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on his heels, tearing up saw-edged grass one blade at a time. "I am sorry I
led you to disaster. My family's shame seems to no know bounds. First Kwame,
now this. . . ."
Artus sank to the ground beside Judar. "Well, magic or no, we'd better try to
make it back to Kitcher's
Folly by sunset. We should be safe there, at least from the dinosaurs." He
looked up at the curtain of greenery surrounding them. "From there we can go
to the port, We'll have to gather what supplies we can along the trail. At
least I can still do a little hunting."
Artus bad managed to salvage a few items from the disastrous morning: his
dagger, his bow and arrows, the clothes on his back, and Theron's map. Judar
had nothing but his white robes and the spell components in his pockets. As
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they struggled on, presumably northeast toward Kitcher's Folly, the guide
explained that another explorer had taught him the rudiments of magic. With a
few years of experimentation, he had done much to develop those kernels of
knowledge. Judar only knew enchantments useful for battle. While that would
help protect them from any other menacing dinosaurs, it would do little to
speed the trek back to Port
Castigliar.
Luckily, the dinosaurs they stumbled upon that afternoon were gentle giants,
content to tear up whole bushes and clumps of bamboo with their gaping mouths.
The first resembled a monstrous armadillo, though its head was large and
broad. Rock-hard circles of bone, like plate armor, covered its body, and
blunted spikes patterned its skull. From the brief look Artus got before the
beast trundled away into the jungle, he figured the dinosaur to be at least
twice as big as the largest elephant, perhaps even thirty-five feet long. Its
most amazing feature was not its size, but the bulging knob of bone at the end
of its tail. The club splintered trees as the dinosaur walked, demonstrating
how formidable a weapon it would be in battle.
They spotted the other dinosaur, or more precisely the other group of
dinosaurs, in a clearing at the edge of a small pond. Artus recognized them as
a family of stegosaurus. The largest of them, perhaps twenty feet from the tip
of its pointed snout to the four sharp spikes at the end of its tail, would
have been dwarfed by the armored monster he and Judar had disturbed earlier.
An alternating double row of bony,
diamond-shaped plates ran the length of its arched back, starting small near
its neck, growing larger in the middle, and tapering down again along its
tail. Six of the beasts grazed upon the tender grasses at the water's edge.
They turned to idly study the two men who pushed out of the jungle, but apart
from herding the two smallest behind their mothers, the dinosaurs went about
their business as if no one else shared the pond.
The afternoon wore on, and the twilight world beneath the thick jungle canopy
began to slide into a more profound darkness. To make matter worse, after
hours of walking Artus and Judar were still thoroughly lost. The guide
insisted they were moving toward the well-worn trail to the port, but the way
remained close to impassable. Artus checked the dagger again and again, It
always agreed with Judar's assessment of their direction.
"We will surely break into the more traveled areas tomorrow," Judar assured
the explorer, though Artus
found little comfort in the guide's words. His predicament had made him
rightfully cautious, and Judar's secrecy about his skill with magic had fanned
the embers of his suspicions into an open flame again.
They ate a meager meal in silence. After, they rested in the darkness,
listening to the calls of the night-stalking creatures. Artus sat with his bow
across his lap, two arrows planted point-first in the ground nearby. If
anything entered their small camp or passed too close through the branches
overhead, he intended to make the beast think twice about attacking. He didn't
want to think about what would happen after the arrows were gone. Anyway, it
was better to go down fighting.
Artus was soon asleep, the stress and strain of the day dragging him down to
oblivion.
A sharp jab in the back woke the explorer, how much later he could not tell.
He rolled to the side, grabbing for his bow and an arrow. Holding the bow
sideways, he glanced around the camp. Moonlight filtering through the canopy
revealed a terrifying scene.
Judar lay face-down a few feet away. Over the motionless guide stood two squat
goblins. Artus loosed the arrow, hitting one of the intruders square in the
chest. It went down with a grunt, its wide mouth moving wordlessly. Two more
goblins crashed from the bushes, nasty-looking spears held menacingly forward.
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The rustle in the vegetation to his back told Artus that others had circled
around to surround him.
Kneeling as he was, the explorer could look the manlike creatures straight in
the eyes. Their faces were round and flattened. Broad foreheads sloped down to
dull eyes the yellow of rotten eggs. Noses that seemed uniformly squashed
wandered out to their high cheekbones, toward their pointed ears. Their skin
was strangely mottled with reds and oranges. Artus had seen goblins before,
but never any as wild as these. They wore only torn breechcloths and a few
scattered scraps of leather armor.
The rest of the arrows lay far away from the explorer, certainly too far to
reach before a goblin spear took him in the back. Artus slid his grip toward
one end of the longbow. It had served as a club against the dinosaurs readily
enough. The goblins' skulls would prove easier to break, too. . . .
He had tensed his legs, ready to lunge, when another goblin entered the
clearing. This one was fully a foot taller than the others, with a well-tended
breastplate of dinosaur hide covering his torso. He snorted when he saw the
dead goblin warrior, then pointed at Artus.
The shuffle of bare feet alerted Artus to the attack. He spun around. Two
goblins rushed toward him, ready to grapple him barehanded. It took but one
swing of the bow to send them sprawling. A clear path to the jungle suddenly
lay before him.
Maybe I'll get out of this alive, he thought hopefully.
That hope died quickly. A solid blow to the back of the head knocked Artus to
the ground. Darkness rolled over his mind, shutting out the night in waves.
"He no challenge for Batiri," the armored goblin said scornfully. He kicked
Artus in the side.
The explorer spoke fluent enough Goblin to understand this coarse dialect.
"Batiri!" he gasped. Artus's thoughts spun like a raft caught in a maelstrom.
Oh gods, his mind screamed, the cannibals who captured
Theron!
Then another wave of darkness crashed down upon his thoughts, dragging Artus
down to unconsciousness.
* * * * *
Artus awoke in a circular hole in the ground, rain dripping on his face
through the bamboo-and-frond roof covering the dank prison. His head throbbed,
and his face was wet from the rain and sticky with blood.
When he tried to sit up, pain arced through his head like lightning in a
stormy sky.
With a groan, he collapsed back onto the dirty straw pallet. Gingerly he
touched the top of his head.
Three sizeable lumps formed an uneven circle on his scalp. That would account
for the blood and the pain,
he decided. I got one lump when they attacked, but where did the other two
come from?
Vaguely Artus recalled being moved from the site of the ambush to wherever he
was now. The Batiri had tied his hands and feet, then strung a pole through
the ropes. They carried him this way, just as Artus had seen big game hunters
transport their trophies. Each time he awoke, a goblin clubbed him back to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]