“It could be a spear butt, or just a stick, or something else,” Master Kember put in.
“My instincts tell me it’s a walking stick or a staff. Look how deep,” he inserted his finger halfway into a perfectly round hole in the soft ground. “They’re all that deep and evenly spaced, like someone is leaning on a walking stick heavily.”
“A troll using a walking stick?” Master Kember raised a brow at the King’s Ranger.
“Don’t make sense, do it?” Herald replied, with another glance at Zah. He gave Jenka and Master Kember a strange look; the look a man has just before he starts into something he doesn’t really want to do, then led his horse over to Zah.
“These trolls that are supposed to attack us, how do they communicate? Do they actually speak, or are they like critters and get along with posture and noises and such?”
“I’m certain that they have a language all their own,” Zah answered, with a look to Linux for help with the response. She didn’t feel that she could trust these men to tell them the truth: that a dragon had told her some dark force had awakened to lead the goblinkin against the expanding kingdom of men.
“One of our peers has been trying to imitate the grunts and growls of trolls for over a decade now,” Linux explained. “Trollkin, goblinkin, whatever you want to call them, are built differently than we are. He has had little success with it, because the troll’s throat is so complex that we can’t make most of the sounds they use, but he has learned by his long experience with them that they are communicating with sound. Why do you ask?”
“Well I’m pondering if a man might learn to get along with them, to help them plan and such?”
“That is a good question, isn’t it?” Linux asked them both. “And if this person could communicate and organize the trolls, could he not do the same with the mudge?”
“If it was a druid or a mage, couldn’t they spell the trolls into doing their bidding? My ma once spelled a man to build a garden for his wife and it worked,” Jenka said.
All eyes turned to Jenka then. Zah let the corner of her mouth turn up a fraction, and Linux made weird shapes with his mouth as he thought the possibility over. Master Kember was remembering when young Orvin Longgras had built that garden. He frowned and shook his head at the fact that Witch Magic had been involved.
“I don’t know ‘bout all that,” Herald said, matter-of-factly. “But I know we got to get to King’s Island and let King Blanchard know there be dragons in the skies, and gangs of trolls wandering around the lake attacking berry pickers and herbalists. That’s my duty.”
“Well, we need to find them boys first,” Master Kember reminded.
“Agreed,” Herald nodded. “But after that, we need to make some haste, ‘cause my old Kingsman’s skull en't as empty as the lass might think. She might be seeing things better than the rest of us have been, but I en't blind!”
Just then, from a great distance into the chest high swamp grass, Rikky let out a keening wail. Master Kember was off at a gallop and Jenka was right behind him. Before they had even gone twenty feet, Stick’s frantic voice came calling from the same area, “Over here! Over here! One of ‘em’s dead! Over here!”
Chapter Six
Jenka had to fight the urge to vomit when he slogged into the high grass and saw what the two boys were hovering over. It was Solman who had met his end there, and young Rikky had found him. Solman’s pale, mud-splattered body was wide open across the middle, and the cavity that should have held his innards had been picked clean by the early scavengers. His head was lying at an odd angle, and one of his arms was horribly twisted. A more substantial creature had worried away most of his face, but his pants and boots were completely recognizable. There was no mistake as to who it was. Master Kember was trying to urge them all away so that he and Herald could look at the sign before it was completely trampled, but it was no use. Rikky was fiercely clinging to Salmon’s body and sobbing pitifully.
“It’s all right, Kember!” Herald said, loud enough to stop him from pulling Ricky off of the corpse. Behind Herald, Zah looked down from her mount and gasped. She spurred her horse quickly away, and Linux, who had already dismounted, sloshed off to tend to her.
“'Tweren't no troll did that,” the King’s Ranger said harshly. “That be a sword slash, or I’m a pixie's pecker-head.”
“Probably those bandits that got your nephew,” Jenka said the first thing that came to his mind.
“I reckon it is,” Herald let out a long, low sigh. “The other one is probably close. If not, he got away.”
