Chapter Twelve

  Two days after Albany’s birth, at the prompting of Callun, Dougal and Gryffin went hunting. The Ard-mal was due any day now and the village Eron was eager that all would be ready when he arrived. Dougal was not keen, however, on leaving Bronty and his new-born daughter, and it was beginning to seem that nothing Callun could say or do would change his mind. In desperation, the Eron turned to Dougal’s wife for help.

  “You have to go, Dougal.” She said. “You have to go out. Some men are not used to being cooped up in the village like this, and you are one of them. Besides which, there are a few personal things that I could do with from home. And lastly, Callun has been good to us, letting me stay in his hall. I think it would be ill-gratitude for us to embarrass him at one of the most important events of his life.”

  With no way of countering these arguments, Dougal finally agreed to go. He and Gryffin harnessed the cart early in the next morning, both looking forward to the ride back home in the bright summer sunlight. They stopped only briefly at the cottage to gather the items that Bronty had requested and loaded them on the back of the wagon. Then, changing into their hunting buckskins, they grabbed their weapons and headed into the forest on foot.

  “Is it really necessary to bring along your cloak and spear?” Asked Dougal. He watched his brother sweating heavily as he tried to keep pace.

  “It is.” Laughed Gryffin, tugging to free the corner of his cloak from the latest in a long line of bushes that it had caught on. “I’m a man now and I would hate for anyone to see me and mistake me for the boy I was last time I hunted these woods.

  Dougal laughed along with him “How could anyone do that? The difference is obvious for all to see!”

  “To you, maybe. But not everyone knows me as well as you do.” Gryffin answered, still smiling.

  “You had best wear your cloak then.” Dougal agreed. “Although, who you expect to meet here in the woods is beyond me.”

  “You never can be sure. The world is full of surprises.”

  “It is at that.”

  Soon they were deep in the trees, following a faint deer trail that led straight into the dark heart of the woodlands. Every so often Dougal would stop and look at the ground for signs of spore or tracks. At the fifth time of doing so, he paused for longer, looking for any signs that would make sense of what he saw there.

  “There is something strange here, Gryff.” He finally announced. “Someone has been this way recently and then taken great care in removing most of the traces of their passing.”

  “Who would do such a thing, and for what reason?” Gryffin asked, echoing the unanswered questions in his in his brother’s head.

  Dougal scratched his chin as he thought, his nails making a soft rasping sound as they caught on his two-day stubble. “I don’t know.” He finally admitted. “I cannot think of anyone who would want to keep their presence in the forest such a secret.” He started to search a wider area to see if whoever it was had gotten careless and missed something, even if it was just one clear footprint. There was nothing, just further evidence of careful wiping out of all the prints of any kind along the path. “I think that we should be careful, Gryff. Whoever did this can only be up to no good, otherwise they would not have gone to all this trouble.”

  Gryffin clasped the shaft of his spear more tightly as he peered into the deep shadows that surrounded them. They seemed darker and more sinister than they had a short time before. “Should we not follow them?” He asked. “Try and find out who they are and what they are doing here?”

  Dougal gave the question serious consideration before finally shaking his head. “No, I don’t think that that would be the wisest thing to do. We don’t know how many of them there are or how far their trail goes into the forest. Let us get the animals we need and then go and report what we have found to Callun. He’ll know what to do.”

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  More warily now, they set off through the trees.

  Mid-afternoon found them trudging back towards home, each carrying the cleaned carcass of a fully-grown buck across their shoulders. Gryffin had noted how much their earlier discovery had unsettled his brother and, when it came time to make their kills, he had insisted that his brother should do it so that there would be no mistake. As they had begun their walk back to the cabin, Gryffin tried to take his mind off the animal on his back by trying to imagine who or what was hiding in the forest. After a while he began to work through some of the more exotic monsters he had heard of and so frightened himself that he quickly decided that it wasn’t a very good game after all. His reverie was suddenly broken by Dougal’s harsh whisper.

  “Off the track, Gryff. Quickly!”

  Running as best they could, they dived into the cover of a dense patch of bushes some thirty or so feet from the path.

  “What is it?” Gryffin asked as he tried to peer through the interlacing network of branches.

  “I’m not sure.” Admitted Dougal. “I think that I heard something coming down the path.”

  Within a few seconds the noises that had alerted Dougal became loud enough for them both to hear from their position well clear of the path. By the muffled jingling and scaping sounds, it became obvious that a well armoured warband was heading their way. Even before the source of the sound became visible, two strange creatures appeared on the path. Gryffin heard his brother’s sharp escape of breath at the mere sight of them. Although clearly humanoid, they were just as clearly not human. They wore basic jerkins of stiff leather that partially covered heavily muscled bodies of pale green skin. Thick black hair covered their entire bodies apart from their face, from which stared bright yellow eyes that constantly scanned the forest floor and the bushes each side of the path. Each was armed with a small round shield and handful of long, thin javelins that had wickedly barbed iron heads. They stopped not far from where Gryffin and Dougal had left the track, their wide nostrils flaring as they sucked in air to try and capture a faint scent on the wind. They looked nervously into the undergrowth towards where the hunters lay. They knew that being found in these woods was certain death for their kind as they had waged a guerrilla war with the people of these lands for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Gryffin guessed correctly that these were Dokkaebi, maybe even of the same tribe as those that attacked his home those many, unremembered, years ago.

  As the Dokkaebi stood there, wet tongues nervously liking lips, clearly uncertain as to what they should do, the rest of their force arrived more noisily down the path. These were all heavily armed human warriors and moved along the path much more confidently than their inhuman colleagues. By their style of dress, they were obviously from a tribal people but just as obviously not of the Six-tribes. What did that leave? Wondered Gryffin. Beari or possibly Galatae? Having never seen people from either it was hard for him to know how to decide between the two possibilities. He knew that questioning Dougal would have to wait as any noise would call down death upon them.

  The captain of the warband strode forward. “What is it Brarg?” He asked. “Have you found something?” Although the accent was strange, Gryffin found that he could easily understand what the warrior was saying, confirming his suspicions that they were from one of the neighbouring tribes.

  The slightly larger of the two Dokkaebi glanced contemptuously at the human before continuing his inspection of the underbrush. “Smell something.” It said, its throat making harsh, grating sounds as it formed words in a language it clearly wasn’t designed to speak.

  “What have you smelt? Humans?”

  The monster liked its lips again while it considered the answer. “Maybe.” It finally conceded. “Maybe deer. Scent confused.”

  “it’s probably just a deer then.” Decided the captain. “We’d best get back. Marish will want to know that the baby has been born.”

  The Dokkaebi shrugged its shoulders, then turned and jogged off along the path. Its companion gave the bushes that hid the hunters from view one last look before loping off to follow with the human warriors close behind.

  They emerged from their hiding place as soon as they were certain that the warband had gone.

  “Did they mean Albany?” Asked Gryffin. “You know, when they said that the child had been born, did they mean Albany?”

  “I think so.” He said. The sight of Dokkaebi again after all these years had brought back an anger that he had thought under control. The coldness he forced himself to feel was the only protection he had against the raging fury that threatened to consume him at the thought of these monsters having an interest in his child. He silently thanked the goddess, and Dylan, that they were safe and sound away from harm in Callun’s hall rather than at their own remote cabin amongst the trees. “We’d best be off.” He said at last. “There may be more of them in the area, and I’ll be happier the sooner we collect the wagon from home and get back to the village.”

  Hoisting the carcasses across their shoulders once more, they started a slow jog along the path in the direction of the cottage.