"Oh, just as long as she doesn't start wearing tasteless clothes," the Pervect said, rolling her eyes.
It took a lot of concentration to cast an unfamiliar enchantment on the run, but Tolk did manage to bespell Bee's spell.
"Rrrrrrr!CANTRIP!"
We all felt the results. The Pervects may have been scornful of the magik and the magician, but it seemed that we were running on air, all the stones and ruts cleared out of our way.
"I'm proud of you, Tolk," I panted. "Good work!"
"Thanks, Skeeve!" Tolk barked, racing around us in a circle. "I did good. I did good. I did good."
"That's much better," Pologne said, reluctantly.
"I've got a flight coupon," Jinetta said, digging in her backpack as we ran. "I can zip ahead and see where Bee is."
"Oh, good idea!" Freezia praised her.
"Thank you!" she beamed. From her bag she fished out a slip of blue paper and blinked at it. "Nothing is happening! I know this ticket isn't outdated!"
"It's the strain on the force line," Pologne said. "It's nothing more than a thread! Those tickets need a lot of magik to work!"
"Oh, I hate this!" Jinetta said. "I feel so helpless!"
"You're not helpless," I said. "Not as long as you can think."
Fine words, I chided myself, as we chased a drunken Manticore five times our size down the road. I wondered if my students thought I sounded as supercilious as I felt.
A slight figure in the distance stepped out of the bushes and waved its hands over its head.
"There's Bee," I said. "Everybody get ready. Freezia, send the bottle after him."
I waved back to Bee, pointing into the woods. He beckoned to us and stepped off the road to the right.
The gum-gorse was one of the nastiest pieces of nature that it had ever been my misfortune to run into. Its fragrant, blue-green bark was said to be good to eat, but it was defended from predators by a thick layer of viscous goo and studded with long, red spines that not only hurt going into one's skin, but worse coming out because of their minute, backward-facing barbs. When I'd been an inept junior thief, I once tried to get away from someone I had robbed by climbing up into one. My victim had laughed at seeing me stuck there among the thorns, and left me, saying it was a harsher punishment than he had planned to give me. I had only been freed by a kindly passerby who knew the tree's secret.
This specimen almost waved its branches as if to say, "Come and get me, sucker."
I ran up beside the tree and clapped my hands together. "Throw it here, Freezia!"
The young Pervect flicked her fingers, and the bottle came hurtling towards me. It smacked into my arms. It was bigger than I thought, about the size of a medicine ball.
"Oof! Hey, big guy!" I shouted, waving it at the Manticore. "Do you want this?"
"Roooooaaarr!" the beast gargled. He lumbered in my direction.
I looked around.
"Bee! Go long!"
The ex-soldier dashed out a little way and held out his hands. Using a touch of magik to offset the weight, I heaved the container to him. Bee turned around and threw it to Freezia, who nearly let it drop in surprise. The Manticore peered from one to the other, trying to follow the flight path of the beloved jug. He started to gallumph toward Freezia. She saw him coming, and called out.
"Catch, Jinetta!" The tall Pervect leaped into the air, intercepting the ball like a pro.
"Oh! Oh! To me!" Tolk yelped. Jinetta slung it to him underhand. It rolled past him, and he galloped after it, his tongue flying. Gleep beat him to it, and the two of them fought over it, each tugging the strap in opposite directions. Gleep won the tug-of-war, and dashed around through the trees with the Manticore in pursuit. As he passed me for the second time, I reached under his chin and yanked the bottle away.
"Gleep!" my pet protested.
"Sorry, but you're not helping!" I said. I tossed the container in a high lob toward Bee. The ex-corporal dove for it, snagging it out from under the beast's nose, and tossing it to Pologne.
The Manticore roared in frustration. The bottle bounded around him too fast for his addled wits. He staggered toward one of us, then another, then another. His legs seemed to be getting tangled up underneath him. The insectlike tail lashed, stabbing over his head. We ducked under cover of branches and into bushes to avoid the deadly sting. With the container in my arms, I dodged towards a heartwood tree just ahead of the Manticore. The sting missed me. The tree took a direct hit. It let out a low moaning sound, and red sap dribbled down the trunk. The Manticore edged around the tree, his claws reaching avidly for the bottle. Hastily, I heaved it all the way across the circle. The Manticore turned to follow.
I felt for the force line. It was refilling; the Manticore hadn't thrown a lightning bolt in several minutes. Pologne reached out to snag the bottle and cocked her arm back to toss it.
"Don't throw it!" I called. "Can you levitate?"
"I think so!" she called back, her Klahd-disguised face wrinkled pensively. "Where?"
"Over the gum-gorse—right NOW!"
The middle-sized Pervect looked doubtful, but she crouched and sprang, just ahead of the Manticore's leap to retrieve his property. Pologne hovered above the tree.
"What do I do now?"
"Taunt him!" I yelled. "Pretend he's your little brother!"
The look of doubt became even more pronounced, but she reached inside herself for her inner big sister. "Hey, Manticore!" she said. "I've got your whateveritis! You can't have it back! Nyah nyah nyah!"
"Don't touch the thorns!" I warned her. "Everyone else, spread out! Don't let him past you!"
"How?" Tolk asked.
I didn't have to worry. The Manticore cared for nothing but getting his jug back. His tail slashing, he stalked around the gum-gorse tree, measuring his chances of leaping up at Pologne. As I had assumed, the branches were too thick. The beast started to climb up the trunk.
"Yeowch! Yeowch! Yeeee—uhhh?"
Within two steps, the accretion of viscous sap was enough to cement the Manticore's limbs to the trunk. With total bemusement on his Klahdlike face, the Manticore tried to pull a forepaw loose. It wouldn't come. Neither would the other. He yanked at one back leg then the other. No luck. With a fearsome snarl, he swung his tail around for a killing stab. The stinger plunged deep into the bark—and held fast. The growl died away to a puzzled whine.
"It worked!" Melvine exclaimed. "Wow. You got that right, Teach."
"Thanks," I said drily.
The Pervect continued to float around the treetop, spewing her version of invective. "You're ugly! And Mother doesn't love you! And I don't like it when you blink my cosmetics out just when I'm about to put them on—"
"Pologne!" I called. "You can stop now!"
"Oh," she said, clearly disappointed. "I was just hitting my stride. Are you sure I should not abuse it a while longer?"
"No," I said. "Come down. I want to talk to it."
Chapter Twelve
"I think we've forgotten something."
The Manticore heaved wildly, trying to pull each limb loose. He was not going anywhere. The sticky gum had merged with his fur, creating a thick felt that could have been used for roofing. He couldn't launch lightning bolts at us now, even if he wanted. The scorpionlike tail had been wound halfway around the bole of the tree. Truthfully, the Manticore looked pretty pathetic. Dribbles of blood oozed out of the long fur from where the thorns had pierced the skin. His eyes rolled with fear as we converged upon him. Gleep flattened himself on his belly, and snarled. The Manticore cringed back even farther.
"Now, we kill it?" Melvine asked, advancing on the creature with a bloodthirsty gleam in his eyes.