by A. Giannetti
THE ROBBERY
On the night planned for the robbery, unaware that any danger threatened, Elerian silently let himself out of doors as he often did as soon when the sun went down. Balbus was sound asleep, and Carbo barely stirred on his bed in front of the fireplace, for he had grown accustomed to his Elerian’s nighttime routine. When Granius and his three confederates stealthily approached Balbus’s house, Elerian was already deep in the forest.
Granius eagerly approached the front door of the farmhouse while the three robbers hid along the wall on either side of it. Unaware of Elerian’s night time outings, Granius expected to find both Balbus and Elerian asleep inside. So bent was he on having his revenge that he cared little if they found any silver or not as long as he was able to do away with Elerian.
At Granius’s heavy knock on the front door, Carbo started awake and began to bark, waking Balbus. As Balbus sat up in his bed, still wrapped in the fog of sleep, Granius began to pound on the door shouting, “Help! Help!” at the top of his lungs. Carbo’s barks became louder and more urgent as he ran down the loft stairs to the front door.
Balbus sprang out of his bed, noting as he did so that Elerian’s bed was empty. “The boy is gone again,” thought Balbus to himself as he ran down the stairs after Carbo. Balbus had discovered some time ago that Elerian was leaving the house at night. It was not something he was entirely comfortable with, so he had never let on to Elerian that he knew.
The pounding on the front door continued unabated. Acting out of caution, Balbus seized his sword before opening the door just enough to see who was pounding on it so violently in the middle of the night. It was dark outside, but Balbus could just make out a face near the door, drawn into lines of desperation and fright.
“Let me in Balbus,” shouted Granius when he saw Balbus’s face appear. “I have been set upon by robbers and half killed by them.”
Balbus recognized the face and voice as those of Granius. Carbo continued to bark fiercely, but Balbus paid him no mind, for the dog and the woodcutter did not much like each other. He did not care for Granius, himself, but he was a softhearted fellow and without stopping to wonder why Granius was abroad at this late hour, he opened the door all the way.
Balbus was taken completely by surprise when Granius suddenly lunged at him, seizing him around the chest with both arms, and wrestling him to the floor. Carbo immediately leaped to defend his master, but a club swept down, wielded by one of the robbers, and with a sickening crack, struck him on the back of the head. The dog fell limply to the floor and did not move again.
Once Balbus recovered from his surprise at being attacked by Granius, he began to struggle furiously. He had dropped his sword, but anger at the attack on Carbo gave him added strength, and despite the difference in their ages, he gave Granius a good fight, twisting his ears until he howled and pummeling his head and shoulders with heavy, punishing blows, but the woodcutter refused to let go his hold on his chest.
Two of the robbers finally seized Balbus by the arms and dragged him farther into the room while Granius spitefully kicked him in the face and side. The third threw Carbo’s limp body outside before closing and locking the door. As they bound Balbus to a chair, Granius drew his knife and motioning one of the robbers to accompany him, rushed upstairs. He had a score to settle with Elerian and supposed the boy was hiding in the loft. The dying fire still cast a dim glow over the room, and it did not take the two men long to determine that Elerian was not there. Hurrying back downstairs, Granius shouted, “The boy is gone. Search the barn before he escapes.” A hasty search was made, but they found no sign of Elerian.
“Where can he have gone?” asked the robber chief of Granius. “If he raises an alarm all of our plans will be ruined.”
“The front door was locked but not barred,” replied Granius who had not heard Balbus lift the bar before opening the door. “He could have let himself out that way before we arrived.”
The robber chief immediately turned to Balbus and struck him heavily in the face, drawing blood from his lips. “Where is the boy,” he demanded harshly.
“I don’t know,” said Balbus without hesitation. He was certain now that Elerian was out in the forest, but he had no intention of giving the robbers that information no matter what they did to him. As long as Elerian was out of harm's way, he cared nothing about his own safety.
