The fifth sorceress, p.43
The Fifth Sorceress, page 43
Tristan instinctively reached down to grab some of the gnome’s hair and pull him away from the injured leg, then stopped himself. If he pulled on Shannon the Small’s head and somehow actually managed to pull it loose from his leg, the gnome might take part of his thigh muscle with him in his small, unbelievably powerful little teeth. The pain increased as the little man hung on to the prince’s leg for dear life, and the blood was coming faster now.
Out of desperation, the prince looked to his sword, still held in his right hand. But something told him that he should not kill the gnome, no matter how appetizing the possibility seemed. Instead of slashing at the little man to kill him, Tristan raised the dreggan and brought its hilt down hard on the top of the gnome’s head. Shannon the Small seemed dazed for a moment, but then, growling louder, he bit into the prince’s thigh even deeper. Tristan brought the hilt of the dreggan down on the gnome’s head again, this time much harder. The little assailant collapsed, unconscious, on the floorboards of the bridge.
Gasping for breath, Tristan looked down to see Shannon the Small’s face and mouth covered with his blood. A gaping wound of about four inches across lay lengthwise in the prince’s leg, beneath the torn trousers. Wigg had been right about petting stray dogs, he thought.
Tristan turned to look at Wigg, who had walked the horses nearer to the edge of the canyon where the bridge ended. ‘I suggest you revive him,’ the old one said drily. ‘In case you have forgotten, we still need his permission to cross the bridge, and it should be interesting to see how you manage to get it, now that the two of you are such close friends.’ The old wizard again frowned his disapproval, folded his hands across his chest, and waited imperiously.
At this point Tristan didn’t care what Wigg thought about it. He smirked back at the Lead Wizard. ‘I don’t see you out here with your leg bleeding,’ he retorted.
His chest still heaving and blood still coming from his leg, the prince looked down at the unconscious body of the gnome. A smile began to creep across the prince’s face as he looked down at the small, inert body. He had to admit that Shannon the Small was tenacious, if nothing else. He turned back to the wizard. ‘Throw me the smaller of the two water bottles,’ he said. Wigg complied, making sure when he tossed it to the prince that it did not go over the side of the bridge.
Tristan reached down and turned the unconscious gnome facedown. Then he lowered his dreggan and carefully hooked the point of the sword under enough of the gnome’s clothing to be able to pick him up using only the sword itself. With a groan, Tristan lifted the gnome up off the floor of the bridge by the point of the sword and dangled him over the rope railing. He then gingerly picked up the water bottle and pried off the cap with his thumb. Shaking the water bottle, he sprayed water into the gnome’s face.
It proved to be very effective.
Upon opening his eyes and realizing his situation, Shannon the Small started screaming and waving his arms. At first he wriggled wildly, trying to free himself, but quickly realized the folly in that particular strategy. Finally he covered his eyes with his little hands and managed to remain still over the great depths of the canyon – or as still as he could, considering that he was shaking with fear.
‘Let me go,’ he said venomously. ‘I am the keeper of the bridge, and if anything happens to me, you will have to answer to Master Faegan!’
‘Then perhaps I should just drop you right now, since seeing your master is why we came here in the first place,’ Tristan said calmly. He turned the sword about, swinging the gnome in the breeze. Shannon the Small swayed upon the point of the dreggan as if he were a marionette. ‘Grant us permission to cross and I shall let you live.’
‘No!’ The words came out from the little mouth in a peculiar combination of stubbornness and fear.
Tristan let the point of the sword droop just a little. ‘You know,’ he said drily, ‘you’re quite heavy for such a little fellow. I really don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.’ He let the dreggan suddenly drop a good half a foot, and then pressed the lever in the hilt of the sword. With a loud metallic clang, the blade immediately shot forward a foot into the air over the cavern, taking the gnome with it. Shannon the Small was swinging back and forth even harder now, the collar of his shirt up around his ears.
Finally, the gnome relented. ‘You may cross,’ he said in a barely audible whisper.
