Part 6 (1/2)
”There is an ambush about,” Oliver explained.
Luthien stared at him incredulously, then looked back to the landing. More than a score of men moved down there, but just a pair of cyclopians, these showing no weapons and appearing as simple travelers waiting to cross. This was not common, Luthien knew, for there were few cyclopians on Bedwydrin, and those were only merchant guards or his father's own. Still, under the edicts of King Greensparrow, cyclopians were allowed free pa.s.sage as citizens of Avon, and affairs at Diamondgate did not seem so out of place.
”You have to learn to smell such things,” Oliver remarked, recognizing the young man's doubts. Luthien shrugged and gave in, moving along the path at as fast a pace as Oliver would allow.
The two cyclopians, and many of the men, spotted the companions when they were about a hundred feet from the landing, but none made any gestures or even called out to indicate that the two might have been expected. Oliver, though, slowed a bit more, his eyes darting this way and that from under the brim of his hat.
A horn blew, indicating that all should move back from the end of the wharf as the barge was about to pull out.
Luthien started forward immediately, but Oliver held him in check.
”They are leaving,” Luthien protested in a harsh whisper.
”Easy,” Oliver implored him. ”Make them think that we intend to simply wait for the next crossing.”
”Make who think?” Luthien argued.
”You see those barrels along the wharf?” Oliver asked. Luthien swung his gaze about and Oliver squeezed hard on his forearm. ”Do not be so obvious!” the halfling scolded softly.
Luthien sighed and subtly looked at the casks Oliver had mentioned. There was a long line of them; they had probably come from the mainland and were waiting for a caravan to claim them.
”They are marked with an X,” Oliver remarked.
”Wine,” Luthien explained.
”If they are wine, then why do so many have open bung-holes?” the alert halfling asked. Luthien looked more closely, and sure enough, saw that every third barrel had a small, open hole in it, minus its bung.
”And if those cyclopians on the landing are simply travelers,” Oliver went on, ”then why are they not on the departing barge?”
Luthien sighed again, this time revealing that he was starting to follow, and agree with, the halfling's line of reasoning.
”Can your horse jump?” Oliver asked calmly.
Luthien noted that the barge was slowly moving away from the wharf and understood what the halfling was thinking.
”I will tell you when to break,” Oliver a.s.sured him. ”And do kick a barrel into the water if you get the chance as you pa.s.s!”
Luthien felt his adrenaline building, felt the same tingling and b.u.t.terflies in the stomach that he got when he stepped into the arena. There was little doubt in the young man's mind that life beside Oliver deBurrows would not be boring!
They walked their mounts easily onto the boards of the thirty-foot wharf, pa.s.sing two workers without incident. A third man, one of the cargo workers, approached them smiling.
”Next barge is an hour before the noon,” he explained cheerily, and he pointed to a small shed, starting to explain where the travelers could rest and take a meal while they waited.
”Too long!” Oliver cried suddenly, and off leaped Threadbare, Riverdancer charging right behind. Men dove out of the way; the two visible cyclopians shouted and scrambled, producing short swords from under their cloaks. As Oliver had predicted, every third barrel began to move, lids popping off and falling aside as cyclopians jumped out.
But the two companions had gained surprise. Riverdancer sprang past Oliver's pony and blasted past the two cyclopians, hurling them aside. Oliver moved Threadbare to the edge of the wharf, along the row of barrels, and managed to b.u.mp more than a few as he rushed by, spinning them into the drink.
The slow-moving ferry was fifteen feet out when Luthien got to the end of the wharf, no great leap for powerful Riverdancer, and the young man held on tight as he soared across.
Oliver came next, sitting high and waving his hat in one hand as Threadbare flew across, coming to a kicking and skidding stop, banging into Riverdancer atop the smooth wooden barge. Back on the wharf, a dozen cyclopians shouted protests and waved their weapons, but Oliver, more wary than his less-experienced companion, paid them no heed. The halfling swung down from his mount, his weapons coming out to meet the advance of a cyclopian that suddenly appeared from among the piles of cargo.