“I’ll get him to talk quickly enough,” said one of the other robbers. Methodically, he began to build up the fire in the fire place. When the red flames leaped up, he thrust a poker into their midst, and the pointed tip soon began to take on an orange hue. The bitter smell of hot iron filled the room.
“Talk while you can, old man,” said the robber chief coldly. “Where is the boy?”
“He was asleep when I went to bed,” said Balbus truthfully. “I do not know where he has gone.” As he spoke, his eyes were riveted on the fiery tip of the poker. When the robber took the hot iron out of the fire and advanced toward him with a look of cruel anticipation on his face, sweat broke out on Balbus’s forehead. He could expect no mercy from these men, and he was certain that they would kill him once they gained the information they sought. A way to delay his fate suddenly came to him.
“There is a purse filled with silver under a loose stone in front of the hearth,” said Balbus. “Take it and leave. I promise you there will be no pursuit.”
The poker went back into the fire, and the robbers eagerly searched for the loose stone. When they found it, the chief robber seized the purse and then cursed horribly when he opened it and saw that it was empty. Throwing in onto the floor, he seized the poker from the fire and advanced on Balbus with a malevolent look on his face.
“I will teach you not to trifle with me, old man,” he said with a deadly threat in his voice. Slowly, he advanced the red-hot point of the poker toward Balbus’s left eye until it seemed to fill his whole field of vision, and the heat began to scorch his face and brow. Desperately, Balbus tried to turn his head away, but another of the robbers held his head immobile with strong hands.
Even as the robber chief made to thrust the hot iron into Balbus’s eye, Granius suddenly shouted, “Hold!” Unable to believe the change purse was really empty, he had picked up the discarded purse and thrust his fingers inside. At the touch of smooth metal, he had felt around and drawn out several silver coins which he now threw triumphantly on the table. As the robbers watched in disbelief, he continued to draw out bright silver coins until he had a mound of them piled on the table. At that point, his groping fingers brought out no more coins, and the purse appeared to be truly empty at last.
The robber chief returned the poker to the fire. Taking the purse from Granius, he searched it himself, and confirmed that it was empty before flinging it into the fire. His mood had improved considerably, for there was more than enough silver already on the table to further his ambitions.
“Do not injure the old man yet,” cautioned Granius. “We may need him to lure the boy back into the house. We can’t leave here until the old man and the boy are both dead. That way there will be no witnesses to raise the alarm or carry tales about us.”
“Gag the old man, then,” said the robber chief reluctantly. “We will wait until the boy returns and kill them both at the same time.”
Balbus was quickly gagged, and one of the robbers thought to remove the body of Carbo from in front of the doorway so that Elerian would not see it if he returned. When he opened the door, however, the body was nowhere to be seen.
Some animal dragged it off,” said the robber chief, unconcerned. He was certain the blow from the club had killed the dog, but in this, he was mistaken. After being thrown outside, Carbo had awakened, sorely wounded but still able to stand. Unable to get into the house, he had staggered off to find Elerian. After lifting the latch on the hedge gate with his nose, he painfully made his way through the forest, following Elerian’s scent trail for several miles before finally collapsing when the dizziness, caused by the blow t
o his head, finally overwhelmed him. With a last effort, he raised his head and sent up a mournful howl.
Elerian, who was lazing on a branch not far away, at once stood up. He recognized Carbo’s voice at once and set out to find the dog, wondering how he had gotten out of the farmhouse, for he had locked the door when he went out. He found Carbo lying unconscious and near death. The wound looked to have been inflicted by a club which could only mean that something was dreadfully wrong at the farm. Curbing his impatience to return home, Elerian immediately began to heal Carbo’s wound. When he was done, he was relieved when Carbo opened his eyes and licked his hand. The dog whined uneasily, telling Elerian, as clearly as if he had spoken, that they must return to the farm.
