The Oathbound Wizard

CHAPTER 20 Guerrillas in the Mist

Sir Guy kept sentries posted, and a complement of men-at-arms within the castle, in case the rout had really been a ruse. But he threw open the castle gates and lowered the drawbridge, and the peasants streamed out to bring in all the provisions the king's army had left behind—salted meat, hardtack, grain, and even some fresh meat and fruits that the officers and sorcerers had kept for themselves. Squadrons of soldiers fanned out to both sides of the looting party, keeping pace with them to guard against any sudden reappearance by the besiegers—but the foraging went smoothly.

Not that Matt was up to participating. His head hurt, his chest hurt, and his arm hurt. More accurately, it felt as if slow fire streaked his scalp and his arm, while he was having a double heart attack. He gritted his teeth against the pain. Unfortunately, this made it very hard to chant a healing spell.

Friar Tuck saw and, in spite of his own wounds, tottered over to lay a reassuring hand on Matt's shoulder—gently, of course. "Be of good heart, Lord Wizard," he gasped. "I'll have us hale and sound directly." He sat down beside Matt, muttering in Latin.

Matt's head stopped hurting.

He looked up at the rotund priest, amazed. Of course, it could be prayer—and in this universe, the power of prayer could be greater than antibiotics were in his home world, maybe much greater. But somehow, Matt didn't think that was what the friar was doing. Knowingly or not, Tuck was working magic—and Matt suspected it was knowingly. Unfortunately, he didn't know enough Latin to be sure.

Either way, his arm had stopped hurting, and his chest. He yanked up his sleeve and watched as the wounds closed, then smoothed as neatly as if they had never been there. Matt found himself wondering if they had.

Then he bent his arm, and decided they'd been real. He'd have to use that arm delicately for an hour or two—and take shallow breaths.

He glanced at Tuck. The color had returned to the friar's face, and he was breathing more easily. "Praise Heaven!" He sighed. "We are well again."

Matt glanced out over the courtyard and saw a few men picking themselves up, looking amazed and making the Sign of the Cross. Apparently Tuck's spell had been broadcast; Matt wondered how many of the enemy's wounded the friar had healed, too. That wasn't so good—they could have hundreds more enemies to fight, all over again...

He leaped up, winced, and climbed up to the battlements—stiffly, but without much more than a set of aches. He looked out over the slope and saw all the enemy wounded still lying where they lay, calling out for help.

"I can only aid those who are in a state of Grace, or wish to be."

Matt turned around to see that Friar Tuck had come up behind him. "I should think," he said slowly, "that they're in great shape to realize the error of their ways."

"Some, no doubt—mayhap most, now that they are removed from the influence of their army's sorcerer."

"Or now that he has removed himself from them," Matt demurred.

"Even so. But there be those in whom hatred for all things good and Godly has grown so strong that they will not even now repent."

That struck a false note. Matt looked at him narrowly. "Not trying to come up with excuses ahead of time, are you?"

"Never!" Tuck looked up at him in indignation.

"Sorry, I didn't really mean it," Matt said quickly. "Just habit. I owe you an awful lot of thanks, Friar."

"Then aid me with these enemy wounded." Tuck turned away. "Come with me; I must visit the sick."

Matt frowned, wondering why the friar wanted him along. Then he remembered that he could heal the bodies as soon as Tuck had healed the soul, and followed after.

They joined the soldiers who were collecting fallen weapons and stray arrows. They also gathered up the extra crossbow bolts and other munitions that had been stored away, plus any hardware the army had left in its flight. Then they filed back into the castle, much more slowly than they had gone out, for Friar Tuck checked every load to be sure that nothing under an evil spell was being brought back into the castle. A few items did indeed grate on him, apparently having been put to some rather gruesome uses; Tuck even drew away, repulsed, by one or two. The soldiers threw them back among their dead owners. The incident set Matt to thinking of Trojan horses, and being very glad Friar Tuck was there.

The checking would have been even slower if Puck hadn't been screening the peasants before they got to the friar. He rode unseen within Sir Guy's helmet, murmuring to him as he walked among the peasants and soldiers. Ostensibly, the Black Knight was keeping up morale that had never been higher, congratulating the defenders and thanking them for their loyalty and faithfulness.

