Slave's Gamble

by Jay Stonesmith

  They stopped again at the edge of a clearing.

  "I can't work this out at all.” Hob pointed to a jumble of overlapping footprints. "These are all Dunder's. But I just can't read it. There's no pattern." He scratched an outline around one of the prints with the end of a stick, then looked up. He turned towards the large clearing that they'd come upon, treeless except for the odd birch. "It's almost like he got to this point, faced in this direction, then ran around a bit before leaving." Hob looked at Ordella. "Why would he do that? It doesn't make any sense."

  "He's mad." Ordella ran her hand through her hair. "Nothing he does makes sense." She paused and shook her head. "No, that's not right." There was a rationale behind at least some of Dunder's actions. He'd definitely had a reason to follow them from Oakhaven, and there was a purpose behind showing them where to find the keyhole.

  "I agree," Hob said. "Most can't see beyond his strange movements and odd manner, but there is a logic, of sorts, to what he does." Hob itched the side of his face. "He won't do anything to risk Oakhaven. He loves Flynn and"—Hob put his hand on her shoulder—"it would seem he has some sort of connection to you."

  Hob bent down to peer at the footprints again.

  "The trick must be to ignore the marks left by Dunder the dancing lunatic and concentrate on those left by Dunder the man with a purpose." He prodded at the confusing mass of impressions. "Unfortunately, both Dunders share the same feet." He sighed. "I'm fairly sure he didn't head into the clearing, but beyond that, I've got no idea. He could be anywhere."

  A bloodcurdling yelp pierced the quiet. Ordella twisted around, scanning the trees on the far side of the clearing. What was it? It was too high-pitched for a rotclaw, but it definitely sounded like an animal of some sort.

  "Over there in the right corner," Hob said, pointing. "Something just moved."

  In the shadows of the tree branches, a ragged four-legged creature about the size of a large dog lurched through the undergrowth, its head low to the ground. It paused and sat down on its haunches. Tilting its head back, the creature let out a howl, guttural and jarring. Ordella winced.

  "I've never heard anything like it," Hob said, a pained expression on his face. "What is it?"

  Ordella was about to respond when, all of a sudden, the beast fell silent. It sniffed and then stepped out of the gloom and into the clearing. Ordella took a sharp breath. The beast's coat was dark and shaggy, but something seemed wrong with it. Patches of coarse hair appeared to run in different directions all over its back and sides like they'd been carelessly stitched together from a pile of unmatched pelts.

  The animal smelt the air again then turned its head in their direction. Ordella put her hand over her mouth. The creature's head was almost hairless. It was as if the skin of a man had been laid over the skull of a dog, stretched taut in some places and hanging flaccid in others. Its pale blue eyes stared out of its contorted face, a freakish combination of human and animal features.

  Hob had an arrow on his bowstring. "I'm going to shoot it down."

  Ordella stood in front of him. "Don't," she said. "It doesn't know we're here, and there might be more of them. Better to stay hidden and let it move on."

  The beast took a few staggering steps farther from the trees. Like the rest of its body, its legs seemed misshapen and mismatched. Its gait was juddering and uneven as if its bones had been shattered and then allowed to heal crooked. It turned its head to look back at the forest.

  Ordella followed the creature's movements with her eyes, then she noticed something on the far fringe of the clearing. A robed figure was standing with a wooden staff in hand and a hood pulled low, completely hiding its face.

  She tugged on Hob's tunic, pulling him down lower into the undergrowth.

  The figure stepped over to where the animal was sitting, and stiffly stretched out its arm, placing a gloved hand onto the top of the beast's head. It ruffled the animal's clumped hair then scratched it behind its disfigured ears. The figure tapped the ground with its staff, and the beast immediately came to heel, positioning itself by its master's flank. They turned back to the forest and walked side by side along the far edge of the clearing, the trees to their left.

  Ordella tracked their every step. She held her breath. What were they? And what in all Ellusia were they doing in the Border Wood?

  She kept watching them until they reached the corner of the clearing, where they turned to their left and disappeared into the forest.

