The Fur Trader (11 page)

“Master Dondaric shouted out for Derigrin to run, and then the young scribe watched in horror as the brutish ogre swiped Alimar Dondaric up by the ankle and dangled him in the air like a freshly caught hen. Master Dondaric fought for all he was worth, but even a young man is not much of a concern for an ogre. The monster turned and walked out of the camp through the trees, carrying Master Dondaric before it and laughing at his impotent shouts and curses.

“Somehow, the young scribe summoned the courage to go after the ogre. He ripped himself free of the brambles and ran for his bow, which was the only weapon he could honestly claim to use with any amount of skill.” Garrin jumped up and pantomimed ripping briars free from his arms and then pulling back on a bow string. “Derigrin sprinted through the darkening forest, tripping once as his eyes adjusted to the fading light, but no matter how fast he ran, the ogre continued to put a sizeable distance between them. So, he followed the sounds of the ogre’s huge, lumbering steps and Master Dondaric’s shouts.

Garrin swept his hand out over Richard and sat back on the front edge of his chair. “A half hour passed, and Derigrin’s sides ached from running. Master Dondaric’s shouts had ceased, and the young scribe felt in his gut that there was nothing more he could do for the master scholar. Still, he pressed onward, hoping that he was wrong, and that somehow Dondaric would manage to escape. After all, he had outsmarted the Tarthuns, and he had fought off a bear with only a stick. Surely he must have some trick with which to best a giant, oafish ogre.

“Derigrin slowed when he saw the light of a fire. He wasn’t sure what he would come upon, so he picked his way carefully through the trees and the underbrush. The scribe could hear rumbling voices and laughter, but it wasn’t human. There were more ogres. As he peeked through a thin wall of blackberry bushes, he spied four giant figures, huddling together and speaking in some language he couldn’t understand. He looked all around the small clearing they stood in, but Derigrin couldn’t see Master Dondaric anywhere.”

“Was he dead?” Richard asked. He was now sitting on his rump with his knees tucked up into his chest.

“Honestly, Garrin, that’s enough,” William protested.

Garrin held a finger up to Richard and continued with the grim tale. “Slowly, silently, Derigrin readied his bow. He only had five arrows, and he knew that ogres had thick, nearly impenetrable skulls and enough fat on them to make striking their heart almost impossible as well, so he decided not to attack directly. He aimed for the bushes on the opposite side of the clearing. The scribe let the arrow fly and it made quite a ruckus as it tore through leaves and limbs. The ogres all snapped their fat heads up to see the sound and started bounding over to the other side. As they shifted away, he saw that they had been standing in front of something. His heart stopped beating and he fought the urge to retch when he saw what it was.” Garrin made a fist and slammed it against his chest as he sucked in a breath.

Richard jumped and shook his head, eyes wide and mouth open.

“Derigrin is still haunted by that sight even now. I doubt the image will ever cease haunting him till the day he passes from this mortal plane. A single, black boot hung over the lip of a large, black cauldron with thick steam flowing up and some yellowy water bubbling over the sides and slopping onto the large fire below. Derigrin would have recognized the boot anywhere.”

“It was Dondaric’s!” Richard squeaked.

“Okay, that really is enough,” William said as he stepped over to Garrin. “Can’t you see you’re frightening the boy?”

Richard looked up and shook his head. “No, I want to hear it. I want to know how Derigrin got away. Let him tell me, please?”

Garrin lifted his brows and cocked his head to the side at William. “Please with sugar on top?” Garrin added.

William huffed and turned around.

The trapper turned back to Richard and winked. “Some may call Derigrin a coward for not fighting the ogres and avenging Master Dondaric, but in truth, it wouldn’t have done him any good by the time Derigrin arrived. Instead, the scribe turned and ran for everything he was worth. He knew that his days of adventuring were done the moment he saw what the ogres were doing to poor Master Dondaric. Unfortunately, Derigrin left most of his writings, notes, and the books he traveled with in the camp and I am sure they are now ruined by the weather and lost forever. However, Master Dondaric’s manuscript, which Derigrin showed to me while we travelled together, was sitting in Derigrin’s backpack, which he grabbed on his way out of the forest. Whether it was there by luck or divine intervention, I can’t say for sure.

“With my help, Derigrin was safely deposited back at Brantwyn Keep where his tale of adventure and horror had begun. He was most fortunate to be able to take up his position as a scribe there once more, his replacement having fallen ill and died of a fever not a week before our arrival. Though our trip over the pass was much smoother than what he had experienced with Master Dondaric, he shall not venture out into the wilds anymore, of that I am certain. But, to honor the memory of his thirty months with Master Dondaric, he thought it the least he could do to ensure that Alimar’s life work was finished. Derigrin worked with the best craftsmen in Brantwyn Keep to fashion leather binding, emblazoned with the finest calligraphy and an etching of the World Tree, which Master Dondaric had oft said was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, on the front. The young scribe worked tirelessly for three years to produce five copies, each complete with Master Dondaric’s foreword and notes. Derigrin then sent four of the five copies to the library in Graebner, where the Order of Anorit was founded.”

“What of the last copy?” Richard asked excitedly.

Garrin touched a finger to his nose and grinned. “That copy, Derigrin holds at Brantwyn Keep. Most of the time it reminds him of the Great Master Dondaric’s legacy, and I am sure the scribe smiles even now whilst thinking of Dondaric exploring Volganor and writing about the gods and goddesses there. But sometimes, on lonely and dark nights when the wind howls through the tiles upon the roof, the book taunts him, sitting as a reminder of Derigrin’s insignificance in the grand designs of fate and his own finite mortality.”