Matt, however, had adamantly refused to help out. He knew his own limitations and had no illusions about the amount of goodness in his soul. He knew himself to be secretly vengeful, with a repressed streak of cruelty. It never occurred to him that Tuck might have had similar failings, kept in check only by stern self-control. Matt had not quite yet realized that morality is not an inborn trait and does not come naturally.

"We can't stay here, though," he told Sir Guy, when all the peasants and soldiers were back in, and the gates had been closed with the drawbridge up. "We're sitting ducks."

Sir Guy nodded. "It was needful to seek refuge within this castle when the Army of Evil was hot on our heels; but now that they are gone, we may sally forth once more and carry the battle to them."

Matt felt cold inside at the thought of deliberately confronting that army again—but he nodded anyway. "That's what we came here to do, isn't it? Besides, if we let our soldiers disperse and go back to their homes, they'll be overwhelmed by local sorcerers and their henchmen."

"In unity there is strength," Sir Guy agreed, "though there is no safety for good folk in this land—and none for evil folk, either, if they only knew it."

"Yes. It's just a question of how soon the wolves will turn on each other, isn't it?"

"Not whiles we do move, I fear. Nay, we must band together, no matter where we go. As an army, we have at least some chance of survival."

Matt didn't bother mentioning that, in the position they were in, survival depended on winning. It went without saying.

So they gave everyone a chance to catch up on eating and sleeping—though they still rationed the food, at Matt's insistence; he knew what gorging could do to people who'd been on a bare subsistence diet for so long. Between snoozes, the peasants packed food, and the soldiers packed weapons—Sir Guy made it very clear that personal possessions would have to stay behind.

So it was, a long triple file that flowed out across the drawbridge, in the early morning light two days later—an inner file of peasants, many driving carts filled with provisions, with soldiers pacing them on either side. Robin and his band led the way, right behind Sir Guy and Matt.

"So why don't I get to carry the knight?" Narlh growled. "Too low-class, huh?"

"Now, Narlh, you know 'tis naught of the sort," Yverne soothed him. " 'Tis only that Sir Guy is accustomed to the dragon—and I most surely am not." She shuddered.

Narlh immediately softened. "Oh, all right, lady. Yeah, you need to ride just as much as any of the other women—and I wouldn't trust you to that big lunk of lizard. And I suppose the knight shouldn't do much walking, in all that tin he's wearing."

"It would overtax him sorely," Yverne agreed.

Matt reflected that they were in the right country for over-taxing.

The day was bright and clear when they set out—but it clouded up fast. About noon, with the clouds lowering about them, Matt began to feel a thickening in the air—not really the atmosphere, of course, but his own personal ambiance. He stepped over next to Stegoman and called upward toward the knight. "Sir Guy?"

"Aye, Lord Wizard?"

"I'm feeling magic thickening about me. Not much, yet, you understand, just the first traces."

The knight frowned and glanced back at Friar Tuck. The clergyman was marching along with a strained face. "Our holy man must sense it, too," Sir Guy said. "He is telling his beads."

Matt looked behind, startled. Sure enough, Friar Tuck had hauled out a rosary large enough to qualify as a minor weapon and was mumbling the old, simple prayers as he fingered the beads.

"What ill do our sorcerous enemies brew for us?" the Black Knight demanded.

Matt shook his head. "I don't know—too early to tell. But tell everybody to brace themselves for an attack."

"Whence could it come?" Sir Guy waved an arm at the wide plain all about them. The land stretched away to the horizon, golden with ripening grain—except for the swath of waste where the fleeing army had trampled it. They were marching down the middle of that swath, for it spread twenty yards on either side of the road, reminding Matt that they were marching toward their enemy—who might have pulled his men together by now. The notion didn't exactly improve Matt's state of mind.

Still, Sir Guy had a point. How could there be an ambush in the middle of a plain that made Kansas look hilly? Where would the ambushers hide?

The answer to his question came right after lunch. The army had rested and eaten, packed up the leftovers, and set forth again—but as they marched, the clouds lowered farther and farther, until they touched the earth. The feeling of magic was as thick as the humidity.

"Faugh!" Yverne's voice called from ahead. "What stench is this!"

" 'Tis truly appalling," Maid Marian's voice agreed from farther off. "What evil mist has risen about us?"

"It's the work of sorcerers, whatever it is," Matt called back.

"Are they nearby?" Sir Guy's voice demanded.

"I doubt it," Matt called back. "They're probably still with their army. They can hex us quite easily from there, I assure you—especially since they've already been over this bit of terrain, and we haven't."

