The Gully Snipe (The Dual World Book 1) (67 page)

When Roald stepped into the study, Gully glanced over to him. Roald nodded to indicate he had the list and took it over to the desk.

Gully sat behind the desk and took the list from Roald. Thaybrill turned on the couch and asked, “Would you like any help looking through the accounting, Thayliss?”

“No, but the offer is appreciated, Thaybrill. I prefer to have a few minutes to look through it myself if you don’t mind. You are all welcome to stay, but allow me to concentrate on my reading, please,” requested Gully.

Gully pulled a few candles closer so he could see in the dim light of the moongloam, then he unrolled the parchment and began to study the list. He took his time and read down a few more lines, unrolled a little more, then down further. He then unrolled all the way to about the halfway point of the list. He backed up a ways and began to look at the list again in earnest.

Roald studied Gully’s face, trying to discern what he was seeing, but Gully seemed to forget about everyone else in the room. He watched as Gully formed the words of each person he read about on the scroll. It seemed to take forever, and Gully moved through the list agonizingly slowly. No one in the room moved or interrupted, however.

Gully got to a point in the list and his eyes narrowed. He looked confused for a moment, then rolled back up through the list and went through the same part again. This time, he moved more quickly, his finger tracing along each date and description so he could move more swiftly.

After a few moments of this, he looked up from the list. He stared off into nothing in the room, his face drawn into confusion and thought. His lips then pulled tight, and Gully stood and quickly walked out of the room without a word to anyone.

Roald looked to Thaybrill in utter confusion, trying to understand what had just happened. Thaybrill seemed as lost as he was, though.

Roald said, “Gallun, Gellen, please go with him. Keep a close watch on him.”

The two wolves ran out of the room following after Gully.

At the same time, Roald and Thaybrill both rushed over to the list to see if they could see whatever it was that Gully had seen.

Thaybrill sat and Roald leaned over next to him as they began to review the list from where Gully had left off.

There were no names, only descriptions, but the descriptions were often quite detailed. Thaybrill silently read a few, then commented, “The list is ordered by when each slave was captured. I believe Thayliss must have focused his review to about a year on either side of when his father disappeared.”

Thaybrill ran back up in the list to approximately where Gully had started and they began to read carefully.

“Female, aged 20 years, brown hair and eyes, limping on left foot,” read Thaybrill as Roald read over his shoulder. “Sold by Iisen, 375 IR, Mid Summer 7.”

“Father and son, ages 27 years and 3 years; father balding on top with black hair. Sold by Iisen, 375 IR, Mid Summer 16.”

“Gypsy animal male, aged 14, missing a front tooth, black shoulder-length hair, black eyes. I’m sorry, patriarch, they refer to balmors as ‘gypsy animals,’” said Thaybrill.

The patriarch muttered, “I am less than surprised.”

On and on the list ran, often one person listed at a time, but sometimes two.

Roald took over reading after a point. “Red-headed female, aged 30, overweight with unsightly freckles and scar on left arm. Sold by Iisen, 376 IR, Mid Winter 19.”

Roald sighed and shook his head now that he understood. He said, “His father is not on this list. None of the men even come close to matching the description, and he disappeared long before this point in the list. How can that be?”

