The Prodigal Troll Part 26

"Good!" Maggot also liked to run and hunt. He understood that much at least.

"She was the first to spear the boar when we hunted him last fall. She would have hunted the lion once we flushed him. Those of us who know her better think she will make a good Baroness, though. If you could see the way she hunts, you'd know that she approaches every task with a purpose. She knows her duty and would never s.h.i.+rk from it."

"It is good," Maggot repeated, feeling a happiness within. "You speak me her. We go to find her."

"Not yet," Bran said, staring at his hands and feet.

"Yet!" Maggot snapped. "I want we go find her."

"Not yet, Claye, my friend, not this soon." Bran's head hung low, and his voice dropped. "I would not have them see me this way. If I return too crippled to walk, too crippled to defend myself, they will see me always as a cripple and never as a whole man."

Maggot rose, stretching his legs. "Yet, soon." Cool weather came, and the two men roamed the abandoned valley like lords of the harvest. Apples and pears piled up in huge brown mounds beneath untended trees, accompanied by the constant buzz of bees drunk on the sweet nectar of rot. And still they had all they could eat fresh from the branches. With the lion dead, Sinnglas and his hunters gone, and the wolves gone off to chase the Baron's army, there was meat as well. The deer were in rut, aggressive and careless, giddy with freedom from their usual foes, and Maggot had little problem chasing them down. Bran grew stronger; Maggot grew restless.

They were foraging far from their den when Maggot saw the smoke from campfires over the horizon. He pulled Bran in that direction. "Your people. We will go to them."

"No," Bran said.

"Why? Is good, your people. Is Portia."

"No Portia," Bran said. "That'll be the army, marching on Custalo's village to destroy their winter supplies. They're going opposite the direction that we wish to travel. There will be no women with them."

"It is time for us to go soon," Maggot said.

"Soon," Bran said, but he hurried them back to their den.

The next morning the dew crisped into frost. When they crawled out of their den, the wind was shaking the red and yellow leaves from the trees.

"It is time for us to go," Maggot said. "Today."

"Not yet," Bran said. "I cannot let them see me wearing only these rough clothes fas.h.i.+oned from the hides of deer. If I go down into the city as a beggar, they will always see me-"

Maggot barked out his disgust. With the dead leaves drifting in the air around him, he walked down the hillside alone, toward the valley, in search of the woman, Portia.

s he sprinted over the hills toward the river, Maggot thought the wind was running ahead of a storm like a herd of deer before a bigtooth cat. He sniffed the air, trying to catch the scent of it, and watched the sky out of the south to see if it carried any clouds. He didn't want it sneaking up on him. By the time he reached the river, his temper had cooled.

Bran was his friend. Bran knew Portia. Bran had needed time to heal, and he had healed. Now he wanted people clothes, the same way a troll would want to wear his own scent when returning to his band.

So Maggot would find him people clothes.

Retracing their steps from the day before, Maggot spotted the trail of the army and followed them south. He caught up with them before nightfall and, climbing the trees on the hillsides above their route, tried to count them. He thought there were maybe a fistful, times two fists, times four. Many men, more than lived in both of Custalo's villages.

They didn't pause until twilight, when they put up a few quick tents or threw down blankets. After many quiet indistinct conversations, a few peals of laughter, and some labored grunts, the whole camp settled down to sleep. Maggot was crouching around the perimeter, picking out the locations of the guards, when he saw a solitary figure scurry away from the camp.

Maggot followed the figure cautiously until he disappeared in the shadows under some trees. Crawling cautiously on his belly, a lump in the darkness beneath a tree resolved into a man curled up in a blanket.

Checking twice to see that no one else came out from the camp, Maggot crept closer and pounced-straddling the man and clapping a hand over his mouth in one quick motion.

When the man began to struggle, Maggot pressed the knife to his throat and he stopped.

"Take off clothes," Maggot said in Bran's language. When the man tried to move, Maggot squeezed his legs, pinning the man's arms more tightly. He found a knife around the man's neck and took it. "If you speak, I kill you."

The man nodded, so Maggot slipped his fingers off the man's mouth. The man took a deep breath, then whispered, "I can't take them off if you're holding me down."

Maggot moved aside, keeping his knife at the man's throat.

Still lying on his stomach, the man kicked off the blanket and started shucking his pants. "I told you all, one time only, one time," he mumbled. "And I didn't want to do it no more, which is why I came out here to sleep. But you can't leave me alone, can you?" He stuck his bottom up in the air. "Go on, get it done, because I want to go to sleep."

