Silverlock (Prologue Books)

  A man with a long, smoking rifle was approaching through the woods. “What’s the idea?” I snarled, striding to meet him. “Don’t you know enough not to shoot when somebody’s near your target? Any fathead who doesn’t know any more about handling firearms than that shouldn’t be let loose with a pop gun.”

  He was a tall, stringy fellow with a face weathered to match his leather clothes. He had been smiling when I first turned to yell at him, but at my words he stopped. Planting the butt of his piece and draping a fringed buckskin sleeve over the muzzle, he looked at me thoughtfully.

  “When a man has trailed a buck for an hour, it’s opposing nature to pass up the only shot at it he’s likely to get. I’m sorry I scared you, friend.”

  “Friend, my eye!” I snorted. “You might’ve hit me.”

  “But I didn’t want to,” he said simply.

  As my indignation hadn’t caused any sparks, my temper was improving, though I wasn’t yet ready to admit it. “That’s not the point,” I told him. “Nobody can be that sure of where he’s shooting.”

  At that it was his turn to look annoyed. “Friend,” he retorted, “all I can say is to repeat that it was your good fortune that I didn’t have my sights on you. As long as I didn’t, you had no cause to worry, even if you’d been only an inch away from being in line with that buck instead of better than a yard. People that know me say I have the gift.”

  Seeing that I still looked skeptical, he removed his arm from the muzzle. The gun, I was astonished to find, was a flintlock, but he had it loaded and primed in jig time. Then he glanced around.

  “Do you see that hawk?” he enquired.

  I did see it, a big specimen fifty or more yards away down a forest aisle. Having just swooped on a red squirrel, which it had caught on the ground, the bird was bearing it swiftly aloft. The tail of the little animal waved feebly.

  “The squirrel is past saving and won’t need his brush,” my companion observed as he threw up his gun. In another moment the small tail was falling to the ground while the hawk soared on, unharmed. “I do have the gift,” the fellow commented, “and it would be opposing truth for me to say otherwise.”

  “It sure would,” I agreed. “I’ve seen some pretty good shooting from time to time, but nothing to touch that. What are you, a guide?”

  “They call me Pathfinder, friend.”

  “They call me Silverlock,” I matched him. “Pathfinder, eh? Do you happen to know the way to a place called Heorot?”

  “He-or-ot.” He paused in the act of running a patch through his gun. “It’s no name from the Lenape tongue, or that of the Mingoes, either.”

  “It’s supposed to be along the coast.”

  His face lost its look of concentration. “I was sure it was no name for any of these parts. Never having been to the big sea, I can’t help you, friend.” Slipping the ramrod into its place beneath the barrel, he gripped his weapon at the balance. “I’d be proud to have you share meat with me, if you’re minded to eat.”

  Having found honey and berries thin fare for marching, I welcomed the offer. The road, as it happened, was between us and the dead deer. Instead of promptly crossing it, the woodsman paused to give it a searching glance.

  “Nobody’s trod it today but you,” he said matter-of-factly.

  To my own eyes the way was trackless, and I couldn’t help wondering if he was justified in being so positive. I continued to wonder about that while he rapidly skinned the deer, and I gathered firewood.

  “Did you happen to cross the other fork of the road?” I asked, snapping a fallen branch over my knee.

  Busy skewering the roast he had cut for us, he didn’t look up. “Only one man been along that, too.”

  “One man!” I thought I had caught him bluffing; though, as he was the fellow with the food, I didn’t put much of a jeer in my voice. “I happen to know that a woman took one of these two forks.”

  Ceasing operations, he deliberated. “It could have been a woman’s track,” he mused aloud. “I never thought of that, small though it was, because she was all alone.”

  He looked at me reproachfully, as he made that remark. “I didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she’s traveling alone,” I pointed out. “As a matter of fact,” I went on, giving myself a little more credit than I deserved, “I’d been following her so, I could look after her.”

