Gull wanted to spit. He was being treated like a moron. So why didn't he wallop this wizard?
The wizard worked. One hand on the stump, he consulted the book chained to his belt, muttered an arcane phrase Gull didn't catch.
Then, a miracle.
The wound healed.
Red raw muscles coiled like snakes, knit together like yarn. Rotted flesh sloughed off like sunburn. The jagged bone smoothed to a blunt end. Then, like frost creeping across a windowpane, skin from the edge flowed until meat and bone were covered, pink and smooth as Liko's bald heads.
Gawking, Gull touched the healed stump. A miracle had occurred before his eyes. Yet he recalled "You said it would grow back. All you've done is sear the stump shut."
"Things take time." The wizard sighed. "First comes healing, then rebuilding. If a house falls down, you first must clear away the rubble, true?"
Gull ground his teeth. Everything this wizard said reminded of his village's destruction.
But again, the wizard rambled, deflecting Gull's anger. "His arm will regrow, because I have commanded it so. Once back in his native land, he'll be more at ease, so will heal faster."
The woodcutter laid a hand on Liko's huge arm. "Are you sure you know his native land? Yellow-bellied sea gulls might be common to many shores. He could end up stranded as far from his home as he's stranded here."
"You know little of magic. A creature conjured from a familiar place retains an impression of it, as a man walking through snow leaves footprints that point to his starting place." He turned. "Liko, will you go home?"
Looking wise as an ancient sage, twice so with two heads, the giant nodded. "Yes. I go home. Fish."
"You'll have fish aplenty," smiled the wizard. He walked to the giant's feet, placed long fine hands on the big dirty toes. "Then go, and heal quickly."
Before Gull could say good-bye, or even wave, the giant twinkled like foxfire under moonlight, or snow in a campfire, or rain -and was gone.
The wizard turned with open hands. "There. I've healed your big friend and sent him home. Do I side with good or evil?"
A quote from his cynical father came to Gull's mind. A man can help others a little and still help himself a lot.
The wizard took his silence for assent. "I'm glad we agree. Because I'd like to hire you."
"Are you mad? Work for a wizard? One of the godless fiends who destroyed my home and wiped out my family?"
Gull cast about for his axe. He'd been right all along: he should have butchered this smooth-talking fop when he first walked into camp. (But he'd tried, a thought nagged, and had fallen down.)
"I can't believe your gall! Me work for you? I'd no more trust a wizard than a broken-backed snake! I wish the gods would wipe every wizard from the Domains. That would be the end to all misery…"
When he drew a breath, the man in stripes huffed. "Look, I've explained all that. I'm for good works and you can help me. Now try to listen, please?"
As Gull subsided, the wizard regained his tree stump, sat primly, and continued. "My freightmaster is dead. When we circle the wagons, we put the horses outside lest they panic and bolt. My freightmaster wouldn't leave the beasts, and was killed by a fireball. I have no one to handle my teams. I saw your mules, fine animals, well cared for and content. You'd make a good freighter, or muleskinner or wrangler or whatever you prefer to be called.
"Look around. You have no reason to stay here-a haunted wood with a helpless sister to watch. Join me and I'll pay well-"
Suspicious, Gull demanded, "How know you of my sister?"
A hand waved the question away. "I gather information. I always learn what I can about a place, and who's in it, to know what I'm defending. I saw you caught in the battle-and again, I apologize-and save your sister. It was brave how you sheltered her, and showed brains. I need a man like that.
"I'll pay in gold, two crowns a day, and board is included. You can travel and be paid for it. You can squirrel away a fortune, find some new place to settle." He laughed. "Work for me for three years and you can buy a village!"
Flustered by this strange offer, Gull stalled to think. He sat on his rock, stirred the fire with a stick. "Where does a seeker of truth and knowledge find so much gold?"
Another hand waved that away. "In seeking magic, venturing where few will or can, I uncover whole fortunes. Sometimes more than I can bother with. Oftimes I barter the money to locals for more folklore, clues to more knowledge and magicks. Not something you need fret about. My followers can sink their teeth in my coin. Now. What's your answer?"
Another of Brown Bear's comments rose to mind. Sleep on any bargain. Time enough to make mistakes. More to his dead father than himself, Gull replied, "I need consider. I'll give my reply in the morning."
"Wise." The wizard nodded. "Very wise. You'll make a fine freighter. Smarter than poor dead Gorman. Come at dawn if you come at all. We leave shortly after." He rose to go, stripes shimmering in the firelight.
"Wait," called Gull. "If I come, I must bring my sister. I'm charged with minding her."
The wizard smiled. "You're good to animals and people alike. She may come along. Likely she'll eat little. I bid you good-night, and hope to see you in the morn."
Stripes rippling like flames, he faded into the dark.
Gull sat thinking a long time, his first real chance to consider the future. Only the crackling fire kept him company. Greensleeves had curled up like a cat to nap.
Should they go or no? Could they stay here?
No, for many reasons. They had no grain, no stores, and the Whispering Woods did not abound in game. They'd soon exhaust it if they camped here. Just as the plague rats in the village would eventually exhaust its food, then move into the woods like a rapacious black army. And if plague and starvation didn't kill them, winter's cold would.
For himself, he almost didn't care. But he had to care for Greensleeves.
And there was another advantage. By staying close to this wizard, he might eventually meet up with the other wizard, the woman with glossy hair. Then, though he couldn't see how, he'd take revenge for the ravaging of White Ridge.
A nagging doubt returned: what if Sparrow Hawk returned? Yet in his heart, Gull knew the boy was lost, probably forever.
Having decided to leave, Gull felt like an uprooted tree. Alive, but dying slowly, hardening and rotting at the same time.
And that was another thing he'd forgotten to ask.
Where were they bound?
Come the dawn, two humans, two mules, and two centaurs left the Whispering Woods and tripped toward a circle of wagons on a ridge above a ruined village.
Gull had yoked his mules to his wood-hauling sledge and piled it with tools: two saws, two axes, a hammer, files and whetstones, a haversack, a redware jug, his longbow and arrows, a cloak for bad weather. He walked in his leather tunic and kilt and wooden clogs, and that was all he owned.
With him came Greensleeves, who owned a ragged gown and shawl and nothing else, not even shoes, for she'd always lost any pairs given her. A bundle of ferns was clutched in one grubby hand. An ash leaf dotted her messy brown hair, and her brother plucked it away. Their mother had always tidied her hair, but now they lacked even a comb.
The centaurs wore full battle armor, but no warpaint, and carried their lances upright so the feathers fluttered in the morning breeze.
No one talked, though they'd discussed long into the night.
Helki and Holleb had agreed that, while there were countless stories of ruthless wizards, there were also stories where they befriended heroes and helped to save the day. So the striped wizard-whose name Gull hadn't learned-might well be a harmless student. It might benefit to work for him.
Yet the centaurs couldn't discuss much, for they were too eager. They marched, eight feet in time, with heads high, but skittish as colts at first snow.