Here be Monsters

CHAPTER 4

With a bang, Geoffrey was beside him, hand on his shoulder. “Courage, brother! We shall find her, we shall hunt throughout these hills until we have her safe again!”

“I shall tear this mountain apart if I have to!” Gregory’s face was twisted with anger and pain. “I shall rend each of them limb from limb if they seek to keep me from her! And if they dare to hurt her, each one shall die a slow and agonizing death!”

Geoffrey blinked, staring in surprise. Never had his gentle little brother been so caught up in rage; never had the abstracted scholar been so wracked with emotion—and it wasn’t until that moment that he realized just how passionately Gregory loved. In fact, it wasn’t until that moment that he had known his brother was capable of passion.

First Allouette became aware of a crushing headache. She tried to go back to sleep to escape it, but the pain was too severe and wouldn’t let her go. In desperation, she reached into her own brain and boosted her endorphin production. The pain didn’t go away, but it became oddly removed, as though on the far side of an invisible barrier; she knew it was there but no longer cared.

That freed her mind to concentrate on causes. Moving through the endorphin-induced haze, she took inventory of her head and found the lump on her crown. No wonder she was in pain! She moved busily but deliberately, mending damaged capillaries, draining the blood that had pooled, and generally restoring the site to its normal condition.

As the pain eased, she was freed to wonder what had caused the bruise—and memory came flooding back: a horde of painted, kilted, unkempt savages. But where were they? Come to that, where was she?

Finally she turned her attention to the outside world—and recognized laughing, boastful conversation, and a general party atmosphere. The accent was thick but she knew she could puzzle it out. Even if she couldn’t, she could read their minds—when her headache was completely gone.

But if she found herself in the camp of her enemies, how free could she be? She pushed with her arms and, sure enough, felt restraints. Another push with her feet told her that her ankles were lashed together—and, now that she thought of it, there was pressure on her mouth, considerable pressure, and a knot pressing the base of her skull—a gag, then.

So they knew her for a witch and were taking no chances.

But how alert were they? She let her eyelids flutter, parting them just enough to peer through her lashes. One of the mountaineers was sitting beside her with a warclub on his knee—but he wasn’t looking at her, was instead laughing and raising a wooden mug in a toast to something someone else called out.

Allouette looked to the side and saw his friends—silhouettes around a campfire. She could dimly make out faces on the other side of the flames.

Now she bent her attention to trying to decipher their accent and let her endorphin level ebb so that she could concentrate a bit better. The headache increased, but it was nowhere nearly the crippling pain that had awakened her. Allowing for gutturals where there should have been H’s and K’s, for missing L’s and TH’s, and for some oddly distorted vowels, she deciphered their accent and realized they were saying:

“Aye, Zonploka will be greatly pleased with us, that’s sure!”

“Well, he should be! The young wizard’s lover? The lad will dare not move against us while we have her—and will keep his whole family at bay!”

“Aye, the High Warlock, the High Witch, and all their brood! Then, too, mind you, this one is a doughty witch in her own right.”

“Not with that gag on her mouth, she’s not! How’ll a witch work a spell without speech, eh?”

Very well, actually, Allouette thought, but she wasn’t about to let her captors know that espers didn’t need to be able to talk to read thoughts, make objects move, make people think they saw things that weren’t really there, or feel emotions they’d never known. In fact, the more helpless they thought she was, the greater her advantage.

So she lay still, listening to the mountaineers crow over their victory.

“Not just keeping the Crown’s witches and wizards away!” one boasted. “If Zonploka is right, we’ll be able to bid them clear the county of all the folk around these mountains, peasants and nobles alike!”

“Aye! Then we’ll rule the lands our ancestors held!”

“We, and Zonploka’s people,” another reminded.

“True, but he only means to gather his army here. They’ll not stay, they’ll move out to conquer the land—but we’ll hold the county! Zonploka has promised it!”

Some renegade sorcerer, then, who had promised them dominion for helping his treachery against the Crown and the people—and they expected him to keep his promise? Allouette could have pitied these poor naive peasants if it hadn’t been for the pounding in her head.

But who, she wondered, was Zonploka?

