by Mark Dame
Flyn started toward the voices, staying close to the stream, hoping the sound of the water would help mask his footsteps. It also made the voices harder to hear, so as he moved forward, he was careful to stay behind trees to avoid being spotted. Kel may have been unconvinced by Flyn’s bad feeling, but he kept close and hid behind the trees as well.
They reached a point where the creek veered away from the voices. Flyn stopped.
“Stay here and hide,” Flyn whispered. “I’ll sneak up to get a closer look. If they’re friendly, I’ll call back for you.”
Kel nodded and squatted behind a tree with a massive twenty-foot-wide trunk. From the look on his face, he wasn't as sure about the strangers ahead of them as he had been a few minutes before.
Flyn snuck forward, tree to tree. Like most of the Andor clan, Flyn was very agile and could move almost silently when he wanted to. And right now, he wanted to.
The voices grew louder as he approached and what he heard made him more nervous than before. The voices were deep and gravelly, at times sounding more like growls than words.
Up ahead, the ground sloped down into a shallow bowl, clear of trees. Flyn pressed close to a tree on the edge of the clearing and peeked around the side.
A narrow path led into the clearing on the opposite side from Flyn, and out again to his right. That way, he thought was the shore where he and Kel had washed up the previous evening. He inched around the tree a little more to see the source of the voices.
In the center of the clearing, four large men sat in a circle, eating and talking.
He pulled back behind the tree, hoping they hadn’t seen him.
“So I grab her hair and pull her off her horse and say: ‘I don’t care if you’re Queen of the Trolls, you belong to Lord Jarot, now!’”
The four men laughed, snorting and grunting like pigs rooting for their dinner.
“What she say then?” another of the men said.
“She didn’t say nothing ’cause I popped her in the mouth!”
Another round of laughter.
“That’s not what I hear,” a third one said. “I hear she stab you in the leg with her pig knife.”
More laughing.
“She tried.”
Flyn peeked his head around the tree again to try to get a better look.
They were larger than any men Flyn had ever seen and their skin had an odd blue-green tinge. Coarse, dark hair, matted with dirt and sweat, covered their heads. Thick, bumpy brows stuck out over their large, deep-set eyes. Their mouths and noses protruded from their faces like short snouts. With shoulders twice as wide as Flyn’s and arms bigger than his legs, he guessed they would be able to snap him in half like a twig.
And the smell. Even from where Flyn hid behind the tree, a good fifteen feet from the closest of them, the sour odor was enough to choke on. Far worse than any barnyard stench.
“Where you take her?” The second one again.
“Ugglar sent her to the Master’s palace to be one of his personal servants. She won’t last. Too much fight in her. The Master will probably feed her to the wolves like he did with the last one Ugglar sent.”
“All right,” the fourth one said. “Break time’s over, you lazy louts. We have trespassers to catch.”
“What make Ugglar think there’s humans out here?” the second one asked.
“Some pixies saw two of them last night down by the beach, but you don’t need to worry why. Ugglar says go, we go. Now move!”
Flyn's blood ran cold. Two humans down by the beach last night? They could be talking about him and Kel. And they didn’t sound like a rescue party.
The large men grumbled as they packed up their sacks. When they stood, Flyn could see they were even bigger than they had looked sitting down. The tallest, the one who seemed to be in charge, stood at least eight feet. Even the smallest was a full head taller than Flyn. The third one had a belly the size of a barrel.
“Maybe it’s elves,” the second one said. “I hopes it elves. I hates them long-eared tree rats.”
“Better hope it’s not a dwarf,” the first one said. “He’ll chop your toes off with his ax!”
The others laughed at the second one who spat out a curse Flyn didn’t recognize.
“I don’t care what it is. Let’s just catch it so we can go back home.”
“What’s the matter, Graglak?” the one in charge said. “You miss your soft bed?”
“I miss good food,” the third one, Graglak, replied. “We’ve already been on patrol for two weeks. Let the younger louts do the long patrols. I’m too old for this.”
“If you don’t quit your griping, this’ll be your last patrol. Now get moving!”
They continued their bickering as they left the clearing along the path toward the shore.
Flyn stayed hidden behind the tree until their voices faded down the hill, then carefully picked his way back up to the creek where Kel was still hiding.
“What did you see?” Kel asked.
“I think they were orcs.”
“Very funny.”
Flyn understood Kel’s skepticism. Orcs were creatures from campfire stories told to scare children. They were no more real than dragons or werewolves.
“I’m serious. They’re looking for two people they heard were camping by the beach last night.”
Kel looked at Flyn sidewise. “You want me to believe that a pack of fairytale monsters is roaming the woods looking for us. Ha, ha.”
“I know how it sounds, but it’s true. They’re huge and they have green skin and everything. I heard one of them say he hoped they found elves and another say it might be dwarves.”
“Oh, and now you want me to believe in dwarves and elves too? You almost had me with the orcs, but you went too far with the elves and dwarves. Really, who is it?”
Flyn sighed. “Come on. I’ll show you where they were.”
“What, they’re gone? You let them go without getting help?”
