Warden (10 page)

The scribe stood on his tiptoes and stretched his arm up towards the mushroom’s gills.

“Till!” Bander hissed. “Stop! Don’t touch it!”

The scribe ignored him, grabbed a portion of the plant’s gills in his right hand, and yanked down hard. The gills came loose – and so did a small cloud of red spores. Till backed away quickly, but not before some of the spores landed on the back of the hand holding the gill samples.

Smiling in triumph, Till began walking towards his companions, who rapidly backpedaled away from him, almost in unison.

“Eh?” Till muttered, confused by their actions. Then he looked down at his hand and saw the red spores on the back. He knelt down and rubbed the back of the offending hand on a grassy mound, wiping it clean of the spores before standing up again.

“Satisfied?” the scribe asked no one in particular, holding up the back of his hand for inspection. No one said anything, but they all stepped aside as Till marched smugly to his horse. Once he reached the animal, the scribe undid the flap on his pack and pulled out a small glass jar. He put the mushroom gills inside, then returned the jar to his pack before turning and looking at his companions expectantly.

The rest of the party looked at Bander, who made a vague gesture before flatly ordering the group in general to get a move on. He then reclaimed the reins of his horse and began leading them back out of the Giant’s Grove.

*****

As is often the case, the trip back from the grove seemed to go faster than their journey to it. This time, however, no one seemed inclined to comment on the sights around them. Instead, Errol sense a dogged determination on the part of his companions to simply get back to the safety and familiarity of the road.

Beyond that, the only thing of significance was the fact that everyone gave Till a wide berth as they left the grove behind them – so wide, in fact, that anyone observing might have thought the scribe was actually a member of some other party.

There was almost a collective sigh of relief when, towards the end of the day, they emerged from the tree line back onto the road. They immediately began to make camp in the same spot as the night before, and it didn’t take long for spirits to start running high again. Prap told a few raunchy jokes that walked the line between being humorous and vulgar. Bander mentioned a few of the more humorous anecdotes from his past. Pierce sang a new, enchanting ballad about their trip to the Giant’s Grove – something that he had apparently been working on in his head during the ride back.

In short, almost everyone seemed to have recovered from the day’s adventure, and would have a great story to tell their friends. (Moreover, although he would probably never use the knowledge again, Errol now knew the way to the Giant’s Grove.) The only person who didn’t seem jovial was Till, which may not have been surprising since the rest of the party was still keeping a respectful distance from him.

As he fell asleep that night, it occurred to Errol that perhaps they were treating the scribe too harshly. After all, no harm seemed to have come of his little escapade.

His thoughts on the subject changed, however, when he woke up the next morning to the sound of Till screaming.

Chapter 17

No one in their party – not even Bander, who was the most knowledgeable and experienced among them – had ever seen or heard of anything like it. Growing from the back of Till’s right hand, where the spores had fallen when he’d collected the mushroom samples, was a small colony of toadstools. In fact, they weren’t just growing from the back of his hand; it looked like they were part of his hand, as though his flesh had just puckered up in the shape of small mushrooms. No wonder the scribe had started screaming when he saw them.

Fortunately, the toadstools didn’t seem to be causing Till any pain. It had been the shock of seeing them that had caused him to cry out and wake everyone up. After examining them as closely as he dared and then admitting to being perplexed, Bander had merely dictated that it was time to pack up.

A short time later, they were back in the saddle again, resuming their journey but at a full gallop now. Although it hadn’t seemed possible, everyone was keeping even farther away from the scribe than before. Whether out of concern about discomfiting his companions, a feeling of dejection, or something in between, Errol soon noticed that Till was riding well behind the main body of their group.

They stopped to give the horses a short break around midday. Errol used the opportunity to speak to Bander out of earshot of the others.

“What are we going to do?” Errol asked.

“About Till? Just get him back to the city,” Bander replied. “Hopefully someone in his Order will know what to do. I certainly don’t.”

“Is that why we’re pushing the horses so hard, to get him back?”

“Yes. Whatever’s happening to him isn’t natural. He needs help as soon as possible.”

Errol nodded in understanding, then went back to finish caring for his horse.

*****

They pushed on hard for the rest of the day. The next morning, they took to the road with even greater fervor, and for good reason: the toadstools had advanced along the back of Till’s hand to his wrist.

The morning after that, they awoke to find Till crying and trying to use a knife to rid himself of the toadstools, which were now about an inch beyond his wrist and moving towards his elbow.

After convincing the scribe not to use the blade on himself, Bander called Errol and Jaden aside while everyone else was packing.

“What do you think about Prap?” Bander asked Jaden rather pointedly.

Jaden suddenly looked a little uncomfortable. “Well…uh…I…”

“Don’t be shy or circumspect,” Bander told him. “I’m asking for a reason.”

Jaden took a deep breath before answering. “Sloppy. Careless. No instincts.”

“Okay,” Bander said, taking all this in with a nod. “Then we’re all in agreement on that front. The reason I asked is that, if we stick to the road, we’ll never get to Apolos in time to help Till, and we’ll kill the horses trying.”

Errol nodded in understanding. At the rate things were going, Till would be nothing but a giant toadstool (which was ironic) by the time they reached the city. And mentally, he seemed to be on the verge of breaking down even faster, although whether that was a result of his growing physical deformity or something else, Errol didn’t know.

