The Wanderer's Tale (52 page)

He paused until Gapp managed to get his drunken giggles under control.

‘
. . . This journey will take us through dangerous tracts of the forest which I would not even consider entering were it not for the reward at the end. It will take us into the very heart of Fron-Wudu. There are very few tracks to follow, and strange creatures and races that are best avoided. Cannibals, I tell you . . . This time, Gapp Radnar, should you go astray, there will be no one to help you out. Do you understand?
’

But Gapp did not even hear, let alone understand, for he was by now lying sound asleep upon the floor.

What secrets Yulfric had inadvertently let slip, did in fact remain secret. The following morning Gapp awoke with the first and worst hangover of his life. And though he tried to rack his marinated brains, he just could not recall how he had got into that state. The previous day was just a blur. All he did know was that in a week’s time, he and Yulfric were to leave on ‘some expedition or other’.

And six days later the day for their departure finally came.

‘Awake-Awake-E-oh, small person!’ Yulfric bellowed from the kitchen with unaccustomed buoyancy and frivolity. ‘The sun is just up, the sky a cloudless blue, and it’s a
beautiful
day for the quest!’

He spoke in his own tongue, without the wheel, and Gapp, still in his byre, had no idea what he was saying. The giant’s mood, however, was unmistakable. The boy’s hand reached out to drag some more straw over his head like a threatened snail.

How can anyone be so cheerful at this time in the morning?
he thought in disgruntlement, and endeavoured to ignore his host. But it was the day of departure, and the whole household was buzzing with activity. Yulfric was busy making last-minute preparations, the hounds were leaping about excitedly, and from somewhere there could be heard the noises – and smelt the smells – of breakfast being cooked. Clearly, Heldered had decided to join in the spirit of the occasion, too.

‘Blooding quests!’ Gapp muttered irritably.‘Who needs them?’

It suddenly struck him that he had heard that line somewhere before, and with the words came also a vague sense of discomfort, and the smell of marsh-sedge. But he could not think who it was who had said it.

Probably every sod who’s ever had to endure going on one
, he concluded miserably, and crawled shakily out of his straw-box.

An hour later, their expedition was under way. With Shlepp in the lead, the other nine hounds closely following, and Yulfric and Gapp bringing up the rear, the small party issued forth through the gate of the stockade. They paused only long enough to watch the mighty wooden portal being swung shut behind them by its unseen door-ward, then they eagerly plunged into the all-enveloping forest.

It was indeed a beautiful day, as Yulfric had promised. The early mists of a late-summer morning were slowly dissipating. In all but the gloomiest, dankest groves they soon faded into nothingness, like wraiths in the sunlight, and left no trace behind save for a dewy sheen that glistened on every leaf.

Within days the more recognizable tracks that Gapp had by this time become accustomed to were left behind them, and the party began to enter unfamiliar territory. Conversation, such as it was, ceased altogether. The hounds were less inclined to stray, and kept their noses closer to the ground, their hackles twitching on permanent stand-by. The further they progressed north, the less obvious became the paths, and much of the time was now spent re-routing, backtracking and general direction-finding. In spite of his new (if somewhat elementary) knowledge of the forest, Gapp could not understand how anyone, not even the woodcrafty Yulfric, could possibly know for sure where they were. But it seemed the Gyger was as much a part of the forest as the trees, and he knew exactly what signs to look for.

As the days went by, so the forest itself changed. No longer just a wilder, more extensive version of the type of woodland one might find around Nordwas, the territory they were passing through became a totally different world altogether. The trees here were colossal, almost entirely coniferous, and the thick, leafy, brambly undergrowth that choked the forest floor further south gave way to a spongy carpet of needles and sparse clumps of fern. The air itself became crisper, and smelt deeply resinous.

Different, too, was the game encountered. Boar, hart and francolin gave way to strange tree-dwelling cats, large rodents with spiny bristles and tiny, almost blind eyes, and bizarre-looking hunting primates that hooted eerily in the forest’s gloom. Curious eyes peered at the travellers from every side.

