Fred shook his head. "I've never heard the word before."
"But what does your gut tell you? Nothing at all?" Ned prodded.
Fred thought over the question, then shrugged. "Some sort of magician?"
Ned sighed and turned his face away; Fred wondered if he'd said something wrong. "Yes, I suppose that's one way of looking at castors. They're able to perform amazing feats. Some call it magic, others call it tricks. I for one prefer to call it a gift from the gods to be cherished and used wisely."
"So not everyone can be a castor?" Fred asked him. His heart fell when Ned shook his head.
"No, not everyone has the gift, and many who do can only perform simple tricks such as using the pay-dirt." Ned turned back to him and grinned. "There are normal humans who use potions, as you experienced for yourself with that slave seller."
"How do you know if you're a castor? Is there some sort of a test?" Fred wondered.
Ned looked the boy over carefully and pulled at his beard; his eyes twinkled with that mischievous look. "Now why would a simple lad such as yourself be asking that question?"
Fred lowered his head. "I'm just curious, that's all, my lord." He'd forgotten his place with this strange man.
Ned laughed and patted the boy on the back. Fred stumbled forward and nearly fell. "That's one fact Pat got right. I'm not a lord, and am not fond of the title. You call me Ned from now on and nothing else. Well, unless you're mad at me. Then I can't stop you from calling me all sorts of things."
"But you bought me, sir," Fred pointed out.
"With fake money," Ned countered. "You're as good as a freed man, or an escaped serf. If anyone asks, I would take the freed man title. It causes fewer questions and less time in a cell."
Fred blinked. "Freed man?" Never in all his short years would he had expected that title to be confirmed upon himself.
"Yes, and that means you can go anywhere you'd like, though I would advise you to put some distance between your former lord and yourself. He's liable to miss you so much that he'll try to drag you back again if he saw the chance."
"Anywhere I'd like..." Fred glanced up at the sky; the only place he wanted to be right then was in his little hut by the warm hearth.
"It hurts leaving everything you've ever known, doesn't it?" Ned's voice was so soft Fred hardly recognized it. The boy only nodded; he didn't trust himself to speak as tears pooled in his eyes. "Perhaps you were meant to know and see more."
Fred looked back to the ground and shrugged. "I guess, but what am I supposed to do? I don't know a trade, and if I went on to another estate I'd be a serf again."
Ned pulled at his beard and watched the boy. "Well, you could follow us for a while. That is, until we reach a large enough town where you can find work," he suggested.
Fred sighed. "What other choice do I have?"
"Are you two stopping again? We only have a few more hours of daylight!" Pat yelled from her spot far down the road.
Ned chuckled. "It seems she's taken a liking to you, or she wouldn't care that you're falling behind." The old man didn't wait for a reply, but walked forward to catch up.
Fred didn't see it that way, but he hurried after Ned without argument. The three met up and continued on their journey down the dusty road. They passed small farms and large estates, and wandered through villages that were only small huddles of houses. The road wound its way beside the river with only a few dozen yards of lush green grass and large trees that separated the travelers from the water. Here and there the river bent away from the road and made for a nice camp spot. Night was coming on when they stopped at one of those picturesque spots that was comfortably concealed behind a large swath of tall, wild bushes. The grass there was soft, the trees a comfort against any threat of rain, and the hurriedly abandoned campsite was a very interesting mystery.
The three companions stood at the outer ring of a campfire circle and looked about them at the mess. Bags lay torn open over the sitting logs and blankets, spread out for sleeping, were tossed around the whole area. A teakettle lay smashed beside the fire rocks, and there were a few unburnt logs stacked in the pit. Ned bent down beside the prepared logs with Pat behind him, but something out of the corner of his eye caught Fred's attention.
Fred saw marks in the dirt made by the frantic clawing of a man. He followed the marks out of the campfire ring and toward the river, where the man's nails dug into the green grass and tore up clods of mud. The trail led to a tall, wide tree with a large hole in the trunk. The marks ended at the base of the tree, where there was a small pile of bark. Fred stood on the roots to take a look into the hole.
