The Fur Trader (13 page)

Garrin rose just as William approached.

“Any sign of Rux or Kiska?” William asked.

Garrin shook his head. “Only way to know for sure is to track them.”

“Which way?” William asked.

Garrin pointed to the north. “Further that way.”

William shook his head. “But, we need to go in a more westerly direction to get to Geberron Pass don’t we?”

Garrin nodded. “I know it, but how do you propose we take the sled with our provisions? Overall it will still be faster if we can find the split-tails.”

“What about the horses?” Richard asked as he came up from behind.

“You should go back inside,” William said curtly. Just then, Kaspar came bounding around the side of the house chattering triumphantly. He jumped against the side of the cabin and rebounded off joyfully, landing on top of Richard’s head. He leaned down over the edge of Richard’s fur hat and looked at him in the face, dangling upside down as his tail wrapped around Richard’s head to anchor him. Richard was startled, but began to laugh when he recognized Kaspar’s whiskered little face.

“He’s quite proud of himself I’d say. Wants to report to you and earn his praise.” Garrin smiled with a shake of his head as he pointed at Kaspar, who had now taken Richard’s cheeks between his paws and was chattering even more emphatically.

“Yes, yes, you were marvelous, Kaspar!” Richard exclaimed with some effort while reaching up to pry Kaspar free from his head. When he finally had Kaspar nestled between his arms he continued, “What a hero you are! Did you do all that?” he asked dramatically, indicating the fallen Treewalkers, and the arm dangling over the edge of the roof.

“You should be more quiet!” William snapped. “There could still be more of those, Treewalkers.”

Garrin disagreed. “No, I think we have seen the last of them for now.” He turned to Richard. “If we track Rux and Kiska, we’ll find the horses. I can’t promise the horses are still alive, though. Worse than that, the mule ran off in a different direction.”

“How long out of the way will it take us?” William asked.

Garrin patted William on the shoulder and started toward the stone cabin. “Not we, just me. You two stay here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

The trapper was about to turn back to the cabin, but then he heard a strange sound coming from the west. It didn’t sound too far away, but he knew it wasn’t going to be a pretty sight. There was a pained scream followed by a harrowing howl.

“Get inside the cabin, now,” Garrin instructed.

The trapper only turned back long enough to see that he was obeyed and then he charged into the woods. He ran over the snow, following the mule’s prints and scanning the area for danger. The faster he ran, the louder the strange sounds became. Snarls, howls, and shrill screams that could stop a man’s blood cold in his veins.

Garrin slowed his pace and spun around, scanning the trees around him and searching for hidden predators. In his mind, he wondered what offense he had given to the gods that they would turn upon him so unfavorably. If Treewalkers weren’t enough, now he had welks to deal with. He hated the idea of going against the creatures alone. Even with Kiska and Rux he wouldn’t relish the thought of fighting a pack of welks, but if their mule was being hunted, he had to at least check and see whether there was anything he could do to rescue it. More than that though, was the notion that perhaps Kiska and Rux had fought off the welks and were trying to protect the mule. Perhaps that would explain the blood stain back near where the animals had been for the night.

If the split-tails were out there, Garrin couldn’t leave them to fight the welks on their own.

The trapper jogged through the forest, ducking under branches and coming up over a hill a few hundred yards away from the cabin. He saw another streak of blood in the snow, but no sign of the mule. He did, however, see welk tracks. Their hind legs had paws like that of a wolf, but their front legs were tipped with deadly claws that could cut through the thickets of hides.

Garrin knew what he was seeing. The welks were bleeding their prey slowly, leading it to a kill zone where the rest of the pack would feast upon it. He would have to be careful going closer. If they smelled him, he would undoubtedly be their next target

He crept down the hill, counting the dots of blood that appeared in the snow every fifteen feet or so. He knew that if the mule was running at full speed, then it was bleeding fairly quickly to be dropping blood that often. The kill zone was likely to be close now. Garrin held his spear at the ready, his head turning each way and scanning the snow.

As he got to the bottom of the hill, something moved out from behind a tree on his left. The first thing Garrin noticed was the large antler rack on top of the welk’s wolf-like head. The jagged points, one for each of its eight years of life, curled upward menacingly, but they were nothing compared to the long, yellow fangs protruding from the animal’s snout.

The welk snarled at Garrin and stalked out to the side.