There was no way to tell, and not enough information to work it out, though she did puzzle at the matter while she waited for the celebration to wind down and the mountaineers to fall asleep. She tried to project a thought to Gregory to reassure him she was well, but found the effort made her head ache worse and seemed to do no good. She would have to wait for the minor concussion to heal, then. She did manage to read the minds of the people near her and gained a good deal of information about their daily lives, including who lusted after whom and who had promised her favors to whom else, but she had to stop because even that slight effort increased her headache again.

So she lay still, working at lulling the headache into absence as, one by one, the mountaineers sought their beds of bracken. Some went two by two but were too thoroughly drunken to stay awake—and at last, Allouette was the only one conscious, hearing nothing but the breeze in the leaves and the noises of the small animals who inhabited the heights.

She reached out with a tendril of thought, exploring the lashings that held her hands. Yes, they were knots she knew. The effort wakened her headache again but this time she ignored it, making thong slide against thong as she lifted her head, opening her eyes to watch the knots untying themselves. When the leather fell away, she chafed her wrists to restore circulation, then flexed her fingers until the pins and needles had stopped. Finally she sat up—slowly, carefully, so as not to make the headache worse—and untied the thongs that bound her ankles. It took longer than telekinesis but didn’t increase the pain in her head. Then she chafed her ankles, flexing her toes and making circles with her feet. She almost groaned aloud as the prickling began but clamped her jaw shut, waiting and massaging until she was sure her legs would bear her. Then, finally, she pushed herself to her feet and crept off into the night.

She would have made it and done no harm to anyone, but as she stepped over one man, he happened to turn in his sleep, tripping her. She fell heavily, then scrambled up—but a rough basso voice called, “Who moves?”

Allouette cursed; one sentry had stayed sober. She ran for the trees, but he saw her and ran after, shouting, “Waken! Catch her! Don’t let her get away!”

Half the camp woke; ten of them made it to their feet and blundered after her in the dark, shouting and bellowing, for all the world like hounds on a scent.

Allouette kept stumbling toward the trees, but her legs still weren’t working properly. When she heard the heavy thudding of feet behind her, she turned. The sentry shouted with triumph, swinging a warclub at her head. She pivoted, caught the arm and a handful of tunic, shoved out her hip, and threw him headlong into the bracken.

But it had delayed her long enough for the pack to catch her. A woman in the forefront swung her own warclub; Allouette blocked, but pain seared through her forearm. She caught the weapon with her other hand, twisted as she kicked the woman’s feet out from under her, and turned to fend off another blow left-handed. She knocked it aside and recovered to crack the man’s pate, but saw a quarterstaff swinging down at her right side and another warclub swinging from her left and knew with despair, even as she whirled aside from the staff and swung her own weapon to block the warclub, that they would bear her down by the weight of sheer numbers.

Then a double scream split the night, female voices howling in rage, and two furies leapt in among the mountaineers, one whirling a quarterstaff like a windmill, the other laying about her with a sword and smashing her shield into a bearded face.

Allouette froze for a second’s disbelief, then realized that she still had a chance of escape and leaped into the fight with elation.

In minutes, the three women were back to back in a tight triangle. The mountaineers charged them en masse—once. Allouette felled one with her warclub, but another’s fist cracked against her cheek. She staggered, the night suddenly filling with sparks, but through the roaring in her ears she could hear the furies’ scream. When her vision cleared, she found herself staring at the woman who had struck her—now lying flat on the ground.

Another mountaineer bellowed; Allouette looked up, but the attacker was to her right. She gave a quick glance, saw a staff blur, heard it crack on the man’s skull, and saw him falling. Three women screamed with rage on her left; Allouette turned to look and saw them charging her defender. She swung, hard and quick. Her club struck a shoulder and its owner staggered with a howl, clutching her hurt—but the other two fell back, their shields gouged with massive cuts.

Suddenly there was silence, the ring of mountaineers glaring at the women with hatred, looking for an opening, a weakness. Allouette cast a thought at a woman’s ankle, tugging, but she still hadn’t recovered from the blow that had knocked her out, and the mountaineer only glanced down in irritation.

Then one of the mountaineers’ clubs swung to her left, hard, striking the cheek of the man beside him. “Owoo!” the man howled. “What did you do that for, Castya?”

“I didn’t,” the woman protested, “I only—”

But another man howled as a club struck his shoulder and a third bellowed as still another club struck a knee.

