"Take cover!" Tavis hissed, genuinely surprised the fleeing deer had failed to alarm the pair. "A pack of ogres snuck in behind us. They're coming up the ravine right now, hoping to plant their arrows in our backs."
Avner threw himself to the ground and crawled behind a boulder. Basil stepped behind a tree next to Tavis. They peered down the ravine, their eyes searching the maze of gray bark for some sign of movement.
"I don't see anything." Avner whispered.
Neither did Tavis. Save for a few pine boughs swaying gently in the wind, the wood was as still as ice. The scout raised his eyes toward the forest canopy, just in case the ogres were employing the same trick they had used on Coggin's Rise. He saw nothing in the green needles, not so much as a lurking squirrel or the silhouette of a frightened porcupine. The brutes could hide well enough on the ground, but even they were not so stealthy they could move through the treetops without leaving some sign. If there had been any warriors lurking among the branches, the scout would have seen signs: broken limbs, overturned nests, clawed bark, or something similar.
"Perhaps you were mistaken," Basil suggested. "This forest is empty."
"Too empty." Tavis said. "Listen."
Basil cocked his head to one side, then shrugged his shoulders. "I don't hear anything."
"Me either!" Avner said. "I don't hear any singing birds."
"Or chattering squirrels, or whistling rockchucks," Tavis said. "We aren't alone here."
Basil began to fumble through his shoulder satchel. "How much time do we have?"
"Not enough for you to draw a rune," Tavis answered. The ogres are fairly near, or those deer wouldn't have passed so close to us."
Avner swallowed hard. "So we have to fight?"
"Not yet," Tavis replied. "If we let the ogres pick the battle site, we're doomed."
"Then how do we escape?" Basil asked.
Tavis glanced up the ravine. He did not see any ogres ahead, but that, of course, was not as telling as the fact that the doe had turned into the side gully. Besides, if Goboka had sent a pack of warriors to sneak up from behind them, it seemed likely the shaman had also sent a second party to block their route, and the curve ahead was just the place to set such an ambush.
"They intend to drive us like game. The beaters will come from that direction." Tavis pointed down the ravine. "They'll try to chase us into an ambush just around that bend." The scout pointed up the gully at the curve.
"That's no answer to my question." Basil said, irritated. "How do we escape?"
Tavis was about to tell the verbeeg to run for the side gulch, but stopped when the distant crack of a snapping branch sounded from somewhere down the ravine. A faint metallic chime instantly followed the noise, then the forest fell silent again.
Basil stepped from behind his tree. "Ogres don't trip over sticks, and they don't wear armor," he said. "That was an earl."
"No doubt. But that doesn't mean I was wrong. The ogre beaters are still behind us. Morten and the earls are behind them." The scout pointed to where a loutish silhouette with a jutting chin and floppy ears had just slipped from behind the gray trunk of a huge pine.
Basil looked over his shoulder just in time to see the figure rush down the ravine a few noiseless steps, then vanish from sight behind another tree. The verbeeg's face paled, and he quickly returned to his own cover.
"It's not as bad as it seems," Tavis said. "We're almost out of their range."
Ogre bows were powerful enough by human standards, but they were no match for Bear Driller. Although the brutes were certainly strong enough to pull a bow as large as the scout's, they placed their faith in stealth and poison, and therefore preferred smaller weapons that were easier to fire in the tight hiding places from which they so often ambushed their prey. It was a strategy that worked well enough against unwitting opponents, but it had disadvantages in open combat.
"Being almost out of range isn't very reassuring," Basil said. "I'd much prefer to be entirely out of range."
"Me, too," Tavis agreed. "We'll run for it. I'll go a few paces up the ravine, then turn around to cover you."
"Turn around?" Avner hissed. "You'll be presenting your back to the ambushers up ahead!"
"I've got to present it to somebody. Besides, the ambushers will hold their attack until the beaters drive all three of us into close range," he explained. "You two move together. Dodge between trees and don't waste time looking back."
With that, the scout darted two dozen erratic steps up the ravine, changing directions each time he passed a tree, until he heard the soft thump of an ogre arrow striking a nearby pine. Had the range not been so great the shaft would be lodged in his head instead of the bole. He stepped behind a tree, then drew his own bowstring back and looked down the gully. There was no sign of the ogre who had fired at him.
"Now!" Tavis yelled.
