Avner threw himself to the ground and crawled behind a boulder. Basil stepped behind a tree next to Tavis. They peered down the ravine, their eyes searching the maze of gray bark for some sign of movement.
"I don't see anything." Avner whispered.
Neither did Tavis. Save for a few pine boughs swaying gently in the wind, the wood was as still as ice. The scout raised his eyes toward the forest canopy, just in case the ogres were employing the same trick they had used on Coggin's Rise. He saw nothing in the green needles, not so much as a lurking squirrel or the silhouette of a frightened porcupine. The brutes could hide well enough on the ground, but even they were not so stealthy they could move through the treetops without leaving some sign. If there had been any warriors lurking among the branches, the scout would have seen signs: broken limbs, overturned nests, clawed bark, or something similar.
"Perhaps you were mistaken," Basil suggested. "This forest is empty."
"Too empty." Tavis said. "Listen."
Basil cocked his head to one side, then shrugged his shoulders. "I don't hear anything."
"Me either!" Avner said. "I don't hear any singing birds."
"Or chattering squirrels, or whistling rockchucks," Tavis said. "We aren't alone here."
Basil began to fumble through his shoulder satchel. "How much time do we have?"
"Not enough for you to draw a rune," Tavis answered. The ogres are fairly near, or those deer wouldn't have passed so close to us."
Avner swallowed hard. "So we have to fight?"
"Not yet," Tavis replied. "If we let the ogres pick the battle site, we're doomed."
"Then how do we escape?" Basil asked.
Tavis glanced up the ravine. He did not see any ogres ahead, but that, of course, was not as telling as the fact that the doe had turned into the side gully. Besides, if Goboka had sent a pack of warriors to sneak up from behind them, it seemed likely the shaman had also sent a second party to block their route, and the curve ahead was just the place to set such an ambush.
"They intend to drive us like game. The beaters will come from that direction." Tavis pointed down the ravine. "They'll try to chase us into an ambush just around that bend." The scout pointed up the gully at the curve.
"That's no answer to my question." Basil said, irritated. "How do we escape?"
Tavis was about to tell the verbeeg to run for the side gulch, but stopped when the distant crack of a snapping branch sounded from somewhere down the ravine. A faint metallic chime instantly followed the noise, then the forest fell silent again.
Basil stepped from behind his tree. "Ogres don't trip over sticks, and they don't wear armor," he said. "That was an earl."
"No doubt. But that doesn't mean I was wrong. The ogre beaters are still behind us. Morten and the earls are behind them." The scout pointed to where a loutish silhouette with a jutting chin and floppy ears had just slipped from behind the gray trunk of a huge pine.
Basil looked over his shoulder just in time to see the figure rush down the ravine a few noiseless steps, then vanish from sight behind another tree. The verbeeg's face paled, and he quickly returned to his own cover.
"It's not as bad as it seems," Tavis said. "We're almost out of their range."
Ogre bows were powerful enough by human standards, but they were no match for Bear Driller. Although the brutes were certainly strong enough to pull a bow as large as the scout's, they placed their faith in stealth and poison, and therefore preferred smaller weapons that were easier to fire in the tight hiding places from which they so often ambushed their prey. It was a strategy that worked well enough against unwitting opponents, but it had disadvantages in open combat.
"Being almost out of range isn't very reassuring," Basil said. "I'd much prefer to be entirely out of range."
"Me, too," Tavis agreed. "We'll run for it. I'll go a few paces up the ravine, then turn around to cover you."
"Turn around?" Avner hissed. "You'll be presenting your back to the ambushers up ahead!"
"I've got to present it to somebody. Besides, the ambushers will hold their attack until the beaters drive all three of us into close range," he explained. "You two move together. Dodge between trees and don't waste time looking back."
With that, the scout darted two dozen erratic steps up the ravine, changing directions each time he passed a tree, until he heard the soft thump of an ogre arrow striking a nearby pine. Had the range not been so great the shaft would be lodged in his head instead of the bole. He stepped behind a tree, then drew his own bowstring back and looked down the gully. There was no sign of the ogre who had fired at him.
"Now!" Tavis yelled.
Basil and Avner leaped out and charged up the ravine together for perhaps five steps, then split and took cover behind two separate trees. The ogres did not show themselves, though Tavis knew they were watching.
Basil left his cover first, moving two trees toward Avner, then changing his course and rushing in the opposite direction. The young thief followed. When both were in the open, three ogre beaters slipped from their hiding places and drew their bowstrings.
Tavis fired and pulled another arrow from his quiver. His first shaft struck home before his foes could release their volley, ripping through an ogre's shoulder and whirling him around. The brute howled in agony and released his shot into the air, then hit the ground with a gaping hole where the scout's large arrow had passed through his body.
The bowstrings of the two surviving ogres hummed. Their black arrows came arcing through the forest, the brutes having raised their aim to compensate for the distance. The fate of their companion had clearly disturbed them, for both shafts wobbled through the air with all the grace of pheasants in flight. The scout released his second shot. The string of his mighty bow pulsed with a loud, basal throb, and his arrow streaked away, passing beneath the two ogre shafts in midflight. One of the poisoned arrows dropped a full ten paces shy of its target, while the other careened harmlessly past Avner's head.
Tavis's arrow, driven by a much more powerful bow, struck in the next instant. The shaft tore through its target's stomach, moving with such velocity that it did not even knock him off his feet. The astonished brute simply dropped his weapons and reached for the hole that had suddenly appeared in his abdomen.
Without waiting to see him fall, Tavis nocked his third arrow. By the time he raised it to fire, the last ogre had ducked behind cover and was no longer a target. The scout waited for Avner and Basil to hide again, then turned and darted up the ravine toward the side gully.
This time, Tavis made it clear to the bend before a chorus of bowstrings sounded down the ravine. He threw himself over the trunk of a toppled pine, crashing through its brown-needled boughs. He looked out from beneath the tree and saw a half dozen black shafts drop several paces short of his hiding place.
Tavis rose to his knees and lifted his arrow over the tree, but he was too slow to find a target. He saw nothing but a handful of gray blurs as the ogres ducked behind their cover.
"Come on!" Tavis yelled. He knew that he was now within range of the ogre ambushers lurking behind the band, so he stayed low and listened carefully for any noises that suggested they were moving to attack earlier than he expected.
Basil and Avner rushed forward, crossing and recrossing paths as they ran up the ravine. This time, none of their foes were foolish enough to expose themselves to Tavis's arrows. The scout began to hope he and his friends might escape into the side gully unscathed, then somewhere up the ravine, an ogre ambusher made the uncharacteristic mistake of stepping on a loose stone.