And maybe pigs would soar, he thought. He needed to box the boy across the ears, get him on that pony and tell him get the hell home, was what he needed to do. He would keep the damned dog, who could atone for his sins in leading the boy here in the first place; he and the dog might get along, and he might somehow find fish in the stream-More winged pigs, he thought. The stream had poured off the ice of the heights, and it offered only sterile water.
Water and a way . . . maybe a way to float downstream to safer territory. Damn. He had not thought of that. If he could just get the boy back . . .
If the boy would only come back . . .
Lord Stani's remaining son on his hands, the other two missing—but if they could go downstream, go back to the mountains once they were well away from here, then find another pass—
All this through a landscape barren as hell's doorstep and haunted by goblins, after which they faced a journey through the mountains with no food, nor forage, nor any hope of finding any on their way; with only the vague hope of finding a pass no one else had found, besides the fact that mountains tended to fold in unpredictable ways, and lead one into blind ends, and mazes . . . maybe floating downstream was a better ...
Zadny lifted his ears, lifted his head and jumped to his feet. Nikolai tensed his arm against the lunge, got a grip on the belt and held to it, knowing the dog was going to bark, damn him—he jerked at the belt hard, to bring the hound to the reach of his fingers, and tried to bring the left hand to seize its muzzle.
There was a bark, a feeble, uncertain whine, then a boy's running steps—he hoped that was the case. "Hush!" he whispered to the hound, fearing the boy was running with goblins on his heels.
But the boy showed up and slid to his knees, babbling, "Master Nikolai! Master Nikolai, I found someone!"
There was no one to find but goblins. And Zadny's pulling at him all but took his senses away. He said, with greatest apprehensions: "Who?"
A huge shadow lumbered up behind the boy, a huge and shaggy shadow with a ratlike tail.
He snatched the sword that was by him, but his good hand had the damned leash tied to it, and the boy grabbed that elbow, and hung on it, objecting: "No, no, it's all right, master Nikolai, he's all right!"
The troll squatted down to have a closer look at him, rumbled, "Bad, bad hurt," and put a hand on his shoulder.
He had never imagined a troll could speak. He was quite out of his head. The creature had tricked the boy. It was contemplating supper, he was sure of it. But between the boy holding his arm and the leash on his wrist-It said, "Krukczy is my name."
"Nikolai," he said, to humor it while he tried to think. The fool hound was trying to leap up and paw at the troll's lap like some long-lost friend, shooting pains through his wound while Yuri held its collar. The troll patted the dog, then reached and patted his shoulder.
"Nikolai," it said. "Yuri. Good. Good we find brothers."
"It says," Yuri panted, "it says two got away, it says it's going with us."
His heart could only beat so fast. He was not thoroughly aware of his fingers now, or his feet, and the rest of him was fading fast. He said to the boy, "Run, dammit." But the boy paid no attention, neither the boy nor the troll, which was working at the knot that held the dog to his wrist, hurting him and getting nowhere with it.
The boy took over. Fever had set in, Nikolai decided. He was dreaming now, how a troll gathered him up and carried him in its arms, and that Yuri rode along on his pony.
He dreamed that they went into the stream and under the walls of the fortress, and down a winding dark tunnel, pony and all. Lamplight cast shadows on the ceiling above his face. He heard the clip-clop of the pony's hooves.
"What about the goblins?" he asked, because even in a dream, one should not leave such details unseen-to.
The troll said, "Gone to their queen."
"What queen?" And more to the point: "Why?" Why always mattered most, of questions.
But it laid him on the floor without answering the important things. Dreams were like tfiat. Yuri leaned over him to say they were safe, and that the troll was out looking for supper, which it had not been able to do while the goblins were in the tower.
"Fool," he murmured, "it's found it. . ."
Zadny licked him in the face. Yuri made him stop.
"Tell it eat the dog first," he muttered. "Boy, get away, get out of here."
But perhaps the dream had started way up on the mountain, when he had pulled the arrow. And the boy and the dog had never arrived, and there was no troll at all. Only goblins, who had gotten everyone but him.
The troll came lumbering back, shadowing him. There was a great deal of moving about then, in a haze of pain and light and shadow—he fell asleep until Yuri bumped his head up on his knee, and said he should drink.
Fish stew. It wanted salt. But it was hot. "Get away," the boy chided Zadny. "You have yours."
Amazingly detailed for a dream. So was waking again with a contemplative troll staring at him in the lamplight.
"Good, good," it said. "Better?"
He nodded, wanting the other part of the dream back, the one with the boy and the pony and the free sky still overhead. He glanced around him, lifting his head, and saw boy and dog curled up together with the pony's saddle for a pillow, saw the pony dozing on three feet within the tunnel.
The troll was still sitting there when he looked back. It looked very real. It smelled real. It made a shadow where it should. He did not at all like this persistence of imagery—or his situation, or watching the troll's flickering eyes watching his with too much awareness.
"What do you want?" he asked it finally, in his dream; and it said only:
"Sleep, hunter. Go to sleep."
6
"FISH," KRUKCZY ANNOUNCED, ALL DRIPPING, AND FISH there certainly was, a big fat one, flopping about on the floor. Zadny began to bark, threatening it. But Yuri got it and cut its head off, and cleaned it. So when master Nikolai finally opened his eyes on the morning there was breakfast cooking.
"We're still alive," master Nikolai murmured as if that surprised him.
"Goblins all gone," Krukczy said, very full offish, as it seemed, and wanting to nap awhile, with Zadny, who had breakfasted on fish of lal and roe.
"Damned good friends," Nikolai said under his breath. "Never ask where that hound came from. Friends with trolls, it is."
Yuri cast an anxious glance over his shoulder, but Krukczy only seemed to drowse, and Zadny had curled up and shut his eyes.
"Go home," Nikolai said in a low voice. "If there's fish in the stream, catch some, take the pony, leave me and the damned dog with the troll, and get home. Tell your father—"
"I'm not telling my father anything," Yuri said, with a lump in his throat, "because I'm not going home yet."
"You've no business in this—"
"You've no business either, you can't use your left arm. What are you going to do to rescue them?"
"I'm going to use my head and go home when I can walk, and get help over here, so there's no question of your going along—"
"Yes, there is. Because if you're going home you can ride Gracja and I'll take Zadny and I'll find them."
"You'll mind what you're told, young lord! I'm responsible for you—and don't think you've proved a thing, running off from home, trekking over-mountain with no damned sense what you were getting into ...
"Did vow know?"