Towing Lily, he lurched for the camp, until he could make out sweat-shiny faces that gaped up at the phantom battle and out at the armored wizard and his bony horde.
Overhead, the nightmare again plowed through the blue cloud-man. This time, however, the shredded blue mist dribbled away on the night air, faded to nothingness. It did not re-form.
Clearly, the nightmare ruled the night.
Triumphant above the treetops, the horse-thing snorted and stamped, stronger and brighter than ever. It was so hot that sparks spit from it like steel burning in a forge. They landed in the camp and winked out like fireflies.
But Gull couldn't see much of the camp now. A fog was rising, as mist issues from a swamp. Panting, running into it, his eyes stung. This was smoke. Ground-hugging smoke such as campfires spilled when the weather turned dirty.
No one had touched the cookfire, no trees burned much, yet the smoke thickened as if the night itself smoldered.
"More damned magic," Gull wheezed.
Squinting, half-blind, the woodcutter and dancing girl stumbled past the overturned men's wagon, tripped over the jutting tongue. Somehow, Gull realized, the wagon had been dumped over again, or slewed around: the top was toward the center. A good thing, for the bottom formed an outside wall.
Someone challenged them, and they gasped their names. Guided to Morven, they hunkered behind the tipped wagon seat. By now the smoke was so thick the campfire was an orange smudge. Gull couldn't see any more than Morven's gray-white hair.
"What happened to the wagon?" rasped Gull.
"We tried to hoist her, got spooked, and dumped it the other way," muttered the sailor. "It's a cock-up for certain. This smoke don't help none. One of Towser's less thoughty spells. Smoke's good for driving off animals and people, but it won't hamstring that armored bastard or his bony buckos. Might kill the fleas in me blanket, though."
"How can-" Gull hacked, sneezed. "How can you jest?"
He felt more than saw the sailor shrug. "Ye get used to it after a while. Tow waves his hands and shit falls from the sky. Just keep your chin down and mouth closed. None of us've been scuppered yet."
"The old freightmaster died."
"Oh, aye." Another shrug. "But he left the circle of protection. Poor Gorman was more for shovelin' dung than thinkin'. I just hope Towie can pull something out of his sleeve. That armored monster looks like he'd eat through a wagon in three bites."
"What would he do to us?" Gull snorked. Like the rest of the entourage, he breathed through his hands or clothing while watching the oncoming horde. Through billows of gray smoke, they saw it wasn't a hundred feet off.
At least the terror had abated among Towser's followers, for the nightmare hovered at treetop height to the south, opposite the armored wizard, as if marking a beacon in the sky. Towser had slipped into his wagon.
Morven rubbed watery eyes. "Oh, probably they wouldn't eat us or torture us to death. Steer clear and you don't run afoul, usually. We're just ants to wizards. We'd be scattered to the winds, like happened at your village there. Oh, sorry. But I'll bet this pirate's after that coral box. If it's brimful o' magic energy, like Towie said, it's a magnet for handwavers all 'round the compass."
"Maybe Towser will just give it up," murmured Gull.
Morven and Lily snorted.
Gull clasped and unclasped empty hands. Without a weapon he felt helpless, naked. He was, mostly, clad in a leather kilt and nothing else. He told Lily to stay put, then clambered past them to the toppled chuck wagon.
He didn't get far. The wagon was a tumbledown mess. Heaped together against one canvas wall were boxes, crocks, bowls, loaves of bread, cooking tools, bedrolls, spilled flour and beer and wine and butter. Perched atop the mess, with a shawl over her head, was a besmudged Felda clutching Greensleeves tight, with Stiggur huddling behind. Gull's sister slept. One advantage to being half-witted, he thought, was few worries. She clutched something gray, like a tassel of horsehair, and he wondered where she had found it.
The fat cook asked him what transpired, but he ignored her. He'd come to check on his sister and to fetch his small axe, stored with his saws and other tools behind some crates. But he'd have to unload the wagon to get it now. He asked Felda for a weapon and received a poker of heavy steel and a butcher's knife which he slid carefully into his belt.
He told them, "If there's any need to get out, I'll come fetch you. Otherwise, stay here." No one argued.
Gull climbed out in time to see the skeletal goblins disappear.
The smoke had lessened, settling, leaving a burned tang in their mouths and a rash like sunburn on their faces.
Capering around the armored wizard, like sparrows before a raven, the skeletal goblins had spun, shrilled, waved stick-arms-generally acted like useless idiots, as in life. Gull was unsure if they were a threat or not: what could they do but bite you? And one swift kick would knock them to skittles.
Now, one by one, each gave a queer sort of hop, spun around, shriveled into a twist like a beech leaf, and flickered toward the sky like chaff caught in a dust devil.
From Towser's wagon came a crow of delight and triumph. Sleeves shot to the elbows, the wizard dusted his palms as the last of the skeleton horde whisked away like ashes in a wind.
"One summons, one unsummons," Morven commented. "Doing and undoing to get the better of each other. Would I had a hundredth of the energy these wizards waste…"
Then even the laconic sailor shut up, for the armored wizard arrived. Towser could not unsummon him, it seemed.
The warrior wizard halted twenty feet from the wagons. Halting, he sank even deeper into the forest floor. He must weigh as much as a stone barn, thought the woodcutter. By the fitful light of the hovering nightmare and the campfire, Gull studied the enemy for weaknesses.
There seemed to be none. The wizard stood seven feet tall in spectacularly ornate silver armor. The breastplate, leg armor, and even sleeves were sculpted like the muscles underneath. Red piping or reinforcing straps crossed the armor at stress points. Where there wasn't plate armor there was chain mail, enwrapping the throat and groin and wrists. Wide wings lined with spikes jutted over the shoulders, and spikes jutted from the back of the gauntlets. Twin horns of silver tipped with red stuck outward from the bucket helmet, and the planes of the face were coated red around silver whorls. Nothing fleshy showed, not even the lower part of the wizard's face. It was a fantastic, unreal sight, something no nightmare could conjure. The armor looked solid and unmovable as a granite wall. Yet he carried no weapons that Gull could see, making him look unbalanced and unprepared.
Towser posed atop the wagon seat. Gull was surprised-no one could stand toe-to-toe in combat with this armored vision, but Towser calmly folded his arms into his sleeves. He showed no fear, in fact feigned boredom.
The warrior lifted a hand, clamped a fist, and the light above suddenly dimmed. The nightmare twisted into an ash leaf and wafted upward, away. Only the meager cookfire gave any light, for the smoke had dissipated. And in the east, Gull realized, glowed the gray of false dawn. The duel had stolen most of the night, and suddenly the weight of sleep loss and fighting and wounds settled on Gull like a yoke of stone. Despite his aches and pains, his eyelids drooped. He yawned so hard his jaw cracked.
But Towser's words jolted him. He called across the span, "You waste your time and effort, sir wizard. You'll not steal what you've come for, for it works for me."
"Magic works for no one, but we for it." Oddly, the warrior's voice was not a deep boom or harsh drawl, but the easy speech of a middle-aged man. Gull wondered if the being inside actually filled that giant suit of armor. "Until you learn that, you know aught." He added something in a strange cant of grunts and growls.