“We been here before.”
“—but a particular jewel. One that my master treasures very highly. He treasures it so highly, in fact, that he’s prepared to give a whole chestful of gold and precious gems to anyone who should find this boy and deliver him into the hands of my master.”
“Gold, you say?” Like all worgs, Bolster adored gold. This was because no worg had yet worked out anything they could do with it. It seemed to them completely useless. It was too soft to be made into weapons or arrowheads, and it was too heavy for much of it to be carried around at a time, even by somebody as strong as a worg. The sheer fascination of trying to work out what gold was actually for had engaged the minds of generations of worgs, and it was because of that fascination that they prized gold so greatly. So when the stranger mentioned a promise of gold, Bolster began to drool.
Began to drool – more than usual, that is.
“Yes,” said the bright creature. “Gold!”
“Oooh!” said Bolster.
“But only if you can capture this boy and deliver him to my master.”
“Aah,” said Bolster, disappointed. He’d known there would have to be a catch somewhere. “And how Bolster know dis boy?”
A picture flashed into Bolster’s mind. The picture was rather blurry and crumbled away around the edges, because Bolster didn’t have much of a mind for it to flash into, but it was clearly recognizable as that of a human boy. Then the picture was gone again.
And so, Bolster discovered as he blinked his eyes to get them back into focus again, was the stranger. Only the echo of his voice hung in the air, the whispered word, “gold.”
All night long, Bolster had tossed and turned, thrashed and flailed, and still sleep refused to come to him. Even sticking his thumb in his mouth hadn’t had its usual comforting effect. Every time he’d closed his eyes, he’d seen either the face of the boy or a mountain of glittering gold goodies that weren’t going to be his. It was anguish that had kept him awake, the adamantine spear of anguish thrust through his heart. For few boys were foolish enough to stray through the Everwoods, and the chances that one of them might be—
Now just wait a ganglion-pickin’ minute!
He’d seen that face before. Yes, that was right. Days ago – or it might have been weeks ago, because Bolster’s sense of time was as dull as most of his others – he’d met that boy.
Bolster had been going about his normal everyday business, just looking for something to terrorize or slaughter, when he’d found a human boy hiding in the bushes. The boy had deceived him with some tomfool story about how the skulls of human boys and girls exploded if you tried to smash them, and Bolster had swallowed the falsehood whole. It wasn’t until much later, sitting at home with only a bucket of slugs to keep the hunger pangs at bay, that Bolster had recalled smashing the skulls of other human beings in the past. There had been no explosions then, just the usual satisfying squish.
Wrathful, he’d stampeded back to where he’d met the boy, but the horrid little liar was long gone by then. Bolster had been forced to wreak his dire revenge on a miniature cottage he’d found beside the path, even though he’d been virtually certain the boy wasn’t inside it.
It had been in the hour just before dawn, the most dismal time of the night, that this memory came back to Bolster, and it had haunted him ever since. The boy, the boy, had been almost within his grasp, and Bolster had let him slip away. No wonder his temper this morning was of the kind that most people would rather tear their own heads off than endure.
Bolster had an infallible recipe for cheering himself up when he felt miserable, and that was to make somebody else miserable – preferably lots of somebody elses. He was just trying to work out who he could most satisfyingly pick on, as well as some really deviously spiteful ways of making their lives a walking hell, when he heard a sudden crash that rang through the forest, startling birds up from the trees. It took him several long minutes to work out what it could possibly have been, and then he remembered.
The trap.
The trap he had set so many years ago by forcing a passing scholar, upon pain of death, both to build the mechanism and, the really difficult bit, to write the “Pull HERE!” sign. The scholar had proved to be a little stringy for Bolster’s tastes, but the man’s workmanship, the worg had admitted complacently, had been second to none. Even so, the trap had so far, despite the span of years, failed to snare a single captive.
Until now.
Lumbering to his feet and grabbing Skullcrusher, Bolster the Boss Worg began to shamble as fast as he could toward the clearing where he’d set his trap.