  Her shoulders slumped, the tension draining out of them. She exhaled. The forest around them seemed to let out a breath, too. Birds tweeted to each other in the bushes, and a breeze blew through the branches of the silver birches, rustling their leaves.

  She turned to Hob. His face was pale and his eyes were still trained on the trees.

  "Perhaps they were burnt in a fire," he said. "That would explain the dog's head and why the hooded man kept himself covered."

  "Maybe," Ordella nodded.

  But fire wasn't the cause, of that she was certain. The dog's skin wasn't melted or charred. She'd seen what flames could do to a person. She put her hands to her face, trying in vain to dispel the image of Sally, a girl from Rittle, dressed in her favorite blue frock, screaming as the Kelsharlan flames engulfed her. She'd scratched at what had once been her face as she stumbled from the burning shell of her house. Ordella swallowed hard. No, the dog's face wasn't the result of fire. It was something else entirely. Something unnatural. Ordella shuddered and ran her hand through her hair.

  "Let's not linger here," she said. "I don't want to be here if they come back."

  "Agreed.” Hob walked over to their packs and looked up at the sky. "We still have a few hours of good light left. Let's make for Oakhaven. If we're lucky, Dunder will be heading that way too."

  *****

  Ordella unrolled the map across a large moss-covered tree stump. She squinted at the inked lines in the failing light and pointed at a group of tree symbols. "I think we're somewhere around here," she said.

  Hob nodded. "Maybe a little bit farther to the north." He moved his pudgy finger along a thin wavy line. "Let's take Kersey Way. It's a bit steep in places, and it'll take us a bit longer than going back the way we came, but I think it will be safer. It's seldom used these days. We're less likely to come upon any Kelsharlan soldiers." He paused. "Or anything else."

  The ghastly face of the hooded man's dog flashed through her mind. It was a sight she'd be happy never to see again.

  She rolled up the map and returned it to her pack.

  "Kersey Way it is then."

  By mid-morning the next day, they had reached the trail. Hob lead the way and Ordella followed behind. The forest was getting denser the farther they traveled down Kersey Way, and the path, if you could even call it that anymore, was so overgrown that it was almost indistinguishable from the rest of the woodland. They had started to head downhill too, and every few steps, Ordella and Hob were forced to grab hold of nearby branches to anchor themselves, preventing their boots sliding in the damp leaves and mud.

  Hob stopped in front of a tall patch of nettles. He tilted his head back and sniffed the air. Then he shifted position, faced back the way they'd come, and breathed in through his nose again.

  "What in all Ellusia are you doing?" Ordella said. "You look like Dunder. There's only room for one madman in Oakhaven."

  He stared at her, his eyes serious.

  "Can you smell it?" he said. "Smoke."

  Ordella inhaled. A faint acrid odor tickled her nostrils.

  "Yes, I think so," she said. "I smell something. It could be smoke." She moved her head from side to side, then pointed down the hill to her left. "It's coming from over there. Perhaps it's a Kelsharlan cook fire."

  Hob shook his head. "No, I don't think so."

  She chewed at her lip. The Kelsharlan guards who'd carted her away from the Warren hadn't thought twice about sparking up a blazing fire, but the others, the ones used to patrolling the woods, seemed much
more cautious. Hob was probably right.

  Ordella sneezed. The smell was getting stronger.

  "There's only one thing in that direction," Hob said. His face was pale. "Home." He straightened his pack. "We've got to get back there".

  Before Ordella could respond, Hob started to run down the hill. Ordella watched him for a few moments then she flung her own pack onto her back and followed after her friend.

  Please let him be wrong. Please let him be wrong.

  The words repeated over and over in her mind. She wiped her eyes and coughed. The smoke was getting thicker by the moment. Not Oakhaven, too. She shook her head. No. Surely Oakhaven was too well protected to have suffered the same fate as the other villages of the Border Wood. Ordella forced a smile. They were worrying for nothing. They'd get there only to find that Chegg had burned the loaves, or the kiln fires had been allowed to get out of control.

