The Warlock is Missing by Christopher Stasheff

Author:Christopher Stasheff
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 11

It was still dark when Kelly shook them, one by one, calling softly, "Wake. The sun rises over the pastureland, children, even though ye see it not. We must begin the day's journey. Wake!"

The children rolled over with an assortment of groans. "But we were awake so late last night, Kelly," Gregory pleaded.

"And 'twas quite wearying," Geoffrey seconded.

"Wearying! Sure and I thought ye did love a good fight!"

"I do," the boy yawned, "yet 'tis wearying nonetheless.!'

"Wherefore ought we to wake, when Puck doth not?" Magnus groused.

"He rose up before ye, and went ahead to spy out the countryside. Ye'll not go unwarned into danger again, says he! So come, awake!"

"Let me sleep a bit more," Cordelia murmured, burrowing her head back into her rolled-cape pillow.

But a velvet nose nuzzled her cheek, and she looked up to see the unicorn standing over her, silver in the dark. With a glad cry, she leaped up to throw her arms about the creature's neck.

The boys rose more slowly, but with much chivying, Kelly managed to persuade the children to wash. With a splash of cold water on their faces and a double handful of wild berries in their stomachs, they felt bright enough to trudge out of the forest.

They came into pastureland, and the cool, moist air, coupled with the sight of the early sun, raised their spirits enough so that they began singing as they wended their way down a cow-track, with Fess, who had finally found them again after their adventure with the troll, trudging contentedly behind them. Geoffrey even felt lively enough to fly a few. feet every other bar.

At the top of his third flight, he suddenly fell silent and

dropped back to earth hissing, "Hush! 'Tis four hulking thieves, or I mistake quite!"

Gregory bobbed up to take a look, but Magnus caught him by the ankles and hauled him back down. "Nay! If there be evil men, it most becomes children to be unseen and unheard!"

They went forward in silence, stealing into the hedgerow at the edge of the field and peeking out. They saw a dusty road. Off to their right, it met another such track to form a cross-road, marked by a huge stone cross. To their left, four beefy men came swaggering along, guffawing and bellowing.

"Eh, but didn't he run, though!"

'"Twas well for him, or we'd have left his carcass for crow-meat!"

"Nay, nay! We could ha' guv him as fancy a funeral as any village priest!"

"Surely we could have—he'd paid dearly enough for it." The biggest man chortled and held up a leather bag as big as his head.

"Aye," growled the shortest and most burly man, "yet we've not split it up into shares! And if I don't have mine soon, Borr, 'tis your corpse we'll bury, not his!"

Anger sparked in the eyes of the man called Borr, but he managed to smother it under a cardboard smile. "Eh, now! Would I cheat ye, Morlan?"

"Only an I did let ye," Morlan rumbled.

The anger glinted in Borr's eyes again, but he managed to keep the smile in place.

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