Finally Quicksilver reined in and took the plugs from her ears. She looked about her but saw no wings. Nonetheless, she called out, “Many thanks, O Magpie! We shall owe you dearly for this!”
Cordelia was staring at the two little lumps in her hand and saying in desolate tones, “I feel as though I shall never see Alain again.”
“Nor I Gregory.” Tears ran down Allouette’s cheeks.
“And I feel as though Geoffrey is lost to me forever,” Quicksilver said, “but I know it is only the aftermath of the boiling emotions that monster stirred in us. Let us ride on, ladies, for our true loves still await us, and now more than ever must we catch them up!”
“Oh, for Alain to catch me up in his arms,” Cordelia groaned.
“Then you must find those arms first! Ladies, let us ride!”
“Wait! Before we do. . .” Allouette rode up, her horse nose to nose with Quicksilver’s. Her face was stiff, but she forced the words out. “I owe you a great apology. No matter the provocation, it was most despicable of me to steal your sword.”
Quicksilver’s face softened. “And most wrong of me to insult you for your past deeds, when you have proved so very loyal to your love—and to us.” She reached out to catch Allouette’s hand briefly. “Ride with me, damsel, for I daresay we shall learn to trust one another yet!”
“We had best do so,” Cordelia said with a smile, “for we shall all be sisters-in-law, shall we not?”
“We shall most certainly,” Quicksilver agreed, “so we had best learn to be also sisters in arms. Come, ladies, away, for our grooms await—though they know it not.”
“We ride!” Allouette gave her a smile that, for a few brief moments, had nothing of suspicion or guilt in it.
So, side by side, they rode on through the woods, no longer in the broad walled lane but following a deer trail that they trusted much more.
Geoffrey, Alain, and Gregory rode through level ground that seemed flat as a board all the way to the horizon, where a few twisted trees stretched skeleton branches. On every side, dried bracken spread over the earth as far as they could see.
“What manner of place is this, dead as late autumn?” Alain asked, shivering. “ ’Tis nearly summer!”
“Ask, rather, what power could have blasted it so,” Geoffrey answered somberly. He turned to his younger brother. “What say you, O Scholar?”
“It reeks of sorcery,” Gregory said, wrinkling his nose, “or of psi power misused, if you prefer to call it that.”
“How would a warlock dry out a whole plain?” Alain asked. “How could he drain the water from it?”
“Or withhold it from coming in,” Geoffrey offered. “Stop up the fountains with rockfalls and dam the streams.”
They were all quiet for a few minutes, thinking of the afanc. The horses plodded on and crested a rise that was so gradual it hadn’t shown—but Gregory looked up in surprise and said, “Houses!”
“Cottages, at least.” Geoffrey frowned. “How could such level ground hide them so?”
They found out as they came to the crest. Below them, the land fell away into a small depression. Down its center ran a dry creek bed. A dozen yards from its banks stood a circle of thatch-roofed cottages.
Alain frowned. “This is wrong. I see not a cat nor a dog, certainly none of the sheep who should be grazing on this common—and not a living soul!”
“Can this land have been dry long enough to drive the people away?” Geoffrey asked, frowning.
“Surely not,” said Gregory, “when the land beyond this plain is green with spring.”
“Spring . . .” Geoffrey lifted his head with a faraway gaze. “Could it have lain thus throughout the winter?”
“Perhaps, brother,” said Gregory, “but the people would have melted snow for drink. They have not trooped away because of drought, not yet!”
“What else could have chased them?” Alain asked, perplexed.
A warbling howl answered him, predators hooting with bloodlust and delight.
The three companions spun about and saw dozens of pale-skinned, barelegged little monsters in hooded tunics spilling over the roofs of the cottages toward them, brandishing stone-bladed knives and spears. Under the cowls of their tunics their faces looked more like those of lizards than of humans. They were surely no more than two feet high, but their eyes glittered with the pleasure of the chase when the hunter knows that he is far stronger than the quarry.
“Hobyahs!” Gregory cried, paling.
“Alain, look behind us!” Geoffrey lugged out his sword.
Alain drew, too, wheeling his horse about. “More of them!”
“And to left and to right!” Gregory whisked his own blade out of the scabbard. “We are surrounded!”
With a gloating massed shriek, the hobyahs shot toward the companions on short little legs that moved so fast they were a blur.
“Back to back!” Geoffrey cried, and the three men swung their horses to form a triangle, heads facing outward. The howling horde descended upon them, and the men began slashing with their swords.
“Cold Iron!” the front row of hobyahs shrieked, and leaped back. Those behind them slammed into them, and in moments, they mounded up into a squirming ring surrounding the three warriors.
Alain took advantage of the lull to cry, “We have done you no harm! Why do you attack us?”
“Why, because you are meat!” cried half a dozen voices, and the others took it up in a chant: “Meat! Meat! Meat! Meat!” One or two plucked up their courage enough to leap forward.
Geoffrey sent them shying away with a slash of his blade. “We are meat with Cold Iron in our hands! Do you wish to warm it with your blood?”
“No, with yours!” a hobyah called back, and his comrades hooted approval.
“Take them apart!” Alain hissed at the warlock and the wizard, then raised his voice to call out again: “Surely you are not so vicious! Would you slay innocent people only from your hunger?”
“Why not?” called a dozen voices, and a single one answered their own question: “We ate all the villagers, didn’t we?”
“Dissolve them!” Alain hissed.
“We do our best.” Geoffrey’s face was as strain-taut as Gregory’s. “Some other mind holds them in form!”
Alain went back to distractions. “Assuredly you did not eat so many good and innocent folk!”
“Good indeed!’ cried a hobyah. “Delicious, too!”
“Meat! Meat! Meat! Meat!” the whole horde chanted again, and began to move in on the companions.
Alain sliced at the nearest; it squealed and pulled back. Gregory and Geoffrey did the same on their own sides. The prince called, “There is no need to spill your blood on our swords!”
“No, but there is need to spill yours for our drink!” yet another hobyah cried, and to its fellows, “Seize them! Carry them off! They are meaty fellows and should last us two days!”
“Fasting is good for the soul,” Geoffrey told them, whirling his sword for punctuation. “Hunger is better than death.”
“Why do we linger?” one more hobyah called to its mates. “We can bury them beneath our mass! No matter how they slice and slash, some of us will tear their flesh!”
“But many of you will die, too!” Alain called. “Who will it be?” With lightning speed, he snatched up a hobyah and held it squirming and squealing before its mates. “Do you wish to be the first to die, little one?”
“You could not be so cruel!” the minimonster protested.
“Would you be any less so?” Alain tossed it back into the mob. “Which shall be next? Who shall be first to spit himself on my sword?”