Part 5 (1/2)
”Yaks can carry anything,” Ris.h.i.+ said, resuming his work. ”You will see.”
Atreus laid his sword on the rucksack, securing it in place beneath the cinchrope, then waded over to the front of the wagon. His numb feet were little morethan frozen weights, and they slipped twice as he pulled himself onto the driver'sfootboard. He kneeled on the bench and leaned into the back, reaching for his treasure basket.
The sound of approaching hooves began to drum down the road. Atreus peeredout through the back of the cargo bed, looking through the long tunnel of smashedwillows the wagon had left in its wake. The leaves were too thick to see up onto theroad, but he had little doubt about whom he was hearing. He threw open thetreasure basket, then groaned as he hefted the heavy coffer out.
”Here,” said Yago. ”I'll take that.”Atreus turned to find his friend standing beside the driver's bench, both arms.e.xtended to take the coffer. Though the ogre's face betrayed no hint of his pain, hecould not quite lift his wounded arm high enough to accept the box.Atreus shook his head. ”You rest your arm, ”he said. * We might need it later.”
The sound of the drumming hooves grew louder. Ris.h.i.+ came over with the yaksand gently shouldered Yago aside. The Mar was sitting sidesaddle on the leadmount, holding a willow switch in one hand and the second beast's tether in theother.
”Perhaps you will hold the coffer until we have time to secure it,” said Ris.h.i.+. ”It should not be long. Most likely, our pursuers will not even notice where we left theroad.”
Up on the road, Naraka chattered several commands in Maran, and the galloping hooves suddenly slowed.
*They noticed,” Yago growled.
”It means nothing.” Ris.h.i.+ waved Atreus toward the yak. ”If you will be so kind asto mount, they cannot follow us into the swamp.”
Atreus threw a leg over the yak and settled down behind its humped shoulders.He saw at once why Ris.h.i.+ had chosen to sit sidesaddle. Straddling the creature'sbroad back was incredibly uncomfortable, but with both hands holding the coffer, the only way to keep his balance was to squeeze the beast between his knees.
The rattle of falling stones sounded from the road bank. A single pony whinniedas it stepped into the icy water.Ris.h.i.+ tapped his yak on the neck. The beast turned away from the wagon andstarted into the swamp, drawing Atreus's mount along. The creatures had anawkward, rolling gait, and Atreus found himself instantly in danger of falling off. He braced the heavy coffer on the yak's hump and pressed his heels into its belly andtried not to think of the icy water below. Yago followed along close behind, hissplas.h.i.+ng feet masking the softer babble of the yak*s hooves. If the ogre found thefrigid water more than merely uncomfortable, he betrayed no sign.
A few moments later, Naraka's scout gave the alarm cry. The patrol leader started barking orders, and the rest of his men clattered down into the willows, their ponieswhinnying at the freezing water.
*They will certainly turn back soon,” Ris.h.i.+ whispered. *These Edenvale Mar haveno determination.”
Ris.h.i.+ steered the yaks down a meandering labyrinth of narrow tunnel-like pa.s.sages, always working to keep a screen of thickets between them and their pursuers. They pa.s.sed a snow-covered hummock, and the yaks stopped andstarted to nose for gra.s.s. Ris.h.i.+ cursed the lead animal softly and slapped its neck.The reluctant beast finally turned away and continued forward.
Naraka's patrol stayed close behind, splas.h.i.+ng through the swamp in a long, evenlys.p.a.ced line. Ris.h.i.+ kept looking back over his shoulder and scowling, then turningto Atreus to rea.s.sure him that their pursuers would soon give up. Instead, the poniesdrew ever nearer, whinnying and snorting with every step. Atreus could well understand their displeasure. He could not keep his own feet from dragging in thefrigid swamp, and they had become little more than frozen weights. Only Yago, with his thick layer of ogre fat, seemed as unaffected by the cold as the s.h.a.ggy yaks.
