There were in fact four separate camps, one each for the Hawk, Wildcat, and Turtle tribes and a larger one for the Wolfmen. These camps were scattered irregularly, so that in trying to skirt one we nearly ran into another. But at last we had threaded our way past all of them and picked up the trail to the swamp.
As before, we scouted beside the trail instead of on it. The camps proved farther from Ghost Swamp than we had expected. Doubtless the Pictish warriors, fearless though they were, had not cared to sleep any closer to the haunts of the swamp-demons than they had to.
But at last we found a place where a clump of young pines grew beside the trail, and around their bases a great mass of ferns. This, we decided, would be the site for the ambuscade. And so I stretched myself out on my belly, with bow strung and arrow notched on the ground before me, while Hakon went away down the gentle slope toward Ghost Swamp. And as I looked that way, I could see patches of brightness through the trees that told of open water.
The night was now far spent, and I feared lest dawn come upon us ere we had accomplished our tasks. Did this happen, I planned to crawl back away from the trail to some thicker covert, lie up there during the day, and then try again, if the Picts were still encamped here. Thirst would become a problem before the day was out, but I should cope with that when I came to it.
Time crawled. I strained my eyes and ears, hoping for Valerian and his escort to appear out of the gloom along the trail; but all was silent save for the hum of gnats and the grunt of a bull alligator from the direction of the swamp. Even the swamp-demons chose not to howl this night.
A man cannot, however, keep his attention screwed up to the sticking-point forever. I had been up nearly all the night, and had hiked ten or fifteen miles, and had fought two skirmishes, slaying a man in each one. For all my good intentions, nature had its way with me. It seemed to me that I let my heavy eyelids droop but an instant, when a heavy, muscular form landed on top of me and a chorus of hideous yells made the forest ring about me.
I started awake, too mazed with sleep to struggle with much effect. Several Picts had pounced upon me, four of them seizing my four limbs while another crouched on my back.
And before I could do more than curse them by Mitra and Ishtar, they had stripped me of weapons and bound my wrists and ankles, giving me a few cuffs and kicks for good measure. I became aware that the sky was much lighter than when I had dozed off, showing that some little time had passed.
There were sounds of chopping, and presently a Pict appeared with a pole he had just cut from a sapling. This was thrust between my arms and between my legs.
Two brawny Picts hoisted the ends of the pole to their shoulders and set out briskly toward the swamp, with Gault Hagar’s son dangling from the pole between them like a huntsman’s quarry. The rest followed, speaking in deep, grunting tones. Some even laughed, a thing Picts rarely do, since they deem open mirth undignified and reserve it for such worthy occasions as the torture of a captive.
At first I was too cast down by the shame of letting myself be surprised, and by my apprehensions of the fate awaiting me, to heed much save my own misery. But then I recollected that I was not dead yet, and that last-minute changes of fortune were not unknown in the world. And so I began to watch about me for any thing or circumstance that might provide a means of escape.
Dawn was breaking when we reached the borders of Ghost Swamp. By craning my neck, I saw the vast, stagnant waters of the swamp, broken by clumps of reeds and other water plants. Wisps of mist rose ghostlike from the still waters, which reflected the cloud-flecked blue of the dawning sky. Here and there, trunks of dead trees stood up like petrified witches.
We jogged out on a tongue of land that extended into the water. From the end of this point, my bearers splashed into the water. They followed a line of stepping stones, placed so that their tops were just below the surface of the water. We crossed another stretch of boggy land, and more stepping stones, and so at last we came to the place of the Wizard of the Swamp.
The Wizard dwelt on an isle, which rose a little higher above the level of the waters than does most of the land in that malevolent marsh. On this small elevation, among the trees that crowned it, rose a circle of huts, like those the Picts build in their villages. As we approached the hillock, one of the Picts of my party ran ahead, so that by the time I arrived, all those present had turned out to greet me. The ground was littered with gourds; no doubt the chiefs had spent the night in guzzling weak Pictish beer as well as in talk.
Those on the isle were the Wizard himself, Valerian and a few of his retainers, Kwarada, Teyanoga, and a score of Picts. Feathers and paint identified the Picts as the chiefs of the Turtles, Hawks, Wildcats, and Wolves, all of them yawning and bleary-eyed from their nightlong session. Valerian grinned like a Pictish idol when he saw me.
“The rebel from Thandara!” he cried. “By Mitra, you are a persistent devil; would all those on the side of His lawful Majesty were as firm in their virtue as you are in your villainy! Do but wait, my fine friend; we shall have rare sport with you and your fellow traitor. You shall learn the price of treason to your natural lords.”
The Picts who were carrying me slipped the pole from their shoulders and dropped me heavily to the dank ground. As I rolled over, I saw that the stake had been driven into the earth in the center of the circle of huts. And to this, Hakon Strom’s son was bound.
Valerian, still looking at me, jerked his head toward Hakon. “He thought he could slink past the Wizard’s guard of swamp-demons,” he said.
Hakon and I exchanged glances but saw naught to be gained by speech at that moment. The Wizard gave orders in Pictish, and some Picts went back over the causeway of stepping stones. Others began digging a hole in the earth near the stake to which Hakon was tied.
The Wizard was a strange-looking being: aged, bent, and scrawny, with a brown skin almost as dark as that of a Kushite, a mop of white hair, and a long, silky white beard. His features were unlike those of any man I had ever seen. His nose was broad and flat, his forehead and chin sloped back, and his eyes were hidden beneath brows of such pronounced beetle that they seemed to look out of black caverns. He could have been a hybrid of man and chakan. Now I understood the tales repeated in the Westermarck, that the Wizard was neither Pict nor Ligurean, but the last survivor of a race that had dwelt in the land before the Picts overran it.
Truly, the Pictish wilderness harbors many strange survivors from bygone times.
Like the Picts, the Wizard was naked but for a deerskin clout. Instead of painted designs such as the Picts wore, he bore on his chest and back a design of small scars, arranged in lines and circles, he said something to the Picts, who took away the pole whereby they had borne me and jerked me to my feet. And he came close and stared up into my face, his little black eyes sparkling out of the depths of those cavernous eye-sockets. Then he turned away for more talk with the Picts.
Presently the Picts that had left the isle returned with a length of tree trunk, which they trimmed with their axes to a suitable length. The other Picts had meanwhile dug the hole to more than knee-deep. They placed one end of the log in this hole and shoveled the earth back in, holding the log upright. They stamped the earth and pounded it with war-clubs and the handles of their spades to make it firm, and soon had a twin of Hakon’s stake.
At a word from the Wizard, they dragged me to the stake. While a couple of brawny savages held my arms, another one cut my bonds with his knife. Then they stripped me to my loincloth, slammed me against the stake, and began binding me with long rawhide thongs.
I pretended not to resist, but while they were tying me I stiffened my body and tensed my muscles. The Picts did not seem to notice; mayhap they thought I was showing my white man’s pride. Soon they had me bound to the stake, with my arms hanging at my sides, as rigidly as a Stygian mummy.