The Hunters

by John Flanagan

  Edvin turned his gaze on the tall first mate. ‘And maybe it won’t.’

  ‘Edvin . . .’ Stefan’s voice was tentative.

  The healer turned to look at him. Edvin was tired and defeated. The brief moment where he thought he might be able to do something positive for Ingvar had passed.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  Stefan made an apologetic gesture. ‘Well, I know you’re the healer . . . I mean, you did the healer training, after all . . .’ he began.

  Edvin interrupted him. ‘Not that it’s done much good.’

  Stefan made a gesture, dismissing the statement.

  ‘But I was thinking, if my mam wanted me to take any herbs or such, like this . . .’ He indicated the smeary mess on Ingvar’s chest. ‘She’d usually make it into a tea and get me to drink it.’

  Stig pointed at the willow bark goo. ‘Would you want to drink that?’

  Stefan shrugged. ‘No. But then, I didn’t want to drink most of the stuff Mam made me.’

  Edvin considered the idea. Hal noted that his face had lost its earlier animation, when Edvin had felt he had something tangible to do for Ingvar. The healer had been disappointed by the lack of success in smearing the willow bark paste onto Ingvar’s chest. He needed to get that enthusiasm back, Hal thought.

  ‘Why not try it, Edvin?’ he said. ‘It can’t hurt.’

  The slightly built boy came to a decision. He rose from his position by the bed and brushed past the group at the doorway.

  ‘Why not?’ he said.

  He returned to the camp fire, the crew straggling behind him. He took more of the bark, mashed it with the pestle and mortar, then infused it in boiling water. Once the water had taken on a pale green tinge, he strained the larger bits of bark from it, pouring it through a piece of clean linen into a cup. He dipped his finger in it and tasted.

  ‘Bitter,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a good sign,’ Jesper said knowingly. They all looked at him. ‘Medicine is supposed to taste bad,’ he explained. ‘The worse it tastes, the better it is for you. Everyone knows that.’

  Hal considered the point for a moment. ‘You know, that’s quite true. I’ve never come across a pleasant-tasting medicine.’ There was a general murmur of agreement from the others.

  Once again, they followed on Edvin’s heels as he returned to the tent. Stig and Hal entered with him, the others clustered at the entrance as before.

  Stig knelt beside Ingvar and raised his head and shoulders so that Edvin could pour the liquid into his mouth. Ingvar spluttered, coughed some of the liquid out, then, as Edvin tilted back his head, he swallowed several mouthfuls before coughing again and spraying more of the bitter liquid down his chest. Edvin put the cup back to his lips and waited while he drained the last few drops. Then Stig lowered the big boy back onto his pillow.

  They watched expectantly. One minute grew into two. Then three.

  ‘Should I keep sponging?’ Stefan asked. Edvin nodded, his eyes fixed on Ingvar. After five minutes had passed, he shook his head sadly.

  ‘Well, it was worth trying,’ he said. ‘Chalk it up as another failure.’

  He rose and left the tent without another word. The others drew aside to let him pass. An uncomfortable silence settled over the group. Finally, Hal broke it.

  ‘Stefan, you’ve been on duty long enough. Who’s your relief?’

  ‘That’ll be me, Hal,’ Jesper said, holding up his hand. Hal nodded to him and he moved inside the tent to take Stefan’s place. Stefan breathed a sigh of relief when he could finally straighten up from his crouched position beside Ingvar.

  They left Ingvar in Jesper’s care and walked in a loose group back to the fireplace. Edvin was standing at the edge of the beach, staring at the sea.

  ‘You know,’ Stig said unhappily, ‘I really thought that was going to work.’

  He began to prepare a simple meal of bread and salted meat, setting aside a portion for Edvin and Jesper. Hal put the coffee pot on to boil again and the five of them sat in miserable silence, eating. None of them had much appetite. None of them believed now that Ingvar could survive another day. The fever was too fierce and his strength was so depleted.

  Their fears seemed to be confirmed less than an hour later. Jesper burst out of the little tent, looking wildly around him.

  ‘Hal! Edvin! Come quickly! Ingvar’s in a really bad way!’

