The Fellowship of the Talisman

5

They had great slabs of ham for breakfast, with oaten cakes and honey. Conrad came in from outside to report that Daniel and Beauty had found good grazing in the corner of a nearby hay field and that Tiny had provided his own food by capturing a rabbit.

"In such a case," said Duncan, "we can be on our way with good conscience. The bellies of all are full."

"If you're not in too much of a hurry," said Andrew, the hermit, "there is one service you could do for me, which I would greatly appreciate."

"If it did not take too much time," said Duncan. "We owe you something. You furnished us shelter from the night and good company."

"It should not take too long," said Andrew. "It is but a small task for many hands and the strong back of a burro. It has to do with the harvesting of cabbages."

"What is this talk of cabbages?" asked Conrad.

"Someone made an early garden," said Andrew, "before the Harriers came. Neglected through the summer, it had grown until I discovered it. It is located not too far from the church, just a skip and jump from here. There is a mystery, however…"

"A mystery with cabbages?" Duncan asked, amused.

"Not with the cabbages. Not entirely with the cabbages, that is. But with other vegetables. The carrots and the rutabagas, the peas and beans. Someone has been stealing them."

"And I suppose," said Duncan, "that you have not been stealing them."

"I found the garden," Andrew said stiffly. "I have looked for this other person, but not too bravely, you understand, for I am not a warrior type and would scarce know what to do if I came upon him. Although I ofttimes have told myself that if he were not pugnacious, it would be comforting to have another person with whom to pass the time of day. But there are many fine cabbages, and it would be a pity should they go to waste, or should all be taken by this garden thief. I could harvest them myself, but it would take many trips."

"We can spare the time," Duncan told him, "in the name of Christian charity."

"M'lord," warned Conrad, "leagues we have to go."

"Quit calling me my lord," said Duncan. "If we do this chore of neighborliness we'll undoubtedly travel with lighter hearts."

"If you insist," said Conrad. "I'll catch up Beauty."

The garden, which lay a stone's throw back of the church, displayed a splendid array of vegetables growing among rampant weeds that in places reached waist high.

"You certainly did not break your back to keep the garden clean," Duncan observed to Andrew.

"Too late when I discovered it," protested Andrew. "The weeds had too good a start."

There were three long rows of cabbages and they were splendid heads, large and firm. Conrad spread out a packsack cloth, and all of them got busy pulling up the cabbages, shaking off the dirt that clung to their roots before tossing them onto the cloth.

A voice spoke behind them. "Gentlemen," it said. There was a sharp note of disapproval in the word.

The three of them turned swiftly. Tiny, spinning around to face the threat, growled deeply in his throat.

First Duncan saw the griffin and then he saw the woman who rode it and for a long moment he stood rooted to the ground.

The woman was dressed in leather breeches and a leather jacket, wore a white stock at her throat. In her right hand she carried a battle axe, its blade glistening in the sun.

"For weeks," she said, in a calm and even voice, "I have been watching this scabby hermit stealing from the garden and did not begrudge him what he took, for skin and bones as he is, it seemed that he might need it. But I had never expected to find a gentleman of the realm joining him in theft."

Duncan bowed. "My lady, we were simply assisting our friend in harvesting the cabbages. We had no knowledge that you, or anyone, might have better claim to this garden plot."

"I have taken great care," said the woman, "to be sure that no one knew I was about. This is a place where one does not make one's presence known."

"My lady, you are making it known now."

"Only to protect the little food I have. I could afford to allow your friend an occasional carrot or a cabbage now and then. But I do object to the stripping of the garden."

The griffin cocked its large eagle head at Duncan, appraising him with a glittering golden eye. Its forelegs ended in eagle claws; the rest was lion, except that instead of a lion's tail it had a somewhat longer appendage with a wicked sting at its end. Its huge wings were folded far back and high, leaving room for its rider. It clicked its beak at Duncan and its long tail switched nervously.

"You need have no fear of him," the woman said. "He is something of a pussycat, the gentleness of him brought on by extreme age. He puts up a splendid and ferocious front, of course, but he'll do no one harm unless I bid him to."

"Madam," said Duncan, "I find this somewhat embarrassing. My name is Duncan Standish. I and my companion, the big one over there, are on a trip to the south of Britain. Only last night we fell in with the hermit, Andrew."

"Duncan Standish, of Standish House?"

"That is right, but I had not thought…"

"The fame of your house and family is known in every part of Britain. I must say, however, that you have chosen a strange time to embark upon a journey through these lands."

"No stranger," said Duncan, "than to find a lady of quality in those same lands."

"My name," she said, "is Diane, and I am no lady of quality. I am quite something else again."