Garrin glanced over his shoulder, making sure there wasn’t another welk behind him sneaking in for the kill. Luckily, it appeared as though this would be an even fight.

The welk growled and then pushed up with its forelegs. Garrin had only seen this behavior a few times, but it still unnerved him to see the animal walk upon its hind legs like a human. The welk brought its forelegs up as a pugilist might, and prepared to launch deadly strikes with its claws.

Even if Garrin had not already been trained as a spearman in the Frontier Legion, the mere fact that welks could outreach a sword with their own deadly claws would have converted him to using spears while up in the mountains. The trapper held the weapon ready. He stepped in confidently, yet slowly, studying the animal’s every movement.

The welk lashed out first, breaking into a run upon its hind legs and slashing wildly with its claws.

Garrin backpedaled and jabbed the tip of his spear at the welk’s chest. The strikes barely drew blood on the beast, but they did prevent the welk from landing his own attacks on Garrin. The trapper then sidestepped to the left, which the welk had not anticipated. He thrusted the spear out and into the welk’s chest. The spear ripped into its flesh and slipped between the ribs. The welk stopped and snarled, then it went into a frenzy, wildly swinging its claws at Garrin. When the animal realized it couldn’t reach the man, it did the unthinkable, running toward Garrin and working the spear deeper into its own body just to swing closer at Garrin’s face.

Fortunately, Garrin had been in the mountains long enough to know the dangers of charging animals. A crossbar was built into the spear, just ten inches below the spear head that would catch an animal and prevent it from charging up the spear and striking him. It was a common tactic used for boar swords that Garrin found equally applicable to bears, wild split-tails, and welks.

The welk growled crazily as spittle flew out of its snapping jaws once the crossbar stopped it from advancing on Garrin.

The trapper held his grip firm and pushed back against the animal, waiting for the welk to lose its strength. It took several moments, but the animal finally toppled over onto its side and collapsed in a grotesque series of convulsions before finally dying in the snow.

Garrin pulled his spear free and made his way up the next hill.

He crested just in time to see a pack of five welks circling the frantic mule. The mule kicked and bucked, but it was only striking the air. None of the welks came in until the mule had expended all of its energy, and left a fairly sizable amount of blood upon the snowy ground. Garrin sighed as the welks closed in, but was appreciative for how quick they were. Two welks moved in from opposite sides and slashed through the mule’s neck. The mule fell to the ground with no sound at all. The welks all moved in then and began to tear the carcass apart.

The trapper looked around, but found no sign of Kiska or Rux. Deciding that must mean that they had gone north after the horses, and not wanting to be caught by the welks himself, Garrin decided to return to the cabin as quickly as feasible without attracting the welks’ attention.

Garrin ducked into the stone cabin for a few moments, just long enough to grab his heavy outer coat, and then he made his way into the forest. Rux and Kiska had tracks that mirrored those of the horses, though the split-tails had kept off to the side. Garrin followed the split-tail prints in the snow, wondering why they hadn’t simply struck the intruders down and brought the horses back.

The white, glistening snow crunched beneath his feet while a cold wind swept through the forest, blowing dust from tree branches and forcing Garrin to turn his head to the side to keep from being dusted with the chilling bits of frost. He followed the trail for several miles, winding into the lower foothills and across a frozen creek.

That was where he found a bit of blood.

A small amount of spatter was spread across the snow upon the ground, and droplets also went up the nearby tree trunk. Garrin bent down low to the stain. The warmth had long escaped from the spilt blood, for the red liquid had sunk into the snow and the steam one would expect to see from a fresh spill was not to be found.

The only question was whether the blood was human or animal.

Other than the blood, there was no obvious sign of a struggle. The split-tail prints in the snow did not change from their orderly cadence into a chaotic mess as one would expect had there been a battle. Nor did the horse tracks on the right seem to deviate from their course either.

Garrin frowned and turned around, surveying the area around him. Finally, he looked up into the trees. He studied the tree on his left, which had blood on the trunk and stood just a few inches from where the splatter had fallen upon the snow, but he couldn’t see any other blood upon it. Then, a new idea came to him. He had been assuming that the Treewalkers had taken the horses, but what if he was wrong? What if there were two groups. Garrin moved ten yards to his right and studied the horse tracks closer. There were not two sets of prints, but three.

How had he missed that before?

