Enchanted Pilgrimage (5 page)

A hearth stood to one side of the cavity. There was a table and chairs. Bins and cabinets stood against the walls.

“Hello,” a voice said from behind him, and he turned on his heel, his hand going to the knife at his belt. On the edge of the bed sat a wizened creature with big ears. He had on tattered leathern breeches and an old bottle-green jacket over a crimson shirt. He wore a peaked cap.

“Who the hell are you?” asked Hal. “You have your nerve.”

“I am the goblin of the rafters from Wyalusing University,” said the creature, “and my name is Oliver.”

“Well, all right,” said Hal, relaxing, “but tell me, what are you doing here?”

“I came to see you,” said the goblin, “and you weren't home. I am nervous in the open. You see, a rafter goblin—”

“So you came inside to wait. Lucky for you Coon wasn't around. He'd took you out of here.”

“Coon?”

“A big raccoon. He and I are friends. He lives with me.”

“Oh, a pet.”

“No, not a pet. A friend.”

“You going to throw me out?”

“No, you startled me, was all. You hungry?”

“A little,” said the goblin. “Have you a bit of cheese?”

“No cheese,” said Hal. “How about some cornmeal mush? Or an apple dumpling?”

“The cornmeal mush sounds good.”

“All right, then, that will be our supper. I think there still is milk. I get my milk from a woodcutter. Long way to carry it, but he is the nearest with a cow. Maple syrup for sweetening.”

The goblin rolled his eyes. “It sounds wonderful.”

“I'll stir up the fire. I think there still are coals. You're a long way from home, Master Goblin.”

“I have traveled long and far,” the goblin said. “My feet are sore and my spirit bruised. There is so much outdoors, and I am unused to space.”

Hal went to the hearth and stirred the ash. In its heart was a glow of red. He laid some tinder on it and, bending down, blew on the coals. A tiny flame flickered momentarily, went out, then caught again. Hal fed it tiny twigs.

He squatted back on his heels. “There, now,” he said, “we have a fire. There's corn to bring in, but that can be done later. Perhaps you will help me.”

“With all my heart,” said Oliver.

Hal went to a cupboard, took out a mixing bowl and wooden spoon. From a bin beneath the cupboard he spooned cornmeal into the bowl.

“You say you came to see me.”

“Yes, people told me, go see Hal of the Hollow Tree. He'll know, they said, everything that's going on. He knows the woods and all that happens in it. A woodcutter told me how to find the tree. Maybe he was the one who had the cow, although I did not see a cow.”

“What do you want to ask me?”

“I am hunting for a man,” the goblin said. “A scholar by the name of Cornwall. I had word he was traveling with a pack train that had hearded north. It's important that I find him.”

“Why important?”

“Because he is in danger. In much greater danger than I had thought.”

8

The sun had set, but even here, among the trees, darkness had not fallen. The sky in the west was bright. Dusk was creeping in, but there still was light.

Gib hurried. He still had a mile or more to go, and at this time of year night came swiftly. The path led downhill, but he must go cautiously, on guard against stones or projecting roots that could trip him up. He had stopped briefly at the gnomes' mine to tell Sniveley that the hermit was dead but had passed up the offer to stay overnight since he was anxious to get home. The gnomes, he knew, would swiftly spread the word of the hermit's death and would add a caution against tampering with the boulder wall, which, closing the mouth of the cave, had transformed it to a tomb.

The dusk had deepened as he came down the last stretch of the path before he struck the pack-train trail, and as he began the descent to it, he became aware of snarling. The sound sent a thin chill of terror through him and he halted, straining his ears—now that it was gone, not completely sure he had heard a snarl. But even as he halted, there was another prolonged sound—half snarl, half growl—and other sounds as well, the ghastly sound of teeth tearing at something, a tearing and a slobbering.

Wolves!
he thought. Wolves at a kill. Almost instinctively he yelled as loud as he could, a fierce yell and, lifting his ax, charged down the path. It had been, he knew when he later thought of it, the only thing he could have done. To have tried to retreat, to have tried to go around them, no matter how stealthily, would have been an invitation to attack. But now he did not think at all; he simply yelled and charged.