“ ’Tis witchcraft!” a woman cried, her eyes huge. “Flee!”

They all turned and ran—except one hulking brute who snarled and waddled toward the three women, club swinging high—and higher and higher, jerking out of his hand, then tumbling end over end in front of his face. His eyes went round as platters and he turned and ran too, his own club chasing him.

“Enough, sister-to-be,” one of Allouette’s rescuers panted. “He will not come back.”

Allouette recognized the voice. With foreboding, she turned to face her rescuers. “I . . . I must thank you . . .”

“Must you indeed!” Quicksilver cried. “Does that mean you would not if you did not have to?”

“Oh, don’t badger the poor woman, Quicksilver!” Cordelia said. “Can’t you see that lump on her head? And the way her arm is hanging! Here, Allouette, let me see!” She stepped forward to take hold of Allouette’s limp arm and bend it, moving her hand toward her shoulder gently, tentatively, slowly . . .

“There!” Allouette gasped.

Cordelia held the arm still, gazing off into space as her thoughts probed the bruise; then she nodded. “Only some little damage to the muscle and a swelling in the cartilage of the elbow. Hold still, Allouette.” She gazed at the elbow.

Allouette caught the distinction—that Cordelia called her by name, but Quicksilver “sister-to-be.” Still, what could their would-be assassin expect?

Cordelia released the arm and stepped back. “It will serve you now. Use it lightly if you can—the tissues must still do some healing of their own.”

“I—I thank you,” Allouette stammered. “How—how could you have so much compassion as to save me from those brutes?”

“We shall all be of the same family soon,” Quicksilver said with a shrug, “and kin guard kin.”

“So I shall,” Allouette promised fervently.

“Why then, you owe us a life now,” Quicksilver said with a smile, “or at least, your liberty.”

“I owe you far more than that!”

“We shall collect in good time, I doubt not.” Quicksilver looked around the campsite with a frown. “How came you here, and in such bondage?”

“Gregory and I learned from a peasant family that three ogres had come out of a most strange mist,” Allouette explained.

“They were only of witch-moss, I hope?” Cordelia asked.

“Aye, and we turned them back into the jelly from which they’d come.”

Quicksilver made a noise of disgust. “What a waste of a good chance for a fight!”

“Aye, but quicker, I am sure. So when they were undone, you sought along their backtrail to discover the mist from which they’d come?”

“Aye, and blundered into a bog for our pains.”

Quicksilver grinned.

Allouette blushed. “Your fiancés pulled us out.”

Quicksilver and Cordelia exchanged a glance of surprise. “We have come faster than they, then.”

“Either that, or they have gone astray in their search.” Quicksilver frowned. “Could they not track by thought?”

“Not mine,” said Allouette. “The knock on the head those mountaineers gave me has sorely diminished my powers.”

Quicksilver looked up in surprise; then a calculating look came into her eye and Allouette shuddered, knowing that the woman had cause to want revenge—not as much cause as Cordelia, but enough.

“ ’Tis also possible that these mountaineers may have taken you closer to our route than to the men’s path,” Cordelia mused. “You were unconscious, were you not?”

“Aye, for some hours.”

“Time enough,” Quicksilver said drily. Then her face darkened. “What use had they for you?”

“Only as a hostage,” Allouette assured them. “Indeed, they drank so heavily that I doubt they could have managed anything else.”

“Drank?” The former outlaw’s eye kindled. “Did they talk while they were in their cups—perhaps to tell you why they had set upon you?”

“They did as they were bade,” Allouette replied, “by a sorcerer named Zonploka.”

Quicksilver frowned at Cordelia, who frowned back. “I have never heard that name.”

“Nor I,” Cordelia confessed.

“ ’Tis strange to me, too,” Allouette admitted, “but whoever he or she is, he has hoodwinked the mountaineers into thinking that they act for the good of their people. From what these raiders said, they wish to clear this county of peasants.”

“Wherefore?” Quicksilver demanded.

“As a staging area for the sorcerer’s army,” Allouette replied. “When it marches off, the sorcerer has promised the valley to the mountaineers, who believe their ancestors held it.”

Quicksilver shrugged. “That may be so; it would not be the first time that peaceful people have been driven out by warlike and learned to become warriors in their turn.”