Master Kember was looking at Jenka, and would have commented on his quick reasoning, had he not been nearly overcome with his anger over the loss of one of the boys in his charge. He was fuming, and seriously considered stopping the journey to King’s Island in order to hunt down the bandits that did this.
Finally, Stick got Rikky to move away. Herald stepped in and looked the area over, shaking his head in sheer disgust the whole time. When he stepped away and moved over to Master Kember’s side, Jenka moved close to listen.
“It’s them fargin bandits. I’m sure of it.” He twisted his neck and cringed in his chin. “I’m thinking our boys walked up out of this swamp grass and startled ‘em.”
“What makes you say that?” Linux asked curiously, startling them all. None of the experienced woodsmen had even sensed the druid coming up behind them.
“That’s a sword slash, the kind you make when you’re facing a foe and defending ground.” Herald snorted deeply, then spat a wad of phlegm off to the side. He rolled his shoulders, trying to picture the scene in his mind. “If you were going to kill someone deliberate with a sword, you would just run ‘em through.”
“Or open their neck,” Jenka added out loud before he realized he had spoken.
“Just so,” Herald gave a nod of grim respect to Jenka, and continued. “There’s a problem here, though. That carrot-headed boy is probably a captive. If he came up out of the brush behind Solman, he’d have been able to yell out and keep from gettin’ killed.”
“I don’t understand.” Linux looked at them all with his slick, bald head cocked sideways.
Jenka answered, and felt comfortable doing so, which caught Zah’s attention. He really wasn’t as stupid as she had first thought. “Those bandits have to be weary of the frontier, just like we do. When Solman came out of the grass, the bandits probably thought he was a troll,” explained Jenka. “Solman and Mortin, if they were still together, most likely thought that the fire hole over there was from our camp. I doubt they had any idea of how far ahead of us the current carried them.”
“Mortin has been around here some,” Stick chimed in. “He labored down at Midwal for a stretch. He told me that he rode a few times with the Walguard when they came through Three Forks to watch over the clay pit caravans. That’s where he did his feat of notability, fighting bandits in them tangle woods over there.”
“What’s the clay pit?” Jenka asked. The Walguard he knew. They were the men who not only manned the Great Wall stretching all the way across the neck of the mainland continent, but they also rode guard for supply caravans that came out into the frontier to gather materials, such as lumber and stone, for the kingdom’s continuous construction needs. Jenka knew that there was a sizable outpost in Three Forks, called simply Three Forks Stronghold. It housed and sustained members of the Walguard, the King’s Rangers, and several of the more civic divisions of King Blanchard’s established command. Jenka, having never been very far out of Crag, had never heard of the clay pits.
“It’s not far from here to the east,” Stick explained. “It’s a cliff face that’s been dug out and down so that it looks like a pit now. They dig up this thick mud called clay. It's reddish brown, and can be molded into shapes and baked into…”
“I know what clay is,” Jenka smirked a little more harshly than he intended to. “I’ve just never heard of the pits.”
“If Mortin’s been round here, and he got away,
then that’s where he’d go,” Herald reasoned. “He’s a Forester now, and the Kingsmen at the pit will take him in and hear his tale, but if he got caught by them fargin road thieves, then he might be in a heap.”
“So we track ‘em down?” Master Kember asked, with more than a hint of vengeful eagerness in his voice.
“No. I track ‘em down, and there really ain’t no tracking to it. They still got some of Swinerd’s pigs with ‘em. I can find a pig in a corn field.” Herald’s tone made clear to the crippled hunter that he was speaking as a King’s Ranger and a superior now. “Make camp, Master Kember, and post a double watch. And you,” he paused to point at Stick. “You get them crossbows unpacked and loaded, Forester. Show Jenka and Rikky how to use ’em proper, but don’t be a wastin’ no bolts. Then all three a ’ya go up to higher ground and start diggin’ Solman a hole. I want that done before dark fall.” He turned back to Master Kember and gave him a sharp nod. “If I’m not back, leave in the morning as if naught was amiss. I’ll try and get in close on them bastards tonight when the moon first starts up, and if I see our boy I’ll come back and we’ll go from there. If I don’t see him, I’ll come back and send Stick to the pit to look for him.” He put his hand on Master Kember’s shoulder. “I have a sworn duty to see them two druids to King’s Island, Marwick, or we’d all go a-bandit hunting, I promise ya.”
