Chapter Eighteen
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Louisa stormed away toward the cabin. Obviously she didn’t agree a “wee hen” shouldn’t concern herself with their goin’s-on.
Selene mumbled, “That went well.”
“Not so much,” Morgan said.
I tired of waitin’ for one of them to make a decision, and followed the hen. She was already steppin’ onto the porch when I entered the clearin’ and ran to catch up. She stirred the hearth when I entered the cabin. She lay two blocks across the embers. Was she plannin’ on roastin’ a side of beef?
“I spend so much time in the hot Inn’s kitchen,” she said as though readin’ my mind, “feels cold up here to me.”
I doubted that, since ogres traipse around in the snow barefoot in the winter, so I was told. I had only seen my first ogre two months earlier, this summer. Though they have to have feet tough as hooves to hike these mountains barefoot the way they do.
She fretted gettin’ the logs exactly as she wanted them on the andiron. No doubt a lot of odds and ends knocked around in her head. Required somethin’ to do. Ogres always seem ready to pounce, needin’ to fix everythin’, why they come across so—stern. Abrupt. That’s a better word for them.
“Ya have lunch?” she asked. She pointed at her backpack which she had laid on the tall, kitchen workbench. “Unload that. I’ve got some fresh tidbits ya might enjoy.”
Food from the Inn? I didn’t have to be invited a second time. Morgan’s idea of preparin’ a meal amounted to ensurin’ whatever he threw on the table didn’t wear too much fur and didn’t bite back.
I yanked at the ropes that held the pack’s rain cover in place and pulled out four flour sacks that wafted with pleasin’ scents. Four, half-gallon-sized crocks protected in woven mats encouraged my mouth to water further.
Louisa took the crocks from me one-by-one, removed their protective webbin’ and lids, and set them on the stones near the fire to slowly heat. The cabin immediately swam with the heavenly aromas of a fish gumbo, elk stew, sausage soup, and pheasant pie.
Morgan stumbled into the cabin, his snout in the air, eyes closed. A tenor vibration from his throat, like a marsh toad callin’ for girlfriends, curled my shoulders with a shudder.
“Ya would think he’d been away from the Inn’s dinin’ room for a year,” Louisa mumbled.
I chuckled. “I got no snout, but this smells mighty good to me.”
Selene’s hoarse shout spun Morgan around. Bacchus flew back into his hand as he ran out the door. I groaned. So they’d turned up after all. I looked back at the array of food. Much rather eat and flirt with Louisa than go outside and die. Really didn’t wish to die, but I forced myself to walk for the door.
“Be them?” Louisa asked.
“Don’t know who else it’d be up here.”
“Got a point,” she mumbled at my back.
Selene stood ten feet from the porch, glarin’ into the gloom of the woods. He held his sword at his side. Morgan stopped a step behind him, two arm-lengths to Selene’s right. I strode off to the left, in my mind, ready to protect my friends’ flank. But who am I kiddin’. I’d only gotten a tiny sense of the ethereal twice, and that was with Selene’s help. I gripped my walkin’ stick firmly before rememberin’ Selene’s recent suggestion it was my mind’s grip that mattered.
I glared into the shadows searchin’ for movement, continued forward in shuffled steps. Where were our enemies? A buzz emanated from both Selene and Morgan, from the man’s ring, and Bacchus. They knew the men were here. Somehow. I stopped halfway to my two allies, turned to my right to see Louisa step onto the porch. She held a strung and notched bow at least as tall as me. Where did it come from? Had to be hidden inside. I considered Louisa’s question to Morgan— “that bow Ike gave ya.”
Over her shoulder, Louisa wore the quiver that hung to the left of the door. The arrows were at least five feet long, no weapon designed for a human. Certainly Louisa had no issue with the one she held. She stood as though she was well versed in makin’ war. Odd. A hen.
“Go home and let them be,” Selene shouted.
Laughs echoed from the left and right. Louisa turned to the sound on the right and I whirled to face the one to the far left. I was protectin’ that flank, after all. Yeah. I loosened my grip on my spindly, ash staff, and concentrated on the rune I’d selected as my champion, Giba, which represented in my mind, my gift.
“I would say,” rumbled from the center of the gloom, “you would be wise to leave, allow us to resolve this problem for you.”
Blake’s voice churned through me with a shudder. The man tried to sound calm, but I sensed an undertone of doubt. I smiled, I think. Doubt weakened one’s resolve more than even fear. Don’t know where I’d heard that before. Seems like a reasonable—rule.
“Did you know the dragon Ash’et still lives?” Selene shouted.
The forest was quiet for a ten-count.
“What is that to me?” Blake finally asked. His conversational tone vibrated with a discomfort.
“She’s the oldest dragon who lived when our kind banished hers.”
“Again, what’s that to me?”