Thaybrill looked up at Roald from the chair, neither knowing what to make of the latest development. Roald asked, “So what happened to his father if he was not captured and made a slave?”

~~~~~

Roald awoke with a jerk when he felt two hands begin to shake him without warning. He could not see whom it was as it was dark in his room in the manor house and still the black of night outside.

Roald panicked and was about to react violently, but he heard Wyael’s voice, “Wake up! Wake up, Lord Marshal Roald!”

Roald shook his head as Wyael pushed at him a few more times to wake him up. Roald sat up in his bed and put his hand on Wyael’s shoulder. “I’m awake. I’m awake now, Wyael. Tell me why you must startle me so!” Roald felt like he had only fallen asleep after a long evening of trying to cheer Gully up. His eyes adjusted a little, and he noticed that Gallun and Gellen were standing anxiously in the room, too, silhouetted against the candlelight coming from the hallway through the open door.

“You’ve got to help us, Lord Marshal, please! King Gully is gone!”

Roald groaned deeply, almost to the point of it becoming a growl deep in his chest. He put his hand on Wyael’s head. “Thank you, Wyael. Our king has allowed himself to develop an irritating habit of disappearing at unhelpful times.”

He glanced over to Gallun and Gellen, only barely able to make them out in the dark. Even in the meager light, the twins looked nervous and apprehensive. Roald guessed they were worried that they would be blamed for the king’s disappearance. “Although, I can hardly fault him for wanting to be alone after what he discovered yesterday,” he added with a deep breath. “I thought that perhaps my days of hunting him would end when he gave up being a thief, but they only have seemed to increase.”

Wyael had already taken a candle to light from one in the hallway. When he came back into the room, Roald began to rouse himself more fully and began pulling on his clothes.

He said, “Gallun and Gellen, see if you can pick up Gully’s scent and we will track him down. If you can pick it up, meet me back in Chelders’ private offices in a few minutes. I must make sure Pumblennor is ready to handle the transfer of the soldiers today without me. With that done, if you find his path, we will follow him.”

Wyael said, “I will go, too! I don’t want King Gully to be upset!”

Roald shook his head, “I know you want to, Wyael, but we do not know where Gully has gone. I hope it is somewhere harmless, where he wishes only to be alone for a while. But part of me worries that he will try to go into Maqara itself to begin searching for his father on his own. And believe me, if anyone could succeed at sneaking in there, it would be Gully. Besides, you must stay with the patriarch and make sure he knows what is happening.”

Wyael started to protest, but Roald said, “No, Wyael, no arguments now!”

Roald nodded to Gallun and Gellen and said, “Go. The less head start he has, the better.”

The twins immediately threw off their tunics and kilts and had become wolves before their clothes had landed on Roald’s bed. They were out of the room and down the hall in an instant.

Roald finished getting dressed, packed a few things, and then walked down the hall to the quarters where Pumblennor was staying. He took a few minutes to explain the situation and ensure that Pumblennor knew he would not be around if things got tricky with the Maqarans. Marshal Pumblennor, after taking a moment to fully wake up, assured Roald that he would have everything under control in East End.

Roald met up with Gallun and Gellen a few minutes later and set off on their search together. As they followed the trail south from East End, towards the pass, the first hint of dawn light began to appear behind the mountains.

Roald stopped long enough to ask the wolves in front of him, “You’re sure, now, that you’re following today’s trail, and not from yesterday or the day before, yes?”

Both the wolves stopped, and even in the faint morning light, Roald could tell that Gellen was highly insulted.

“I merely wish to be sure, my friends,” said Roald with a laugh. “I trust completely in your abilities.”

As they neared the Maqaran Pass, Roald became nervous, worried that perhaps Gully would indeed be foolish enough to try to sneak into Maqara. The thought of having to invade Maqara, or conduct a surreptitious rescue mission, to retrieve their errant king was enough to make his stomach lurch and cramp. Fortunately, the scent that Gallun and Gellen followed veered off to the west, following along the South Pass Road instead.

Roald told them, “He is going to his cabin. You do not need to follow his scent as closely now. Check it every so often just to be sure, but we will not need to follow it closely again until he leaves the road.”

The rest of the trip was uneventful. The morning sun had come up fully and was filtering nicely through the canopy of the tall trees that arched over the road when Gallun noticed that Gully’s scent had left the road.

From there, they followed it very carefully through the bogs and marshy lands of the southern Ghellerweald. Roald kept the three of them very close together as even a few feet too far in one direction or the other could be very dangerous. He used a large limb to probe the ground in front of them constantly, always testing to see if it would give way to a deadly bog or not. The method was not foolproof, but better than trusting to nothing.