"Anything could hide in this fog!" Sir Guy growled.

"You can say that again," Matt called back. "In fact, say anything! Just keep talking, or I won't be able to tell where you are."

"Halt!" the Black Knight cried, and Stegoman slowed and stopped. Matt fumbled toward them, felt a scaly hide under his hand, then saw the slab of Stegoman's side loom out of the mist—and, above, some dark object that must be Sir Guy. "We cannot march amid such blindness," the knight called down. "Hold to the dragon's tail, Lord Matthew, and bid another hold to you. Then, mayhap, we can wend our way to light and safety."

"Not too much wending," Matt cautioned. "We could get trapped going around in a circle forever."

"Thou hast the right of it," Stegoman agreed. "Nay, are we marching west still? Or have we turned already?"

"I'll find out," Narlh's voice said. "Lady, if you would climb down for a few minutes?"

"Surely." There was the slithering sound of cloth against scales. "But what mean you to do, good monster?"

"There's the wizard, over there. Say something, Wizard!"

"Right over here, Yverne," Matt called. "That's right, here—take my hand..."

Yverne caught his fingers and stepped close to him with a shudder. "I had thought myself lost, even in the space of two strides!"

"You could have been," Matt assured her. "But back to your first question—Narlh, what're you trying—"

Wings thundered as huge feet pounded away, then ceased.

"Alley!" Matt swore, not daring to use the first word in Ibile. "He's flying!"

"He shall lose himself!" Stegoman cried. "Knight, dismount—or ride high!"

"What do you mean to do!" Sir Guy cried—but he slid to the ground anyway, then was almost bowled over in the backblast from Stegoman's wings as the dragon leaped into the sky.

"Watch out!" Narlh's voice thundered from overhead. "Where do you think you're going, you plate-nosed platypus?"

"To find thee!" Stegoman rumbled, his voice dwindling. "Nay, come down! Thou'lt be lost forever in this fog!"

"There's got to be a top to it, somewh—Ow! Get off my back!"

"I am not on it, thou dunderheaded drake! Thou hast e'en now collided with mine!"

"Yeah, and those fins hurt, too! What're you doing flying upside down?"

"Upside down?" Stegoman cried, outraged. "Why, thou half-brained half hawk, I am an upright dragon in every sense of the term! 'Tis thou who art inverted!"

"Look, lay off the fancy language and tell me why you're flying with your back to the earth!"

"I am not!" Stegoman howled. " 'Tis thou who dost roll as thou dost fly!"

"Well, sheer off, then! I'm going to find the top of this fog if it kills me!"

"Nay!" Stegoman cried in a panic. "We have need of thee! Thou art too good a monster to squander thy life so untimely!"

There was no answer, except for a high, long, fading screech, as of a falcon stooping.

"He has gone!" Stegoman's voice grew louder. "Nay, Sir Knight, call out to me, so that I may land not too far from thee!"

"Back, everyone!" Sir Guy called. "Back, but stay linked by touch! Give the dragon room to land!"

"I hear thee!" Stegoman's voice boomed out overhead. "Keep thy call sounding!"

"Come nigh!" Sir Guy called. "Come hither! We await you! Come, kindly dragon! Lower thy great bulk to us again, that we might—"

His voice was drowned out by a huge thundering of wing beats that abruptly stilled. Matt strained to see, worried that his friend might have crashed...

"I am landed," Stegoman's voice boomed out. "Come nigh me, friends!"

They all started to move, but Matt called "Wait! We might miss you in the fog! Give us a light!"

Stegoman roared, and Matt saw a dim orange glow ahead and to his right. He slogged over to it, picking up Sir Guy on the way and pulling Yverne at full reach behind him. He was careful to note just how far he was angling away from his former direction of travel. Then he felt Stegoman's scales under his hand, and called out, "We're here!"

The roaring stopped, and he heard Yverne weeping softly behind him. Sir Guy said, "Nay, fear not, maiden. You know the dragon to be a good friend and true. His roar is fearsome, aye, but only for our enemies, not for us."

"You are a great comfort, Sir Knight!" Yverne said, and there was a quality to her voice that kindled jealousy within Matt. "I am assured. But what of our friend the dracogriff

"Dumb beast," Stegoman growled. "Flew away. Up high. Couldn't fmda topsh ofa cloudzh, and izh shtill tryin'."

