"Shut up and grab me!" Ivy shouted, as everyone released his or her hold. What was the stupid spell to make the belt stop, she wondered, as she once more began to drift skyward.
"Twist twice to the right and then open it, my dear," Kid called, grabbing at her leg as she started to float up. A heavy, solid, most welcome weight of steady Procampur hands fell on her shoulders, pushing her back down until her feet touched ground. Ivy glanced around quickly while her fingers worked at the belt buckle.
Mumchance had been right about their location. They had landed at the southwest juncture of Tsurlagol's walls-the very point that the Siegebreakers had originally identified as a weak spot. Above them Fottergrim was screaming at a bunch of barbarian archers, driving them into place along the shattered edge of the wall. Across a field were Procampur's forces, obviously readying themselves for a charge against the same wall.
"I know it hasn't been two days," grumbled Ivy as she twisted the clasp of the belt. "Twice to the right, then open. Twice to the right, then open. Ah, blast. If I wanted to be a bird, I would have grown wings."
Only Sanval's strong grip on her shoulder and Kid's firm clasp on her thigh were keeping her on the ground. The stupid belt was tugging her toward the sky again. She fumbled the buckle and wondered exactly how high she would go without a ceiling to stop her, if their grip slipped.
"Breathe," whispered Sanval in her ear. "You have won. You have saved us all. Do not panic now."
She rather suspected he used the same murmuring voice to calm his horses, but it worked. Her heart rate slowed, her own hands stopped fumbling at the clasp. She grasped the belt buckle ornament firmly, her fingers tightening on the little silver wings of the serpent, and the ancient metal crumbled under her hand. The narrow red belt slipped from around her waist and shot up into the clouds with a little whistling noise, rather like a child's jeer at adult authority.
The barbarian archers on the wall saw it, their heads turning and tilting back in unison to track the red whip of belt. They all knelt to a firing position, one knee down, and lifted their crossbows. Their arms snapped back to grab bolts from the quivers strapped between their shoulder blades, and with the speed of a blink, they filled the sky with bolts. Perhaps they thought the belt was some wily mercenary trick, meant to magically bring down the wall. The archers followed the belt's path with flying bolts until it rose beyond their reach and disappeared into the sky.
"Good riddance," panted Ivy, who could feel a whole new set of bruises around her waist where the pull of the belt had crushed her chain mail against her. The cavalry across the field was obviously getting into formation. Banners were raised, snapping in the wind. She could hear the faint echoes of the big war drums being pounded, so the various leaders of the horse-mounted troops would know their position. "What is Enguerrand trying to do? He can't be charging the gate on this side. That won't work. I told him that wouldn't work."
She glared at Sanval, as though expecting an explanation. He stared at the Procampur cavalry through narrowed eyes. "I do not think that he has an extra plan in his back pocket," worried Sanval.
"Look," Kid whispered, and Ivy felt his hand brush her elbow. Turning to see where Kid pointed, she saw the giant Nalfeshnee do a crash landing, its wings beating. It rolled in a furry tumble with the two bugbears.
"Any moment now, my dear," Kid added.
While they watched, the giant demon disappeared. There was no puff of smoke, no shooting sparks, just all at once gone.
"What happened?" Ivy asked.
"Very short term spell, my dear," Kid said. "Another few moments and he would have changed while still in the air."
"Let me guess. Another artifact that he stole from Toram."
"Oh yes," said Kid. "I rather hoped that he would crash."
"But we all would have missed him so much. He kept our day so exciting," Ivy said, looking at the magelord running around the field, gathering up his fallen belongings. "All right, come on. We'd better see what he's up to."
Back in his human form-a tall bony creature with dirty yellow hair sticking to his neck, his robes torn and pulled askew-the magelord strode toward the wall, then stood a short distance away from it. He hunched his shoulders, and Ivy could see him raise his arms, hands together. The high-pitched crying began again.
"Thought we'd heard the last of that," Zuzzara complained.
"You wish," her sister said.
The Moaning Diamond cradled in Archlis's hands increased its eerie noise. It attracted the attention of Fottergrim's archers on the wall above them. A multitude of faces turned from scanning the skies after the belt's surprising flight to searching the ground below. They lowered their bows and held their hands above their eyes to shade them as they looked down and tried to locate the source of the sound.
A cry of "Archlis! Archlis!" went up. It was not a happy sound, more like the scream of a cage full of enraged tigers. A bloody and bruised Fottergrim could clearly be seen peering down.
"Traitor," screamed Fottergrim, waving the Ankh in impotent fury at Archlis. The orc commander obviously did not know how to use it, or there would have been nothing but black ash in front of the walls of Tsurlagol. "Kill the traitor!"
Archlis appeared to have completely forgotten the Siegebreakers. A tall disheveled figure, the narrow features of his face hard with concentration, his blue eyes blazing, his whole attention was focused now on Fottergrim. He raised the Moaning Diamond in his hand as though it were an offering to a god and began screaming out the activation spell.
Ivy commanded her group: "Run!"
They all stared at her for a moment, then she saw understanding widen their eyes as they remembered the disappearing wall in the tunnel-no warning, no fading, just gone.
Ivy grabbed Sanval's hand and pulled him after her. Mumchance dropped Wiggles out of his pocket. "Run, run!" he cried, stretching his own short legs as he followed her. Cracks opened up in the ground, but the little dog swerved and swerved again, each time avoiding places where the ground was collapsing.
Ivy cursed when she saw Kid dart away toward Archlis, but she could not turn back to grab him. If she stopped, all of the Siegebreakers would stop. She opened her mouth to shout his name, then thought better of it. Either he knew what he was doing, or he didn't, but she had to trust that he did not want to be noticed by Archlis, and screaming at him wouldn't help.
Sanval started to go after Kid. She tightened her grip on his hand and tugged. He could have twisted loose but didn't. "You know what you're doing," Sanval said.
"He's the fastest," she yelled and kept running. "He can catch up." Sanval continued at her side, his long strides matching hers.
Archlis shook the Moaning Diamond at Fottergrim. His shouts were even louder than the weird cries of the gem. At the base of the wall, great fissures appeared in the stone. They widened as they spread upward, like some vine twisting up a tree trunk. Rock and dirt and fill and small pebbles popped out of the wall at increasing speed.
Ivy yelled, "The ground is breaking up!" Everyone picked up their feet and ran faster. Only Kid ignored her, running toward Archlis. Kid reached around the magelord's waist and plucked the purse from his belt. Kid's small horns gleamed in the sunlight where they poked up through his dark hair. Then Kid aimed a deliberate and very hard kick at the magelord's knee. As his sharp little hoof connected, Archlis howled and stumbled forward.
"I can't believe this," Ivy muttered. She was still running as fast as possible away from the wall, but she watched Kid's brazen thievery over her shoulder. Sanval also twisted around to look and nearly tripped over a stone in the field. She caught him and steadied him.
"I think Kid wants to be a hero," Sanval explained as she pulled him upright.