  They all pounded across the sandy grass, fearing the worst. Jesper, totally distraught, ushered Hal and Edvin into the tent.

  ‘He’s taken a turn for the worse!’ Jesper babbled. ‘He looks terrible! It just happened all of a sudden!’

  The others clustered round the entry, jostling to look inside, fearful of what they would see.

  Ingvar was on his back, moaning quietly. The pillow under his head, his jacket and the blanket across him, and the mattress under him, were all totally sodden as perspiration poured out of his body in a flood. Jesper looked at them wildly.

  ‘He’s going to die, isn’t he?’

  It was Edvin who slapped him on the back, almost sending him sprawling across the sweat-soaked figure on the mattress.

  ‘No, you idiot!’ he said happily. ‘He’s going to live. The fever’s broken!’

  ‘The light’s fading. We’ll have to stop soon,’ Lydia said.

  She had been down on one knee in the leaf mould that covered the ground, studying the latest sign of Rikard’s passing. She stood up, brushed the damp bark and leaf fragments from the knee of her tights, and looked up into the tree canopy. Thorn followed her gaze. The light that filtered down through the leaves and branches was much dimmer now.

  ‘Not much point going on if you can’t see his tracks,’ he agreed.

  She nodded. ‘We’ve got maybe another half hour. Then I’ll have to stop. Can’t risk missing his trail in the bad light. We’d have to backtrack tomorrow and that’d cost us more time than we’d save by going on.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Thorn. This was her area of expertise, after all. She’d done a masterful job so far, spotting the small signs that Rikard left behind. Thorn had found himself enjoying watching her at her task. He had a deep respect for people who possessed skills that he didn’t, like Hal’s unerring accuracy as a navigator and his ability to sense wind and tide changes.

  The small signs that she indicated and explained to him were obvious – once they had been pointed out. That was always the case, he knew. It was easy to notice something once somebody else had noticed it for you and drawn your attention to it. He knew that without Lydia, he would have stumbled blindly through the forest, while Rikard moved further and further away from him. That thought prompted a question.

  ‘Are we getting any closer to him, do you think?’

  Lydia paused and looked over her shoulder at him. ‘How would I know?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I thought you trackers could work out stuff like that. Like when you’re following an animal, you poke around its droppings to see if they’re still moist. That sort of thing.’

  She turned fully now to face him and frowned at him, hands on her hips.

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention,’ she said, ‘but, up until now, we haven’t found any of Rikard’s so-called “droppings”. And if we do, I’m certainly not going to go poking around at them. You feel free to do so if you want to,’ she added.

  Thorn looked a little aggrieved. ‘That was just an example.’

  ‘It was a pretty bad one.’

  She turned away and began following the faint signs in the soft forest floor once more. After some twenty metres, her eyes intent on the ground ahead of her, she remarked casually, ‘Have you noticed he’s slowly veering back to the east?’

  Thorn hadn’t. On the deck of a ship at sea, with a clear sight of the sun’s position in the sky, he was able to orient himself instinctively. Here, in the gloom of the forest, with the sun an invisible and indistinct presence, it was a different matter – particularly as the light deterior
ated.

  He glanced now at the nearest trees, looking for the moss that grew on their trunks. Here in the north, it grew thickest on the south side. He realised that she was right. Rikard had been heading due west for some time. Now he had changed direction. The path they were following headed south-east. And as Lydia continued to track him, it veered further to the left.

  ‘You were right,’ she said. ‘He’s heading for Pragha.’

  Thorn grunted. ‘I may have been right,’ he admitted. ‘But I never would have found him. This will take him in a wide loop to get there.’

  She glanced at him with interest. In her experience dominant males – and Thorn was certainly one of those – never admitted that they had made a mistake. Usually they would bluster and rationalise to prove they had really been right. Her regard for the shabby old warrior grew accordingly. He was obviously confident enough in his own abilities to admit to the occasional failing, and to give due regard to others. Knowing Thorn’s penchant for teasing her, however, she decided it would be wiser not to let him know that her respect and affection for him were growing.

