by GARY DARBY
While I’m getting my breath back, Fotina comes over to check on Helmar, then turns to go back to where Desma still writhes on the ground. While Master Boren and Amil help Cara with Helmar, I decide to follow behind Fotina.
We both stop just outside the circle of Amazos. I glance around, touch her arm and whisper, “Where’s Alonya?”
Fotina juts her chin toward the grotto. “She and several of the other warriors are checking the cave, seeing if it’s fit to occupy for the remainder of the night.”
Just then, I hear Phigby order, “Krista, I’ll need wood for a fire.”
He turns, spies me and tosses the water flasks to me. Without a word, I scurry away. By the time I’ve got the water skins filled again, I see that the whole party is moving toward the grotto. With flasks in hand, I’m the last inside the cave.
Moments later, Phigby has a small fire going, and I hurry over with the flasks. I take one look at Desma and almost forget what I’m doing.
She has an arrow that’s managed to slice between where her chest and back plate meet at the shoulder, and another arrow in her leg. But it’s her face that I stare at.
Desma’s foaming and gurgling at the mouth. She thrashes about, her arms and legs flailing as if she has no control over her limbs. Her whole body shudders while she chokes with each breath. I hold the leather skins out for Phigby and he motions for me to pour water into a pan.
I pour until he pulls the pot away and sets it by the fire. “Phigby,” I whisper in his ear, “has she got a Worm—”
“No,” he snaps. “One or both of the arrows had Pison Berry on it. Now be quiet and let me work.”
My eyebrows rise. Phigby holds out another pot, and I pour until he pulls it away, and sets it by the fire.
He glances over at Krista, who’s kneeling by Desma. “She needs to be held down, arms, legs and especially her head so that I can get this liquid down her without spilling.”
Krista gestures to several Amazos, who kneel and hold tight to Desma’s legs and arms. Krista swings around and holds Desma’s head gently, but firmly with her hands.
Phigby pulls the first steaming pot away from the fire. He swishes it around for several moments, puts a finger in to test its warmth and then nods.
“It’s ready,” he announces. To Krista he orders, “Pull her chin down and don’t let go until I tell you to.”
As Krista pulls Desma’s chin down, Phigby reaches over, squeezes her nose shut and begins to pour a greenish-appearing liquid into her mouth. She fights him for a few moments before she swallows, once, twice, three times until the pot is empty.
He then orders, “Get her armor off.”
In short work, her breastplate, shoulder shields, and girdle is off to one side, and Phigby goes to work on the embedded arrow in the shoulder. Swiftly, Phigby has the scarlet bolt out, and pours the second pot’s contents into and over the wound.
With practiced hands, Phigby then applies a thick, gooey salve over the wound and with Krista’s help, bandages the whole of the shoulder tightly.
He turns to the leg wound and repeats the process. Once the leg is securely bandaged, he sits back and wipes sweat off his brow.
Motioning to Desma, Phigby takes a deep breath and says to Krista, “Neither arrow went in all that deep. The wounds themselves should heal quickly.”
“The poison?” Krista asks.
Phigby shrugs and says, “I’ve done what I can. We should know by daybreak whether I was able to stem the poison’s work.”
He wipes more beads of sweat off and mutters, “But you need to know that even if I have, she’s going to be weak for a time. Don’t expect her to walk very far or very long.”
“Then we’ll carry her,” Krista growls.
Master Boren joins us and says, “It would not be wise to leave the dragons outside. Too easy for the Wilders to see. May we bring them in?”
He gestures toward a dark section of the grotto. “We’ll put them in that alcove.”
Krista hesitates, then motions to go ahead and at a nod from Master Boren, I join him in ushering the dragons into the cave.
The overhang is high, but the dragons have to duck their heads to pass under the rock archway. As the Amazos watch with wary eyes, we herd them off to one side, where they settle down in the deep shadows of a large, rounded niche in the cave.
After Master Boren and I get the sprogs lowered to the ground they waddle off toward a second fire that Phigby started near where Helmar lies.