  Yet the churning in the pit of her stomach refused to abate.

  Ordella stared in the direction of the village. Along the horizon, plumes of smoke billowed up from the forest, and an orange light illuminated the clouds, streaking the choked sky with bronze.

  Twenty-Eight

  The air was hot and thick with woodsmoke.

  From their vantage point high up on the ridge above Oakhaven, Ordella stared into the burning branches of the sanctuary oaks below.

  A group of green-clad villagers scurried along the walkways, desperately trying to find a safe route down to the ground. They turned one way and then another, but the fire had them trapped. Ordella's heart thumped in her chest, and she clenched her fists. There was nothing she could do to help. The flames advanced, and the villagers huddled closer together, clinging to each other. Ordella turned away and clasped Hob's hand.

  For a moment, everything seemed to go silent, then the villager's frantic screams ruptured the smoke-clogged air.

  Ordella took a breath and forced herself to look again. The whole tree was engulfed in flames.

  Groups of Kelsharlan soldiers, armed with swords and burning brands, swarmed over the forest floor. They shouted and cursed as they hacked down those attempting to flee. Bodies, mostly wearing the simple tunics of Oakhaven's villagers, were strewn all over the ground.

  Ordella glanced at Hob. His jaw was set firm, and his eyes were wide. She let go of his hand and put her arm around him, but he didn't seem to notice.

  A series of shouts from the far end of the village rose above the hubbub. Ordella squinted. A line of villagers appeared to be stretched across the cave mouth. Jereth, unmistakable with his heavily curved bow in his hand, was in the middle next to another archer. Garvan, perhaps. They were loosing arrows into a growing throng of Kelsharlans who were beginning to form a line of their own.

  Every so often, Jereth moved to direct groups of villagers into the caves. Ordella scanned the floor around the clearing. Motionless bodies were scattered all over. How many of Oakhaven's villagers had actually made it to safety? And where was Merisca? Ordella tried to take in the whole scene. There was no sign of the Islander. Nor of Flynn and Lera. Surely they must have made it inside.

  Hob stood up. "We've got to help them," he said. "I can't just sit here and watch while my village burns and my friends are slaughtered."

  Ordella clutched his tunic and pulled him down.

  "What do you want us to do? If we charge down from up here we might get the better of one or two soldiers before we're cut down ourselves, but that's not going to help anyone."

  "Well, what do you suggest then? Surely we could take out a couple of them from here with arrows. It might give a few more villagers the chance to make it to the caves."

  "It would, but—"

  A wild shriek rang out from behind them. They spun around just in time to see Dunder crash out of the trees, his face contorted and snarling. He cried out again, raising a large knotted branch in his right hand. His eyes bulged out of their sockets, and spittle frothed from the corners of his mouth. Without a hint of recognition on his face, he pushed past them and hurtled down the steep valley side.

  Ordella followed his descent with her eyes. She lost him in the undergrowth for a few heartbeats, then he emerged again at the base of the slope.

  Before the nearest soldier could react, Dunder was upon him. The madman raised the hunk of wood above his head and brought it down across the man's back. The weight of the blow forced the soldier to his knees, and Dunder struck him again, slamming the branch into his temple with a bone-splintering crack.

  Several other Kelsharlans had noticed Dunder and were heading his way.

  "We've got to cover him." Hob started to creep down and along the ridge. "He's not going to be able to fight them all on his own with just a stick."

  Ordella sighed. What in all Ellusia had Dunder just done? He'd charged headlong into certain death, that's what, and his secrets and any information he had about her father would die with him.

  She caught up to Hob.

  "Keep yourself hidden and don't get too close," she said. "The Kelsharlans mustn’t know we're here." She drew out three arrows from her quiver and nocked one of them to her bowstring, keeping the others in her hand. "Make every shot count."

  Hob nodded, and crouched down behind a large patch of bracken about half-way down the slope. Ordella knelt next to him.

  Taking a deep breath, she leveled her bow at a burly soldier running towards Dunder.

