At the bidding of Captain Darby, the four young buccen shed their backpacks and cloaks and down jackets and drew near the fire in wicker chairs. Patrel began telling their tale in short, terse sentences, starting with the events of the Huggs’ farmstead and moving on to the attack of the Vulgs at the Rooks’ Roost, his voice hesitating only when he told of Hob’s death; and tears brimmed in Tuck’s eyes.
The tale done, Patrel’s voice fell quiet, and no one spoke for a moment, while all reflected upon what had been said. At last Captain Darby broke the silence: “When you four came through the door,” his eyes touched each of them, “I thought, ‘Ah, here is Patrel and the recruits,’ but I was wrong, for you are not raw recruits. Instead, you are now four blooded warriors, Thornwalkers all, who have met a foul enemy and given good account of yourselves—at high cost, to be sure, yet it is a price that sometimes must be paid whenever emissaries of fear are challenged. I am proud of you all.”
“Hear, hear,” said the Gammer, thumping the floor with his cane.
At that moment, hot food, sent for earlier by Captain Darby, arrived. Adjourning to the table, the four gratefully dug in, for it was the first meal they’d had since the previous afternoon, their pack pony, the one with the provisions, having fled from the Vulgs the night before. Little was said during the meal, for Captain Darby bade them to eat while the food was hot. But when at last they pushed away from the table and resumed their places near the fire, filling clay pipes with some of Tuck’s Downdell leaf, the talk turned again to the Vulgs.
“Ye’ve done the right thing, raising the alarm through the countryside,” said the Gammer. “Now the brutes’ll meet prepared Warrows. And that ought to put a stop to the disappearances.”
“On the morrow I’ll dispatch heralds to all nearby Thornwalker Companies,” said Captain Darby, “and start the word spreading. It won’t be long till the whole Bosky knows.”
“Uh . . . Captain Darby,” said Tuck, “would it be possible to send a patrol out to look for the ponies that survived? My grey seems to have gotten away, and one pack pony, with Patrel’s lute strapped to it; and two others fled, also.”
“My chestnut,” said Danner.
“And my piebald,” added Patrel.
Tarpy said nothing, for, full of good food and drawn up to a warm fire, exhausted by the all-night battle with the Vulgs, he had fallen asleep, his pipe slipping from his lax fingers to drop to the plank floor.
“You must be weary,” said Captain Darby, his eyes soft upon the sleeping young buccan. “Patrel, take your comrades to the tents of your squad. Get some rest. Tomorrow we will begin search patrols into the countryside, looking not only for your steeds, but also for places where Vulgs may hole up during the day. Ah, but if we only had Dwarves as allies, then could we root out the underground haunts of these beasts. Tomorrow we also shall begin night patrols, Vulg hunts, and Thornwalks to keep more of the beasts out.” Captain Darby stood and gestured for the four young buccen to seek out their tents and sleep.
They awakened Tarpy and donned their jackets and cloaks, gathering up their packs and bows. “Wait,” said the Gammer, “I’ve something to say.” The granther Warrow got to his feet. “When I organized the Wolf Patrols, I thought that it was only them raiding flocks that we had to deal with—and perhaps in the beginning that was true. And we’ve done a fair job at that: most Wolves in Northdell have come to fear the sight of Warrows. Oh, we know that it’s only the strange winter that has driven them to kill livestock; they are only trying to survive; but it’s been touch and go for many a Northdeller, and I expect more Wolves to push through the Barrier ere this winter ends, for it’s bound to get worse. Before you know it, the other Dells will likely feel the bite of Wolf jaws; though that may not be, for the Wolves have made themselves scarce since the Patrols started, and now seem to leave the livestock alone—in which case we’ll leave them be, too.
“But, none of us thought that we’d be dealing with Vulgs. Oh, to be sure, there’s been talk of Vulgs in the Bosky for two or three weeks, but it’s just been tavern talk heretofore, rumors. Ah, but now you four have proven it to be more than just ale tales: it’s fact, not fancy.