Garrin ended the story with a deep bow of his head and Richard offered a couple of gleeful claps.

William wasted no time jumping in, however. “If Derigrin was north of the Twin Cities, why would he come south through our kingdom at all? Wouldn’t it be shorter and more direct to travel to Fort Crow, and then down the river to Silverdale and finally back to Brantwyn Keep?”

Garrin sighed and shook his head. “He was scared, my good fellow. So, he went back across the inland sea. When he reached Twin Cities he took a barge downriver to the coastal city of Galleti. From there he sailed around the coast to Richwater. I met him some weeks later when he arrived in Cherry Brook in the middle of the spring.”

“I thought you said he got sea sick?” William poked.

Garrin shrugged. “Perhaps he thought it better to face his nausea than risk another capture by Tarthun on the overland route. Likely it was a safer journey he was hoping for. In any case, he was a much wiser man when he met me. Wiser still after I took him through Geberron Pass, and that is my point. If you learn to listen to the mountain, you will become wise and avoid the dangers. Fail to listen to the great forests, or fall victim to your own hubris, and the mountains will cook you up for supper.”

William shook his head and let it go at that, grumbling something about giving Richard nightmares.

“Can I rest for a bit?” Richard asked suddenly as he yawned and stretched out his arms.

“As you please,” Garrin replied. “You take the bed, and we’ll take the floor tonight.”

Garrin then moved out to the door and poked his head outside. The sun was dipping behind the mountains and the forest was darkening. The trapper gave three short whistles, his signal to the split-tails that he was closing the door and turning in for the night, and then he pulled the stone back into place. The large slab made scraping noise as it was dragged along the wall, which was much more noticeable from the inside than it had been from the outside. When it finally fell into place, Garrin reached up and slid a metal rod along the inside of the slab until it reached an eye-hook secured in the ceiling above. Garrin locked it into place and then closed the wooden door behind it, also locking that into place.

“What about Rux and Kiska?” William asked.

“They never like to come inside,” Garrin replied. “They prefer the outdoors.”

“They were in your cabin when we met,” William pointed out.

“That’s because they didn’t trust you,” Garrin said evenly.

“What about now, do you trust me?” William asked.

Garrin looked to William’s gray-blue eyes and paused a moment before answering.

“Not entirely, but then I suppose if you come after me in my sleep, Rux and Kiska will take you down when you try to leave.” Garrin smiled and offered a wink.

William jerked his head back as if he had been punched in the nose. He stared blankly for a moment and then shook his head.

“My concern is for Richard. As long as you get him through safely, you have nothing to worry about from me.”

Garrin nodded, then he glanced back to Richard as the young boy let out a snore that would have woken the dead and nearly echoed off the stone walls.

“Must have been hard on him, to put him out before supper is even ready,” Garrin observed.

William sighed and stirred the pot. “Don’t talk about it in front of him, but he saw his mother die, and he could hear his father crying out as he fought with the attackers.”

“And how did you figure into the mix?” Garrin asked, still not entirely sure what to make of William’s story.

William offered an insincere grin. “I’d rather not discuss the details of the escape. I’ll say only that when I discovered what had happened, I did everything in my power to keep Richard safe.”

“The attackers didn’t try to kill him before you could get there?” Garrin asked.

William flicked the handle of the ladle against the cauldron and his head drooped.

“No,” he said firmly. “They were trying to take him. I managed to kill the kidnappers and we escaped.”

“If it was a kidnapping, why not just take the child and leave the parents alive to pay for a ransom? Isn’t that usually what happens when a nobleman’s child is kidnapped?”

“Let this go,” William pleaded angrily.

Garrin shook his head. He needed to know more about the situation he was now a part of.

“You offer me a fortune that I could never attain, which means you have means to pay a ransom, or strike a deal of some sort. I must understand.”

William reached out and braced himself with either hand against the warm, stone chimney above the pot.

“It isn’t that simple. They never intended on giving Richard back, it was a different kind of situation.”

“And the king could not help?” Garrin asked skeptically. “Why run to the mountains and not to the garrison?”

William shook his head. “There are powerful people in Richwater. Their reach extends far beyond anything you could imagine. We are leaving, and that is that. I cannot idly sit by and hope that some garrison can protect Richard. We are putting this whole cursed country behind us, and we are never coming back.”

Garrin opened his mouth to say something, but in half an instant William turned and a dagger slid out of his right sleeve. The razor’s edge of the cool blade now rested dangerously against Garrin’s neck. The trapper remained calm, staring at William and waiting.

“Enough,” William said. “I will not be questioned by some trapper who lives alone in the mountains and knows nothing of the political infighting and dangers within Richwater. You want to understand? Then listen to me carefully. I left my wife behind in order to protect Richard. I do not know if she was able to escape, nor can I ever return for her if she doesn’t find her way to Brywood. Everything I hold dear has been sacrificed in order to protect Richard.” William held the knife at Garrin’s throat for another pair of seconds to drive the point home before he backed away and slipped the blade back into its proper place. “Now, can you lay the subject to rest?”

Garrin nodded slowly. “I can do that, but I wouldn’t draw a knife on me again.”

William looked back to the soup and reached in for the ladle. Rather than acknowledging Garrin’s threat, he changed the subject.