Finally Alain looked up with a sunny smile, glanced from one to another and said, “Sisters and brothers, let us go forth to meet our enemy.”
They smiled their agreement and turned to follow Geoffrey into the knot of mist.
They felt terror clawing its way up inside as their horses balked at the riverbank; they urged the beasts forward nonetheless. Geoffrey’s horse slipped down on one forehoof and neighed in protest, then stopped in surprise. He spoke softly, urging the stallion forward, and the warhorse stepped into the mist, nostrils flaring.
Seeing that nothing had misfallen the first horse, the others followed, and their riders with them, trying to ignore the fear that chilled them. They drew their swords—except for Cordelia and Allouette, who held only daggers but readied their most powerful thought-blasts, even as they resolved to always bear longer blades in the future.
The mist closed about them, swirling and opaque—but carrying sound all the more quickly for its thickness: a chittering, a grumbling, a growling, a sucking, and a rumbling. The riders pushed forward, swords raised, suspense stretching razor-thin—then found the mist clearing as their horses stepped onto a gravelly beach. They stopped a minute, staring in wonder at the blasted landscape before them—gravel stretching away to become hard-packed earth, sere and dry, to left and right—but before them stood a cliff face with a cavemouth yawning lightless.
Flanking it on either side were the afanc, the Boneless, the barguest, and Big Ears and, behind them, the huge shambling figures of two ogres, male and female.
“I see it now!” Gregory cried. “Those we melted were of witch-moss, but they were copies of real creatures who dwell within this land!”
“Say ‘monsters’ as you intended,” the Big Ears purred, “for we are every bit as perilous as you thought—and you shall not melt us here, for we are flesh and blood!”
“Where is ‘here’?” Alain asked.
Quicksilver, Cordelia, and Geoffrey stared at him, appalled that he would parley—but Gregory and Allouette fought smiles, recognizing the wisdom of delay while they pondered their course of action.
“You are in the land of Trahison,” the giant cat told them, “before the stronghold of the sorcerer Zonploka. Lay down your weapons and give up all thoughts of struggle, for Zonploka cannot be beaten.”
“His minions could be,” Alain said, looking grave but fearless. “We know, for we bested copies of some of you, and”—looking directly into Big Ears’ slitted pupils—“in some cases, it seems, the originals.”
“Only on your ground,” the creature spat. “Now, though, you are on ours!”
“I doubt that you are any stronger for it,” said Allouette, “since the life has been leached from this land. It has no more strength to lend you.”
“Strength enough, foolish morsel, as you shall soon discover!”
“ ‘Morsel’?” Cordelia frowned. “Do you not mean ‘mortal’?”
“I mean what I say!” The cat arched its back and spat, “Death to the weaklings!”
Geoffrey and Gregory each exchanged a glance with their fiancées, then disappeared with a double bang, echoed off the cliff face a second later by another double bang.
“See how your brave young men desert you!” Big Ears sneered.
But the women and the prince only glared defiance, for they saw Geoffrey and Gregory clinging to the cliff face one-handed just behind the ogres’ heads, their swords swinging high.
“Lie down,” Big Ears advised, “so that your deaths may be quick!” Then it sprang.
Both women leaped aside. Big Ears twisted in midair trying to follow first one, then the other, and landed in an ungraceful sprawl with a yowl of outrage. It spun toward Quicksilver—but the warrior had leaped back in and thrust her sword deep into the creature’s maw. Big Ears screamed with pain and Quicksilver yanked her hand back out; her blade cleared the creature’s fangs by an inch as its jaws clashed shut, leaking blood.
The afanc chittered with maddened passion and charged toward Quicksilver—but Cordelia glared at it, and its teeth crumbled to powder even as it opened its jaws to bite the warrior. It spun with a shriek of rage, swinging its huge flat tail like a club. It hit Quicksilver with a smack, sending her flying.
Big Ears yowled and leaped—but only a yard; weakened, it could only plod toward the fallen woman as the afanc reared, walking forward on its haunches, thick sharp claws reaching out for Cordelia. The barguest barked furiously and charged, racing Big Ears for Quicksilver. The giant cat spun, spitting, and raked the dog’s side with razor-sharp claws. The barguest yelped with pain but buried its fangs in Big Ears’s throat. The cat brought up its rear legs to rip at the dog’s stomach.
Quicksilver pushed herself upright, shaking her head to clear it.
The Boneless suddenly shot toward Allouette on a chute of slime, pseudopods growing out of its mass to reach for her. Allouette darted toward Quicksilver and her sword, but the Boneless swerved to follow her.
Alain darted in to stab the giant beaver in the belly.
“Alain, no!” Cordelia cried and raced forward just as Alain leaped back; the two collided and fell in a graceless heap. Doubled over with pain and only able to hiss its rage, the afanc nevertheless slashed at them with its claws before it toppled and fell dead upon them.
The ogres, seeing three of their number fallen, roared and shambled forward—but heavy weights hit their necks and shoulders; they stumbled and fell, and Geoffrey and Gregory leaped clear just in time to keep from being pinned beneath them.
Alain heaved with all his might, managing to push himself to his hands and knees, levering the bulk of the dead afanc a foot off the ground. “Quickly, my love,” he groaned, “roll clear!”
Cordelia did, then scrambled upright, shook her head to clear it, and stared at the dead afanc. The carcass lifted itself six more inches of its own accord, on a cushion of her thoughts. “Now you,” she said, teeth gritted with strain. “Out.”
Bellowing with fury, the ogres pushed themselves up—just enough for the two young men to lunge, swords piercing hearts. They leaped back, but not quickly enough; huge fists swung, slamming into them and knocking them together. They fell but shoved against each other even as they did, pushing themselves tottering to their feet—and saw the ogres’ hands falling, their eyes glazing, then their bodies slamming onto the rocky ground like fallen trees. Red stains spread out from each.
Gregory stared, awed by what he had done.
“Forget that female and see to your own!” Geoffrey cried.
Gregory’s head snapped up; he saw Geoffrey running toward Quicksilver who, with Allouette beside her, stood facing a huge, white, gelatinous mound. With a cry of horror, he dashed toward the Boneless.
Then he skidded to a stop, staring at the creature’s bottom edge as it inched forward over the still-kicking corpses of barguest and giant cat.
“Walk warily,” Allouette advised him. “The thing absorbs anything it touches.”
Gregory gave it a wide berth indeed as he went to embrace his fiancée.
“Are you well?” Geoffrey demanded of Alain and Cordelia, who were holding each other up. They blinked, dazed, and nodded. Geoffrey grunted with satisfaction and dashed past them to Quicksilver.
“I am well, doughty warrior,” she assured him. He skidded to a stop and hugged her to him left-handed, his right hand still holding his sword on guard—as was hers.
Gregory had his arm around Allouette’s waist as they backed away from the Boneless. “Think you there is any reason to interrupt its meal?”
“Not really,” she answered, “though it will bear watching. Still, I see no reason to stop it from finishing what we have begun.”
“Someone must clear away the dead,” Gregory agreed, but he shuddered at the manner in which it was being done. Then he realized that Allouette was trembling, too, and turned to embrace her. She let herself go limp in his arms, let the trembling take hold of her, then gradually slacken and cease. Finally she looked up, to see him beaming down at her with pride. She blinked, nonplussed, then straightened a little, bringing her face closer to his; their lips touched in a kiss, touched and stayed.