The Ogre's Pact (15 page)

As the dust began to billow out of the valley below, the scout looked toward Needle Peak. There, standing a little apart from the long ogre line with his eyes fixed on the couloir, was a single burly figure: Goboka.

7
Silent Ravine

A trio of mule deer flashed past Tavis’s shoulder, their hooves pattering almost silently across the needle-covered ground. They ran up the ravine for a short distance, white rumps flashing behind gray pine boles, to where the small valley bent sharply to the north. Here, the doe suddenly pulled up short, then darted into the mouth of a rocky gulch. The three beasts vanished from sight as quickly as they had appeared, leaving the forest as still as it had been a moment earlier.

Tavis continued to walk, forcing himself not to look back. The skin between his shoulder blades felt cold and clammy, a sure sign that his senses had detected some danger his mind could not yet identify. His first thought was that Morten and the earls were catching up, but he did not hear snapping sticks or rattling armor or alarmed birds, or any other sounds to suggest an ungainly firbolg and eighteen overburdened humans were tramping through the wood behind him. In fact, an unnatural hush had fallen over the entire valley, and he heard nothing but the wind whispering through the pines.

It had to be ogres. Few things silenced a forest like a pack of ogres, and even mule deer were not so skittish that the doe would have led her fawns so close if she had not been terrified. Somehow, an ogre patrol had slipped in behind Tavis and his companions. This alarmed the scout, not because it surprised him, but because he had expected Goboka to try exactly this maneuver, and he had still failed to notice it happening.

Tavis was also puzzled by how all three deer had survived long enough to come charging past. Ogres customarily killed every creature they found in their path, which was why the forest grew so quiet upon their approach-most beasts had developed the good sense to hide or flee at the first rancid whiff of ogre flesh. Yet the deer had been fleeing into the wind, which meant the doe would not have smelled the brutes until they were upon her. In this thick forest, she would not have seen or heard the ogres until they were easily within bow range. So how had she and her fawns escaped alive? None of them should have survived the brutes’ poison-tipped arrows, much less all three. Ogres were better hunters than that.

Tavis pulled his bow off his shoulder and stepped behind a tree. He looked back down the gully, at the same time nocking an arrow, and found the astonished faces of Basil and Avner staring back at him.

“What are you doing?” Avner gasped.

“Take cover!” Tavis hissed, genuinely surprised the fleeing deer had failed to alarm the pair. “A pack of ogres snuck in behind us. They’re coming up the ravine right now, hoping to plant their arrows in our backs.”

Avner threw himself to the ground and crawled behind a boulder. Basil stepped behind a tree next to Tavis. They peered down the ravine, their eyes searching the maze of gray bark for some sign of movement.

“I don’t see anything.” Avner whispered.

Neither did Tavis. Save for a few pine boughs swaying gently in the wind, the wood was as still as ice. The scout raised his eyes toward the forest canopy, just in case the ogres were employing the same trick they had used on Coggin’s Rise. He saw nothing in the green needles, not so much as a lurking squirrel or the silhouette of a frightened porcupine. The brutes could hide well enough on the ground, but even they were not so stealthy they could move through the treetops without leaving some sign. If there had been any warriors lurking among the branches, the scout would have seen signs: broken limbs, overturned nests, clawed bark, or something similar.

“Perhaps you were mistaken,” Basil suggested. “This forest is empty.”

“Too empty.” Tavis said. “Listen.”

Basil cocked his head to one side, then shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Me either!” Avner said. “I don’t hear any singing birds.”

“Or chattering squirrels, or whistling rockchucks,” Tavis said. “We aren’t alone here.”

Basil began to fumble through his shoulder satchel. “How much time do we have?”

“Not enough for you to draw a rune,” Tavis answered. The ogres are fairly near, or those deer wouldn’t have passed so close to us.”

Avner swallowed hard. “So we have to fight?”

“Not yet,” Tavis replied. “If we let the ogres pick the battle site, we’re doomed.”

“Then how do we escape?” Basil asked.

Tavis glanced up the ravine. He did not see any ogres ahead, but that, of course, was not as telling as the fact that the doe had turned into the side gully. Besides, if Goboka had sent a pack of warriors to sneak up from behind them, it seemed likely the shaman had also sent a second party to block their route, and the curve ahead was just the place to set such an ambush.

