The Silver Spike

XIII

Timmy came flying into camp moments after the racket started. He was so scared he could hardly talk. "We got to get out of here," he choked out, in one-word gasps. "That monster is back. Something is riding it. Some savages are killing them in the village."

Old Man Fish nodded once and dumped water on the fire. "Before it remembers us. Just like we rehearsed it."

"Oh, come on," Tully snarled. "Jimmy's probably seeing things.…"

The tree cut loose with the granddaddy of all blue bolts. It filled the forest with its glow and banged like heavenly lightning.

"Holy shit," Tully whispered. He took off like a stampeded bear.

The others were not too far behind.

Smeds was thoughtful as he trotted along, his arms filled with gear. Fish's precautions had paid off. Maybe. Like the old boy said, they weren't out nothing getting away for a while.

From behind came a flare in a rosy peach shade answered by another blast of blue. Something yowled like the lost soul of a great cat.

Tully claimed Fish thought too much. But here was Fish turning out to do more and more of the leading while Tully eased into Smeds's old place as shirker and complainer. Timmy wasn't changing, though. He was still the handy runt with the thousand stories.

Fish and Timmy were putting more into this than Tully. Smeds didn't think he could cut them. Especially not if the payoff was as big as Tully expected. No need to be bloody greedy then.

Smeds squatted beside his log, placed his stuff in the nest of branches left to hold it. Tully was on the river already, splashing away. "Sshh!" Fish said. Everybody froze, except Tully out there, splashing away.

Old Man Fish listened.

All Smeds heard was a lot of silence. Nor was there any lightning anymore.

Fish relaxed. "Nothing moving. We got time to strip."

Smeds took the old man's word but he didn't waste any time getting naked and shoving off.

Lying on his chest on a log in the middle of a river in the middle of the night, Smeds felt the first nibbles of panic. He could not see the island for which they were headed, though Fish said there was no way they could miss it from where they had left the bank. The current would carry them right to it.

That was no reassurance. He could not swim. If he missed the island he would drift maybe all the way to the sea.

A sudden barrage of blue flares illuminated the river. He was surprised to see that Fish and Timmy were nearby. And for all his furious splashing Tully was only a hundred feet ahead.

He felt an urge to say something, anything, just to draw courage from the act of communication. But he had nothing to say. And silence was imperative. No point asking for trouble.

During the coming hour he relived every moment of fear he'd ever known, every instance of misfortune and disaster. He was very ragged when he spied the darker loom of the island dead ahead.

It wasn't much of an island. It was maybe thirty feet wide and two hundred yards long, a nail paring of a mudbank that had accumulated weeds and scrub brush. None of the brush was taller than a man. Smeds thought it a pretty pathetic hideout.

At the moment it looked like paradise.

A minute later Fish whispered, "It's shallow enough to touch bottom. Walk your way around to the far side so there won't be tracks coming out over here."

Smeds slid off his log, discovered the water was no deeper than his waist. He followed Fish and Timmy, his toes squishing in the bottom muck, his calves tangling in water plants. Timmy yipped as he stepped on something that wriggled.

Smeds glanced back. Nothing. There had been no fireworks since the exchange that had shown him his companions on the river. The forest had begun to recall its night murmur.

"What took you guys so long?" Tully asked, with a touch of strain.

Smeds snapped, "We took time to pick up some stuff so we wouldn't starve to death out here. What're you going to munch, fireball?"

Smeds wondered if an occasional dose of stress wasn't good for the state of a guy's common sense. He'd dug up some useful memories during his helpless voyage.

Tully had run off on him before. When they were little, as a simple act of cruelty, and later, abandoning him to the mercies of bullies or leaving him to be beaten by a merchant when he, unwitting, had distracted the man while Tully had snatched a handful of coppers and run.

Tully bore watching.

Smeds could see the shadow of the future. Get Old Man Fish and Timmy Locan to kype the spike. Get dumb old Smeds to croak them when they do. Then take the loot and walk. Who is Smeds going to complain to when he has the blood of two men on his hands?

That would be just like Tully. Just like him.

They stayed on the island four days, feeding the gnats, broiling in the sun, waiting. It went hardest for Tully. He mooched food enough to get by, but he could not borrow dry clothing or a blanket to keep the sun off.

Smeds had a feeling Fish drew the wait out mainly for Tully's benefit.

Fish went over to the mainland the fourth afternoon. Walking. The channel between the island and bank was never more than chest-deep. He carried his necessaries atop his head.

He did not return till after dark.

"Well?" Tully demanded, the only one of them with any store of impatience left.

"They're gone. Before they left they found our camp and savaged it. They poisoned everything and left dozens of traps. We won't go back there. Maybe we can find what we need in the village. Those folks won't be needing anything anymore."

Smeds learned the truth of Fish's report next day, after a pass near their old camp to show Tully he was wasting his time whining for his stuff. The massacre had been complete, and had not spared the dogs, the fowl, the livestock. It was a warm morning and the air was still. The wings of a million flies filled the forest with an oppressive drone. Carrion eaters squawked and barked and chittered, arguing, as though there was not a feast great enough for ten times their number. The stench was gut-wrenching even from a quarter mile away. Smeds stopped. 'I got no business to take care of over there. I'm going to go eyeball the tree."

"I'll give you a hand," Timmy said.

Tully looked at Smeds with a snarl. Old Man Fish shrugged, said, "We'll meet you there." The stink and horror didn't seem to bother him.