Treewalkers might have ridden the horses back, but why would they
bring
one to begin with?

Garrin moved into the hoof prints and then looked to his left, back toward the blood spatter. He lifted his left arm as though he had a bow in hand. He drew back on the imaginary string with his right and looked up, imagining that he was being trailed by a Treewalker. The trapper smiled wide when he saw it.

A single Treewalker was pinned to the center of a very large pine. One arrow had gone through his shoulder, and would easily explain the blood spatter only a few yards behind that spot on the ground. The second arrow had struck the man in the chest and pinned him to the tree. Garrin had not seen the blood because it had run down this side of the tree, which he could not see from his previous position. The severe cold had stop the flow of blood before it reached the ground.

Now he had his answer. There were two groups. Treewalkers and someone else on horseback. He understood then that the split-tails were trailing because they were smart enough not to fight two enemies at once. Garrin broke into a light jog, going only as fast as the wintry ground beneath him would allow without losing his footing. As he coursed around one of the bald hills, devoid of trees and topped only with black rocks poking their sinister heads out of the snow, he stopped running and crouched low to the ground once more.

There was a great amount of blood and gore upon the ground here. The hoof prints in the snow became erratic, seemingly indicating an ambush from the hillside. Garrin moved toward the back of the foothill, thinking he might see sign of Rux or Kiska launching from the hillside, but he found no tracks upon the hillside. He then climbed up the hill a few paces and turned the opposite direction to scan the trees. There were four bodies lying in the snow.

Garrin, spear in hand and eyes shifting side-to-side, made his way toward the bodies and checked them one by one. The first had an arrow through his neck. The second had only a broken arrow shaft protruding from a sticky, bloody mess that had once been an eye, and the other two had great holes in their chests with charred edges.

Garrin used the butt of his spear to prod the edge of the strange holes. There was only one explanation for these kind of wounds, magic. His hand went down to his belt, but then he realized that Kaspar was back at the tanning station. If there was magic to be fought out here, Garrin was on his own. Now he understood perhaps even more why the split-tails had not charged in. They could not sense magic like Kaspar could, but they were keen observers and highly intelligent. They would know better than to charge an enemy like this head on. They were stalking him.

Garrin had to backtrack somewhat, but now knowing that he was about to face a magic-wielder, he thought it prudent to follow Kiska and Rux’s tracks rather than the same path the horseman had taken. He crept carefully along the prints in the snow, scanning the trees around him and hunching as low to the ground as he could to make himself less obvious as he pushed onward for another couple of miles.

After a while, he came to a small cave entrance. The split-tails had obviously gone inside, their tracks disappearing just after the snow stopped and the rocky floor began. Something about the whole scene unsettled Garrin. The horses would only barely fit in through the cavern. Why would anyone take them inside? The trapper wondered whether he might be better served going back to the tanning station. Dying for the horses hardly seemed a worthy cause.

It didn’t take long for his mind to settle upon the split-tails, though. How many times had his companions risen to the occasion and fought for him? How could he repay them with cowardice now? No. If they went in, then he was going in after them. If he could save the horses, all the better, but he was here for his companions.

Garrin took a steadying breath and then dashed out from behind a tree to the wall on the left side of the opening. He tucked himself up against the stone and slowly leaned around to peer into the cave. The sunlight filled the first portion of the tunnel, but darkness loomed just around a curve some forty yards inside. He would have to go in blind. He could make a torch, but that would only alert his enemy to his arrival. He closed his eyes for a moment. Had he ever been one to believe in the Old Gods, he might have offered a prayer before entering the cave.

He moved silent and quick, spear out and pointing forward as though he expected to be charged by a slumbering bear at any moment. Thinking of it in that way helped calm his nerves. He had hunted many bear before, and several of them had been in their dens when he tracked them down. This was like those times. He convinced himself that if he could maintain the same element of surprise, then he would be fine.

He was mistaken.

Garrin only just managed to round the corner as the cave shifted to the left and suddenly he was stuck, frozen in place by some smothering power. The more Garrin struggled, the tighter the force squeezed him. Soon it became hard to breathe. By the time he relaxed, he could only take quick, shallow breaths. As he stood there, unable to even call out for help, his spear began to glow. The heat from the weapon permeated Garrin’s thick mittens and soon scorched his hands. Garrin released his grip on the weapon, and a magical force pulled the weapon away into the darkness.

