“I’ll give you boys one chance to surrender,” I said, after a time. “After that, things are going to get ugly.”
One of them barked something, and his blue staff blazed blood red, and he pointed it at me.
I raised Toadsticker. I know I did, because Gertriss saw me do it from the door. I only vaguely remember my arm going up, and what little I do recall makes it feel as if the sword moved on its own, and my hand and arm merely followed.
The sorcerer’s red-globed staff flashed, and the lawn lit up bright as day, and a crack of Heaven’s own thunder picked me up off my feet and threw me back a dozen long strides and dropped me on my ass right in the middle of a razor-thorned wild rose bush.
And as I flew, the lightning fell. It came crackling and flashing, blinding bright. Long burning white arms of it reached down from the sky and plucked the sorcerers from their mounts and took them up and up and up, robes and staves and screams and all.
And then it was over.
The weeds broke out into a dozen small fires. The five black mares scattered, hooves thundering, bridles dragging. A hot wind thick with smoke began to blow.
I tore myself loose from the rosebush. Toadsticker lay at my feet, the blade smoking, the hilt so hot I couldn’t hold it.
I left it there, dodged fires, found Buttercup’s blanket, heaped amid the weeds.
I spoke the name I’d given her, but she didn’t stir. I lifted the blanket.
She was gone.
But from the trees, I hear a cry. Not a scream or a howl, just a wordless proclamation that let me know where to look.
Motion, a flash of dirty white arms, and she was there.
I balled up the blanket and threw it to her. She caught it in the air, and made that diving half step, and she was gone.
The lawn was a few good puffs of wind from being engulfed in hungry flames. I yelled for Gertriss, yelled for help.
I didn’t think we’d need to worry about mere archers when the skies themselves were out plucking sorcerers from their mounts.
Chapter Thirteen
It took the entire household to keep the neglected Werewilk lawn from turning into the flash point of a house-gobbling forest fire.
Everywhere, yelling, cursing people beat at flames with blankets or hauled buckets of water from the three wells or stomped out embers with their feet.
Gertriss had gone to help with the bucket brigade. She’d seen the five wand-wavers taken up into the sky. She claimed the sorcerer-snatching lightning had leapt from Toadsticker’s modest blade. Until I sent her off to haul buckets, she’d eyed me warily, as if she expected me to sprout horns or start tossing around random bolts of lightning at any moment.
The fires were small, but numerous. Years of neglect had made the lawn a tinderbox. Stamp out one tiny inferno, and two more sprang to life in revenge. Within moments, the entire House, with the exception of Singh and Milton, was outside, battling flames in the night.
I was side-by-side with Marlo before I even realized it.
We were both throwing wet blankets over the same patch of burning chokeweed. His face was covered in soot and streaked with sweat and grim beneath it all.
“You’re back,” I stated, when we’d beaten the flames down. I lacked the breath for any more elaborate greeting.
He nodded and tottered. I realized he was on the brink of collapsing from exhaustion.
“Burris?”
“Dead. Didn’t make it five miles. Woods are full of ’em.” He spat. “Saw the lightning, smelled the smoke. What’s happening, Finder?”
“They were out hunting Butter-the banshee. Almost got her and me too. Lightning struck them down first.”
Marlo spat again and muttered an unkind word.
“Lightning. Just happened. To strike.” I think he would have hit me, had he retained the strength.
“I’m telling you what I saw. I can’t explain it either.”
People were shouting all around us. Some for water, some for shovels or blankets, some for help. But Lady Werewilk’s cry of Marlo’s name sounded above them, and erased any fears that Marlo would be lacking a place to sleep once the fires were out.
Lady Werewilk and Gertriss came charging up. Both looked rather singed and sooty. Marlo turned to face them.
“I can’t even go to town without the place catching fire,” he observed.
Lady Werewilk coughed, slapped him and immediately caught him up in a brief fierce hug.
“He needs to get indoors,” I said. I surveyed the lawn. I saw smoke rising here and there, but no flames. “Same goes for everybody else. This is about to turn ugly, Lady. They’ve killed Burris, and I just watched five of them die. Time to get everyone inside and lock the doors.”
“Is that true, Marlo? Burris is dead?”
He nodded, and would have fallen had not all three of us taken hold of him.
My hand, where it gripped him, came away wet. A glance confirmed that it was blood.
“Everyone!” Lady Werewilk had a good voice. People all around turned. “Stop. Go to your homes. Bring whatever food you can carry. Lock your doors behind you, and come to the main house. I want everyone, and I mean everyone, inside, right now. Go!”
People went. Gertriss and I carried Marlo, who remained on his feet but could do little more than shuffle. Singh and Milton met us at the door. Milton stared and drooled. Singh handed me a bowl of clean water and a towel.
“For his wounds,” he explained, before returning to tend the empty-eyed Milton.
I maneuvered Marlo to the couch, sat him down, fumbled with his shirt.
“How many?” I asked.
“Lost count. Lot more’n fifty. They were waiting. Burris got a bolt in his chest before we knew they were there.” Marlo winced as Gertriss loosed the last button and lifted his shirt away from the wound.
It wasn’t fatal. He’d been slashed, long and shallow, right above his left kidney. A doctor would probably have stitched him up. Lacking a doctor, we’d be forced to clean the wound and bind it and hope he didn’t tear it open every time he moved.
“How long ago?”
“Not sure. Seems like hours and hours. I turned Hilly loose, started running. They didn’t even try to be quiet. Didn’t care who saw ’em, who heard ’em. All over the damned woods. Like ants. That hurts.”
“It wouldn’t hurt so much if you’d be still,” said Gertriss. She mopped away dried blood, and while a few beads of new blood weeped from the wound, she managed not to tear it open and cause a fresh round of heavy bleeding.
“It was dark by the time I got back here. I was hiding close to the road. Trying to see if they’d hit the House yet. I heard that banshee howl. Then I heard thunder.” He bit back a yelp of pain. “Ain’t no storms out tonight, Finder. I could see stars when the trees got thin. Where you reckon that lightnin’ came from?”
Gertriss raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you ought to be asking Miss Banshee instead of Mr. Markhat,” she said. “Seems to me she’d be the one to know about magical storms and what-not.”
I pondered that. I honestly hadn’t thought about it. I knew neither myself nor Toadsticker normally commanded the ability to call down fire from the heavens, but what did I know about banshees?
