“They’re manipulating you,” I said. “Manipulating us. Trying to contrive a fight.”
It responded with a guttural, wordless noise, drawn out.
“Buuuuuuuuggghghhhh.”
It didn’t speak. Or understand, quite probably.
It looked down at its hand. When it clenched one oversized fist, blood oozed between meaty fingers.
While I was looking, it hit me with the other hand. Not justifiably worth calling a jab, it was so heavy a blow, but he didn’t bring his fast back before swinging. I felt bones and wood break, and sprawled in the snow.
Direction and redirection. The Enchantress’ stock in trade.
Two can play that game.
Green Eyes was tensed, forearms perpendicular to the ground, ready to pounce.
“No, Green!” I said. “Evan, help!”
It was maybe a mistake to decide on a game plan before seeing how intact I was. Part of my chest had been crushed, folded in like a car door might be dented.
But I was intact enough to move.
I flipped over onto my stomach, and I scrambled forward until I could switch from a crawl to a run.
Like many predators, when prey ran, this thing chased.
I went from moving barely as fast as I might have walked when I was human as I shifted from crawl to run, and then found my feet as I figured out how best to run in snow. As Evan joined me, I found it even easier. A push here and there, as I almost lost my footing or when the snow underfoot didn’t just compact, but collapsed.
The big thing was barely slowed down in the knee-deep snow. It was tall, and its clawed feet were broad. There was less avenue for his feet to sink in, or for him to happen on areas where the snow underfoot wasn’t solid. Weight distribution.
“You’re getting away,” Evan said.
And, I thought, I’m getting closer to the Duchamps.
I was closing the distance to their defensive lines, to the squat building with its ice cream shop and convenience store.
“Don’t help me,” I said, before redoubling my efforts. “Keep it on course until-”
I very nearly fell. I didn’t bother speaking again. Evan was already gone.
My approach was noticed. Two Duchamp women and Crooked Hat laid eyes on me and my pursuer. One of the women, by the looks of it, was his wife.
Here it was.
They were talking to one another, deciding who would handle what.
I could see as one woman focused on me.
How did one fight an Enchantress?
Same way one fought a Faerie, presumably. Directness, to counteract subtlety.
In that, the charging Other behind me was a point on our side.
Focus on the plan, I thought. Focus, focus–
She held a golden chain, something dangling from it. I saw her swipe it hard, left to right.
She seemed to move in slow motion as she finished, the medallion moving slowly in the air.
I averted my eyes, but I averted them in the wrong direction.
I caught sight of the Valkyrie-man.
Unlike Crooked Hat, the Valkalla was undeniably bad.
An easy target.
But, I thought, there’s no reason I can’t go after both.
I didn’t change course. The snow was easier going as I drew near the building. The stage with its overhang and the building had blocked some of the snowfall.
Beside her, the other Enchantress was doing something else. Not aimed at me.
I heard a snarl, the footsteps slowing behind me.
A roar.
“Suck it!” I heard Evan say.
The thudding footsteps resumed, a matter of five or ten feet behind me.
Her movements were sharp. With one hand, she wrapped the gold chain around her hand. Arm out straight in front of her, she clasped it, fingers hooking around the edges of the medallion..
I had a momentary glimpse of my reflection.
A catch-twenty-two. The maneuver was clearly defensive. The question was, was it the sort of defense where what I did was reflected back at me, a u-turn in my attempt to connect my fist to her? Something similar, a simple ward against harm, where I might as well be punching a stone wall, destroying my fist or damaging the Hyena? Or was it the sort of defense where I second guessed the attack by thinking it was a trap, and she consequently stopped me?
It didn’t matter.
I leaped. My feet settled on the railing. For a moment, I perched.
My knees bent, and I leaped. Up, not into them.
I stabbed the roof of the squat building with the Hyena.
An enchantress did something. I jerked, my grip suddenly giving. The blade skittered against ice. I slid further down the roof’s edge, feet dangling at the head-level of the practitioners I’d just leaped over.
Right. Of course there was a connection between me and the ground.
And if that could be strengthened-
Again, with no justification, no reason, I felt the connection between me and the roof break. I landed on my feet, back to the wall, Duchamps and other practitioners lined up facing me.
Around that same moment, the Other that had been chasing me collided with the railing and the practitioners manning it.
Evan had steered the thing where the Enchantresses manning the railing here had tried to deter it.
It tried to lean forward, swiping its hand in Crooked Hat’s direction, but the railing gave. It landed with its forearm braced against the ground, head roughly at the level of my collarbone.
More manipulation, I suspected.
“Evan!”
I bolted for the nearest gap, off to the right, toward the stage.
“Fast,” I heard a voice, somewhere off to one side, behind me.
When I wasn’t running through snow, sure.
I caught a glimpse of Crooked Hat, moving in the same direction I was, just to my right, barely out of the large Other’s reach.
His stick extended, touching the railing. Tapping.
The railing broke down the middle, as if someone had driven a motorcycle into the midpoint. The wooden slats formed a triangle, broken halves. The broken pieces were longer than they should have been, and they braced one another, touching the wall of the building.
I hurdled it, jumping.
He touched one of the broken sections of fence.
It too, broke. The pieces extended beneath me as they flew away from the point of the bent cane.
Shattered, fragile boards and bits of metal broke further as I landed atop them. Points dug into my body of wood, jamming themselves into the holes in my arms and torso.
Motherfuck.
“Sorry,” Evan said. “Should’ve-”
“It’s okay,” I said. I didn’t like the unusual number of sharp wooden points and splinters surrounding him. I gripped him in one hand for protection.
Behind Crooked Hat, the monstrous Other was being brought low. The railing, though wooden, had wound around its wrists, and the Duchamps were starting to bind it. It tried to twist its head away as one Duchamp woman reached out to place a paper charm on its forehead.
I lifted my feet up, and brought them sharply down to earth, leveraging my body up and away from the broken fence.
Crooked Hat was gripping the cane near the bottom. He held it upright, and let it slide down, until his hand gripped the top.
The bottom end of the cane, in that same moment, tapped the ice-crusted boards that formed the path beneath us, between railing and building.
The boards that were still supporting me broke and shattered. More points jabbed me, pierced me, and stuck through me.
“Here isn’t so different from there,” Crooked Hat told me. “Sometimes, all we need is a push.”
I pulled my right arm away, breaking the spears and points of wood that were sticking through it, freeing to move. I froze when I saw him move his cane.