“Perhaps,” said Cordelia, “but they are fools to think a conquering army will give up territory once they’ve gained it.”

“That is so.” Quicksilver turned to Allouette, and there was an edge to her voice. “You who were chieftain of spies and assassins—would you yield what you had gained?”

Anger surged in Allouette, but she contained it. “I am no such creature anymore—but villain or householder, I would fight to keep what is mine!”

“Right and proper,” said Quicksilver, “but what if you had stolen it?”

“ ‘What if’ indeed,” Allouette asked, “O bandits’ chieftain?”

Quicksilver gave her a toothy grin. “Never in a thousand years yield what I had gained!”

“Only a thousand?” Allouette retorted. Her stomach sank—she felt she was losing any chance of Quicksilver’s forgiveness—but her pride wouldn’t let her back down.

Quicksilver only shrugged. “A hundred would do. I would not live to see it. Let my children fight for what I’d gained!”

Allouette stared, amazed that the warrior hadn’t loosed a torrent of insults. Then she recovered and said, “I do not doubt that the brood of so redoubtable a dam would fight for every inch.”

“What if it were not rightfully theirs?” Cordelia asked quietly.

“Rightfully?” Quicksilver asked. “We speak of an army of conquest, lady! Wherefore would they speak of right or wrong?”

Allouette nodded. “To those who come in conquest, ‘right’ means only their self-interest.”

Cordelia shuddered. “Alas, poor land—and poor mountaineers, who shall be so rudely betrayed! We must discover who this Zonploka is, who has promised them and will betray them!”

“Where shall we seek this foul sorcerer?” Allouette asked.

“Why, where you were bound ere they kidnapped you,” Quicksilver answered, “in the mist that spawns monsters! Come, let us find their trail.”

“Where?” Cordelia spread her hands. “We cannot know if they bore Allouette toward those mists, or far from their track.”

“We can,” said Quicksilver, “if we capture one and ask him.” She caressed her sword’s pommel. “Let us track these mountaineers, ladies, and while we journey, think of arguments that might persuade them to yield up what they know.”

Cordelia glanced at the sword hilt with a jaundiced eye. “We shall, if you leave the persuading to us.”

“But stand behind us as we ask,” Allouette said with a vindictive smile. “Our arguments may prove all the more effective for your presence.”

“So that it be our questions that be keen and not her sword,” Cordelia said quickly, then turned to scan the mountainside and point toward a stunted tree. “As memory serves, yonder they went.”

Quicksilver glanced at the ground and the tracks of running feet, and nodded. “Your memory serves you well.” She put fingers to her lips and blew a shrill whistle. A neighing answered them; two horses came trotting out of the trees.

Allouette stared. “How have I robbed you of your mounts during battle?”

“Because surprise was more important than being mounted,” Quicksilver explained, “and our horses would have drawn the mountaineers’ attention. You shall have to ride behind me, lady. Up and after them!”

“I could not impose so.” Allouette wasn’t at all happy about sharing a horse with a woman who had doubts about her, but told herself that surely it must be a good sign for Quicksilver to trust the former spy behind her back. Nonetheless, she frowned in concentration for a moment.

A whinny that was surely filled with relief answered her, then galloping hoofbeats, and her own horse came pounding across the grass to her.

“She lost track of me among the mountaineers’ scents,” Allouette explained, “and I am only now recovered enough to summon her.”

“Besides, you were somewhat distracted,” Quicksilver said drily. “Well, then, damsel, mount and ride.”

They set off uphill, and Allouette noticed with chagrin that the other women were careful to stay beside her, not letting her fall behind. She sighed and hoped it was out of concern for her wound.

After a few minutes, Allouette looked up at the sky with a frown.

“What troubles you?’ Quicksilver demanded.

“That we travel southeast,” Allouette said, “when the trail that I took with Gregory was northwest.”

Quicksilver frowned, musing. “There is sense in that, if the mountaineers came from the place where they ambushed you.”

“It is, is it not?” Allouette sighed. “Well, we must backtrack before we can turn and go forward again. I had hoped they had taken me back to their lair.”

“Perhaps they had,” Cordelia said, “but their lair lies near to where they ambushed you.”

“Then why would they have brought me here?”

The three women were silent, looking at one another and at the scenery around them, trying to puzzle out the question. Then Cordelia hazarded a guess. “Could they have been taking you to meet their master in the mists?”

