The Oathbound Wizard

CHAPTER 22 About Fates

Matt landed hard, but Fadecourt bounced—partly because his head landed on Matt's belly. Matt said, "Oof!" and Fadecourt bellowed, "You loathsome villains!" as he leaped to his feet. "Nay, unbind mine hands, and I shall—"

The door slammed shut, laughter echoed away, and they were left in the dark.

"Toadies!" Fadecourt raged. "Vile excuses for humanity! Nay, do not tell me, I know—they but did as they were bid, and would have been made to suffer an they had not."

Matt gargled something through his gag.

"Yet an 'twere no more than that, they would not have grinned like japing apes, nor have taken such pleasure in so cruelly hurling us within! So do not tell me of their goodness."

Matt tried to make agreeing noises.

"How is that?" Fadecourt's voice became louder; he must have turned toward Matt Without light, it was rather hard to see. "Ah. Thou canst tell me naught, canst thou? Nay, not with that gag...Faugh! Away, thou crawling ferleigh!" There was a small, meaty thud accompanied by an outraged squealing, then a splatting noise off in the dark.

"Begone! You, and you and you!" Fadecourt stamped with vigor.

Rats! Matt scrambled to his feet—as well as he could, with his hands tied behind him.

" 'Ware the roof!" Fadecourt cried. " 'Tis scarce high enough for one of my stature, and for you—"

Something cracked against the top of Matt's head, and he slumped back to the floor, senses reeling.

"...it would be a danger," Fadecourt finished. "Ay de mi! My regrets, Lord Matthew! I should have thought..."

Matt gargled something very nasty as he rolled up to a groggy sitting position.

I deserve no such malediction!" Fadecourt protested. "I was but tardy in my warning, not omitting entirely."

Matt mumbled as loudly as he could, beginning to feel a little frantic.

"What...? Oh, the gag. Aye, I would loose it an I could, Lord Wizard—but they have bound my arms in some manner of leather casings, like to gloves without fingers. I cannot aid thee, unless I can..." His voice broke off into a straining groan that rose up the scale till it broke in a massive gasp. " 'Tis no use; they have manacled my wrists with a steel most excellent. Nay, I fear I cannot loosen your restraints, Lord Matthew."

Matt made a noise that he hoped sounded philosophical and set himself to working out an escape spell. The duke struck him as the muscle-bound sort who had taken up magic as if he were learning to use a new weapon, rather than trying to discover how and why it worked—sort of a consumer's view of sorcery, without bothering to look in the owner's manual. He probably hadn't bothered putting a containment spell on his dungeon, either; he was the type to trust in metal and rope.

The knot started to loosen itself before he finished the second line. It must have been the word blest—nothing in Duke Bruitfort's castle wanted to receive a blessing. Matt worked his jaws, pushing with his tongue until the wad of cloth fell out. It had never felt so good to close his mouth. Still painful, but a definite improvement.

"I would I could help you," Fadecourt mourned.

Matt worked up some saliva, moistened his lips, and croaked, "You don't need to."

"What in Heaven's name...?" Fadecourt cried, and Matt felt magical forces enwrap him. "Shh! Don't talk about anything holy! We don't want to attract attention!"

"You can talk! But how?"

"Magic." Matt dismissed the issue with an airy toss of the head that went unseen—and shot another wave of pain through his skull. "But I think we need our hands free, too, and I'd rather not use another spell if I can avoid it. Max?"

"Aye, Wizard?" The Demon was there before him, a spark amazingly bright in the total darkness. Matt's eyes had adjusted to the dimness; he could see Fadecourt clearly in Max's glow. "Well, you've taken care of one of our problems already. Think you could crystallize the metal in our manacles, too?"

"Can a cat make kittens?" Max scoffed. "Only hold your places a moment." He shot over to Fadecourt and sank behind his back.

"What does he?" the cyclops demanded.

"Magic," Matt explained again. "Just hold still."

The Demon rose back into sight. " 'Tis done."

Matt nodded. "Give a good yank, Fadecourt."

The cyclops grunted, his shoulders, chest, and upper arms all bulging. A metallic crack sounded, and he brought his freed wrists up in front of his single eye, staring in astonishment.