Carbo was still weak from loss of blood, but Elerian easily carried the heavy dog on his shoulders, running all of the way back to the farm. He left Carbo hidden in one of the grape fields, ordering the unhappy dog to wait there until he was called. Stealing quietly up to the house, Elerian looked through the window to the left of the front door, but the shutters were closed and he could see nothing inside.
Something warned Elerian not to enter through the front door, and he stealthily made his way to the small door that gave entrance to the barn. When he whispered an opening spell, the lock clicked open, and the crossbar fell to the floor. Elerian paused for a moment to listen, but no one came to investigate the noise. Silently, he opened the door and walked through the barn. The animals were quiet in their stalls, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary as he opened the door that led to the passageway which connected the barn to the house.
Stealthily, Elerian walked down the passageway and opened the door at the far end just enough so that he could see into the kitchen. The room was empty, but when he cautiously crept across the kitchen and looked out into the common room, his eyes were met by a grim scene. The light of the flickering fire illuminated the forbidding faces of the three robbers who were seated at the table and carefully sharpening their weapons. They were tall, dark men, and Elerian guessed them to be Ancharians. Balbus was tied to a chair by the fire, gagged so that he could not say a word, and blindfolded so that he could not see. Elerian’s eyes widened when he saw Granius impatiently looking out through the partially open front door. How it had come about, he could not imagine, but it appeared that Granius was in league with the robbers. Somehow, Elerian would have to overcome all four men in the room in order to rescue Balbus.
“Are you sure there is nothing more to drink?” asked the robber chief suddenly of one of his men.
“We have drunk every drop,” said the man sullenly. “How much longer must we remain here?”
“We can’t leave until the boy is dead,” insisted the chief. “Once we have gotten rid of him and the old man, Granius can hide the bodies and keep up appearances until we return. It will be easier to deal with the local people if we can fall on them by surprise.”
His answer was met with surly silence, but the question about drink gave Elerian an idea. With silent footsteps, he ran back to the barn. There was a small cask filled with clear well water in a corner, and Elerian took a moment to change its contents to a potent red wine. Carefully, he carried the keg back to the passageway and set it near the kitchen door in a dark corner. Pushing over a shovel leaning against a wall, he ran and hid in the barn.
One of the robbers jumped up immediately when he heard the shovel clatter to the floor. Taking the mage lamp from the kitchen table to light his way, he came into the passageway to investigate. He looked briefly around the empty passageway and saw the fallen shovel. “Probably just a rat,” he thought to himself. “It must have climbed on the shovel and caused it to fall.” As he turned to go back to the kitchen, his eyes were drawn to the cask.
“Here now, where did this come from?” he asked himself in a puzzled voice, for he did not recall seeing the cask before. After lifting the lid and smelling the rich wine within, he soon stopped worrying about its origin. Already more than a little drunk, the scent of the wine drove all thoughts of a further search out of his mind, as he carefully lifted the keg and carried it into the common room.
The others were equally excited over the find. They began to drink again, and it was not long before they were all quite drunk, except for the robber chief who had sense enough not to muddle his wits completely. He looked a grim, dangerous man, and Elerian, who was spying on the robbers again from the kitchen, wondered how best to deal with him. The distance was rather far for a spell, and in any case, there was no way for him to immobilize all four of the robbers at once. Even as tipsy as they were, some of them would surely reach him first, or even worse, do some injury to Balbus before he could prevent it. Their leader worried him, especially, for he still seemed far too alert.
“Can I frighten them away?” he wondered. If he used magic, an illusion might not suffice. He would have to use a shape change, one he was familiar with. The sight of Granius reminded Elerian of the wolf shape he had used to frighten the woodcutters and Tullius. A grim smile slowly spread across his face. He cast his spell, and his form began to flow and grow. A monstrous shape took form in the dark kitchen out of sight of the robbers. It grew until it was barely large enough to fit through the doorway, for Elerian had done his best to make himself as frightening as possible. With a roar that shook the rafters, he suddenly leaped through the kitchen doorway and sprang into the common room. There, he stood for a moment, dimly outlined by the flickering light of the fireplace. The eyes in his huge head glowed like fiery coals, and ropes of saliva dripped from his long, gleaming fangs.
