Enchanted Pilgrimage

8

The sun had set, but even here, among the trees, darkness had not fallen. The sky in the west was bright. Dusk was creeping in, but there still was light.

Gib hurried. He still had a mile or more to go, and at this time of year night came swiftly. The path led downhill, but he must go cautiously, on guard against stones or projecting roots that could trip him up. He had stopped briefly at the gnomes' mine to tell Sniveley that the hermit was dead but had passed up the offer to stay overnight since he was anxious to get home. The gnomes, he knew, would swiftly spread the word of the hermit's death and would add a caution against tampering with the boulder wall, which, closing the mouth of the cave, had transformed it to a tomb.

The dusk had deepened as he came down the last stretch of the path before he struck the pack-train trail, and as he began the descent to it, he became aware of snarling. The sound sent a thin chill of terror through him and he halted, straining his ears—now that it was gone, not completely sure he had heard a snarl. But even as he halted, there was another prolonged sound—half snarl, half growl—and other sounds as well, the ghastly sound of teeth tearing at something, a tearing and a slobbering.

Wolves! he thought. Wolves at a kill. Almost instinctively he yelled as loud as he could, a fierce yell and, lifting his ax, charged down the path. It had been, he knew when he later thought of it, the only thing he could have done. To have tried to retreat, to have tried to go around them, no matter how stealthily, would have been an invitation to attack. But now he did not think at all; he simply yelled and charged.

As he burst out of the heavy undergrowth that grew on either side of the path, onto the trail, he saw what had happened. One look was enough to understand what had happened. There were huddled bodies, the bodies of men and horses, on the trail itself. And on either side of it and crouched over the bodies, fighting over the bodies, was a pack of wolves, great, slavering creatures that swung around to face him or lifted their heads from their feasting to face him.

And something else—a single man, still alive, on his knees, his hands gripping the throat of a wolf, trying to hold it off.

With a scream of fury Gib leaped at the wolf, ax held high. The wolf tried to break away; but the kneeling man's deathlike grip on its throat held the wolf anchored for the moment it took for the ax to crash into its head, to cleave deep into the skull. The wolf fell and lay, its hind legs kicking in reflex reaction, while the man slumped forward and fell on his face.

Gib swung around to face the rest of the pack. They backed away a pace or two but otherwise held their ground. They snarled at him and one, to the side, slunk forward a step or two. Gib took a quick step toward him, flourishing the ax, and the wolf retreated. There were, he saw, eight or ten of them; he did not really count them. They stood as tall as he did, their heads on a level with his head.

The standoff situation, he knew, would not hold for long. Now they were measuring and assessing him, and, in a little time, they would make up their minds and come in with a rush, knocking him off his feet, overwhelming him. It would do no good to turn and run, for they'd simply pull him down.

He did the one thing he could do. With a wild yell, he rushed them, lunging toward the slightly larger, more grizzled one he took to be the leader of the pack. The big wolf, startled, turned, but the ax caught him in the shoulder and sheared through it. Another wolf was coming toward Gib and he spun swiftly to meet it, chopping a short arc with his ax. The blade caught the charging monster in the face and the wolf collapsed in its lunge and went skidding to the ground, flopping loosely as it fell.

Then the pack was gone. They melted into the dark underbrush and there was no sign of them.

Still gripping his ax, Gib turned to the man who had been fighting off the wolf. He gripped him by his shoulders and lifted him, swinging him around so that he was on the path that led down to the marsh. The man was heavy. But the worst was over now. The path sloped sharply, and he could haul him to the water if the wolves did not come back too soon. They would come back, he knew, but there might be time. He backed down the slope, tugging at the man. He reached the sharp pitch that led down to the water and gave a mighty heave. The man's body flopped and rolled, splashing into water. Backing out into the marsh, Gib hauled the man after him and hoisted him to a sitting position. Here, for the moment, he knew, the two of them were safe. It was unlikely the wolves, with so much feasting left to them on the trail, would follow. Even if they did, they would hesitate to come into the water.

The man lifted an arm and pawed at Gib, as if he might be trying to fight him off.

Gib gripped his shoulder and shook him. "Try to stay sitting up," he said. "Don't fall over. Don't move. I'll get my boat."

The boat, no more than six feet long, he knew, would not carry the man's full weight, but if he could get him to use it as a support, it would keep him from sinking when they moved out into deeper water. They would not have far to go if Drood's raft were still where he'd found it in the morning.