A man’s voice cackled from behind. “You’ll never find ‘im!”
Merlin whipped around, suddenly conscious that he had neither staff nor knife.
On a boulder inside the mouth of a cave sat a man of grotesque proportions. Nearly twice the size of Merlin, he had muscled arms that bulged in comparison to his scrawny legs. In one hand he held a large knotted club that could crush Merlin’s head with one blow.
The man’s shirt and bright red pants were torn and stained. One of his legs was shrunken, and its foot stretched and bent. His back curved so much that upon reaching his neck it had bowed toward the ground again. To compensate, his skinny neck craned upward so his ponderous head appeared to float in front of him.
“Search as you like. Crom says you’ll not find ‘im. Hahaha!”
His tongue licked at a few remaining stumps of teeth in his rotting gums, and his bulbous nose jutted forth between tiny black eyes. From this monstrosity of a head hung great knots of moldy yellow hair, long enough to pass his knees, and maggots and flies crawled in and out of the thick strands.
Merlin stepped back. “Find whom?”
“You don’t know? Well ‘ee’s mine, an’ I won’t let ‘im go.”
Without moving his body, Crom snapped his neck forward so his mouth slavered within a few feet of Merlin, who cringed at the smell of decay. “I’ll et ‘im up one day. Maybe tonight. But before then, Crom Cruach thinks he’ll et you!”
His teeth clicked forward, and Merlin ducked. The club rose and whizzed down.
Leaping to the side just in time, Merlin again heard sobs coming from the wood behind him. He darted through the pines toward the sound, and Crom limped after, smashing down trees with his club. Merlin soon found he’d entered a steep-sided canyon through which the crying echoed down from above.
Crom roared with laughter just behind him.
Onward Merlin ran. His gaze raked the rock walls, searching for a way out, but there was none. Instead, the ravine narrowed.
Crom limped on behind, whacking the cliff so that chunks of rock cascaded from above.
In desperation, Merlin broke off the sharp end of a dead tree limb and tucked it into his belt. Coming to a young oak, he leaped up and grabbed a branch overhead, bending the entire tree with all his strength. He clutched the branch with both hands and crouched behind a nearby pine.
Keep coming, brute.
Crom stepped closer, his sneaky black eyes darting back and forth.
One more step …
Crom sniffed and shuffled forward. Merlin let go of the branch. The tree whipped upward, clouting the giant’s face, and Crom roared in anguish.
Merlin made a run for it, but an impossibly skinny foot jerked forward and tripped him. Before he could right himself, Crom picked him up by the scruff of his shirt and dangled him over his putrid mouth.
“You’ll not see ‘im again. Say good-bye, little crunchkin!”
Crom brought Merlin closer to his drooling lips.
Pulling the stick from his belt, Merlin jabbed it straight into Crom’s eye. “Let me go, beast!”
The monster shrieked. He flung Merlin down the valley, fell to his knees, and pulled the stick out of his bleeding eye.
Merlin hit the ground hard, which knocked the air from his lungs. By the time he struggled to his feet, Crom had risen as well. With spit flying, the creature declared, “Won’t just et you. Crom’ll rip your skin off while you scream to the bloody heavens!”
There was no way past him.
Merlin ran in the opposite direction and soon came to a small trickle of a stream. At the end of the ravine stood a rocky hillside from which the water dribbled down. The sobbing sounds floated down from above.
Up Merlin clambered. When he neared the top, Merlin turned back to see Crom scaling the cliff faster than seemed possible. The monster’s eye streamed red into his yellow hair, and he bellowed hideous threats. With a final burst of effort, Merlin pulled and kicked himself up the last few difficult feet until he could see over the ledge.
Not ten feet away sat a boy. His back was turned, but Merlin could tell he had red hair and wore a stained tunic and leather trousers. As the boy cried, he turned his head to the side, and Merlin saw blood and tears smeared across his face, all but obscuring the spray of freckles on his nose.
Was he Garth? Merlin studied the boy’s face, with pouting lips and faintly upturned