by Troy Denning
"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, T
avis 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?"
"Making it easy for the ogres to follow us," Tavis replied. "After they find this blood trail, they won't pay as much attention to other signs. That'll give us a chance to escape."
"We haven't done that yet?" Basil asked.
"No, we've been forced into a trap," Tavis replied. "Somewhere around a corner ahead, a couple dozen ogres are waiting to shower us with arrows."
The scout allowed his companions to consider this while he studied the surrounding terrain. He spied a series of three boulders close enough together that Avner could leap from one to the other, then said, "Now, here's what I want you to do."
After Tavis had explained his plan, Basil asked. "Do we have time for all that?"
The scout nodded. "The ogres won't be anxious to come after us. They've suffered losses enough to know they won't get past Bear Driller in these confines," he said. "By the time they come to see why we haven't wandered into their ambush, we'll be gone."
The scout started up the gully. Making certain to drip plenty of blood along the ground, he led his companions to within a pace of the first boulder. Instead of jumping onto the stone at this point, Avner and Basil walked past, following Tavis another twenty paces. The boy stopped there, but the verbeeg continued up the gully.
Thirty paces later, Basil also stopped. He slowly backed down the gully, placing his feet in exactly the same places as he had on the way up. When he reached Avner, he hoisted the boy onto his shoulder and continued his retreat to the three boulders Tavis had pointed out earlier. After Avner brushed his feet off, the verbeeg deposited the youth on the first boulder. The boy hopped across the three boulders, then climbed a tree and crawled across a branch onto the cliff top.
For Basil, escaping the gorge was more difficult. Like Avner, he brushed the loose soil off his feet, then crossed the boulders to the side of the gully. Unfortunately, he was too heavy for the pine's thin branches and too clumsy to climb straight up the cliff face, so he had to backtrack a short distance to where a dead tree had fallen against the cliff side. He ascended the gray trunk, then joined Avner.
As his companions made their escape, Tavis picked up a stick, then ripped a strip of cloth off his tunic. These two items he used to make a tourniquet around his arm.
Once that was done, he continued up the gulch, slowly turning the stick so that the blood trail gradually diminished. When he came to a jumble of boulders, he crossed the pile about halfway, then tightened the tourniquet until the blood ceased to drip altogether. After cleaning the bottom of his boots to make certain he did not leave any loose soil to divulge his change of path, he moved toward the side of the gorge, being careful not dislodge any of the stones he walked across.
The scout crept along the base of the cliff until he came to a sickly tree growing too close to the wall. He braced one foot against its trunk and one against the rocky face, then slowly climbed out of the gorge. By the time he reached the top, his tourniquet had loosened and blood was dripping into the canyon, but he did not worry. It would be quite some time before the ogres realized he had laid a false trail, and it would take them even longer to discover how he and his friends had escaped.
Tavis removed the tourniquet and applied a more proper bandage, then scurried down the ridge to join his friends. Together the trio started to traverse the ravine's north side, climbing toward Needle Peak, but the scout quickly realized they could not remain concealed by taking this route. The valley took a sharp turn southward. They could not travel any farther without exposing themselves.
Tavis motioned for his companions to wait. Hunching over until his chest almost touched his knees, he crept down the hillside. He stepped carefully, avoiding dry-looking twigs, loose rocks, even clumps of dry pine needles that might crackle under bis weight. It had been many months since he had moved so slowly in such an awkward position, and his muscles soon began to ache from the strain. The scout ignored his discomfort, knowing that if he relaxed and did something that made a substantial noise, the ogres would hear it.
A few minutes later, he came to a place where the hill fell away sharply, giving him a clear view of the ravine below. He was directly above the bend where the side gulch opened into the main gully. He knelt behind a pair of close-growing saplings, using the dense foliage as a screen, and began to search for ogres.
Tavis saw one warrior immediately, lying facedown on the uphill side of a decomposing log. It took him a little longer to find the others. Although they had not selected their hiding places to camouflage themselves from someone in Tavis's location, the brutes were sitting so motionless that, in their gray cloaks, many of them looked like stumps and boulders.
/> Even after he had found five warriors, Tavis continued to study the ravine. The ogres' stillness puzzled him. By now the brutes were certainly curious about the silence in the side gulch. They should have been cautiously venturing into the small gully to investigate. Yet here they were, still lurking in ambush, as though the beaters were driving more prey toward them.
After a moment's consideration, Tavis realized why. They had set their trap again-this time for Morten and the earls.
The scout studied the valley below, then decided he had found all the ambushers. He pulled four arrows from his quiver, planting them tip-first into the ground, and nocked a fifth. Normally, he would have set out six shafts for five targets, just in case he missed once, but two of the ogres were standing in line, and he always took advantage of any chance to save arrows.
Tavis peered through the small gap between the saplings he had selected as cover, then took careful aim at a lobeless ear protruding above a small boulder. It was his most difficult target, for not only was it on the other side of the ravine, it was all he could see of the ogre.
Drawing his bowstring back, Tavis exhaled. He stared at the ear, blocking every thought from his mind until he was aware of nothing but his target, then he pulled his fingers away. The string throbbed and sent the arrow sizzling through the air. The shaft skimmed over the rock and struck home with a muffled thud, then both ear and arrow disappeared from sight.
In one swift motion, Tavis pulled the next arrow from the ground, nocked it, and fired at his easiest target, the ogre lying behind the decomposing log. The shaft caught the brute just as he was raising his head, ripping through the back to pierce the warrior's heart.
The scout's next arrow was in the air before the warrior died, catching the third ogre through the head as he rose from behind a juniper bush to gape at the arrow in his companion's back. The fourth and fifth stepped away from their trees, spinning around to search the hillside. Despite the obvious panic in their purple eyes, the brutes remained silent, determined not to alarm the prey their companions would soon be driving up the ravine. That suited Tavis fine. He drew his bowstring back, waited until the ogre in back stepped behind his companion, and loosed the shaft.