  There was a small rivulet in their path and she stepped carefully through it. The water was barely eight centimetres deep. As Thorn went to follow her, she held up a hand to stop him, then pointed to a heel print in the soft mud of the far side.

  ‘I think we are getting closer,’ she told him. ‘There’s water still pooled in this heel print. We can’t be more than two hours behind him. Any more than that and it would have dried out.’

  He stopped in midstream, peering at the wet footprint.

  ‘Is that as reliable as droppings?’ he asked. He couldn’t help the trace of a grin that twitched the left corner of his mouth. She regarded him steadily.

  ‘Maybe not. But it’s a good deal more pleasant to contemplate,’ she said, then gestured for him to complete his crossing of the stream. She looked around. The ground rose for a few metres, then there was a small clearing to one side of the track.

  ‘We might as well camp there,’ she said, indicating the spot. Thorn nodded. They made their way to the space among the trees. There were ferns and long grass covering the ground and they quickly trampled them down to provide a flat area for their camp.

  Although ‘camp’ was perhaps a misleading term. This close to their quarry, they both knew, without any need to discuss it, that there would be no fire. Thorn unslung the small tarpaulin that he carried bundled in a tight roll. He raised his head, sniffing the air experimentally.

  ‘Think it’s going to rain?’ he asked.

  Lydia followed his example. ‘Unlikely.’

  He nodded. ‘I agree. The ground is pretty wet, so we’ll use the tarpaulin under us as a ground sheet. If it does rain through the night, I guess we can just wrap it over us.’

  He spread the waterproof canvas out and they placed their blanket rolls on it. Then he unwrapped the ration pack that Stig had put together for them. As night crept through the forest, they had a frugal dinner of dried meat and fruit and one of the loaves of hard bread. Lydia took a long swig from the water skin, then passed it to Thorn. As he drank, she raised her head and turned to the east. Thorn noticed the movement and lowered the water skin.

  ‘I smell woodsmoke,’ she said. He sniffed the air and nodded. Incredible how far the smell of burning wood could reach, he thought.

  ‘He’s obviously confident that he’s not being followed,’ she said.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he be?’ he replied. ‘Remember, he doesn’t know you’re a tracker. He thinks the rest of us are just sailors and that’s not a skill we have. He’s gone in a long loop to throw any possible pursuit off the trail. Probably thinks that if anyone is trying to follow him, they’re miles away. I imagine he’s pretty pleased with himself.’

  ‘I imagine he’s pretty annoyed that he left that blanket behind,’ Lydia replied. ‘It’s cold and damp in the forest. That’s probably why he lit a fire.’

  ‘More fool him,’ Thorn said, spreading his blanket out and rolling it round him as he lay down, his head pillowed on his folded sheepskin vest. He sighed contentedly and shut his eyes. Lydia regarded him for a few moments.

  ‘Isn’t one of us going to keep watch?’ she asked.

  He replied without opening his eyes. ‘Good of you to volunteer. Wake me in two hours.’

  ‘So, there’s no consideration of the fact that I’m a delicate female?’ she asked.

  ‘None at all. Welcome to equality. Besides, I’m old and I need my rest.’

  She grinned at him as he lay there, eyes shut, rolled in the blanket. As his breathing grew deep and even, she took her own blanket and moved to the side of the clearing. No sense in keeping watch out in the open where she could be easily seen, she thought. It was unlikely that Rikard or anyone else would come looking for them. It was unlikely that he was even aware of their presence. But it never hurt to take precautions and both she and Thorn knew it. She found a fallen tree among the tall ferns and settled down with her back to it, seated on her folded blanket.

  Gradually, the sounds of the forest became more apparent to her. The click of crickets and the thrum of frogs, along with the occasional airy swish of a night-flying bird’s wings.

  Ten minutes passed before she heard a voice from the blanket-wrapped figure on the tarpaulin.

  ‘Delicate female, my backside!’

  They changed places four times through the night. Thorn was on watch when the birds in the forest began to give voice to the fact that dawn was imminent. He watched the sleeping girl, curious to know if that unmistakable portent of the coming day would penetrate her consciousness. Knowing what he now knew of her, and her field craft and stalking skills, he was willing to bet that it would. And he wasn’t disappointed. After a few seconds of the tentative birdsong, Lydia stirred and sat up. Her eyes darted round the clearing and came to rest on Thorn’s shadowy figure, sitting by the fallen tree.