"Don't know your own strength, do you? Okay, Max—try mine."

"Even so." The Demon zipped around behind Matt. A moment later, he sang, "Pull!"

Matt yanked as hard as he could, and the manacles clanked, but didn't loosen. "How about dissipating the molecular bonds?"

"Well thought; this primitive iron is far from pure."

Suddenly, Matt's hands were free. He lifted his arms, staring at the clean wrists. "I didn't say to dissipate them all the way."

"You did not say to stop," Max pointed out.

"Wise. Well!" Matt rubbed his freed hands. "Let me see what I can do about those mittens, Fadecourt." He untied the thongs around Fadecourt's wrists. The cyclops groaned, and Matt was appalled at the darkness of the skin he revealed on the hand that was not stone.

"Now we can get down to some real mischief! Which reminds me—I wonder what happened to Puck?"

"I should think he pursued the better course of valor and decamped when the knight was captured."

"Makes sense—but that means he probably has a grudge against the duke and his men."

"Have you any fault to find with that?"

Matt shook his head. "Sounds fine. Which means we should be seeing him making trouble pretty soon now."

"Aye, but we'll not be told of it."

"Until it reaches disaster proportions, anyway." Matt rose to a crouch, prowling about the cell. "Wonder what happened to Stegoman? We sure could use his light right now...Hey!" He looked up, appalled at a thought. "You don't suppose they really managed to catch him, do you?"

Fadecourt shook his head with conviction. "I had thought of it as soon as the duke said it, but knew it was not so. Even drunken, the dragon would be a formidable enemy—and it was by force of arms they captured us, not by sorcery."

"Good thought." Matt nodded, relieved. "The sorcery was only to suck us into the trap—but this military duke preferred to do the actual take by force of arms. And Stegoman is at least as dangerous drunken as sober." He didn't mention the dragon's tendency to blast at random when he was intoxicated—when he was surrounded by enemies, it really didn't matter much.

"What do you seek?"

"This!" Matt lifted a stick of rotted wood. "Max, could you set this flaming? Then you won't have to hover just to give us light."

" 'Tis no trouble to me—but if you wish it, why not?" The Demon floated over to the stick, touched its end, and it flared.

"That's fine. Thanks." Matt lifted the stick, squinting against the sudden glare. "Who'd have thought to have found a piece of wood in a dump like this? I could have sworn they wouldn't even have had furniture. Just a shot in the dark, looking for it."

" 'Tis not a stick," Fadecourt pointed out. "You hold the leg bone of a man."

"lyuch!" Matt nearly dropped the limb. "How come it burns so well?"

"Because it is so dry." Max's tone was tinged with contempt. "Still, I did have need of high temperature to kindle it."

Matt debated with himself and decided he needed light more than the previous owner needed a decent burial. He said a quick mental apology to the departed spirit, then looked around at the floor, trying not to notice the rest of the skeleton. He was just in time to see rat tails scurrying away from the light. He shuddered and knelt down with a sigh of relief, letting muscles knotted from crouching relax. He winced at the stab of pain. The muscles would stop hurting soon enough—but how about his feet?

"Call at need." Max winked out.

"Need," Matt croaked, "but not of his type of services. Fadecourt, I think we might see about tending a few wounds, here."

"Indeed," the cyclops agreed, "though your feet must hurt so badly, I marvel you can think at all."

"A wizard's gotta do what a wizard's gotta do," Matt groaned, and chanted,

The pain disappeared so suddenly that he groaned in relief.

"Are you not well?" the cyclops asked anxiously.

"Oh, yeah! Just fine. Give me ten minutes to work up my courage, and I'll even try standing on them."

"I rejoice to hear it." But Fadecourt still looked concerned. "Yet what of Narlh?"

Matt shook his head. "I don't think he ever came down—at least, not anywhere near us. Sure, the duke might have caught him—but so might any other sorcerer. I have a sneaking suspicion that he figured out he'd lost us and flew for the nearest clear air."

"In any event, the monsters have escaped him," Fadecourt agreed. "Had they not, the duke would have shown us their heads, to afright us."

