Episode 21: They Demand to Have Some Soup!

Trout hoisted Jnii up into the front of the wagon and thrust the bunched-up reins into her hand. He threw Ivan into the space next to the girl and then leaned in with a hoarse whisper:

"When Bones gives you directions, you tell Jnii. She'll steer." Trout turned his eyes on the girl. "I'm assuming you've driven a cart before?"

Jnii nodded her head briskly.

"Good. You'll steer it wherever Ivan tells you to. We'll follow."

Trout began to step back, but Jnii was now making mad gestures at him and pressing her lips together until they were white.

"What do you mean, you'll follow?" she whispered to him. Ivan squirmed in his seat and winced. Jnii was clutching to his arm and putting all her weight on his knee as she desperately tried to catch Trout before he left them.

"Be quiet!" Trout hissed.

Jnii looked to Euphrasia for support, but the elegant woman only put her finger to her lips and shook her head, silently.

"Go where Bones tells you to go!" Trout repeated over his shoulder.

Dool lay in his pouch near Gareth in the back of the cart. He made tiny sleeping noises from within.

Trout looked in his––or rather, the pouch's––direction. "Wouldn't he be more help to us awake?" he asked Gareth.

"Count your blessings he is asleep," the beast murmured.

There was another great clap of thunder, and fog crawled from the general vicinity of the Justice Knights' camp.

Follow the edge of the mist, said Mirrathan.

"He says to follow the mist," Ivan whispered to Jnii.

As quietly as she could, Jnii swatted the cart horse on the hind with her whip. The blow was quiet but, as it happened, too hard. Jnii sat back in surprise. Euphrasia pulled up beside the animal as it galumphed forward with a loud snort only partially covered by a clap of thunder. The sorceress held the other two horses in thrall. They followed after her.

Trout and Oliphant stood horseless at the exit, wincing at the back of the wagon.

"Watch it," Gareth grumbled from underneath his blanket at Jnii.

"Ivan!" Jnii whispered. "How do you follow mist? Does Mirrathan want me to go into the mist?"

"Just go around it," Ivan replied.

Now, said Mirrathan.

Ivan turned in his seat and motioned wildly at Trout, who, with Oliphant, ran forward to the cart and pulled a small black cauldron from a spot by one of Gareth's back paws.

"What are they doing?" Jnii whispered in a panic, watching the two men dodge off into the mist as they made their way from Dool's house.

"Helping Mirrathan," Ivan replied with a shrug.

Jnii clutched Ivan's shoulder.

"They're not doing that! Oh, Ivan! They're going to get killed! Oh, Ivan––"

Ivan tried not to scream as her fingers dug deeper. Jnii looked at him quizzically.

"Why are you making those weird faces?"

***

"Can you see anything?"
"I cannot."
"I thought we were supposed to be in their camp."
"So did I."
"Why in all shagging hell is it so quiet? Where's the camp?"
Trout said this a little louder than he perhaps should have. An armored hand clapped down on his shoulder.

***

There was a loud cry from somewhere in the mist. Jnii pulled on the reins and exchanged a worried glance with Euphrasia.

"What's happening?" she cried.

Ivan closed his eyes. It was very difficult concentrating with Mirrathan screaming in his head.

The clumsy oafs! Go, my sneaky child, go! was all Ivan could discern.

With very little hesitation, he jumped off the cart and ran into the fog.

Jnii stood up and nearly began to cry, pounding her sides with her fists.

"What do we do?" she hissed. "Do we go in after them?"

"Of course not. Just wait a few moments," Euphrasia said, her brows furrowed. "We must wait."

***

Ivan stumbled upon the cauldron within a few steps. It was lying in the wet grass, still half full of steaming liquid. It had either been dropped there, or Trout and Oliphant had abandoned it in an effort to hide their nefarious plan. Ivan lifted the cauldron with a great deal of difficulty, small as it was, and staggered with it to the dim light of a fire.

Everything always depended on him, he muttered inwardly as he staggered. There was not a soul in the world who could get things done as he could. Give two big men the task of carrying a teeny little cauldron into an enemy camp under cover of a very thick fog, and what do they do? Get themselves caught. From now on, Ivan thought, he would have to take matters into his own hands. Though it had been some time since he last felt pain (of an emotional kind), Ivan was still very in tune with his inner and outer child. It was at this moment that he remembered that he would turn nine soon. I will be a man, he thought to himself with regret.