“Thanks to you, the Bosky will be warned, and the four Warrow kindred will ever be in your debt, for the preservation of the Warrow Folk is what the Thornwalkers are all about. Look around you: this very building symbolizes the four kindred: The logs represent the trees where dwell the Quiren Warrows, my folk, and I dare say ancestors of Tarpy and Patrel; the stone represents the field houses of the Paren Warrows, perhaps kith to Danner, here, by the look of him; the wicker comes from the fens of the Othen Warrows, like Captain Alver down in Reedyville; and the sod represents the burrows of the Siven Warrows, Captain Darby’s folk, and it seems Tuck’s, too. But whether Bosky folk live in tree flets, stone field-houses, fen stilt-houses, or burrows, none are safe where the Vulg walks, for Vulgs slink in secret through the night.
“But now, the secret is out. We know what we are dealing with, though we don’t know why they’ve come to the Bosky. Be that as it may, I for one thank you for all the Warrow kindred.” And the Gammer bowed to the four, and clasped each one’s hand.
When the Gammer took Tuck’s hand, the young buccan said, “Sir, please do not forget our slain comrade, Hob Banderel, for he was there, too.”
“I haven’t, and I won’t,” said the Gammer, solemnly.
“Thank you, Eld Buccan,” said Tarpy, last to shake hands.
“Eld buccan?” The Gammer laighed. “Nay, Bucco, it’s been seventeen years since my eighty-fifth birthday. Next I know, you’ll be shaving another twenty-five years off o’ that, calling me buccan. Nay, the camdle doesn’t burn that direction, and it’s seventeen years a granther am I. But I thank you just the same, Tarpy Wiggins, for you almost make me feel spry.” Amid a round of quiet smiles, the Gammer herded the four out of the building.
As Patrel led the weary Warrows to the tents of his squad, they could hear Thornwalkers calling farewell to Gammer Alderbuc as the granther prepared to ride back to Northdell, to set out on his journey back to the town of Northdune along the Upland Way. They could also hear Captain Darby giving orders to summon the squad leaders to the headquarters building to tell them of the Vulgs in the Bosky and to lay plans.
~
Late in the night, Tuck woke up from deep slumber, still exhausted. Yet he stayed awake long enough to update his diary by the flickering yellow light of a lantern. Then he fell back into troubled, dream-filled sleep—but what he dreamt, he did not recall.
~
“Time for duty, slugabeds.” Patrel shook Tuck awake. “It’s midmorn. Stir your bones, break your fast, meet your squadmates.” Danner and Tarpy sat up, rubbing sleep from their eyes. “I’ve got our orders. We stand the early nightwatch at the Ford: sundown to mid of night.”
With Danner grumbling and Tuck and Tarpy yawning great gaping yawns, Patrel led them to a common wash-trough where they broke through the thin layer of ice to splash frigid water on their faces. “Brrr!” Tarpy shivered. “Surely there’s a warmer way to get clean.”
“Oh yes,” answered Patrel, pointing to one of the tents, white wisps of steam leaking here and there from seams. “There is the laundry and bathing tent. Our squad gets to use it on Tuesdays.”
“Tuesdays?” asked Danner. “Is that all? I mean, just once a week?”
Patrel laughed and said,”Yes, but by the time you’ve chopped the wood for the heating fire, and hauled water from the spring for the tubs, and all the other work needed to get a bath and do your laundry, then once a week will seem often enough for that privilege.”
“What other chores will we have?” asked Tuck, rubbing his face on the common towel and passing it on to Danner who looked at it with some dismay before using it, too.
“Well, each squad is fairly self-sufficient,” answered Patrel. “At times, on rotation, each of us will cook for the other members of our squad, and sometimes Captain Darby, too, though we all
pitch in every day to clean the pots and pans. And occasionally we’ll help store supplies in the storehouse. Everyone cuts firewood, not only for the squad’s needs, but for headquarters, too.” Patrel continued to name the other chores they would perform, and it soon became clear that each Warrow was expected to care for his own needs, in the main, but that there were several common jobs shared by all.
