Into the Forge hc-1 Page 5

  Through a bleak winter 'scape they rode, two ponies side by side, a pack pony trailing after. Now and again the buccen would stop to relieve themselves, or to give the ponies grain, or to break through the ice sheathing streams and let the steeds drink and to take on water of their own. At times the two walked to stretch their own legs and to gain relief from the saddle. But in the main they rode, though at a plodding pace. And as they rode or walked or rested, at times they talked, at other times they were content to go without speaking in the airy silence.

  "Tell me something, Beau," said Tip, as they resumed riding after walking awhile. "You mentioned to Gaman that you had a special use for some herb called moonwrad. Just what is this moonwrad?"

  Beau laughed. "You planning on becoming a healer, Tip?"

  "Who, me? Not likely. A miller's life is good enough I say."

  Beau grinned. "Like your sire and his sire, eh?"

  "Yes, though I wish my da hadn't set up in Twoforks."

  "You miss our kind?"

  Tipperton nodded. "Aye, though I can't say I've ever been around many, other than you."

  "Well, Tip, when we're through with all this Agron business, and as soon as I'm ready, I'll take you back to the Bosky with me. There's always need for millers there."

  "Go with you to the Boskydells?"

  Beau nodded vigorously. "I mean, you told me that your da had a mill on the River Bog, there where it flows under the Post Road bridge, south and west of Bogland Bottoms and that's where you were born, and that makes you practically a Boskydeller already. I mean, the River Bog feeds into the Spindle, and the Post Road bridge is no more than twenty miles outside the Spindlethorn Barrier-less than a full day's walk-though to actually enter the Seven Dells you'd have to go up to The Bridge and through… or go in down at Tine Ford."

  "But if I moved to the Boskydells, that would mean selling the eld dammen."

  Beau nodded. "Aye. Yet I'm sure you can get another one there, one that'll grumble and groan just as loudly."

  "Well, now, sell the mill and move to the Seven Dells? Not that it hasn't crossed my mind a time or two-moving away, that is. But my da, well, he built that mill, and I rather hate parting with it."

  "How did he come to settle in Twoforks, Tip? I mean, in the year and a half I've known you, you never said why he moved."

  Tipperton shrugged. "You never asked, Beau. It was after my dam died, and my da, well, he couldn't abide living there without her, what with the memories and all. And the folks of Twoforks, well, they had no miller at the time, and so he came here-I mean to Twoforks-in answer to their pleadings."

  "Well, be that as it may, I still think you should move to the Bosky. I mean, that's where most of our kind live, and besides, it's prettier than 'round Twoforks. It's even prettier than the countryside 'round your da's old mill on the River Bog."

  "I wouldn't know about that, Beau. You see, I was just a wee tad when we lived along the Bog. I don't really remember much of that land… -Adon, Beau, I can just barely remember my dam."

  Beau let out a long sigh and glumly said, "I don't even have that, Tip-memories of my dam, I mean. She and my own da died when I was but a babe. Aunt Rose, she was the one who raised me, there near Raffin in the Bosky."

  Tip nodded, for Beau had told him of Aunt Rose.

  They rode in silence for a moment, then Tip said, "I say, what about my question? What is this moonwrad?"

  Beau perked up. "It's because of moonwrad that I came to Twoforks."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. You see, it seems that it doesn't grow very many places-the headwaters of the River Wilder being one of them."

  Tip cocked an eyebrow. "Can't you take some of the seeds and plant them elsewhere?"

  Beau shook his head. "The plant doesn't thrive elsewhere. Something about the Wilder soil, or perhaps the water, I believe."

  Tip shrugged. "Well, I don't even know what a moonwrad herb is."

  "It's not an herb, Tip, but a root instead."

  "Oh… And just what do you plan to do with this root?"

  Beau turned in his saddle and fished into a saddlebag, finally pulling out a thin book bound in faded red leather. "This journal, Tip, it contains nearly all I know about healing-a book about herbs and simples and medicks and potions and philters and physicks and healing, all to cure the ill."

  Beau handed the book to Tipperton, who idly thumbed through the pages. Slowly a look of bafflement spread across his face. "Why, I can't read this."

  Beau laughed. "There's a simple Wizard's trick to it, Tip."

  "Wizard?"