Even the climate grew noticeably cooler the further north they travelled, and there was already, even at this time of year, a more autumnal fragrance to the air.

A week after their departure the land began to rise, at first gradually, then steeply, and the trees thinned out. Huge clusters of rock thrust themselves up from the loamy earth, forming little corridors that the party passed along. By day these seemed devoid of life, but during the evening they were host to large numbers of the hooting primates that became part of the travellers’ diet. Whenever the giant, the boy and the hounds passed by, these creatures would immediately cease their hooting and glare silently down at them. Gapp felt extremely ill at ease at such times, especially realizing that these watchers would certainly smell the blood of their own kind on the travellers. It was only Yulfric’s confident, almost arrogant bearing that reassured the young Aescal somewhat.

That and the ten massive hunting hounds, most of whom did not even bother glancing up at their spectators.

Nevertheless it was a great relief to Gapp to wake up on the morning of the eighth day and hear Yulfric announce that they were now within hours of reaching the valley of Perchtamma-Uinfjoetli. From the crest of the rise just ahead, the giant indicated, they should be able to spot their destination. Gapp noticed a hint of new excitement in the Gyger’s gait, and he wondered exactly what he was likely to see. From his own position, at the edge of the tree line, the young Aescal could see nothing beyond the rise but clear blue sky.

But as they ascended closer to the crest, he began to hear something different. At first it seemed little more than a continuous trembling noise, relentless and almost irritating. He could not guess what it meant, and did not dare intrude upon Yulfric’s thoughts by asking him. But after half an hour it had gradually increased to a loud rumbling which could be felt running like earth-energy through the ground beneath his feet. Gapp was put in mind of the beating of many war-drums in the distance.

Then without warning they reached the crest of the rise, and the rumble suddenly became a deafening roar that nearly bowled Gapp over backwards.

‘Great thundering armholes,’ he gasped, hardly able to breathe. ‘Just look at that!’

‘Yes,’ Yulfric replied to himself, guessing Gapp’s meaning. ‘Look, and marvel. There are not many sights in the world which could compare with that.’

A matter of mere yards before them, the ground dropped away all of a sudden down into an almost sheer abyss, and below them, in front of them and all around them opened the massive, bowl-shaped valley of Perchtamma-Uinfjoetli. It stretched away for miles all around, its floor at least a mile below them, and almost sheer cliffs hemmed it in on every side except where the valley opened out to the East, way over to their right. Great towering cliffs soared out of the steeply sloping valley sides, and the light of the golden, early-morning sun streamed all the way through from the eastern end to set the bare rock of these cliffs afire with a deep orange radiance. At the foot of them, a thick wall of trees plunged further down into the shadowed depths of the huge valley, shimmering and swaying peacefully in the breeze.

The highest cliff, at the very head of the valley over to their left, must have stood at least a mile above the wooded slopes at its foot. A mile of sheer rock bathed in the full light of the eastern sun, its summit crowned by clouds. And halfway up it was a deep, cavernous hole like a gaping mouth, out of which spewed the great waterfall of Baeldicca the Great, one of the Nineteen Wonders of the World. Out of the rock-face looming high above the two awestruck mortals further along, it spouted and cascaded in a crashing, gushing spray of white, far down into the shadows below.

The air was moist with spray even from this distance. Gapp closed his eyes in exhilaration, and savoured the cool blast of droplets it carried. It felt like galloping a horse through an icy winter’s morning, and he found himself gasping with the sheer effort of breathing.

It was a sight of such awesomeness that it far surpassed even the great canyons of the Blue Mountains. And way, way below, so far that it was only just visible, a narrow ribbon of silver glinted in the sunlight. It wound like a sparkling thread through a deep green carpet, to disappear from view at the eastern end of the valley, several days’ journey away.

The wheel was pushed urgently into his hands, and Gapp reluctantly forced his eyes away from the panorama.

‘
. . . That there is the River Folcfreawaru, the longest river in the whole of the lands of Fron-Wudu, and according to what I’ve learned, it courses through no less than twelve countries before it finally reaches the sea! It is the only highway of travel that penetrates this deep into the Great Forest, though few outlanders have ever managed to follow it this far.
’

Gapp stared again in awe at all around him.

