above, loosely holding the lead for balance, down he went, the line slipping through his gloved hands. Down he slid and down, pausing only to work his way past the knots.
“Oh, hurry, hurry,” cried the Sprite, darting about alongside, the bee trailing, “else something dreadful will hap, I just know it.”
From above there came a sharp crack and the banging of a door slammed wide.
“Faster!” cried the Sprite.
Still Borel slid downward, the rope slipping through his upper hand and ’round his leg and up across his chest and over the shoulder and down his back to his other hand, friction burning, so swift was his descent. As Borel neared the bottom, far above a huge face peered over the sill. Then the rope gave a jerk, and suddenly went entirely slack. And with the Sprite screaming, Borel fell, the massive, three-pronged grappling hook plummeting down behind, its now-deadly tines aglitter as it plunged toward its victim below.
10
At the base of the bluff, Borel crashed down on a steep, precarious slope of scree; and pebbles and sand and gravel and shale and rocks and boulders and slabs roared down in a great rock slide, Borel tumbling amid all. Blang! Behind, the huge grapnel struck a boulder and bounded into the air, spinning, tines flashing like great whirling talons as it lunged after, the tied-on rope whipping violently in great spiralling arcs. “Look out! Look out!” shrieked the Sprite, darting this way and that, the bumblebee following, yet there was nought Borel could do as down he pitched amid a great spill of rock, the massive hook now overtaking in its wild and deadly swirl. And as the slide and Borel slowed- Blang! — again the huge grapnel struck another boulder and caromed wildly and passed over the prince, its great spinning talons slashing nought but empty air as it hurtled onward. And then Borel slid to a stop, a few pebbles rattling on past, a large slab sliding by.
And even as Borel staggered upright and the Sprite cried out, “My lord, you are safe,” the tumbling, whirling juggernaut of a grapnel hurled on, snapping the rope taut to violently jerk Borel from his feet and wrench him plowing down through scree the remainder of the slope ere both hook and prince came to a stop.
With the Sprite anxiously hovering nearby and the bee orbiting ’round, Borel lay for long moments, trying to collect his thoroughly addled wits and wondering if ought was broken.
“My lord, are you dead?” asked the Sprite.
“Ungh,” replied Borel, cautiously moving, feeling of his limbs and fingers and ribs, grimacing now and then as he probed.
“Oh, good, you are fine,” said the Sprite, settling on a nearby rock, the bee alighting as well. “For an instant I thought you killed.”
“I feel as if I have been slain,” replied Borel, bloody and bruised and wincing as he removed the three- cornered hat, which incredibly had somehow managed to stay on, and he touched a great knot even then swelling on the back of his head.
“My lord, we must away,” said the Sprite. “The Trolls are like to pursue.”
Borel eased the tricorn back on his head and, groaning, slowly got to his feet. Moving with care, he untangled the rope from ’round his torso. “See you the rucksack I tossed over the sill?”
“I will look,” said the Sprite, taking to wing, “though we must away soon.” Off he darted, the bee following.
Borel examined his bow, finding it fit-neither horn nor ironwood nor silken string were any worse for the wear-though most of his arrows were broken or missing; only three survived intact, yet he retained all six of the ruined ones for their heads and fletching. His long-knife as well had come through unscathed, though the scabbard was now freshly scarred. As for Borel himself, he was thoroughly battered, and blood seeped from a handful of scrapes, but his leathers had protected him from the worst of his tumble among the rocks, and, but for one knot, the cocked hat had saved his head. Even so, amid all the other hurts, he knew he would have a great long bruise running from his crotch up across his chest and over his shoulder and down his back where the entangled line had been jerked taut by the runaway grapnel.
Borel made his way down the last few feet of the slope, dragging the rope after. And then coiling it as he went, he made his way to the hook, where he untied the last of the line. A few yards ahead lay reeds, growing in the muddy shallows of the river, its far bank perhaps a quarter mile away.
The Sprite came flying back. “I did not find your rucksack, my lord; I’m afraid it’s buried under the slide, though there is a rock-laden cloth of some sort lying nigh.”
“Where?”
“I’ll show you, my lord.”
Following the Sprite, Borel painfully made his way up the slope of rubble, where he found the cloak he had packed in the rucksack, but no sign of ought else. He unslung his bow and quiver and took up the garment and slipped it on, and found a brooch hidden in the collar to fasten it with. The Sprite flying well above called out, “Boats, my lord. I see some boats. Perhaps you can use one to escape the oncoming Trolls.”
“Whence the Trolls?” asked Borel.
The Sprite pointed, and Borel saw two Trolls tramping along a sloping way wending across the nearly plumb face of the cliff, a handful of Goblins trailing.
“No doubt they want their meal,” growled Borel, slinging his bow and the quiver. “Which way the boats?”
“Yonder, my lord,” said the Sprite, again pointing.
Borel groaned. “Toward the place where the Trolls are heading.”
“Yes, my lord,” said the Sprite.
“Then let us go,” said Borel, and he haltingly made his way to the bottom of the scree and took up the coil of line and began hobbling in the direction indicated, following the flow of the river.
And the Trolls continued on downward.
And the Sprite and the bumblebee flew ahead of the prince and headed for the cache of boats.
In the distance the Goblins began yelling and pointing. They had spotted Borel making his way downstream along the riverbank.
The Trolls hastened…
“Hurry, my lord,” urged the Sprite.
Grunting against the pain, Borel limped faster.
“This way,” said the Sprite, his bee buzzing ahead.
More swiftly went the Trolls, and more swiftly went Borel.
Now prince and bee and Sprite came to a bend in the river, and the reeds grew thickly there.
“Into the water, my lord; all are hidden within.”
Borel splashed in among the reeds, and he came to a half-sunken boat, its bottom stove in.
Another boat and another he found, all broken.
“Is this as they all are?” he asked.
“Oh, my lord, I am sorry,” said the Sprite, darting from craft to craft, “but they all seem smashed.”
“Is there nought afloat?”
The Sprite flew higher, even as Borel could hear shouts and thudding footsteps nearing.
“A raft, my lord, here is a raft!” cried the Sprite, flying back to lead the way. “Oh, hurry, please hurry.”
Now flitting down among the reeds so as not to be seen, the Sprite led Borel to a large log float with steering sweeps fore and aft and rafting poles adeck, a reed-free channel to the river lying ahead. Throwing his coil of recovered rope onto the raft and untying the float’s mooring line from a post deeply driven into the bottom, Borel pushed. The craft did not move, for it was mired in the mud.
“Oh, hurry, my lord, they draw near.”
Straining, gritting his teeth, and heaving to the limit of his strength, Borel managed to break the float free of its mud-bottom anchorage, and even as he heard Trolls splashing into the water among the reeds, searching, and