Andrew stumped forward. "If you would excuse me, m'lord, I have grave doubts that the Lady Diane can lay legal, or even ethical, claim upon this garden patch. It was an early planted plot, put in by one of the villagers before the Harriers came with fire and sword, and she owns it no more than I do. If you think back, I never did lay claim to it."

"It would be unseemly," said Duncan, "for us to stand here squabbling over it."

"The truth is," said the Lady Diane, "that he is quite right. It is not my garden, nor is it his. We both used out of it and that I did not mind. But it roused my ire to see interlopers laying claim to it as well."

"I would be willing," said Andrew, "to share it with her. Half the cabbages to me, half to her."

"That seems fair to me," said Duncan, "but somewhat unchivalrous."

"I am no man of chivalry," said Andrew snappishly.

"If yon hermit can provide me with certain information," said Diane, "it may be he can have all the cabbages since then I'd have no need of them."

She dismounted from the griffin and walked forward to join them. "The information that you seek," said Andrew. "What makes you believe that I might have it?"

"You are a native of the village?"

"Aye, myself and all my folk before me."

"Then maybe you would know. There was a man named Wulfert. He is supposed to have lived here at one time. When I arrived here, after the Harriers had left, I took up residence in the church. It was the only roof left standing. I searched the church for records. I found few. Not anything of value. The parish priests you people had, Sir Hermit, were careless in their record keeping."

"Wulfert, you say?" asked the hermit. "You say a man named Wulfert. How long ago?"

"A hundred years or more. Have you ever heard of him, anyone speak of him?"

"A sage? A saintly man?"

"He might have posed as such. He was a wizard."

The hermit gasped and put his hands up to his head, his fingers gripping his skull.

"A wizard!" he whimpered. "Are you sure of that?"

"Quite sure. A most accomplished wizard."

"And not of Holy Church?"

"Assuredly not of Holy Church."

"What is wrong with you?" Duncan asked Andrew. "What is going on?"

"In holy ground," Andrew whispered, gasping. "Oh, the shame of it. In holy ground they put him. And him a heathen wizard, for to be a wizard one must be a heathen, must he not? They even built a tomb for him."

"These are strange goings-on," said Conrad. "I find no head nor tail of it."

"No wonder," Andrew cried wildly. "No wonder that the oak should fall upon it."

"Wait a minute, now," said Duncan. "You mean an oak fell upon the tomb? There was a cemetery just the other day."

"Please tell me," said Diane, "about this oak and tomb."

"We passed through a cemetery," Duncan said. "Just a mile or so from here. There was a tomb and a tree had fallen on it. Quite some time ago, it seemed. It still is there, lying across the tomb. The slab covering the tomb had been shoved aside and broken. I wondered at the time why no one had repaired it."

"It's an old burial ground," Andrew explained. "Not used for years. No one bothered. And there may not have been many people who would know who was buried there."

"You think this might be the tomb of Wulfert?" Diane asked.

"The shame of it!" wailed the hermit. "That such be placed in holy ground. But the people did not know, the people of the village had no way to know. Of this Wulfert I have heard. A holy man, it was said of him, who sought refuge from the world in this lonely place."

Duncan asked Diane, "Is this the information that you…"

And then he stopped, for there was something wrong. A sudden silence-and that was strange, for there had been no sound before, nothing but the background sound of insects and birds, an ever-present sound one grew so accustomed to hearing that it went unnoticed. And that was it, thought Duncan-the sudden silence was the absence of that background sound. The sudden silence and the strange feeling of expectancy, as if one were tensed for something that was about to happen, not knowing what it was, but rocking forward on the toes to be ready for it.

The others had noticed the silence and perhaps the expectancy as well, for they were frozen in their places, tensed and listening and watchful.

Duncan's hand lifted slowly and his fingers wrapped about the hilt of his sword, but he did not draw it, for there was as yet no solid evidence of danger. But the sense of danger still hung heavy in the air. Diane, he saw, had half lifted the battle axe she held. The griffin had shifted its position and its eagle head was pivoting slowly from one side to the other.

Bushes stirred on the far perimeter of the garden plot and a figure half emerged: a round head, superficially human, thrust forward on a short, almost non-existent neck set between massive shoulders. Bald-the head bald, the shoulders bald, no trace of hair, not like something that had shaved its hair, but rather something that had never grown hair.

The hairless one, Duncan told himself, the hairless ones the Reaver had told him of that night they stopped at the manor house. Great, white, hairless human slugs that fell short of being human.

The sword rasped as he cleared it. He slashed it in the air and the sun glistened off it as he made the symbolic slash.

"Now we'll see," he said, speaking half to himself, half to the Reaver, who had told him of these creatures.