Ivan heard, echoing through the fog, the voices of the Justice Knights, their words too indistinct to be understood. Sense of sound is unreliable in the fog, especially when there is a deafening crack of thunder every few moments to drown everything out, but Ivan was fairly sure the voices were coming from the opposite direction of the campfire in front of him. He felt the heat of it and finally stumbled upon it.

He was not alone. Ivan dropped to the ground in front of the large soup cauldron, putting his arms around his own little cauldron. There were two Justice Knights and the cook sitting on the other side, unaware of his presence.

"You don't know how animal this Greasy Trout is," said one. "I have seen him with my own two eyes. A crazed brute. Sacre bleu but he is an ugly fellow as well."

"Well, when we get our hands on him, you can exact your revenge, Francois," said the other knight. "Perhaps Sir Guy will allow you to kill him yourself, for Pierre."

"Ah, Pierre!" the cook said wistfully.

Francois sniffed and mashed his mug into his fellow knight's.

"To Pierre," he said.

Ivan lifted up his cauldron and slowly emptied the contents into the bubbling Justice Knight broth. The gentle slop of Mirrathan's potion falling into the cook's concoction was lost on the men.

"And death to the Greasy Trout," Francois added. "Whether by me or someone else, we shall make him pay. As soon as they can get him out of that tree."

There was a loud shout from somewhere within the fog. The knights and the cook all stood and looked behind them. Ivan flattened himself against the ground.

"This way! This way!" someone shouted, followed by a confusion of shouts and directions.

Francois drew his sword and let out a roar, just as a figure came leaping out of the mist. It was Trout, holding something. He dodged Francois and the other knight and knocked over the cook. Ivan, seeing his hero speed off into the mist, stood and went after him.

Bear right! Mirrathan shouted.

***

"Where are the others?" Euphrasia demanded of Oliphant

The knight bowed his head and shook it. "I only heard Beurel cry out before I had to escape. And I never even saw the boy." He began to draw his sword. "But if my lady wishes it, I will––"

Trout suddenly appeared, covered in mud with Ivan under one arm and a chicken under the other. Jnii beamed when she saw them. "Thank G––"

"Go! Go!" he cried and threw Ivan and the terrified chicken into the wagon.

Jnii cracked the whip.

He and Oliphant mounted their horses. A bolt of lightning ripped across the sky, and the rain started. The fog thickened and sunk lower.

Within a short time, the group put enough distance between them and the confused shouts of the Justice Knights coming from the mist for them to consider themselves momentarily safe. Oliphant cried out for them to stop in their mad dash, before the cart lost a wheel.

Trout, Oliphant, and Euphrasia dismounted to stretch their legs as the cart came rolling to a stop. Jnii jumped from the side and threw her arms around Trout, who desperately tried to pull the girl off him.

"I thought you would be killed!" she cried.

"All right, all right," Trout said, finally prying her hands off and glancing at the others in embarrassment. "Let's not get all clingy now."

Jnii started to pout.

"And don't let's start getting all in a huff again!" Trout said, lower. He smirked. "I doubt little Applesmith will let you plant another one on him just to rile me." Despite himself, Trout threw up his hands in a defensive posture as Jnii raised her fist. He turned towards the cart. "Eh, Ivan? You dirty little devil, she's a little––Ivan? Where is the bloody boy?"

Everyone turned to see the wagon empty. Gareth blinked and looked back at his companions.

"He just ran into that forest," he said. "I couldn't stop him."

Dool sprang from his pouch, screaming, "Justiiiiice!"

***

Mirrathan hobbled to the window of Dool's laboratory to look at the knights' encampment from on high. The mist was still crawling, though he had killed the lightning and lessened the rain. He could just perceive some knights thrusting their swords into tree branches, probably in search of the Trout. Other than this, there was no activity to speak of.

"There'll be some later," the old skeleton thought.

Mark my words, boy! You've done well again, he said to Ivan as the boy ran through the forest with his arms flailing wildly.