“Even so.” Gregory reached out and caught Allouette’s hand. “The witch rides with me—so fear not, good people. I shall be quite safe from the ogre, and so shall you.” With that, he clucked to his horse and rode on, Allouette’s hand firmly clasped in his own. She gave one dazzling smile to the peasant family, then turned her eyes and her mind to the task ahead.
They didn’t find the third ogre until the slapping of huge feet running up behind him made Gregory shout, “Beware!” as he pushed Allouette’s horse away, sawing back on his own reins, pulling hard to the right. His horse reared, screaming in rage as the monster’s acrid scent struck its nostrils. The huge club hurtled past it but grazed Gregory’s leg—a graze from a club as thick as a ham. It cracked on bone and shot agony through his thigh and knee. He set his jaw against pain and set his mind to thinking of melting, but the pain seemed to send a red haze over everything he envisioned. Somehow, though, the ogre tripped and fell, its whole form shimmering and slumping into a shapeless mass as Allouette screamed, “Caitiff! Cat’s meat!” She raged on in the same vein for several minutes, glaring at the flaccid heap. It seemed to wince with her every word. “Swine! Snake! Unnatural son of a lizard and a cow! Strike at my love, would you? Forever be fungoid, then! Worse—be no more than slime!”
The heap flowed outward, turning into a puddle that spread across the road. The horses retreated, nostrils flaring, picking their hooves fastidiously away from the moisture that was already evaporating to leave only a thin greenish coating over the hard-packed dirt.
“Peace, peace, sweet one!” Gregory gasped. “I am not so badly hurt as that!”
“Hurt? You are wounded!” Allouette turned from attacker to victim and touched his knee. “How bad is the pain? Nay, do not seek to be brave—I must know truly or I can do naught to heal!”
“The knee itself is fine,” Gregory told her.
Skeptical, Allouette tapped his knee a bit harder.
Gregory shook his head. “No pain there at all. The thigh aches abominably and will no doubt bear a horrible bruise, but I doubt there is any real damage.”
“Let me see.” Allouette probed the outside of his thigh. Gregory stifled a groan between clenched teeth. She gave his face a sharp glance—then, frowning, set one hand on each side of his thigh as she pressed outward in a spiral. “How far does the pain go?”
Gregory caught his breath, eyes losing focus.
Allouette gave him a shrewd look, then a smile as she took her hands away. “Nay, if you can feel pleasure as well as pain, there is no lasting harm. But I’ll not have you confusing the two, so put any thoughts of dalliance out of your mind!”
“I shall not even think of it,” Gregory said with exaggerated innocence, “not when we still ride into danger.”
“Yes, we do, do we not?” Allouette frowned at the road ahead. “There is the matter of this mist from which the ogres came.”
Gregory nodded. “It sounds indeed like something wrought by an esper.”
“How would an esper make mist?” Allouette asked, frowning, then instantly answered her own question. “Of course, by making water molecules cling to dust motes!”
“You knew the answer already.” Gregory’s eyes glowed.
“Oh, be done with your admiration!” Allouette scolded. “Anyone who knew a bit of physics could have worked it out! After all, mist forms when moist air cools and the molecules cling together—so when it is too warm for that, simply have them cling to something else!”
“And your telekinesis is equal to the task.”
“Be done with your gloating, I said! I am no special woman to be able to use common sense.”
“If you say so, love.” Gregory turned back to the road with a covert smile.
Behind his back, Allouette allowed herself a small smile too, one of satisfaction. Gregory was so thoroughly besotted with her, mind, spirit, and body, that it might someday become irritating.
But not yet. Allouette gave a brief and unsparing look within her own heart and knew that her self-esteem was still so low that she could absorb a great deal of admiration before she tired of it.
A mile farther on, they met several families traveling together, looking nervously over their shoulders. When they saw the man and woman riding toward them, they did their best to wave them away with cries of “Forfend!” “Beware!” “Ride swiftly away, gentle folk!”
“Wherefore?” Gregory asked, drawing rein. “What lies ahead that is so terrible?”
“A wall of fog with huge hulking shadows that move within it!” one woman said.
“We doubt not that they wait only for nightfall to come out and fall upon us,” a man added.
Allouette looked puzzled. “I thought the ogres came forth in the early morning.”
“Ogres?” The peasants stared. “Have they come out, then?”
“Aye, some hours ago,” Gregory said, “but banish your fears, for they have been vanquished utterly, and have left only slime behind.”
That scared the people even more; they huddled together. “What monster could have vanquished ogres?” one quavered.
“A witch,” said Gregory, “who sought to protect the common folk, like yourselves.”
Allouette blushed but didn’t deny it.
“Will . . . will she come this way?” a woman asked, eyes wide with fright.
“Is she needed?” Allouette asked sharply. “If so, tell me what dangers she must face!”
“Only what we have said,” a man told her, “though we did find several sheep torn and half-eaten this morning, by the riverbank.”
“The riverbank?” Allouette turned to Gregory. “A water spirit, do you think?”
“Say rather a monster,” he answered, “though perhaps no more than a crocodile.”
“A crocodile in an old wives’ tale would be a dragon,” Allouette pointed out.
“A dragon!” the people cried, and tightened their huddle.
“Peace, peace, good people!” Allouette said in a soothing tone. “We do not say that there is a dragon—only that there might be.”
“ ‘Might be’ is bad enough,” a woman choked out.
“Well, we shall go and see.” Gregory picked up his reins. “When you stop for the night, friends, camp on high ground and set sentries to watch all about.”
“As you say, sir,” said a man with military bearing—a retired trooper, Allouette thought. “But how shall you fare against such horrors?”
“I shall call upon the witch who defeated the ogres,” Gregory answered, “and perhaps a wizard, too.”
The people looked about them frantically again. “Are they here?” “Where?”
“Hard by you.” Allouette reached out and caught Gregory’s hand. “Come, wizard. Let us ride to this riverbank.”
“Even so, witch,” Gregory rejoined, and the two rode away, leaving the peasants staring after them.
The lowering sun gilded all the world as they neared the river—and saw before them the towering wall of fog, glowing like red gold in the sun’s rays.
“How lovely.” Allouette shivered. “But how menacing, when such beauty may hide horrors!”
Gregory’s eyes glazed as he probed the mist with telepathy. Then he shuddered, coming back to the here and now. “There are bloodthirsty creatures within, with mind-sets such as I have never known—but they are few. We shall fare well enough against them.”
“Perhaps we ought to call up allies.” As Chief Agent, Allouette had been able to call on scores of men and women to aid her in her battles.
“We shall call if we have need,” Gregory said thoughtfully, “but I think that you and I together are sufficient for anything that we might meet. Shall we ride?”