The other two by the fire examined the debris and unused fire. Ned's lips were pursed together and he shook his head. "Whatever attacked these people struck without warning."
Pat noticed a boot laying not far from the fire and picked it up. "Yes, but what do you-ah!" She screamed and dropped the boot. Fred and Ned whipped their heads up and around at the girl, who pointed a quivering hand at the boot. Her face was pale and she stuttered out her words. "T-there's a foot in there!"
Fred's face lost its color, but Ned stood up and walked over to the boot. He carefully lifted the clothing item and glanced inside; his face grew more grave. "It seems we have a larger problem than I guessed."
Fred trembled and froze; the problem with his trembling was that he hadn't moved. He heard a noise behind him and slowly turned his head back to the tree. His eyes widened when a pair of large, unknown eyes stared back at him from the trunk, and the limbs bent down to grab at him. The tree was alive, and the hole he stood in front of was the mouth. Fred screamed and lost his grip on the trunk. He fell back onto the ground among roots that tore from the ground and tried to grab at him. He kicked and dodged, and managed to roll out of their reach toward the fire pit.
Ned and Pat rushed forward and helped Fred to his feet, where he turned around and his mouth dropped open. The tree tore itself out of the ground and stretched its limbs high above the foliage on its head. The mouth let out a great roar and its roots burst up beneath the companions' feet. Ned and Pat avoided the clinging plant, but Fred didn't snap out of his stupor quick enough. A root tangled itself around one of his legs and pulled him off his feet. He had the wind knocked from his lungs, and he didn't have time to recover before he was dragged along the dirt to the creature. He reached the tree and was lifted off the ground, his back scraped up and his shirt torn. He twisted and turned in midair, but couldn't catch onto anything.
The tree crashed its way toward the other two and Pat pulled out her sword. The blade shone in the fading sunlight and she stood ready for a fight. At the sight of the slicing weapon the creature screamed in anger and its branches barreled down on the pair. Ned deflected the branches with his staff while Pat cut into them. The sliced branches spewed out green slime and covered them both with its blood. Their efforts kept the monster at bay, but did nothing to help Fred. The creature whipped him about like a rag doll.
They had another problem, the pair were getting tired. Pat realized she couldn't keep up the swinging of her sword for much longer, and turned to Ned. "Ned, your staff!" Pat shouted to him.
The old man was making a game of dodging the branches and pounding them into the ground where they stuck. "But you advised me to use it less," he countered.
Pat sliced another large branch and a smaller one caught her foot. She trapped the tip beneath her free foot and sliced it off. "Forget what I said! Just use the damn thing!"
The pair jumped apart to avoid a massive branch that pounded the ground where they'd just stood. They picked themselves up and hurried out of the way as the roots tried to grab them and pin them to the ground. Ned looked over his shoulder at Pat. "But I must show restraint!"
"Forget restraint, just burn this tree!" she shrieked.
Fred yelped when the creature twirled him around its head and raised him high above the ground. It meant to slam him down against the dirt which would have been the end of him. Ned p
ointed the top of his staff toward the creature, and a jet of fire spewed from the tip of the wood. The stream of flames hit the tree creature and lit the bark on fire. The creature roared with pain and anger, and dropped Fred the dozen feet to the ground. Pat slipped her arms beneath his and dragged him off while he pushed with his feet to scurry away. They watched the uneven fight between castor and tree from a safe distance.
The fire spread along the creature's branches and leaves. The flames consumed every part of its trunk, but not before the creature turned and vented its fury on Ned. The old man jumped back when the large limbs crashed down where he'd stood. Ned's face took on a seriousness Fred had never before seen; the mouth thinned to a narrow line and his eyebrows crashed down over hard eyes. Ned raised his staff into the air and a great wind swept up around him. The gales fanned the flames of the fire and the creature gave a final roar before it collapsed to the ground. The earth shook, and then there was only the sound of crackling flames.
