"It's pretty hard by me, too," I grunted, "and speaking of hard, let's finish this journey bread."
But Gilbert was looking past me at the troll. "He is your creature now, and woe betide any who seek to hurt you—but he still hungers."
It occurred to me that Gilbert might be feeling less than secure. "Guard Gilbert, too," I ordered Gruesome.
"Gibbet safe from hurt!" the troll assured me... but he still looked hungry.
"He must be fed, with something," Gilbert said, his voice low.
"I'd rather be a little more definite about the 'something,' " I said, and raised my voice. "Gruesome! Go gobble up a billy goat!"
The troll looked very surprised for a minute, then grinned, gratified, and scrambled off.
Not believing my luck, I stared after him, then turned to start stuffing the rations back into Gilbert's sack. "Quick! Now's our chance!"
"Chance for what?" Gilbert said blankly.
"To lose that monster! Come on, let's go!"
"It will avail naught," Gilbert protested, but he gathered his gear and mounted up.
We were only a hundred yards down the road when I stopped dead in my tracks. "What's the matter with me!"
"Naught, that I can see," Gilbert said, surprised.
"Nice of you—especially considering what some other people I know might have said for an answer." I turned about and started hiking back, double-quick. "I just realized what I told that fool troll to do!"
"Aye—to dine upon a goat."
"Right! And where do you find goats in a country like this?"
"Why, upon..." Suddenly, Gilbert's eyes filled with foreboding. "Upon a farm!"
"Right! And I only told him to guard you—I didn't say anything about any other humans! Come on, let's go!"
"Ride," Gilbert snapped.
His tone riled me, but I had to admit there was no time to debate the issue now. I scrambled up behind him and held on for all I was worth. He kicked the horse into a gallop and went pounding up the hillside.
"There he is!" I pointed.
Gilbert swerved, and the horse leaped the fence.
I wasn't expecting it—I almost went flying. But I managed to hold on tighter, and Gilbert grunted as I gave him an impromptu Heimlich maneuver. Then we were pounding over the meadow grass and swung about in front of a slavering troll just as the goatherd boy yelled in fright.
"No, Gruesome!" I held up a hand. "Mustn't eat any people."
"Not eat?" Gruesome protested, wounded.
"Not eat people!" I said with conviction. "Only goats! And wolves and bear and deer," I modified, and turned to the goatherd. "It's okay—he's only after your goats, not you."
"But—but I shall be whipped!" Trembling, he faced us all, crook held slantwise across his body, ready to strike.
I almost invited him to come along right there, he was so brave. I would have, too, if I'd known where I was going. As it was, I just reached in my pocket and fished out a quarter. "I'll buy one goat from you."
He caught the quarter, then held it up, staring at it. " 'Tis silver!"
"Will it..." I remembered the principles of bargaining and changed the wording. "How big a goat will it buy?"
"The biggest in my herd! But 'tis a most strange coin, gentleman!"
"I'm a foreigner," I explained. "Make it a billy goat, all right?" I glanced at the troll and said, "A gruff one."
"My worst," he said eagerly. In thirty seconds, he had driven out the most ornery billy goat I'd ever seen, who kept turning and trying to butt him. I didn't blame it—if I'd been being driven toward a troll, I would have tried to run, too.
But Gruesome solved the issue by pouncing. There was a startled bleat that ended abruptly. White-faced, the goatherd backed away.
"Gruesome! Come to Saul!" I said sternly, and to Gilbert, "Walk away."
We turned and started walking. I glanced back; Gruesome was following, taking large bites. I winced and turned away. "Crisis over. Do we have to go through this every mealtime?"
"You will find a way," Gilbert said with total confidence. I wished I'd shared it.
I didn't make the same mistake when we set camp for the night. I made a different one. Well, no, maybe not a mistake, really—as soon as I realized Gruesome was eyeing us hungrily, I said, "Hungry enough to eat a bear?"
Gruesome nodded, a huge slab of tongue coming out to slurp over his lips, what there were of them.
"Then go catch one," I said. "If you can catch it, you can eat it."
He nodded brightly, surged up to his feet, and trotted off into the trees.