Matt looked up, alarmed. He tried to stall it, and called, "You need to turn around, Stegoman! We're going the other way."

"How y' know?" But Stegoman slewed around toward Matt, mumbling and looking surly.

Matt frowned. "How's that again?"

"I shaid, shtupid shorsherer who triezh to blind ush all sho he c'n steal our blood," Stegoman grumbled.

Matt felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. He would have recognized that slurring anywhere! Stegoman was drunk again.

But how? On what? Had Matt's cure for his hatchling trauma worn off somehow? Or been counteracted?

Or...

"Vile shtuff musht be shtraight from Hell," Stegoman muttered.

"Even so." Sir Guy frowned. "Is't not made by a demon, Sir Matthew?"

"You bet it is!" Now Matt recognized that vile smell—it was charred rum! "Uh, come on, Stegoman. We've got to get out of this fog, before we suffocate."

"Ohh, awright." The dragon lifted his head. "Uh...which way izh out?"

"That way!" Matt pointed straight ahead with total conviction. "I was careful to keep facing the same way I had been as I angled over toward you! Just turn around and head that way! We'll be right on your tail!"

" ' Sh not long enough for all of you." Stegoman lumbered around, headed roughly the way Matt was pointing, and started waddling.

Matt laid a hand on the dragon's tail and stumbled after, yanking on Yverne's hand.

Sir Guy strode along beside him, leaning over to set his helmet near Matt's ear. "Lord Wizard—dare we trust ourselves to a drunken dragon?"

"I think so—he's always had a great sense of direction. But if you think it'll help, you could ask Puck. I mean, this fog is mischief of the first order—if anyone can understand it, it would be him."

"A good thought. Dost'a hear, Puck?"

A diminutive head poked out of the knight's helmet, clambering halfway up on forearms and elbows. It scowled at Matt, squint-eyed, and gave a careful, well considered hiccup.

Matt felt his blood run cold.

"What dost'a wish, knight?" Puck slurred.

"Canst tell us which way to travel in this mist, Puck?" Sir Guy asked.

"Why, whishever way you wanna go!" Puck's eyes widened, and a slow smile spread across his face. "There izh fog! Id'n it purty? Haven't sheen it in sho long I misht it!"

Sir Guy turned a mournful gaze on Matt. "It would seem even our sprite is not immune."

Matt could only stare while little prickles ran up and down his spine. What kind of a spell did it take to make Puck succumb to the smell of the demon rum?

"Roashted crabzh!" Puck muttered. "Roashted crabsh, floatin' inna bowl!" His grip loosened, and he slid back inside Sir Guy's armor.

"Wizard," Yverne's voice said behind him, "can you not banish this unholy elixir?"

"Well, I can try, I suppose." Matt tried to remember the spell he had used to dispel a fog three years before.

He felt the magical forces strengthen about him, felt as though he was trying to push his way through a wall of molasses...

He was actually surprised when the fog began to lighten.

Surprised, with good reason—the magic field strengthened, in a way that gave him a peculiarly nasty feeling inside, a feeling that reached all the way down to his groin with a painful, sickening wrench. Then the fog thickened again.

"You had some small success, Wizard," Fadecourt noted.

"Small, yes. Then my opposite number, whoever he is, clamped down with a counterspell." Matt turned to Sir Guy. "Gor—uh the king, that is, has some really powerful sorcerers, doesn't he?"

"He always said so." Sir Guy frowned off into the fog, his feet still moving in time to the dragon's waddling. "Yet an he had some who were so much more powerful than you, surely he would have sent them to the siege we but now broke."

"Yeah, you would think that, wouldn't you?" Matt frowned as though he was only puzzled, but inside, he was hollow with dread. He had a nasty, unpleasant notion that he was opposing the magic of the king himself. "Let's give it another try, though.

It must have been his imagination, but he could have sworn a male chorus echoed those last two words. Certainly the chord of magic seemed strained all about him, and for a moment, the mist glowed about them as sun rays broke through the clouds above—then dimmed and vanished, as the evil magic strengthened about him. Matt shook his head. "Too strong for me—and I think it's several sorcerers working in concert, not just one."

"In concert!" Yverne sounded appalled. "Nay, surely it must be the king himself who leads them—for none other can compel sorcerers to meld their powers!"

"I was afraid of that," Matt grunted. "But we're not licked yet. We have one more weapon in our arsenal, anyway." He opened his pouch and saw the glow within. "How about it, Max?"