  "Oh, yes. This is the book, you see, given to me by Delgar."

  "Delgar?"

  "Uh-huh, Delgar the Wizard."

  "Wizard!" Tipperton shrank back, trying at one and the same time to get away from the slender volume and yet not drop it. "You never told me about a Wizard."

  "Take care, Tip, it's quite precious. And it'll not bite you."

  At arm's length, Tipperton held the book at one corner by two fingers. "Yes, but a Wizard's book, magic and all."

  Beau reached out. "Oh, it's not magic, Tip."

  "Nevertheless…" Tipperton gingerly handed the journal back to Beau.

  Eagerly, Beau flipped through the pages, finally stopping when he found what he was after. "Here it is: silver-root: to be dried and ground into a fine powder and then infused into a tea and given to those afflicted with the plague. To be taken internally to reduce the buboes and applied externally to any pustules as well. Recommended dosage: unknown. Cures one in six or seven."

  Beau looked across at Tip. "They died of the plague, you know, my sire and dam."

  Tip nodded. "Yes, you told me. -But say now, that was about something called silverroot, Beau, and I thought we were talking about moonwrad."

  "They're two different names for the same thing, Tip; moonwrad is silverroot, though it took me years to find out it was so."

  "And it only grows along the River Wilder?"

  Beau nodded, adding, "And rare places elsewhere as well."

  "Well, if it only cures one case out of seven, it doesn't seem to be very effective to me."

  "One out of seven is better than the alternative, Tip. Without it, only one out of a hundred survive."

  "Oh," said Tip, then frowned. "Still, there ought to be something better."

  "Exactly so, Tip. You see, I believe that by mixing moonwrad with gwynthyme, we can make a more successful medick to treat the plague."

  "Gwynthyme?"

  "A golden mint which neutralizes poisons as well as promoting health. I think it grows high in the mountains in the summer, up near the snow. Although I'm not certain, if the plague ever comes again-Adon forbid-I'll mix it half and half with silverroot and then we'll see."

  "Well, bucco, it's all quite beyond me," said Tip. "Wizard's work for certain."

  "Not according to Delgar. He says that anyone with a good head on their shoulders and a passion to help others can be a healer."

  "Delgar-the Wizard who gave you the book." As Beau nodded, Tip asked, "When was this?"

  Beau grinned. "It was back in my stripling days, back when I wanted to be a Wizard. Oh, I did all sorts of experiments- mixing various forms of the five elements-trying to change lead into gold, or to transform insects into something else, or to learn to fly. But nothing I tried worked, though I did learn a great deal about admixtures and immixtures and such. All that was back before I had ever even seen a Wizard. But then one day in Raffin, I met Delgar on his way to Rood for the Mid-Year Festival. I asked him to take me on as an apprentice; he looked hard at me in a peculiar sort of way, then shook his head and said I hadn't the. But then he asked me a lot of sharp questions-mainly about my alchemistry-and he seemed to know how my parents had died. Finally he gave me this book and suggested I apprentice to Elby Roh-I told you about him-over in Wil-lowdell and become a healer instead. Anyway, when Delgar gave me the book, it was as if a light had dawned, and that's when I knew what my true calling would be."<
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  Tip smiled ruefully at Beau. "You can keep your Wizards and their books. Me, I'll stick to grinding grain."

  They rode onward in silence for a mile or so, but at last Tipperton turned to Beau and said, "You know, bucco, there's a great deal more to you than meets the casual eye."

  They camped in a grove at sundown. "Out of sight should a band of Spawn come tramping by," said Tip.

  "Out of the bluster as well," said Beau, glancing up at the overhead branches rattling in the late-day wind. "I do wish we could build a fire and have a spot of tea."

  Tip shook his head. "Gaman's advice was sound, I think: travel between dawn and dusk, and set no fires."

  "In spite of him swelling up like a toad, so was Prell's," said Beau, "to wear eiderdown and warm socks and boots. I mean, with no fires it's like to be right chill in the night."

  Tip smiled grimly. "In the day too, Beau, in the day too, especially should the wind kick up."

  Beau sighed and finished currying the tangles out of the ponies' thick winter shag. As he cast the combs back into his saddlebags he asked, "How far do you gauge we've come?"