And as he shambled, he laughed.
Gurglingly.
After Flip awoke he couldn’t work out where he was for a moment. His bedclothes weren’t this muddy green color, were they? Besides, the smell was all wrong for his bedroom. Instead of the warm, cozy smell of a room much slept-in, his nostrils were filled with a cool damp odor composed of moisture, crushed grass and just a hint of decay. Plus, he didn’t feel as he normally felt when he woke up in his nice comfortable bed, the familiarity of its various lumps and sags molding around him. He had little aches and pains all over his body, as if he’d been in a fight that was only half-serious, but where his opponent’s punches had nevertheless been hard enough to hurt, to raise bruises. Then he realized that what he was looking at was a clump of scuffed-up grass, and that he was lying flat on his face on the ground.
The memories came rushing back now. A coarsely woven, broad-meshed net had suddenly risen up out of nowhere and seized everyone except Snowmane, hoisting them aloft with terrifying speed. In the chaos of shouts and flying limbs, Flip had grabbed at the rope of the mesh, thinking that his best chance was to hold on for dear life. But his grip had slipped and he’d gone tumbling through the air, spinning as he fell, so that the world was an insane kaleidoscope. The last thing he could remember was landing with a whoompf and cracking his head on the ground.
He sat up and felt the lump. It was a big one. Lumps being lumps, it was likely to get a lot bigger before it was done. Even now, he felt as if he had two heads, one on top of the other.
The sun was starting to set. In the distance, he heard the weird call of an owl. This was not a safe time for someone like him to be sitting defenseless out in the open. A tree creaked nearby and he twitched instinctively away from the sound, as if the branches might attack him. Where had the others gone? He was entirely on his own. He peered up in the gathering twilight and saw dangling ends of rope where the net had been. Even Snowmane had disappeared, and the carriage.
“Are you all right?” said a voice.
A gray apparition had suddenly appeared in the dusk by the edge of the clearing. It was about the same size as Flip. It was his ghost!
He was back on the trail and about twenty or thirty yards down it by the time he realized that what he’d seen was a youthful squirrel, and a friendly one at that, but by then it seemed a lot easier to let his legs keep on running rather than try to stop them.
“Help!” he wailed to the darkening trees as he ran.
There was no reply, just the rustling of leaves and the sinister sounds of unimaginable predators moving surreptitiously through the undergrowth.
Then, abruptly, there wasn’t any trail underneath his feet.
I really must stop landing with a whoompf like that, he told himself, sitting up. Above him, a jagged blue-gray circle was the hole in the road he’d fallen through; almost exactly in its center, twinkling falteringly, was the first star of night. A muted glow was lighting up the earthy chamber he’d dropped into, as if there were a bank of candles somewhere just out of sight. The walls of the chamber were worn smooth, and here and there he could see silvery hairs sticking to them.
Something softly touched his shoulder from behind.
That’s it, I’m dead, he thought morosely. Let’s just hope it doesn’t hurt too much.
He turned his head and found himself looking into a soft brown eye.
A badger. I’m going to be eaten by a badger. Oh, wait a minute. Badgers don’t eat other animals, do they? But they’re likely to kill them anyway to protect their setts. Oh, Jinnia, that all my adventurings should come to this.
“What kind of a rat are you?” said the badger amiably. Its voice was surprisingly high for a beast so much bigger than Flip.
“I’m not a—” he began, then stopped. He was a trespasser here. The badger seemed inclined to be friendly. The last thing Flip needed to do was start an argument.
“I’m so sorry to have intruded like this,” he said politely.
“Quite understandable, quite understandable,” responded the badger calmly. “Happens all the time. When I dug out my sett many years ago, this area was wild, untamed forest. Then the worgs came and built a road, and they didn’t notice that my sett was right in the middle of it.” The badger flapped one ear, then the other. “One of these days I must get round to moving the entrance, but until then …” He shrugged. “It’s interesting meeting new people this way, even if they do have unsightly lumps on their heads. We badgers don’t normally have much of a social life, and so—”
Flip couldn’t control his impatience any longer.