“So what are you suggesting?” Jaden asked Bander.

“He’s saying we need to take a shortcut,” Errol stated. “Through the Badlands.”

“Exactly,” Bander added.

“So what does my impression of Prap have to do with that?” Jaden said.

“Because, on the surface, it looks like this group has four Wardens,” Bander replied. “In truth, we have only three – at best, three-and-a-half. If we’re going to be traipsing through the Badlands for an extended period, it needs to be understood that Prap can’t be fully relied upon, if at all. In fact, he’s something of a liability. We three have to protect the group, and I need to make sure you two are on board with that.”

Jaden and Errol looked at each other, and then nodded at Bander simultaneously. Shortly thereafter, with everyone packed up, they left the road and entered the Badlands.

Chapter 18

While it couldn’t be described as uneventful, Errol felt that their shortcut through the Badlands didn’t provide any diversions that were unexpected. Over the course of five days, they encountered various weirdlings, including a constrictus, a manticore, and a devil-dog. Fortunately, they were able to handle each confrontation without any harm being suffered by their party and with no noticeable change of pace. Still, when they were making camp on their fifth straight night in the Badlands, it came as a welcome relief when Bander announced that they were close to their destination.

“We should reach Apolos by tomorrow evening,” he said as they were getting ready to eat dinner.

Errol, Jaden, and Pierce almost whooped at the news. Even Till, with the toadstools almost up to his shoulder now, managed a halfhearted smile. Presumably Prap, who was off somewhere doing who-knew-what, would be happy to hear the news when he returned.

For a second, Errol wondered what sort of mischief Prap was up to. For the past two nights, he had been leaving camp just about as soon as they picked out a spot, returning awhile later looking forlorn. This made the third night in a row that he had taken off. After dwelling on the subject for a moment more, Errol dismissed it from his mind. As long as Prap didn’t get himself killed, Errol wasn’t going to devote any more thought to the man than necessary.

Unfortunately, Errol found Prap unintentionally on his mind when the beefy man burst excitedly into camp, dragging something behind him. Looking closely at what Prap had, Errol saw what appeared to be some sort of wild hog or pig with a rope around its neck.

“So this is where you’ve been disappearing every day?” Bander asked him. “You’ve been hunting?”

“Yes!” Prap answered with a hint of indignation. “I’ve basically been living on road rations for six months! Tough jerky, moldy cheese, stale bread, and worse! I want some fresh meat!”

He pointed at his catch for emphasis. “You can all have some if you like,” he continued.

Errol gave the animal a good hard look. It was definitely a pig of some sort – not too old, since it only weighed about fifty pounds – but something about it seemed…off. The ears seemed rounded rather than pointed. The snout wasn’t quite as pronounced as it should have been. The legs didn’t appear jointed as expected. In short, although when taken as a whole the animal was obviously a boar or hog, no single part of its body actually looked the way one would have expected.

Jaden glanced at Errol and raised an eyebrow, seemingly asking if Errol was going to partake. Errol shook his head vigorously in the negative.

“There’s way more than enough to go around,” Prap was saying. For emphasis, he bent down and picked the animal up by its hind legs. Suddenly, there was a wild squealing, and the pig – which everyone had assumed was dead – began struggling wildly in Prap’s grip.

Errol, like the other people in his party, was caught totally by surprise when the animal proved to be alive. After a few seconds of mad wriggling, Prap lost his hold on it. The boar landed on its head, and then fell onto its back. Quickly rolling over, it had just gotten its feet under it and was preparing to run when Prap fell bodily on top of it. The animal squealed in fear and pain, but continued fighting to get away.

Prap, pinning the creature down more with his bulk than his strength, struggled to hang on to his meal.

“Someone bring me a knife!” he shouted out.

At first, no one moved. Then, unexpectedly, Pierce ran over with a blade, which he extended to Prap.

Unfortunately, the beefy Warden needed both of his hands to try to hold his quarry.

“Don’t just stand there like a ninny!” he shouted at Pierce. “Slit its throat!”

Pierce swallowed nervously and then looked around at his companions, anxiously seeking some type of assistance. The rest of the party was watching him, but no one moved.

“Come on!” Prap screamed. “I haven’t got all day!”

Pierce was breathing heavily, almost on the verge of hyperventilating, it seemed. When it came to killing things, he was clearly out of his element. Errol, feeling sorry for the minstrel, was about to step forward and take the knife from him when suddenly Pierce leaned forward and placed the knife at the animal’s throat. It squealed one last time before Pierce jerked the knife back.

*****

Only Prap and Pierce deigned to eat the pig. Bander, somewhat disgusted by the entire episode, had made Prap clean and skin the animal away from the campsite.

“I don’t want that thing’s carcass attracting some predator to our doorstep,” Bander had said.

The older Warden had also ordered Prap to take a shovel and turn over the earth at the spot where the pig’s blood had spilled after Pierce had cut its throat.

Despite Bander’s apparent irritation with him, Prap seemed pleased with himself. Eventually, after appeasing the older Warden, Prap set about cooking the pig, which he and Pierce later seemed to thoroughly enjoy. Errol fell asleep to the sound of them heartily smacking their lips and sucking juice off their fingers.