Slave's Gamble

by Jay Stonesmith

  Ordella walked over to him. Large tench and carp cruised through the still water, every now and again rising up and silently breaking the surface with their chubby mouths.

  She turned back to Hob. "They're much larger than I remember," she said. "The ones my father brought back were only half their size."

  Hob looked from the pond to the elm trees growing behind them. "Are you sure this is the place then?"

  "Yes, I'm certain."

  She pointed to the largest of the elms, its trunk wider than a man. "That one's grown a lot since I was last here, but it's definitely the same tree."

  She pictured her father sitting in the tree's shade, attaching weights to his line and an earthworm to his hook.

  "We're in the right place."

  Ordella walked over to the tree and sat down next to their packs. She picked up an oval leaf from the floor and ran it through her fingers. It was green at its base, yet russet at its tip. Autumn was on its way.

  "So where should we start?" she said.

  Hob shrugged. "We'll have to look everywhere. In the undergrowth, along the edges of the pond, around the trees. Who knows where it could be."

  Ordella got to her feet. "Or whether it's here at all."

  "True," he said. "But if we don't look, we'll never know. If it's not here, at least you can mark it from your list. We can return to Oakhaven and work out where to search next."

  "Unless he buried it, I just can't imagine Father leaving a locked box or a chest out in the forest."

  Hob walked back over to the water's edge and crouched down. "Let's just get started, shall we? You go and look by those nettles over there. I'll check around here, and we'll meet in the middle by the trees."

  With her head bent down towards the floor, Ordella paced through the undergrowth in a straight line. Using her feet to sweep aside nettles and bracken, she inspected the ground. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Just leaves and twigs and flakes of bark. Exactly what you'd expect to find in a forest.

  She turned around and walked back the other way. A large black beetle scurried across her path and squeezed its shiny body underneath a chunk of flint. She carried on watching him until he had completely disappeared, then continued on, pausing occasionally to nudge a stone or piece of rotting wood with the toe of her boot.

  She glanced over at Hob. He'd finished his search of the pond's edge and had now moved on to the area in front of the large elm tree. He had a stick in his hand and was using it to prod at the heaps of earth and leaves. Every few steps, he'd bend down and move the leaves in a rustling sweep, revealing the forest floor below. Then he'd stand up and continue on. He looked like he was having as much luck as she was.

  *****

  "There's nothing here," Ordella said. "I've searched every inch from the big nettle patch to where I'm standing." She put her hand on the elm's trunk. "We're looking in the wrong place."

  She kicked at a pile of leaves sending them fluttering into the air like a swarm of orange butterflies.

  Hob wiped his forehead on his sleeve.

  "I'd have to agree," he said. "Whatever we're looking for, it's not here."

  He reached for his pack and drew out a water pouch.

  "Let's have some food and drink, and then we'll take a look at the map and work out the route we'll take back to Oakhaven. Having seen those Kelsharlan soldiers, I'm thinking we should return a different way."

  Ordella was about to respond when a great rustling noise came from above her. She snapped her head back and peered into the mass of green and yellow leaves. The sound was coming from high up in the elm's branches.

  A creaking of wood was followed by a flash of movement, and a man in ragged clothing landed with a thud on the forest floor between them.

  Ordella leaped towards her pack. Her bow was propped up just behind it. If she could only reach it before the man regained his balance.

  His yellowed teeth flashed a broad grin, and he started to hop from one bare foot to the other, his scarecrow hair bouncing wildly.

  "Dunder!" she said. "What are you doing here? Have you been following us all the way from Oakhaven?"

  He stared at her, still jumping, and then, all of a sudden, stood still.

  "You were the one singing," she said.

  Dunder nodded his head. "Yessssss."

  "You'll get us killed." Hob's voice was firm, but he didn't sound cross. "Why are you following us?"

  The madman stretched out a dirt-streaked arm and pointed at the pendant hanging around Ordella's neck. She instinctively wrapped her fingers around it, shielding it from him. Why was he so interested in it? What else did he know?