“I’d love to stay and chat with you, but I really need to get out of here. I’ve lost my friends, you see, and I have to find them.”
The badger raised an eyebrow. “If you need to be going so soon, I won’t stop you. But are you sure there aren’t any worgs still out there?”
“Wo–worgs?”
“Yes, worgs. There were dozens of them going by just a little while ago. I popped my nose out of my sett to watch them. The most exciting thing that’s happened all week, until you, ah, dropped in just now.”
“I didn’t see any worgs.” Then again, thought Flip, I was dashing so fast that I wouldn’t have even seen Jinnia if she’d been standing there. I could have easily shot straight past a worg and not realized it.
“A strange-looking bunch they were too,” said the badger, “even for worgs. They were carrying a number of knocked-about humans, which wasn’t so odd, but they had the most gigantic frog you’ve ever seen with them as well, and they were – I know you’re going to say my eyes were deceiving me, because a badger’s eyesight is not the best, you know – they were leading a horse and carriage.”
“That’s them,” cried Flip. “They’re my friends you saw.” He began wringing his hands. “They’ve been seized by worgs. Oh, my. Oh dearie me. I suppose that by now they’ll all have been …”
He couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought.
“I should think they might still be alive,” said the badger in a considered tone, rubbing his chin with a paw. “The worgs were heading toward their ceremonial feasting ground. If they’d wanted to eat your friends right away they’d have done so on the spot. But when worgs decide they want to make a ceremony out of a feast, they take their time over it. It can be hours before they get round to even the appetizers.”
Flip stared at him.
“You mean there’s still a chance of saving them?”
“Oh, yes.”
The badger sat back on his haunches as if that were a satisfactory end to the conversation.
“Can you take me there?”
The badger blinked. “Whyever would you want to go there? An exceedingly” – he drew out the word – “dangerous place to go, if you ask me. You’d be much better off staying here.”
“Because they’re my friends! That’s why I need to go. I have to do everything in my power to save them.”
“You ever picked a fight with a worg?” said the badger idly.
“Not in so many words, no.”
“Ah.”
“But I helped two of my friends escape from a worg.”
The badger raised an eyebrow. “That’s more than most people can say,” he conceded. “When a worg catches you, the only way you can usually escape is down its throat.”
“Will you take me to this feasting ground of theirs, or do I have to try to find it by myself? You might at least give me some directions.”
The second eyebrow rose to join the first. “No need to get petulant, ratboy. I’m thinking.”
“The longer you think, the more likely my friends are to be—”
“Eaten? Hm, yes. You do have a point. Still, worgs generally finish one victim before they start on the next. You’re likely to just lose one or two of your friends while I take this matter under serious consideration. Perhaps it might be best if I slept on it.”
Flip didn’t know if he was going to attack the badger or just explode where he stood. He clenched his diminutive fists. He could feel the hackles on the back of his neck rising.
“You didn’t see any worgs on your way here?” said the badger.
“No.”
“Then I suppose it’d be safe for me to go with you.” The badger nodded. “It’s about time for my evening amble, and I might as well go in that direction as any other. Now, where are my scarf and gloves? Wouldn’t like to catch a chill, you know. These evenings can be terribly deceptive, if you see what I mean. They look warm enough, but once you’re actually out in them you find that …”
Flip somehow got him out of the sett and onto the road. The badger, after making a lot of fuss about being sure the smaller creature had properly cleaned his feet, allowed Flip to ride on his shoulders. Hanging on tightly to the badger’s ruff and breathing his strong but not unpleasant smell, Flip began to feel hope rising in his heart once more as his mount trotted along the beaten-down trail, pausing from time to time to examine some roadside discovery that the badger found fascinating.