The hairless one rose to full height, emerging from the bushes. It stood a little taller than an ordinary man, but not as tall as the Reaver had led him to believe. It stood on bowed legs, bent forward at the knees, and shambled as it walked. It wore not a stitch of clothing, and the fish white of its bulging torso shone in the sunlight. In one hand it carried a huge knotted club. The club was held nonchalantly, its head pointing toward the ground, as if the club were an extension of its arm.

Behind it were others, stepping out from the trees and bushes to array themselves beside the first. They stood in a ragged line, their round heads thrust forward, tiny eyes beneath bald and jutting brows looking with an interested but contemptuous gaze at those who stood in the garden patch.

They shambled forward, slowly, awkwardly, then suddenly, with no indication they intended to do anything but shamble, they charged, coming in great leaps through the weeds. Their clubs were no longer pointed at the ground, but lifted high, and the chilling thing about the charge was that they came silently. They did not whoop or scream or cry out in any way at all. There was, it seemed to Duncan, a deadliness in the very silence of their attack.

Instinctively, without a thought of what he should do, he stepped forward to meet them. In the lead was the one who had first come into view-Duncan was sure it was the one, although there were no distinguishing marks by which one could be told from another. And this one was coming straight toward him, as if it had marked him out as its special prey.

The club in the hands of the hairless one started to come down and with a quick lunge, Duncan leaped beneath the stroke. His sword arm was back and he drove the blade forward with all his strength. As the sword caught it in the throat, the hairless one tumbled toward him, falling like a severed tree. Duncan threw himself to one side, the sword freeing itself as it ripped a jagged wound through the white, bald throat.

The body grazed him as it fell, throwing him slightly off his balance, forcing him to skip awkwardly for a step or two to maintain his balance. To one side of him was another of the creatures, and even as he skipped to keep his balance, Duncan flung up his blade and cut down at the oncoming hairless one. The whistling edge caught it in the juncture between neck and shoulder and went on through, severing the head and opposite shoulder from the trunk. A gush of blood spurted like a fountain as the head came off.

From the corner of his eye, Duncan saw Diane on the ground, struggling to free herself from the bulk of the body of a hairless one. The outflung blade of her battle axe was smeared with blood, and there was no question that the hairless one on top of her was dead. Towering above her, standing on its hind legs, was the griffin. From one eagle claw dangled a squirming hairless one. The claw was fastened around its head, lifting it so its feet were off the ground, the feet moving rapidly back and forth, as if the hairless one were attempting to run on empty air.

From somewhere, Conrad was yelling at him, "Take heed, m'lord!"

Warned, Duncan ducked to one side, spinning as be ducked. A club caught him on the shoulder, bowling him over. Hitting the ground, he rolled and came swiftly to his feet. A few feet from him one of the hairless ones, perhaps the one that had bowled him over, was lunging at him to strike again. Duncan jerked up the sword, but before he could use it, Tiny struck the hairless one like a foaming fury; powerful jaws fastened on its club arm. The hairless one went down and Tiny, releasing the hold upon its arm, had it by the throat.

Duncan switched around, satisfied that Tiny had the situation well under control-you no longer had to worry about something if Tiny had its throat. Diane had pulled herself from beneath the body of the hairless one and was running toward the griffin, which was facing three of the attackers, striking with its claws, jabbing with its beak. Beneath him lay the body of the one he first had seized, and the three in front of him were beginning to back off.

Just beyond the griffin, Conrad was engaged in a fencing match with two of the hairless ones, all three of them armed with clubs that crashed and splintered as terrific blows were struck, caught, and deflected. A little farther off one of the hairless ones had dropped its club and was running desperately, in full flight from Daniel, who was closing on it, running with outstretched neck and bared teeth. Even as Duncan watched, Daniel clamped his teeth down upon his victim's shoulder and with a toss of his head, flung it high into the air.

There was no sign of the hermit.

With a bellow of encouragement, Duncan ran to aid Conrad in his unequal fencing match. Running, he tripped and fell forward and there was a great throb in his head, a pulsating, red-hot pain that flared until his head threatened to explode. At that point exactly, just before the moment of explosion, the pain went away, only to come again. He did not know when he hit the ground; he felt no impact as he fell. Later, with no way of knowing how much later, he found himself crawling on his belly, reaching out with clawed hands to clutch the ground and pull himself along. The funny thing was that he seemed to have no head. In its place was a tumbled fuzziness that could neither see nor hear. Later-he could not tell how much later or how soon-someone was splashing water on his face and saying, "It's all right, m'lord." Then he was lifted and slung across a shoulder and he tried to protest against it, but he couldn't make a sound and he couldn't move a muscle. All that he could do was sway and dangle on the shoulder.