The Wanderer's Tale (53 page)

‘So we’ve got nothing to worry about.’

Yulfric considered this, then ignored it and continued with what he was saying:

‘
. . . Also, I forbid you – absolutely forbid you – to go anywhere near the waterfall, for that is the domain of the Jordiske . . . Remember what I say to you, and we should both leave this valley in safety . . .
’

And on that cheerful note, the blackfruit harvest began. Yulfric led the boy through the woods until they came upon the trees they were looking for. The blackfruit were large, aubergine-coloured, and tasted like fresh figs. For a while the two gatherers contented themselves with just gorging on this delicious fruit, sinking their teeth into the succulent, sun-warmed pulp and letting the juice trickle down their chins. Then they began cutting the crop down from the trees and placing it in large sacks. Gapp used a kind of sickle-headed pruner on a long, retractable haft that had been lent to him by the Gyger. He had carried it all this way himself, using it as a kind of walking stick up till now.

But even so, the fruit on these trees was not so plentiful as on those further down the valley slope, and they had to search carefully.

Eventually, as the hounds had not picked up any scents of danger, but kept larking around frivolously, Yulfric decided that it must be safe for the two of them to split up.

‘
. . . But always stay within earshot . . .
’ he warned Gapp gravely.

‘Of course,’ the boy replied, rather too glibly for the giant’s liking.

The intense feelings aroused in the young man’s heart whilst he had been standing up on the precipice above, however, were not to be subdued so easily, not even by the forest giant’s stern warning. For the first time in his life, Gapp Radnar the humble esquire from Wyda-Aescaland felt like a true adventurer, every bit as worthy as the heroes he had long heard praised in the lays of the skalds in Nordwas: for had he not come through the pits of the Underworld, faced and overcome horrors unimagined by others, and survived the harsh wilds of Fron-Wudu? And what was more, he had done this all by himself! (Well, Yulfric had helped a little maybe . . .) Not even Thegne Nibulus could boast as much.

So the Gyger’s words sounded more like a challenge than a warning. This was now
his
valley; he alone of all his people had gained ingress here; and he was not about to leave it without a little further exploration.

Peering down through the thickening trees, he listened hard. His ears picked up only the sound of the waterfall, and cautiously he made his way downhill . . .

Isn’t this where I left him?

Yulfric studied the ground. Yes, these were the boy’s boot-prints, clearly enough, but, judging by the heavier indentations of the toes, the tracks told him that he had been moving stealthily.

Almost as if he doesn’t want me following him
, he thought in consternation. Little bastard must have sneaked off for a while – and Yulfric did not need to study the tracks further to guess where he had headed for.

He scratched his armpits and belched in frustration. He supposed it was inevitable, really, a young man like that all fired-up with adventure . . .

He put the back of his hand to his lips and made a high-pitched squealing sound. Within moments his scattered hounds came bounding into the clearing, and stood eagerly awaiting his command.

‘B’khunda gweorna!’ he snapped at them, and without waiting strode off through the bushes in search of his charge.

Gapp emerged from the dense cover of the bushes and stared up in awe, a broad smile splitting his face.

‘Baeldicca the Great,’ he whispered to himself, smitten by reverence and wonder at the breathtaking torrent of white spray that thundered down from its unseen source somewhere thousands of feet up above, under a rainbow-bedecked blue sky. Though he was still far from its plunge-pool, so mighty was the cascade that still it seemed to tower almost directly above him.

For long moments Gapp contented himself with gazing up at the falls. He tried to contemplate the sheer enormity of it, seeing all those tons of water spewing every second from the river’s dark, chthonic source in the cliff-face far above. He tried to compare it with anything he had been used to in his life previously, recalling the streams and rivers of his own land; and he could not help but laugh. How small they all seemed now. How paltry, insignificant . . . just as his life had been then; his life in boyhood, now gone forever.

For long moments more he stood there, and he was at peace. Such beauty lay in this verdant glade, untouched by the banal, besmirching hands of civilization. There was an untameable magnificence to it all that, in truth, he never would have been able to appreciate properly had it not been for his time spent with the forest giant.

The giant . . . Yes, where was Yulfric? He should be here too, to witness this sight, to experience all that Gapp was feeling, instead of lurking up there amongst the stunted blackfruit trees.

Yulfric swiftly forgotten, Gapp returned to his contemplation. How white the spume against the deep blue sky! What beautiful colours dancing around him in the shimmering crystal vapour! So sparkling the fine spray that fell upon his face, even from this distance; cool, caressing, cleansing.

Yes, he was at peace. Though the cascade roared like nothing he had ever heard before, and drowned out all other sound, there was yet a strange, mesmeric tranquillity in the oblivion it created. Through its destructive white noise, a beautiful vision of peace was born . . .

Gapp shook his head and grinned. He was glad there was no one else to see him like this. What would they think? Not that he cared, really. He drank in one final view of the falls, then turned back along the riverbank.

He stopped dead in his tracks, and stared at what he saw in front of him.

What was it?
It looked like some kind of idol, maybe even a scarecrow. He approached it cautiously, half-expecting it to suddenly come alive and lunge at him. As he drew closer, he saw that it was indeed an effigy of some sort . . . but of
what
sort, he dared not think.

Roughly man-height, it looked like a log – maybe the lightning-blasted stump of a tree – which had been set up in the middle of a wide circle of stones. It was adorned with garlands of leaves and flowers, and covered in trailers of a thick, poisonous-looking ivy. Although the leaves on the garlands were nearly all dead and the flowers decayed and foul-smelling, the ivy was definitely still alive; it grew out of the ground and swarmed all over the log, strangling it, feeding off it, and yet holding it up in place. Gapp risked peering closer, and saw that its tendrils were lightly flecked in blood.

