would do his best to remove it, but with luck it would stay until a scab had formed.
Mika leaned against the rough trunk of the spruce, the branches coming down on all sides of them like a living wall, shutting out the outside world. The small fire had warmed the space, and he was tired and his head still ached. He stared into the fire and blinked. His eyelids drooped, then closed, and he drifted off into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Chapter 16
Mika wakened slowly. Everything hurt. His head throbbed and his eyelids were thick and swollen. His throat was dry and his stomach was cramped. Every single joint was stiff and sore. And he was cold. He groaned in misery.
Tam added groans and whimpers of his own. Mika sat up and rubbed his head, which was now scabbed over with dry blood. His hands and arms were covered with Tam's blood and his body was rank with old sweat. He could feel a line of blisters beginning to rise under the edges of his tunic at neck and shoulders.
Mika flexed his arms and rolled his head cautiously, feeling the muscles complain at the smallest movement.
Tam lay still, barely lifting his head from the ground. He tried to wag his tail, but even that small effort was too much, and he stopped after one feeble wave.
'By the Great She Wolf, if we feel this terrible after such a little encounter, pray the gods we never have to go into a real battle,' muttered Mika.
The roan, hearing Mika's voice, whickered softly.
Mika crawled out from under the overhanging branches and looked around carefully. The day was dark and grey. A dense rain-swollen cloud cover hung over the ridge, obscuring its upper reaches from sight. Mika stared up at the almost vertical drop, frankly astonished that they had descended it safely. No sane person would purposely choose that route unless he had a death wish.
The roan was tossing his head impatiently, and as Mika untied him from the tree limb, he butted him gently in the chest with the flat of his head. Mika shook his own head in quiet amusement.
He had been riding for almost as long as he had been walking and never had he viewed a horse as anything but an uncomfortable but necessary means of transportation. He had known of nomads who had an almost mystical relationship with their horses, but he had never felt such warmth for a horse until now.
After leading the roan to the stream and allowing him to drink his fill, Mika tethered him in a patch of grass. Then he tended to the princess.
She was beginning to look a little shopworn, Mika reflected as he untied her from the horse. He supposed that it was partially his fault for leaving her draped over the horse overnight. After all, there were limits to what one could expect from magic spells. Even one cast by the best of magic-users. For instance, her need for food and water was magically suspended. But even the best spell didn't extend to clothes and dirt.
The princess's hair hung down over her head, all dusty and dirty with muddy drops where the horse had splashed water. Her dress was filthy and wrinkled and had torn in several places. Maybe she would look better right side up, Mika mused.
But she didn't. The princess was definitely a mess, and of course, she was still sound asleep.
'This is getting tiresome,' Mika said between gritted teeth as he slung her over his shoulder and tottered toward the stream. 'The least she could do is carry her own weight.'
Mika sat the princess down at the edge of the stream and propped her up against the trunk of a tree. Ripping yet another strip off her gown, he dipped it in the cold water and rubbed it over her face. The water ran in muddy rivulets down her bosom, which no longer looked quite so attractive.
In fact, the whole princess thing was beginning to pall. She was about as much fun as listening to a lecture on the medicinal properties of goldenwort.
Other questions now presented themselves. Now that Recknass and Hary were dead, what about the mission to ransom the princess?
And where would Mika take her if they ever got to Eru-Tovar? How would he locate the mysterious magician? And what should Mika do if the magician demanded payment in advance? Mika sighed and shook his head. All of these new problems made his head ache just thinking about them.
He finally abandoned the cleaning of the princess as a lost cause and turned his attention to his own needs. Stripping off the sweat-stiffened leather tunic, his single remaining boot, and his loincloth, he waded into the stream.
The water was cold but invigorating. Mika found a sinkhole near the edge of a greenery-hung bank and submerged until only his head stuck out, staying there until he felt the last of the tension ease from his body, as well as the multitude of aches and pains.
After a while, he moved to a more shallow location where a layer of white sand lay thick on the floor of the stream. This he scooped up by the handful and rubbed over his body till his skin tingled and squeaked beneath his palms.
Next he unbraided his hair and floated spread-eagle on his back, letting the current wash away the blood and the grime. Then he scrubbed his hair with sand, gingerly avoiding the still painful bruise.
His skin was puckered and blue by the time he finished rinsing his few bits of leather clothing, knowing that they would dry stiff and unbending.
Naked, his dripping clothes tucked under his arm, he returned to the spruce and crawled inside. He hung his clothes over several of the lower branches, restarted the fire, and added small bits of dry wood, enough to take the chill out of the air, but not enough to cause smoke which could be seen through the trees.
Tam stood shakily and nosed his way out from under the tree, his pink bandaged tail looking very odd in the cold light of the morning. As Tam drank at the stream Mika dragged the princess under the shelter of the spruce and took stock of their situation.
It seemed reasonable to expect that some of the drivers and nomads had escaped the predations of the gnoll army. It also seemed logical to assume that the entire area was probably crawling with a large assortment of gnolls, hyenas, trolls, hyenadons, and nomads and drivers, all trying to either escape or kill each other.
With any luck at all, most of them would leave the area soon, running and pursuing each other westward. Mika was concerned about Hornsbuck and Marek and Klaren and a few of the others, but not enough to join the fray. It made sense to stay right where he was, under the tree, until all danger had passed and he and Tam were in better shape.
The more Mika thought about it, the more unusual it seemed that such an army of creatures would appear in the middle of the desolate plains. It was obvious they must have had some connection with the magic-user. Who in Hades was that man, and when would he turn up again?
Tam crawled back under the tree, collapsed next to the fire, and began licking himself, his every movement a visible effort.
Mika took his second boot, now washed by the stream, and scooped some water up. Mixing in a large amount of the dried vegetables and meat, he set it to simmer over the fire.
It began to rain before the stew was done, big fat drops of water that splatted against the ground. But under the tree it was warm and dry. No rain squeezed through the densely matted branches. He was feeling safe for the first time in days.
Tam wasn't too interested in eating the stew, so Mika ate alone. He offered some to the princess out of politeness, but of course, she didn't want any either.
Dinner finished, Mika rinsed out his boot and hung it up to dry. His breechclout was dry, so he put it on, then busied himself with combing the tangles out of his hair. His head still ached so he left his hair dangling loosely about his shoulders. Then he rubbed some of the herbal ointment into his blisters and over a number of other cuts and scratches that covered his body.
The unguent was soothing, spreading an icy cool across the skin, and Mika felt good, knowing that he owned the recipe for the mixture and had the knowledge necessary for making it. Once again, he felt grateful to his father for persevering in the face of his disinterest and said a quiet prayer of thanks.