Flyn ignored the protest and led Kel to the clearing. The orcs had left bones and trash from their meal laying around, along with deep imprints from their boots in the mud.
“Look,” Flyn said, pointing to one of the footprints. It was twice as wide as his or Kel’s foot and almost twice as long. Other prints covered the area, finally leading out along the path to the east.
Kel knelt down to get a closer look at the footprint. He ran his finger along the edge, then compared the inch-deep print to his own footprint, which barely made an impression in the ground. He looked up at Flyn.
“Orcs? For real?”
Flyn just nodded.
“On Trygsted?”
“That’s the other thing,” Flyn said. “I don’t think we’re on Trygsted. I think instead of blowing us around the island, the storm blew us to a completely different island.”
Kel stood up and stared at Flyn.
“But there aren’t any other islands,” he said.
“That’s what we were always taught,” Flyn said. “But orcs and elves aren’t supposed to exist either. And that’s not all. Look.”
Flyn pointed up above the treetops to the west. Kel turned and looked to where Flyn was pointing.
“Is that…” Kel’s voice trailed off.
“A mountain,” Flyn finished for him. “Those are only supposed to exist in fairytales too, but there it is.”
Kel slumped to the ground and held his head in his hands, mumbling to himself.
“Come on, Kel. We need to start moving. I don’t think we want to be here if those guys come back.”
He helped Kel to his feet and led him up the path, away from the orcs.
“If there are orcs and elves and other islands, what else is true? Dragons? Wizards?”
Flyn just shook his head. He was having almost as much trouble accepting it as Kel. He was just better at dealing with it. Which was probably a good thing, because those orcs hadn’t looked like they would care that Flyn and Kel were lost and just trying to get back home
. Not that he knew how they were going to do that.
“Flyn? How are we going to get home?” Kel asked, apparently thinking the same thing.
“This path has to lead somewhere. If we can find a village, we can try to get help.”
“What if it leads to an orc village?”
“Hopefully it leads to a human village. All paths have to lead somewhere, right? We’ll just have to be careful. Besides, we can travel faster on the path. Unless you have a better idea.”
“Fine,” Kel grumbled. “But don’t blame me when we stumble into a village full of monsters.”
They spent most of the afternoon walking in silence, both lost in their thoughts, trying to come to grips with their current situation. Flyn listened intently for anyone who might be in front of them, or, for that matter, behind them. In spite of their size, the orcs he had seen had moved faster than he would have guessed. He was concerned that they could easily overtake him and Kel.
But he heard no sound of pursuers, only the birds that had begun to sing after they had passed the orcs. Just a few at first, but soon the trees were alive with their chirps and whistles. Whether the orcs had caused them to go quiet or something else, Flyn didn’t know.
After they had put a couple of hours between them and the clearing where the orcs had stopped, they took a short break to look for some food. Besides the birds, they had started to see squirrels and other small game, so Flyn used his knife to fashion a spear out of a fallen tree branch. He unwound the strands from a piece of rope to tie his knife to one end. After some trial and error, he got the feel for the makeshift weapon and soon they had a pair of squirrels to eat.
“Fish of the forest,” Flyn said, holding the pair in front of him by the tails.
“How’re we going to cook them?” Kel asked. “We don’t have any pots or pans and I’m not eating raw squirrel.”
“There’s plenty of stones around. We can use them to rest a spit over a fire. But let’s get away from the path first. Just in case those orcs come back.”
They found a spot well off the path near a small stream and while Kel skinned and cleaned the squirrels, Flyn gathered wood and built the fire. Before long the two animals were roasting over the flames.
“Let’s make another spear,” Flyn said once their meal was cooking. “If we both have spears, we’ll have a better chance of catching some more food.” And defending ourselves from orcs, he didn’t add.
Kel wasn’t very good at woodworking, so while he tended to the cooking, Flyn found a tree branch and made another spear. The strange, sticky wood was somewhat flexible and easy to carve. Given how soft the wood was, he decided to make a couple more as spares, in case one broke.
With only one knife, Flyn decided to carve the end of each staff into a sharp point instead of using the knife as a spearhead. He used the cooking fire to harden the points. By the time their lunch was ready, they had two spears each, sturdy enough to double as walking sticks.
“I’ve been thinking,” Kel said while they waited for their meal to cook. “If we’re on a different island, shouldn’t we head back to the coast?”
“I’ve been thinking about that too, but I think we need to keep as far away from those orcs as possible. Once we find a village, we can ask for the best way to get to a village on the coast where we can stay while we build a new boat. Maybe we’ll even find that on this island they aren’t afraid of the water we won’t have to build our own.”
“I hope so. I don’t want to build another one.”
Flyn grinned. “We built the last one when we were just kids. This time we can build a better one. And one that’s more stable.”
“And bigger.”
“Yeah, that would probably be a good idea.”
Kel poked at the fire with a stick. Flyn finished the last spear and set down his knife.
“Cheer up, Kel. We’ll find a way home.” Flyn was trying to stay positive, but Kel’s mood was starting to drag him down too. What was really nagging at him, though, wasn’t how they would get a boat. The wood in this forest looked like it would make a great boat. They just needed to find some tools. With just a single knife, it would take months to build one. But he was sure they would overcome that problem.