Patrel’s squad consisted of twenty-two young buccen, including Tuck, Danner, and Tarpy, who were introduced at the breakfast campfire; the three were accorded smiles and nods and a friendly wave or two. Little was said as they ate, and Tuck’s eyes were drawn to the Great Spindlethorn Barrier looming near: Dense it was; even birds found it difficult to live deep within its embrace. Befanged it was, atangle with great spiked thorns, long and sharp and iron hard, living stilettoes. High it was, rearing up thirty, forty, and in some places fifty feet above the river valleys from which it sprang. Wide it was, reaching across broad river vales, no less than a mile anywhere, and in places greater than ten. And long it was, stretching completely around the Boskydells, from the Northwood down the Spindle, and from the Updunes down the Wenden, until the two rivers joined one another; but after their joining, no farther south did the ’Thorn grow. It was said that only the soil of the Bosky in these two river valleys would nourish the Barrier. Yet the Warrows had managed to cultivate a long stretch of it, reaching from the Northwood to the Updunes, completing the Thornring. And so, why it did not grow across the rest of the Land and push all else aside remained a mystery; though the grandams said, It’s Adon’s will, while the granthers said, It’s the soil, and neither knew the which of it for certain.
Here at Spindle Ford, as well as at the one bridge and at the other fords on the roads into the Boskydells, Warrows had worked long and hard to make ways through the Barrier, ways large enough for commerce: for waggons and horses and ponies and travellers. Oh, not to say that the Barrier couldn’t be penetrated without travelling one of these Warrow-made ways, for one could push through the wild Spindlethorn; it just took patience and determination and skill to make it through, for one had to be mazewise to find a way, usually taking days to wriggle and slip and crawl the random fanged labyrinth from one side to the other; and never did one penetrate without taking a share of wounds. No, even though Warrows seemed skilled at it, and legend said that Dwarves were even better, still ways through the Barrier must needs be made for travel and commerce.
But the work was arduous, for the Spindlethorn itself was hard, so hard that at times tools were made of it, and arrow points and poniards from the thorns; and it burned only with great difficulty and would not sustain a blaze. Yet again and again, over many years, Warrows cut and sawed and chopped and dug, finally forming ways through the Barrier. And as if the Spindlethorn itself somehow could sense the commerce, the ways stayed open on the well-used routes; but on those where travel was infrequent, the ‘Thorn grew slowly to refill the Warrow-made gap. Some had, in fact, been allowed to grow shut. But here at Spindle Ford, the way had remained open, looking to all like a dark, thorn-walled tunnel, for the Great Barrier was thickly interlaced overhead.
All these thoughts and more scampered through Tuck’s mind as he took breakfast and gazed at the Barrier looming at hand. But his reflections were broken to take on the after-breakfast clean-up chores. Then Patrel spoke to the others of the events at the Huggs’ farm, and the fatal attack of the Vulgs at the Rooks’ Roost. And when Patrel came to the end of the account, Tuck noted that he and Danner, Tarpy, and Patrel, were being eyed with a high respect akin to awe.
Patrel assigned one of the squad members, Arbin Digg, a slightly rotund brown-haired blue-eyed young buccan from Downyville, to show Tuck, Danner, and Tarpy where things were around the camp, and especially to show them Spindle Ford.
“Ar, so you actually fought with Vulgs, and killed some, too,” said Arbin as they strode toward the gaping, tunnel-like hole arching away into the Spindlethorn Barrier toward the Spindle River and the Ford. “Good show. Gilly, over in the third squad, he thought he might’ve seen one about two or three weeks ago, but he wasn’t certain. Here now, let me ask you, are they the great brutes we’ve all heard about?”
“Nearly as big as a pony,” answered Tarpy, “though who’d want to ride one, I can’t say.”
“Asking a Vulg for a ride would be like begging a Dragon to warm your house in the winter,” snorted Danner. “He’d warm it, all right—right down to the very ashes.”
“Are you saying that the only way you’d get a ride from a Vulg is on the inside?” Arbin asked.
“Perhaps, Arbin, perhaps,” responded Danner, “though I don’t know what they ordinarily eat. The ones we met seemed to kill just for the joy of slaughter.”
