"Yet when Snoopy told us the quickest and the easiest way, you did not contradict or correct him."
"The goblin was right," said Andrew. "This is the easiest way. If it is also the safest, we shall see."
They followed a small valley, heavily wooded. The brook, which had its origin in the spring near Andrew's cave, brawled and chattered along a rocky streambed.
As the valley broadened out, they came upon a few small homesteads, some burned to the ground, others with a few blackened timbers or a chimney standing. Crops that had ripened lay in swaths upon the ground, the heavy heads of grain beaten down by rain and wind. Fruit trees had been chopped down.
Ghost had not put in an appearance, although on several occasions Duncan thought he glimpsed him flitting through the trees on the hillside above the valley.
"Have you seen anything of Ghost?" he asked Andrew. "Is he with us?"
"How should I know," grumbled the hermit. "Who is there to know what a ghost would do?"
He clumped along, fuming, striking his staff angrily against the ground.
"If you don't want to be here, why don't you go back?" Duncan asked.
"I may not like it," said Andrew, "but this is the first chance I've had to be a soldier of the Lord. If I don't grasp it now, I may never have the chance again."
"As you wish," said Duncan.
At noon they halted for a brief rest and something to eat.
"Why don't you ride the horse?" Andrew asked Duncan. "If I had a horse I would save my feet."
"I'll ride him when the time comes to do so."
"And when will that be?"
"When the two of us can work together as a fighting unit. He's not a saddle horse; he's a war-horse, trained to fight. He'll fight with me or without me."
Andrew grumbled. He'd been grumbling ever since they had started out.
Conrad said, "I like it not. Too quiet."
"You should be glad of that," said Andrew.
"Tiny would have let us know if anyone were about," said Duncan.
Conrad placed the head of his club against the ground, gouging the soil with it.
"They know we're here," he said. "They are waiting someplace for us."
When they took up the march again, Duncan found that he was inclined to be less watchful than he had been when they started in the morning. Despite the occasional burned homestead and the general absence of life, the valley, which grew wider and less wild as they progressed, had a sense of peace and beauty. He upbraided himself at those times when he realized he had become less alert, but a few minutes later he would fall into inattentiveness. After all, he told himself, Tiny was scouting out ahead. If there was anything around, he would let them know.
When he did snap back to attention, he found himself glancing at the sky rather than at the surrounding hills, and it took him a little time to realize that he was watching for Diane and her griffin. Where could she have gone, he wondered, and perhaps more important, why had she gone? And who could she be? Given the time, he would have tried to find out about her, but there had been no time. The puzzling thing about it all was her interest in Wulfert, a wizard centuries dead, with gray-blue lichens growing on his tomb. More than likely it had been Wulfert's bauble and not Wulfert himself that she had been seeking, although he had no proof of that. He felt the outline of the bauble, which he had thrust into his belt pouch. It made sense, he told himself, that it was the bauble she had been seeking. Wulfert's bones could be of no use to anyone. Perhaps if he really got down to business and examined the bauble, he might be able to pick up some clue to its purpose. Although, he thought, he would be a poor one to do that. An infernal machine, Andrew had called it. Although that could be discounted, for it was the kind of reaction to be expected of the hermit. Should it be a machine, as the hermit had said, infernal or otherwise, he, Duncan Standish, knew nothing of machines. For that matter, he thought, comforting himself, neither did many other people.
Head down, thinking, he ran into Beauty's rear end. Startled, he backed away and the little burro, cocking her head to glance backward at him, unloosed a playful kick that caught him in the knee. It was a light kick, with little power behind it.
Everyone had stopped, he saw, and was staring down the valley. Coming toward them, hobbling, limping and complaining loudly, was an old woman. Behind her, shagging her along, came Tiny.
Conrad said proudly, "Tiny's got him something."
No one else said anything. Duncan walked forward to join Conrad.
The old woman came up to them and flopped down on the ground in a sitting position, pulling her rags about her. She was a hag. Her nose was sharp and pointed, with hairs like spiderlegs growing out of it. More hairs sprouted on her chin. She had no more than half a dozen teeth, and her gray hair hung about her eyes.
"Call off your hound," she shrilled at them. "He drove me like a cow. Gentlemanly about it, I must say. He took no chunks of flesh out of this poor body, as I suppose he could have. But he routed me out of that foul nest I call my home and herded me up the valley. And I don't like it. I don't like being herded. If I had a tithe of the power I once had, I would have frazzled him. But now I have no power. They took all the things I had got together-the owl's blood, the bat's brains, the eyes of newts, the skin of toad, ash from a fire in which a witch had burned, the tooth of a dog that had bitten a priest…"
"Hold up, grandmother," said Duncan. "Who took this great hoard from you?"
"Why, the Harriers," she said. "Not only did they take them, but they laughed at me gruesomely. Yes, that is how they laughed at me-gruesomely. Then they kicked my big butt out of there and set the torch to my humble hut."
"You are lucky," Andrew told her, "that they didn't hang you or toss you in the blaze."
She spat with disgust upon the ground. "The brutes!" she said. "The bullies! And I almost one of them. Almost of their own. They shamed me, that's what they did. They said, short of saying it, that I was not worth a length of rope or the disturbance of the fire."
"You should be glad they shamed you," Andrew said. "Shame is a preferable alternative to death."
"I had worked so hard," she lamented, "and for so many years. I tried hard to build a professional reputation as a witch upon whom my clients could depend. I studied the cabala and I practiced-I practiced endlessly to perfect my art. I worked hard and sought endlessly for materials needed in my craft. I hate to think of the midnight hours I spent in graveyards, seeking out the various kinds of grave mold…."
"You tried hard to be a witch," said Conrad.
"Laddy, that I did. I was an honest witch. An honest witch and there are not too many honest witches. Evil, perhaps. A witch must have some evil in her. Otherwise she would not be a witch. Evil, but honest."
She looked at Duncan.
"And now, sir, should you wish to run that great sword through me…"
"I would not think of it," said Duncan. "Through another witch, perhaps, but not an honest witch."
"What do you intend to do with me? Since your dog brought me here, what will you do with me?"
"Feed you, for one thing," said Duncan. "That is, if you are in need of food. You look as if you might be. Why should not one be courteous to an honest witch who has fallen on hard times?"
"You'll regret the courtesy," Andrew said to Duncan. 'Pool around with witches and some of the witchery is bound to rub off on you."
"But this one is scarcely a witch any longer," protested Duncan. "You heard her say so. She has lost all her paraphernalia. She has not a thing to work with."
Tiny had sat down and was regarding her quizzically. He acted as if he thought she belonged to him.
"Get that horrid beast away from me," said the witch. "Although he hides it in a seeming humor, he has a wicked eye."