As Master Boren follows the sprogs, I murmur to the golden, “Scamper?”
“Stream,” she whispers back.
“Of course,” I mutter to myself.
I make my way back to our tiny, but welcome campfire where Phigby first tends to the other wounded Amazos before he treats Alonya and Fotina.
As he’s emptied the water flasks, again, I make a third trip to the stream. Scamper is prowling the banks, but I can tell by his frustrated chittering that he’s come up empty-handed.
I trudge back with the leather containers and find Phigby kneeling next to Helmar. I hand the leather skin to Cara so that Helmar can drink. She accepts it without a word to me and turns back to help Phigby.
Master Boren, who sits close to his daughter, gives me a curt nod as if in thanks.
I back away and find a place next to the fire, close to Alonya and Fotina. Alonya has her eyes on Desma, her expression troubled, questioning.
I understand why.
What do you say, what do you think when you suddenly meet yourself in the middle of nowhere? And more troubling, to find that you may be a princess of Golian, a daughter of the reigning queen.
A queen who thinks nothing of murdering innocents just to preserve her power.
As if she’s reading my thoughts, Alonya turns to Fotina and mutters, “Fotina, you must tell me. Desma and I, how is it that—”
Fotina’s response is swift, abrupt, and her words terse, commanding. “Say no more.” She hesitates before speaking so low that I can barely hear her. “Trust me, I will explain, just not now, and definitely not here.”
I can see that Alonya is struggling with Fotina’s answer. So would I in her place. I glance over at Desma. She and Alonya are so alike in face and body, but yet so different in temperament.
Could they really be sisters? A dozen questions pour through my head, buzzing around like a swarm of mosquitoes but after Fotina’s sharp response to Alonya, I hold my tongue.
Still, the questions swirl around and I have the feeling that I’m not the only one in our company with such thoughts.
One princess seemingly nurtured by the queen in their capital city, the other reared by someone who appears to be a commoner out in the hinterlands.
Why?
I turn to Alonya who’s gone back to silently studying the wounded Desma and ask, “Your wounds?”
Alonya gives Desma one last look before she brings her injured leg around and grimaces. “This grows stiff now that I’m not using it, and the other wounds are nothing in comparison. But I think it will be a few days before I am ready to outrun a pursuing pack of Vargs.”
“Well,” Amil grunts to Alonya, “I hope that it will be many days before any of us have to do that again.”
Alonya nods at him with a little smile. “Yes, we’ll just let my wounds heal by lopping off troll heads or sending an arrow shaft through a Wilder.”
Amil and I exchange looks and I can see in his eyes that he’s thinking the same as I. We have two mysteries on our hands. First, Alonya and Desma, are they really sisters along with all that that portends?
Secondly, trolls and Wilders acting as though they were of the same mind? Unheard of in the past.
I wait but no one speaks so I take matters in my own hands. “None of you are saying it, but you’re all thinking the same thing. Was it by accident that those trolls and Wilders found us at the same time or—”
“Were they somehow brought together?” Amil finishes.
“I’ve never
known trolls and Wilders to fight together against a common foe,” Fortina states.
“Nor I,” Amil agrees.
“Nor perhaps have any of us until tonight,” Phigby declares as he leaves Helmar and joins us by the fire. “Trolls are as much of an enemy to the Wilders as they are to us, or at least that’s the way it’s been until now.”
He glances around, the fire catching the hardness in his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? First, a Varg pack that’s swelled in size to ten times their usual numbers attack and chase us through the forest.
“Then, a deluge that destroys Fotina’s and Alonya’s hidden valley. Now, trolls and Wilders together trying to spring a surprise trap against us.”
“Vay,” I breathe.
“It’s the only answer,” Phigby affirms. “Only, what saved us tonight was that neither the trolls nor the Wilders knew about Desma and her Amazos. If they hadn’t been there just then—”
“We know, Phigby,” Amil returns, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“That’s right,” Phigby grumps as he pulls at his beard and peers at Desma. “An unholy alliance between troll and Wilder,” he muses as he stares at the fire.
