Little Chicken’s expression should have been invisible in the dark, but Rap knew that he was regarding Fleabag with hostility. “Won’t come.”
Rap hesitated and then said, “He will for me.”
After a moment’s pause, the goblin said, “Show!” very quietly.
Rap crawled into the cave and summoned the dog without a word. Fleabag awoke, trotted over, and peered into the hole to see what his friend wanted. Then he obediently crept in and lay down alongside Rap, panting foul carrion breath in his face, swishing boughs with his tail.
The cave was a narrow tunnel and it seemed impossible that a third body could find room, but Little Chicken entered by lying on his back and wriggling, using his feet to push snow against the entrance until it was closed to his satisfaction. That was strenuous work and he ended crushed against Rap, puffing as hard as Fleabag. Rap would certainly be warm enough during the night between those two, sheltered from the wind and insulated by snow.
There was no light and Little Chicken’s face was too close to be seen properly if there were, but Rap knew the thoughtful expression it bore in the darkness. He waited for the question.
“How you do that?” said a whisper close to his ear.
“I don’t know, Little Chicken. I talk in my head. It works on horses, too, but most of all on Fleabag.”
The goblin stared blankly at nothing for a while and then asked, “You knock me down in testing?”
Here it came! “Yes. It was not the Gods. It was me.”
Rap was not sure why he had provoked this revelation. He did not think he was boasting. Probably he was clearing his conscience. He sensed the big mouth opening as Little Chicken bared his fangs and for a moment Rap half expected to feel them sink in his throat.
It was a smile. Unaware that he was being observed, Little Chicken was grinning into the darkness. “Good! Town boy won.” After a while he chuckled. “Good foe! Did not know. Know now.”
He said no more. He was still lying there leering at the dark when Rap fell into an exhausted sleep.
Recognizing no rules, the goblin could not resent cheating. His satisfaction came from learning that he had been beaten by a mortal and not some superhuman freak event… or so Rap concluded.
Rap was wrong.
Three fleabags emerged the next morning, into a thick white ice fog. The forest vanished within yards, trees fading away into the pervasive grayness in all directions. Still, bitterly cold, and treacherous, ice fog made all ways seem the same.
“Nice cave,” the goblin said sarcastically. “Stay long time.”
“South is that way. I will lead.”
“Go in circles.”
Rap shook his head. “Not me. South to the river, then upriver to Elk Totem, right?”
His companion shrugged, probably thinking that the exercise would do no harm, and he could always backtrack, or make another cave. So that day it was Rap who led, trotting through a white world striped with gray tree trunks, a silent goblin at his heels. The river appeared where it was supposed to and they followed it upstream. Farsight told Rap where to cross the ice and cut through the forest again, and he brought Little Chicken right to the door.
He was wondering what reaction he would get to this second revelation of supernatural power—awe? Respect? But when the buckskins came off in the firelit lodge, Little Chicken merely smiled with more secret amusement and made no comment.
Rap went to the hearth and was introduced to the rest of his hosts, being given the usual oily embraces. Little Chicken appeared with the inevitable grease bucket.
“I don’t need that any more,” Rap said firmly. “My legs are strong now. No massage.”
He turned his back. He had forgotten that Little Chicken took his duties seriously and was an expert wrestler. Without warning Rap was flat on his face, with the goblin kneeling on him.
The audience enjoyed that massage more than Rap did.
Lynx Totem… another Eagle Totem…
At Beaver Totem they were stormbound for four days while the worst weather of the winter howled like giant wolves around the cabins. So unbearable was the chill of the wind that even Little Chicken dressed in his buckskins to run from cabin to cabin, or to attend to calls of nature. The goblins strung lines between the buildings lest they become lost in the snow and freeze to death within yards of their own doors.
Rap spent most of the time in lonely brooding. He had been four weeks on his journey now. The king might be already dead and Inos had not been told of his illness.
Or had she?
He watched the goblins as they lived their boring winter lives, studiously ignoring him except when hospitality demanded that they must offer him food or drink. He endured Little Chicken’s mocking contempt on the rare occasions when he appeared in the adults' building. He wished fervently that his talent for befriending animals would work on people, like Andor’s.
Always his thoughts came back to Andor.
King Holindarn knew a word of power. So Andor had said.
If Andor had gone to such trouble to try to learn Rap’s word, then he would also try to steal the king’s.
Words were passed on deathbeds. If Inos could return to Krasnegar in time, her father would tell her the word that had been passed down from Inisso. More and more, Rap was becoming convinced that Darad would revert to Andor, and Andor would seek out Inos at Kinvale. He would use his occult charm upon her to win her trust, then accompany her back to Krasnegar. She must be told about her father, but she must also be warned against Andor.
He had gained a week while Rap was a prisoner at Raven Totem. He might be gaining time now if he were already over the mountains, beyond the storm’s reach. As soon as the weather cleared, Rap would tell Little Chicken to increase the pace again. Somehow he must keep up.
The weather cleared at last. The journey resumed and became more than an endurance test. Now it was a contest. The runs became longer, the rests shorter. Little Chicken would offer the challenge, and Rap would stubbornly accept. He ran until blood flowed from his nostrils and life was an endless torment of pain and exhaustion.
It was madness. With his farsight, Rap was incredibly sure-footed, but if Little Chicken sprained an ankle, the two of them would die in the wilderness. They both knew that. Rap was not going to admit that he was in any way inferior to the goblin. But he was, as Little Chicken could demonstrate with no apparent effort. Rap’s supernatural abilities he merely ignored, so that they did not count. Day by day he raised the wager. Day by day Rap would call his raise. He despised himself for it, but he could not stop. He had cheated the goblin out of the opportunity to torture him—so now he was torturing himself. The agonies might not be quite so severe, although at times that seemed debatable, but they went on longer—much, much longer, day after agonizing day.
The harder Rap tried, the more amusing the goblin seemed to find him… and the harder he tried.
Then one night, Rap thought he saw his chance. It had been the worst run yet—as they all seemed to be—and he reeled on his feet as he gathered firewood. The goblin allowed him to help with that task now, because his efforts were so obviously inferior.
Suddenly, through the blur of fatigue and pain, Rap sensed movement within his range. He straightened, searched, and decided that it was a small deer. Calling for silence, he sent Fleabag out to circle beyond the doe and then drive it. Puzzled but impassive, Little Chicken squatted down, watching without a word. Rap strung his bow, notched an arrow, and waited, trembling with exhaustion and mental effort, carefully tracking his quarry’s approach. The deer burst through the trees where he knew it would, at easy range. He shot.
He missed.
Without seeming to hurry at all, Little Chicken rose, lifted the bow from Rap’s hand, stooped to pick up an arrow, aimed, shot, and unerringly nailed down their supper just before it vanished into the trees. He handed the bow back with a smile that showed more enamel than any human mouth should contain.