The Way of the Wilderking Read Free Page B

trained them in the finer points of competitive tree felling.
    â€œThere’s my thunder beavers,” Bardo crooned, stroking each in turn. “There’s my trunk snappers.” The beavers arched their backs in pleasure at their master’s praise. “I got ’em when they was wee fellers, and I raised ’em into tree fellers,” Bardo cackled. In spite of his impatience with the whole situation, Aidan couldn’t help but be warmed by the obvious affection between the wrinkled old feechie and his furry friends.
    It was comical to see such heavy creatures frisk about in their lubberly way. Even so, there was something nervous and high-strung in the beavers’manner. Bardo bred his beavers to be energetic and competitive, and while beavers were proverbially eager, these particular beavers went beyond eager to something more like manic. From the moment they got out of the water, they worked their powerful jaws, flashing their huge front cutting teeth as if they couldn’t wait to start gnawing something.
    â€œPick your trees, Wimbo,” said Bardo, “before Sawtooth commences to chawin’ up somebody’s leg.”
    Wimbo looked around at the nearby trees. His gaze soon fell on a pair of nearly identical loblolly bays, each about a foot in diameter, standing some ten strides apart. “How ’bout them two trees?” he suggested.
    â€œMy beavers thinks a bay tree’s a stick of sugar cane,” Bardo boasted. “I imagine they ate two or three for breakfast this morning. You sure you don’t want to try your luck on somethin’ a little more challengin’?”
    â€œNaw,” Wimbo answered. He had already unslung the hickory-handled stone ax he always carried on his back and was scraping himself a footpad in the sand at the base of one of the bays. “I reckon these two trees will serve.”
    â€œAll right then,” Bardo answered, herding his beavers toward the second bay tree. “Circle up, Sawtooth! Circle up, Chip! Crackjaw!”
    The three beavers circled around their tree, and it was all Bardo could do to keep them from tearing into the bark before Tombro gave the start whistle.
    When Tombro’s whistle shrilled across the little island, Wimbo Barkflinger fell to with all the passion and determination of wounded pride. Bardo’s beavers had bested him in ten straight contests. They were the bane of his existence. He strained every muscle and sinew, he rotated at the hips, he kept his feet planted. And the chips rained in a steady shower.
    The beavers, however, weren’t making nearly so much progress. They attacked their tree with all the enthusiasm their master had bred and trained into them. But they quickly fell back like soldiers repulsed by an enemy.
    â€œHave at it, my champeens!” Bardo urged. “Fling bark! Grind that tree! Chop it!”
    At Bardo’s encouragement the beavers launched a second attack. But it was no good. They each made no more than a superficial scrape in the tree’s bark before they went to sneezing and coughing. They curled up their lips and wrinkled their noses so their front teeth protruded even more, a grotesque exaggeration of a beaver’s already ludicrous profile.
    Meanwhile, Wimbo chopped away, seemingly unaware of the big lead he was gaining on his opponents.
    â€œAt it, my darlings!” Bardo urged. “Make stumps, my princes!” But by this time, the beavers were rooting like hogs, snorting and sneezing in the sand at the tree’s base.
    â€œWhat’s a matter with them beavers?” somebody asked from the crowd.
    Bardo got on his hands and knees, the better to coax along his three champions. That’s when he noticed little balls of pine resin in Crackjaw’s whiskers. Examining his beavers’ tree—the tree Wimbo had selected for them to gnaw—Bardo realized it had been painted all the way around with turpentine and resin.