The Reluctant Champion

9. The Wizards

Galen spoke first. "I beg your pardon," he said. "We have had a hard journey and seek shelter from this storm. Will you take us in?"

The old man cocked his head at Galen. "Shelter! Shelter! You seek shelter? There's effrontery for you! With what?" He cocked his head, listening. "Two men? Horses?"—Jaspar sniffed—"And what! What! A child? A nasty child! And what else? What?"

He hobbled forward, the tap of his stick echoing around the vaulted entry.

"Ha! What is this?" he said, and poked his stick at the tree. She looked at him impassively, but said nothing.

"Ha! Hm! Ha!" he said, turning his head this way and that. Then, abruptly, he lost interest and turned back to Galen. "Where are you from?" he demanded, addressing a point somewhat to the side of his right ear.

"Uh . . ." Galen fumbled a moment. "We came up out of the valley to the south of here. We were on the track of a band that sacked a village in that valley—they came through the pass right below here not many days since. This boy is the only survivor."

"Oh yes? Yes. Those." The old man reflected a moment. "Wipe your nose, boy. Well, come on! Come on! Don't keep me standing out here! It's not good for my bones, not good at all."

He hobbled back to the wall and fumbled until he found the small door he had come through, waiting there for them. They stepped through, one after another, Madoc and Galen leading their horses. They expected to have trouble getting the horses through the narrow opening, but somehow there was room, saddlebags and all. The old man came last, shooing the boy and the tree before him.

"Come on! Come on! We don't have all day," he said. "Don't stand around like geese in a hailstorm. Ha! Follow me!"

In fact, they were huddling on the far side of the door because it was pitch dark. Once the old man shut the door behind him Galen couldn't even see his hand holding his horse's reins. But this didn't bother the old man at all. He stamped his stick on the floor once or twice, then scuttled nimbly around the forlorn group of travelers and set off saying, "Come on! Come on! Don't keep me waiting!"

They stumbled after him, trying to keep off each others' heels and away from the walls. They soon rounded a corner and came out of the narrow passage into an open interior court about twice the size of the forecourt, with the gate now behind them and high walls on the other three sides.

"They weren't fooling around, those giants," Madoc said, eyeing the ramparts with a speculative eye. "Look—break through the gates and you're penned in on all sides by an enemy that can rain arrows or anything else down from the safety of those walls. I don't know who they were defending against, but they meant it."

"Come on!" said the old man again. "Stables through here! It's all under cover! Come along!" Guiding himself with one hand against a wall, he crossed to another stout door.

The tree-woman stopped suddenly, looking up at the sky, then at the dark opening the old man had led them to.

"I shall stay here," she said.

"Better to stay together," Madoc replied, and Jaspar grabbed her hand and tugged urgently on it.

"I shall stay here," she insisted, recovering her hand. "The elements are no enemy to me." She looked again at the opening. "And I mislike closed spaces."

Nothing they said could change her mind, so they left her in the middle of the courtyard and went on after the old man.

Here the scale of the giants' fortress became apparent. The immense doors were three times the height of a man. The sweeping halls would have taken two oxcarts abreast easily. The scale made them feel like children, as though some giant-parent would round the next corner and sweep them off to bed.