“Wull then, I don’t believe I’ll ask a Vulg for a ride,” said Arbin, “or a Dragon to warm my house, either.” He led them into the Barrier.
Although the day outside was bright, the light sifting through the entangled Spindlethorn to the roadway fell dim unto the eye, and the sounds of the Warrow encampment faded away and were lost. Only the muffled footsteps sounded within, and Tuck had visions of walking in a dagger-walled cave.
“They say in the summer when the leaves are asprout that torches are needed to light the way through, just as if it were night,” said Arbin, looking at the tangled thorn-weave overhead. He had shown them the brands set in rows at the entrance: wooden stakes, with oil-soaked cloth layered over one end, to be used as torches for wayfarers to light their way through at night. “In autumn, when the leaves fall they make a roof in places. Snow, too, can pile up and make solid ceilings overhead here and there. But sooner or later, leaves or snow, it works its way through and the road must be cleared at times.”
On they walked, through the wan light, a mile, then two. Ordinarily they would have ridden ponies to their posts, but first-timer Thornwalkers always were taken afoot, to get the “feel” of the passage. At one place, Arbin pointed out sections of a large movable barricade, now set to the side, made of Spindlethorn: “There’s one of the barriers. I suppose we’ll be putting it in place one of these days, and start warding it, now that there seems to be trouble Beyond, Outside. It’s one of several Thornwalls that we can put up, though only two, one on each side of the Ford, are actually in place now.” Arbin pointed ahead: “Ah, look, the end is in sight.”
Ahead they could see an archway of brightness, where the daylight shone at the end of the Spindlethorn tunnel. Shortly they came to the Beyonder-Guard barrier, and with shouts of greetings all were welcomed by ten Warrows warding there. At roadside, a string of ponies stood, munching grain from nosebags. Arbin explained to the guards that they’d come to see the river, and beckoned the three to follow him, slipping through the thorns of the barricade where it was slightly ajar. “This here is the aft-guard. Over there is the fore-guard where there’s another wall like this one, just on the other side of the river, just inside the tunnel,” he said, as he led Tuck, Danner, and Tarpy out blinking watery-eyed into the daylight.
All told, two-and-a-half miles they had walked, and came at last to the edge of the river, the shallows of Ford Spindle. Wide it was, and ice-covered, although here and there, both upstream and down, dark pools swirled as the river rushed and bubbled over and around upthrust rock, the churn keeping the water ice-free.
Across the Ford they could see the mouth of the tunnel as it continued on through the ‘Thorns growing on that side, where the Barrier reached another two miles before the Realm of Rian began.
Out onto the ice Arbin led them, to stand at river’s center, and they looked up and down the frozen length to where it curved away beyond seeing: a white ribbon wending between two, looming, fifty-foot high, miles-wide walls of thorn. Overhead slashed a bright blue ribbon of sky, impaled upon the long spikes, tracing the course of the waterway, the river precipitously widening here at the ford, quite narrow and deep both upstream and down.
“It’s a wonder, ain’t it?” asked Arbin, pointing bo
th ways at once, his arms flung wide. “Kind o’ gives me the shivers.” Tuck had to agree, for a more formidable defense he had yet to see. “Come on, buccoes,” said Arbin, “I’ll show you the fore-guard.”
On they went, over the Ford to just inside the tunnel, where they came to another barrier. Ten more of the squad stood at this post, the barricade shut, though a small crawlway twisted through, with a barrier set to drop and plug it. Ponies stood near.
“Who’s up the road?” Arbin asked one of the warders.
“Willy,” came the reply.
Arbin turned to the three. “The Beyonder Guard always has a point buccan, one with sharp eyes and good hearing, and a swift pony, out at the far edge of the Spindlethorns, out where the Bosky ends and Rian begins. If someone approaches, then he’ll come pelting back here ahead of ‘em to warn us. If it looks like trouble, and if there is time, then we’ll open the wall and in he’ll gallop and we’ll slam shut the barricade behind him. But if they’re right on his heels, then through the crawlway he’ll scoot and we’ll drop the thornplug to stopper it. O’ course, the aft-guard will be signalled so that they can prepare, too.
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