“Likely enough,” Quicksilver snapped.

Allouette shuddered. “I must thank you even more for your kind rescue, damsels. I had rather not meet this Zonploka—nay, not until I know something more about him.”

“Wise,” Quicksilver acknowledged. “Well, let us follow their trail back to their lair if we must, and seize one who lags behind.”

They set off again.

An hour later they came to a meadow, but one most thoroughly torn up in its center. Allouette looked about her as though scenting the winds. “It was here! It was here they set upon us!”

Quicksilver looked about, nodding. “Close enough to the trees for cover but with open space in which to fight. Their chieftain’s not a complete fool, at least.”

“But where,” Cordelia asked, “are our men?”

The women looked about, puzzling over the matter. Then Quicksilver scowled at the ground and began to prowl the site of the skirmish. “There! ’Tis the mark of Geoffrey’s boot—I would know it anywhere!”

“Gregory’s should be much like it.” Cordelia came to stand beside her. “We have all the same cobbler . . . There!” She pointed. “There stood Gregory, and from the flattened grass he struck well . . .”

“But Geoffrey stepped here behind him,” Quicksilver said, “and struck another villain, like as not. A pox upon it! I can tell almost nothing from this fray!”

“The ground is too much chewed up,” Cordelia agreed.

“Let us seek at its edge, then.” Allouette began to prowl about the perimeter.

“A good thought.” Quicksilver came to join her.

“Here the mountaineers fled.” Cordelia pointed down at the ground. “ ’Tis a trampled mire save two whose prints are deeper, and therefore clear.”

“They must have been the ones who carried me!” Allouette scowled downward. “Smaller feet—here Gregory stood . . . but what mean these ovals in the grass?”

Quicksilver came to look. “Shins, lady. Your fiancé fell to his knees in his grief over your abduction.”

Allouette looked up at her, startled, then down again to keep the glow within her from showing in her face. “Do you truly think so?”

“I doubt it not,” Quicksilver assured her, then went back to prowling the edge of the morass. She stopped, pointing. “The heels are deeper. Cordelia, are these your fiancé’s boots?”

Cordelia came to look and nodded. “Even such does the royal cobbler fashion. But where is he going?”

“Hither and yon, I think,” Quicksilver said, exasperated, “and here are Geoffrey’s prints beside him. Let us trace their path.”

“Gregory rose and came this way.” Allouette stepped toward them, eyes on the ground. “Why, he came to join the others!”

“Now they all wander together,” said Quicksilver, and so did the three women, moving in a triangle toward the trees.

Following the prints, they went in among the leaves. It was harder to follow the trail in the flickering shadows, but they managed, tracing its twists and turns until . . .

“They have come back to the meadow!” Cordelia cried.

“Odd indeed,” Quicksilver said, frowning. “Even more, for they turn and go back in among the leaves.”

They followed the men’s footprints again. This time the winding route was longer, but its end was the same.

“The meadow again!” Quicksilver cried in exasperation. “Can they not keep their minds on one single point?”

Allouette said nothing, but her stomach sank, for the single point the men were presumably following was herself. The three were quiet for a few minutes, Allouette feeling her face set in the immobile mode that had hidden her feelings for so long, Quicksilver still prowling, scanning the ground as though the footprints could reveal the men’s thoughts, Cordelia scowling about her in deep thought. Allouette finally remembered to seek out Gregory’s thoughts, but she must not yet have recovered from the blow on the head, for she could find him nowhere. “Cordelia, would you seek for Gregory? I cannot yet hear with my mind.”

“I have,” Cordelia said, her scowl deepening, “and I find him not. ’Tis most perplexing.”

“But wherefore would he not . . .” Allouette bit off the cry.

“Follow you?” Quicksilver asked. “He would, lady. The lad is so besotted that he is a mooncalf studying to be a lap-pup. Be sure that if he lives, he seeks you.”

Allouette looked down again, but too late to hide her blush, or her smile. “But if he sought me, why did he not find me?”

They were silent a moment longer, thinking the matter over, before Quicksilver delivered her verdict: “Something misled them.”

“Aye,” said Cordelia. “There could be no other explanation.”

“But what?” asked Allouette, eyes wide in amazement.