Bargain price

CHAPTER 38

S OMETHING WAS wrong in the Everlasting Forest. Tuttle-birds were shrieking, jabbering, making a din. In a moment the problem became clear: trees and shrubs had been hacked, clubbed, chopped, cracked in half, or ripped from the soil. Flowers lay stamped into the ground, silent. What foliage happened to still be alive warned, “Don’t enter! Don’t enter!” An unfamiliar sound filled the forest, a steady, mechanical beat: endless columns of Glass Eyes marching toward the Alyssian headquarters. The bodies of Alyssian guards were scattered pell-mell on the ground, the looking glasses that had once camouflaged the headquarters smashed, some cracked and left half standing, others completely destroyed.

“Bibwit and the others,” Alyss breathed.

She took a step forward, but Dodge grabbed her arm, stopping her. “We can’t go any closer. It’s too dangerous.”

They were already too close. A Glass Eye shot clear of a nearby thicket, deadly blades sticking forward from the back of its hands, and flew at Alyss. Dodge tackled her. Missing its target, the Glass Eye smashed headfirst into a dead tree. But more of its kind were already upon them. Dodge fought with a sword in each hand. Alyss focused her energy on imagining the Glass Eyes…What? Dead? Forever inactivated? Can they be killed like ordinary Wonderlanders? Concentrate, concentrate. She focused on Dodge, imagined him with increased strength and skill, but the Glass Eyes had been engineered for this sort of combat. Dodge was overpowered; a few moments more and he wouldn’t be able to protect himself, let alone her.

A weapon. I need a weapon. Alyss crawled to the Glass Eye lying motionless in a shatter of tree bark. Must be a weapon on it somewhere. She reached for the avocado-like object hanging from its belt-a whipsnake grenade, one of Redd’s newest inventions. She pulled the ring at the top of the grenade, threw it at the Glass Eyes, and it blew open, releasing a nest of snakelike coils, alive with electricity and whipping through the air. Dodge dropped to the ground and rolled.

Swaap!

A coil whipped a Glass Eye’s cheek, short-circuiting it. Swaap! Swaap-swaap! Swaap!

The Glass Eyes fell. Dodge and Alyss were up and running before the coils of the grenade lost their power and sizzled on the forest floor. A fresh pack of Glass Eyes stepped free of their marching column and darted around smoldering tree trunks and broken, low-hanging branches after them.

The rapid thunder of their approach…

Dodge raised a sword to strike, was bringing it forward with all the strength left in him when, out of the surrounding foliage, burst-

Not the Glass Eyes, but Generals Doppel and Ganger on galloping spirit-danes. Dodge tried to check his swing. Too late. General Doppel instinctively raised his sword in defense and it clanged with Dodge’s.

“Dodge!” cried General Doppel. “Alyss!” exclaimed General Ganger.

The white knight, the rook, and a platoon of pawns hustled up behind them.

“We’ve been casing the perimeter in hopes of finding the princess,” the rook explained to Dodge. “Though we feared the worst.”

The Glass Eyes converged and Dodge and the chessmen lost themselves in the urgency of battle. The generals took up positions at Alyss’ flanks, their spirit-danes affording her momentary protection.

Concentrate, Alyss. Imagine.

With a war cry that sounded like ripping metal, a Glass Eye knocked aside the pawns and sprinted toward her, but General Doppel, leaping from his spirit-dane onto General Ganger’s, shot a cannonball spider at it. On impact, the oversized spider bit an unhealthy gob of synthetic flesh off the assassin and chomped at its vital circuitry. Spooked, the riderless spirit-dane reared and took off. Dodge, entangled with a Glass Eye, kicked it in the groin. The Glass Eye looked down, confused, because it didn’t have anything sensitive in that area. The assassin’s confusion lasted only half a moment, but it was enough time for Dodge to reach out and grab the reins of the frightened spirit-dane as it hurtled past. The animal ran, dragging him alongside until he managed to climb onto its back.

“Princess! Catch!”

Alyss turned, caught the weapon tossed to her by the white knight-the Hand of Tyman, five short sword blades rising from the handle grip. She raised it as a Glass Eye leaped toward her. One of the blades lodged into the assassin’s left ocular opening and stuck there. The Glass Eye fell to the ground and, as the rook finished it off, Dodge galloped over on the spirit-dane and lifted Alyss up behind him, into the saddle.

“Go!” the rook shouted. “We’ll hold them off again!”

Even with the fighting raging all around, Dodge had to smile. “Again”: a little joke among battle-scarred warriors.

Generals Doppel and Ganger merged into one as they spurred their animal away from the fight. The spirit-dane carrying Dodge and Alyss galloped alongside.

“Hatter and Bibwit have gone ahead to clear the emergency portal,” General Doppelganger panted.

But no matter how fast they traveled, their escape would be as fleeting as a wisp of smoke in a fog. More

Glass Eyes were already after them.