"Indeed, how?" the Demon sang. "How could I clear this fog for you, Wizard?"

"Precipitate it," Matt said. "Bind the droplets of water together into raindrops."

"And how shall I do that?"

Matt took a deep breath. He had forgotten just how explicit Max wanted his instructions to be. "Reduce the surface tension, so the water vapor will condense into bigger drops."

"No sooner said than done!" the Demon cried.

"Put your hoods up, everybody," Matt called. "Sir Guy, we'd better see about some rust remover."

The air began to clear a little, and Matt felt a few raindrops strike his head. But only a few; they stopped, and the fog thickened about them again.

" 'Tis too much for me," the Demon reported. "Some power resists; a greater force than mine seeks to maintain the surface tension."

Of course, Matt's shiver could have been from the weather. He could only think of a few sources of power that could surpass entropy, and only one of them had always tried to cloud men's sight and lead them astray in a world gone murky. "Try heating it! Accelerate the Brownian movement of the water molecules! Make it all evaporate!"

"I shall," Max agreed, and again the fog lightened for a few moments—but thickened again. Max began to jump about, agitated. "Again it thwarts me! Some agency that has greater control over heat than I has bound it into mist!"

"He exceeds your power, and that of all our allies," Sir Guy said heavily. "In truth, it must be the king himself whose power you encounter, Lord Matthew!"

"I'm afraid you're right" Matt muttered a quick prayer to Saint Iago, his own tap into a high-Power line, then turned back to his friends. "Not much we can do except forge ahead, no matter how slowly, and try to stay together. We'll call out to one another and home in on voices." He boosted his own volume. "Do you think that will work, Robin Hood?"

"We shall essay it," the outlaw leader called back. "Should our good friar join you in leading the way?"

"No—I think we'll be safer with one wizard in each half of the party..."

"I am not a wizard!" Tuck said quickly.

"Whatever. We'll all follow Stegoman. Sir Guy, deploy your forces."

"Sir Loring, lead the right flank!" the Black Knight called. "Sir Michael, the left! Sir Dai, lead the center in pursuit of me!"

The knights answered him with a chorus of "ayes." Matt wondered how the other noblemen and knights had come to acknowledge Sir Guy's leadership—not that he doubted it had been earned. They'd had two years to figure out how vital he was. It was no doubt a fascinating, not to say hair-raising story, and Matt intended to hear every word of it—some day, in front of a roaring fire inside a stout castle, without an enemy for miles around.

At the moment, though, he needed to try to get his forces through this mess. "Ready, then? Away!"

"Away, he shayzh!" Stegoman muttered. "Doezh he have to lead the way? Nay! Izh he the one who getsh blamed if we go ashtray? Nay!" But, griping and protesting, he lumbered into motion and began a slow, if constant, movement across the plain.

Matt felt Sir Guy's hand on his shoulder, so he knew his own immediate party was together, linked hand to hand. "Robin Hood! Are you near me?"

But his voice echoed strangely in the fog. "Aye; I am nigh!" Robin's voice called from behind him—then called again, off to his left, "Aye, I am nigh!"

Matt frowned. "You only needed to say it once." He was startled to hear his own voice completely echoed from behind—"Say it once!"

"I spoke but the one time, in truth!" Robin called, but he hadn't quite finished before the words sounded again from Matt's left, then a third time, from his right.

Matt felt the dread creeping higher. "The sorcerer is trying to confuse us by making our voices sound from different directions!"

"Sir Loring!" Sir Guy called. "Do you follow me?"

"You follow me," the voice repeated, from behind and left.

"Follow," it said again, from ahead and to the right.

"Aye, Sir Guy! I follow the sound of your words!" But Sir Loring's voice faded even as he called—then came back, more strongly, from Matt's far side.

"Sir Nigel!" There was a tinge of iron in Sir Guy's tone. "Guide on my voice, and touch hands with me!"

"Guide on my voice," the Black Knight's echo called from his left, and, "Touch hands with me," the same voice called from behind and to the right.

"I come, Sir Guy!" But Sir Nigel's voice faded away, too.

"Sir Dai Do you march forward double-quick, and link hands with the cyclops!"

"March forward," Sir Guy's echo called from behind, then, "Link hands with the cyclops!" from off to the left.