  ‘It’s nearly dawn,’ she said and, when he nodded silently, she continued in an accusing tone. ‘Then you’ve been on watch for over three hours. You should have woken me.’

  He shrugged. ‘No sense in it. I wasn’t sleepy and I thought you could use the extra rest. After all, you are a delicate female.’

  As soon as the light was stronger, they were on the move again. Rikard had settled on a due east direction now and they could follow him more easily. The smell of woodsmoke, which they had noticed the previous evening, was still strong in the air. Although now it was more the smell of dead ashes and embers.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if we come up with him soon,’ Lydia said, keeping her voice low.

  ‘You think he’s a late sleeper?’ Thorn asked, in a similar muted tone.

  She nodded. ‘He wasn’t the fittest specimen I’ve ever seen. He’s overweight and in poor condition. He travelled pretty hard yesterday. And those sea boots of his are heavy and clumsy – a poor choice for hiking through the forest.’

  ‘Sailors don’t go in for hiking,’ Thorn replied. ‘And he was first mate on his ship, so he’d do little of the hard work.’

  ‘What do first mates do?’ she asked.

  ‘They watch other people do the hard work,’ Thorn replied and she turned to look at him, the barest trace of a smile on her lips.

  ‘Sounds like your job description,’ she said.

  He raised his eyebrows haughtily. ‘I can do any of the tasks aboard ship,’ he told her with dignity. ‘I can row. I can tend sails. I can steer. I simply choose not to.’

  ‘I’d noticed,’ she said, and now the smile widened. But he didn’t reply immediately. When he did, he pointed ahead of them, down the track.

  ‘Well, well, who do we have here?’ he said.

  She looked around quickly, and immediately made out the huddled form in a small glade off the left side of the track. It was Rikard, still fast asleep, curled up beside the smouldering remains of a fire.

  ‘Shall we awaken Griselda with the kiss of true love?’ he asked.


  She frowned, uncomprehending. ‘Who’s Griselda?’

  ‘She’s the Sleeping Maiden in a very popular Skandian children’s tale,’ he told her. ‘She needed the kiss of true love to awaken her.’ He gestured towards the snoring figure, inviting her to approach him. She grunted disdainfully.

  ‘You go ahead and kiss him if you like,’ she said. ‘He’s no true love of mine.’

  They had stopped at the sight of him. Now Lydia slid a dart from her quiver and clipped it to the atlatl as she moved stealthily forward. A part of her mind registered the fact that Thorn was keeping pace with her. But he made no sound.

  He’s good at this, she thought, I’m glad he’s on my side.

  In spite of their stealth, however, something alerted the sleeping Rikard. It may have been some sixth sense, some primal awareness of approaching danger, because Lydia was certain they had made no sound. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, looked down the track and saw them, barely ten metres away.

  Then, with a cry of terror, he leapt to his feet and ran.

  Lydia’s action was instinctive. Her right arm went back, the dart and atlatl already in position.

  ‘Don’t kill hi –’ Thorn began.

  But her arm whipped forward and the long dart hissed away through the morning air. It flashed at knee level between Rikard’s legs, tangling between them. The shaft snapped with a loud crack, but it had already done its work, throwing him off balance. He lurched and stumbled, then fell flat on his face. Before he could recover, Thorn was upon him. His wooden hook snagged the front of Rikard’s leather vest. He hauled the pirate to his feet, then hit him with a thundering left, sending him crashing back to the ground once more.

  This time, he stayed down.

  Thorn looked at the two halves of the shattered atlatl dart. Then he shook his head in admiration at the tall, slim girl.

  ‘That was outstanding! Absolutely outstanding!’ he said. ‘Throwing it between his legs to trip him. That was the most amazing cast I’ve ever seen!’

  She hesitated, tempted to accept his unstinting praise. But then honesty got the better of her and she dropped her eyes in embarrassment.