"Take off your s.h.i.+rt," Maggot said.

"It's cold!"

Maggot pushed the knife into flesh.

The man pulled the s.h.i.+rt over his head. "Yes, yes, but no pinching. I don't like the pinching."

With the man's knife already stuck in his belt, Maggot gathered up s.h.i.+rt, pants, and blanket in his arm. He didn't know what pinching was, but he grabbed some of the man's skin between his thumb and finger and twisted hard.

The cry of protest covered the sound of his own dash through the trees and away from the camp.

Frost formed on the gra.s.s again before he returned to the cabin late the next morning. He found Bran outside under the cloudy sky, lifting, lowering, and lifting a log.

Striding into the open area, he said, "Bran, my friend, I can to move that log for you."

Bran started, dropping the log with a thud. "Claye! I can move that log for you." His head drooped, and then he lifted it. "I was just testing my strength."

"I saw many, many men on their way to Custalo's village." He thrust out his burden. "Here are the clothes you need."

"Ah," Bran said, taking them and holding them up. He laughed. "These will fit well enough. I should have mentioned to you that I also wanted new boots and a mount-"

"Boots?"

"Boots, to cover my feet."

"I will go find you boots," Maggot said. "Just let me sleep a little while, and I shall-"

Bran laughed, then fell serious. "Thank you for coming back. I did not expect it."

"I didn't think to look for boots."

"It's all right, my friend. No man can walk in another man's boots. I spent my whole life until I became a soldier barefoot, and went barefoot some time then too, until I became a knight. My feet have healed well enough. I'll have the cobbler fit me for new boots when we return to the city." He discarded the skin garment he had fas.h.i.+oned and pulled on the clothes Maggot had brought him. "But for these, I am indebted to you again. Even plain clothes make me feel like a man and not a beast. Though you made quite an impression on Lady Eleuate without them."

"Impression?" Maggot asked.

"I did not tell you the whole story of Portia," Bran said. Then he sighed. "After you left her the lion's pelt, she wanted to search for you. She told everyone she had finally seen a man who might be worthy of her."

Maggot made a little rumbling growl in his throat.

"This angered Acrysy and also her father, Eleuate, the dowager consort, and they called an end to the hunt, retreating ahead of the rains. But she made me promise to bring her back up to the valleys to search for you later."

"And did you?" Maggot asked. All weariness had fled from him, and then, when he thought he understood Bran's reluctance to take him to meet Portia, his legs went weak. His hands squeezed his head. "You did! And she was with you when Sinnglas's warriors-"

"No," Bran said.

"No?"

"No, I speak it true three times."

Maggot sunk to his knees, leaning on one hand and covering his face. "What-?"

Bran knelt in the long, damp gra.s.s and fallen leaves beside him. "I fell out of favor after the spring hunt. And then I also took some blame for our losses against Squandral at the Battle among the Poplars, and I lost my captaincy."

"But Portia?"

"I never had the chance to keep my promise to her. After I was disgraced, my enemies-enemy, in truth, for it was Acrysy-arranged to have me posted at a poorly defended settlement, one the peasants were likely to attack. As they did. They killed all the men there but me and ... and ... the one other knight." He paused and swallowed. "They took us back to-"

He rubbed at the naked spot on the back of his head, where new pink skin grew over the raw bone where his braid had been.

"I am glad that nothing happened to Portia-the-Lady-Eleuate," Maggot said, exhaling. Two knives and the wizard's charm swayed from his neck as he bent over. He sorted through the strings and lifted one from his head. "Here, this knife is for you also."

"My debt to you becomes a flood." Bran accepted it in the manner he always took weapons from Maggot, point first, inspected it briefly, and hung it around his neck. "That reminds me," he said, and ducked into their den.

Maggot was bending down to the entrance when Bran crawled out again, holding a small leather bag on a cord. He pointed to the ampule at Maggot's throat.

"You'll have to hide that," he said as he handed Maggot the bag. "Wear it about your neck in this."

Maggot's hand went to the charm, and he thought of the blue gem on the gold strand around Portia's neck. He had meant to keep this for her interest gift. "Why?"

"That's wizard's work. If you're seen in the city with it, they'll a.s.sume it's stolen and might kill you to recover it."

He showed Maggot how to work the simple drawstring he'd created for the little bag. As Maggot followed his instructions, Bran continued talking.

"The braid could mean trouble also. You must take the sword back because of it. At least you have some notion of how to use it now and you carry yourself like a knight. It's too bad I didn't think to wish you might steal clothes for yourself as well."