After a time, the sky started to gray with oncoming dusk. A chill breeze rose from the east and wafted across the swamp. Atreus and Ris.h.i.+ fell to s.h.i.+vering, and even Yago commented once or twice on the cold. Behind them, the ponies grew quiet, save for an occasional splash when one stumbled and spilled its rider into the water.At last, Naraka began to shout orders in Maran, his voice echoing through the swampfirst in one direction, then the other. Ris.h.i.+ sighed in relief, as he guided the yaks intothe heart of the willow thicket and stopped.
”Naraka is calling his men to him,” the Mar explained. ”They will certainly turn backnow.”
As the ponies splashed toward Naraka's voice, Atreus allowed himself the luxury oflifting his sodden boots out of the water. Though his feet felt as heavy and dead a.s.stones, his lower legs were throbbing stumps of cold pain. His thighs ached fromsqueezing his mount, and the effort of balancing the heavy coffer had numbed his shoulders with fatigue. He could not imagine pa.s.sing the night in this cold swamp, andyet he did not see how they could spend it anywhere else.
The splas.h.i.+ng slowly faded as the last of Naraka's men rejoined the patrol, and theswamp fell ominously silent. After a few moments, the sound of murmuring voices began to filter through the willows, occasionally punctuated by the soft crackle ofsnapping sticks.
”The fiend,” Ris.h.i.+ hissed. ”Does he care nothing for his men and his ponies?”
”What's he doing?” Yago asked.
”Preparing a camp.” Ris.h.i.+ shook his head sadly, then cast an accusatory glance inAtreus's direction. ”How unfortunate the good sir did not kill him when he had thechance. His mercy will cost us many hours of cold misery and perhaps a few toes aswell.”
Ris.h.i.+ urged the yaks onto a small hummock in the heart of the thicket. The hungrybeasts immediately pawed through the snow and began to tear at the mossygra.s.s beneath. The Mar slid off his mount, freeing the rucksack with a single tug onthe rope.
”Hurry. We must make camp before dark.” Ris.h.i.+ turned to Yago. ”The marsh is full of good things to eat. If you go down by the water, I am sure you will catch something.”
”Eels?” Yago licked his lips. Whole raw eels were an ogre delicacy, second only to bear brains. ”I could swallow a dozen of them at once!”
”Fish,” Ris.h.i.+ said. ”I fear the water is too cold for eels.”
The ogre's face fell, but he went to kneel at the water's edge. Atreus dropped his treasure coffer into the snow, then swung an aching leg over the yak's shouldersand slid to the ground. The impact sent waves of agony shooting up his cold legs, buthe felt no sensation at all in his feet.
”There is no need for concern,” Ris.h.i.+ said, eyeing Atreus's clumsy limp. ”Thefeeling will come back when you start to move.” Ris.h.i.+ pa.s.sed him an extra cloak from the rucksack and set to work stomping down aplace to sleep. Atreus took the sword and began to cut willows for insulation. As promised, the feeling soon returned to Atreus's feet, and he wished it had not. Theflesh felt as if it were on fire, and the bones underneath ached with the cold. He hacked all the harder.
The light was just starting to fade when a sporadic series of screeches and agonized whinnies echoed across the swamp. Hardly able to believe the awfulsound was being made by ponies, Atreus stopped work and looked up. In the twilightsky, he could barely make out three distant columns of smoke.
”In the name of Sune,” Atreus gasped. ”What's Naraka doing? Burning his poniesalive?”
”That is no doubt what the poor beasts fear, but we are not to be so lucky,” saidRis.h.i.+. ”The ponies must be warmed and dried before the night turns cold, or ice willform on their legs and perhaps cripple them before morning.”
Atreus glanced at the grazing yaks, who seemed quite content with the snowy ice b.a.l.l.s hanging from their s.h.a.ggy legs.”Oh no, do not worry about the yaks,” laughed Ris.h.i.+. ”For them, cold is better. Ifnot for us, they could keep going all night.”
This turned Atreus's thoughts to his own soggy feet. He cleared a place for a fire and gathered several handfuls of brown gra.s.s from under the hummock's heavythatch. Ris.h.i.+ looked increasingly distressed as Atreus began to stack dead willowstalks next to the fire pit. When he withdrew his flint and steel from the rucksack, theMar could contain his alarm no longer.
”Excuse me, but surely the good sir is not thinking of making a fire.”
