army charged.
'Form up!' Siegfried shouted; the bear reared up on his hind legs, and he and Leopold put their backs up against that furry bulwark just as the first of the skeletal warriors reached them.
If they had not been warned of how to fight these things, Siegfried and Leopold would certainly have been cut to ribbons in the first moments. But they had been, and instead of trying to stab or slash the monsters, both he and the Prince concentrated on smashing down the skeletal arms. Leopold's reach with that staff was tremendous, and Siegfried's strength was definitely his best asset in this fight. The bear roared, and when Siegfried took a sideways glance, he saw that the great beast was sending skulls flying, leaving the bodies to flail their weapons in random directions, connecting with their fellows more often than not.
So they need the heads —
'Leopold!' he shouted. 'They need the heads to see!'
Leopold's answer was a swipe with the staff that took off at least four skulls.
There were hundreds of the things. But as Siegfried has suspected, they were essentially mindless. Breaking their arms or heads off was the best tactic, since there wasn't much they could do to attack or defend themselves with no arms, and leaving them headless meant they attacked whatever was nearest. The ones with shields held out a bit longer, but eventually either a blow from the flat of Siegfried's sword, or from the bear's paw, would break the shield-arm, and at that point the warrior had fundamentally lost. As the ranks thinned, Siegfried could see the wolf darting into and out of the mob, snapping legs with a single bite of his tremendous jaws. That took them down, but not out. His stomach twisted with nausea as he watched the downed skeletons continue to crawl toward them — until they got within sword, staff, or paw-reach, and were reduced to fragments.
And then...it was over. The field was covered with twitching bits of bone, all of them trying to get to where the three of them stood. The bear dropped to all fours, and looked up wearily at them. The wolf limped in, a couple of shallow slashes across his ribs. They were all wounded — but not badly. Nothing like as badly as theycould have been.
'We will leave you now, BigMan' said the bear. 'We have done all that we can for you. Your fate lies within the stone place. Farewell'
'Thank you!' he called, as they turned and padded back into the forest. 'I will not forget your kindness!'
The bird flew to him, followed by Luna, as the bear and wolf vanished into the undergrowth. The twitching bone fragments attempted to roll away from Luna as she paced near them. Most of them succeeded.
As one, they all looked toward the tangle of black, bare thornvines, most of which had thorns as long as Siegfried's arm. The windowless stone tower rose above the thicket, grim and gray. There was a terribly long distance from where the thorns began to that tower.
'Let me get my breath,' wheezed Leopold.
* * *
'This is very, very dangerous,' said Jimson.
'I know that,' Lily replied tensely. 'I'm just glad that all four mirrors survived. We can lose two, and this can still work.'
'I'm not trying to dissuade you — 'Jimson swallowed. 'All right, I am trying to dissuade you. I wish you wouldn't do this.'
'And you know very well I have to.'
He sighed. 'Alas, yes. I do.'
'All right, then.' She concentrated on the image within a tiny crystal ball. It was all she had the power to spare for. It showed the four identical mirrors lying together on the ground outside Desmond's stronghold. Now she deeply regretted that she had taken her travel-mirror away when she had made off with the sleeping Rosa, for if she had just left it there, she wouldn't have to do this now.
'This' was a calculated adaptation of the sort of spell used to join two objects, except that this adaptation was not meant to join them, but to merge them, and do so seamlessly. The sort of mirrors that you could pack on a horse's back, even though she had enchanted them to allow her to pass through them, were not big enough for her to travel through. Two of them together would be big enough for her Brownies to attempt to bring a bigger mirror through. Attempt, because no one ever had successfully done so to her knowledge; she had the feeling that the problem was that it was like trying to transport a horse on the back of a horse. She didn't want to try that unless she had to.
Three of them might be big enough for her to squeeze through.
Four would be perfect. Although doing so was going to require some flexibility on her part....
Concentrate, Lily!
She wove delicate strands of magic through her spell, inching the first two mirrors together bit by bit. The frames touched. The frames butted against each other so tightly you could not have gotten a silk thread between them. With little stroking motions, she suggested to the frames that they should be one.
Reluctantly, the frames obeyed her.
With further motions of her fingers, she suggested to the frame bar in the middle that it should move to either side and allow the glass to merge. The bar didn't care for that, but eventually — it flowed, sulkily, off to either side. Both sides thickened. She tickled the mirror that had been beneath it.
The mirrors were not as reluctant as the frames. They rippled a little, then merged.
She let out the breath she had been holding. 'That's one and two,' said Jimson.
'I'm going to do three and four first,' she said aloud. 'It occurs to me the symmetry will be better.'
'I — ' Jimson began, then stopped himself. 'No, you are the magician. I am not. Just be sure you are ready. We won't get another chance.'
She refrained from telling him that she knew that, and bent her concentration on the second pair of