Matt nodded. "It would be just like him. Even if we didn't scare, he'd have a blast watching our grief."

Fadecourt's jaw hardened. "If they could escape, may not we? Wizard, I implore you, find us a passage! Exert your powers to the utmost! Expend your greatest efforts! The damsel lies in torment! We must to her!"

"Well, it might be easier to bypass the walls than to tunnel through them." Matt frowned and tried the verse he had used to escape from the dungeon in which Alisande had been imprisoned.

He had scarcely begun chanting before he began to feel inimical magical forces gathering about him.

He strained, sweat starting from his brow—but the web of force held him tight. He relaxed, shaking his head. "He did put an enclosure spell on this dungeon."

"Can you not break it?" Fadecourt asked anxiously.

"Let me try a little better verse.

Again, the magical field pressed around him, grating on his nerves, raising the hairs on the back of his neck—but there was a greater sense of tension, and he felt the strain physically. Byron's verse was working better than his adaptation of Shakespeare, but not better enough.

"Can you not shift us?"

Matt shook his head. "It's very heavily enchanted. This is no amateur job. Either the duke is a better sorcerer than he looks, or he's got a crackerjack working for him."

"What is a `crackerjack'?"

"I am—or at least, I'm a jack who's trying to crack us out of here." Matt frowned and tried again.

The magical web enwrapped him again, but not so tightly. His whole body was raked with tension, though, as his spell contended with the duke's.

Then something seemed to lance through to Matt, and the tension was gone with an almost-audible snap. Matt went limp, staring about, startled.

They were still in the cell. "Naught has occurred," Fadecourt said, severely disappointed. "The duke's spell must be too strong for you."

"But I could have sworn I broke it!" Matt protested. "I felt some outside force reach through to me! We ganged up on him—or his spell, anyway! We broke it!"

"We are still here," Fadecourt pointed out.

"Yeah, we sure are." Matt frowned, then looked up, eyes widening. "I didn't say anything about moving us out of here! I only said we'd keep trying!"

Someone cackled just outside the cell door.

Matt stared at Fadecourt, the hairs rising on the back of his neck.

Fadecourt stared back.

"Either that's a hen with a very odd idea of the ideal roost," Matt said, "or we've got unexpected company."

Fadecourt glanced sidelong at the door. "There is light through the wicket."

Matt stared at the glow through the little, barred window, hearing the cackle again, then a gabble of low-voiced conversation. Almost against his will, he sidled across and looked out.

A small fire lit a small area—it couldn't be called a chamber, there weren't any walls. In fact, Matt could have sworn the hall outside his cell had only been two feet wide. Now it was broad enough so that the walls were lost in shadow.

Around the fire stood three old ladies—at least, Matt hoped they were ladies, because they seemed to be discussing his future—or was it his past?

"Have you more thread upon your spindle, Clotho?" the one with the yardstick asked.

"Aye," Clotho said. "It could make his life longer—or make another life, anew."

"What, two lives for one man?"

The middle sister shrugged. "It would be rare, yet I have known wizard folk to achieve it aforetime. Sorcerers, now, some have spun out their lives to unbelievably long spans..."

"Yet I have cut them off, natheless," the third lady muttered darkly, "cut them off at last—have I not, Lachesis?"

"That you have, sister Atropos—and I have shown you where their threads must end, in such fashion that they would have no hint of their end coming."

"Indeed you have, and well done, too, for such as would cheat Death."

Matt shuddered. These three hags didn't play around, did they?

"Yet a wizard who holds to the straight and straitened path has no such cheating done. And, too, this one is young."

"Who speaks?" Fadecourt hissed in Matt's ear.

"I'm not sure," Matt muttered back, "but I think it's the Norns."

"Nay, surely not! I hear Greek names!"

"Cut him now," the middle sister mused, "and Ibile will surely subside in slavery and misery. Merovence, too, may falter—for see! In my tapestry, the queen will waver 'twixt despair and faith, 'twixt the slough of despond and the iron of duty."

Well. At least Alisande would miss him. That much was good to know, anyway.