  "Twenty-five miles, I would judge," said Tip as he set out the jerky and biscuits of crue. Then he fished into his own saddlebags and drew out the copy made of Tessa's map. After a moment of study, he said, "Tomorrow should see us to the Crossland at the edge of the Wilderness Hills, and two days after we should come to the Stone-arches Bridge over the River Caire."

  Beau took a deep breath and slowly let it out and said, "And the day after that should find us in Drearwood."

  In the dying light Tip looked across at his comrade and somberly nodded, while chill wind keened through brittle branches above to make them clatter like bones.

  Chapter 8

  The thin crescent of the moon had barely risen when faint light in the east heralded the glimmerings of frigid dawn. Beau, on final watch, awakened Tipperton, then turned to the ponies and fed them some grain. After the two buccen took a cold meal for themselves, they broke camp and saddled up and laded the pack pony and set out easterly once more. As they had done the day before, they rode and walked and now and again stopped to rest or to relieve themselves or to give the steeds a drink. And in late afternoon they espied a low range of hills standing across the way and stretching out beyond seeing to north and south.

  "The Wilderness Hills," said Tipperton.

  Beau grunted, but otherwise did not reply… and the ponies plodded on.

  As the sun neared the western horizon they intercepted the Crossland Road curving down from the northwest and swinging back east and lying beneath a blanket of snow, the route hard-packed from centuries of slow-moving caravans and frozen in the wintertime cold. As it arced back easterly, the tradeway led them in among the snow-laden hills, the slopes barren and bleak but for a lone tree now and again, or an occasional small thicket of low-growing copse holding a handful of scattered thin trees.

  Beau sighed and looked about at the desolate 'scape. "Why d'y' suppose they ever put a road this way, Tip? It seems a bad route to take, with Drearwood ahead and the Grimwall beyond…"

  "I suppose it's the shortest way to the other side of the mountains," said Tipperton. "I mean, you've seen the map. A trader would have to go far south to find another pass like Crestan."

  "Yes, but with Drearwood along the way-"

  "That's why they go well armed, Beau, and in a great cavalcade."

  Glumly, Beau nodded, and they rode ahead without speaking. But at last Tip said, "I seem to recall that in the past there were several attempts to establish a fort at the far edge of these hills-a garrison of soldiers to escort wayfarers through-but each time they tried, the fort was burnt down… or torn to flinders."

  Beau's eyes flew wide. "Torn to flinders? By what?"

  Tip shrugged. "Who knows? Certainly not I."

  "Weren't there survivors?"

  Tipperton turned up his hands.

  Beau shuddered and his gaze swept across the surround, as if expecting to find a massive unstoppable monster bearing down upon them.

  Misunderstanding Beau's peering about, "Good idea," said Tip, glancing at the sinking sun. "We do need to find a place to stop."

  Around the next bend they came to a draw with an ice-covered stream running through. As the sun sank into the horizon, they made their way well off the road and down into the shadows of the sparsely wooded gully, where they set a cold fireless camp.

  "While standing a turn 'neath the stars last night, I was thinking," said Tipperton, as easterly they rode once again, the noon sun diamond bright but shedding little warmth.

  "Oh? About what?"

  "Well, Beau, every night we've camped, we've done nothing about our tracks. I mean, should another band of Spawn come this way, they could simply follow the hoof-prints to find a couple more victims for their slaughtering blades."

  Beau's features paled.

  "I mean, it's not like we're mighty warriors or such," added Tipperton, "like the man who gave me the coin. The band who attacked him he laid by the heels, but we'd be short work for such. I think on this night and the ones thereafter we'd better erase our trail from the snow, at least for a way. A pine branch broom ought to do the deed." Beau glanced about. Not a pine tree was in sight.

  In late afternoon of the following day, beneath leaden grey skies they emerged from the bleak hills to see the road descending before them; down and across a short flat it ran and to the River Caire, the ice-clad waterway curving out of the north and disappearing in the south. A snow-laden stone bridge spanned from bank to bank, and the road rose up and out from the river valley beyond, where it entered a dismal tangle of forest, stark barren limbs clawing at the sky.

  Reining to a halt, "There it is," said Tipperton. "Drearwood, straight ahead."

  "Lor', but they named it right, they did," said Beau, taking a deep breath. "Dark, depressing, dismal… dreadful."

