The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (14 page)

       
"This way!"
shouted Togura, grabbing him.

       
Roly tried to fight him.

       
"It's me, stupid!
Barak the Battleman, rescuing you!"

       
Togura hustled him out
into the street. Smoke reeled up into the sky. Roly, coughing, tried to wipe
the blood from his eyes. The street was filled with skirmishing fighters,
rearing horses, screaming children and indignant citizens of all descriptions.

       
"Togura!"
yelled a black-masked fighter standing at bay some distance up the street.
"Give us the boy!"

       
Togura knew that voice.
It was his father. As Baron Chan Poulaan cut away the sundry Suets opposing
him, Togura fought to control a frightened horse. He mounted up. The animal
almost threw him, but he got control. He helped Roly up behind him. Cromarty
came stumbling out of the building, still armed with his claymore.

       
"Cut him down,
Crom!" roared the baron, wounded now, but still fighting his way toward
them.

       
Half-blinded by smoke, Cromarty
glanced round then attacked. Togura kicked him away, getting slashed on the
calf in the process. He saw a gap in the scrabbling fight, and rode for it,
with Roly hanging on for dear life. Behind him, the Suet's Grand Hall collapsed
with a prolonged crash, sending burning debris sprawling across the street.

       
The baron was separated
from his sons by a pile of burning wreckage. Gathering his wits, Cromarty
ordered the nearest half dozen warriors to join him in pursuit. Seizing what
horses they could, they did.

       
Togura rode for hell and
high clappers, taking the road to the palace. When they came to the outskirts
of the piggeries, he reined in the horse, thinking them safe. Then he looked
round and saw the pursuit closing in behind.

  
     
"You should
have stayed in the town!" yelled Roly. "We would have lost them in
the side streets."

       
"Thanks for the
good advice," snapped Togura. "It's brilliantly timed."

       
He was tempted to push
Roly off into the mud and the slother, but resisted the temptation. Roly was
what Cromarty wanted. Togura was not going to let him have it that easily.
Togura kicked the horse in the flanks, and they rode past palace and piggeries.
The road, such as it was, soon plunged downward. They hastened down recklessly,
making one of the fastest descents ever of that particular piece of track,
which was known as the Slippery Skaddle. The pursuit followed remorselessly.

       
"Where are we going
now?" cried Roly, as they started down a track between bogland and gorse.

       
"Ahead, unless
you've got a better idea," said Togura.

       
He knew they were now on
the Fen Route, a raggle-tag half-road picking its way across some of the worst
country in all of Sung. The horse was close to failing, but before it could
collapse they came to Skob Crossing, a festering marsh crossed by a
disintegrating one-step bridgeway.

       
"Dismount,"
snapped Togura, getting down.

       
When Roly hesitated,
Togura gave him a push. As the Suet scrambled up out of the muck, Togura,
half-running, ventured the creaking bridgeway, which was green with moss and
soggy with wetrot.

       
"Don't leave
me!" cried the plaintive Suet.

       
Togura paused long
enough to shout "Follow!" - then was off again. The Suet scuttled
over the bridgeway behind him. Skidding, slipping and sliding, they panted down
a rutted track. Behind them they could hear Cromarty and his mobsters baying at
hight hunt.

       
The track grew narrower,
and became overgrown. They sprinted through nettles, yelping. Blackberry clawed
at them. They shoved aside vines, hoping none were poison ivy. The gaunt trees
overhead, their leaves a caltter of autumn, were drenched with draggle-moss,
blighted by canker and pockled with fungus. Rory, glistening with sweat, was
failing fast.

       
"I can't - keep -
up," he gasped.

       
"I'd guessed that
much," said Togura. "Down! Take cover! I'll lead them off."

       
And he shoved the Suet
into a thicket of clox, kicking his backside when he hesitated. Then Togura ran
on, holding his side, for he was getting the stitch. He blinked as sweat
scabbed into his eyes, stinging fiercely. He could feel his strength failing.
Behind him, the enemy cheered. They had him in sight now.

       
Togura slowed almost to
a walk as he padded up the knoll ahead. On the far side was a narrow strip of
swamp, just too wide to jump across. Togura sprinted down, tore a rotten pole
tree from its foundations and swiftly probed the water, failing to find its
depth. It was green with swamp grass; to the casual eye it could have been any
depth from ankle onwards. Quickly, Togura nipped round the flank of the swamp,
then used his snapped-off pole tree to thrust and stir, confusing the surface
of the swamp so it looked as if he had sprinted straight through it.

       
Cromarty and his
bounders came panting over the knoll. They saw Togura on the far side of the
swamp, apparently untangling himself from some barbarian thorn.

       
"Have him,
boys!" screamed Cromarty.

       
Whooping and hallooing,
they charged down the slope and into the swamp, plunging in it up to their
noses. All except two. Who began to skirt the swamp as Togura turned and fled.

       
"You klech!"
shouted Cromarty. "You gan-sucking jid of a veek-nucking ornskwun hellock!
Come back here, you gamos-eating son of a toad-mother. Scalp him, boys! Cut his
oysters and shaft him!"

       
Togura, labouring up
another rise, stumbled. There were rocks underfoot. He picked up a large one,
turned, and hurled it at his nearest pursuer. His victim flung out his hands.
Snatching up one stone after another, Togura pelted them both. Battered,
bruised and bleeding, they made a hasty retreat. Togura had no breath with
which to celebrate his triumph.