Atropos clacked her shears impatiently. "Have done! Whether all of Europe succumbs to the rule of the Prince of Evil is not our care! Ours is the destiny of human folk, not nations or races! 'Tis for God to concern Himself with them!"

"Yet are we not His tools?" Lachesis argued. "Nay, I must listen for His voice, sister."

"How about my voice?" Matt called out. He shook one of the window bars and demanded, "Only a few more years! Let me finish what I've started, at least!"

But if the women heard him, they gave no sign. "My care is for the tapestry." Lachesis held out her cloth, frowning at it with a critical eye. "If one forgets that each thread is a human life, and regards the design as a whole, it grows to a harmony of balance. Yet will the myriad threads that must surely spread out from his actions enhance that pattern, or weaken it?"

"Enhance!" Matt opined. "Definitely enhance!"

" 'Tis for you to say, sister, not us," the spinner said. "Natheless, I would hazard the notion that the bright strands he will enliven will neatly balance the uncolored throng that have stemmed from the first usurper of Ibile."

"Can you not stop them, Wizard?" Fadecourt stood at his elbow, ashen-faced.

"Uhhhh..." Matt's mind raced furiously. "Not 'can,' Fadecourt—'will.' The question is, can I justify lousing up the rest of the world just to save my own life?"

"If you do not act, you will die!" the cyclops cried. "Ibile will have lost its one chance to be free of the reign of the Devil, and you will have lost the hand of the queen!"

Matt stood, galvanized by the thought of annihilation—not just of himself, but of all the bright dreams he had ever had of precious private moments with Alisande: the lovemaking he had ached for, the children he had hoped to gather about them, his determination not to let the little princes and princesses be raised by nannies, the physical training he would give them in the guise of games, the love of learning he and Alisande would imbue in them by their conversations...He steeled his resolve, and recited:

Sudden and savage, sunbeams lanced down from the solid rock ceiling as the lock on the door exploded. The shafts of light caressed the women's faces, but wherever they touched, a face flowed like wax. The three women screamed, a horrible ragged cry, and their firelit chamber shrank, as if receding, to a globe, then a globule, still shrinking until it finally winked out.

"I did not mean you should smite them so!" Fadecourt said, aghast.

"That makes us even; I didn't mean to." Matt pulled in a deep breath to try to still his inner quaking. "Talk about power! That man couldn't write poorly even when he tried!"

The cyclops eyed the broken lock, then reached out a forefinger to nudge the door. With a groan, it swung open. "You have indeed taken the first step to bringing us forth from this dungeon, Wizard. Yet how shall you take us up this stair?"

"The steps should be easy." Matt was acutely aware of the word should. "After all, bringing the Fates here broke the confinement spell. But just to be on the safe side, I think I'd better try to work up a stronger transportation spell."

"How shall you..."

"Quiet! I'm being creative." Matt frowned, running over verses from a couple of old, old songs. Then he chanted,

He was barely aware of Fadecourt's hand, clamping onto his arm like a vise, and of the room suddenly rocking in a tilt; he was already preparing the next verse in his mind...

The room jolted straight, but it was the torture chamber they stood in, with Yverne and Sir Guy stretched seminaked on tables, and bulky semihumans standing over them with arcane metal instruments. One was screwing a blocky boot-shaped object onto Sir Guy's foot, and Yverne was screaming at the mere sight of it as the duke, spittle running down his chin, watched another torturer pushing her skirt up, dagger poised over the smooth skin of her thigh.

Her screaming drove Fadecourt crazy. He bellowed and leaped for a guardsman, wrenching his halberd away with one stroke and felling him with another, then whirling to attack the torturer.

But Matt's attention was all for the duke, who was just looking up at him in stupefaction.

The duke jolted upright as if he'd been hit with an uppercut, then slumped to the ground. The guards and torturers stared, shocked.