Master Kember looked as if he were biting the end of his tongue off. His face grew beet-red, and after he gave a short nod, he turned and stalked away.
Later, when the crossbows had been assembled, loaded and distributed, Jenka took a break from digging and handed Rikky the little field shovel they had been sharing. Stick was off gathering rocks to help cover the nearly-completed grave, and Linux and Zah were meditating, or praying, or whatever it was that druids did, over Solman’s stiffening corpse.
Jenka wanted to swim out into the lake and just float away from it all so that he could have some time to gather his roiling thoughts, but he knew he couldn’t do that. He had grown up with Solman, and though they were never really all that close, he wanted his friend to be buried well. Beyond that, he felt the indescribable urge to be out there with Herald, hunting the men who did this. He knew that Master Kember shared the sentiment, but Herald was a King’s Ranger, and he had laid down the law. They had to follow it.
It was almost full dark when Master Kember placed the last stone. His face was streaked with tears, and so were Jenka and Zah’s. Linux and Stick kept themselves a bit distant. They never had the chance to get close to Solman and neither felt that they had the right to intrude. Young Rikky just sat squatted near Solman’s buried head and stared at the long pile of stones as if he were in a trance.
While searching for rocks, Stick had found enough washed-up wood and deadfall to start a normal blaze. Master Kember was thankful for it. The last thing he wanted was to spend another night beside that overly hot, hissing blue druid’s fire.
Master Kember, Rikky and Linux took the first watch, which was fine with Jenka. He quickly found his bed roll, buried his face in his cloak, and cried out a good bit of sorrowful emotion before he fell asleep. Zah kept an eye on him for a while, but her sadness got the best of her, and she too sobbed herself into slumber. Stick just stared blankly at the sky. He considered that it could have easily been him lying there dead in the mud until Master Kember gave him a shake and told him that it was time for the second watch. He woke up Zah, and then Jenka, and the three of them sat around the warm, cherry-red fire coals watching the night over each other’s shoulders.
Morning came with no sign of Herald, and Master Kember didn’t confuse his orders. He had the group moving quickly down the rutted road before the whole of the sun was even in the sky. They rode like that for nearly an hour, when they came upon what was left of Mortin’s horse lying just off of the road. Mortin had a standard-issue Forester’s saddle that Stick recognized immediately. The animal had been torn apart and half eaten, which master Kember informed them only trolls would do. Almost all other large carnivores, he told them, tried to finish their kill, or at least protect it so that they could finish it later. His assumption in this case was backed up when Jenka and the boys marked troll tracks coming and going all around the horse’s putrid carcass.
“Let’s get it moving again,” Master Kember urged them. “Herald and Mort are probably waiting for us up the road … ”
“Herald is right here a comin’ out of the woods at ya! And if I’d have been a troll, I’d have you!”
“Not so fast,” Jenka said, shaking the tip of the crossbow bolt he had nearly fired at the King’s Ranger by mistake.
“You’re lucky Jenka has a little more restraint than that bandit did,” Linux observed.
“Aye … s'pose I am,” he shivered. “But see here! We called it true,” Herald walked over and patted Jenka’s horse on the chest. “I heard them theivin’ bastards last night talking ‘bout it. I got real close. Said the boy came stumbling into the dying pit-fire light and startled the one who was supposed to be on watch. They was razzing him about it pretty bad.”
The idea of those men joking about Solman’s death irked Jenka deeply, but not nearly as much as it angered Rikky and Master Kember.
“Did you see Mortin?” Stick and Jenka almost asked over each other.
“Not a sign of him, and they didn’t say a peep about him, so I’m guessing he’d be headed over to the clay pit, if he didn’t drown.”
“Are you going to send me after him?” Stick asked, as if he were eagerly up to the uncertain task of riding a half a day alone, in territory thick with bandits and trolls.