“I don’t much care for visitors,” a booming voice called out from the darkness. “I prefer to live alone.”

Garrin tried to speak, but the magical force held his mouth shut. Otherwise, he might have said something about not caring for horse thieves. The force around him then tugged at his body, tipping him over. He started to worry that he would fall to his face, but the magic held him off the ground and then floated him into the darkness in the same direction the spear had gone.

He could do nothing but watch as dark shapes slipped beneath him until he stopped and the magical force spun him upright to his feet once more. Then, as if peeling back a large covering, the force relaxed its grip on his head and face. A flood of light assaulted his eyes and he shrank away, blinking wildly until his eyes adjusted.

The cave was not dark as he had thought, but was magically lit with a wondrous set of red and blue crystals that bathed the large chamber in light and warmth. Each crystal hovered in the air, bobbing up and down a few inches at a time as if floating upon water. There were three horses tethered to a long rod of metal off to the right. A great pile of grass and hay was set before them and they were busily engaged in devouring the food.

Garrin turned his head a little more and saw a great fire pit. He guessed that the magician had taken the horses for meat. Garrin turned his head the other way and saw a large chair of stone, the back of which rose ten feet into the air. It was simple in design, yet had obviously been constructed with care. Each of the corners were sharp and exact. The arms of the chair were polished smooth, and the leather pad in the seat was neither cracked nor dull with age.

What Garrin couldn’t see, was the magician. Nor could he find the split-tails.

Now that his head was free, Garrin whistled for Rux and Kiska.

No answer.

Then, a personage stepped out from behind the great chair of stone.

The first thing Garrin saw was the shiny black boot and the pant leg of brown leather. Then, as the person came into full view he saw the forest green tunic with brown laces up the neck and a flowing, tan cloak. What surprised Garrin most, was not the clothing, but the fact that the face he saw did not belong to a man. Somehow, that booming voice had come from a woman with stern green eyes, pointed cheekbones and a delicate neck. Her red hair flowed out behind her as she walked around the chair and eyed Garrin carefully.

“You’re a woman,” Garrin said dumbly.

The sorceress arched her right brow and let the left corner of her mouth pull into a slight grin. “That I am.” Her voice now was softer, but still carried the air of danger about it.

“When I heard your voice before, it sounded like a man’s,” Garrin explained quickly.

“Why have you come?” the woman asked pointedly.

Garrin replied, “You stole my horses.”

The woman groaned and sneered down her nose at Garrin. She wrapped her cloak about herself and moved to sit down in the stone chair, crossing her right leg over her left and staring at the trapper intently. “The horses are mine,” she said flatly.

“No, they are mine,” Garrin said. “They were outside my cabin when you took them.”

The woman narrowed her eyes and pointed downward with her left index finger. The magical force holding Garrin in place forced him into a kneeling position as he grunted. “Perhaps you should reconsider your position,” the woman suggested. “Clearly, you have no bargaining power.”

Garrin shook his head and couldn’t help but let slip a boyish grin. “I’ll be wanting my spear back as well,” he said calmly.

The woman licked her top lip with the tip of her tongue and snapped her fingers. Garrin’s spear flew to her hand and then hovered still in front of her throne. “Anything else?” she asked coyly.

Garrin studied her, wondering whether her magic had caught Rux and Kiska. Then again, had they not also been caught, they would have come when he whistled for them. For a moment, his faith wavered and his heart sank in the thoughts that the sorceress surely had killed them already.

The woman leaned forward, her red hair falling about either side of her face and framing the sharp angles in shadows as she spoke. “You are wondering about your other friends, aren’t you?” She rose up suddenly and moved to stand before him. She turned her palm up and raised her hand to be level with her chin. As she did so, the magic force lifted Garrin up to her eye level. He was still held in a kneeling position, but now she could look into his deep brown eyes without needing to bend over. “Why have you not mentioned them yet?”

“I had hoped they were still free,” Garrin replied honestly.

The woman narrowed her fierce, green eyes and cocked her head to the side. “What magic do you have that enables you to charm animals?”

Garrin shook his head. “I have no magic,” he said.

The woman put her hands on her hips. “Surely, a man who can communicate with split-tails has a powerful magic indeed,” she said. “Or do you mean to tell me that you have domesticated them like dogs?”

“No,” Garrin said. “I have no magic, nor have I domesticated them. They are my friends.”