Two hours after leaving the road, and making slow, painstaking process, Roald could sense that they were now circling broadly, which meant they were following the tricky path to where the cabin itself was. Or perhaps going in circles. Roald chose not to voice his concern for fear of offending Gellen yet again. It was not long after that when both Gallun and Gellen looked back at him happily and began to trot along ahead of him.

Roald almost called after them for leaving him behind, but then he caught a glimpse of the cabin ahead of him and knew they had arrived. It had been several years now since he had come the last time with Gully to see it, and the sight filled him with concern and sympathy over what Gully must be feeling, knowing nothing at all about what happened to his father.

He drew near and saw both Gallun and Gellen running up to Gully, who was carrying in his arms some fresh, dry firewood for the cabin. Gully stopped, saw Roald approaching, and put the wood down. Roald had a hard time reading Gully’s expression; he did not seem upset that he had been followed, but neither did he seem happy for the company.

Roald began, “Gully...” but Gully, with a profoundly sad look, shook his head and placed a finger to his lips. He stepped up to Roald and placed a hand on his shoulder without so much as a word. The sadness and helplessness in Gully’s face broke Roald’s heart in two.

Roald would have wondered what Gully was asking, but he could see it in his brother’s empty eyes, and he understood what he wanted.

Roald nodded and said, “I understand, Gully. We will stay with you, but we will not ask you to talk. I know you wish to think through this, and I will be glad to give you that time. Allow us to stay with you and we will respect your wish for silence.”

Gully gave Roald a weak, appreciative smile, and resumed his work.

An hour or so later, after they had built a fire in the fireplace, Roald looked up to see a swallowtail hawk land on the roof of the cabin. It flew down and landed on a branch a few feet away from Roald.

“We are safe, Abella,” said Roald. “Let Thaybrill and the patriarch and the others know that the king has decided to spend some time at his father’s cabin. We will travel back to Lohrdanwuld when we are finished here.”

Gully came out of his cabin and saw Abella Jule perched on the low limb. He gave her a feeble smile as he walked over to her. She leaned in and nestled affectionately against him and then nibbled lightly at his ear.

Roald heard Gully whisper, “Thank you, Abella,” and then she flew off to report back that the king had been located and was safe.

Roald had no idea how long Gully planned to stay, but did not press him on it. Gully, for his part, said no words to any of them other than the three he had whispered to Abella Jule.

For the next three days, Roald and Gallun and Gellen helped Gully as they could with chores around the cabin. They also gave Gully a silent but steady companionship as he spent large stretches of time doing little more than thinking and wandering.

They fixed the rungs of the simple ladder, and then mended a few leaks in the roof. They collected new firewood together. They hunted some and gathered berries and fetched water from the stream. In the quiet times, Roald, Gallun, and Gellen followed behind Gully as he went for long walks in the woods. They lay together on the stone in the middle of Gully’s favorite meadow and watched the sky and clouds pass by overhead. Gully also spent a great deal of time staring silently into the fireplace.

It was during these quiet times that Gully would take the pendant from around his neck and study it. He would hold it close to his eyes, as if trying to read something written very faintly inside the crystal. He would turn it and rotate it, over and over, as he would look at the flame of the fire or a candle through it. Roald had long since found out how important the sigil was to the Balmoreans. Even now, when Gully would have it out from beneath his tunic, Gallun and Gellen would keep a respectful distance and refuse to even look at it.

The only frightening moment of their time together came when Gellen disappeared late in the morning of their second day in the cabin. None of the others had noticed him missing, but there was suddenly a shocking howl off in the distance that turned into a formless scream, then back and forth between the shouts and the howls right after.

Before Roald could even piece together what the horrifying sound was, Gully had leapt up and was running, following the sound as fast as he could go. The only reason Roald and Gallun were able to catch up to him was because Gully had slowed enough to pick up a sizeable, sturdy branch that had fallen from a tree.

Not much further than that, they found Gellen, almost totally dragged under a bog that was pulling him down. He was changing between man and wolf so fast, trying desperately for his front paws and then his human arms to gain purchase, that Roald could not tell the two apart.

Gully threw himself on the closest safe spot of ground and reached the limb out to Gellen, who turned and stayed human so he could grab it with his hands. Gully wrapped his arm securely around his end of the limb while Gellen tried to frantically pull himself free. His fevered attempts to scramble to safety only seemed to work against him, though, and he had sunk almost entirely beneath the surface.