One for the Morning Glory (21 page)

The beast ended up doubling back, for the last few miles were unfortunately thickly forested and there was no good place to set down between the cliffs; though they were sorry for his extra trouble, they were glad for the chance to fly more, for now that they were used to it and had come to trust the beast, they were fascinated with flying and loved the look of the land from up here, and they knew that this was, in all probability, the last time they would do it.

At last, with a soft
flump
of his leathery wings, the beast settled onto a mountain meadow, and they climbed down. Each of them, even the Twisted Man, scratched the beast thoroughly on the nose and rubbed his ears, and the beast himself seemed a little sorry to lose their company. He made the Prince promise especially that when the Kingdom was restored, there would be questers coming to talk to him, and he also offered any other help that they found he could provide later—"though since I shall be far up in the mountains I am afraid you would be a long time in summoning me." Then with a last nod of farewell, he leapt into the air again, and they waved until he was merely a dark dot in the sky.

"And now, like it or not, we all must sleep through a good part of the day," Sir John said. He had seen enough signs of exhaustion in Amatus, Sylvia, Calliope, and himself to be sure it was necessary.

"I will stand guard, then," the Twisted Man said.

"First guard," Sir John corrected, "We all must rest."

"I will not grow tired."

Sir John might have argued, but the figure of the Twisted Man, swaddled as always in a dozen wraps, capes, and cloaks, clanking with weaponry, standing there in the bright, clear air of a mountain morning, caused the words to die in his throat. "Very well," Slitgizzard said, "I rely on you to tell us what you must do to remain fit to fight, and to do it."

"Thank you," the Twisted Man said. And he sat down on the grass of the little rise above them, as comfortably as if he might be planning to watch birds and butterflies all day. Psyche quietly sat beside him, and though Amatus thought he ought to protest, and Calliope and Sylvia wanted to volunteer for another shift, Sir John hushed them as if they had been three children, and watched them fall asleep before he stretched out himself. He had just a moment to glance up at the hill and see Psyche leaning against the Twisted Man's shoulder before he fell into a sound sleep.

When he woke, it was midafternoon, and the Twisted Man still sat up there, still as a statue, just as if he had not moved in all that time—except that there was a garland of dandelions around his neck. Slitgizzard swallowed a smile and looked to see Psyche gathering more dandelions nearby; he sat up and saw the butterflies that filled the meadow. The warm sun struck his back where the grass had made it damp, and he sighed, a little wave of contentment washing over him, before he recalled that the King was almost surely dead, and the Duke and Cedric with him, and that everything that remained of the Kingdom was within the scope of his eyes, for he had no doubt the isolated garrisons, if they had not already fallen, would fall as soon as Waldo's attention turned their way.

He rose to his feet. A silent groan in his lower back and legs reminded him that, though strong and fast as ever, he was no longer quite the young adventurer he had been.

Psyche waved to him merrily. The Twisted Man stood, and came down the hill to them. "It has been quiet," the Twisted Man said, "peaceful and pleasant. If you think there has been rest enough, it would be wise to be moving."

Psyche looped a garland of dandelions over Sir John's neck, and smiled at him. "You feel it, too, then. This meadow is a good place."

"It is," Sir John said, "but not the place where we ought to stop. We cannot hope that our flight was completely undetected by hostile eyes, and even if it were, we must assume that a column of troops will be headed up the Long River Road to take possession of these territories. By then we must be beyond the narrow passages above us—preferably beyond several of them, and all the way to the Lake of Winter."

The Twisted Man nodded; he seemed even more quiet than usual. Psyche dropped another garland over the Twisted Man's head, and beamed at him. "Just twenty or thirty more, sir, and you might pass for a gentleman."

The Twisted Man spoke softly. "I appreciate your words, most of all because I know they are not true."

Sir John Slitgizzard was not subtle, nor clever, and knowing this he was about to ask what that particular riddle meant, when Amatus, Calliope, and Sylvia sat up. This meant that the whole conversation about the beauty of the meadow and the need nevertheless to get moving had to be repeated again with six people instead of three, and so it took even longer.