"Is there a problem with these?" Maggot tugged at his breechcloth.

"Those are the clothes of a mountain peasant. But you don't look like one, not much. You'll be fine with me."

"Let's go now, Bran."

"It is time." He exhaled hard again, then bent to pick up the s.h.i.+rt he had discarded for the new clothes. They crawled back into the den to take up the dried meat and fruit they had collected and stored. Bran set aside a third and arranged it in a careful pile just inside the hole they used as a door.

"Why do you do that?" Maggot asked.

"We used this house without the lady's permission," Bran said. "Even if she's dead, Bwnte watches over her possessions. So we leave a gift and a sign that we visited here."

When they stood up outside, Maggot pointed to the hole in the roof. "I wonder who visited here that time," he said. "And what they left for a gift."

Bran looked up silently and frowned. An ominous cloud loomed over the sky.

As they descended into the valley, the wind took the world in its mouth and shook it with bone-snapping strength. Branches whipped back and forth, snapping as they fell from the trees.

Maggot fell into the watchful silence of a troll on the move, but Bran talked above the wind, displaying his hands and pointing to the fourth finger on the right one. "Still no nail here, but I'm getting a callus. The rest are sorry-looking, but they've toughened up enough that I can hold a sword. Might even be able to pull a bowstring for a shot or two. Once we're back, I'll have new gloves made."

Farther on, he said, "All will be well once I talk to m'lady Sebius. She has been my mentor, my provider, since I was a young man come to serve the Baron."

All day they expected the sky to crack open, but they were still dry when they reached the hill above the bridge. It was near sunset, and clouds covered the land with a thicker darkness than night. The bones that had once been Damaqua and Tanaghri were gone, and the gifts scattered. Only the three stained poles remained on the ground. Bran ignored them, pointing to the house across the river. "We'd best go see Banya."

"The man who lived there is dead," Maggot said.

"You know this?"

"I saw it happen. The same men who did that to you."

"Ah," Bran said, in much the same way Sinnglas said "Heh," as if it explained everything. He led them down to the bridge and paused in the middle. The water was as clear as a sheet of ice under the dark, swirling sky; the little Old One stirred among the bones, while smaller ones slithered searchingly among the rocks. Bran shook his head. "The demons are restless because a new wizard has not yet been summoned for them."

"Demons?" Maggot asked.

Bran swept his hand toward the water.

"Old Ones, demons," Maggot said. "Demons are always restless until they are fed."

"We'll stay here tonight," Bran said, crossing the bridge. "But well up the bank, away from the water's edge."

Bran would not sleep in the dead wizard's house. When Maggot asked him why, he would say only that it belonged to Bwnte now. Maggot did not understand how it was different from the den they had stayed in-someone had died there too. But Bran grew reticent and would not explain.

They stretched out sheltered by the wall of the house, but the cats swarmed over them, mewing and poking and brus.h.i.+ng their cool noses against bare skin. Both men flipped and tossed, unable to rest. The first drops splattered out of the sky sometime before the middle of the night, sending the cats indoors as the two men leaned with their backs to the wall beneath the eaves. Before morning the water was whipping sideways through the air.

Bran s.h.i.+elded his eyes against the sky. "There are only two times you can leave for a journey in the rain: too early and too late."

"Which is this?" Maggot shouted back.

"Don't know yet. But we should go on as far as we can."

"We used to play in rains like this when I was a child."

"We did too, my brother and I," Bran said, suddenly smiling. He stood, and gestured for Maggot to do the same. "The sooner we reach the city, the better. There's an old shepherd's path leading out of these meadows down to the lower valley. Sure footing even for weather like this."

Maggot stepped onto the path that would take them upstream, toward the great stone lodge where he'd seen Portia, but Bran stopped him.

"Portia, she is this way," Maggot said.

"No, we must go this way first, before we see Portia."

Maggot did not question him. Bran led them on a path along a ridge beneath the trees. The wind didn't blow steady, but slammed its fist down here and there, sometimes knocking them off balance. Stunned birds sheltered on the lowest limbs, close to the ground, bedraggled, motionless. Pa.s.sing within a few feet of them, Maggot could not distinguish a dove from a finch, a bunting from a redbird, except by general size.

That night, they sheltered under a rock ledge that had been used by the shepherds Bran mentioned. He could not get a fire started in the charred pit of stones, but Maggot did not notice the cold. The rain finally let up.

"This is bad," Bran said. "Spring floods destroyed the early planting. The valley won't have had its first frost yet, but now these storms could keep the farmers from getting the harvest in."