Gilbert stared after him open-mouthed, then turned to me. "Will he find one?"
I shrugged. "Whether he does or not, we'll get an hour or so of worry-free sleep."
Gilbert smiled, a slow grin. "Ingenious, Master Wizard! Nay, let us dine quickly and seek sleep faster! I'll take the first watch."
I realized I was dog-tired, so I didn't object. Right after we finished, I rolled up in the cloak Gilbert's commander had sent with the squire.
"Will you not pray first?" Gilbert asked, scandalized.
"No, I don't think so," I told him, then thought better fast. "I meditate while I'm going to sleep."
His face cleared; where he came from, "meditate" meant the same as "pray." He nodded and turned away to watch the night.
He woke me some time around midnight and said, "Wake me for the third watch." I bit back a gripe and nodded, rolling up to my knees, watching the landscape, and wishing heartily that this universe had discovered coffee. Much better for my health, I'm sure, but no more pleasant than healthful things usually are. Gilbert was snoring within five minutes. I'd heard that soldiers developed that ability.
As my head cleared, I looked around and realized what was missing: the troll. My spirits picked up—maybe the bear had won.
I was really getting to be hopeful when I woke Gilbert about six hours later—my wrist watch had gone on the fritz, so I was going by the Little Dipper. He came awake instantly, took one glance at the stars, and said, "Master Wizard! You should have waked me sooner! Nay, I've slept through two watches!"
"Six hours for you, six hours for me," I told him. "Comes out even." I didn't mention that mine had been two and two. I decided that the next night, I'd take the first watch.
"Natheless, a knight should be able to keep a vigil!"
"How about we talk about it tomorrow evening?" I suggested.
He brightened surprisingly. "Aye, assuredly. Good sleep to you, Wizard!"
"Good night to you, squire," I said, puzzled. I was almost asleep before I realized why he'd been so pleased—saying we'd talk about it tomorrow night implied that I was accepting his company. I broke out in cold sweat as I felt the clammy tendrils of commitment gluing themselves onto me. I was going to have to find some way to send Gilbert back to his buddies.
It took me a while to get to sleep.
I woke in the false dawn, to hear a sound like a chainsaw eating its way through a stack of garbage cans. I sat bolt upright to see Gilbert standing guard, hand on his sword, casting nervous glances at a huge, gently heaving hulk. I realized it was my pet troll come home, snoring like a railroad car full of scrap steel, swaying on loose tracks. Next to him lay a collection of bones and hide, all of them sizable.
I stared. So the bear hadn't won. I repressed a surge of guilt; better it than me. Or Gilbert.
Then I relaxed—the fact that Gruesome had done as I told him was very reassuring. So was the fact that he could handily defeat a full-grown bear.
Muscles like that might come in useful for a stranger in a mighty strange land. I decided I'd keep him for a while. All things considered, I might be safer with him than without him.
Unless some enemy sorcerer decided to remove the restraint spell, anyway.
That thought, combined with the dawn's early light, pretty much guaranteed that I wasn't going to get any more sleep. I got up, waved Gilbert to silence, and started rousting up breakfast. If there was
one thing I didn't need, it was an ornery, fresh-wakened troll.
I took a chance on nudging him with my boot an hour later and told him we were taking off. He rolled up to his feet right away, eager as a puppy dog.
So we set off south, heading into what I hoped was Switzerland, with a squire looking for enough trouble to win him a knighthood, and a half-tame troll eager to find something to protect me from.
Understandably, I was nervous.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Late that day I looked around, frowning and footsore. "Notice anything strange?"
"Aye," Gilbert said. "We have come into a barren waste."
"Yeah, but there used to be a lot of trees here—at least, little ones." I pointed at the expanse of four-inch stumps, lopped off so cleanly that you could see the rings. "What was it, a lumber crisis?"
"I ken not." Gilbert looked around nervously. " 'Tis uncanny, though. I would we did not have to stay the night here."
"Yeah," I said, "but it's getting dark. Think we ought to pitch camp pretty soon?"
"It would seem likely," Gilbert said grudgingly.
A distant, bloodthirsty moan stopped us in our tracks.