At the end of it, Sir John had another thought, for his own stomach was beginning to rumble. "I brought along some biscuit and dried meat in the wallet of my triolet; it's enough for everyone to have a bite before we start—"

"I did the same," Amatus said, "so we've two meals, though scant ones—"

"Well," Psyche said, "while you were sleeping, I found a few large bushes of berries, and some arrowroot and Queen Anne's lace, so we can stretch that food a bit—"

The Twisted Man nodded. "And as it happened, I had a bag of spare rations on my saddle, which I brought with me, so we've plenty. You are right, Sir John, we might as well eat—though we ought to do it quickly, for there is ground to cover and pursuit to evade."

They gobbled down handfuls of berries from the bushes Psyche showed them, and made that the better part of a meal, with a few biscuits and the roots that she had found for them to fill it out. It took little time, but still the sun was farther down when they set out upstream along the Long River, now not much more than a deep, fast mountain brook. The road here was nothing you would want to take a tumulus over, and they had to watch their footing, but still it was not dreadfully hard, and they made reasonable progress as the road bent down into the dark green gloom of the mountain forest. Emerging from that small valley, the road took them up and up, through the last thick parts of the broad-leaved forest and on into the heavy pines and firs. Now the air smelled sweeter and the heavy scent made them all move a bit quicker, for in it there was the damp and cold that promised night soon.

"The gloom here is appalling," Sir John commented, "and from the look of things we have much uphill in front of us. I wish that we had at least gone through the first of the narrow passes by now."

Amatus grunted. "I wish that wishes were indeed horses, and that therefore, being beggars, we could ride."

The road dwindled to barely a track, with crushed needles lying thick in its ruts, and still they went on. The soft decaying needles at first felt good under their tired and sore feet, but they slipped and gave way, and thus their legs had to work the harder for it, so that after a while they were tired and sore from climbing the slippery slope. Meanwhile the sun continued to sink in the west, and though the occasional tree that stuck up into the sunlight shone with fierce color, the shadows in which they toiled became almost as dark as night itself, so that they saw each other only in silhouettes against the brilliant amber light. They were beginning to stumble with tiredness, and Sir John ordered a halt so that everyone might eat a little more biscuit and a strip of dried gazebo, but this helped only a little and it was an effort to get started again.

Luckily the moon was waxing, so they would have a bit more of it tonight and it would rise earlier, but still there was the danger that they might find themselves groping along the road by only the light of the first bright stars . . . and if the enemy indeed knew where they were, they might be set upon by vampires or other things that flew—

Up ahead, Sylvia gave a glad cry and rushed ahead. They all hurried to follow.

The road bent down again, at last, and into a narrow, steep-walled defile filled with trees. It was the first of the passes, and just at the point where it bent out of sight, a rickety wooden bridge spanned the roaring gorge. The last of the evening sunlight was just bouncing off the far wall.

"Let's hurry—I know this place well," Sir John Slitgizzard said, "and once we are across the bridge, we will find a fine place to camp for the night, with clean water and very likely something we can do for food."

They all rushed down the road at a great clip, not quite running, but savoring the pleasure of being able to see far into the distance again, and Sir John pointed out some of the more prominent peaks and peaked promontories. It might almost have been a picnic that they were going to, now.

Then Calliope happened to look back, and gave a shout, for a band of men was bursting from the forest from which they had come, all armed, and plainly not friendly. They all ran as hard as they could, and matters did not seem hopeless, for even one man might easily hold the bridge, or Sir John keep them back with his deadly pismire—

They flung themselves around the last bend, and Psyche, Calliope, and Sylvia shot across the bridge, hair streaming behind them, like three mad spirits in a story. Close behind, Amatus and Slitgizzard pounded over the swaying structure, leapt to the side as soon as they were over, and drew pismires.

Before their eyes, the bridge collapsed, fell into the gorge, and was swept away.

They looked up in shock to see that the Twisted Man had taken it down with two strokes of his double-bladed ax, and now awaited the foe, his omnibus on his shoulder.

