“That’s hardly charitable on your part, old sport.”
The familiar, cheerful voice came from a nearby bush. It took a minute of frantic uprooting for Lugg to get to the source, but when he finally did, he found Byrt sitting contentedly in a bamboo-barred cage. Fresh fruits and vegetables packed the prison. From Byrt’s chubby cheeks, it seemed he had been well fed during his captivity.
“The Batiri were very hospitable,” the gray wombat said, nibbling on a large yam. “One of them hid me here, hoping to come back later I suppose. I strongly suspected his motives, of course, but I figured you would free me from any bubbling pots before things got too hot.”
Byrt looked at his friend with vacant blue eyes. “Artus has his hands full, I’d wager, so don’t be so hard on him. That Kaverin fellow who was after him—” he mocked a shiver “—quite a rotten piece of work. His descendants will be embarrassed for generations. I can just see his great-grandson now, pelted by overripe summer squash in the schoolyard for having such a blighted family tree… . Very sad, indeed.”
Years of traveling with Byrt had given Lugg the uncanny ability to block the little wombat’s voice from his mind. Anyone who’d spent time with Byrt knew how useful this was. And Lugg did just that as he set about gnawing on the thick ropes holding the cage together. In fact, he focused his attention so completely on the task that he didn’t hear the sound of unstealthy feet moving across the clearing or Byrt’s frantic words of warning. Only the sharp prick of a spear in his rump managed to tear Lugg away from his rescue efforts.
“Don’t poke ’em! Just grab ’em and c’mon!”
Lugg spun around and came face to face with the tip of a half-dozen goblin spears. The Batiri warriors were more heavily armored than the others the wombat had seen; their breastplates and helmets actually looked as if they might turn a blow aside. And behind these daunting adversaries stood Queen M’bobo, frowning at the delay in their escape and fluffing her beautiful golden hair.
“Well,” she snapped. “Get on with it!”
The warriors stepped closer, and Lugg bared his teeth in a fierce snarl. The brown wombat backed up to the bars of Byrt’s cage. When one of the Batiri, braver than the others, took a tentative step forward, Lugg sprang. He grabbed the spear in his mouth and wrenched it from the goblin’s hand.
“I could have told you that would happen,” Byrt chimed from inside the cage. “He can be terrible protective of his friends. And speaking of friends, did you know we are on quite good terms with the muckety-mucks of the fair city you just tried to renovate by uncontrolled fire?”
M’bobo snorted in a decidedly unladylike manner. “They all busy fighting. ’Sides, who cares about two pig-bears?”
“If you turn around,” Byrt said, smiling vacuously, “I believe you’ll find out.”
The queen of the Batiri glanced over her shoulder, wary of some silly trick. When she saw Artus standing right behind her, she really wished the wombat had been trying something devious. M’bobo yelped in fear, which brought the attention of the guards to the slayer of the silver giant. They, too, gaped in surprise.
Lugg spit out the spear. “Awright, you lot,” he rumbled. “Beat it.”
The goblins didn’t need to be told twice. As one, they dropped their weapons and retreated into the jungle. For a time, the queen’s angry shouts could be heard over the jungle’s usual cacophony.
Artus kneeled beside Lugg. “I should be angry with you, coming out here on your own like that. I told you I’d rescue him.”
“Lugg’s always had a problem trusting people,” Byrt offered. He licked his lips and bit into a large onion. “I think it’s something from his childhood. I, on the other hand, never doubted—”
A horrifying shriek and the rustle of something moving quickly out of the jungle stopped Byrt short. An instant later. Queen M’bobo erupted from the trees. Her armor was bloody, her right arm ragged from some vicious attack. She looked like nothing so much as a weird comet shooting across the ground, her golden hair a glittering tail in the moonlight.
Artus braced himself for an attack. “Stay behind me,” he shouted to Lugg.
The goblin queen didn’t get three steps into the clearing before she tripped over the corpse of a Batiri killed in the skirmish for food. At least, it seemed as if she tripped. As Artus watched, the gruesome corpse wrapped its arms around M’bobo, pinning her to the ground. Four dark shapes reached out from the tangle of bushes and vines. The bony, decaying hands entwined themselves in the queen’s beautiful, flowing hair. They dragged her screaming back into the jungle.
“She’s little more than a wild animal, Master Cimber,” came a cool, soothing voice from the darkness. “Moreover, she’s an enemy of Mezro. She’s not worthy of your pity.”
Two eyes, glowing like red-hot steel in the shadows, caught Artus’s attention. It could only be Ras Nsi.
“If I can’t defend Ubtao’s city from the inside, I’ll do what I can on the outside.” Something flowing and as blue as a midsummer sky passed through a shaft of moonlight. Artus could hear the hush of the zombie lord’s cloak as he turned to follow his minions into the jungle. “Tell them that, the king and the others. I am still a bara, whether they wish to believe so or not.”
Artus stood in silence for a moment, then called a dagger of ice into existence and set to work on Byrt’s cage. From time to time as the explorer worked, a goblin charged out of the city. They were as uninterested in confronting Artus as he was in battling them. He felt tempted to stop the wretches from rushing into Ras Nsi’s killing embrace, but the feeling was fleeting. The Batiri had earned that doom by attacking Mezro, and it wasn’t his place to save the goblins from themselves.
“Let’s get back,” Artus said as the sturdy cage finally gave in to his dagger. “There’ll be a lot to do. Sanda and the others will need our help.” He smiled when he thought of telling the beautiful bara about the ring’s ability to grant immortality to its wearer.
Slowly Lugg shook his head. “I still can’t believe we won.”
Taking a last bite of the store of food from his prison, Byrt said, “I don’t know how you can continue to be so utterly cynical, Lugg. As I was mentioning before Queen M’bobo’s untimely arrival and even more untimely departure, I never doubted Artus and you would rescue me and save the city.” He grinned victoriously. “And, as usual, I was absolutely correct!”
Lugg looked up at Artus. “I ’ate it when ’e gets like this. We won’t ’ear the end of it for days. Isn’t there something you can do? You’ve got that ring now, right?”
The little gray wombat was chattering away in his inane voice about how everyone would be much better off if they’d stop worrying about things and listen to him. Artus glanced at the frost-flecked gold ring on his right hand, then at Byrt’s vacant blue eyes.
“Sorry, Lugg,” Artus sighed, “but I guess there’s a limit to what even the Ring of Winter can do.”
Epilogue
Almost half of Mezro was destroyed by the Batiri raid. The crops for an entire year had burned to the ground. The Scholars’ Quarter lay in ruins, though somehow the Great Library remained intact. Cracks snaked across the building’s rose marble façade and a few of the columns gracing its portico had been broken, but the vast storehouse of knowledge, the books and papers of four thousand years of Mezroan history, had been miraculously spared.
The dead were interred in the Temple of Ubtao, in a vast mausoleum that held the remains of every man, woman, and child ever to live in the blessed city. The room was lined with statues and plaques commemorating the dead, some incredibly ornate, others powerfully simple. The ceremonies to honor the fallen defenders lasted weeks, and even the vital work of rebuilding the city was put aside to give homage to the slain.