Fred and Pat moved over to stand on either side of Ned, and they all watched the flames rise up into the sky as night came down on them. Ned wiped his brow, straightened himself, and glanced between his companions. "It makes for a very nice fire, doesn't it?"
CHAPTER 7
With the creature gone, and after they'd cleared and buried the remains of the campsite's previous occupants, the three settled down beside the burning tree. Fred leaned on his side close by the fire with his head on a piece of wood he used as a pillow. His shirt was pulled off and Ned and Pat were looking at his back. The skin was covered in flesh wounds caused by the grass and dirt, and deep gashes from a few loose rocks. Ned reached out and tapped on one of the gashes that was closed up with blood. Fred flinched.
"Did that hurt?" Ned asked him.
"Just a little," Fred replied through gritted teeth.
Pat shook her head. "This is what you deserve for getting curious again," she commented. "At this rate your curiosity is going to get us killed."
Fred whipped his head around and glared at her over his shoulder. "I was just looking around like you two and-"
Ned softly put a hand on Fred's shoulder. "Wait a moment. His curiosity saved us here, otherwise the creature may have waited for nightfall and attacked us in our sleep." He nodded at the disturbed dirt where they'd buried what they found of the campsite's previous occupants. "That's probably what happened to them."
Fred relaxed and put his head back down; Pat turned away. The boy sighed. "So how bad is it back there?" he asked his two companions.
"Time will heal them, but until then you will be very uncomfortable," Ned replied.
Fred shifted his weight and winced when his wounds protested. "Great..." he mumbled.
Ned opened up his cloak and pulled out a few bags; Pat sniffed the air. "Herbs?" she guessed, and Ned nodded. "Did you have a specific medicine in mind?"
"Just one to comfort him and keep the sickness from his wounds," Ned told her.
Pat opened her mouth, shut it, and then opened it again. "Did you want me to do it?"
Ned turned to her with a raised eyebrow. "Are you sure? He deserves a gentle hand."
"I'm pretty sure I can handle that," she assured him.
Fred heard their conversation and looked back at them. "What? What's going on?"
Ned handed the bags to Pat and stood up; there was a mischievous smile on his face. "I leave you to your nurse, Fred."
"Nurse?" Fred was alarmed and glanced over to Pat; she may have saved him, but he didn't trust her to gently touch his wounds. "Why can't you do it?"
Pat scowled and crossed her arms. "What's wrong with me?" she countered.
"Well, it's just, I don't know, you hate me," Fred pointed out.
Pat rolled her eyes and set to work with the two bags of herbs. "That doesn't make me bad at medicine," she replied.
Ned toddled off to tend to the fire, and left the pair to their bickering. Seeing he had no choice but to agree to her as his doctor, Fred turned away in a huff. Pat mixed the ingredients into a paste and dipped her finger into the medicine. She took a glop of the stuff and softly applied it to the wounds. Even with her careful hands Fred flinched away from the pain. "It's okay. This won't take long," she soothed.
"I feel like I've been raked over by a rake..." Fred muttered.
"Have you ever been hit by a rake like that?" she asked him.
Fred shrugged; bad move. His body pulsed with pain and he ground his teeth together. "A couple of times, when some of the other men had too much alcohol."
Pat frowned and paused with her finger in the bowl of paste. "That's horrible. Didn't you ever try to tell your lord?"
"You saw my lord, he's not exactly a caring guy," Fred replied. "So I was told to solve my own problems."
"And you never thought of leaving that place, even to escape such treatment?"
Fred sighed; the paste calmed his wounds and he was finally able to relax his body. "You can't leave places like those. You're not allowed to leave without permission, and if they catch you they drag you back like he tried at the town," he told her. "Then you're given lashings and extra work. I've seen it. They whip you until your back is soaked with blood and your hanging there by your wrists, too weak to stand. The knights made big men weep like babies."
Pat shuddered at such a picture; it must have made a stinging mark on Fred's memory. "So you've really never been from that estate? Not even with your lord's permission?" she wondered.