"I come, Sir Guy!" But even as he called it, Sir Dai's voice faded off to the left—then sounded from the right.

"Robin Hood! Do you hear me?" Matt called in a panic.

"I hear!" Robin's voice called from behind. "I shall summon my men by my horn!" it said from the right.

The horn sounded, and a ragged cheer went up from the men of Sherwood, off to their right, swerving around to the front, then back to the left. Another horn blew from the north, then its echo sounded from the south, then again from the east.

"I just hope his men know which one is the real horn," Matt groaned. "Are your people still together, Robin Hood?"

But this time, only the echoes of his own voice answered him—and, in the distance and fading, the blare of a hunting horn. On the other side, knightly voices called to their men, growing more distant. Steel clanked as the army marched, and the whole plain was filled with its distant susurrus—but all far away, and going farther.

"He has fragmented our army!" Sir Guy groaned. "He has led us away from one another in the fog! Pray Heaven the men of each flank stay together."

"Do," Matt agreed. "Please do. As for us, let's find out who's here. I'm still feeling Stegoman's scales—and that must be your hand I'm holding, Sir Guy, because it's metal. Squeeze the hand you're holding, and tell its owner to say his or her name."

"I am Sir Guy," the knight called. "Say your name when I squeeze your hand!"

"Squeeze not overly hard," quavered a female voice. "I am Yverne. Nay, say your name as I squeeze your hand."

"I am Fadecourt," the cyclops' voice answered.

Matt waited.

No one called.

Finally, he said, "Who's holding your other hand, Fadecourt?"

"I feel no hand upon that arm, Lord Wizard"

"Down to our original group," Matt groaned, "plus yourself, Sir Guy. I see why you stayed in that castle."

"Even as you said, we could not remain there forever," the Black Knight reminded him. "To live is to place oneself at risk, Sir Matthew. We must make that risk as small as possible, and lay protections in case we are beset—yet still is there risk."

"I knew I needed a savings account." Matt sighed. "Well, there's nothing to be done about it now."

"You did not pray while peace lasted?"

"Well, sure, but..."

"Then you have a font of strength to draw on—the channel you established between your God and yourself. Go forward boldly, my friend."

"Yeah, sure," Matt muttered, and followed Stegoman, somewhat shaken by the Black Knight's combination of theology and military science.

" `Boldly,' he shaizh," Stegoman muttered. "Channel, he talksh about Pretty good, for a man who spendzh all hizh time making noizh with a shword." Then his voice trailed off into ramblings that didn't make much sense, aside from the occasional reference to a foul hatchling hunter and vampires who drained dragons' blood to strengthen their charms. Matt realized there was still a lot of Stegoman's biography he didn't know about. "Anybody have any idea where we are?"

"Aye," Puck's voice slurred. "We wander on a darkling plain, beset by ignorance and confusion."

"Thanks for a summary of the condition of humankind," Matt grunted, then stopped bolt still. "Stegoman! Hold on!"

"Wha' for?" But the dragon ground to a halt.

Matt took a few more steps to catch up, making sure his hand was firmly on the dragon's tail plates. "I just had an idea." He ignored Puck's gasp of amazement and recited,

It worked. He actually did begin to understand where he was—and the fog began to thin.

"You have done it!" Yverne cried. "You have lifted the fog!"

"Don't celebrate too soon," Matt cautioned, but he was almost limp with relief himself, as he began to be able to see all of Stegoman's bulk, then to make out the dragon's head and even, in front of that, the road, with huge boulders lining each side, a grove of fir trees ahead on their right...

And an armored man half as wide as he was tall, with a huge broadsword and an evil grin. "Wise advice," the armored man gloated. "Do not celebrate at all."

"Duke Bruitfort!" Yverne screamed.

Suddenly there were soldiers everywhere, erupting from the rocks and racing up from behind. A squadron of knights came charging out of the clump of fir trees. Stegoman saw the men on horseback, gave a roar of drunken rage, and pounded off to slam into them...

Leaving the humans' flank exposed. The evil duke laughed and stepped into the gap, sword slashing. Sir Guy's blade flashed out, but it was Yverne who leaped on the enemy. Grabbing a halberd and twisting it out of a trooper's hands, she swung it about with a sweeping motion that bespoke years of training, and clipped the trooper smartly with the butt, then swung the axe head to chop the next soldier in the hip.

Sir Guy leaped in front of Matt, blocking the duke's blow and riposting in a huge, deadly, sweeping cut.