‘I can’t hear you,’ Tristan said sarcastically.
‘You may cross!’ the gnome screamed. ‘Just put me back on the bridge!’
Tristan hoisted the little body back up over the rope railings and twisted the sword in the air, dropping the gnome on the floorboards. Shannon the Small stood up shakily and looked into Tristan’s face. ‘Would you really have killed me?’ he asked meekly.
‘That depends,’ Tristan said, knowing in his heart he probably never could have killed one so small. Nonetheless, he still needed to keep the upper hand. ‘We have important business with your master, and nothing can stop us, not even you.’ He pushed the point of the dreggan toward the gnome and motioned toward the other side of the canyon. ‘Let’s get off this bridge,’ he said. He retracted the blade and slid the dreggan back into its scabbard behind his right shoulder.
As Shannon the Small turned to walk off the bridge, Tristan motioned to Wigg to follow them with the horses. Despite the fact that the canyon was so deep, the horses came along peacefully. It was only later that Tristan realized the obvious: the horses weren’t frightened because they were unable to see either the bridge or the yawning expanse beneath them.
Once safely on the other side, Tristan sat down in the gnome’s chair and Wigg attended to his wound. After washing it, the old one closed his eyes and clasped his hands before himself. Tristan could feel the burn of the gash start to diminish, and he watched as the wound closed itself. The pain was gradually replaced by a tingling, almost itching sensation. He told the old one as much.
‘What you’re feeling is the healing process, which I have accelerated,’ the wizard said. ‘It will take time, but eventually you will be fine.’
Tristan sighed. He was tired, and he was thirsty. He grabbed for the gnome’s ale jug and started to take a sip when the little one gave him a nasty glance and started to try to take it away. But a quick look from Tristan stopped Shannon the Small in his tracks. Apparently the experience of being dangled over the bridge was still fresh on his mind. Tristan took a long drink of ale and wiped his mouth. He looked up at Wigg. ‘We need to be going,’ he said. ‘Time is something we don’t have enough of.’
The prince stood up gingerly on his injured leg and was about to mount Pilgrim when he felt something tug gently at the back of his leather vest. Turning, he saw the gnome standing behind him, head down. ‘What is it now?’ Tristan asked rather impatiently.
‘I’m sorry about your leg,’ the gnome said sheepishly. ‘I didn’t know what else to do.’ He was wringing his hands as he spoke. ‘Take me with you,’ he then said suddenly. ‘Please.’
‘Why should we?’ Tristan asked. ‘You made it almost impossible for us to cross the bridge, and then wounded me in the leg. I don’t trust you. You haven’t made a particularly good first impression as a representative of your race.’ He looked down into the small, beseeching eyes with a commanding hardness that he was beginning to find difficult to sustain. He was finding that he was actually beginning to like Shannon the Small.
‘I can take you to Master Faegan,’ the gnome said. ‘It will save you time.’
‘Why would you want to take us to him, when for the entire day you have done nothing but try to keep us from him?’ Wigg asked, already astride his horse. Tristan could see that the old one’s eyes were genuinely full of mistrust.
‘Because you are the first ones to cross the bridge in all of the time since he has been here,’ Shannon said. ‘And if I take you to him, rather than simply let you go on your own . . .’
‘It will look better for you in the eyes of your master,’ Tristan said, raising an eyebrow and completing the sentence in a way that wasn’t exactly what Shannon the Small had in mind. The prince smiled at the little gnome for the first time, then looked at Wigg. ‘Is it true?’ he asked. ‘Will it really save us time if we take him along?’
‘Probably,’ the old one said grudgingly. ‘As you know, I can detect others of endowed blood, and that was to be our method of finding him. But Faegan was the most talented of us all, and if he doesn’t want to be found I doubt that there is anything that even I could do about it. But it’s going to be your responsibility to watch the gnome. I don’t trust them, and I never have.’ He shook his head derisively.