“They intend to drive us like game. The beaters will come from that direction.” Tavis pointed down the ravine. “They’ll try to chase us into an ambush just around that bend.” The scout pointed up the gully at the curve.

“That’s no answer to my question.” Basil said, irritated. “How do we escape?”

Tavis was about to tell the verbeeg to run for the side gulch, but stopped when the distant crack of a snapping branch sounded from somewhere down the ravine. A faint metallic chime instantly followed the noise, then the forest fell silent again.

Basil stepped from behind his tree. “Ogres don’t trip over sticks, and they don’t wear armor,” he said. “That was an earl.”

“No doubt. But that doesn’t mean I was wrong. The ogre beaters are still behind us. Morten and the earls are behind them.” The scout pointed to where a loutish silhouette with a jutting chin and floppy ears had just slipped from behind the gray trunk of a huge pine.

Basil looked over his shoulder just in time to see the figure rush down the ravine a few noiseless steps, then vanish from sight behind another tree. The verbeeg’s face paled, and he quickly returned to his own cover.

“It’s not as bad as it seems,” Tavis said. “We’re almost out of their range.”

Ogre bows were powerful enough by human standards, but they were no match for Bear Driller. Although the brutes were certainly strong enough to pull a bow as large as the scout’s, they placed their faith in stealth and poison, and therefore preferred smaller weapons that were easier to fire in the tight hiding places from which they so often ambushed their prey. It was a strategy that worked well enough against unwitting opponents, but it had disadvantages in open combat.

“Being almost out of range isn’t very reassuring,” Basil said. “I’d much prefer to be entirely out of range.”

“Me, too,” Tavis agreed. “We’ll run for it. I’ll go a few paces up the ravine, then turn around to cover you.”

“Turn around?” Avner hissed. “You’ll be presenting your back to the ambushers up ahead!”

“I’ve got to present it to somebody. Besides, the ambushers will hold their attack until the beaters drive all three of us into close range,” he explained. “You two move together. Dodge between trees and don’t waste time looking back.”

With that, the scout darted two dozen erratic steps up the ravine, changing directions each time he passed a tree, until he heard the soft thump of an ogre arrow striking a nearby pine. Had the range not been so great the shaft would be lodged in his head instead of the bole. He stepped behind a tree, then drew his own bowstring back and looked down the gully. There was no sign of the ogre who had fired at him.

“Now!” Tavis yelled.

Basil and Avner leaped out and charged up the ravine together for perhaps five steps, then split and took cover behind two separate trees. The ogres did not show themselves, though Tavis knew they were watching.

Basil left his cover first, moving two trees toward Avner, then changing his course and rushing in the opposite direction. The young thief followed. When both were in the open, three ogre beaters slipped from their hiding places and drew their bowstrings.

Tavis fired and pulled another arrow from his quiver. His first shaft struck home before his foes could release their volley, ripping through an ogre’s shoulder and whirling him around. The brute howled in agony and released his shot into the air, then hit the ground with a gaping hole where the scout’s large arrow had passed through his body.

The bowstrings of the two surviving ogres hummed. Their black arrows came arcing through the forest, the brutes having raised their aim to compensate for the distance. The fate of their companion had clearly disturbed them, for both shafts wobbled through the air with all the grace of pheasants in flight. The scout released his second shot. The string of his mighty bow pulsed with a loud, basal throb, and his arrow streaked away, passing beneath the two ogre shafts in midflight. One of the poisoned arrows dropped a full ten paces shy of its target, while the other careened harmlessly past Avner’s head.

Tavis’s arrow, driven by a much more powerful bow, struck in the next instant. The shaft tore through its target’s stomach, moving with such velocity that it did not even knock him off his feet. The astonished brute simply dropped his weapons and reached for the hole that had suddenly appeared in his abdomen.

Without waiting to see him fall, Tavis nocked his third arrow. By the time he raised it to fire, the last ogre had ducked behind cover and was no longer a target. The scout waited for Avner and Basil to hide again, then turned and darted up the ravine toward the side gully.

