The Tangle Box by Terry Brooks

Biggar, despite being firmly held, snapped at his nose.

Abernathy smiled and showed all of his teeth. “You listen to me, you worthless bag of feathers. You are going to lead us to this cave—tonight. When we get there, you are going to take us inside. You are going to show us this Tangle Box, and you are going to teach us the words of the spell. Do you understand me?”

Biggar’s bright eyes fixed on him. “I’m not doing anything. They’ll find me missing and come looking for me. The Gorse, particularly. Wait until you see what it’ll do to you!”

“Whatever it does,” Abernathy replied pointedly, “you will not be around to see it happen.” There was a long, meaningful silence. “The fact of the matter is,” he continued, “if you do not show me where that cave is right now, I am going to give you to my friends and tell them to do whatever they like with you as long as they assure me that I will never, ever see you again.”

He kept his gaze and his voice steady. “Because I am very angry about being tricked. I am even more angry about what you have done to the High Lord. I want him back, safe and sound, and I expect you to help me if you have any hope at all of living out the night. Has that penetrated your little bird brain?”

There was another long silence. “Say something quick,” Abernathy urged.

Biggar’s voice came out a croak. “The cave is west, beyond the Heart.” Then he recovered. “But it won’t do you any good.”

Abernathy smiled and gave the bird another look at his teeth. “We’ll see about that,” he promised.

Biggar’s Last Stand

While Fillip kept tight hold of Biggar, Sot was dispatched to find horses for the journey west, the word find being understood to be a euphemism for the word steal by all concerned. Beggars could not afford to be choosers, and the G’home Gnomes were thieves by nature and habit and would readily interpret find as steal in any event. The hard part of all this was not in reconciling moral principles but in accepting that horses must be used. Neither Abernathy nor the Gnomes had any particular love for horses, and in truth horses didn’t much care for them either. It was one of those inbred hostilities that could not be overcome by either reason or circumstance. But the distance involved required at least a good day by foot and only four hours by horseback. Since time was running out for Questor Thews and Sterling Silver—dawn, after all, would find Kallendbor and the black-cloaked stranger working hard to discover ways to shorten the siege—necessity ruled and horses would have to be tolerated. If only barely.

Sot was back in record time, leading two haltered and blanketed horses, one a bay, the other a sorrel, that he had quite obviously removed from a picket line. He had not thought to acquire either saddles or bridles, which complicated matters. The horses were already shying and snorting with distaste at the small, ragged, dirt-encrusted rodent who led them. In lieu of saddles, Abernathy decided to leave the blankets in place, trimming them with Sot’s hunting knife so that they did not hang below the horses’ flanks and securing them as best he could with a makeshift girth strap woven out of the pieces trimmed. It was a sad-looking job, but there was no help for it.

They mounted up then, Abernathy aboard the sorrel, which was the more rambunctious of the pair, and Fillip and Sot atop the bay. Fillip held the halter rope and Sot the bird. The horses were dancing and huffing by now, beginning to realize what was in store for them and being none too happy about it. Abernathy had them walk the horses at first, anxious to get as far away from the encampment as possible in case they chose to bolt. This was accomplished with a minimum of fuss. When they were several miles off and well up into the hill country west, Abernathy kicked his mount in the flanks gently and they were off.