The wizard's entourage watched them come. As he limped across the mossy ledges, Gull studied back. The wagons were fairly new, brightly painted, the canvas yellowed but tight. The camp was neat, free of rubbish and food scraps, even sported a canvas screen around a cat hole privy downwind. The wizard didn't allow slovenliness.
Only the horses and mules tethered to the picket line looked neglected. Gull frowned at shabby coats, matted tails, overgrown hooves, and dull eyes. He was suddenly glad the freighter had been killed-he deserved it.
Seven men and more women ate breakfast in the circle. A fat cook sweated over a grill. After two days of forest fodder, the aroma of pancakes and honey made Gull's stomach squeak.
A large dark man in black leather called into a wagon, and the striped wizard popped out, smiling. He hopped over a wagon tongue and raised both hands.
"My friends! Good to see you this fine morning! Come, come! Join us! Have you eaten?"
Gull clucked his mules to a halt, stopped Greensleeves from chasing a butterfly. The centaurs stamped as if clicking heels.
"Business before we break bread," said the woodcutter. "I've pondered your offer, and we will hire on. I can see your stock need care, and Greensleeves will be no trouble. But I do ask one boon."
Having won, the wizard smiled like a king. "I'll do my best, sir. What may I grant?"
Gull waved a hand. "These be Helki and Holleb. They were summoned here by the brown-robed wizard and stranded. If you could see fit-"
"To send them home, as I did the giant?" A smile. By daylight, the wizard looked more boyish than ever, not unlike the lost Sparrow Hawk. "I'd be delighted. I've already sent some-home this morn. My bodyguards caught goblins raiding our larder. Returning them to their blighted wastes will be punishment enough. I sent home that crippled clockwork, too. I hope whoever owns it can repair it."
That was curious, Gull thought idly. How could he know whence the beast came? Had it a brain? Had it talked?
"Now, may I ask…"
The centaur-soldiers described their green steppelands north of the Honeyed Sea. The wizard asked many questions, listed foreign names by the score, until he mentioned Broken Toe Mountain. The centaurs fairly danced in place. "Yes, we know that mount! Is close to home! You have been there?"
The wizard smiled in answer. Without further ado, (or payment, Gull noted), he laid hands on their breastplates. They shied at the strange touch, but the wizard shushed them and whispered a spell.
Yet Helki bleated and backed off. Flustered, she tripped sideways to Gull. "We go. But we thank for hospitality. We remember always as friend."
"I too," said Gull, choked. It hurt to say good-bye again after losing so much. "I'm sorry I doubted your- honor."
Greensleeves caressed the centaur's glossy roan flank, offered her ferns. Distracted, Helki took the bunch.
"It's good you go home," Gull said. "It's important to have a… home…"
Tears leaking from under her helmet, Helki saluted with her lance and cantered to the wizard, who smiled like a doting grandfather. With laid-on hands, a whisper, and a twinkle like dawn starlight, the centaurs disappeared.
The wizard dusted his hands, satisfied. He patted Greensleeves's tousled head, shook Gull's hand. "I'm glad you've joined us. We need you. And welcome your sister and her gentle ways. Come, break your fast. Then you can meet the stock. As you say, they need attention."
"But how are you called?" Gull asked. "How shall I address you?"
A shrug. "We're not much on formality. I'm younger than most of you, so it'd be silly to go by 'Master.' Call me Towser."
"Towser?"
A small smile. "Aye. A name for a small dog. My father was a joker. And so is his son, sometimes."
So it was that, two hours later, Gull hitched horses and mules where the cook's boy pointed. He cinched harness and tugged straps, pronounced the teams ready. His own mules were hitched before another team to the chuck wagon. Gull rode the box with Greensleeves alongside. Inside, the cook and slops boy went back to sleep amidst boxes and sacks and barrels.
Gull clucked, got his team rolling. Others wheeled behind. Towser was fuzzy on their destination, simply ordered them into the Whispering Woods at the first gap that would take wagons.
As the wagon rattled along the ridge, Gull didn't look down. There'd be only bones in the valley now.
And he'd never see it again.
CHAPTER 7
For certain, thought Gull as he sawed at the reins, this new job would free his mind from brooding. He suddenly had a thousand new tasks amidst a company of strangers on a strange road through a haunted forest.
Good, he added cantankerously. He'd be too busy to mourn.
The wagon train lurched and bumped through the depths of the Whispering Woods. The trail was not hard. Since the trees were climax forest, so old they hardly grew, they formed a solid canopy that sheltered the leaf and mold floor, depriving brush of sunlight. Only mountain laurel or rhododendron, taller than Gull and wiry, could have slowed them, and they avoided those clumps. Mistletoe hung in curtains from oak trees, but was tender enough to shear. Indeed, the only obstacles were the contours of the land, with its rocky streambeds and drop-offs, kettle holes and ridges.
The biggest obstacle wore on the humans-the ceaseless whispering. Gull and Greensleeves were used to it, but it got on the others' nerves.
The whispering was like the sea, old Wolftooth had said. (And how did he fare? And Seal and the rest?) Or a chorus that hissed, trading secrets and comments, like old women at the fountain or geese overhead. The susurrus bubbled at every hand, here, then there, as if ghosts gibbered behind. But turning and twisting revealed nothing except more squeaking.
The mad whispering had kept everyone from White Ridge away, which was why Brown Bear had been the village woodcutter. Bear had feared nothing, and had dragged his skinny terrified son along, until that boy too was tall and strong, and from a lifetime of felling trees that might crush him, or worse, came to fear almost nothing.
Yet Towser's entourage darted fretful glances at the looming trees and close canopy above, illuminated only by splinters of sunlight, so it always appeared dusk in the wood. Even the scout, a burly man in a fur vest, stayed within sight of the chuck wagon.
And who knew, thought Gull, but that some monster might dash out of the twilight depths. In a morning's ride he'd come deeper than ever into the forest. He'd never seen anything bigger than bears, but he'd seen some strange tracks.
With a "Haw!" he turned the team, driving them up a slope toward the scout atop a low ridge. The mules' shoes bit through leaf cover to strike loam. The wagon wheels slewed sideways, and for a moment Gull thought they might topple. But the team found purchase and the wagon straightened, and so they continued. The scout moved on, hunting the flattest passage northwest. Gull glanced behind. The other drivers followed his ruts and mounted safely.
So far they'd been lucky in finding passage. There might come a time they'd have to push, or lever the wagons up the slope, or fell trees. But that would be later, and they'd solve any problems then.
This was his life now. Freighting wagons and mounts he never knew existed three days ago. The gods surely sent a man odd twists when the whim struck.
What other surprises lay in store?
The wagons-his wagons-were well built, sturdy yet springy, high-wheeled to climb over rocks and ruts, yet narrow as an arm span, long-bodied, sides and ends sloping toward the belly so loads would shift centerward and low. They would not tip easily. There were five wagons altogether, four canvas-topped and one a solid box. Gull drove the chuck wagon, which rattled with iron cooking pots and grills and cranes, boxes of apples and crocks of oil, bags of flour and salt. With him were Greensleeves, the fat cook, and her skinny helper.