As he burst out of the heavy undergrowth that grew on either side of the path, onto the trail, he saw what had happened. One look was enough to understand what had happened. There were huddled bodies, the bodies of men and horses, on the trail itself. And on either side of it and crouched over the bodies, fighting over the bodies, was a pack of wolves, great, slavering creatures that swung around to face him or lifted their heads from their feasting to face him.

And something else—a single man, still alive, on his knees, his hands gripping the throat of a wolf, trying to hold it off.

With a scream of fury Gib leaped at the wolf, ax held high. The wolf tried to break away; but the kneeling man's deathlike grip on its throat held the wolf anchored for the moment it took for the ax to crash into its head, to cleave deep into the skull. The wolf fell and lay, its hind legs kicking in reflex reaction, while the man slumped forward and fell on his face.

Gib swung around to face the rest of the pack. They backed away a pace or two but otherwise held their ground. They snarled at him and one, to the side, slunk forward a step or two. Gib took a quick step toward him, flourishing the ax, and the wolf retreated. There were, he saw, eight or ten of them; he did not really count them. They stood as tall as he did, their heads on a level with his head.

The standoff situation, he knew, would not hold for long. Now they were measuring and assessing him, and, in a little time, they would make up their minds and come in with a rush, knocking him off his feet, overwhelming him. It would do no good to turn and run, for they'd simply pull him down.

He did the one thing he could do. With a wild yell, he rushed them, lunging toward the slightly larger, more grizzled one he took to be the leader of the pack. The big wolf, startled, turned, but the ax caught him in the shoulder and sheared through it. Another wolf was coming toward Gib and he spun swiftly to meet it, chopping a short arc with his ax. The blade caught the charging monster in the face and the wolf collapsed in its lunge and went skidding to the ground, flopping loosely as it fell.

Then the pack was gone. They melted into the dark underbrush and there was no sign of them.

Still gripping his ax, Gib turned to the man who had been fighting off the wolf. He gripped him by his shoulders and lifted him, swinging him around so that he was on the path that led down to the marsh. The man was heavy. But the worst was over now. The path sloped sharply, and he could haul him to the water if the wolves did not come back too soon. They would come back, he knew, but there might be time. He backed down the slope, tugging at the man. He reached the sharp pitch that led down to the water and gave a mighty heave. The man's body flopped and rolled, splashing into water. Backing out into the marsh, Gib hauled the man after him and hoisted him to a sitting position. Here, for the moment, he knew, the two of them were safe. It was unlikely the wolves, with so much feasting left to them on the trail, would follow. Even if they did, they would hesitate to come into the water.

The man lifted an arm and pawed at Gib, as if he might be trying to fight him off.

Gib gripped his shoulder and shook him. “Try to stay sitting up,” he said. “Don't fall over. Don't move. I'll get my boat.”

The boat, no more than six feet long, he knew, would not carry the man's full weight, but if he could get him to use it as a support, it would keep him from sinking when they moved out into deeper water. They would not have far to go if Drood's raft were still where he'd found it in the morning.

9

The sky above him was the deepest blue he had ever seen and there was nothing that obstructed it. All he could see was sky. He was lying on something soft and was being gently rocked and there was a sound like the faint, monotonous slap of water.

He felt an impulse to turn his head, to lift an arm, to try in some manner to discover where he was, but a certain caution, whispering deep inside his mind, told him not to do it, not to make a single motion, to hazard no sign that would draw attention to him.

Thinking back, he remembered a snarling muzzle with slashing teeth. He could still feel the roughness of the grizzled fur his hands had clutched to hold the monster off. It was a memory that was fuzzy and more nightmare than memory and he tried, futilely, to puzzle out whether it was truth or fantasy.

He lay quietly, fighting off the tendency of his nerves to tighten up, and he tried to think. Certainly he was not where he had been when, whether in truth or fantasy, he had contested with the wolf. For there had been trees there; the trail had been edged and roofed over by the trees and here there were no trees.