  "And deadly," added Tipperton, glancing at Beau, "if what we've been told is true."

  Beau swallowed. "How far to the other side?"

  Tipperton twisted about in his saddle and fished out the› map. "Hmm. Some eighty miles or so."

  "Adon, but that's three or four days."

  "If we push the ponies, perhaps we can make it in two."

  Beau shook his head. "The best we've done so far is twenty-five."

  "Even so," said Tip, "we've gone rather slow, and might be able to make forty."

  Beau cocked a skeptical eyebrow. "It's not like we're riders from Jord, bucco, fiery steeds and all. I mean, these are just plain ponies."

  "Time will tell, Beau. Time will tell," said Tipperton. "But for now, I suggest we go back into the hills and find a place to camp, and start our run through Drearwood on the morrow."

  "I'll see if I can find a pine," said Beau, "and take care of our tracks."

  As Tip awakened Beau for his next turn at ward, he hissed, "You'll have to use your ears, bucco, for there's no light whatsoever."

  Beau sat up and peered about in the blackness, wondering how Tip had managed to find where he was bedded. Beau yawned, then looked overhead. "Not even a glimmer," he muttered.

  "The overcast, Beau, it's blocking the stars," responded Tip, crawling into his own bedding. "And tonight is the full dark of the moon."

  As Beau fumbled his way toward the boulder where he would take station, he found his heart racing with apprehension. I can't see a bloody thing, for there isn't any starlight and tonight indeed is the full dark of the moon… Oh, my, the full dark of the moon. Oh, I do hope that's not an omen of things to come.

  As dawn broke to a dismal day, an overcast yet covering all, Tipperton, on the last watch and weary, his eyes gritty and raw, stood and stretched. His entire being seemed at low ebb, and he knew that Beau would feel the same; neither buccan had rested well, but instead, turn in turn-three turns each-had slept in fits and starts throughout the long, frigid night. Regretting that he had to do so, Tip stepped over to awaken Beau. "Come on, buc
co, it's time to go."

  Groaning, Beau levered himself upward.

  "You get the jerky and crue, Beau. I'll tend the ponies."

  "Jerky and crue," moaned Beau. "Four straight days of jerky and crue, with who knows how many more days to come. Is anything else as tasteless as a crue biscuit? And jerky is called jerky 'cause it's so accursed tough that it'll jerk your teeth out by the roots just trying to gnaw off a simple bite."

  Tipperton burst out in laughter, and Beau glared up at him through red-rimmed eyes… then burst out laughing himself. "Lor', Tip, you look like I feel-I mean, your eyes are ready to bleed to death. If I didn't know better I'd say we've both been dragged by the ankles through Hel."

  Again they both burst out in laughter.

  Humor restored in spite of their weariness, the buccen watered and fed the ponies and took a meal themselves. As they ate, Tip said, "Shortly we'll be entering Drearwood, Beau, so keep your weapons at hand. We never know when we might need to make a fight of it."

  "Weapons? I didn't bring any weapons, Tip. I'm a healer, not a fighter."

  Tip's jaw dropped open. "No weapons! Lor', Beau, you thought I was mad for setting out on this venture, but here you are about to enter Drearwood itself and now you tell me you have no weapons?"

  Beau turned up his hands and shrugged.

  Tipperton blew out a puff of air. "Not even a dagger?"

  Beau shook his head. "No, though I do have some knives."

  "Knives?"

  "The ones in my healer's satchel for lancing boils and the like, and of course the one I carry for eating and whittling and skinning game and such."

  "Listen, do you know how to use any weapons? A bow, a stave, a sling, a long knife, a-"

  "Say, I did use a sling when I was a stripling, though that was some years back."

  "Well, bucco," said Tip, "you step down to the stream and gather up some slingstones while I fashion you a proper strap."

  As Beau rummaged about in the streambed, kicking aside snow and breaking through ice and gathering suitable stones, Tipperton unthreaded a leather thong from one of the ties of a saddle cantle, then cut a swatch from the leather flap. Carefully trimming the swatch and piercing it at each end, he cut the thong into two straps and fastened one in each of the swatch holes. Then he tied a loop in one end of one of the straps, a loop sized to fit snugly over the thumb. "There, now," he muttered, "a proper sling for Beau."