  She took a step towards him, letting the pendant fall from her hand. Dunder's eyes widened and he retreated a step. His scrawny back pressed against the elm's rough trunk, his eyes wide like those of a cowering dog awaiting his master's whip.

  "Don't scare him," Hob said from behind her. "Keep your temper, or he'll be off."

  Ordella let her shoulders relax, took a breath and shuffled back. Hob was right. There was no point driving Dunder away before they'd had the chance to discover why he was here.

  She clasped the leather cord around her neck and held it up, dangling the carved wooden pendant in front of Dunder's face.

  "Do you know where the lock is?" She focused on keeping her voice steady and her words simple as if she were talking to a skittish child.

  "Yessss!" Dunder said.

  He reached out to the pendant and ran his long fingers over it. Ordella bit her lip, resisting the urge to snatch it back. He pressed down on it and the metal key smoothly slid out of the base. A grin stretched across his mouth, foul breath escaping from the gaps between his stained teeth.

  Ordella wrinkled her nose, but she didn't step away.

  "Please can you show us where the lock is?"

  He dropped the pendant, the smile vanishing from his face. He put his hand to his chin and started to hum.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to upset you."

  "I don't think he's upset," Hob said. "He's thinking."

  At once, Dunder moved to his right. He jumped high into the air, spun around and landed on one foot.

  "I will tell you," he said, bringing his other foot to the ground. "I will tell you."

  "Thank you," she said.

  Dunder coughed and cleared his throat. He pretended to unroll an imaginary scroll in front of him. In a deep, loud voice, very different from his normal speaking voice, he started to read.

  I am the armor that grows with the knight,

  Words will not hurt me, but fire might.

  I contain knots that cannot be untied,

  And I protect the rings inside.

  Dunder rolled up his phantom parchment and mimed returning it to the pocket in his ragged tunic. He looked at them, his eyes twinkling.

  Another riddle. Ordella wasn't in the mood for playing games. She turned to Hob.

  "Any ideas?"

  He shook his head and sat down at the foot of the elm. "Give us a moment to think," he said.

  The words of the riddle flitted through her head like a flock of starlings. Armour. Skin. Knots.

  "What about fish?" she said. "Their scales are like armor, and they are cooked on a fire."

  "It doesn't fit," said Hob. "Apart from a tangle of eels, I don't think fish hold knots."

  "Well, you do better then." She stomped over to Hob and slumped down next to him. "I don't know why he can't just tell us where it is. Why do we have to keep playing these stupid games? I bet he's just stringing us along."

  Dunder was staring straight at her, wringing his hands and shuffling his feet to and fro in the leaves.

  "Keep your voice down,” Hob said. “He'll go and then we might never learn the answer. Just stay calm and think about the rhyme."

  Ordella took a breath and closed her eyes. But it was no good. She couldn't focus. Dunder's words might as well have been spoken in fairy tongue or Old Marassi. His phrases swirled ar
ound her mind like scraps of parchment caught up in a gale, then they plummeted down to the ground. The outline of a pair of lips emerged from the jumble, twisting into a savage sneer. Skerrick's voice rang out between her ears. It would appear your grandmother died for nothing. Her heart raced and her fists balled at her sides.

  Hob patted her on the knee.

  "I've got it," he said. "I know the answer. It's bark. Tree bark."

  "Yessss!" said Dunder. He twirled around on the spot. "Yesss!"

  "So what does that mean?" Ordella said. She got to her feet and marched over to stand directly in front of Dunder. "Are you saying the lock is hidden in the bark of a tree? And if so, which one? We're in a bloody forest."

  Hob was at her side.

  "It's alright, Dunder," he said. "Ordella's not angry with you. She's just very keen to find the lock."

  Ordella bit her lip, trying desperately to oversome the urge to throw the madman to the ground.

  Hob touched the trunk of the large elm they'd been sitting against.

  "Is the lock hidden in the bark of this tree?" he said.