This time, Tavis made it clear to the bend before a chorus of bowstrings sounded down the ravine. He threw himself over the trunk of a toppled pine, crashing through its brown-needled boughs. He looked out from beneath the tree and saw a half dozen black shafts drop several paces short of his hiding place.

Tavis rose to his knees and lifted his arrow over the tree, but he was too slow to find a target. He saw nothing but a handful of gray blurs as the ogres ducked behind their cover.

“Come on!” Tavis yelled. He knew that he was now within range of the ogre ambushers lurking behind the band, so he stayed low and listened carefully for any noises that suggested they were moving to attack earlier than he expected.

Basil and Avner rushed forward, crossing and recrossing paths as they ran up the ravine. This time, none of their foes were foolish enough to expose themselves to Tavis’s arrows. The scout began to hope he and his friends might escape into the side gully unscathed, then somewhere up the ravine, an ogre ambusher made the uncharacteristic mistake of stepping on a loose stone.

Avner pulled his dagger from inside his tunic, calling. “Tavis, your back!”

The youth hurled his dagger. As the blade sliced through the air, Tavis spun around. He saw two ogres stepping around the bend, less than twenty paces away. Both were drawing their bowstrings back to fire.

Avner’s dagger soared past Tavis’s head and sailed straight at an ogre’s throat. Normally, such a small blade would not fell an ogre, but the boy’s aim was so true the knife took the creature right in the gullet, burying itself to the hilt. The brute released his arrow prematurely and collapsed, a surprised squawk gurgling from his mouth.

Tavis aimed at the second ogre, releasing his arrow as the brute released his. The scout did not wait to see his shaft strike. As soon he felt his bowstring scrape free of his fingers, he rolled to one side, crashing through the lifeless limbs beneath the fallen tree. The ogre’s arrow clattered into the dry boughs and skipped away.

Pulling another arrow from his quiver. Tavis crawled out of the tangle of branches. He looked up and glimpsed his attacker’s form standing in the same place he had been a moment earlier. The scout nocked his arrow and fired-not realizing until the shaft was in flight that he had already killed his target. The brute was pinned to a tree, the fletching of Tavis’s first arrow protruding from the center of his chest. The second shaft split the first, driving through the ogre’s body in the same hole.

The hum of ogre bows sounded from down the ravine, then Basil and Avner came diving over the toppled pine. Tavis spun around and saw a flurry of black shafts flying in their direction. Looking past the immediate danger, he spied a dozen loutish beaters scurrying up the ravine. Tavis allowed the ogre arrows to fall harmlessly to the ground, then nocked an arrow.

The ogres stopped running and dived for cover. Knowing it would take a moment before the beaters could fire, the scout spun around to face the ambushers. He glimpsed three more silhouettes slipping behind tree trunks.

“Up there!” Tavis gestured toward the side gully.

Basil and Avner sprinted into the gulch. Tavis followed more slowly, pointing his arrow first uphill, then downhill. The ogres made no move to prevent the escape and did not even show themselves. There could only be one reason for the lack of pursuit, Tavis realized. The brutes no longer saw any reason to risk their lives, which meant they believed they had herded their quarry into a trap.

Confident the ogres would not pursue him into the narrow confines of the side gulch, Tavis paused to look around. This gully was a small one, lined on both sides by sheer cliffs of black-streaked gneiss. Like the ravine from which he and his companions had just come, it was filled with towering pines, though the trees here looked less healthy. They were overcrowded, and the small area prevented them from extending their branches fully. Avner and Basil were still sprinting up the center of the gulch, heedless that it was an ideal place for an ambush.

Not wishing to call out and let the ogres know he had anticipated their trap, Tavis fired his arrow up the gulch. The shaft hissed past Basil’s shoulder and lodged in a tree, bringing both the verbeeg and Avner to a halt. They turned around and peered at the scout, their mouths gaping open.

Tavis motioned for them to remain where they were, then put his bow over his shoulder. Next, he took his dagger and opened a lengthy but shallow cut along his forearm. Once the wound began to bleed profusely, he walked up the gulch, dripping blood on the ground as he went.

When the scout reached his companions, Avner looked at him as if he were crazy. “What are you doing?”