Savage triumph boiled up in Matt, and he gave in to temptation long enough to pick up the nearest torturer and throw him against the wall. The other snapped out of his daze with a bellow and yanked a poker out of a brazier. As Matt turned back to him, the bigger man leaped, lashing out with the iron. Matt leaped, too, slamming a fist into his attacker's belly. The poker's shaft cracked across the back of Matt's shoulders, then fell from fingers gone limp, its glowing tip bruising Matt's shin on the way down. The pain, coupled with the ache across his back, was enough to make him shout with rage; he slammed the torturer back, away. The man tripped, stumbled, and fell against the brazier, knocking it over and falling across the fire. He screamed and rolled away, then lay rocking and moaning on the stone floor.

Not that Matt stayed to watch. He whirled and saw that Fadecourt had caught up a torturer's knife and was slitting the bonds on Yverne's wrists as he mumbled soothing inanities. Matt nodded and turned to Sir Guy, frantically unscrewing the boot.

"My thanks," the Black Knight grunted. " 'Ware the guards." Matt looked up, appalled that he'd forgotten—but saw Fadecourt hurling two guards away, even as Yverne caught up a fallen pike and leveled it at a torturer who skidded to a halt, wavering between danger and the reputation of cowardice.

A shout from the hall saved him; the door burst open, revealing a senior guard who bellowed, "To the walls! We are beset!" and turned to run away, not even registering what was happening in the torture chamber.

The guards leaped on the excuse and ran for the door. Matt whirled to look about him—and saw the duke, hauling himself up on the edge of one of the torture benches, giving Matt a look that pierced right through him, promising even greater mayhem. Matt was just readying a verse when Fadecourt stepped up with a cold iron and slammed it against the base of the duke's skull. The duke's eyes rolled up, and he folded back onto the floor.

Suddenly, the room was silent, with no one moving.

Then Matt yanked a dagger from the belt of an unconscious soldier and strode over to the fallen duke. He dropped to one knee, raising the dagger...

Fadecourt caught his wrist. "Nay; Lord Wizard! He is not shriven!"

Odd as it seemed, that gave Matt pause. To kill the man without giving him a chance to confess his sins would condemn him to eternal torment in Hell—and even Matt didn't think that the monster deserved to suffer for ever and ever, with absolutely no hope of ever getting out. For a few years, yes, maybe even for a few centuries—but he was human, after all.

Still, there were practical considerations. "If we don't kill him while we can, Fadecourt, he'll attack us again as soon as he can—and next time, he might win. We'll be caught between his army and Gord—the king's, unless we give up and get out of Ibile while we can. The sensible thing is to kill him now."

" 'Twould be in cold blood, Wizard. 'Tis not needful; you would not slay him to save your own life, or another's."

"Maybe not at the moment—but a fool could see I'm doing it to save our lives in the future."

"Then we will deal with him in the future," Sir Guy said calmly. "But to slay him now, when he is unconscious and not a present threat, would be murder, Sir Matthew. 'Twould be a mortal sin—and such a burden on your soul would make you vulnerable to the king. It would put you in his, and Satan's, power."

"It's not murder, it's an execution! Not revenge, justice! Can you honestly doubt he deserves it? How many people has he already killed—in cold blood?"

" 'Tis not for us to judge," the Black Knight reminded him. "That prerogative is God's alone. Nay, an you will have him tried by a jury of his peers, when all this war is over and done, well enough—but you may not set yourself up as his judge. That would be the sin of pride, added to the sin of murder."

"You would imperil us all, Wizard," Fadecourt rumbled, "and give up Ibile's one chance of salvation, through you and us."

Matt dropped the dagger with a noise of disgust. Satisfied, Fadecourt released his wrist. Then Matt caught up the dagger again, and the cyclops leaped for him with a cry of alarm.

But Matt rose to his feet and turned away to Sir Guy. Yverne was there before him, though, slipping her dagger between the knight's wrists and severing the bonds, then turning to cut through the thongs binding his ankles. Sir Guy sat up, rubbing his wrists and swearing softly at the pain of moving his shoulders, the stabs of blood being released to recirculate. "By Our Lady! By the blue of her gown! Ah, but I thank you, damsel! An I had lain there any longer, I would have frozen in that posture forever! And I thank you, Matthew and Fadecourt, for timely rescue."

"Without you, we'd be lost," Matt assured him—"But I wonder to what we all owe the guards' sudden exit?"

"Whatever it was, it was on our side, whether it knew us or not."