By now, the strong wine had thoroughly clouded the wits of Granius and two of the robbers. Without troubling to ask themselves how a great, slavering monster could have entered the locked farmhouse, they fell over themselves in a rush for the door. After fumbling with the lock, they tore it open, and after a brief moment when the three of them were jammed together in the doorframe, vacated the room without a backward look.
The robber chief rose to his feet, but he made no move to run. He still had enough of his wits about him to be suspicious, and suspected some sort of magic at once, most likely an illusion. Drawing his knife with his right hand, he flung his chair at Elerian’s head with his left hand. With a massive paw, Elerian swept the chair away and growled again, filling all the room with the sound. The chair struck a wall and shattered, causing the robber chief to turn pale under his dark tan. An illusion would not have been able to block the chair, therefore, the fearsome beast before him must indeed be real. His courage did not desert him entirely, however, for he turned to his left and raised his knife, determined to slay Balbus at least before he fled the room after his men. With a desperate leap that carried him across the room, Elerian closed his jaws on the knife blade, wrenching it from the robber’s hand before it could complete its deadly stroke. With a curse, the robber chief fled out the open door.
After taking a moment to make sure that Balbus was unharmed, Elerian pursued the fleeing robbers through the grape fields as far as the gate at the edge of the forest. He could easily have slain all four of them now, for they were clumsy with drink and armed only with knives, but he could not bring himself to do it, even knowing the fate they had intended for him and Balbus. “They can be captured tomorrow and punished properly,” he thought to himself as he broke off the chase after they fled through the gate into the forest.
Satisfied that the robbers would not return any time soon, Elerian became human again and returned with Carbo to free Balbus. As he removed the blindfold and gag, Balbus greeted him with relief. Because of his blindfold, he had not seen what had happened in the room. He listened carefully as Elerian described how he had frightened off the robbers. “You must not tell Tullius that I can change my shape,” added Elerian when he was done. “It might increase the bitterness he feels about the extent of his own powers.”
“I think you are mistaken,” said Balbus. “He would be glad for you, but I will do as you wish.”
A pursui
t was organized the next day, but the robbers had not gone into hiding in the forest as Elerian had expected. They had fled into the east and had a long lead by the time the pursuers found their trail.
“Good riddance to them,” said Balbus when they finally gave up the chase and turned toward their homes once more. A watch was kept for a time, but the robbers and Granius were never seen in those parts again.
Balbus’s purse was burnt up, except for the clasp which had melted in the fire. The silver, too, was gone, for the robber chief had put it into his own purse long before Elerian routed him from the room. Balbus thought it a fair price to pay to see the back of them and was of the opinion that they would not gain any advantage from their stolen money. Such folk did not share well, and it was likely that they would seek to do away with each other in an attempt to increase their share of the silver. Circumstances seemed to bear out the accuracy of his guess, for the robber captain never returned at the head of any outlaw band as he had planned.
LOOSE ENDS
With the disappearance of the robbers, peace reigned in the uplands again, but the story of Granius’s treachery shocked people when it became known. Bad enough that robbers should appear among them, but it was even worse that one of their own would help them. Everyone agreed that uncertain times were upon them. First, the mutare had come from the wild lands to the east and now these renegade Ancharians. What new threat might follow they wondered.
Elerian did not share the general unease, for he was certain that, with the disappearance of his only enemy, the dangerous times were over. Having come so close to losing Balbus, he was now content to resume a quiet life, at least for a while. He played no more pranks, and even the desire to know why the Goblins were a threat to him became less pressing. “Balbus will tell me in due time,” he thought to himself. “In any case, it hardly matters. It is most unlikely that the Goblins will ever return after all this time.” In this he was, of course, mistaken, but that is another story.