There also appeared to be the crude likeness of a face on it, made of . . .
Ugh!
He hoped it wasn’t
that
!

Gapp backed off, partly in distaste, partly in fear. He had seen things like that before, and it reminded him of drawings he had seen of corn dollies, those pagan effigies found in Ottra, the Blighted Heathlands, and even in the southern marches of his own land. Gapp
loathed
corn dollies.

The words of the forest giant came back to him, about there being ‘
others . . . half-man half-beast . . .
’ in this valley.

The boy glanced apprehensively about, then moved off. A dark cloud passed across the sun, and he shivered. There was no birdsong, he noticed, and all of a sudden the previous welcome coolness of the fall’s spray seemed chilling. This place did not seem so wondrous after all.

He decided to head back to the upper slopes and continue with the harvesting. He had tarried long enough.

‘Flippin’ weirdos . . .’ he cursed, and quickened his pace.

He was just heading back along the riverbank when he heard a movement among the bushes off to his right. Gapp stopped dead and listened closely.

There was the snap of a breaking twig, and he thought he caught a glimpse of something moving in the trees beyond.

‘Yulfric?’

There was no answer. Cautiously, he padded over . . .

Yulfric was half-running now, following the light trail of boot-prints that Gapp had left. He noted with growing alarm that they were heading not only for the river, but in the general direction of the giant waterfall as well. He cursed softly and quickened his pace.

Suddenly Shlepp gave a growl – a low, dangerous growl that spelled trouble. The other hounds gathered around, and began snuffling noisily at the ground near their pack leader. Yulfric pushed his way through them, and bent close to the earth to study the tracks.

‘Krk’ndh! A Guntha Aescalandir fiw-hirnoest toth-t’lah!’ he swore, and immediately raced off along the trail as fast as he could.

There, imprinted lightly in the soft earth, running alongside the tracks made earlier by Gapp, were the bipedal prints of long-clawed feet. Several of them.

‘Yulfric – is that you?’

Gapp slowly approached the bushes. His mouth had gone dry, and the words were little more than a whisper.

There came no answer. Only a deep silence, a pause even, as though the whole valley were waiting to see what happened next. There was a smell now, he noticed, like from a half-eaten carcass that had been left out in the sun.

Gapp stopped. A loud woman’s voice at the back, front and sides of his mind was warning him: it might be an animal it might be dangerous you might get killed or worse . . .

But he boldly stepped right up to the bushes and pulled some branches aside. In the gloom of the dense entanglement of foliage he could make out the silhouette of an upright figure, roughly his own height, and staring directly back at him.

His whole body stiffened with fear. Its face was mere inches from his own. The brittle, bony head, far too large for the rest of its skinny body, looked like a reanimated goat’s skull, with bristles and long ears that jutted up like horns but dangled limply at the ends. Insect-like eyes stood out from its head in two large creamy hemispheres of matter, featureless save for a thin pulsating vein that ran down the middle of each.

‘UhY-Yu-Yulf – ’ Gapp stammered, and could only watch paralysed as the creature raised its oversized, sharp-taloned hands while coiling itself ready to spring.

But the paralysis of terror that had held him fast so many times before did not take effective hold so readily now. He had already been through too much to succumb to that. There was a short moment of immobility, then he propelled himself backwards with a wild yell of: ‘YULFRIIIC!!’

The creature lunged after him with the speed of a wildcat. At exactly the same time there was movement to either side of it. It was not alone.

In the ensuing struggle, one word Gapp had heard the Gyger use flashed through his mind.

Jordiske!

Three of the devils were on him instantly. Long, sinewy arms of incredible strength shot out to hold him fast, and the undergrowth all around became alive with the whipping of tendrils and the slapping of leaves. Gapp heaved, bucked and writhed furiously, and kicked out at the face before him with his feet. Both connected with devastating effect.

The kick hurled the Jordiske right back in a spray of whatever it called blood.

‘
Yulfric!
’ he howled again, and twisted out of the grip of the two creatures still holding him.

Again they came, long quivering arms reaching out for him. He could not get properly to his feet and was soon pinned to the ground once more. Through it all he could hear the sound of feet approaching. Slapping feet – more of them! Still he bucked and heaved and struck out with his own feet. This time the impact was not so effective, but at least caused one of the devils to back off gurgling in pain and clutching its eye. Gapp briefly sensed something warm and wet trickling over his ankle.

Then they were all over him. He screamed in fury and frustration but could do nothing to save himself. The light of day was blotted out by the melee around him. He could smell the rankness of their sweating bodies, the sweet odour of rotten meat from their mouths. He was beaten, clawed and nearly throttled, then lifted high above their heads and borne away.

Still struggling madly, Gapp was carried towards the waterfall. Its thundering grew louder with every second he approached it, until soon it filled his head with terror and panic.

By now the spray had increased from a cool shower to a freezing inundation, until suddenly everything went black. It was then Gapp realized with despair that he was being dragged round behind the cascade and down into some terrible cavern.

As he was propelled underground, he was almost sure he could hear the far-off bellowing of the Gyger rising above even the roar of Baeldicca the Great.

Then there was nothing but cold and dark. He had heard the last of his friend Yulfric.

I
F EVER THERE WAS
a time in young Gapp Radnar’s life that might be described as consummate injustice, then this, in his opinion, must surely be it. After all the tribulation that had been heaped upon him, and yet he had forced his way through, there was in some part of his mind a feeling that the world owed him a little reward; or if not a reward, then at least a break. But, now, to be dragged down into the dark pits of the earth by yet more subterranean horrors – this had to be the cruellest kick in the teeth imaginable.