The chiefs and Valerian and his mistress were clustered about the Wizard, talking. One small Turtle chief, however, approached me with an evil smirk. And he suddenly whipped his hatchet from his belt and hurled it, turning over and over, right at my face.
I gave myself up for gone, but the copper blade thudded into the wood just above my head, so that the handle touched my forehead.
The Turtle chief and some other Picts broke into cries of triumph, vaunting their pleasure at having made me flinch. One of the early stages of Pictish torture is to shoot arrows and throw axes and knives at the prisoner, missing him as closely as possible. If he winces, that scores a point for his tormentors; if he withstands the missiles without flinching, that scores a point for him. It is a foolish sort of game, but I would have resisted the temptation to flinch, rather than give them the satisfaction, had I had any warning of the fellow’s intentions.
But this deed started a great argument among the Picts. And two or three of them sided with the chief who had thrown the hatchet, while the others opposed. The thrower and his friends kept repeating the Pictish word for “now,” while the others said “anon.” One Pict was busily whittling small wooden spikes or splinters, a hand’s breadth long, for the evident purpose of sticking them into the captives’ hides and igniting them.
At last the Wizard sided with those saying “anon.” I turned my head toward Hakon’s stake and asked:
“What is their dispute? The question of when we shall be put to the torment?”
“Aye,” said Hakon. “That little Turtle and his friends wish to practice their art upon us now, while the others prefer to save us until after the sack of Schondara. The Wizard says we are his, to do with as he pleases, and he will tell them when they may have us.”
“If he has anything worse than Pictish tortures in mind …” I said, shuddering as I remembered the Dance of the Changing Serpent
And now the Wizard and all the chiefs disappeared into the huts; Valerian and Kwarada entered one. Two common Picts were left to stand guard over us, while the rest jogged off toward the encampment.
“They will catch some sleep ere setting forth on the attack,” quoth Hakon. “From what I heard, they mean to move out around noon and reach Schondara just after dark.”
“They would naturally prefer not to attack in daylight, with darts from the ballista whizzing about their ears,” I said.
“From the hints I picked up,” said Hakon. “They have some other weapon in mind …something the wizard has readied for them.” He turned to one of the sentries. “Ho there, you!” he said, still speaking Aquilonian. “How about a little of that beer your chiefs were making so free with last night?”
Both Picts looked blankly at him and turned back to each other.
When Hakon repeated his question in Pictish, their eyes lighted with understanding if not with friendly feelings. One of the twain growled a surly “Nay,” while the other spat on the ground.
“At least I think they understand us not,” said Hakon, speaking our own tongue again. “Have you any thoughts for getting us out of here?”
“Not yet, but I feel one coming,” I said. “It will have to wait until the chiefs have departed. And let us not talk too much, lest these scoundrels become suspicious.”
We spent a weary morning, bound to those accursed stakes and tormented by thirst, flies, and the cutting pressure of our bonds. Hakon suffered no little from sunburn, though I being naturally swarthy was less affected. Both of us bore many wicked bruises from the fights we had fought.
The chiefs snored in their huts. From the direction of the encampment came the murmur of voices as the warriors awoke.
At last, when the sun stood high overhead, the Wizard emerged from his hut and blew a whistle, made from what appeared to be a length of human arm-bone. Soon Valerian and all the Picts reappeared, yawning and stretching. There was much hustle and bustle. While some ate a quick repast, others thumbed and whetted the edges of their weapons.
At length the Wizard called them all together. From his hut he dragged out a huge leathern sack with its mouth lashed tightly closed and several long leather thongs trailing from it. And something distended the sack to its greatest size, but we could not tell what this something was. It could not be heavy, since the old sorcerer dragged the sack by himself, unaided. The sack was like a bladder blown full of air and then tied to keep the air from escaping, but on a vastly larger scale.
The Wizard gave directions while the Picts manipulated the sack. They tied it by the thongs to the end of a forked pole, twelve or fourteen feet long. At last the whole lot of them trailed off, a couple of the common Picts bearing the pole with the mysterious bag on their shoulders. The same two who had guarded us during the morning were left behind to guard us some more. Their glowering faces and muttered curses showed how much they liked missing the assault on Schondara and the killing, raping, and looting to which they had looked fondly forward.
When the last of the chiefs’ party had vanished into the trees that walled Ghost Swamp, the Wizard shuffled close to Hakon, peered into his face, and tested his bonds. And he did the same with me. We returned stare for stare, and the Wizard walked away and sat down cross-legged between two of the huts. And he worked some form of divination with little flat pieces of. bone. He would toss a fistful of them into the air and study the pattern they made as they fell, then sweep them up and try over. He began to croon some chant in his cracked old voice, in a tongue that I did not recognize but that was certainly not Pictish.
Of the two Picts left behind to guard us, one sat with his back to a hut and fell asleep. The other paced up and down impatiently, betimes practicing thrusts with his knife and blows with his stone-headed war-club at the empty air. He leaped and whirled, crouching, feinting, and striking. When he tired of this, he sat down beside his comrade and tried to start a conversation; but the other Pict only grunted.
Then the active Pict poked the other in the ribs and said softly: “Look yonder!” He indicated the Wizard, who still sat cross-legged before his strips of bone. But now he no longer picked them up and tossed them; he sat immobile, gazing out across the swamp.
The two Picts rose lithely and padded over to the Wizard. And they peered into his face, and one of them whistled and snapped his fingers. No slightest movement made the Wizard. He had gone into a trance, sending his soul across nighted gulfs to seek out arcane knowledge.
The Picts conversed earnestly in low tones, glancing first at the Wizard and then at us. From the occasional word I caught, I judged the drift of their speech to be that, since the Wizard was now insensible, they should abandon their post to race after their fellow tribesmen, arriving at Schondara in time for the massacre.
Presently the taller of the two …the active one …strode purposefully toward Hakon and me, swinging his war-club. Evidently he meant to brain us ere leaving, lest we escape in his absence. Meeting his glittering gaze, I filled my lungs and opened my mouth to shout to the Wizard, who if he bore us no tender feelings at least did not wish us slain just yet. I knew not whether my shout would rouse him from his trance, but it was the only course of resistance open to me.
As I did so, the shorter Pict called out, and the taller one halted. After more argument, both turned their backs on the Wizard’s isle and splashed off across the causeway.
“We are rid of them, at least,” muttered Hakon, “but how in the seven hells shall we get out of these bonds? Those who tied us up were no tenderfeet.”