  "I've got the one to our left," she said. The man continued to advance. He drew back his sword, and Ordella let her arrow fly. Her eyes followed its flight as it zipped down the hill. It appeared to be on course, but, at the last moment, it drifted slightly, clipping the man's forearm. He bellowed and dropped his sword, clutching his wound with his other hand. He glared up at the hillside.

  Ordella cursed and ducked down behind the ferns.

  On hands and knees, she crawled along to her left, moisture from the grass soaking into her breeches. After she'd made it a few yards, she poked her head up and peered out.

  Dunder was now fighting a helmeted soldier, fending off sword blows with his thick hunk of wood. The man she'd struck was still clutching his arm, but his wound wasn't deep, and it would only be a matter of time before he rejoined the fray. The body of another Kelsharlan was sprawled on the floor in a puddle of blood, an arrow fletched with yellow feathers sticking out of his neck. Hob had obviously connected with his first shot.

  She glanced over at him. He'd moved to his right and was firing at a pair of soldiers who were running towards Dunder from a stand of flaming sanctuary oaks.

  It was going to be up to her to take care of the Kelsharlans closest to them. She closed her eyes and brought to mind Skerrick's smirking face. His mocking eyes seemed to dare her to act, and her heart started to beat faster. In one motion, she nocked another arrow, jumped up from behind her cover and loosed it at the man she'd wounded. Without stopping to see if her shot was on target, she placed another arrow on her string and sent it flying towards the soldier who was directly in front of Dunder. Bobbing back down, she moved to her right.

  Ordella peeked through the vegetation. Both of her arrows had found their marks, and the men were sprawled lifeless on the floor.

  Dunder whirled around to face his next adversary. He raised the branch, let out an animal roar, and charged. The Kelsharlan dodged to his left, but his foot clipped the boot of one of the fallen men. He'd just about managed to regain his balance, but Dunder was too quick. The madman brought the piece of wood down onto the man's head with a dull clunk. The blow forced the soldier to his knees and Dunder shoved him over as he bustled past, heading in the direction of the caves.

  Ordella looked over to that end of the village. Jereth and the other archers had managed to maintain their line, but the Kelsharlan ranks facing them seemed to have swelled. Kelsharlan crossbowmen were being ushered into position.

  Ordella bit her lip. The villagers were about to be overwhelmed.

  Jereth motioned to Garvan and Much, point
ing at the new arrivals, urging the archers to target them and bring them down.

  Ordella put her hand to her face and looked at Hob. There was nothing they could do from where they were. The crossbowmen were outside the range of their bows, but if they risked moving much closer to the caves, they'd likely be spotted.

  She crept over to Hob.

  "We have to act now," he said. "We've got to get nearer. They can't hold the line much longer."

  "But what if we're seen?" Ordella instinctively ducked her head down lower. "There are too many of them. Our arrows aren't going to make much of a difference, and if we're killed—"

  "What are you saying? That we should save ourselves and just let them die?" Hob's face was red.

  She put her hand on his shoulder.

  "We have to go and fetch help."

  Hob narrowed his eyes. "And where are we going to get help from?"

  Ordella shook her head. She hadn't got that far.

  "I don't know. All I know is that when they fall back and seal themselves in the caves, we are their only hope. And we can't help them if we're dead."

  "Don't fool yourself, Ordella. No one's coming to our aid." He pointed behind him. "There's no army waiting back there to charge down the hillside. This isn't a fairytale. We're on our own. Just like the people of Marwood, Birch and Gedgrove were. Just like it was for your family when Rittle was attacked." He shook his head and nocked an arrow to his bowstring. "You can do what you want, but I'm going to go and help my friends."

  With his head bowed low he scampered along the ridge towards the caves.

  "Hob," she said.

  He didn't turn around.

  Ordella took a deep breath, clenched her hand tight around the handle of her bow and followed after him.

  Hob paused by a large outcrop of rock. He crouched down next to it and peered at the chaos below. Ordella hunkered down beside him and nocked an arrow to her bowstring.

  A loud shriek came from the valley, followed by a flurry of shouts and cries.