Tristan looked down to see Shannon the Small beaming from ear to ear. ‘Well don’t just stand there,’ the prince said with a gruffness that even he could tell was becoming ineffective. ‘Get your things and climb up.’
The little gnome ran happily to gather up his pipe and his jug. Returning, he watched Tristan mount his horse.
‘By the way,’ Tristan said, ‘his name is Pilgrim.’ He held his hand down to the little one and hoisted him up on the saddle in front of him.
Shannon the Small then pointed gleefully to an entrance in the thickest part of the domain of Shadowood, and Pilgrim began to step gingerly into the dark heart of the forest.
Although the next day’s sun was bright and the weather warm, the prince, wizard, and gnome traveled through Shadowood in comparative darkness and cold, due to the dense foliage of the trees surrounding them. Here, as had been the case that day in the Hartwick Woods, the prince felt as if he had suddenly entered a place of otherworldliness, as if the three of them somehow did not belong in this foreboding but still beautiful forest.
Wigg refused to speak to Shannon, and it appeared to the prince that this arrangement was equally acceptable to the gnome. I wonder what the basis for this mutual mistrust is, the prince wondered as he and Shannon sat upon Pilgrim, leading the way through the ever-thickening woods. Whatever it is, it has a very long history.
Suddenly Tristan could feel the gnome seated behind him begin to stiffen, and as he looked ahead, he thought he could see why. There was a small clearing just in front of them, and the heavy, sickening odor emanating from it clearly carried the message that this was a place of death, and of the unattended dead.
‘Go around it, whatever it is,’ Shannon said quickly. ‘We do not need to see it. Besides, Master Faegan awaits us.’
It was precisely the gnome’s insistence that made Tristan stop his horse, determined to investigate. He had known the wizard much longer than he had known the gnome, and if Wigg had his doubts about Shannon, then perhaps he should, too.
Swinging one leg over the pommel of his saddle, he slipped quickly to the ground, then reached over his right shoulder and withdrew the dreggan. He looked back up at the angry-faced gnome.
‘You’ll soon find that I don’t take orders very well,’ he said sternly. ‘But then again, I would have thought that you might have learned that rather valuable lesson back at the bridge.’ Tristan looked back to Wigg, indicating that he should dismount and follow him. ‘And by the way,’ he added, ‘don’t get any sudden ideas about stealing our horses.’ He narrowed his eyes and smiled ruefully. ‘Neither Pilgrim nor I would appreciate it.’ Without waiting for a response, he walked carefully into the clearing.
The scene before him was staggering. Some kind of barbaric massacre had taken place here. He began to try to count the bodies, but found that they were in so many pieces that counting them accurately was impossible. But from what he could determine, some kind of battle – no, make that slaughter – had taken place here. The ground was covered with a great deal of blood. Body parts lay strewn across the clearing in a random pattern of bloody, sudden death. He placed his cupped hand over his nose and mouth to block the stench as best he could. Busy flies and maggots had been at their grisly work here for some time. Then he realized that each of the mangled bodies and body parts were unusually small.
These victims were gnomes, he suddenly realized. And someone or something has ripped them apart.
He noticed two other anomalies: in a great many places he could see bones that had been completely stripped of their flesh, as they lay gleaming in the sun that shone into the clearing. Carrion would not have polished these bones so, he thought. They positively shine. And secondly, he could see no heads.
Sensing Wigg come up behind him, he turned around. ‘Can you possibly explain this?’ he asked. Wigg raised the infamous eyebrow and slowly walked about the clearing, occasionally bending over to examine the remains more closely, apparently oblivious to the stench.
‘Gnomes,’ he said simply. ‘A number of Faegan’s gnomes were killed here, and by the looks of it, they died very badly. Literally ripped to pieces, I would say.’ He looked around a bit more before once again addressing the prince. ‘And did you notice that there are no heads?’ he asked. ‘Strange. I am no great fan of the gnomes, but this is truly a tragedy.’
