“No, Delph!” I screamed.
Delph either didn’t hear me or didn’t want to hear me. He slammed into one of the cobble’s thighs. The creature was so massive that as big and strong as Delph was, he was like a bird crashing against a solid wall. Delph slumped to the floor, the senses shaken clean from him. Before I could move, the cobble had lifted him off the ground and flung him through the air as if he were a bit of parchment. I watched in horror as Delph sailed the entire length of the room and crashed into another wall of bookcases.
I started to run toward him, but I was blinded by a fiery image that had come soaring out of one of the books flying past my face. I tripped and fell to the floor. On the way down, I turned and saw a sword slashing through the air where I had been standing.
The cobble was now right over me. It raised the sword above its head and was just about to plunge it downward and separate my legs from the rest of me when I soared straight upward and shot past it. This was my true advantage against my massive opponent.
Under my cloak, Destin was warm to the touch. I zipped along the perimeter of the wall, heading toward Delph. I wouldn’t make it. I had lost track of the other cobble until it reared up directly in front of me. I had forgotten about the ruddy wings on the monstrous back. It seemed impossible that a set of fragile wings could lift such an enormous weight. But I was nimble while the cobble was not.
I flew under its arm and then around its back. It spun around, trying to keep me in sight. I kept flying in circles, faster and faster, pushing Destin and myself harder than I ever had. The cobble kept spinning too and started resembling the bonce I would rotate on the ground when I was a very young.
I shot downward as the cobble continued to spin. I pushed a bookcase out of the way, gripped the Elemental and flung it as hard as I could. The cobble came out of the rotation just as the Elemental found its mark.
The cobble exploded.
As the Elemental flew back toward me, Delph screamed, “Look out, Vega Jane.”
I partially ducked but was still knocked heels over bum and landed hard against a wall. As I slumped to the floor, the remaining cobble swung its great fist back to batter me once more, this time surely into the Hallowed Ground. I had forgotten the warning in Quentin’s book: Woe be to the Wug who forgets that destroying one part of the thing does not equal victory.
I was too wonky to fly. The Elemental was not yet back in hand. And an extremely large fist was coming right at my head. At the last instant, I sprang up and smashed my own fist into the cobble’s belly.
The cobble was lifted off its massive feet and flew backward through the air, where it struck the wall opposite so hard it exploded into fragments. I just stood there for a sliver or two looking at what remained of the cobble and then at my fist. I had no idea what had just happened. The Elemental arrived in my gloved hand and I closed my fingers around it.
I looked once more at the remains of the cobble and then my mind went back to that night at the Care when I had struck Non: My hand was injured delivering the blow. Striking the rocklike cobble, my poor bones should have shattered. There was only one explanation. I lifted my cloak and looked down at Destin. It was an ice blue. I touched it and then hastily withdrew my finger. It was molten to the touch, although all I could feel around my waist was a heightened sense of warmth.
“Wo-wo-wotcha, Ve-Ve-Vega Jane?” the voice called out.
“Delph!” I had forgotten about him.
I ran to him, used my newfound strength to throw off the bookcases that covered most of him. He was bruised and bloodied.
“Can you stand?” I asked.
He nodded slowly and said weakly, “Th-think so.”
I gingerly helped him up. He was holding his right arm funny and he couldn’t put much weight on his left leg.
“Delph, hold on to me.”
I willed the Elemental to shrink, placed it in my pocket and then lifted him up and over my back. He gasped in amazement at this, but I had no time for explanations. I leapt into the air and flew out the doorway, down the stairs, and didn’t land until we were at the door we had come through. I was giving the jabbits no chance to get us. I smashed open the door, flew through it with Delph on my back and we soared into the nighttime sky.
I didn’t land again until we were at Delph’s cottage. As I set him down, he said in a dazed voice, “How did you lift me like that, Vega Jane?”
“I’m not sure, Delph. How bad are you hurt?” I asked anxiously.
“Busted up pretty good,” he admitted. “Cobbles,” he added.
“You did read the book.”
“Dinnae figure on meeting one of them on this side of the Quag, though.”
“Can you walk?”
“I can limp.”
I slapped my forehead. “I’ve got the Adder Stone. I’ll sort you out in no time.”
I reached in one pocket. Then my other. I frantically searched every crevice of clothing I had. Then I groaned. The Stone was gone. I looked at Delph with a miserable expression.
“I must have lost it back at Stacks. I can go and —”
He gripped my arm. “You are nae going back there.”
“But the Stone. Your injuries.”
“I’ll heal, Vega Jane. Just take a bit of time.”
Then another thought seized me. “The Duelum!”
He nodded sadly. “Can’t fight with one arm and leg, can I?”
“Delph, I’m so sorry. This was all my fault.”
“In this together, Vega Jane, ain’t we? I chose to come, insisted on it, actually. And you saved me life.”
I helped him into the cottage. Duf was not there. Probably working at the Wall, I reckoned. I got Delph into his cot after cleaning up his cuts and icing his bruises with cold water from a bucket his father kept in the little cave. I fashioned a sling for his arm and found a thick cudgel he could use to help him walk.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, tears forming in my eyes.
He smiled weakly. “No dull times round you, is there? Har.”
TRIGINTA OCTO: A Wager to Win
THE NEXT THING I knew, it was light and I was waking up on my cot. I was tired, sore, out of sorts and my head mired in the events of last night. Something licked my hand and I sat up and patted Harry Two on the head. When I looked outside my window, I saw Wugs streaming past in large numbers.
I took a sliver to realize what was going on. The Duelum! It was at second light. I was late. I jumped off my cot, nearly scaring Harry Two to death, and scrambled into the clothes I had let fall to the floor the night before. I stopped, looked down at Destin where I had dropped it on the floor. With that I could defeat any Wug in the Duelum. I was torn. One thousand coins. It was a lot of wealth, more than I would ever have. But it wasn’t the coins that mattered. Other Wugs would think highly of me if I were champion crowned — the female in the Starving Tove and plenty of others. Like Delph said, I was famous. Wugs knew me.
Still I made no move to pick up Destin. I finally used my foot to edge the chain under my cot. I didn’t have to win the bloody Duelum. I just had to fight my hardest. And part of me was afraid if I used Destin and its power, I might unintentionally kill a Wug. I did not want that on my conscience. I also wanted to win fair and square. I was a liar, a sometime thief, a pain in the arse on more than a few occasions, but apparently I had some moral tendencies left.
As I passed other Wugs streaming toward the pitch, it occurred to me that I had not checked the board last night to see who I would be fighting. I arrived as the bell sounded and looked quickly around. Was I in this set of bouts? I spotted the betting board and rushed over to it.