  His face cleared. “It’s the thing for a man to do, and I honor you for it, friend. Now I’ll tell you what we’ll do. As long as you’ve already lost time going down the wrong road here, we’ll put this chunk of meat aside. I’ll wait and eat later, and meanwhile I’ll give you a piece of liver, which will broil in a jiffy.”

  Without confessing myself a heel to a man who took decency for granted, there was no way out of the corner into which I had painted myself. I acknowledged his admiring look with a sickly grin.

  “Why — er — thanks,” I said. The liver wasn’t bad, but I was still thinking glumly of that fine-looking roast, as I backtracked to where the roads joined. In my dismay at what had happened, I had neglected to ask Pathfinder where the other fork would take me, so I was walking as blindly as before. Nevertheless, I was walking as fast as I could, for now I was pursuing Rosalette in earnest. Having sacrificed the venison in order to be able to catch up with her, I felt I owed it to myself to do so.

  If the brain directs action, action channels the brain. Because it was what I was working at, finding the girl became an absorbing matter. Convinced that I could cover two yards to her one, I began looking for her around every bend in the road. From that state of mind it was a small jump to feeling that the business was a matter of personal importance to me.

  Even when she did not soon materialize, I wasn’t discouraged. It was drawing toward sundown. Whether she arrived at some habitation or was forced to bivouac, as she had done back at the seven corners, she must shortly halt for the night. What I would say when I joined her was something I hadn’t bothered to figure out, though it didn’t occur to me that she might resent being followed. Acceptance of my protection on her part was something else I was taking for granted.

  I had stopped to drink at a brook when the shrieks and shouting started. There was a terror-stricken woman and at least one man, horrified and infuriated both. Mixed with their cries was a muffled snarling and the sound of crashing underbrush.

  As I jumped to my feet, coughing out water that had gone down the wrong way, a living nightmare was drawing near the road. The shrieking went with him, as he sped between the trees, and a glimpse of bright cloth trailing from his mouth told me why. In sick disbelief I rechecked my first impression. There the animal was, and inspection didn’t improve it. In running position it was about the length and height of a station wagon. It was also about the same color. I was sloshing through the brook toward it, as I took in the tusks, the scaly tail, and the port hole of an eye. At the same time I added my shout of outraged helplessness to the din.

  Why I took the scene so to heart is one of the simplicities of consciousness. I knew but one girl in Broceliande; therefore a girl seen in Broceliande must be the one I knew. Sure Rosalette was the victim, I couldn’t be passive. It is now not possible to imagine what I would have done. Luckily I wasn’t needed.

  Unbalanced as the monster was with the weight of a grown woman in its jaws, it was running heavily. The man tailing it was gaining in spite of the fact that he wore over-all metal protection. By the time I was across the stream the beast had reached the road. At about the same time it decided that it wasn’t going to outsprint its pursuer. It dropped the girl like a dog dropping a stolen lamb chop.

  This jettison was almost too late to do the animal any good. It could not escape and had just time to turn and defend itself before the man caught up. Sword against claws the length of railroad spikes, they mixed it while I looked around for a rock small enough to throw and big enough to bruise the meat under the scaly hide.

  In spite of the disparity in size, it was the man
who took the offensive. Reared back on its hind legs, that beast was a good twelve feet tall; but without pausing to look for an opening, the man threw up his shield and bored in. Howling and slavering, the monster folded down on top of him with tusk and talon.

  Having found what I wanted, I was lugging it warily into range, when it was all over. Against my expectations, the man had more to offer than the beast was willing to take. Frantically tearing free, it managed to jump clear over the fellow’s head and bolted back whence it had come. I had the satisfaction of bouncing my rock off its head, but didn’t even slow it down. Roaring and trailing an evil stench, it vanished.