‘Yes,’ Tristan answered. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Perhaps not to us,’ Wigg said slowly. He looked back to where Shannon was obediently but angrily still sitting atop Pilgrim. ‘But the gnome may know more than he is telling. They usually do.’
They walked back to the horses, and Wigg looked up into Shannon’s face with a glance that could have frozen water. ‘What happened here?’ he demanded.
‘If you don’t know, Lead Wizard, then someone as unenlightened as myself certainly couldn’t figure it out for you, now could they?’ Shannon answered sarcastically. ‘If you’re really interested, I suggest you ask Master Faegan when you see him. But standing here in this glade all day pondering over dead bodies isn’t going to get us there, now is it?’ As if he had had quite enough of the wizard for one day and could simply dismiss him at his leisure, the gnome raised himself up haughtily in the saddle and turned his face the other way.
That was a mistake, the prince thought with an inward smile.
Tristan knew that Wigg was angry, but what he saw next quite frankly surprised him. The wizard reached up and yanked the gnome from the horse, using the endowed strength of his arms to hold Shannon in midair. The look in the Lead Wizard’s eyes said that he wanted answers, and he wanted them now.
Wigg glared at the gnome. ‘Faegan isn’t here, and frankly, I’m starting to wonder whether you truly know his location at all! I will ask you one more time, and one more time only,’ Wigg thundered, swinging the gnome back and forth slightly in his endowed, iron grip. ‘What happened here?’
Tristan smiled to himself. He was not sure that the wizard would win this contest of wills. Wigg’s vows prevented him from unnecessarily harming the gnome, and Tristan knew that Wigg would never do such a thing, anyway. But the prospect of wondering who would win this was becoming amusing, despite the circumstances.
‘Except for Master Faegan, I hate wizards, and I hate magic, and above all I hate you! And nothing you can do to me will make me tell. Besides, if you truly do not already know, which I doubt, then I don’t care if you ever find out!’
Finally realizing that this had become nothing but a waste of time, Wigg unceremoniously dropped the gnome into the dirt at his feet. Quick as a flash, Shannon bounded back up and kicked Wigg in the shin – hard. Wigg let out a yelp and jumped to one foot, almost falling down.
Tristan couldn’t help it: he burst out laughing.
‘And let that be a lesson to you!’ Shannon scowled as he walked away in disgust toward the ever-tempting ale jug.
‘We had better get back there before he drinks all the rest of that stuff and becomes drunk again,’ Tristan said, still laughing. ‘We truly do not need a guide who is both obstinate and inebriated. The Afterlife only knows, he’ll probably steal the horses, too!’
Wigg rubbed his shin and scowled back at the prince, placing his foot gingerly back down upon the ground. He cast another angry look back at the carnage in the clearing. ‘I still don’t know who caused this, but at this particular moment, I’m not altogether sure I disapprove!’ He rubbed his sore leg again. ‘I told you I hated gnomes!’ he said grumpily as he started to walk away, his braided tail of gray hair swinging crazily back and forth as it matched his limping gait.
Tristan started laughing out loud again as he began to follow the limping Lead Wizard of the Directorate. He then watched as the imperious, ale-swilling little gnome clambered atop a stump to hoist himself onto Pilgrim’s back, looking for all the world as if he, not Tristan, was now the owner of the stallion.
But the prince couldn’t shake the nagging thought that continued to run through his mind. What happened here was no accident, and Shadowood was supposed to be a place of peace. He shook his head. That obviously is no longer true.
Chapter Sixteen
Kluge looked down at the dead body that was impaled on his dreggan, and then to the pool of crimson blood that was beginning to spread across the ground beneath it. I wish it were the endowed blood of that Eutracian royal bastard, he thought. Raising his right boot, he negligently pushed the corpse off his sword and onto the earth. His opponent had fought well, but had obviously been no match for the commander of the Minions of Day and Night. He doubted in his heart that any of them were. One day the corpse at my feet shall be the prince of Eutracia, he thought. Until he is dead, my mission remains unfulfilled, and Succiu will never be mine.