Matt stepped over to help his friend off the table, then gathered up Sir Guy's gambeson and armor and shoved it at him. "Hold that in one arm, and Yverne in the other."

"And this for you." Fadecourt handed Yverne the remnants of her dress. She quickly draped them to cover most of her torso and hips.

"How shall we come out from here, Wizard?" the cyclops demanded.

Just then, a diminutive figure popped in through the door and gave a cry of triumph. "I have found thee, then!"

"Puck!" Yverne cried, amazed.

"Sober, too," Matt noted. "When did you become clear-headed, sprite?"

"Phaugh! Minutes ago, only! The dragon and I threw off our attackers, but found you gone. We wandered in that damnable fog for hours, till it finally cleared. Then we circled aloft and saw the duke's castle! Instantly I betook myself to the dungeons and heard your chatter! Well, I did discover a bolt hole, first."

"A hidden tunnel?" Sir Guy's eyes lit. "Nay, take us there, good Robin! Have you found any other mischiefs we might work?"

"I have given the matter some thought," Puck said, turning and leading them out of the torture chamber—without ever having seen the unconscious duke, which Matt thought was a great pity. He might be troubled by a conscience, but Puck was not.

Unfortunately, the chance was past, and he couldn't very well call Puck's attention to the duke without virtually committing murder himself—so he followed the chattering elf, the lady, the knight, and the cyclops down the dimly lit hallway and through the section of wall that swung outward. It swung shut behind them, too, but Puck muttered a spell, and a will-o'-the-wisp appeared to light them up the damp stone steps, through a clammy tunnel with mitered walls, up to a dead-end sealed by rough and convex stone.

"There is the small matter of a boulder blocking the entrance," the elf pointed out

"What problem is that?" Fadecourt stepped up to the boulder, set his shoulder against it, and heaved—then stepped back, a look of surprise showing faintly by the light of the fox fire. "It will not move!"

"Considering your strength, it must be enchanted. Let me see." Matt shouldered past and set a hand on the stone.

Immediately, he felt a web of magical force enclosing his arm with the stone and the mouth of the tunnel—an unseen seal that bonded the boulder to the rocky cavity with all the force of a high-voltage electromagnet.

" 'Tis dur?" Puck asked, low-voiced.

"Very durable indeed." Matt took his hand away, suppressing a shudder. "But as the safecracker said, no locksmith can design a lock that another man can't figure out how to open. Let me see what I can do.

The rock began to vibrate, then to shake, and finally exploded out and away from them. Matt jumped into the doorway and crashed through the screen of brush that hid it, suddenly worried about innocent passersby.

He needn't have worried. He found himself looking down into a shallow, grassy bowl. The rock came to a stop about halfway up the other side, paused, and started rolling back down. Matt looked around quickly, saw the castle off to his left, and no soldiers nearby. He turned back to his companions, satisfied. "All clear, and no damage done. Let's hike."

They came out of the tunnel mouth, Yverne still holding the rags of her gown about her. Matt stopped her with a touch on her arm. "Hold on, milady. Let's do something about that."

"About what?" she asked, startled.

But Matt was droning,

Yverne's dress shimmered, turning cloudy, then stilled, having turned into a dress exactly like the one Matt had described. "Oh!" she breathed, eyes wide with delight.

"I thought you had said magic should not be used for inconsequentialities, Wizard." Puck's lip twisted in a half sneer.

"Believe me, this was something that could have bogged down our whole party." Matt noted that Sir Guy had taken advantage of the pause to pull on his gambeson. He stepped over to help with the armor. Fadecourt took the other side, and the knight was steel-plated again in no time, managing to stifle his groans as the pressure rubbed on his new welts. Matt frowned; what was a spell or two more, with so much magic in the air?

"Say, "Seventy Simmery Axe,' Sir Guy."

"Seventy Simmery Axe," the knight said, almost automatically. "What is its meaning, Wizard?"

"It's an address—house number seventy, on a street called Saint Mary's Axe."

"But Saint Mary would never have borne an axe!" Yverne protested.

" 'Tis enough that she is mentioned." Puck winced.

