Erik put his hand against his friend’s shoulder and rested a moment as he sniffed the air. ‘Charcoal.’
‘That’s it!’
‘There must be a charcoal burner’s hut upwind.’
‘It might mask our scent,’ said Roo. ‘I know we can’t go much farther. You’ve got to rest, get your strength back.’
Erik only nodded, and Roo assisted him as they moved toward the source of the smoke. Through light woods they stumbled as the sound of the dogs grew louder by the minute. Erik and Roo were not woodsmen, but as boys they had played in the woodlands near Ravensburg enough to know those searching for them were less than a couple of miles behind and coming fast.
The woods thickened and grew more difficult to navigate, darker shadows confusing their sense of direction, but the smell of burning wood grew stronger. By the time they reached the hut, their eyes stung from it.
An old woman, ugly beyond belief, stood tending a charcoal kiln, feeding small cuts of wood into it, banking flames as she ensured the wood burned down properly; too hot, and she’d have ashes.
Seeing the two young men suddenly appear out of the gloom, she shrieked and almost dove inside the rude hut beside which her kiln rested. The shrieking continued and Roo said, ‘She’ll bring them down on us if this keeps up.’
Erik tried to raise his voice over her shouting. ‘We mean you no harm.’
The shrieking continued, and Roo added his protestation of no evil intent to Erik’s. The woman continued to shriek. Finally Erik said, ‘We had best leave.’
‘We can’t,’ answered Roo. ‘You’re on your last legs now.’ He said nothing about the wound, which continued to weep blood, despite the rags pressed against it.
Stumbling down a small incline to the charcoal burner’s hut, they confronted a simple piece of hide that served as a door.
Erik leaned his weight against the mud-covered wall and pulled aside the leather door. The woman huddled back against the bale of rags that served as her bedding, shrieking all the more.
Erik finally shouted, ‘Woman! We mean you no harm!’
Instantly the shouting ceased. ‘Well,’ she answered. her voice as raspy as a wire brush on metal, ‘why didn’t you say something?’
Erik almost laughed, he felt so light-headed and giddy. Roo said, ‘We were trying to, but you kept screaming.’
Getting up off the rags, showing a surprising nimbleness for her age and weight – easily as much as Erik’s and he stood a good foot and a half taller than she – the woman stepped out of the hut.
Roo reflexively stepped back. She was the ugliest human being he had ever encountered, if indeed she was human. From her appearance, she could possibly be one of those trolls he had heard about that haunted the woodlands of the Far Coast. Her nose was a lumpy red protrusion, resembling a large tuber, with one big wart on the tip of it, from which several long hairs grew. Her eyes could only be called piggish, and they wept from some sort of inflammation. Her teeth were blackened stumps with green edges, and her breath was as foul as anything Roo had remembered smelling that wasn’t dead. Her skin looked like dried leather, and he shuddered to consider what her body under that assortment of filthy rags might resemble.
Then she smiled and the effect was heightened. ‘Come to pay old Gert a visit, have you?’ She tried to be girlish as she combed her fingers through grey hair tangled with straw and dirt, and had the boys not been so tired and frightened, they would have laughed. ‘Well, my man is gone to the city, so maybe –’
‘My friend is hurt,’ interrupted Roo.
Suddenly the old woman’s manner changed again as she caught the sound of the dogs on the wind. ‘King’s men are hunting you?’
Roo thought about lying, but Erik said, ‘Yes.’
Roo said, ‘Baron’s men, really.’
‘Same thing. Soldiers.’ She spat the last word. ‘Well, you’d better hide.’ She motioned for them to enter the tiny hut. ‘They won’t find you in there.’
Roo helped Erik into the hut and gagged at the stench. Erik’s eyes watered and he gasped, ‘I thought Tyndal’s room was bad.’
Roo said, ‘Try breathing through your mouth.’
Gert knelt down next to Erik and said, ‘Let me look at that,’ motioning to his bloodstained shoulder.
Erik pulled aside his tunic and the rags. The rags pulled the skin where blood had dried and he gasped in pain. Gert probed at the wound with a filthy finger and said, ‘Sword wound. Seen a hundred of them. Swollen around it. Got the hot sickness in it. Going to kill you, boy, if we don’t clean it out. You got a strong stomach?’ she asked Roo.
He nodded, swallowing hard. ‘I’m here and haven’t thrown up yet, haven’t I?’
‘Ha!’ She almost cackled as she laughed. ‘There’s more to you than meets the eye, Roo Avery.’ She rose up as high as the low floor permitted and said, ‘I have just the thing to put you right. Be back in a jiffy.’
Roo lay back, glad to be resting despite the stench of the hut. He glanced around; enough gaps in the wall permitted light to enter, and he saw what looked to be a water jar with a long neck. He moved the clay vessel and heard a promising sound of liquid. Pulling the cork, he sniffed and got no odor. He sipped and was rewarded with fresh water. Drinking a huge mouthful, he suddenly realized he was ignoring his sick friend.
He put the neck of the jar to Erik’s lips and he drank several mouthfuls, then sank back into the pile of rags. A fly began to buzz around Roo’s head and he absently swatted at it.
Erik drifted off into a difficult slumber, his fatigue overwhelming his fear. His breathing came heavily, and perspiration continued to pour off his brow.
Roo tried to relax, wondering if they could trust this strange old woman but knowing that further flight was next to hopeless. Then suddenly there was the sound of barking nearby, and Gert’s shriek cut the air.
Erik came awake with a start at the sound. ‘What …?’ he began, but Roo grabbed his arm.
Dogs could be heard barking nearby and Gert shouted, ‘Shoo! Away with you!’
Then horses approached and the boys heard Gert shout, ‘Get these miserable curs away! They’ll be bitin’ old Gert in a minute.’
A commanding voice said, ‘Have you seen two men, one large and blond, the other short and dark?’
‘And if I did, what’s it to you?’
‘They’re wanted for murder.’
‘Murder, is it?’ There was a long pause, punctuated by the sounds of the dogs sniffing the area and the occasional odd yelp of inquiry. ‘What’s the reward?’
Erik felt Roo’s hand tighten on his arm at that, and the answer was, ‘The Baron’s offered one hundred golden sovereigns for their arrest.’
‘That’s a tidy bit, isn’t it?’ said Gert. ‘Well, I haven’t seen them, but if I do, I’ll want the gold.’
‘Check inside the hut,’ ordered the leader.
‘Here, now!’ Gert began to protest.
‘Stand aside, old woman.’
Erik backed away, trying as hard as he could to push himself backward through the dirt wall, while Roo drew the ragged, filthy blanket up below his chin.
The leather door was swept aside, and the light was almost blinding after the darkness. ‘What a stench!’ said the soldier, drawing back.
‘Go on,’ commanded the leader of the troop.