“What was that all about?” Annie asked quietly when she thought they had paddled far enough to be out of the Wolf’s hearing.
“The sentries always ask the same questions,” Toshty replied. “If you don’t know the answers they expect, they will haul you in to see Colonel Snart. If they’re in a good mood and you give the right answers, they let you pass. We were lucky that time. It was a new recruit. The young ones are lonely. It’s usually their first time away from home. And they’re assigned to one of the most lonely, forsaken posts imaginable. If they let you pass, you have to promise them that you won’t tell anyone they let you by. I gave him a pack of pine sap gum. It helps. He’ll tell the other sentries. They get to know me and let me pass. But it’s always a little tense when I meet a new sentry for the first time. There are some bad ones.”
“You go through this on every trip down the river?” Breister asked in admiration of Toshty’s courage.
“Yes.”
“Ever feel frightened?”
“I suppose if I thought about it—which I don’t.” Toshty said with a grin. Then he turned serious. “But I don’t take it lightly, either. It’s no joke. You get the wrong sentry and all the pine sap gum in the world won’t save you. They’ll have you in chains and hanging by your feet before Scream-seller Snart so fast your head will swim.”
“It really puzzles me why the Norder Wolves would assign a mental case as commander down here,” Annie said. “I just don’t get it. He sounds like a bandit.”
“Oh, no,” Toshty replied. “Scream-seller Snart makes your average run-of-the-mill thug look like a garden club member. But that’s why they want him here. He scares everybody off. He’s ‘solid gold’ security-wise, and...”
“And what?” Breister asked.
“And if everyone is afraid to go near Colonel Snart’s zone, he gets to run his smuggling and slave trade, no questions asked.”
“How do you know about that?” Annie said.
“I hear things. I see things. I hear that he’s in league with some beasts in the Hedgelands. Creatures disappear up there sometimes, don’t they?” he asked, looking at Breister.
“Yes,” Breister replied slowly as his mind raced. New images crowded into his sight among the rocks and shadows. Terrifying images of a Wood Cow family in chains...Their house a shambles...“By the Ancient Ones!” Breister exclaimed.
“What?” Annie said, looking at him.
“I’m seeing images in the formations,” Breister breathed softly. “Images of our family being driven from our home by slavers. Helga does not remember what happened exactly, but somehow we were separated and she and my wife escaped. We don’t know what happened to my wife. Helga told me she has nightmares sometimes, but she does not remember everything that happened.”
The friends were silent for a time.
“Toshty,” Breister began. His face was drawn with sadness in the flickering light.
Toshty looked at him sympathetically. “Yes?”
Breister continued in a soft voice. “There was a dispute between me and an official. One night, ten years ago, slavers attacked our house. We were loaded on boats and taken down a river. We tried to escape and the boat capsized. I escaped, but could not find Helga and Helbara in the chaos. Later, Helga reached freedom and was rescued by some Roundies. That’s all we know.”
“So, perhaps there is a connection between that experience and the Norder Wolves; is that your point?” Annie whispered.
“I don’t know,” Breister replied. “I don’t know. I just wonder why I seem to have such a strange feeling about the images I see in the rocks and shadows, that’s all.”
“Well, anytime you deal with someone named Scream-seller Snart, it’s going to feel strange!” Annie replied with a grimace. “Maybe there’s nothing more to it than that.”
“Yes, maybe so,” Breister agreed. “Maybe so...”
Close on the Trail