Herald waved the Forester’s eagerness off and strode over to Master Kember, who was climbing down off of his horse to walk with him. Herald didn’t seem to need privacy, though, and his words carried to everyone’s ears.
“I’m giving you an option here, Marwick. You can take Rikky and Stick, here, and go to the clay pits and round up some more men and go collect some King’s Justice, or I can send Stick over there to do the same. Either way, them bandits‘ll be getting their due.” He gave Master Kember a solid pat on the back and started to say more, but Rikky spoke for the first time that day.
“I want to go with Stick,” Rikky blurted out hotly. “I want to kill them bastards that got Sol, and since they’re bandits, if we succeed, that’ll be my feat of notability!”
“You’ll do just what I tell you to, son,” Master Kember said flatly.
Rikky had never known who his father was, and when he heard Master Kember call him “son” like that, he didn’t dare argue with him.
“Take him, Marwick,” Herald urged. “He needs to help put a close to this. Take ‘em both and go catch them sons of bitches. There ain’t but five of ‘em, and scruffy as hell, and full of all that swine they rustled. You can catch up to us on the island. Tell you the truth, the four of us can probably make haste with all this behind us.”
“Four?” Master Kember looked around and saw Jenka. He shook his head in the negative. “I told his mother that I’d get him where he was going, Herald. I can’t leave it on you.”
“I’m a fargin King’s Ranger, Marwick,” He pounded at the dingy pale blue star emblem that was embroidered on his vest's left breast. “Jenka is a witness to an incident involving a dragon and trolls. No, two incidents involving dragons after that fargin fire wyrm swooped out of the sky and nearly got him yesterday.” He put his hands on his hips and glared at Master Kember.
“You don’t know his mother,” Master Kember said with a shake of his head. “She said she would shrivel my stones if I let him get hurt.”
“No sir,” Jenka corrected. “She said she would shrivel your stones if you kept trying to pull the wool over her eyes about how safe this journey would be.”
“See, that’s not a concern, then,” Herald actually grinned at Jenka, but when he turned back to Master Kember his tone and demeanor grew gravely serious. “I really don’t like leaving Mortin’s fate to one of th
ese lads, Kember. They be green as spring grass, but this matter of mudges and trolls has to get to King Blanchard’s ear, and quickly I’m thinking.”
“I’ll do it for Mortin, then. That way I’m not abandoning Jenka for revenge,”
“However ya sell yourself on it, Marwick, just save that carrot-headed son of a bitch and round up them bandits. Kill ‘em if you have to, on my order. Meet us on King’s Island as soon as you can. I’ll be bunked in the west guard house; the one near the Golden Unicorn Inn and Tavern. The druids will be put up there too.”
“See ya, Jenk,” Rikky said, with a surprising bit of cheer in his voice. “I’ll get one for you!”
“Just don’t get yourself killed, Rikky.” Jenka reached over and shook the young hunter’s hand. “I’ll mention you to the king myself if I get the chance, I swear it.” Jenka shook Stick’s hand as well, but he got down off of his horse and gave Master Kember a heartfelt hug.
“Just be yourself when you’re in front of King Blanchard,” Master Kember told Jenka. “It’s what he respects most. He is a good and just man, and he has always had a deep regard for what your father did for Prince Richard.”
“I’ll make you both proud,” Jenka had tears streaming down his face again, but he didn’t try to hide them because Master Kember’s face was slick with them too.
After Master Kember, Rikky and Stick headed eastward from the lake toward the clay pit, Herald went back into the tangle of growth beneath the drooping willow trees and came back with not one, but two horses. One was his, of course, and the other had been Solman’s. He mounted his steed and gave the other animal a long lead. He gave a short warning that they would be riding a little faster than they had been and then spurred off southward down the road. They rode at a steady clip until well after dark, but riding in the night didn’t seem so dangerous now, because every so often they passed a well-lit cluster of farm houses, or a cattle ranch that was set back off the ever-widening road. The whole time, the swiftly-moving river flowed alongside them to the right.
The Royal Dragoneers (Dragoneers Saga) Page 6