  About to run to the injured girl, I saw that she was already being cared for. A second man had issued from the woods and was giving her attention that was manifestly not impersonal. Discovering, through a glimpse of her dark hair, that the woman was not Rosalette after all, I came no closer. Instead I looked at the man who had done the work.

  He had pushed up a shutter in his helmet and was leaning against a tree. By the way he grinned, I saw he wasn’t hurt. While I waited for him to get his wind back, I sat down on a deadfall, only then realizing how scared I had been. He was the first to speak. “Many thanks for your timely aid.”

  That was nice of him, but I wasn’t having any. “You had him cold. I was just throwing pop bottles from the bleachers.” Just the same I had tried, and I was glad that he had noticed. “That was a nice piece of in-fighting you did.”

  He smiled. “Oh, those things aren’t as dangerous as they look, once you’ve had a little experience with them.”

  I thought that statement over. “Are there many more like that in this neck of the woods?”

  Busy wiping his sword with some leaves, he nodded. “There have always been monsters in the forest, though not all like that. Some are bigger.”

  “The devil, you say!” Yet it wasn’t solely on my own account that his statement made me nervous. “You haven’t met a girl — another girl, I mean — along this road, have you?”

  His look this time was one of commiserative understanding. “No, but I’ve been faring across country, not along the road. Has your lady been abducted?”

  “Nothing like that, and she isn’t my lady.” He was giving me more sympathy than I wanted. “I’m just sort of a friend of hers,” I explained, growing more embarrassed as I did so, “and well — well, the woods is no place for her.”

  “I know.” He clicked his tongue. “But it’s been my experience that you can’t keep them out of it.” Giving his sword a final polishing, he sheathed the weapon. “Shall we go over and see how this poor maiden is getting along?”

  “Which way are you heading from here?” I asked, as I fell into step beside him.

  I had been hoping that his direction would be my own, but he pointed into the forest. “As soon as I get back to my horse, I’m riding on that beast’s track.” He spoke matter-of-factly and had a look to match. “Those things shouldn’t be allowed to live, you know.”

  He was so right that any direct comment seemed out of the question. I let it ride for a few paces.

  “It seems to me you’ve already done your part where this one’s concerned,” I then ventured.

  “Put a part on a pedestal, and it’s still nothing more than a part,” he smiled. We had reached the other two, and he changed his tone.

  “The lady isn’t seriously harmed, I hope?”

  The man addressed, a youngster, raised a wretched face. “She hasn’t come to,” he said.

  “She still breathes, and her pulse is good,” my companion declared after a brief examination. “If you can — ”

  “Here come a couple of people,” I interrupted him. “One of them’s a woman, too.”

  “She’ll give you the help you need. The shelter also, for undoubtedly they live near here.” My new acquaintance and I both had the feeling of being relieved of a responsibility that would interfere with our own projects. “I’ll be on my way then.”

  While not as anxious as he to venture on alone, I had determined to do so. “Do you happen to know where this road goes? By the way, I’m Shandon.”

  “The name is Calido re.” He shook his head, as he removed his steel glove to take my hand. “I know nothing of that road, but it will soon bring you to some castle, I should think.”

  He was starting toward his horse, but I had one more question. “Will there be any place to spend the night?”

  He looked puzzled, then decided I was in earnest. “At the castle,” he called back. “You’ll get the best of hospitality, and you may well find the lady you seek there.”

  As I proceeded, the forest was not the pleasant, green place it had been. Having seen one of the resident monsters, I heard another every time a branch snapped. They watched me from the deepening shadows. Their snarls came down the wind which sprang up.

  At first my sustaining purpose was the hope of joining and convoying Rosalette. When dusk drew near, however, I had to conclude that if I did see her that night, it would be only after she had already found comfort and protection in some household along the way. No doubt, indeed, she was eating a fine meal while I still struggled, worn and empty, through a dark, beast-haunted wood.