The rapier and main gauche waved in a dizzying blur, a precise and enchanting dance of steel, though they seemed to come nowhere near to hitting the halfling's opponent. The cyclopian gawked at the display, sincerely impressed. But when the flurry was done, the brute was not hurt at all. Its one eye looked down to its leather tunic, though, and saw that the halfling had cut an ”O” into it in a fine cursive script. ”I could write my whole name,” Oliver remarked. ”And I a.s.sure you, I have a very long name!”
With a growl of rage, the cyclopian lifted its heavy ax, and Oliver promptly dove forward, running right between its wide-spread legs and spinning about to poke the brute in the rump with his rapier.
”I would taunt you again,” the halfling proclaimed, ”but I see that you are too stupid to know that you are being taunted!”
The cyclopian howled and turned, then instinctively looked ahead again just in time to see Luthien's fist soaring into its face. Oliver meanwhile had retracted the rapier and rushed ahead, driving his shoulder into the back of the cyclopian's knees. Over went the brute, launched by Luthien's punch, to land heavily, flat on its back. It struggled for just a moment, then lay still.
A splash made Luthien turn around. The cyclopians on the wharf had taken up spears now and were hurling them out at the barge. ”Tell the captain to get this ferry moving,” Oliver said calmly to Luthien as he walked past. He handed Luthien a small pouch of coins. ”And do pay the man.” Oliver walked to the stern of the ferry, apparently unconcerned with the continuing spear volley.
”You sniffers of barnyard animals!” he taunted. ”Stupid oafs who poke their own eyes when trying to pick their noses!”
The cyclopians howled and picked up their throwing pace.
”Oliver!” Luthien cried.
The halfling turned to regard him. ”They have but one eye,” he explained. ”No way to gauge depth. Do you not know that cyclopians cannot throw?”
He turned about, laughing, then shouted, ”h.e.l.lo!” and jumped straight up as a spear stuck into the deck right between his legs.
”You could be wrong,” Luthien said, imitating the halfling's accent and stealing Oliver's usual line.
”Even one-eyes can get lucky,” the halfling replied indignantly, with a snap of his green-gloved fingers. And to prove confidence in his point, he launched a new stream of taunts at the brutes on the wharf.
”What is this about?” an old, weather-beaten man demanded, grabbing Luthien by the shoulder. ”I'll not have-”
He stopped when Luthien handed him the pouch of coins.
”All right, then,” the man said. ”But tether those horses, or it's your own loss!”
Luthien nodded and the wiry old man went back to the crank.
The ferry moved painfully slowly for the anxious companions, foot by foot across the choppy dark waters of the channel where the Avon Sea met the Dorsal. They saw cyclopians scrambling back on the wharf, trying to get the other ferry out of its dock and set off in pursuit. Luthien wasn't too concerned, for he knew that the boats, geared for solid and steady progress across the dangerous waters, could not be urged on any faster. He and Oliver had a strong lead on their pursuers, and Riverdancer and Threadbare would hit the ground across the way running, putting a mile or more behind them before the cyclopians stepped off their ferry.
Oliver joined Luthien beside the horses, limping and grumbling as he approached.
”Are you injured?” a concerned Luthien asked.
”It is my shoe,” the halfling answered, and he held his shoe out for Luthien to see. It seemed intact, though quite dirty and quite wet, as if Oliver had just dipped his leg into the water.
”The stain!” Oliver explained, pus.h.i.+ng it higher, near to Luthien's face. ”When I crossed the roof of the merchant-type coach, I stepped in the blood of the dead cyclopian. Now I cannot get the blood off!”
Luthien shrugged, not understanding.
”I stole this shoe from the finest boarding school in Gascony,” Oliver huffed, ”from the son of a friend of the king himself! Where am I to find another in this too wild land you call your home?”
”There is nothing wrong with that one,” Luthien protested.
”It is ruined!” Oliver retorted, and he crossed his arms over his chest, rocked back on one heel, his other foot tap-tapping, and pointedly looked away.