The ogres stopped running and dived for cover. Knowing it would take a moment before the beaters could fire, the scout spun around to face the ambushers. He glimpsed three more silhouettes slipping behind tree trunks.
"Up there!" Tavis gestured toward the side gully.
Basil and Avner sprinted into the gulch. Tavis followed more slowly, pointing his arrow first uphill, then downhill. The ogres made no move to prevent the escape and did not even show themselves. There could only be one reason for the lack of pursuit, Tavis realized. The brutes no longer saw any reason to risk their lives, which meant they believed they had herded their quarry into a trap.
Confident the ogres would not pursue him into the narrow confines of the side gulch, Tavis paused to look around. This gully was a small one, lined on both sides by sheer cliffs of black-streaked gneiss. Like the ravine from which he and his companions had just come, it was filled with towering pines, though the trees here looked less healthy. They were overcrowded, and the small area prevented them from extending their branches fully. Avner and Basil were still sprinting up the center of the gulch, heedless that it was an ideal place for an ambush.
Not wishing to call out and let the ogres know he had anticipated their trap, Tavis fired his arrow up the gulch. The shaft hissed past Basil's shoulder and lodged in a tree, bringing both the verbeeg and Avner to a halt. They turned around and peered at the scout, their mouths gaping open.
Tavis motioned for them to remain where they were, then put his bow over his shoulder. Next, he took his dagger and opened a lengthy but shallow cut along his forearm. Once the wound began to bleed profusely, he walked up the gulch, dripping blood on the ground as he went.
When the scout reached his companions, Avner looked at him as if he were crazy. "What are you doing?"
"Making it easy for the ogres to follow us," Tavis replied. "After they find this blood trail, they won't pay as much attention to other signs. That'll give us a chance to escape."
"We haven't done that yet?" Basil asked.
"No, we've been forced into a trap," Tavis replied. "Somewhere around a corner ahead, a couple dozen ogres are waiting to shower us with arrows."
The scout allowed his companions to consider this while he studied the surrounding terrain. He spied a series of three boulders close enough together that Avner could leap from one to the other, then said, "Now, here's what I want you to do."
After Tavis had explained his plan, Basil asked. "Do we have time for all that?"
The scout nodded. "The ogres won't be anxious to come after us. They've suffered losses enough to know they won't get past Bear Driller in these confines," he said. "By the time they come to see why we haven't wandered into their ambush, we'll be gone."
The scout started up the gully. Making certain to drip plenty of blood along the ground, he led his companions to within a pace of the first boulder. Instead of jumping onto the stone at this point, Avner and Basil walked past, following Tavis another twenty paces. The boy stopped there, but the verbeeg continued up the gully.
Thirty paces later, Basil also stopped. He slowly backed down the gully, placing his feet in exactly the same places as he had on the way up. When he reached Avner, he hoisted the boy onto his shoulder and continued his retreat to the three boulders Tavis had pointed out earlier. After Avner brushed his feet off, the verbeeg deposited the youth on the first boulder. The boy hopped across the three boulders, then climbed a tree and crawled across a branch onto the cliff top.
For Basil, escaping the gorge was more difficult. Like Avner, he brushed the loose soil off his feet, then crossed the boulders to the side of the gully. Unfortunately, he was too heavy for the pine's thin branches and too clumsy to climb straight up the cliff face, so he had to backtrack a short distance to where a dead tree had fallen against the cliff side. He ascended the gray trunk, then joined Avner.
As his companions made their escape, Tavis picked up a stick, then ripped a strip of cloth off his tunic. These two items he used to make a tourniquet around his arm.
Once that was done, he continued up the gulch, slowly turning the stick so that the blood trail gradually diminished. When he came to a jumble of boulders, he crossed the pile about halfway, then tightened the tourniquet until the blood ceased to drip altogether. After cleaning the bottom of his boots to make certain he did not leave any loose soil to divulge his change of path, he moved toward the side of the gorge, being careful not dislodge any of the stones he walked across.