Then, after dark had fully fallen, Flip saw the trees ahead of them lit up with the angry red glow of flames. The sound of drumbeats seemed to batter the sky.
“That’s the feasting ground,” said the badger, pointing, “and I should think it must be very close to suppertime.”
CHAPTER 4
WORG FIRE BREW
agandran looked out through the bars of the cage. The night was full of the sounds of carousal, as worgs of all sizes, shapes and colors cavorted around huge bonfires. Gallons of strong liquor were being poured down capacious throats. Primitive bellows were puffing embers into a brilliant yellow-red heat. Roars of frayed, drunken laughter met every oafish sally. Spits were being oiled and admired.
“They’re preparing far more spits than there are of us,” observed Perima from somewhere behind him.
“Worgs can’t count,” explained Sir Tombin simply. Curiously, he still had Xaraxeer. The worgs hadn’t taken the sword from him. Either they’d been scared to lay a hand on it or they simply hadn’t recognized it, scabbarded, for what it was. Not that a sword was going to do them much good in here. Still, when the worgs came to fetch them for the ritual roasting, followed by the ritual devouring, at least there would be the satisfaction of watching Sir Tombin take a few worgs with him.
Some satisfaction. It wouldn’t make the companions any less dead.
The worg guarding the cage was obviously restless to join in all the fun. He was shifting his weight steadily from one foot to the other and back again; every now and then he got the sequence wrong and staggered.
Affecting a courtesy he didn’t feel, Sagandran managed to elicit from the guard that his name was Snot. Not the sort of name an adoring human mother might have chosen, perhaps, but worgs weren’t human and the guard bore his name with a certain unconcealed pride.
“This dance your friends are doing,” said Sagandran politely. “Is it perhaps some traditional symbolic ritual?”
Snot gave him a disgusted look. “You value your good looks?”
“Er, yes.”
“Den shaddap.”
“Oh.”
So much for conversation.
As Snot turned away, a leather flask dropped from his belt. Quick as a flash, Sagandran instinctively reached through the bars and snatched it up off the ground, hiding it behind his back. It might be a useful bar
gaining point later, though he couldn’t for the life of him imagine how.
The cage stood on a small hill. A huge worg was climbing up toward them from the fringes of the celebrating mob. It was difficult to tell worgs apart, but he’d know this one’s ugly face anywhere. It was Bolster, the worg he’d encountered not long after he’d met Flip. Wherever Flip now was. The last he’d seen of his little friend had been when he’d looked down from the swinging net. Had some worg picked him up and scoffed him as a snack? Or had Flip just been trampled carelessly underfoot as first Bolster, and then a crowd of other worgs had flooded into the clearing, shouting and cheering over their unexpected capture?
Bolster came right up close to the cage, pressing his broad face against the bars, breathing heavily in gloating triumph. Sagandran recoiled from the sight of the big, broken, rot-blackened teeth of Bolster’s leer; and recoiled yet further from the stench of the giant worg’s breath. Bolster threw his head back and gave a laugh that split the night.
Perima stared at Samzing as if speaking to him. “He’s come to drool over us again,” she said loudly, so that her words cut straight through Bolster’s exultation. “Like, pukesville.”
The worg’s laughter stopped as abruptly as if someone had just cut his throat. “You’re gonna be de first on de spit,” he promised her with a glower. “And I gonna slide you onto it real slow.”
“Coward,” said Sagandran.
“Who you callin’ coward?”
“You. You’re okay taunting a defenseless girl, as long as there are stout iron bars between you and her. Wow. Big tough Bolster. What a chickenheart.”
Bolster tugged angrily on the bars of the cage, and for a moment it looked as if he’d simply rip them clear away. It took all of Sagandran’s nerve just to stay standing there staring defiantly at the vast worg’s furiously contorting face.
“Yeah, chickenheart,” chipped in Perima. “A mere slip of a girl like me, a delicate flower. If you were in here beside me, I’d slap your face, and serve you right!”
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