"Run, fools!" he bellowed to them. "Run or I die for nothing!"

For a long second they stared; the band of men coming from the forest, now, was not two dozen as it had appeared, but at least twice that number. Moreover, as the sun began to sink there were squeals and chatters that suggested goblins were eagerly waiting for the dark.

"He is right," Sir John Slitgizzard whispered, though he felt his stomach sink within him.

"May you find whatever it is you have sought," Amatus shouted to the Twisted Man, who raised his right arm in salute, then turned to face the foe.

Amatus and Sir John Slitgizzard ran, and behind them they heard the bark of the Twisted Man's omnibus, as the first of the enemy fell before it.

Now, as for what happened next, it is purely conjecture, but it is the conjecture of several of the fine woods trackers that were in Deacon Dick Thunder's band, and so though we cannot be absolutely sure it is true, we can be sure it is not absolutely false. This is what must have happened, and if not this, then something like this:

The Twisted Man had always been a deadly shot, and since he had his omnibus and two braces of pismires, the seven shots Sir John heard would account for the seven of the foe who were found shot. Then the Twisted Man must have drawn his escree with his right hand, and his double-edged ax with his left, and then fought on like that. He had slain seven men in their first rush, all with balls planted neatly between their eyes, so they would have advanced cautiously. Besides they were supposed to take the fugitives alive.

Two or three of the boldest were knocked from the road, skittering down the steep gravel bank into the gorge, where they were swept down to the opening of the defile, if they survived, and farther still, if they did not.

After that first, brief rush, then, as Sir John urged Amatus and the women onward, ten of the forty foemen were fallen, without any injury to the Twisted Man. Whether his heart lightened with hope, or whether he just continued to fight as he always did, could not be known even if a living witness had been found, but he had not given an inch, and the Prince and his party had gained a great deal of valuable time.

The next rush met with only slightly better results; the Twisted Man had no time to reload, and so they fell only to the blades of his whirling weapons, but the road was narrow there—barely enough for a single horse—and thus they could close with him only in ones and twos. He struck them down, and—in his usual way—when he could, left them wounded rather than dead, forcing the other troops to care for them.

But he must have been at least a little puzzled by these strangely identical soldiers who advanced upon him, for they were not demoralized in the least by the screams of the wounded; they did not even seem to notice them.

Still, at the end of the second rush he had accounted for another five who were dead, and two grievously wounded, and the puddled blood made the pathway more slippery and dangerous for the next rush.

This was by the time that the sun was going down quickly, because all of Thunder's best trackers agree that it was during the second, bloody rush that the Twisted Man seemed to have taken two soldiers prisoner. He hamstrung one with his escree and broke the other's knee with the flat of his ax, then dragged them in behind him while the others were too confused to mount another rush. A few quick strokes with the pongee to slash through their flesh and destroy their tendons, and now they could neither stand nor grip anything; they lay, crying and begging for death, behind him.

Whatever might be said of Waldo, and of men who would voluntarily serve him, they had some loyalty to each other, for the next rushes upon the Twisted Man were wilder than before, with men apparently scrambling to get at him and save their fellows. They met with no better success. He killed a few more, though he was now too hard-pressed to choose to wound them, and their bodies, too, tumbled down into the raging stream below.

And the sun, which had been creeping away, touched the horizon, and the sky began to darken, indigo invading blue.

He fought on, though he may well have guessed what was to come. One man was too badly wounded to retreat, but the Twisted Man was too hard-pressed to drag him over to his other prisoners, and so the man lay bloody and dying between them, crying out for water or mercy. He received neither; nor could he have imagined what would happen next.

When darkness had just fallen, the rocks resounded with horns and with howling, for the mountains had always had more than their share of goblins, and now they were bursting forth to their ally's aid. Thankfully none came from the little stretch of rock behind him, but still his situation was now desperate, for goblins can climb and scramble many places a man cannot, and thus they could come at him from up and down the slope. Moreover, though they were still little skilled, these goblins too seemed to have mastered disciplined fighting, and they advanced in tight, orderly ranks.