All three of them retreated in a body, Buncan strumming madly, the otters rapping at maximum speed. They were in the middle of the road now, in front of the wagon, with no cover in sight.
The hammer reached them and hesitated. Paws in the air, Gragelouth cowered back on his bench. The apparition seemed to consider him, then accelerated purposefully in the direction of the somewhat quavering musicians.
“Scatter!” howled Squill at the last possible instant as the head of the hammer plunged toward them. Human and otters broke in three directions as the massive chunk of metal slammed into the earth where they’d been standing, sending gravel and dirt flying.
Buncan yelled as he dodged and played. “Make it go away! Sing something else! Send it back where it came from!”
“Back where it came from?” Squill tried to keep one eye on his friend and the other on the prodigious apparition. “I don’t bloody well know where it came from! The bleedin’ toolbox o’ the gods?” The hammer zigged as he zagged to his left. “You’re the damned spellsinger!” He jumped, and the device just missed him.
“You’re the singers!” Buncan yelled.
The otters continued to improvise, to no avail. While they were getting tired of trying to dodge and sing at the same time, the remorseless specter gave no indication it was slowing down.
Suddenly the wind increased. Tree limbs and trunks bent toward the road as the breeze rapidly grew into a full-fledged gale. From his seat Gragelouth looked on in fascination.
Leaves and branches thrashed around Buncan. He was tiring fast, having neither the energy nor the agility of the otters. If that thing landed on them . . . The remains of the unlucky bandit were as fresh in his mind as they were on the ground back in the trees.
A flailing branch knocked him down, and he felt the duar slip from his stunned grasp. The pulsing radiance at the nexus of the two sets of strings instantly vanished. Seeing mis, the otters ceased their rapping, useless without Buncan’s skilled accompaniment.
Lying on his chest, panting, Buncan looked up in time to see the hammer hovering above him, measuring itself for the terminal strike. He closed his eyes.
Instantly the wind died. Two doubled-over trees straightened, their thick trunks catching the hammer on either side of the gleaming head and lifting it upward. They bounced back and forth a couple of times before quivering to a stop, the hammer pinned between them as neatly as on any holder in a carpenter’s shop. There the apparition hung motionless, seemingly pacific at last.
Gasping, Buncan rolled over onto his back and regarded the sky. Then he scrambled to his feet and walked over to recover the duar. Some leaves had landed in the active nexus. A couple had simply been fried, while the third had been turned to topaz. He brushed all of them away and examined the instrument anxiously. It appeared intact. He carried spare strings, but if the body had been damaged . . .
A few experimental strums reassured him of its integrity. As he moved to sling it across his back and shoulders, he felt a paw on his arm. It was Squill, gazing up at him with concern.
“You all right, mate?”
Buncan nodded, narrowing his gaze as he looked up at the neatly pinned hammer. “Interesting resolution.”
Squill’s whiskers twitched. “Couldn’t think o’ anythin’ else except the tools in old man Herton’s shop. Worked.”
“Wonder how long it’ll stay there.”
“No tellin’.” Neena calmly considered the otherworldly instrument of mass destruction. “Don’t like to think of it as puttin’ in an appearance some night outside me bedroom window.”
“Your bedroom ain’t got no window,” Squill pointed out.
She sniffed, whiskers rising. “That’s right, brother. Just go ahead an’ stomp on me reputation.”
“Anytime.” Squill straightened. “Wot say we go accept the grateful genuflections o’ our pitiful fellow traveler?” He started toward the wagon.
“I’ll go get the riding lizards,” Buncan offered.
Gragelouth sat stiffly on his bench seat, watching them approach. Buncan rejoined his friends momentarily, his expression grim. “Who tethered the skinks?”
“I did,” replied Neena.
“Well, they’re gone.”
“Wot do you mean, they’re gone?” Squill turned angrily on his sister. “You snub-tailed twit, you never did learn ‘ow to tie a proper knot!”
“Is that so? Want to see me tie one in your whiskers?” She grabbed for his face and the two of them went down, rolling over and over until their scuffling eventually carried mem beneath the wagon.
Buncan bent slightly to check on them, (hen straightened and extended a hand. “Those are my friends, Squill and Neena.”
“So I presumed.” The sloth shook his head slowly, the dark stripes that began around his eyes and ran down his face giving him a look of perpetual sorrow. “Otters.” Holding carefully to the reins of his team with one hand, he took Buncan’s with the other. It was warm to the touch. All that heavy fur, Buncan reflected.
“Pleased to meet you. I’m Buncan Meriweather.”
The merchant withdrew his hand and placed it over his heart. “I am Gragelouth, trader by profession and inclination. I find that I owe my everything to your timely arrival, young traveler. What I do not understand is why you youngsters,” Buncan winced but said nothing, “should intervene on my behalf. You are not, I hope, deranged altruists?”
“Not at all. I’m pleased to tell you that we have a perfectly valid ulterior motive.”
“Ah.” Gragelouth smiled, showing surprisingly bright teeth in his broad, flat face. “I am delighted to learn that you are merely foolhardy and not insane.” Reaching behind his seat, he rummaged through a large satchel. “You must allow me to reward you for your help. Though I am not wealthy, I am most certainly wealthier thanks to your efforts. I regret only that you did not slay more of those brigands.”
Buncan smiled thinly. “Actually, we were trying hard not to hurt anybody. At least, I was.”
“Spoken like a true student of the thaumaturgical arts.”
“We’re still learning.”
The merchant straightened and nodded. “That is what life is for. To stop learning is to begin to die.” He opened the purse he’d extracted from the satchel and made a show of searching the contents. “I will give you all that I can spare, impossible as it is to put a price on a life. I retain only enough to support me awhile in L’bor, until I can resume my sales.”
“We don’t want your money.” Buncan could hear the tussling otters as they bumped up against the rear wheels.
A grateful Gragelouth sealed his purse with a soft snap. “Something from my stock, perhaps? I maintain quite a diverse inventory. Some fine new weapons to balance your magical skills? Or raiment most excellent, to insinuate you with the female of your choice? Though I carry garments for humans, I am not sure I can fit one of your stature.”
“We don’t want anything like that.”
“What, then, can I do for you?” The sloth spread his hands wide. “An unpaid debt weighs heavy on the soul.” His engaging, deceptively lazy smile returned. “No doubt something that involves your aforementioned ulterior motive.”
“In point of fact, sir, it involves us doing something more for you.”
The sloth sniffed delicately. “Explain yourself, Buncan Meriweather. Your words warm my heart but confuse my brain.”
Buncan considered how best to proceed. “It’s like mis, trader Gragelouth. We’re bored.”
The sloth grinned. “Ah. The endemic affliction of the incipient adult. I fear it requires a more skilled physician than myself to treat that condition.”
“Several nights ago you discussed your travels with my father.”
Gragelouth’s heavy brows rose. “Your sire is a turtle?”
It was Duncan’s turn to smile. “Hardly. But he is a master spellsinger.”