Thorn Ogres of Hagwood by Robin Jarvis

Author:Robin Jarvis [Jarvis, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-4532-9158-0
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2012-10-24T22:45:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Stewing Roots

GAMALIEL TUMPIN WAS GRAY and cold. The brutal sting was still embedded in his shoulder, its poison sac pumping hideously.

Finnen crouched beside him and gazed on the youngster’s ashen face. Even as he looked, the grayness of Gamaliel’s flesh became tinged with a foul green pallor that intensified with every spasm of the pulsing venom.

Angrily Finnen reached out to draw the vile sting from his dead friend’s body.

Suddenly a stern, unfamiliar voice shouted.

“Don’t be a fool, boy!”

The werlings spun around to see a tall, shadowy figure come crashing into the clearing.

“Are you so ignorant of the werhag’s ways?” it demanded.

“Who are you?” Finnen yelled. “Keep away!”

The stranger stepped closer. He was four times the height of the werlings, but Finnen rose to confront him.

“You’ll not be much use in a fight with that poor arm of yours now,” the newcomer said gruffly.

Finnen glared at him. “I said stay back!” he cried.

The stranger pulled a small knife from his belt and sprang forward. Pushing both werlings out of the way, he raised the blade above Gamaliel’s body and plunged it into his flesh.

Liffidia shrieked and flew at him, but it was Finnen who pulled her off.

“Wait,” he told her. “Look what he’s doing.”

Startled, the girl watched as the knife sliced a red circle in Gamaliel’s shoulder, deftly carving out a chunk of flesh in which the sting was impaled.

A leathery hand was then clamped over the hollow wound and Frighty Aggie’s ghastly weapon was flung away in disgust.

The newcomer returned his attention to the werlings, and a solemn smile appeared in his grizzled beard.

“You’ll forgive Smith’s ill manners,” he excused himself. “But there weren’t no time for soft speech. If you’d pulled that accursed tickler from your little friend, he’d be well dead by now.”

Liffidia and Finnen gazed at the Wandering Smith in astonishment. The Pucca’s brilliant green eyes gleamed out beneath his thick, woolly brows, and for a brief moment their fears and the memory of terror faded.

“What do you mean?” Finnen asked when the sensation passed. “Are you saying Gamaliel’s still alive?”

The Smith touched Gamaliel’s forehead. “Barely,” he answered. “But this is not the place to administer healing. No more can the Smith do in this benighted stink hole. The tiny fellow is not free of the danger yet, for death has entered in and maybe it will not leave him.”

Carefully picking Gamaliel from the ground, the Smith strode back across the clearing to the great hole he had made in the holly fence.

“Smith has pitched his camp a way yonder,” he told them, sweeping the fox cub up in his other arm. “He can do more for your companion there.”

Finnen and Liffidia glanced at each other. They did not know who or what this person was, yet they were only too glad to leave this abominable domain behind them. Nursing his own wound, Finnen began to hurry after the Pucca, but Liffidia hesitated.

“What is it?” Finnen called.

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” she asked pointedly.

Finnen frowned, then gasped when he realized.

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