Then, as if another thought had entered his mind, his eyes narrow and he swings his gaze to peer at the Golian princess intensely. “Vay’s influence is growing, no doubt there may be other such alliances in the making.”
He pauses, his eyes still on Desma and then murmurs, “One has to wonder just how far Vay’s influence has reached?”
20
Unholy alliances. The thought sends a small shudder through me. “You mean,” I murmur to Phigby, “that if Vay is able to do that with the Wilders and trolls, she can bring other evil beings together to hunt us down? Like goblins and ogres and witches and—”
“Yes, yes, Hooper,” Phigby answers in an impatient tone. “But not just those. I told you that this was the eighth epoch, the time when magic would come again to our world, and with it, enchanted and mystical creatures of all sorts would slip through the otherworld door. Beckoned to our world by the four fairy queens to do battle for and against us.”
“Otherworlds,” I swallow. “You mean, magical beings like in that book of yours.”
“Exactly like in that book of mine,” he answers.
“But,” Amil points out, “not all creatures from the other side are necessarily evil, isn’t that right?”
“And thank the heavens above,” Phigby acknowledges, “that it is so or we would be surely doomed. There is a balance in the otherworld that must be maintained, so for every evil creature that lurks there—”
“There is another,” Amil answers while nodding as if to himself, “whose spirit does not lend itself to the dark ways.”
“Exactly,” Phigby affirms.
Just then, an Amazos approaches us with what appears to be a few brown bricks in her hands. “Krista says that since you helped the princess, and fought the trolls and Wilders we should at least share our rations, but this is all that we can spare.”
She unceremoniously tosses them into Fotina’s lap. “You’ll have to split them as best as you can among yourselves.”
Phigby bows his head and says, “We thank you for your generosity.”
The giant shrugs and turns away, her kilt almost the color of the flames that flicker in our small fire.
Fotina holds up one of the blocks that’s as big as her hand and announces, “Warrior Bread. Not a meal of roasted duck and pork, covered in apple and plum sauce, but filling if nothing else.”
She hands me a loaf and motions toward Cara. I nod in understanding and trundle over to hold the biscuit out to Cara. “The Golians call it Warrior Bread. You’ll have to share among the three of you, but you might want to be careful when you bite into it, it feels as hard as a rock.”
Cara doesn’t accept my offering but keeps dabbing at Helmar’s forehead and cheeks. Master Boren reaches for the ration instead and nods his thanks.
I go back to sit by Amil and Phigby. Fotina hands me a small piece of biscuit and just as she does, Scamper shoots through the cave’s opening, bounds over and squats on his hind legs, his nose held high in the air.
Amazing how he does that, I think to myself, he always seems to know when food is around even if he’s been off on his own hunt.
I try to split off a piece of my portion to give to him but find that my fingers aren’t up to the task.
Alonya smiles at my futile efforts and breaks off a small piece of her biscuit. She tosses it to Scamper while saying, “I know, little one, you not only have a ferocious temperament but a ferocious appetite as well.”
Scamper takes Alonya’s offering, promptly rolls on his back at my feet, holds the hard bread in all fours, and begins chomping away with zeal.
Watching Scamper’s antics, several Golians start murmuring among themselves and watch with keen interest.
My eyes flick between the muttering Amazos. Seeing my worried expression, Fotina leans over to say, “They’ve never seen an Anarsi with a Drach like this before. It puzzles them.”
“Uh, I hope not in an angry way,” I reply, my eyes never leaving the Amazos.
She shakes her head. “No, Hooper, they may do with us as they will, but be assured, that they would never hurt your Scamper.”
I sniff my piece of biscuit and ask Fotina, “What’s this made of, anyway?”
Fotina eyes me and says, “Give me your piece back. Only someone who is not hungry enough would ask such a question. I’ll eat your portion and be grateful that I won’t go hungry tonight.”
“Never mind,” I mutter. “I’m hungry enough.”