Matt hoped so—that invoking the Blessed Mother would counteract the spell's having been written for a fictitious sorcerer.

Apparently it did; Sir Guy looked up, eyes wide. "The pain is gone—and the wounds that caused it healed, I doubt not. Sir Matthew, you never cease to amaze me."

"Well, now that I know what it's like to wear armor, I can sympathize." Matt turned his back on the tunnel. "It's going to be a longer haul, with no obliging monsters to carry us—but I'd still like to get away from here as soon as possible."

"Aye, certes!" Yverne set off, taking the lead. "Come, milords, and allow me to show you the way; this is, at least, ground I have passed over some several times, in my childhood."

"Beware!" Fadecourt cried, pointing upward. They all turned to look.

A small, winged shape swooped toward them, growing larger and larger.

"Stegoman!" Matt yelped in glee. Then he had to dodge aside, as the buffeting of air from the dragon's wings almost knocked him over. He bounced back, running up to his old friend with a grin. "How'd you find us?"

"I have been circling about the castle since first I struck at it with boulders carried aloft, then torched the battlements and stooped upon the courtyard," the dragon informed him. "Nay, I had thought thou wouldst never have come out from that place. What kept thee?"

"Bad spells," Matt explained. "That duke is a more powerful sorcerer than he looks to be. But it helped a lot, having the guards suddenly forget about us."

"I had hoped some distraction would serve. Nay, I bethought me to ramp through their halls in search of thee, but they brought arrows enough to engender some caution."

"Wise, and timely." Matt made a stirrup of his hands and boosted Yverne up. "Mind carrying the lady?"

"The lady, and all of thee! Let us not dally, ere the duke and his sorcerers think to enchant us again!"

"Good point; certain parties persuaded me not to kill him, and he might come to, any moment." Matt swung aboard.

"Ah, thou didst beset him, then! But what daft soul bade thee leave him living?"

"Certain parties with more conscience than I have." Matt reached down to help pull Sir Guy up onto Stegoman's back. Fadecourt, of course, had already leaped up from the hind leg. "All in all, though, I think they've probably saved us at least as much as you and I have, considering the local rules. So definitely, let's leave them to stew in their own brew."

"Even so." The dragon spread his wings and sprang into the sky, beating furiously to gain altitude.

"You cannot do this terribly long," Yverne said, worried. "We are too great a load, even for one so mighty as thyself."

"Gramercy, damsel," the dragon puffed. "And, aye, I shall come to earth so soon as we are clear of this vile duke's domain. If 'twere not for the knight's armor, I would carry thee from here to Merovence; yet I would not have him leave it behind, I assure thee."

"Save your breath," Matt advised, eyeing the treetops below with apprehension. "Find us a good updraft, okay? Or shall I make one?"

"I shall manage," Stegoman assured him hastily.

"Hey, I'm not making as many mistakes as I was three years ago!"

"I rejoice to hear it."

"Mistakes?" Yverne looked back at Sir Guy, questioning.

"A tale for another time," he advised. "Hold fast, milady."

"Be mindful, they have not spent all their arrows!" Alisande said sternly to her little army. "If they shoot, bring up shields, and right quickly—the more so since they'll likely wait till we're at close range."

The infantry glanced uncertainly at one another, then let out a half-hearted cheer, which became stronger as others joined in.

A swordsman in the front ranks hefted his shield—heavy oak, with three layers of oxhide. "Fear not, good friends—our planks shall stop their shafts!"

"Indeed they shall, good hearts." Alisande smiled as she turned to face the enemy, lifting her own shield and drawing her sword. "For Merovence and Saint Moncaire!"

"Saint Moncaire and the queen!" the army roared with a single voice, and they started their long climb up the hundred yards of hill.

They didn't run—Alisande had pointed out that there was no purpose to it, until the last ten yards or so, when it would give them some momentum to help break through the Ibilian line. But her knights ranged beside her, on foot, as were they all—horses would be small help in an uphill charge—and she felt the excitement of battle thrill through her. She had to give voice to it; she called out the old, old battle song,

Her whole army roared out the verse after her, and, chanting, they strode up toward the army of witchcraft.