Enchanted Pilgrimage

"Come on," said Gib's voice. "We all are here. Hal will hold them off."

Gib grabbed his arm, turning him and giving him a push, and he was ru

"This is far enough," said Gib. "Let's pull together now. We can't get separated. You here, Mary?"

"Yes, I'm here," said Mary in a frightened voice.

"Oliver?"

"Here," said Oliver.

"Coon? Coon, where the hell are you?"

Another voice said, "Don't worry about Old Coon. He'll hunt us up."

"That you, Hal?"

"It's me. They won't try to follow. They've had enough for one night.

Cornwall suddenly sat down. He felt the wetness of ground soak into his breeches. He struggled to slip the sword back into the scabbard.

"You guys were all right in that barn," said Hal. "Mark got one of them with a pitchfork and another with the sword. The third Gib took care of with his ax. I never had a chance until we got outside."

"You were doing well enough when I saw you," Gib told him.

"And don't forget Coon," said Cornwall. "He led the attack and took his man out of the fighting."

"Will you tell me," Gib asked plaintively, "exactly how it happened. I'm not a fighting man…»

"None of us is a fighting man," said Cornwall. "I never was in a fight before in all my life. A few tavern brawls at the university, but never in a fight. Never where it counted."

"Let's get out of here," said Hal. "We have to build some distance, and once we get started, we might as well stay walking. We won't find a place to stop. Everyone grab hold of hands and don't let loose. I'll lead the way, but we have to take it easy. We can't move too fast. We can't go falling down a cliff or bumping into trees. If one of you loses hold of hands or falls, yell out and everyone will stop."

13

Hal crouched in the clump of birches and stared at what the first morning light revealed. The stable and the i

The rain had stopped and the sky was clear, but water still dripped from the branches of the birches. It would be another splendid autumn day, Hal told himself, but it still was cold. He crossed his arms and put his hands beneath his armpits to warm them.

Not moving, he examined the scene before him, ears tuned for the slightest sound that might spell danger. But the danger now, it seemed, was gone. The men who had done this work had left.

Far off a bluejay screamed and up the hill a squirrel made a skittering sound as it scampered through the fallen leaves. Nothing else made a sound; nothing else was stirring.

His eyes went over the ground inch by inch, looking for the unusual, for something that might be out of place. There seemed to be nothing. The only thing unusual were the ashes where the stable and the i

Moving cautiously, he left the birches and scouted up the hill. He stopped behind a huge oak and, shielded by it, peered around its bole. His higher position on the hill now revealed a slope of ground on the opposite side of the i

Hal instinctively lifted his bow and reached over his shoulder for an arrow, then drew back his hand and settled down to watch. There was no point, he mused, in further killing; there had already been killing. And the wolves were engaged in a practice that was quite normal for them. There was meat beneath those mounds and they were digging for it.

He counted the mounds. There were five at least, possibly six; he could not be sure. Three in the stable, he thought, or had there been four? Depending on whether it had been three or four, then his arrows had accounted for one at least, possibly as many as three. He grimaced, thinking of it. The fight had not been that one-sided, he reminded himself; rather, it had been a matter of surprise and simple luck. He wondered, if he and the others had not attacked, would there have been a fight at all? But that was all past and done; no single act could be recalled. The die had been cast when Coon had made his spread-eagled leap at the head of the man who climbed the ladder. Considering the circumstances, they had come out of it far better than could have been expected, with Mark the only one who bore the scars of battle, a sore shoulder, where the flat of a sword had struck him, and a sore belly, where a horse had kicked him.

He squatted beside the tree and watched the wolves. The fact that they were there, he knew, meant that no one else was around.

He rose and stepped around the tree, scuffling in the leaves. The wolves swiveled their heads toward him and leaped to their feet. He scuffled leaves again, and the wolves moved like three gray shadows, disappearing in the woods.

He strode down the hill and circled the two piles of embers. The heat that still radiated from them was welcome in the chilly morning, and he stood for a moment to soak up some of it.

In the muddy earth he found the tracks of men and horses and wondered about the i

He followed the trace left by the men and horses down the hill to where it joined the trail and saw that the company had gone on north and west. He went back up the hill, had a look at the raw wetness of the graves, again circled the piles of embers for some clue, wondering what ma

He stood for a moment, nagged by uneasiness. Then he went back down the hill and followed the trail that the company had taken north and west, keeping well up the hillside from it, his ears cocked for the slightest sound, examining each stretch of trail below him before he moved ahead.

A couple of miles away he found the i

Later on, Hal knew, there would be other birds.

He stood in the mud of the trail and looked up at the dangling, twirling man and felt, gathering in his mind, a vague sense of horror and of melancholy.

Leaving the man and the oak, he scouted up the trail and from the tracks he saw that now the mounted company was in something of a hurry. The hoofmarks of the shod horses dug deep into the mud, leaving sharp, incisive tracks. They had been moving at a gallop.

He left the trail and angled back up the hill, studying the conformation of the land, picking up the foggy landmarks he had impressed upon his mind.

So he finally came, slipping through the trees and brush, to the small rock shelter he and his companions had found the night before, after long stumbling through the wet and dark, a few hours before the first hint of dawn.