  Thus my sympathies shifted from her to myself. There had to be a new goal in keeping with my new conception of the state of affairs. A choice of two was offered. Deliverance from evil would come either when I stepped clear of the forest or when I saw the castle Calidore had mentioned. I chose the second as the most probable. In time my mind became so engaged with it that I was sure of the castle’s existence. Calidore hadn’t exactly guaranteed it was there, but he knew the ropes. In his expert opinion it should be no more than a few miles off.

  Unwilling to halt, I was tired out by twilight. But no matter how hard I pushed myself the castle failed to materialize. This didn’t make me despondent. As I had it in my mind that the building was bound to be somewhere near, I was exasperated instead.

  I was, in fact, in a bad humor generally. It annoyed me to be jittery. Failing to find Rosalette was a disappointment. Then my feet hurt, my muscles ached, and I was gone in the stomach.

  “Hold it!” a voice ordered. “Grip your tracks!” A man had sprung out from behind a great sugar maple just ahead of me; a man who laughed when he saw me jump. That was all that was necessary. At last my anger had a concrete object of a size to cope with.

  “Are you talking to me or do you just like to yell?” While I was speaking, I moved forward to show my unconcern.

  He stopped laughing. “You’d better do what you’re told,” he said.

  He was a well set-up fellow dressed in a green jacket and tights. Incongruously for such a rugged customer, he wore a little hat with a feather in it. I couldn’t see his face too clearly, but clearly enough to measure the distance to his chin. He carried a long stick but had made the mistake of letting me inside its range.

  “Look, mister,” I said to him, “this road has room for two-way traffic; but if you can’t see it that way, get off and let me by.”

  “I may let you go on,” he retorted with a calmness which further infuriated me, “but not until I find out a few things.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Oh, where you’re aiming for and whether you’ve got anything I could use.”

  Without lifting my feet, I inched nearer. “I guess I’ve got at least one thing you could use,” I muttered.

  At this suggestion of compliance he took one hand from the stick and thrust it out, snapping the fingers. “We’ll see. Turn around and — ”

  He didn’t finish, because I grabbed his hand with my left and uppercut him as I jerked him nearer. He was still falling when my own feet were pulled out from under me.

  Rolling when I hit the ground, I crouched. Nobody attacked me, though a pair of legs straddled the earth not a foot away. Looking up and up, I found the top. The man could not have been less than seven feet tall, and he was built like the Cardiff Giant. What I could see of his
face looked hard, but his voice was not ill-humored.

  “Would you rather talk it over?”

  There were six or eight men surrounding me in addition to him — all of him. No one interfering, I rose and dusted myself off.

  “All right,” I sulked, “but I haven’t got anything but an appetite.”

  “You ain’t the only one,” he informed me.

  7

  Under the Leaves

  INSTEAD OF SEARCHING ME on the spot, they led me off the road. Above us branches from trees fifty feet apart interlocked. The gloom could only be told from night because colors were still more or less distinguishable. We weren’t on a path, but we hustled along as if late for the office.

  Most of my captors seemed to be in a genial mood. They were talking and joking among themselves, and there was a certain amount of horseplay. It made me feel better, even if I couldn’t share their high spirits. That doesn’t mean I was glad to go with them; but I didn’t try to make a break for it, either. For one thing, aside from the fact I was too tired, that seven-footer had a grip on my arm.

  After a while he imitated the whippoorwill. He was answered from somewhere ahead, and soon I could hear human voices from the same direction. About the same time I caught a glimpse of light.

  In a minute more we had reached our destination — and it was no place at all. In place of the building or buildings I had expected, there was merely a space. Ringing the spot were trees, and high up the leaves met. Though it was now dark, that much could be seen, because several fires were burning. Of these the large one in the center was evidently for illumination. The lesser ones were cooking fires.

  Lounging in the glow of these blazes were a hundred-odd men wearing the same uniform as my captors. Some jumped up with a cheer, as we came near enough to be identified.

  “They’ve bagged somebody!” a man crowed. “We eat!”