"But not right here," I qualified.
"Mayhap not." Gilbert nudged his horse ahead and drew his sword.
"Hold on!" I protested. "Where do you think you're going?"
"To discover what made that sound," he said, in a tone that brooked no argument. "If 'tis our enemy, 'tis better that we come upon it, than that it come upon us."
"Now, hold on!" I protested. "If it's going to be that dangerous, you can't go in there alone!"
"I am a squire," he said simply, "a man of arms."
"That's what I mean." I stumbled on ahead. "Whatever it is, it's a long ways off yet."
"We must be silent," he protested. "You should stay here."
"Of course," I said, "not."
"Yuh, not." Gruesome flexed his huge hands, grinning, and padded forward. For all his bulk, he moved more quietly than I did—but then, he wasn't wearing boots.
"See?" I said. "We're coming along, Gilbert. Gilbert?"
"Up here," a voice whispered ahead of me. "For Heaven's sake, be still!"
"Still. Yuh." Gruesome turned to hiss at me. "Still!" Then he turned back without waiting for an answer.
I followed along, wondering what had happened to my usual common sense.
But it was my party—these two were here because of me. I rushed the pace a little, passed Gruesome, and came up level with Gilbert as his horse groped its way along a stony path in the gathering darkness. Gilbert started to protest, but just then the moan burst out again, and I saw a glowing shape drifting toward us through the gloom, its mouth an impossibly wide circle of slavering emptiness, eyes staring and covetous, and its fingers hooked like talons, poised to grab.
Then some stranger jumped out of the dimness, dove past me, and cowered behind a boulder, trembling.
That seemed to be okay with the ghost. It shifted its attentions to me, zooming toward me with a gloating howl.
The fugitive leapt to his feet, turned, ran—and slammed right into the only tree on an otherwise barren hillside. He slumped down, beneath a huge spiderweb with a very large spider in it. The ghost, shifting back to its original quarry, fluttered after its victim, then hesitated, apparently repelled by the spider. I could sympathize, but I knew the specter wouldn't be halted long.
"Hold it right there!" I shouted. I jumped in front of a big boulder, yanking my belt out of the loops and swinging the buckle. "Cold iron, remember?"
The ghost yelled something that sounded suspiciously like "Yum!" and threw itself on the buckle. I dropped the belt and yanked my hand out of the way just in time, and the ghost bored on into the rock, sinking out of sight. Of my belt, there was no trace. There was also a large hole in the boulder.
Then the ghost veered out of the rock face, swooped out in a circle, and headed back toward me, smacking its lips and drooling. Whatever kind of spook this was, it was a virtual flying appetite. It reminded me of a shark—but it also reminded me of my Kipling. I shouted,
"We come to fight and triumph in
The savage wars of peace,
To fill full the mouth of Hunger,
And bid the Famine cease!"
The ghost jolted to a halt with a look of startled shock as its mouth snapped shut and sealed itself. Its checks bulged, and its body ballooned with a huge flapping sound.
"Wizard Saul!" Gilbert pounded up to me, panting. "Beware! 'Tis a hunger ghost!"
"Yuh," Gruesome grunted, scrabbling up behind the squire. "Get 'way! Ghost eat all!"
"It will indeed," Gilbert corroborated. "It will eat anything it encounters, and is never full!"
"Then I think I've created a first," I said, picking up a stone, "but get ready with some rocks anyway, will you? If it opens its mouth, pitch for the breadbasket."
Gilbert turned to the ghost, then stared. "Opens? But a hunger ghost's mouth is never shut!"
"This one's is," I said. "It's full."
Full, and getting fuller—its belly was still stretching, turning it into a perfect globe with stubby limbs sticking out and a bulge of head on top.
"It doth depart," a wondering voice breathed somewhere around my kneecap. I looked down and saw a patched hat with a gaunt face beneath it, all eyes and pointed nose and jawbone, with hollows for cheeks, and more hollows at the back of which eyes glittered.
Well, at least whatever I'd saved was human.
I looked up again just in time to see the ghost drift high enough to catch an updraft and shoot away to the west, shrinking until it was lost in the twilight.