  Dunder nodded his head, his eyes flicking over to Ordella like a mouse anxiously watching a cat. His face twitched, and before Ordella could react, he sprinted to his right, darting between the nettle patch and one of the smaller elms. He plowed through the undergrowth into the forest.

  "Let him go," Hob said. "I think he's told us all we're going to get out of him. For the time being, at least." He started to run his hands over the tree's trunk. "Let's hope it's enough."

  Ordella studied the grooved surface of the elm's bark. How in all Ellusia were they going to find a lock when there were so many spots it could be hiding in?

  "Why can't he just tell us? Why do we have to keep jumping through his stupid hoops?" she said. "He knows much more than he's letting on, I'm sure of it."

  "It's just his way," Hob said. "He was much worse when he turned up at Oakhaven. Who knows if he was always like it." Hob continued to search for the keyhole. "Jereth thinks something's happened to him that made him this way, but seeing as he doesn't really talk about his life before he came to the village, I don't think we'll ever know for sure. Flynn says he ate a bloodcap, just like you. Except he never fully woke up." Hob picked at a loose flake of bark. It broke off and fell to the forest floor. "He didn't even have a name when he arrived. One day, Flynn heard him saying Dunder over and over again, and it just sort of stuck. That's what we've called him ever since."

  "Well, I still think he could've given us some more clues. Why follow us all the way out here and then leave without seeing us find what we've been looking for? It just doesn't make sense."

  "It might make perfect sense to him," Hob said. "Besides, perhaps he left before he wanted to." He looked at Ordella. "Maybe someone scared him off."

  She reached for her pendant and studied the key protruding from the wood.

  "Let's just find whatever this fits."

  The elms trunk was gnarled and knobbly with deep furrows running between thick plates of dark brown bark. Mottled with moss and lichen, and dotted with knots, there must have been a thousand places where a keyhole could have been concealed. Ordella sighed. They were going to have to inspect every single inch.

  *****

  Ordella arched her back and used her tunic to wipe sap from her aching hands. She'd lost track of how many times her heart had leaped, only to have her hopes dashed when a promising indentation or mark turned out to be nothing more than a crack in the bark.

  She let out a breath, placed her fingers back onto the elm’s trunk, then moved slowly to her right, peering into every nook.

  Her hands discovered a knot, round and pale. An eye staring out at her through the elm's cragged skin. She'd checked several similar ones in the last hour, and they hadn't been hiding anything. She explored it with her fingers. There was a slight crack running vertically down the knot’s center. She dug her fingernail into it. It clipped against something hard. Moving in closer, her face almost touching the surface, she inspected the gap. There was definitely something there, and it didn't look like it was part of the tree.

  "I think I've found it," she said.

  Her heart raced. Please don't let this be another disappointment.

  She fumbled for her pendant. With trembling hands she grasped it and pushed the metal shaft, teeth facing downward, into the hole. It fit snuggly. She smiled.

  "Well go on then, turn it," Hob said.

  Ordella gripped the key by its carved wooden base and rotated it to the right. The whole knot moved a quarter turn. Ordella pulled the key, but it didn't slide out. Instead, the entire knot started to come loose. She tugged harder and drew out a wooden cylinder about the same width as an ax handle. Placing it on the floor by her feet, the key still sticking out from one end, she examined the hole that had been bored into the tree.

  "It looks empty," she said. Her shoulders slumped. "After all this, I was sure there'd be something to find."

  She crouched down and scrabbled around in the leaves, standing up with a long twig in her hand. She poked the stick into the hole and wiggled it around.

  "Nothing." She threw the stick to the ground. "Nothing at all. It's all just been a huge waste of time."

  Ordella rubbed her eyes. They'd done the impossible. They'd actually managed to locate the needle in the haystack, only to find it blunt and useless.

  Hob chuckled. He reached up and covered his mouth.

  Ordella whirled around and glared at him.

  "I'm glad you think it's funny," she said. "I'm glad my failure is bringing you so much joy."

