Clothahump watched the retreating otter with a maddeningly clinical eye, then spoke to the caster. “By what means?”
Colin looked back at the motionless runes. “Doesn’t say, old one.”
“ ‘Tis garbage, it is!” The otter’s voice rose uncontrollably. “Garbage and a bloody lie!” He was glancing around nervously, as though he expected to be attacked at any moment. “Fakery and trickery, I ought to know. The fat bear’s a con artist. There’s more snow in ‘is spiel than crowns those mountains up ahead. Oh, you’re slick, you* bloated fuzzball” —he sneered at Colin—”real slick. But you can’t fool old Mudge. No one can predict the future. No one! And if anyone could, they wouldn’t do it by dumpin’ a pawful o’ junk on the ground an’ starin’ at it while belching!” He rapped his fist against his chest.
“I’m as ‘ealthy as ever me was, surrounded by me good friends, an’ there’s nothin’ in the world I’m afraid of, nothin’ that can touch me, nothin’ that can—”
He was interrupted by a loud cracking sound. Jon-Tom jumped involuntarily while Dormas backed up fast. Clothahump and Colin did not move. Only Sorbl’s marvelous eyes and reflexes, even though slightly numbed by his daily intake of alcohol, enabled him to react fast enough to shout a warning. He gestured with a wing and yelled, “Look out!”
Mudge whirled, eyes wide. Very few creatures can move as fast as an otter. Even so, he wasn’t fast enough.
The huge, rotten branch fell from near the top of the big fir he’d backed beneath, striking him on the back of the head and landing with a tremendous crash. Broken sub-branches, leaves, and dead twigs went flying in all directions. The fall was loud enough to echo several times off the surrounding hillsides. Everyone rushed toward the fallen otter except Clothahump. The wizard stood close by the rune-caster’s tools and looked on curiously.
“Most interesting,” he murmured to no one in particular.
“I was half inclined to agree with the otter’s charges of fakery, having known a multitude of witches and warlocks, sorcerers and spellsingers, and so-called casters but never one who actually could predict the future.”
“You still don’t!” Jon-Tom yelled joyfully back to him as he bent over the otter’s prone form. Mudge’s feathered cap had been knocked off by the impact. It lay several feet away. Blood stained the fur on the back of the otter’s skull. But appearances, to Jon-Tom’s great relief, were deceiving.
“He’s breathing. Sorbl, your hearing’s better than any of ours.”
The owl nodded and put a pointed ear against the otter’s chest. When he looked up at the rest of them, he was smiling knowingly. “Beating like a celibate’s after a four-day orgy. He’s no more dead than I am.”
“Let me have a look.” Colin slipped both arms under Mudge. Showing off the considerable strength in his compact body, he easily carried the unconscious otter back to where they’d been sitting when the branch had fallen. Jon-Tom hunted through the medicine pack on Dormas’s back and brought out a narrow bottle full of golden liquid.
“Really,” said a distressed Sorbl, smacking his beak, “couldn’t you make do with some of the cheaper brand, Jon-Tom?”
“Sorbl! I’m surprised at you!”
“I mean,” the owl muttered, “it’s not as if he’s dead or anything.”
What a crew, Jon-Tom mused as he bent over the motionless otter and let a few potent drops tumble into the open mouth. Mudge coughed, his body spasmed, a second cough, and he was sitting up sputtering. Jon-Tom was the first thing he saw.
“Wot are you tryin’ to do, mate, drown me? Ohhhh.” Gingerly he touched the back of his head. “Crikey! It feels like somebody dropped a bloomin’ tree on me.”
“Close enough, even if it wasn’t blooming,” Jon-Tom told him. Indeed, the branch that had struck the otter only a glancing blow was bigger in circumference than many of the smaller trees surrounding them.
“Just nicked you, pilgrim.” Colin was inspecting the back of the otter’s head. “Fortunately. Like I said, rune reading’s not a precise art.”
“I’ll give you a dose o’ precise, you walkin’ ‘airball.” He tried to lunge at the koala. The pain in his head held him back. When he touched himself again, his hand came away covered in crimson. “I’m bleedin’ to death while you sit there and lecture me.”
“Quit whining,” Dormas snapped. “Jon-Tom, there are bandages in the bottom of the medicine kit.” He nodded, rummaged around until he located a roll of sterilized linen, then began wrapping it around the otter’s head.
“Ow! Take it easy back there, mate. That’s no steak you’re wrappin’, you know.”
“I’m being as gentle as I can, Mudge.”
“Likely, that is.” He glared at Colin. “I ain’t sure if I buy your whole story, guv’nor, but you’ve scored a point or two in its favor, that’s certain.”
Colin sniffed. “You could have been killed, you poor excuse for a coat. I’d think you’d be giving thanks.”
“You do, do you? If you’re such a hotsy-totsy reader o’ the future, ‘ow come you didn’t see that branch fixin’ to break? ‘Ow do we know you didn’t plan it that way?”
“I don’t care for your implications, pilgrim. That blow’s affected your reasoning. Or maybe it hasn’t. In any case, how could I have known that you’d react to my prediction by retreating right underneath that tree?”
“Use your head, Mudge,” Jon-Tom admonished him.
“Not right now, mate, if you don’t mind. I admit I ain’t figured that one out yet.”
“That’s about enough, water rat,” said Dormas firmly.
“You’re pissing in the wind. Mr. Colin strikes me as a perfect gentleman. We should be glad to have him along.”
“Speak for yourself, four-legs.”
“Mudge, think a minute.” Jon-Tom split the end of the bandage and began knotting it around the otter’s forehead. “If Colin wanted to kill you, he could have laughed at you when the branch hit you on the head. He didn’t. His first reaction was identical to ours: He ran to try to help you.”
“You bloody solicitors are all alike, just stinkin’ of logic an’ reasonableness. I’ve about ‘ad me fill of it—ouch, damn it!”
“If you’d give your mouth a rest, your jaw muscles wouldn’t put so much of a strain on the back of your head.” He tied the knot firmly. “There. I thought that branch might’ve knocked some sense into you. I guess it would take a giant sequoia.”
“What might that be?” Clothahump inquired.
“An extremely large tree that comes from my world. Bigger than anything you’ve ever seen.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Once, in my younger days when I was traveling in southern lands, I—’
“If you don’t mind,” said Mudge, “could we drop the botanical travelogue until we see if me ‘ead’s goin’ to fall off?”
“I do not think we need fear for the integrity of your skull, Mudge, as opposed to, say, its contents.” Clothahump was regarding the injured otter benignly. “As has been demonstrated on more than one occasion, it is unquestionably the strongest part of your anatomy, having both the impermeability and density of solid lead.”
“Right. ‘Ere I lie, wounded near to death, an’ instead o’ sympathy an’ compassion, I get insults.”
“You could be dead, Mudge,” Jon-Tom told him again. “Colin’s reading might have been completely, instead of partially, accurate.”
“Like your spellsingin’. Much more o’ that kind o’ good fortune an’ I’ll save the gods the trouble by cuttin’ me own throat.”
Colin was recovering his runes, packing them just so in the center of the leather square. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have cast and, having cast, should have said nothing.”
“No. It wouldn’t have mattered,” Jon-Tom told him. “And I guess we were all a little bit suspicous of you.”