He didn’t understand why his friends were willing to put themselves into danger to save him, but he couldn’t desert them. He needed to help. Looking around, Garinor reclaimed a fallen branch they had been using as a sword and then he followed the others.
Angry words carried on the air only moments later. Garinor glimpsed around and saw that his friends were crouched behind the mossy boulder and two of the other trees. Not far away were three hunters. Two of them held bows at the ready, with daggers in their belts. The other was a burly swordsman. As he considered it, there had been three arrows in the guard’s chest; he wondered if there was another archer out there somewhere.
One of the archers bent down to the lump of debris and kicked at it with her foot, snarling as she did so.
“Shut up, El,” said the swordsman. “You’re just mad he got away from you. But we’re on his trail again.”
“No thanks to you,” sneered the other archer, a man by the tone of his voice. “We would have gone right by his tracks if you had kept prattling and distracting us.”
He raised his voice. “Now listen here!”
“Shhh,” said the archer called El. “Why don’t you call out, ‘little boy, little boy, here we are!’”
“Enough, both of you,” hissed the male archer. “We don’t know if he’s here, but we know he’s nearby. If we don’t get him here, the others will nab him in the village. So stop with the noise and let’s get on with this.”
Garinor heard them moving through the area and he cringed.
“Stop right there, villains!” called Besfa from behind a tree. He used his deepest voice, but it cracked partway through, not out of fear, but because he was at that age. It was hard for Garinor not to chuckle despite everything.
The three hunters whirled around. An arrow flew through the air and struck Besfa in the arm. He cried out in pain and fell back.
“Besfa!” Garinor shouted, forgetting stealth and rushing the nearest archer, swinging his branch wildly.
Chaos erupted. In panic, Tomli and Marrin saw Garinor’s attack and gave up their own hiding places to deflect the others. The swordsman had turned toward Garinor, the true target, and didn’t notice Tomli, who bravely charged and barreled into the burly man. Tomli managed to knock the swordsman down.
Marrin sprang for the female archer and missed her as she easily sidestepped his lunge. She trained her bow on Garinor again and prepared to launch it.
Garinor was oblivious to the danger as he whacked at the male archer with abandon. The man had dropped his bow and kept his arms tucked tightly over his head. So focused was Garinor in his rage, he didn’t realize he was a clear target. The archer on the ground made no move to get away or to subdue the swinging branch. It left Garinor unprotected.
Marrin hit the ground hard but didn’t stop himself there. He rolled back up to his feet and pounced again. He was a nimble fighter and the others had always joked with him about having more rabbit in him than lion. But jump he did, and as the arrow left the bow, it did not find Garinor’s body as planned, for Marrin caught the shaft instead. He screamed in pain and collapsed. He would not rise again.
The horrible scream broke through Garinor’s rage and he saw Marrin in a heap on the ground, Tomli wrestling with the swordsman, and even Besfa trying to reenter the fight. The anger in the female archer’s face was easy to read. She kicked Marrin’s body aside and nocked another arrow, the fury in her eyes leaving no doubt this arrow would at last find Garinor.
Instinct alone propelled him. He had to get away. His friends weren’t safe if he was there; he could see that now. The hunters would hack them down without a second thought all to get to him. He couldn’t help his friends. He needed to run.
With a swift kick at the male archer underneath him, Garinor turned and ran, as he should have done before. Maybe his friends wouldn’t have been hurt if he had left sooner. But he couldn’t dwell on those thoughts now. The pursuit was renewed.
Garinor was much better suited to flight now. He was in the dry clothes his friend had given him, his feet were protected by Tomli’s shoes, and he knew these woods very well. It wasn’t hard to lead the nasty archer in errant paths. He knew how the sounds could echo from the wrong direction and so he swung his sword-like branch to crack against certain trees, sending off the impression he was headed another way.
He soon realized both archers were after him. The man must have recovered and followed. It wouldn’t be long, therefore, for the swordsman to free himself of Tomli’s grasp and to also give chase. Garinor’s only hope was Tomli would escape unscathed.