  "You're not looking in the right place," Hob said.

  "What do you mean? Speak plainly. I've had enough bloody riddles to last a lifetime."

  His mouth opened into a wide grin.

  "You've thrown the box onto the floor."

  She bent down and picked up the barrel of the lock, the pendant key still attached, its leather braid dangling towards her feet. Made from wood, the cylinder had smooth, curved sides. The knot formed its front face, but its back was lumpy and bright red. She hadn't noticed it earlier in her haste to see what was in the tree itself. She dug her nail into its glossy surface. It cracked and crumbled under the pressure. Wax. Red sealing wax. She scraped away the rest, revealing the core's hollow center.

  The space was bunged tight with a piece of cloth. She tweezered a corner of the material between her thumb and forefinger, teasing it out. Flattened in the palm of her hand, the cloth was the size of a handkerchief. In the middle, embroidered in threads of gold and blue was a stylized symbol of a vast tree in front of a rippling sea. The fabric was finely made, but it was damp and its fibers had faded in places. It must've been inside the tree for some time

  She passed the cloth to Hob and then shook the box over her hand. There was something else at the back. She gave the block another jerk, and a small folded wad of parchment popped out. She unfolded it. Two lines of writing had been set down in ink in an old-fashioned hand.

  For my dear friend.

  Fellbrig of Gilmar, Master of the Guard

  "Who's Fellbrig of Gilmar?" she said.

  "Never heard of him," Hob replied. "But I'm not the person to ask. I've never even been to Gilmar."

  He held up the embroidered square. The tree’s golden-thread branches shimmered, catching the light. "I wonder why your father went to all the trouble of hiding this?"

  Ordella shook her head. She refolded the paper and tucked it into her pocket, then she slid the wooden cylinder back into the hole in the elm and turned the key back to upright. She tugged. The key slipped out, leaving the wooden block in place.

  She ran her fingertips over its knotted face. They would never have found it had Dunder not told them to search in the bark. She pushed the metal part of the pendant key back into its wooden housing and looped the leather braid around her neck.

  A stream of questions flooded her mind like water gushing through the gaps in a broken dam.
Had her father left the cloth here for someone to find? For her to find? Did her mother know it was here? Did her grandmother? Who was Fellbrig of Gilmar? And how did Dunder know so much about what was going on?

  She gazed at the path he'd taken into the woods. One thing was certain, she had to talk to the madman again.

  Twenty-Seven

  Ordella crouched down next to Hob.

  "Are you sure he came this way?" she said.

  "Yes. This is definitely Dunder's trail." With his finger, Hob traced the outline of a footprint in a patch of mud on the forest floor. "It's just that he doesn't move in one direction for very long. There seem to be tracks everywhere, going all over the place." He tossed the stick into the undergrowth. "It's not like tracking Kelsharlans. They might sometimes make an effort to conceal their route, but at least they're predictable."

  He stood up and pointed to a stand of birches.

  "That way."

  Dunder didn't appear to be heading back to Oakhaven. His meandering tracks seemed to be leading in a south-easterly direction, towards the fringes of the Border Wood.

  Ordella stopped and took a swig from her waterskin then passed it to Hob. Perhaps Dunder knew they were following him and was trying to lose them, or maybe he'd got lost himself, his sense of direction just as skewed as the rest of him. Either way, they had to find him.

  The sun had begun its descent, and a chill had returned to the air. Hob and Ordella hunched down next to another series of prints, their bodies casting long shadows across the ground in front of them. The soil was more sandy in this part of the forest, and Ordella could clearly make out the imprint left by Dunder's toes and the balls of his feet. The marks were crisp. Freshly made.

  She glanced at the trees around her. The forest was thinning. Oaks, elms, and beeches were giving way to silver birch, and clumps of lousewort and bracken and the occasional thicket of gorse bushes. So many hiding places. Dunder could be watching them right now just waiting for the right moment to slink off.

  "This way," Hob said.

  He stood up and walked down the dirt track. Ordella followed.