"It must have sped most quickly indeed," Gilbert said, "for 'twas still swelling with thy spell, Wizard Saul."
"Spell?" the man I had saved cried. He looked up at me with a feverish hunger of his own. "Are you a wizard, then?"
"Well, I wouldn't say that," I demurred—but I saw the scandalized look on Gilbert's face and said quickly, "but everybody else here seems to. Why do you ask?"
"If you are a wizard, you can cure me!"
Gruesome looked away, humming. That made me uneasy. I stalled. "How do you know I'm a good guy? Just because I worked, um, a"—I swallowed heavily and forced it out—"a spell, doesn't say which side I'm on. I could have been an evil sorcerer."
Gilbert stared, appalled, but the famine case shook his head firmly and said, "If you had been a sorcerer, you would have let the ghost have me, and welcome."
"Good thinking," I approved, but I frowned up into the sky. "Do you suppose that thing will burst when it's had too much?"
"Nay, surely," Gilbert said.
The other added, "A hunger ghost can never have had too much."
I was again seized with the unhappy reminder that everybody else in this country seemed to know more about what was going on than I did. To cover it, I said to the man cowering at my feet, "Come on, bucko, up with you!" I caught his arm and helped him stand. "How'd you get that ghost sicced on you, anyway?"
"I think his appearance tells us that," Gilbert said softly.
Yes, it was pretty obvious, now that I looked—the tattered coat, the patched leggings, the holes in the shoes, and, above all, the general emaciation. The arm I was clinging to felt like a bone wrapped by a rag, and the man's whole face was pinched with hunger.
I remembered a college lecture on the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. "Gilbert, could you get a piece of beef jerky out of your saddlebag? And the water skin."
In a second, Gilbert was holding out the tough, leathery strip, and the water skin.
The vagabond snatched the pemmican from him and bit into it—then forced his molars down onto it, pulled his jaw open, and bit down again, and again.
"That's it," I soothed. "Don't bite, chew. That meat is so dried that you can't gulp it."
The man gave it a valiant try, I had to admit, but beef jerky takes an awful lot of chewing just to get a bite off the stick, let alone soft
en it enough to swallow.
"Not much else to eat, I'm afraid," I apologized, and was glad I didn't have to lie. "One swallow of water when you get that bite down, okay? Just one swallow—then another bite of jerky. By the time you finish that strip, maybe we'll have some stew on." I turned to Gilbert. "Now I'll take the first campsite you can find."
Fifty yards farther down, the path broadened out onto a twenty-foot-wide terrace. Gilbert pronounced it fit, so I arranged a ring of stones and looked around for firewood. "Seen any kindling, Gilbert?"
"Aye." The squire held out an armload of sticks. "I gathered what I found, as we did come down the slope."
"Ah, to have Gilbert's forethought!" I dumped the sticks into my fire ring. "Good thing this path wasn't always above the timberline."
"Aye," our mystery guest said. "This slope bore a few scrub trees, 'til the Spirit of Famine began to chase me."
I swallowed, hard, at the thought of the hunger ghost leveling every living thing off the side of the mountain, and put the thought resolutely behind me. "Gilbert, will you do the honors?"
The squire stepped up and struck flint against steel. A spark fell, and he breathed it into a small flame. Seconds later, fire bloomed from the kindling.
I looked around for something to skewer the provisions Gilbert had collected along the way.
"Will this serve?" Gilbert held up a three-foot splinter of rock.
"Yeah, just fine." I poked the spear through the three pheasants, rested the ends on the highest two rocks, and sat back to watch. I thought of asking how Gilbert had come by the rock spit, but decided I didn't want to know.
Our guest watched them hungrily, but he didn't leap on the raw flesh. The pemmican had filled him up a bit, especially with the water swelling it in his stomach—and it had taken him so long to chew and swallow it that he'd begun to feel full before he could gobble enough to hurt himself.
"A sword would come in handy for this sort of thing," I said. "Remind me to make one right after dinner."
Gilbert looked scandalized at the idea, but our hungry guest said obligingly, "Make a sword right after dinner; are they done yet?"
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