Darting to the right, Garinor snaked in and out through a row of closely grown trees. The larger hunters would struggle to make it through that gauntlet, though they could easily run alongside. But that didn’t matter to him right then, because he knew a secret. It was a hiding place he and Tomli had created and had been waiting to spring on the others one day. Today, however, it might save his life.
One of the archers paced him to his left, and the other was several yards behind on the right. He smiled to himself as he neared the end of the row of staggered trees. It was the third from the last one he needed. Just a few more steps. And there he dove to the ground, which must have looked from the outside as if he had tripped because the nearest archer let out a yell of triumph.
But Garinor’s fall had been intentional. He dove down and grabbed for a blanket of branches and leaves he and Tomli had lashed together. On the ground, it seemed like normal forest fallings, but when he lifted it, it looked more like a small raft. However, it was the hole underneath that Garinor sought.
Headfirst, Garinor dove into the darkened hole. The soil was damp and moist, and he held his breath so as not to inhale any of it. With his hands out in front of him, he slid down the muddy chute until he hit a rocky bottom. A narrow cavern awaited where he could only enter standing sideways. Even then, it was hard to press himself through the opening.
He remembered the day Tomli had fallen into the hole and had called for Garinor to follow him. They had been afraid at first upon finding it, and even more afraid of getting stuck in the small crevice. Unwilling to seem scared, however, both of them had put on brave faces and entered the cavern. Their bravado was not without rewards, for after a few yards of cramped progress, the crack opened into a larger rocky cave. It was here the two best friends had come for some time, planning strategies to use on Marrin and Besfa, waiting and wondering when they’d let their friends in on the secret.
The thought of his injured friends brought Garinor up short. This was no time for a reverie. He needed to move. He doubted either of the men would be able to fit through the crack, but the woman archer might. He couldn’t waste time.
The cavern was pitch dark and he couldn’t see anything. He didn’t need to, though. He knew where it led. Keeping his left hand on the wall, Garinor followed it all the way. He stumbled several times on things he couldn’t see, but it didn’t matter. This was his only chance to get away.
No sounds echoed through the cavern from behind him and after nearly half an hour of marching through the lightless cave, Garinor finally started to feel as if he had escaped. He didn’t slow his pace, however, knowing he needed to come out into the open soon and find a more reasonable shelter.
Something scurried across his ankle and he gasped. He had forgotten about the creatures that shared this place. Before, when he and Tomli had explored these depths, they had carried torches with them. The vermin scattered from the light as if it hurt them, but now there was nothing to keep them away.
Not wanting to harm them, Garinor started to shuffle his feel forward instead of taking proper steps. This kept him from accidentally stepping on one of the animals. It felt very strange to be wading through a small stream of living creatures, though there weren’t many of them. They seemed to like having a visitor, however, since they kept crowding around him.
It was some time later before Garinor felt the ground start to slope upward. He had been waiting for that, because then the other end was near. The cavern would narrow again and he would need to squeeze his way out just as he had gotten in, but then he would be free.
Ahead of him, sunlight beamed through a veil of vines in a jagged line. His destination was very close. When he finally reached the exit and gave his eyes a chance to adjust to the daylight, Garinor let out an enormous sigh of relief.
Slowly, he crept out of the cavern wall. He ensured the vines were pushed back where they belonged, hiding the entrance he never would have found from this end. He stopped and surveyed the area. A grassy knoll stretched before him. Behind him was the rock wall from which he had emerged. To the southwest, he could see the smoke from the far away smithy in town. To the north, he pretended he could see the distant castle where all his answers awaited.
Garinor couldn’t let his relief take full hold of him. He knew the hunters wouldn’t give up the search so quickly. He needed to figure out what to do next. His stomach rumbled in hunger and his body ached with exhaustion. He needed a rest.
Garinor should ignore his body’s protests and head toward the castle in the north.
Garinor should venture to the grassy knoll and seek a place to rest a while.