I jerked hard, as though the entire world shifted suddenly. A spot in the center of my stomach tightened. I had to reset my feet to keep from stumblin’. Blindin’ flashes of—images. Emotions—struck me, originatin’ from the two men backin’ Blake. Anger. Angst. Impatience.
“The Lake dragons,” Selene said softly, “have promised no wizard will leave the Valley alive, if one of theirs is harmed.”
Blake laughed. It was forced, not completely in sarcasm. “One of theirs, eh?”
“They seem to be a little possessive,” Selene answered.
A new jolt, a vision, struck me, sight of the gray dragon soarin’ overhead. My palm tingled where it touched my walkin’ stick. I closed my eyes and concentrated on Giba, the elegant, archin’ cross-hash I cut into the ash.
“I knew you were imaginative, Selene, but didn’t expect you to grasp at such a cowardly thread.”
“Cowardly?” Selene shouted. “That is precious, coming from you. Face me alone, and show me you have a little spine.”
“It’s intelligence when a general garners an advantage in numbers. Not cowardly.”
“You are no army, no general,” Selene said. “You’re—”
“Enough talkin’!” Morgan shouted. “The situation has been explained to ya. Fight and die now or by the dragons’ claw tomorrow, or leave peacefully.”
A cannonball of light erupted from the left, and grew larger, flyin’ at me. I leapt for the ground, felt the heat of the bolt pass over my head, and a foommmm exploded behind me. The northern half of the cabin erupted in flames. Louisa was re-nockin’ her bow. She must have already let loose one arrow.
I followed the path of the next arrow, to the far right, where one of the other laughs originated. The arrow slowed, and dropped to the ground, but another arrow, and another, and another followed.
In an instant the futility of shootin’ into the ward was replaced by the genius. As long as the wizard battled to defend himself, he couldn’t attack. Don’t know where that awareness came from. I’m not smart enough to have that kind of insight, I don’t think.
I unwound from my fearful clench, rose to my feet, and ran at the man I knew stood thirty feet away on the left. A new image, of the man concentratin’ on a new jolt, made me zig to the right, and the lightnin’ bolt singed past me, heat knifin’ my arm and shoulder.
Holdin’ my ash shaft aloft like a club, I ran into the man’s ward, bouncin’ back—exactly what I expected. I managed to maintain my footin’ though, and stepped forward, swingin’ at the invisible wall. A burst of light leapt where my staff collided with the ward. I drew back and swung again, and again.
I couldn’t stop, or the man would recover and renew his attack. Every swing pulled energy from me, yet I continued to wale away at the ward. Perhaps the wall of energy even weakened, because I had to step forward to meet the barrier again, after every swing.
I gasped for air. Was majic pullin’ away my oxygen?
Swung again and again.
Blotches of light clouded my vision.
I almost fell as my staff swung free—flailin’ through where the ward had been. Staggerin’ forward several steps, my shoulder slammed into the shrunken obstacle, keepin’ me from fallin’. I gathered up myself and swung again. The ward had retracted another two feet, and I scrabbled forward and swung downward this time so I wouldn’t find my nose slidin’ into the Earth if the limb didn’t find the wall.
Two steps forward, and the walkin’ stick clubbed the ground. I ran forward, within the trees, to see the man’s cape flutter as it disappeared in the gloom.
He ran. From me. WooHoo. From me. Go figger.
I stopped and wrenched for a breath. My vision blackened for a three count and I staggered. A hand on my shoulder kept me from fallin’.
I bent over, unable to breathe, grabbed my pants at my knees, and held on. A good ten-count later, I decided I’d live, and peered up into Morgan’s face. The bull’s lips pulled tight against his tusks, but his eyes nearly twinkled in the shadows.
I managed to stand erect finally, and the ogre patted me gently on the shoulder. “Fool. Thought ya knew better than to run into danger.” But those tight lips cracked open in a grin.
“Did ya kill Blake?” The words gushed out of my mouth without an iota of brains behind them.
“Nay.” The ogre’s expression turned serious. “I figger they’ve decided to regroup and develop a strategy. Blastin’ mindlessly forward didn’t seem to work for ’em. Come.”
Morgan turned and walked away. I followed, shocked to see how far in the woods I was, a good seventy-five feet. Enterin’ the clearin’, Selene stood, his fists on his hips, glarin’ at me. What’s his problem?
Smoke clogged the air, but Louisa caught my eye. She was retrievin’ the last of the arrows lyin’ among the leaves. She slid them into the quiver, and walked into the forest.
All of us followed her, silently. She and Morgan’s snouts twitched, as they searched the detritus of the forest floor. She pointed, and Morgan and Selene huddled around her, blockin’ my view.
“What?”
Selene bent down and inspected the ground, and chuckled. “Hen, seems as though your attack may have been the most effective.”
“What?” I repeated.
Selene pressed his hand into the leaves, stood, turned around, holdin’ out his hand. He rubbed his thumb over two fingers coated in blood.
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