Fadecourt roared, leaped on a soldier, and threw him into the men behind. He grabbed up the fallen halberd, broke it over his knee, and waded into the soldiers, chopping with his left hand and whirling his right as a club.

A net sailed out of nowhere and settled down over him. The cyclops bellowed and chopped at it. He slashed through the mesh, but two men caught his arm, and a third stepped up to slam a cudgel against his skull. Fadecourt slumped.

Matt scarcely noticed; he had pulled out his wand and was wielding it as a club, ducking pike thrusts and cracking skulls. Then some sixth sense warned him just in time to spin around and see a weighted club swinging down toward his sinuses with a fully armored knight behind it. He was just realizing that he might not have used the wand in the most effective way possible, when the club connected, and he didn't get to see how they managed to disarm Sir Guy.

The line straggled across the hillside above them, and the slope that had seemed small and insignificant when it was far below seemed to be lofty and forbidding now. The soldiers who had been ants were now fearsome gargoyles, frowning down on them.

Alisande found the grizzled veteran and summoned him. "How say you now, Sergeant? Shall I lead you in a charge up this hill?"

"God forbid!" the sergeant cried. "Begging your Majesty's pardon—but I would rather save your Majesty's life!"

"l, too," Alisande agreed, "for I have not so many men that I can spend their lives like pennies. Yet how think you we are to progress, if we do not climb this hill?"

The sergeant frowned. "Wherefore does..." He cleared his throat, also his impatience, and pulled his mask of civility back on. "I am surprised that your Majesty asks."

Alisande nodded in agreement, smiling. "We may not fly up, but the gray goose shall. Go call up the archers."

A few minutes later, a flight of arrows arced up from the ranks of Merovence.

But at the tops of their arcs, they burst into bright flame. What fell on the men of Ibile was little more than ashes.

Alisande just stood staring up at the sky.

Finally, the sergeant said, "Right glad I am, that 'twas only the gray goose that rose up against that sorcerer."

"Aye," Sauvignon agreed. "Better that our goose should be cooked, than we ourselves."

The queen finally spoke. "I'll not say nay to that" She turned to Ortho the Frank, Matthew's apprentice sorcerer. "Good clerk, you may be a novice in wizardry, but you are a veteran of many battles. How say you? How shall we ward our arrows from this sorcerer?"

"Ay de mi!" Ortho sighed. "Would that I had retained the profession of arms."

"But you were a poet."

"And a swordsman, Majesty. 'Twas useful, when men spoke of my verses. Yet now I'll seek among the scraps of verse my master hath taught me and see if I can find one that is apt to the condition.

A few minutes later, a second flight of arrows sprang up from the Merovencian lines. At apogee, they burst into flames—and rain appeared out of nowhere.

The arrows flew on, surrounded by their own private drizzle, while the flames hissed, sputtered, and died. But just before the darts hit their target, their points shot downward, and they fell short, rattling against one another.

"What can he have done?" Sauvignon cried.

A moan swept the enemy line as cloaks snapped in a sudden gust, and hats went flying.

"A gust of wind." Ortho nodded. "Brief, but strong—a `downdraft,' as Lord Matthew would call it."

A sudden chill engulfed them, then swept past them, and they shivered, but not at the temperature alone.

"When it struck the earth," Ortho went on, subdued, "it splashed out, as water does in a pool. Its gust struck the men of ibile—but when it reached us, it was only a breeze."

"Yet one that breathed despair!" Sauvignon shuddered. "Whence comes such a wind, that chills even the soul?"

"I shall find a remedy for it," Ortho said quickly, ignoring the question. "You shall see, Majesty—with each flight, our shafts shall come nearer the mark."

"They shoot!" the sergeant cried, and they looked up, startled, to see arrows sailing down at them. Ortho, however, muttered a rhyme about someone lighting someone else's fire, and added a reference to a lady who was still carrying a torch for someone. He understood neither, but Matthew had insisted he memorize them—and he was vindicated, for the line of arrows blazed. Well before they reached the Merovencian lines, they had guttered and gone out. Alisande could distinctly hear the tinkling of a rain of arrowheads—uphill.

"This Ibilian sorcerer is most instructive," Ortho mused. "Between his example, and the Lord Matthew's spells, I may yet begin to think of myself as a wizard."

Strangely, Alisande found herself beginning to be optimistic.