No, what really troubled him was that they had no way of knowing which way to go once they had a boat. The storm and the currents could have taken them anywhere. The storm had come from the northeast, so he assumed that’s the way they would have to travel to get home. But how far was Trygsted from here? And what if the ocean currents had sent them in a different direction?
He didn't know if Kel had thought of that particular problem yet, and he wasn’t going to bring it up.
“Good thing the squirrels are so big here,” Flyn said to change the subject. They were starting to smell pretty good too.
“We should’ve killed a couple more. I’m starving.”
“We can get some more while we walk. Then we can have a big dinner. Maybe we’ll even find a rabbit or a pig.”
Kel perked up. “You think they have rabbits here?”
“They have squirrels, so why not rabbits?”
“Let’s skip the pig, though. They’re a lot of work.”
As they talked and ate, Flyn almost forgot about the orcs and that they were marooned a long way from home. Kel seemed to feel better after the meal too. When they finished, they used water from the creek to put out the cooking fire and top off the waterskins. Then they made their way back to the trail and continued their journey into the unknown.
The afternoon passed by without running into more orcs. Or anyone else, for that matter. They didn’t find any rabbits or pigs, but they soon had their packs stuffed with squirrels. They wouldn’t go to bed hungry.
By early evening, the forest had begun to thin out somewhat and they could see that the path ran along the foothills of a whole mountain range, not just a solitary mountain like Flyn had thought earlier. The path was getting closer to the steep slopes, too. By what should have been dinner time, they were close enough that the mountains hid the sun, putting the castaways in shadow. The temperature had dropped as well, causing Kel to start grumbling about not having a cloak to wrap up in. Flyn too wished he had brought one, but when they had left home the previous morning, they couldn’t have known they would need them.
The previous morning. Flyn had trouble accepting that they had been away from home for less than two days. After everything they had been through, home almost felt like a distant memory. He wondered what his parents and brother were doing. He imagined they were sitting around the dinner table, talking and laughing, no idea that he and Kel were so far from home. He wondered if they were thinking of him.
“I don’t think we’re going to find a village today,” Kel said, breaking Flyn out of his thoughts.
“Probably not.”
Evening twilight had come earlier than they expected. Flyn shivered, wishing again for a warm cloak.
“There’s a stream up ahead,” he said, pointing. “Let’s follow it off the trail for a bit and find a place to camp for the night. I could use a fire to warm up by.”
“Me too,” Kel said.
The pair set off through the trees. Flyn suggested they follow the stream for at least ten minutes to get far enough off the path that any travelers wouldn’t see their fire. As an extra precaution, they built it on the other side of the largest tree they could find, putting the trunk between them and the trail that was at least four furlongs back.
With running water, a fire, and a half-dozen squirrels, their campsite was almost comfortable. They each ate one of the squirrels and some more fruit, but with no idea how long before they reached civilization, they decided to save the rest of their provisions. They might not be able to catch squirrels every day.
Their bellies full, they laid out their bedrolls and sat staring at the fire, listening to the pops and crackles and enjoying its warmth.
“Flyn?” Kel asked after a while. “What do we do if we can’t
get home?”
Flyn continued to stare into the fire and didn’t answer right away.
“We keep trying, I guess,” he said after a long pause.
“Forever?”
He paused again before answering. “I suppose if we’re still here when winter comes, we’ll have to find a place to stay until spring, but even if that happens, we’ll keep trying.”
“You promise? You won’t leave me here?”
“Yeah, I promise.”
“Good.”
“But we can’t stay here that long. We have to be home before our Matching Day.”
“For all the good it’ll do you. The only way you’re going to get a wife is if mine has a desperate friend.”
Flyn smiled at Kel but didn’t reply. The truth was Kel was nervous about finding a wife. He had never actually said it, but Flyn could tell. Kel could never muster up the courage to ask a girl out. Flyn had introduced him to every girl he had ever dated. But now wasn’t the time to tease him about it.
They talked into the evening about girls, and where they were going to live after getting married, and what they were going to do for a living. After overhearing the orcs talk about the pixies that had seen them sleeping the night before, Flyn was in no hurry to go to bed. Even though Kel didn’t say anything, Flyn suspected he felt the same.
After a while, the conversation slowed and their eyes started to droop. Unable to stay awake any longer, they lay down next to the fire.
“Don’t forget your promise, Flyn,” Kel said, his tired voice barely louder than a whisper.
They were both asleep in minutes.
They woke early the next morning with the same cool, damp fog as the morning before filling the forest. Flyn stoked the fire to dry out their blankets and take the chill off while they ate a cold breakfast of fruit and leftover squirrel. While it wasn’t bacon and eggs, they both agreed that it was far better than the alternative: creek moss or grubs from rotting logs. They ate quickly, both wanting to get on their way. Neither wanted to spend another night in the woods.
Once back at the forest trail, Flyn stopped and examined the ground for footprints. He wasn’t an expert tracker by anyone’s measure, but what he was looking for didn’t require much skill and he found it almost right away.