Something made a harsh sound to one side and above him and he rolled his head slowly and saw the red-winged blackbird swaying on a cattail, its claws clutching desperately to maintain its balance. It spread its wings and flirted its tail and squawked at him, glaring at him out of beady eyes.

Feet came shuffling toward him and he lifted his head a few inches and saw the little woman, short and dumpy, in the checkered dress—like a well-proportioned dwarf and human, but with a furry face.

She came and stood above him. He let his head back on the pillow and stared up at her.

“I have soup for you,” she said. “Now that you are awake, I have soup for you.”

“Madam,” he said, “I do not know …”

“I am Mrs. Drood,” she said, “and when I bring you soup you must be sure to eat it. You have lost much strength.”

“Where am I?”

“You are on a raft in the middle of the marsh. Here you are safe. No one can reach you here. You are with the People of the Marsh. You know the People of the Marsh?”

“I have heard of you,” said Cornwall. “I remember there were wolves …”

“Gib, he saved you from the wolves. He had this brand new ax, you see. He got it from the gnomes.”

“Gib is here?”

“No, Gib has gone to get the clams, to make clam chowder for you. Now I get duck soup. You will eat duck soup? Chunks of meat in it.”

She went shuffling off.

Cornwall raised himself on his right elbow and saw that his left arm was in a sling. He struggled to a sitting position and lifted his hand up to his head. His fingers encountered bandages.

It was coming back to him, in bits and pieces, and in a little while, he knew, he would have it all.

He stared out across the marsh. From the position of the sun he gathered that it was midmorning. The marsh stretched far away, with clumps of stunted trees growing here and there—perhaps trees rooted on islands. Far off, a cloud of birds exploded from the grass and reeds, went volleying up into the sky, wheeled with military precision, and floated back to rest again.

A boat came around a bend and cruised down the channel toward the raft. A grizzled marsh-man sat in the stern. With a twist of his paddle he brought the boat alongside the raft.

“I am Drood,” he said to Cornwall. “You look perkier than you did last night.”

“I am feeling fine,” said Cornwall.

“You got a hard crack on the skull,” said Drood. “Scalp laid open. And that arm of yours had a gash in it clear down to the bone.”

He got out of the boat and tied it to the raft, came lumbering over to where Cornwall sat, and squatted down to face him.

“Guess you were lucky, though,” he said. “All the others dead. We went over this morning and searched the woods. Looks like no one got away. Bandits, I suppose. Must have come a far piece, though. One time there were bandits lurking in these hills, but they cleared out. They ain't been here for years. What kind of stuff you carrying?”

Cornwall shook his head. “I'm not sure. Trade goods of all sorts, I think. Mostly cloth, I guess. I wasn't a member of the train. I was just along with them.”

Mrs. Drood came shuffling from behind the hut, carrying a bowl.

“Here is Ma,” said Drood. “Has some soup for you. Eat all you can. You need it.”

She handed him a spoon and held the bowl for him. “You go ahead,” she said. “With only one arm, you can't hang onto the bowl.”

The soup was hot and tasty and once he had the first spoonful, he found that he was ravenous. He tried to remember when he had had his last meal and his memory failed him.

“It surely does one's heart good,” said Drood, “to watch someone spoon in victuals that way.”

Cornwall finished up the bowl. “You want another one?” asked Ma. “There is plenty in the kettle.”

Cornwall shook his head. “No, thank you. It is kind of you.”

“Now you lay back,” she said. “You've sat up long enough. You can lay here and talk with Pa.”

“I don't want to be a bother. I've put you out enough. I must be getting on. As soon as I see Gib to thank him.”

Pa said, “You ain't going nowhere. You ain't in shape to go. We are proud to have you, and you ain't no bother.”

Cornwall lay back, turning on his side so he faced the squatting marsh-man.

“This is a nice place to live,” he said. “Have you been here long?”

“All my life,” said Drood. “My father before me and his father before him and far back beyond all counting. We marsh people, we don't wander much. But what about yourself? Be you far from home?”