I take a bite of my biscuit, or rather; I try to take a bite. I would have just as much luck munching on a rock, I think.
Phigby laughs lightly at my effort to chew off a piece of the hard tack. “Would you prefer one of my boots instead, they’re a bit softer.”
“No thanks,” I answer as I grind my teeth on one corner of the loaf. “I’ll just do like Scamper and keep gnawing away. Sooner or later, I’ll break off a bite-sized piece—or crack a tooth in the effort.”
Amil has managed to chew off a small portion. Around the sound of hard crunching, he says, “Look at it this way, Hooper, by the time you finish with your slice, the morning sun will just be rising, and it’ll be time for breakfast.”
I finally gnaw off a piece and start chewing. I decide Amil’s right, by the time I’m done, it will be close to daybreak. The four sprogs waddle over and plop down in front of me, their eyes watching my every chew and swallow.
Munching a bit more, with the bread making a grinding sound against my teeth, I begin to think that maybe I should have taken Phigby up on his offer.
Once in your mouth, a Golian trail ration feels like you’re chomping on pebbles and tastes like tree bark; and not very good tree bark at that.
I finally get one mouthful down and gnaw off another piece. The second is like the first and my jaw muscles are starting to cramp from having to chew so hard.
The sprogs continuously flick their hungry eyes between me and Scamper, who refuses to share, so I hold out what’s left of my bricklike biscuit to Alonya. “Would you mind breaking this into four pieces, please?”
She snaps the loaf in half, then half again. I hand one piece to each sprog. As usual, Regal gets into a tussle with Glow as the purple tries to claim two pieces of biscuit for his own.
Separating the two, each with his own portion, I set them by the fire where they settle down to chew contentedly on the plain cake.
I glance over at Cara who’s still tenderly ministering to Helmar. I lean over to Phigby and ask, “Was Helmar able to tell you how he managed to escape from the Wilders and how he got wounded?”
Phigby wrinkles his brow and brushes a few fragments of the Golian hard cake from his beard. “Some,” he answers. “You see, just before Helmar left to draw the Wilders away, I gave him a Sun Dog Amulet.”
“A Sun Dog Amulet?” I question b
efore he can go further with the story.
Phigby nods in answer. “When held up to the sun, it causes the one holding the talisman to suddenly appear as if there are dozens, sometimes hundreds of him in all directons.
“All illusions, of course, except for the one real person who could be anywhere within the mirage. But anyone looking at the deception can’t for a certainty know which is the actual person for they all appear real.”
He pauses and then continues. “Helmar told me that he was able to get the Wilders to chase him, just as we wanted. He led them quite a distance until another flight of Wilders spotted him and joined the chase.
“It wasn’t long before there was a third force, only this one came from a new direction to box him in. At that point, he turned Wind Glory up through the clouds. Once he broke into the clear, he held the amulet up along with his sword.”
He chuckled as if to himself before saying, “It worked perfectly. He said that suddenly there were dozens upon dozens of sword-wielding Helmars riding a host of sapphires everywhere, his own little army to confront the Wilders.
“You can imagine the stunned expressions on the Wilder faces when they broke clear of the clouds. Where they had been pursuing one before, now there were ten times their own numbers each armed with sword and bow.”
Phigby pauses to pull at his beard and stare at the small fire. “The Wilders turned away, but not before some of them let loose a hail of arrows at their illusionary adversary.
“Of all the bad luck, one caught Helmar. Fortunately, the Wilders were under the clouds and didn’t see that they’d somehow wounded all of those dozens of Helmars, or they would have surely recognized it as a trick and turned back.
“Being the brave man he is, he waited until he was sure that the Wilders were gone before he turned Wind Glory toward the mountains.”
“Sun Dog Amulet,” I ponder and then ask, “More alchemy?”
“No,” he returns, “but it’s amazing what several mirrors arranged just so within a jeweled box can do with sunlight.”
“Incredible,” Amil replies with just a touch of awe. “But how did Helmar make it here? He didn’t know our exact trail.”
