“Suffice it that her counsel saved our lives,” Allouette said with heartfelt gratitude. “I thank you, warrior woman.”
“And I you, dame of cleverness.” Quicksilver gave her a smile. “Shall I play Achilles to your Odysseus, then?”
Allouette returned the smile. “As you please, so long as, together, we have defeated this Trojan horse.”
“Who dares call me Trojan?” nickered a voice that seemed both distant and close.
CHAPTER 11
The voice seemed an echo of the Kow’s neigh. A slight breeze must have moved across the trail, for the heap of ashes stirred.
“Beware, ladies!” Cordelia rode forward, glaring at the mound. “I shall see to it that it rises not!” The heap of ashes split into a dozen smaller piles that began to drift away from one another as though blown by all four winds at once.
“Nay, forfend!” the echo of the neighing voice protested. “How shall I reassemble if you scatter my substance?”
“But you are more likely to dissemble than to reassemble,” Allouette pointed out.
“I prefer to take the creature in small doses.” Quicksilver dismounted and knelt to scoop up a handful of dust. “The smaller the better.”
“You need not take me at all!” the voice brayed. “I shall stay!”
With a doubtful voice, Allouette said, “In mischief you are too well versed.”
“I shall refrain!”
“I fear his refrain may be worse than his verses,” Allouette said to her companions.
“Let him take the shape of a singer, then,” Quicksilver offered.
“I shall return in a form far more benign, I swear!” cried the neighing voice.
“I am sure you do, when you are thwarted,” Cordelia told the Kow, “but I would have you spare our ears.”
“So long as you will have me at all!”
“We will not,” Quicksilver decided, “but we shall let you retain your substance if you swear that you shall only take form from happy thoughts and do all you can to aid mortal folk rather than plague them.”
Allouette nodded. So did Cordelia, but she frowned at their powdered foe.
“Wherefore do I feel a sudden impulse to pounce upon all rats and mice?” the neighing voice wondered.
“It may be because you took an owl’s head in your last form,” Cordelia answered. “As a bird of wisdom who guards folk by night you may reconstitute yourself.”
“Concentrate,” Allouette advised, “but not till we are far from this place.”
“I shall! I shall wait and re-form! Bless you, ladies! I shall sing your praises forevermore! I shall applaud you to the skies! I shall warble sweet notes of—”
“She said an owl, not a nightingale,” Allouette reminded.
“A night owl I shall be then! If ever you return this way, remember there is one who owes you a favor.”
The three women looked at one another in alarm. Then Allouette said, “The favor we would wish is that you treat all folk well, that you help rather than hinder.”
“Whatever you wish! Oh, thank you for your kindness and mercy! Merci! Gramercy! Forever shall I extol your virtues!”
“You make it seem as though being good would be a chore,” Allouette said, frowning. “There can be delight in giving aid.”
“I shall patrol, guard, and warn!” the Kow averred. “As an owl I shall guard this valley! All my life shall I hoot as I haunt this hollow!”
“May your life be a hoot and a hollow indeed, then,” Allouette said. “Farewell, polymorph.”
“Is that to be my name? Polly I shall be, then,” the spirit cried, “and for you no more a fuss!”
“Polly Mor-a-phous?” Allouette smiled. “So let you be, then—and be sure we shall remember that favor!”
They rode away down the trail, glancing at one another but not saying a word until the leaves closed behind them and the strange deep warbling of a Kow learning to sing faded away. Then Allouette heaved a sigh and said, “The favor I’ll remember—but I doubt I’ll ever accept it!”
“It would not seem to be the sort of thing you could trust,” Cordelia agreed. “Even with the best intentions, that creature’s attempts to aid might go astray.”
“They might rebound on us and redound to his discredit,” Quicksilver said, then turned to Allouette. “But how is this, damsel? You might have been more accepting of the creature’s repentance!”
“I wish I could have been,” Allouette said ruefully, “but I was afraid to encourage its singing for fear the spirit might take to larking about.”
“I see!” Quicksilver’s eyes widened. “Worrisome indeed, for a lass whose name means ‘skylark.’”
“I am perhaps unduly sensitive on the subject,” Allouette agreed, “but since it has already set itself to becoming a blithe spirit—bird he never was before—I would have taken that sort of counterfeiting rather personally.”
The sun was setting as Gregory, Alain, and Geoffrey rode down to the shore of a little lake. Their shoulders slumped, their heads sagged, and their horses’ hooves dragged. “By my troth,” Geoffrey sighed, “this has been a long day!”
“As well as a rather eventful one,” Alain agreed.
Geoffrey almost fell off his horse and knelt to scoop some water from the lake. “Let us see if this water is sweet or brackish.”
“Well thought,” Gregory agreed, and dismounted to lead his horse down to the water. Alain was halfway there when a frantic bleating broke out all around them. Looking up in surprise, they saw a huge flock of sheep bearing down on them, too much in a panic to be afraid of the men.
“Shoo! Go back!” But Geoffrey was still on his knees as the wooly mob poured over him.
They nearly knocked Alain’s horse out from under him, but he held the stallion by the reins and made shooing motions at the sheep, crying, “Avaunt! Retreat!”
They paid him not the slightest bit of attention, except to flow around him instead of over. Geoffrey, in front of his horse and still on his knees, was not so lucky; he went tumbling over as ram after ram and ewe after ewe leaped over him. When they had passed, he pushed himself up, staring after them. “Beshrew me, but I shall sleep soundly tonight!”
“Do not tell me you counted them!” Alain exclaimed.
“I missed some, I am sure—but I would estimate the herd to be ninety-eight strong, with one lamb.”
“Six tenths of a sheep? Like as not it was,” Geoffrey said, “though I would have thought them in a fever to run us down.”
“Certainly a panic.” Alain leaped down to help his friends up and batted at their clothes. “They have soiled you badly.”
“As badly as they were frightened,” Geoffrey said. “What could have thrown them into such a panic?”
A basso laugh answered him, echoing all around them—a senseless manic whooping. They stood stiffly, staring at one another as it faded.
“What manner of creature made that sound?” Geoffrey whispered.
“That one!” Gregory pointed.
They turned and saw, ploughing through the water along the shore of the lake, a huge bird, black all over, but with a metallic sheen, its back decorated with rows of white spots and with a white ring around a neck longer than a duck’s, its foot-and-a-half of beak dark yellow and hooked like an eagle’s, its huge eyes judging them as a replacement meal for the fugitive sheep. All in all, it was a very proper water bird—except that its body was at least eight feet long and its neck three, so its head was level with theirs as it glided toward them across the ripples.