"Never." Fred shifted and was glad when the gashes didn't freeze up his body with pain. He glanced over his shoulder. "But you've been to a lot of places, haven't you? At least, you seem to know your way around people, and dealing with that monster."
Pat smiled and shook her head. "I've never been very far from my home, either. I just read a lot of books so I know what's out here."
Fred blinked. "Really?"
"Really," she replied.
"Oh." He looked to Ned in the distance. "So how long have you been with him?"
Pat put the remaining paste on his wounds and wiped her finger on her pants. "Only a few weeks. He's taking me to-well, to where I need to go."
"So he's not your grandpa or anything?" Fred asked her.
Pat cringed and furiously shook her head. "No way. He's just a guard, someone to protect me."
"Protect you? Are you in some sort of danger?"
Pat laughed. "I will be if you keep finding trouble for us. If you get any better at it you're going to lead us right into-well, into something worse."
Fred frowned. "Is there something wrong with where you two are going?"
The girl stood up and tossed his raggedy shirt onto him. "No, but don't ask any more questions so I don't have to lie."
Pat walked off to help with dinner, leaving Fred very ill at ease. He wondered what sort of a mess he'd been dragged into, and how to get out of it. There was Ned's suggestion about going their separate ways at the next town. If his companions remained secretive then he'd take up that offer and leave them. The night passed without incident and day broke to find Fred in much better condition. He received another plaster cast of paste, but he had a problem with his lack of shirt. That was solved by a show of kindness from Pat.
"Here, you can have my cloak," she offered, and tossed the clothing to him.
He barely caught it because his eyes were on her; this was the first full view of her body he'd seen. The armor he'd seen over her chest and leggings also covered her forearms, and at her waist on the opposite side of her sword was a pair of leather gauntlets. He saw a hint of chain metal beneath her breast plate, and there was a hood in the back made of the same metal.
Pat glared at his intense gaze. "What? Have you never seen a girl dressed as this?" Fred didn't remove his eyes from her, but he shook his head. Pat grabbed the remains of his shirt and pulled them over herself. The front and her arms were covered, though the back had the holes from his dragging. The spell was broken; Fred was released from his staring.
"Let's be
off, children," Ned called out to the two.
They returned to the road and set off to their next destination. Ned fell behind to Fred and looked the boy over. "If you expect to protect this damsel then you're going to need a weapon," Ned told him.
The old man's words jolted Fred from his ogling of her back. "Protect? Why am I protecting her?" He was slightly panicked by the suggestion; this pair ran into trouble at every turn and the villains were getting worse.
"Think of it as a trade for our feeding you until we reach the next town," Ned replied.
Fred gestured to Pat, who glanced back suspiciously at the quiet pair. "She has a sword, she can handle herself,. I'm just a serf. The worst I've had to deal with are some angry gophers," he protested.
Ned ignored the boy and dug into his cloak. He pulled out a stick about two feet long. The top six inches were broken off and hung only by a thread of the leather wrapped around the entire pole. Ned admired the stick with a strange, almost sad look in his eyes before he held it out in front of Fred. "I think this will work perfectly for you."
Fred looked at the old man like he'd gone senile. "A stick? You expect me to protect somebody with a stick?"
"A broken stick," Ned corrected him. He pushed the stick against Fred's chest and let go; the boy instinctively grabbed it before it dropped to the ground. "And mind you keep good care of that. It belonged to an old friend of mine and I wouldn't want anything to happen to it."
"Then why did you give it to me to fight with?" Fred asked him in panic.
"Because you're supposed to keep care of it when you do fight with it," Ned scolded the boy.
"Maybe you should keep it," Fred insisted. He held it out for Ned to take, but the old man pushed it back against Fred's chest. The boy pushed against him. "She doesn't need anyone else to protect her when you're around," he pointed out.
Ned frowned and leaned in toward him. "But what if I'm not around, hmm? What then? Could she handle herself alone? Could you handle watching her fight alone with nothing to help her-"
The Unwilling Adventurer (The Unwilling #1) Page 5