Yes
, he thought,
the Great Forest indeed. Only now do I realize why people name it so. And few outsiders have ever managed to get this far. Yet here I am, Gapp Radnar the esquire, bereft of his companions, lost in the underworld, thrown to the savage mercies of heedless fortune; here, where few men will ever stand! Oh, if only the troubadours could experience this . . .

Gapp steadied his feet against the wind, stepped a little closer to the edge and gazed in wonder at the world below him. He felt prouder than he had ever felt in his life, far prouder even than when he had set off from Nordwas with those funny little men, his erstwhile companions. At this time more than at any other on his wanderings, he was elevated above the ground-level trammels of everyday existence into another plane of being, experiencing the rushing thrill of Life that is denied to all but the greatest adventurers in the world.

Gapp Radnar was now to be counted amongst the ranks of Heroes.

For long he stood there, on the lip of the precipice, and cast his long shadow over the forest lying below the thundering waterfall of Baeldicca the Great, breathing in the clear mountain air and feeling the refreshing spray on his face.

Yulfric smiled knowingly. He knew by the look on the young Aescal’s face what he was feeling, and he was not about to cut short the lad’s brief moment of Magnificence. It was something he himself had experienced many years ago when first he too had stood upon this precipice, and he was proud to share it with the little human.

So few ever got to experience this sense of sheer
hugeness
, for so few ever got to stand here on top of the world. Time enough to come down to earth once they reached the valley floor.

It took them two hours to reach the wooded slopes below. A series of goat trails and rock-strewn gullies wound precipitously down the cliff-face they began on. Led by the pack leader Shlepp, and aided by the forest giant’s prior knowledge of the route, the tiny line of hunter-gatherers managed to slip, slide and scramble down the rocky face of the cliff without serious mishap, until they had safely gained the forested slopes of Perchtamma-Uinfjoetli far below.

Drinking deeply from his waterskin, Gapp was glad to feel the reassuring firmness of rich, needle-matted forest floor beneath his feet. His legs were still shaking from the precarious descent. He pointed to the hounds in incredulity. Had he not witnessed it for himself, he would never have believed dogs could prove such skilled rock-climbers.

‘
. . . Theirs is a race not used to such endeavours, yet luckily they have a good master to teach them. But – now we have more important matters at hand; the blackfruit trees are not very far from here, and hopefully we will have completed the harvest and departed this valley before it gets dark. So we must get to work with haste . . .
’

Emboldened by euphoria, Gapp thrust the wheel back into the Gyger’s hand and said: ‘Leave the valley by nightfall? But surely we can stay at least two days here. It is too wonderful by
far
to spend so short a time in—’

The wheel was shoved so hard back into his hands that Gapp was almost bowled over. ‘
. . . Listen to me! I have been here for many more years than you have lived – I know something of this valley and its inhabitants. Trust me, Gapp, if you knew them half as well as I do, you would not wish to tarry here for more than an afternoon, let alone overnight! You must understand, this valley is unique, enclosed, isolated – there are races here that do not exist elswhere in the world. Some of them seem to be shy of me and my hounds; they do not know how to deal with anything new; thus they leave us alone. But there are others – half-man half-beast, Vetterym and Jordiske – that are not so shy. That is why we must stay close, keep our guard up at all times, and not go near the river unless we have to . . .
’

‘The river? But you said earlier that the river is wonderful, blackfruit as far as the eye can see, for it’s where the greatest concentration of blackfruit trees are to be found . . .’

‘
. . . And avoided! The riverbanks are the haunt of the Vetterym. They are a strange race, one that has never bothered me, but one that I have always felt pressing in, their sharp eyes on me all the time. I have never seen more than a fleeting glimpse, or a shadow in the trees, but I am a stranger here just as much as you, and I do not take chances . . . These are the cannibals I told you of . . .
’

‘Cannibals? But you’re a Gyger . . .’

‘
. . . Yes . . .
’

‘And I’m a human . . .’

‘
. . . Yes . . .
’