CHAPTER 19
With speed no one imagined he possessed, Gragelouth sprinted for the exit and straight into the arms of the half dozen guards waiting outside. Buncan wrestled his duar into position while Squill and Neena lunged for their weapons.
The meerkats and rats and ground squirrels were too fast. They poured into the tent and swarmed the travelers, too many for the otters, too quick for Buncan. Viz made a dive for the doorway and flew straight into a waiting net. Squill managed one good Sword stroke, slicing an overanxious meerkat from groin to armpit, before he went down under five or six assailants. Without Snaugenhutt’s aid they didn’t stand a chance in close quarters, and Snaugenhutt was apparently indisposed until morning.
They wouldn’t nave until morning.
It was all over in less man a minute.
It wouldn’t have mattered if the otters had fumbled for lyrics instead of weapons. The duar was quickly wrenched from Duncan’s fingers. Not because the Xi-Murogg had any idea it possessed unique powers, but because it was large and well made and if properly wielded could conceivably bash in an unwary meerkat’s skull. Which was just what the furious Buncan wanted to do, except that his hands and feet were being rapidly and expertly bound.
Anyone who could bind an otter to the point where it couldn’t move, much less free itself, knew how to handle ropes and knots, he reflected. If Squill and Neena couldn’t get loose, he knew he’d only be wasting time and energy trying.
In moments the travelers had been reduced to so many impotent bundles flopping futilely on the mats. Gragelouth was trussed so tight he couldn’t move, while Viz’s wings had been secured to his sides and his feet bound at the ankles.
Satisfied, their confident assailants left them to gaze longingly at then- weapons and worldly goods, which had been tossed in an indifferent pile in the center of the tent. Viz hung upside down from a cross-pole, bemoaning his fate.
“First trussed, next dressed?” Prom his ignominious position he glared at the contemplative Chi-churog.
The village leader winced at the affront. “We are not cannibals. We do not eat intelligent beings. Do you think we of the Xi-Murogg are uncivilized?”
Squill would have replied, except that Neena shot him a look threatening sudden death if he so much as opened his mouth. Under the circumstances it wasn’t much of a threat, but her brother kept silent anyway. Not, Buncan thought, that any otterish invective could make their situation any worse.
Chi-churog continued. “You will be drained of blood. This is not an unpleasant way to die. One drifts first into unawareness, then sleep, and finally death.”
“Yeah?” said the incorrigible Squill, unable to remain quiet for more than a minute. “ ‘Ow about you give us a demonstration, guv?”
The village leader did not deign to respond. “Afterward your bodies will be pulverized and ground to powder. During the height of the full moon you will be sown upon the fields of the Xi-Murogg. This is an honorable passing. That of which your bodies are made will contribute to the production of food and to the continued health of new, young individuals.”
“You can’t rationalize it,” Viz chirped from his inverted position. “It’s cannibalism by any name.”
“It is not.” Chi-churog was unmoved. “Your passing will inspire new life.”
“Because we’re bleedin’ unlucky enough to ‘ave arrived just before the full moon,” Neena muttered.
Chi-churog strolled over to peer down at her tightly bound form. “Blood and bone can be preserved between ceremonies. A full moon simply provides better light for the process of sowing. The presence in the night sky of a new moon, or a half-moon, would not have altered your fate.” “Gee, I feel much better now,” she said sardonically. Chi-churog stretched. “It is time to rest, but not here. If you moan and scream and disturb our sleep, it will be necessary to gag you as well. I would rather not do that. Your last night should be as comfortable as possible. Within reason.” He departed in the company of two guards. “I go first to check the ropes on your large friend. He is several fields’ worth of fecundity unto himself.”
A single meerkat was left to watch over them. Given the condition of their bindings, even one guard seemed superfluous, Buncan thought. They had been tied with fiendish invention. He could barely move his fingers, let alone a hand. No chance of working the heavy leather thongs against one another behind his back. His legs were bound at the ankles and knees. If he struggled too much, he’d probably fall over onto his side.
At least he was able to rest his back against one of the tent poles. Squill and Neena had been left on their sides, facing the center of the tent. Their bindings were secured to pegs hammered into the floor. They couldn’t even turn over. Like Buncan, Gragelouth had been favored with a sitting position. In addition to the usual thongs, leather mittens had been fastened over his hands and feet to make sure he could not make use of his heavy, albeit closely trimmed, claws. In his upside-down position Viz was less than helpless. Their captors were taking no chances.
This is it, then, he mused. I’m gonna die not in glorious battle against some wicked sorcerer or Dark Forces, trying to rescue some beautiful girl in distress, or while taking possession of the Grand Veritable, but as fertilizer for a fruit tree.
Along with their swords and the otters’ bows his duar rested in the pile alongside the guard, who sat bored and cross-legged in the middle of the tent. Hoodless, he leaned back against the tent’s centerpole, cleaning his claws with the point of a stiletto while sparing them only the occasional cursory glance. It was extremely frustrating. Ungagged, Squill and Neena could rap all they wished, but without the unique accompaniment of the duar their efforts would come to naught. He tried working his wrists against one another and had about as much success as he expected, which was to say none.
As the night progressed, the steady stream of complaints from the two otters began to slow. There being nothing else to do, they tried spellsinging anyway, producing such a stream of rhymed invective that it seemed certain the guard would respond. Save for an occasional tolerant smile he utterly ignored them, refusing to be provoked by Squill’s inflammatory prose. Why should he be, Buncan thought, when all six of them would be so much ground meal by this time tomorrow?
So bored was the meerkat that from time to time he actually dozed off, only to snap awake again after a slumber of several minutes. It was a promising development they could take advantage of only in their imaginations.
With the onset of nightfall a steady, polyphonic chanting had begun deep within the village. It was accompanied by small drums, finger cymbals, and rattling gourds. Some sort of formal invocation, Buncan mused, to whatever gods of the soil required musical propitiation. Though it was now past midnight, there had been no letup in the droning concert . . .
When it terminated, he suspected, so would he and his friends. He wondered how long it took to drain a body of blood.
A glance through the open portal revealed no sign of emerging daylight, though he could only guess at the actual hour. Jon-Tom had brought back from the Otherworld a device he called a watch, though Buncan couldn’t understand why it wasn’t called a time. It was a portable clock. Half of him wished the gadget was presently encircling his wrist so he could know the exact hour, while his other half wanted to remain ignorant. Morning would come soon enough.
Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Mom. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. The world, he thought, could be very uncooperative.
Not the guard, though. He’d drifted off again, his head drooping onto his right shoulder. Buncan struggled mightily with his wrists and succeeded only in exhausting himself. If anything, the leather strands seemed to grow tighter, threatening to cut off the circulation to his hands. The otters were half asleep themselves, while Viz emitted soft whistling snores from the cross-pole from which he hung.