       
Down below, the victims
of his swamp-trap were extricating themselves from their predicament with some
difficulty; the swamp did not have a quicksand bottom, but it was certainly
soft. Togura manage a slight smile. Which vanished the next instant as
reinforcements came over the knoll on the far side of the swamp-strip. They
pointed, shouted, then joined the pursuit.

       
Togura turned and ran.

       
But he did not go far.

       
He ran a hundred paces,
hit another rocky stretch which would show no footprints, leapt sidways, went
down into a boggy wallow, crawled into a thicket of stilt trees, then hugged
the ground and lay still. He waited. He did not have to wait for long. The
pursuit panted past. As soon as he thought they were gone, Togura shuffled
deeper into the stilt trees. Then, thinking himself out of sight of the track,
he rose to a crouch and began to run, nipping from tree to tree, casting
fequent looks backward.

       
He came to a stretch of
swamp and plunged in heedlessly, going in up to this neck. He waded across,
hauled himself up on the far side, and was off again. For a while he sometimes
heard faint, distant shouts and cries, but after a while even these died away.
He blundered on, losing track of place and time. Then, finally, he heard the
far-off baying of hounds. It terrified him.

       
Dogs! They were using
dogs! He went crashing through the undergrowth, till he found a narrow,
wending, slovenly stream snaking its way through sedge and mud.

       
Togura waded down his
stream, determined to kill his scent so the dogs would be unable to follow.
Unfortunately, he broke enough twigs, grasses and creepers for even the
clumsiest tracker to follow, and splattered mud on vegetation that escaped his
trampling feet. Fortunately, the dogs were not looking for him: they were
seeking a member of the pursuit team, who, realising Togura had left the road,
had ventured to search for him in the wilderness, and had become hopelessly
lost. Unfortunately, Togura himself, by the time he stopped, was also
hopelessly lost.

       
At first, Togura did not
realise his predicament. What he did realise was that his dog-bewildering
highway was full of leeches. He left hastily, and counted his assailants. There
were seventeen of them, nine of them having battened onto his flesh where his
calf had been slashed by Cromarty's sword. He had no fire with which he could
burn off the leeches; he decided it was best to leave them to bloat themselves
with blood, after which they would drop away of their own accord.

       
Still concerned about
the dogs, he set off across country at the best pace he could manage. The
predominant vegetation here was sickle trees, tall and stringy, their shafts of
autumn foliage closely clustered, soaring up into the sky above. As he went on,
he became half-aware that the going was getting easier; the ground was getting
firmer.

       
Then the sickle trees
began to give way to some kind of vegetation he was unfamiliar with: tall,
thick, scabrous grey trees set far apart, their foliage so dense that virtually
nothing grew beneath them. These trees were covered with long, cruel, jagged
hooks, barbs, spikes and claws; their leaves, when Togura was incautious enough
to touch a few, snagged at him with myriads of tiny teeth. He decided they
deserved the name claw trees.

       
Realising he was in a
very strange neck of the woods, Togura stopped, and went no further. He decided
it was time to orientate himself. He looked around for a landmark, but the
thick-foliaged claw trees and the high, spindly sickle trees cut him down to
hundred-pace horizons in all directions.

       
He could see bits and
pieces of the sky, which was now a diffuse, misty grey; the good weather which
had graced the start of the day had failed him. He could not climb the claw
trees because they would cut him to pieces; the sickle trees, while harmless,
would never support his weight. Without landmarks or sun-light, he could not
judge his location or the time of day.

       
He sat down to think
things through, and stood up immediately. The dead dried leaves of the claw
trees, which littered the ground underfoot, retained their teeth even after
they had littered down from their parental branches. Leaning against a couple
of convenient sickle trees, Togura took stock of his situation.

       
He was lost.

       
He was tired.

       
He was hungry.

       
His clothes were damp
and caked with mud.

       
He had no food,
excepting half a dozen persistent leeches, which did not really count.

       
He had one sword, which
by rights should now be cleaned, but which was not going to be because he
couldn't be fagged.

       
He had no water.

       
He had a painful
sword-cut on his nose; though only a tiny little piece of his nose appeared to
be actually missing, this was no calculated to improve his beauty.

       
He had a more serious
wound to his calf, which was not disabling - no tendons had been severed, and
he did not think it was deep - but which was filthy with muck and mud and was
now throbbing painfully.

       
The day was not getting
any younger.

       
So what should he do?

       
He first tried to
retrace his steps, but found himself rapidly getting lost amidst a featureless
expanse of sickle trees. He managed to get back to the claw tree forest, then
reconsidered his position. Whatever the dangers, he had no doubt that a return
to Keep was his best option. But his chances of getting anywhere by blundering
about the wilderness at random were slim.

       
The ground on which the
claw tree forest grew appeared to be sloping steadily uphill. He decided to
follow the rising incline, hoping to come to a prominence which would give him
an all-round view, or, failing that, at least a prehensible tree capable of
supporting his weight.

       
Togura set off, walking
slowly, for he was weary; he limped, as his wounded leg was very sore.
Remembering Cromarty floundering in the swamp-trap, he managed a slight smile.
All in all, he could be proud of himself. He had kept his head in a burning
building. He had matched Cromarty, blade against blade. Riding out of Keep, he
should by rights have been able to shake off the pursuit; it was just bad luck
that the enemy had managed to follow him through the streets and out of the
town. Even then, hunted and outnumbered, he had scored a resounding success
with his minor tactics. But that didn't alter the fact that he was lost.