Chapter 6

  Grumpy from the water that had relentlessly dripped on his face all night but too lazy to move, Mort awoke to the smell of campfire smoke not far away.

  Emerging into the forest from his cave, he leaned against the stone face just outside the opening to drop his britches and relieve himself. His filth would be left where it fell.

  Mort was not a big man, although his stench would convince you otherwise.

  Covered in boils from his lack of hygiene, and with only a handful of rotten teeth in his head, his smell terrorized the local wildlife.

  Mort picked up his battered sword that he had taken off a man he killed many years ago. The sword’s edge had stayed unsharpened since then, its blade badly rusted, and the leather left to rot on its hilt. He turned down the river to check the traps and campsites he had painstakingly built along the stream and the forest’s myriad paths. These inviting camps were often used by the traders traveling between the small villages scattered around Eshly.

  The campsites appeared tidy and well used but each of them offered a false sense of safety and security to lure the weary into stopping for the night and becoming Mort’s prey. Food, money, women, and children were all of Mort's favorite things.

  Unwary travelers never suspected that a monster could lurk nearby but Mort’s hunger had never been sated with food alone.

  His hunger, his appetite, was for violence and destruction as much as for food.

  He checked the first trap and found it was empty. There was no evidence of its use for a long time. Mort was not discouraged, as the smell of a smoldering fire hung in the air.

  One of his traps had been sprung.

  As he neared the second trap, he could see the light from a small fire through the trees. He crept closer and settled to the ground to watch and study his prey; he didn’t want to spook the animals and risk them getting away. Mort listened carefully, able to hear the nervous chatter from two young girls and the cough of someone who was dying. He heard weakness, prey.

  A near toothless grin cracked across his face. He would be entertained and fed tonight.

  His stealth honed from years of thievery and murder, he crept closer to the unsuspecting campers. The flickering firelight provided him with a look at his quarry for the first time as he approached the trap. A sick old man and two girls, just as he’d thought. Excitement, with a touch of disappointment, crossed his face. The girls were older than he would have preferred. And the travelers appeared to have little of value with them.

  Mort shrugged the disappointment off.

  They would still be entertaining.

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  ***

  The well-used fire pit reflected the warmth from the rocks and slowly swept the chill from the girls. The sun set behind the rocks and cast the whole campsite into heavy shade, which caused a struggle between the crisp bite in the air and the fire's warmth. Glem lay close to the fire as he tried to fight the chill, but he struggled against the fever that was slowly burning him up inside. Rues brewed a fresh pot of willow bark tea to help bring down his temperature.

  “Alyra, come help me. We have to get him to drink as much of the tea as we can,” Rues said, worried that it might be too late and terrified that he might be dying.

  Alyra propped Glem up and gently tilted his head back with her hands; Rues began to slowly pour the now cool tea into Glem’s mouth. She closed his lips and stroked his throat to get him to swallow every little bit, as if encouraging a failing kitten. Each mouthful was a slow, painful process.

  The tea ran down his chin each time he coughed and sprayed over all three of them.

  “What's wrong with the old man?” a raspy voice asked from the other side of the fire.

  The shock caused the girls to jump and drop Glem.

  Disheveled and filthy, the woodland stranger stood and leered at them hungrily from the other side of the fire. His lank, greasy hair fell, obscuring his eyes as he stared at them.

  The long blade that hung loosely in his fetid hand was rusted and nicked. The noxious man raised the blade's tip to point at the girls, who huddled back from him against the rocks in fear.

  He walked to the cart and dug around until he came up with a hunk of the hard cheese. Holding it to his nose, he smelled it. “Ahhh. This will be the first I have eaten in days,” he said.

  “After, perhaps I'll have a different tasty morsel.You’ll feed me for weeks.” He took a bite and chewed slowly.

  He drooled around the cheese that he struggled to eat. Missing so many teeth evidently made eating the hard cheese a challenge for him, so he had to suck it more than chew, and now and then a giant glob sprang from his mouth to pepper the earth.

  He watched them as he brushed the hair from his eyes with the back of his hand.

  Hunger burned in his eyes. “Who's it going to be?” he asked. “Who’s volunteering?”

  As he menaced forward around the fire, his rusty blade waved back and forth between the girls. Rues grabbed for her belt knife. It was an inadequate weapon against the sword, but her iron determination to make their cost as high as possible to him rendered her fierce.

  “Don't come any closer!” Rues shouted at the squalid man as Alyra hid behind her and whimpered into her shoulder.

  “Lea… Leave ‘lone!” Glem mumbled in his waking stupor. He tried to lever himself up to a sitting position leaning against the rocks, waving a weak hand at the putrid man, “Leave.”

  Mort swung his sword over to point at Glem.

  “Lay down, before you drop dead.” The monster turned back to the girls. “Time to choose.” He came around the fire and reached out his left hand for Rues. “Put the knife down before you hurt yourself.” He raised the rusted sword to backhand Rues.

  “NOOO!” rasped Glem as he reached out to the would-be cannibal.

  Red fire suddenly began to wriggle around his forearm, to pour from his hand like bloody lightning at the disgusting intruder. His greasy, dirty clothes caught fire and flared up like old thatch and instantly, Mort screamed in pain and fear.

  He turned and threw away his sword as he hurtled toward the stream and into the woods.

  Rues and Alyra screamed at the sight of the fire as Glem collapsed hard to the ground and passed out, his breathing raspy and shallow. But Alyra’s fear of the brigand gave way to her fear for her grandfather. She rushed past Rues to him.

  Glem took a few more raspy breaths, then he sighed heavily as he began to breathe easier. He quickly fell into a heavy slumber. The girls curled up to sleep next to him, protectively. They were finally able to fall asleep sometime late into the night.