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Fish whispered, “It’s shallow enough
to touch bottom. Walk your way around to the far side so there
won’t be tracks coming out over here.”
    Smeds slid off his log, discovered the water was no deeper than
his waist. He followed Fish and Timmy, his toes squishing in the
bottom muck, his calves tangling in water plants. Timmy yipped as
he stepped on something that wriggled.
    Smeds glanced back. Nothing. There had been no fireworks since
the exchange that had shown him his companions on the river. The
forest had begun to recall its night murmur.
    “What took you guys so long?” Tully asked, with a
touch of strain.
    Smeds snapped, “We took time to pick up some stuff so we
wouldn’t starve to death out here. What’re you going to
munch, fireball?”
    Smeds wondered if an occasional dose of stress wasn’t good
for the state of a guy’s common sense. He’d dug up some
useful memories during his helpless voyage.
    Tully had run off on him before. When they were little, as a
simple act of cruelty, and later, abandoning him to the mercies of
bullies or leaving him to be beaten by a merchant when he,
unwitting, had distracted the man while Tully had snatched a
handful of coppers and run.
    Tully bore watching.
    Smeds could see the shadow of the future. Get Old Man Fish and
Timmy Locan to kype the spike. Get dumb old Smeds to croak them
when they do. Then take the loot and walk. Who is Smeds going to
complain to when he has the blood of two men on his hands?
    That would be just like Tully. Just like him.
    They stayed on the island four days, feeding the gnats, broiling
in the sun, waiting. It went hardest for Tully. He mooched food
enough to get by, but he could not borrow dry clothing or a blanket
to keep the sun off.
    Smeds had a feeling Fish drew the wait out mainly for
Tully’s benefit.
    Fish went over to the mainland the fourth afternoon. Walking.
The channel between the island and bank was never more than
chest-deep. He carried his necessaries atop his head.
    He did not return till after dark.
    “Well?” Tully demanded, the only one of them with
any store of impatience left.
    “They’re gone. Before they left they found our camp
and savaged it. They poisoned everything and left dozens of traps.
We won’t go back there. Maybe we can find what we need in the
village. Those folks won’t be needing anything
anymore.”
    Smeds learned the truth of Fish’s report next day, after a
pass near their old camp to show Tully he was wasting his time
whining for his stuff. The massacre had been complete, and had not
spared the dogs, the fowl, the livestock. It was a warm morning and
the air was still. The wings of a million flies filled the forest
with an oppressive drone. Carrion eaters squawked and barked and
chittered, arguing, as though there was not a feast great enough
for ten times their number. The stench was gut-wrenching even from
a quarter mile away. Smeds stopped. “I got no
business to take care of over there. I’m going to go eyeball
the tree.”
    “I’ll give you a hand,” Timmy said.
    Tully looked at Smeds with a snarl. Old Man Fish shrugged, said,
“We’ll meet you there.” The stink and horror
didn’t seem to bother him.
     
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XIV
    The wicker man strode through the streets of the shattered city
like an avenging god, stepping stiffly over the legions of the
dead. The survivors of his forest warriors followed, awed by the
vastness of the city and aghast at what sorcery had wrought. Behind
them came a few hundred stunned imperial soldiers from the Oar
garrison. They had recognized the invader and had responded to his
call to arms—mainly because to defy him was to join those
whose blood painted the cobblestones and whose spilled entrails
clogged the gutters.
    Fires burned in a thousand places. The people of Oar sent a
great lament up into the darkness. But not near the dread thing
stamping the night.
    Furtive things moved in the shadows, rushing away from their
places of hiding. Their fear