It was a finger. A skeletal finger, attached to a skeletal hand, a hand which had been stuck upright in the ground, buried, and then burned.
The burned bones jerked. The dead fingers flexed. It made a fist, and then relaxed, and then it start turning on its wrist, fingers grasping at ash and empty air.
I threw Gertriss back with one arm, shoved Lady Werewilk down on her side with the other. Marlo bellowed, eyes full of murder, his axe turning and preparing to swing my way.
I leaped to my feet and whacked him hard and straight in the gut with Toadsticker’s hilt. He didn’t go down, but he did back up.
“Get back.” I kicked at the skeletal hand and missed.
It extended a bony forefinger, pointing it right at me.
And then the banshee sang.
She howled. She keened. Buttercup rent the air with that penetrating howl of hers, and she was somehow at my side and she gave me a pitiful little yank, as if trying to pull me away.
Marlo bellowed and brought up his axe, slashing at Buttercup.
Buttercup screamed, and was gone.
I brought Toadsticker down on the hand with all the strength I could muster. Ashes flew. The bony finger pointed.
And that’s when I felt the fingers close around my neck.
Close, and begin to squeeze.
Marlo caught on. He swung his axe down, brought sparks when he struck Toadsticker, but failed to damage the bones.
I tried to tell him not to bother, that the spell had been sprung, but I couldn’t speak.
Gertriss spun me around, and I felt her hands on my throat, but she couldn’t feel the hex choking me, much less grapple with it.
I let go of Toadsticker and stepped away. The spells our sorcerer corps had cast in the Army always had limited ranges. I took a useless pair of steps back, but could feel no lessening of the grip around my throat.
The traps left by our sorcerers were always designed so that by the time the victim realized what was happening, flight was simply too late.
I couldn’t speak. My lungs were burning. My vision was beginning to blur.
Gertriss was screaming at me, as was Marlo. Their voices were growing fainter.
Run into the forest and hope I got beyond the choking spell’s range before I died. Or…
I rummaged in my pocket. Darla’s charm was there.
My world was getting dark. I tried to draw in air, couldn’t. I resisted the urge to flail at the invisible hands closing around my neck.
Instead, I took out the charm, threw it at the skeletal hand.
The charm lay next to the bones, unbroken.
I remember dropping to my knees.
I remember Gertriss holding me up.
And I remember a bright flash. But that’s all. Just a flash, and the echoes of Buttercup’s final cry echoing in my mind.
And then the tightness at my throat circled all around it, and I fell a long time through the dark.
Chapter Eleven
It turns out Marlo saved my life.
He’d taken his axe and smashed the glass charm I’d tossed at the skeletal hand. And as soon as he smashed it, the bones simply fell apart, and after Gertriss slapped me hard across the face a few times I’d started coughing and wheezing.
I don’t remember leaving the abandoned encampment. I came to my senses nearly halfway home, draped across Lumpy’s broad back.
We were moving at a good clip. I’m told Burris loosed a pair of arrows at something he thought he saw in the forest. Gertriss tells me Buttercup followed us until I awoke, though she alone could see her.
Scatter and Lank were at Lumpy’s sides, making sure I didn’t fall off and break my fool neck and finish whatever some nameless sorcerer and his choking spell had begun.
“He’s awake.” Scatter had spoken. He moved in close and helped me right myself in Lumpy’s worn saddle. “Mister, can you breathe?”
I coughed and hacked but finally managed a few words. My throat-well, I’ve never been hanged before, but that must be how the morning after feels.
“You ought to see the bruises, mister.”
I tried to grin.
Gertriss turned in her saddle. “Was that aimed at you, boss?”
Had it been? It seemed that way. Otherwise why didn’t it go after Lady Werewilk?
“Could be,” I croaked. “No way to know.”
And there wasn’t. If it was just a foul-natured parting shot at anyone rummaging through the camp, it might have been designed to go after someone at random as easily as the first one to see it. Sorcerers are tricky that way.
But while they might be tricky, they aren’t cheap. Neither are their magical snares. Someone had paid dearly for the privilege of choking me half to death, and they couldn’t have known for sure I or anyone else would ever uncover their bony little surprise.
I shifted uneasily in my saddle. I don’t like seeing money spent so casually. It’s a sign of either desperation or access to wealth so vast such paltry concerns as paying sorcerers simply isn’t a factor.
Desperate people, like cornered beasts, are always dangerous.
And so are the kinds of people who can literally throw money away. Because they can always buy more trouble than the likes of me can afford.
Lady Werewilk wanted to say something, but I shook my head and urged Lumpy on to a slightly less leisurely amble.
We made it back to House Werewilk without encountering any more cursed skeletal remains or agitated banshees. Lady Werewilk insisted on helping get the mules squared away, much to Marlo’s dismay. Gertriss and I exchanged a secret smile. The way Lady Werewilk and Marlo sniped at each other, you’d think they were married already.
I hoofed it back inside. My throat was raw, and I was coughing often and hard enough to make me wonder if my injuries went deeper than mere bruises.
Once indoors, I shooed dogs off the couch and sent a painter to fetch a bucket of beer. Gertriss seated herself beside me and fixed me in a harsh Hog glare.
“The last thing you need right now is beer.”
“The last thing I need is a discussion about my beer.” A sudden fit of coughing didn’t help my case.
Gertriss’ glare intensified.
“So let’s talk about the banshee instead. She just appeared right by you, Mr. Markhat.”
“I think I prefer boss, Miss.”
“Boss, then. She wasn’t there and then she was. Howling. And it looked like she touched you too. Grabbed your hand.”
I nodded. Had Buttercup been trying to pull me away from the trap? I wanted to think so.
“Did you see her at all before that? Even a glimpse with that famous Hog Sight?”
“No. She wasn’t there. Then she was. Then she was gone, right after Marlo swung that axe at her. Next time I saw her we had you laid across the saddle. I reckon she was maybe fifty feet ahead of us, looking down from an oak.”
