The pain in Toede's stomach flared, and he dropped the disk back into the saddlebag, finding a chunk of smoked beef in the process. He chewed it as he rode. The meat was the best thing that had landed in Toede's stomach for six months, but did little to abate the vast hunger there.
"Only a fool," Toede said aloud, presumably to the horse, "would fail to take advantage of this situation. To escape and start a new life, where one can 'live nobly' without danger of one's past biting one on one's backside."
The horse, respectful of its place in the scheme of things, said nothing.
"And," said Toede, "and… it's not as though Groag didn't have a chance to join me. No, we could have both been gone, have taken the western fork, and never have met the gnolls. He made his choice. I cannot deny the right of any creature to determine its own destiny, and verily, he determined his."
The horse remained silent, but it seemed an accusing silence, pregnant in its damning hush.
"Not to discount the influence of the gods," added Toede quickly. "Gods are important." That he said loudly enough so that, if any were resting in the trees among the slumbering squirrels, they would hear his affirmation. "But gods are subtle and show their works best in signs and portents. I mean, dropping a mountain on Istar was a definite message, if you follow my meaning."
The horse continued to impugn Toede silently.
"So indeed, if the gods did want me to hang about here, they would have given me an obvious sign, right?" Toede asked.
The horse refused to be drawn into Toede's line of argument. The branch to the western path appeared up ahead.
"So if the gods are paying attention," said Toede, "then it wouldn't be out of line to ask them for guidance. Correct? I mean, the words were "live nobly" not "prove your faith in us, whoever we are."
The fork was upon them. To the west lay freedom, to the south more problems than Toede wanted to think about.
He pulled back on the reins, and the horse halted. "So we have a decision to make, and need guidance, and are willing to leave it up to the will of greater powers. Should the mount turn west, we shall go west. Should it turn south, we will follow the trail to wherever it leads us." Toede eased his grip on the reins.
The horse did not move. Toede dug his heels in its sides to spur it forward, but still the horse did not move. Toede slapped its flanks with the ends of the reins, and even then horse did not move.
Toede pulled lightly on the right rein, the one that would lead the horse west, but the horse remained immobile. He pulled again, harder, then gave a firm tug. Nothing. Toede gave the slightest tug on the left rein, the one that would lead south to the scholars. The horse swung, as if it had been fixed on a pivot, immediately in that direction.
"Stupid horse," said Toede, realizing at once that the animal would rather travel a well-worn route than one never trod before. Not a fair test, all in all, he reasoned. Toede pulled the defaced symbol of the Water Prophet out of his saddlebags again and held it up in the moonlight. "Right then. Toede-side up, we go south. Hopsloth-side up, we go west."
He flipped the disk as best as he was able from horseback, the symbol spinning and dragging along its chain in a loose elliptical orbit. The flip carried it out of Toede's reach, where it landed among the debris of fallen leaves and dead ferns by the side of the path.
Toede squinted into the dark to see on which side the amulet had landed. Then, seeing the result, he snarled, and thought for a moment of just riding on anyway, of defying the coin-tossed decision influenced by the gods.
"Dark Lady in ribbons and bows," he muttered. "Probably a rock slide would fall on top of me if I went west anyway," and with that, he turned the horse south.
In the forest debris, the abandoned holy symbol shone in the crimson moonlight, the etching of the faceup T deep and visible from a surprising distance away.
Chapter 14
They can make me come back, but they can't make me stay, thought Toede, guiding the horse back toward the forest of stone. By "they" he meant the gods, or the shadowing, shadowy beings, or whatever perverse creations were responsible for acts of fate and luck. A short mental list of true gods failed to reveal any whose personal province might be making his life miserable, but Toede felt there had to be one or two who were gripping their sides, trying to keep their intestines from bursting loose from the elation they felt at his ordeal.
It was nearly midnight. More than enough time to alert the camp and convince them to start running and running hard in the face of an imminent gnollish invasion. Unless the gnolls were willing to engage the scholars in a penmanship contest, there was little chance the humans would last more than fifteen minutes.
He had ridden this far, Toede thought, it would be a shame not to inspire just a little panic and fear among them. Toede dismounted and sighed, trying to decide who he would most like to shock into apoplexy first. The magical light source that Bunniswot kept for his all-night sessions shone brightly and steadily, and Toede spotted a solitary shadow moving against the tent wall. "Might as well discomfort the awake first," said Toede. Of course, awake or asleep, Bunniswot likely would have been one of the first people Toede would have brought the bad news to, anyway, just to enjoy the human's reaction.
Toede rapped on the tent wall, and the figure started. Toede was disappointed only in that he had hoped the young scholar would plaster himself against the opposite tent wall in shock.
The shadow moved quickly around the tent. "What?" shouted Bunniswot.
"No time for that/' snarled Toede, pushing aside the tent flap and entering. "We have to evacuate the area at… once." Toede, smirking, strode into the scholar's small tent. Every flat surface and several tilted ones were piled high with paper, rubbings, scrolls, books, and thin metal plates. A strong, steady light was provided by a glowing metal ball set into an iron holder, the entire assemblage mounted on a small cherrywood box.
The cause for the smirk was the scholar's appearance. Bunniswot had a random collage of paper clutched to his bare, hairless chest. He was dressed in pajama trousers with a drawstring top and a long, open-fronted robe. The robe was hand-made, with patches in the shapes of holy symbols and magical formula crudely stitched to it. But the real source of amusement was the scholar's footwear. Each close-fitting slipper had a pair of protruding eyes jutting from the front, as if the scholar had slipped a pair of rabid beavers over his feet.
"What is the meaning of this intrusion?" shouted Bunniswot softly, in the tone and volume of a man in the mood for arguing but unwilling to wake the neighbors. He stomped his foot for emphasis. Toede noticed the eyes on his slippers were clear little half-shells, with black marbles set inside, and they wiggled as he stomped.
Toede tried unsuccessfully to stifle the image of Bunniswot running from the gnolls, his little foot-eyeballs spinning. Instead he said, "Scholar, you and your party are on grounds that are sacred to a tribe of gnolls. They are massing for a major attack shortly after sunrise." Unless they get bored and kill Groag early, he added silently. "Your cook and I were ambushed, and I barely escaped with my life. It is imperative that you and the others leave this place as soon as is humanly possible."