But their leader found the answer. “They’re sorcerers! Spies sent by the Khazars. Shoot them down!”
Numbly responsive to orders, the soldiers nocked arrows to their bowstrings. “Run!” Dor cried. “But stay with Amolde!”
“This time I’ll bring up the rear, just to be sure,” the centaur said. “Lead the way, the rest of you.”
It made sense. The main part of the magic aisle was ahead of the centaur, and this way Amolde could angle his body to keep them all within it. Dor and Irene and Smash charged forward as the first volley of arrows came at them. Grundy rode the centaur; it was the best way to keep him out from underfoot. They crossed the fog-filled cut, coming to the dense forest at the far side.
“Aaahh!” Amolde screamed.
Dor paused to look back. An arrow had struck the centaur in the ramp.
Amolde was crippled, trying to move forward on three legs.
Smash was leading the way. He reached out to grab the branch of a tree that projected through the fog. He ripped that branch out of its trunk and hurled it uphill and across the cut toward the soldiers.
His aim was good; the soldiers screamed and flung themselves flat as the heavy branch landed on them, and one almost fell into the chasm.
Then Smash charged back across the cloud. He ducked down, grabbed the centaur by one foreleg and one hindleg, and hefted him to shoulder height. “Oh, I say!” Amolde exclaimed, amazed despite his pain.
But within the ambience of magic, there was no strength to match that of the ogre. Smash carried Amolde to the slope and set him down carefully where the ground rose out of the fog. This place was sheltered from the view of the soldiers; there would be no more shooting.
“But the arrow,” the centaur said bravely. “We must get it out!”
Smash grabbed the protruding shaft and yanked. Amolde screamed again-but suddenly the arrow was out. It had not been deeply embedded, or the head would have broken off.
“Yes, that was the appropriate way to do it,” the centaur said-and fainted.
Irene was already sprouting a seed. They had lost their healing elixir with Amolde’s bag of spells, but some plants had curative properties. She grew a balm plant and used its substance on the wound. “This won’t cure it all the way,” she said. “But it will deaden the pain and start the hearing process. He should be able to walk.”
Smash paced nervously. “Yet-Chet,” he said. “Mundane, the pain-“
Dor caught on to the ogre’s concern. “We don’t know that a Mundane wound will always become infected the way Chet’s did. That was probably Chet’s bad luck. Also, he was bitten by a wyvern, so there might have been poison, while Amolde was struck by an arrow. This is a different situation-I think.” Still, the coincidence of a second centaur getting wounded bothered Dor. Could it be part of the salve’s curse? The centaurs had had to use twice as much salve, since they had four feet, and perhaps that made them more susceptible to the curse.
Amolde soon woke and agreed that the agony of the wound was much abated. That was a relief, for at least two reasons. Nevertheless, Dor decided to camp there for the remainder of the night.
Their chance of approaching Castle Ocna secretly was gone anyway, and the recovery of their friend was more important. After all, the centaur’s aisle of magic was essential to their welfare in Mundania.
In midday, weary but hopeful, they reached Castle Ocna. This was less imposing than Castle Onesti, but still formidable. The outer wall was far too high for them to scale, “Me bash to trash,” Smash offered confidently.
“No,” Dor said. “That would alert the whole castle and bring a hundred arrows down on us.” He glanced at Amolde, who seemed to be doing all right; no infection was in evidence. But they wanted no more arrows! “We’ll wait until night and operate quietly. They’ll be expecting our attack, but won’t know exactly what form it will take. If we can bring the magic aisle to cover King Trent, hell be able to take it from there.”
“But we don’t know where in the castle he is,” Irene protested anxiously.
“That’s my job,” Grundy said. “I’ll sneak in and scout about and let you know by nightfall. Then we’ll wrap this up without trouble.”
It seemed like a good idea. The others settled themselves for a meal and a rest, while the golem insinuated his way into the castle.
Amolde, perhaps more greatly weakened by his injury than he showed, slept. Smash always conked out when he had nothing physical to do. Dor and Irene were awake and alone again.
It occurred to Dor that bringing the magic aisle to bear on King Trent might not necessarily solve the problem. King Trent could change the jailor to a slug-but the cell would still be locked. Queen Iris might make a griffin seem to appear-but that would not unlock the cells. More thinking needed to be done.
They lay on the slope, in the concealment of one of the huge ancestral oaks, and the world was deceptively peaceful. “Do you really think it will work?” Irene asked worriedly. “The closer I get, the more I fear something dreadful win happen.”
Dor decided he couldn’t afford to agree with her. “We have fought our way here,” he said. “It can’t go for nothing.”
“We have had no omens of success-?” She paused. “Or have we? Omen-King Omen-can he have anything to do with it?”
“Anything is possible with magic. And we have brought magic to this Kingdom.”
She shook her head. “I swing back and forth, full of hope and doubt. You just keep going on, never suffering the pangs of uncertainty, and you do generally get there. We’ll make a good match.”
No uncertainty? He was made of uncertainty! But again, he didn’t want to undermine what little confidence Irene was grasping for.
“We have to succeed. Otherwise I would be King. You wouldn’t want that.”
She rolled over, fetching up next to him, shedding leaves and grass. She grabbed him by the ears and kissed him. “I’d settle for that, Dor.”
He looked at her, startled. She was disheveled and lovely. She had always been the aggressor in their relationship, first in quarreling, more recently in romance. Did he really want it that way?
He grabbed her and pulled her back down to him, kissing her savagely. At first she was rigid with surprise; then she melted. She returned his kiss and his embrace, becoming something very special and exciting.
It would have been easy to go on from there. But a note of caution sounded in Dor’s mind. In the course of assorted adventures he had come to appreciate the value of timing, and this was not the proper time for what offered. “First we rescue your father,” he murmured in her ear.
That brought her up short. “Yes, of course. So nice of you to remind me.”
Dor suspected he had misplayed it, but as usual, all he could do was bull on. “Now we can sleep, so as to be ready for tonight.”
“Whatever you say,” she agreed. But she did not release him. “Dear.
Dor considered, and realized he was comfortable as he was. A strand of Irene’s green-tinted hair fell across his face, smelling pleasantly of girl. Her breathing was soft against him. He felt that he could not ask for a better mode of relaxation.
But she was waiting for something. Finally he decided what it was.
“Dear,” he said.
She nodded, and closed her eyes. Yes, he was learning! He lay still, and soon he slept.
“Now aren’t we cozy!” Grundy remarked.
Dor and Irene woke with a joint start. “We were just sleeping together,” she said.
“And you admit it!” the golem exclaimed.
“Well, we are engaged, you know. We can do what we like together.”
Dor realized that she was teasing the golem, so he stayed out of it.
What did it matter what other people thought? What passed between himself and the girl he loved was their own business.