists for Duncan to see. They still carried ugly red welts from the bonds and the skin was abraded and bleeding. “I notice yours are the same,” he said.

“They tied us tight,” said Duncan. “If it hadn't been for Cedric …”

“He should have come along with us. If the Reaver finds him out …”

“Maybe he won't find him out. All of them were dead drunk. Someone had given them three casks of wine. And of course, they'd have to try to drink it up. Who in the world would have given them wine?”

“Maybe they found it. In one of the burned homesteads.”

“No. Einer, or was it Robin, said someone had given it to them.”

“You asked Old Cedric to come along with us?”

“That's right. He said he couldn't. That his bees had need of him.”

“Ghost didn't show up last night.”

“Maybe he did and saw what had happened and went tearing off to try to locate Snoopy.”

“Had he come down, he would have scared the Jesus out of those two guards. They'd have lit out.”

Duncan shook his head. “What good would it have done? Even so, Ghost could have done nothing to cut us loose.”

“Yes,” said Conrad, “maybe that is it. Maybe he did show up and then left again. But what do we do now, m'lord?”

“We'll talk it over, think about it,” Duncan said. “I don't know quite yet what we should do. Maybe find a place to hole up until the situation clears a bit.”

“If it clears.”

“We have to do something. We have no food, no blankets. Nothing. And the Reaver took the wizard's amulet.”

“Small loss,” said Conrad. “Just a pretty bauble.”

“It may be more than that,” said Duncan. “It may be a powerful talisman. It may have provided us protection. We were able to escape the enchantment, we defeated the hairless ones with ease, the werewolves turned tail and ran. It may have been the amulet that brought all these things about.”

“It gave us no protection from the Reaver.”

“That is right,” said Duncan. “It did not help us against the Reaver. But I am sure it helped us with the others.”

Andrew rose from his boulder and came over to where they were standing.

“I know,” he said, “what you must think of me. There was no time for it to be done before, but now that we have a breathing space perhaps you may want to castigate me for the dereliction of my duty. I was the one who should have kept the watch. You left me on guard against any seeming danger. But I dozed. I caught a catnap, I am sure of that. That must have been the manner in which they came upon us, with me nodding while I should have been a-watch.”

“So that is how it came about,” rumbled Conrad. “I had wondered briefly on it, but had no time to think any further. So you were fast asleep. Why should you have needed sleep? You slept all the night before, slumped in Daniel's saddle.”

“That is true, of course,” said Andrew. “But it was not restful sleep. It was not the kind of sleep you judged it to be. Dozing was more like it. Not sound and solid sleep. Although I do not offer that as an extenuation of my failing. It all comes of a certain weakness in me, a weakness of the body. My mind may tell the body to perform, but the body fails. I am of not such stuff as martyrs may be made.”

“And you also,” said Conrad, “have a mouth that keeps running on.”

“Think no further on it,” Duncan said. “To each of us our weaknesses. In the end, it turned out all right.”

“I shall endeavor,” Andrew said, “to recompense for my failure in this instance. I shall try the harder to do my bounden duty as a soldier of the Lord. Henceforth, I swear to you, you may depend upon me in all surety.”

“If it would make you feel any better,” Conrad said, “I would be delighted to kick you in the rump. That might ease your conscience, which seems to be so sorely smarting.”

“If you truly would, sir,” said Andrew eagerly, “making certain that it is a lusty kick, with no power in it held back in consideration of me as a companion of the road.”

He turned around and bent over, hiking up his robe to present his bare and scrawny bottom.

“Stop this buffoonery,” snapped Duncan. “It is ill behavior in a soldier of the Lord to present his bony ass to his boon companions. Let down your robe and straighten, like a man. Sir Hermit, henceforth I shall expect more propriety of you.”

Andrew let down his robe and straightened up.

Conrad said to Duncan, “It might have been better, m'lord, if you had allowed me. There must be something done to stiffen up his spine and make a better soldier of him. And anyhow, a swift kick in the stern never yet has failed to help a malefactor.”

Duncan held up his hand for silence. “Listen,” he said. “Quiet, all of you, and listen.”

Faintly, from far away, came the sound of shouting and of screams. At times the sounds gained somewhat in volume and at other times shrank to no more than a whisper in the wind.

“From the strand,” said Conrad. “It is from the direction of the strand.”

They listened further. The distant and muffled yelling and screaming kept on. For a time it seemed to stop and then it took up again and finally it did stop and there was nothing to be heard.

“The Reaver's men,” said Conrad. “They met up with someone.”

“Perhaps the hairless ones,” said Andrew.

They stood for long moments listening, but nothing further happened. The first light of the sun was flushing the east and the birds were chirping in the woods below them.

“We should know,” said Conrad. “If the fight, if that is what it was, has swept them from the strand, then we could use it safely and make our way through these cursed hills without all the labor that it would be to climb them.”

“Let me go,” said Andrew. “I shall be very careful. I shall not let them see me. Let me, please, to disclose to you my newfound resolution to be a trustworthy member of this company.”

“No,” said Duncan. “No, we stay here. We do not move from here. We have no way of knowing what might have happened. And should they come against us, here at least we have a chance to make a stand against them.”

Meg chirped at Duncan's elbow. “Then, dear sir, please let me be the one,” she said. “Certainly, if they should come against us you could spare my feeble strength. But I can go and bring back to you a report of what happened with all the shouting and the yelling.”

“You?” asked Conrad. “You can barely crawl about. All this time with us, you've ridden to preserve your little strength.”

“I can manage it,” protested Meg. “I can go through the underbrush like a scuttling spider. I can use what little magic I still may have left in me. I can get there and back, bringing word.”

Conrad looked at Duncan questioningly.

“Maybe,” said Duncan. “Maybe she could do it. Is it, Meg, something that you want to do?”

“Little enough I have done,” said Meg. “So far I've been no more than a burden to you.”

“We do need to know,” said Duncan. “We could sit on this hilltop for days, not knowing. It is important that we know. But we can't split up our small force to send another one of us to scout the situation.”

“If only Ghost were here,” said Conrad.

“Ghost isn't here,” said Duncan.

“Then I may go,” said Meg.

Duncan nodded and she swiftly scuttled down the hill. For a time they stood and watched her as she darted through the trees, but finally she was lost from view.

Duncan walked back to a group of stone slabs that at one time had broken off and fallen from the rocky ridge. Choosing one of the slabs, he sat down upon it. Conrad seated himself on one side of him and Andrew on the other. Silently, the three of them sat in a row. Tiny came ambling around the mass of broken slabs and lay down ponderously in front of Conrad. “Down the slope Daniel and Beauty cropped at a patch of scanty grass.

So here they were, thought Duncan, sitting side by side on a slab of riven stone in a godforsaken wilderness, three adventurers and about as sorry a lot as ever could be found.

His belly ached with hunger, but he did not mention it to the others, for without a doubt, they were hungry, too, and there was no sense talking of it. Before the day was over, certainly by tomorrow, they would have to find some food. Tiny might be able to pull down a deer if one was to be found, but thinking back on it, Duncan remembered that they had seen no deer nor any other game except occasional rabbits. Tiny could catch rabbits and did, for his own eating, but probably would not be able to catch enough of them to provide food for everyone. Probably there were roots and berries and other provender in the woods that could ease their hunger, but he would not know where to look or what to choose, and he doubted that any of the others did. Perhaps Meg could be of help. As a witch, she might have knowledge of the food provided by the woods, for she would have been concerned with finding certain materials that went into her potions.