”He is doing more than thinking of it,” Atreus replied. ”His feet are wet and cold, and he wants to be able walk when he gets out of this swamp.”
Ris.h.i.+ paled. ”Perhaps the good sir is unaccustomed to the trials of being a fugitive.Even if the patrol cannot see the fire's light, we are upwind. They will smell the smokeand follow it to us.”
Atreus turned toward the frigid channel, where Yago was kneeling on the sh.o.r.e with his arm thrust into the swamp up to the elbow. *Through that water? Impossible!”
Ris.h.i.+ calmly removed his boots and trousers, stepped past Yago, and waded outinto the icy swamp. He turned to face Atreus. ”How l-long would you like me to stay?”
Yago raised his brow at the Mar's strange behavior, then gasped and lookedback into the water. There was a brief splash, and he flipped an odd two-foot fish up onto the hummock. With a bulldog jaw and a long round body striped with brown andyellow scales, the thing looked like a hybrid of catfish and grayling. As soon as it hitthe snow, it began to flop about, working its way back toward the water.
Yago lunged up the hill to pin down his catch, and Atreus turned back to Ris.h.i.+.
”All right, no fire.” He waved the Mar out of the water. ”But I thought you said Edenvale Mar had no determination?”
”I do not think Naraka is from Edenvale.” Ris.h.i.+ climbed ash.o.r.e and began drying hislegs with gra.s.s. ”But he will certainly turn back in the morning. He is only hoping wewill be foolish enough to make a fire tonight and lead him to us.”Yago looked at his catch. ”No fire?” Atreus put the flint and steel away. ”Afraid not.”
”Great,” the ogre grumbled. ”As if eatin' fish wasn't bad enough.”
He killed the swamp fish with a bite to the back of the neck, then began to devourit, scales and all. Atreus and Ris.h.i.+ made do with a dinner of raw barley in warm yakmilk, and the sun vanished, plunging the camp into chilling darkness. Ris.h.i.+ broughtthe yaks over to the bed he had prepared, forcing them to lie down about three feet apart, with their backs toward each other and their heads at opposite ends. He tethered them in place by tying each beast's lead to the tail of the other one.
Atreus removed his boots and put on a dry pair of socks. He and Ris.h.i.+ wrapped themselves in their extra cloaks and settled down between the yaks, each clutching the other one's feet to his chest. Yago laid down on the outside of the makes.h.i.+ft shelter, curling up beside one of the s.h.a.ggy beasts.
They did not really sleep. The temperature plunged, and they spent most of the night s.h.i.+vering. Atreus's feet ached terribly, and Ris.h.i.+ a.s.sured him this was a good sign. When his toes started to sting a few hours later, the Mar said this was even better. Yago fidgeted relentlessly, rocking his yak back and forth, and at one point cursed the beast for not being still. At first, Atreus watched the constellations, trying to mark the time by their progress. Later, he tried to avoid looking at them. The minutes were pa.s.sing like hours, and what movement he did notice only made him think of the dropping temperature.
After what felt like a hundred frozen hours, Ris.h.i.+ suddenly sat up and pulled on his boots, declaring the time had come to rise. While the Mar untethered and milked the yaks, Yago went down to the channel and punched through the ice crust that had formed during the night, returning with two more big swamp fish. Confident they would be gone before Naraka's men could find their campsite, they started a fire and gorged themselves on a warm meal.
The hot food rejuvenated Atreus. He soon found himself optimistic enough toremove his tattered map from inside his tunic and examine it in the firelight. Gyatsewas the first valley on the chart, and from what he had heard the people there wouldwelcome a few gold coins. Perhaps that would be a good place to replenish theirsupplies. Of course, Ris.h.i.+ would have to do the buying. One look at Atreus's face and the Mar would flee for their lives.
Yago peered over Atreus's shoulder, squinting at the meaningless squiggles.”That thing say how far is it to Ris.h.i.+'s secret caravan road?”
”If it did, the road would not be much of a secret,” said Ris.h.i.+.
Yago frowned, then reached down to tap the map with a big greasy finger. ”But thisis a map. It tells us how to find stuff.”