He seemed an awfully long time reappearing and Coilla was getting worried. She was about to dive herself when two heads broke the surface a little way off. Pepperdyne had hold of Standeven, who was blue in the face and gasping for breath. Jode hauled him to the band, where others lent a hand, most reluctantly. They all made for the shore.
“There’s something in the water!” somebody shouted.
Behind them, but moving in their direction fast, was the blur of a large and scaly creature, its spiked head and a sail- like fin dimly visible through the mist. The band increased their speed, and soon their feet touched bottom.
They staggered onto the beach and moved as far up it as they could, dragging Standeven with them until they dumped him. But the creature didn’t come ashore, perhaps couldn’t, and stayed out in deeper water, cruising back and forth.
“I thought you said the stars couldn’t land us somewhere that might kill us, Dynahla,” Stryke complained angrily.
“No, I didn’t. I said they couldn’t take us somewhere that would kill us. If they eliminated all possibility of danger they wouldn’t take us anywhere.”
Stryke snorted. “Yeah, well…” He looked about the place. They had jogged almost to a white cliff-face that backed the beach. Apart from a few patches of dull vegetation, there wasn’t much else to see. “Where do you think we are?”
“Could we be back on the world of islands?” Spurral wondered.
“No,” Coilla told her. “That had two moons. This has two suns.”
She was right, but they had to look hard to see the pair of dim globes through the milky white cloud that dominated the sky.
“So where’s Jennesta this time?” Wheam asked, tipping water from the innards of his precious lute. They were all surprised it had survived intact this long.
“She’s close,” Dynahla replied, “as always.”
“Any clue where?” Stryke said.
“Not exactly, no. But does it matter?”
“Does it matter? Of course it matters!”
“No, you don’t get my meaning. We don’t need to know precisely where she is because she’ll soon pop up where we can see her. She’s playing with us.”
“I think we worked that out,” Haskeer remarked sourly.
“Yeah, it’s all a game to her,” Spurral added.
“Maybe,” the shape-shifter conceded. “Though her motives could be more than just mischievous.”
Stryke eyed him quizzically. “Such as?”
“Who knows? Perhaps this is all for the hell of it. Even I find her hard to fathom.”
“Even you? What makes you such an expert on Jennesta?”
Dynahla hesitated for just a second before answering. “I’ve spent a lot of time with her father, remember, and Serapheim’s… very informative.”
“Heads up!” Jup yelled. “There she is, right on cue.” He indicated the headland at the end of the beach, a decent arrow shot away.
A group of figures were there. They stayed long enough to be seen, then vanished.
“Do we have to follow her, Stryke?” Dallog said. “I mean, if this is some kind of crazy game, do we have to play along with it?”
“What choice do we have? And what about Thirzarr? You want me to abandon her?” He glared at him.
“No…” The elderly corporal looked abashed. “No, of course not, chief.”
“Do what you have to, shape-changer,” Stryke ordered.
Dynahla worked on the instrumentalities.
“If I could just get my hands on that bitch…” Haskeer muttered, staring at the spot where Jennesta had been a moment before.
“You’d have to stand in line,” Coilla said.
They materialised in night-time, which would have been a lot blacker if it wasn’t for a big, full moon and a sky crammed with stars.
There was nothing special about the landscape as far as they could make out. Underfoot was rough grass, there were some ghostly trees in the middle distance and what could have been a mountain range at the limit of their vision. The temperature was balmy and the air dry, with no wind to speak of. Which was fortunate as they were all wringing wet.
Standeven, still huffing and wheezing after his dip, had plonked down on the ground. They let him be.
“So where is she?” Haskeer said, anticipating Jennesta’s appearance with his sword drawn.
“Hard to see anything,” Coilla replied.
Breggin pointed into the gloom. “What’s that?”
They all strained to see. A cluster of shapes, darker than the night, appeared to be coming their way.
“Right,” Haskeer declared. “This time we don’t wait for her to call the shots.” He began to run in that direction.
“Wait!” Stryke called after him. “There’s no point! She’ll only… Oh, what the hell.”
The others seemed to share Stryke’s opinion, or else they were tired enough by now not to give a damn. None of them followed Haskeer.
As they watched him dashing nearer to his goal they expected the group of shapes to flick out of existence. Given the distance and bad light, it was near impossible to make out what did happen, but it wasn’t that. The figures remained, and he seemed to engage with them.
“Do you think she’s actually staying for a fight this time?” Coilla said.
Jup raised his staff. “If she is, let’s get over there!”
The band was all for it, and they were about to rush into the fray.
“Hold it!” Stryke barked. “Looks like Haskeer’s coming back.”
He was, at speed, and the figures were right behind him. As they got nearer, the band noticed something odd.
Spurral blinked at the scene. “Are they running on all fours?”
“And they look bigger than humans,” Pepperdyne added.
“Ah,” Jup said.
Haskeer arrived, arms pumping, breathing hard. Half a dozen fully grown brown bears were chasing him.
It was one of those times when the band instinctively fell back on their training and experience, and they’d dealt with plenty of wild animals in their time. They immediately formed a defensive ring. Blades and spears thrust out, they began shouting and beating their shields. The bears’ charge slowed right down, and they took to circling the band from a distance, looking for a weakness in their defence.
“Toche! Vobe! Your bows!” Stryke instructed.
They nocked arrows and he pointed to the biggest of the brutes, which was rearing up on its hind legs. Both arrows struck true. The shafts jutting from its chest, the bear fell, rolled on its side and was still. Its companions let out howls and quickly withdrew. But not completely. They resumed their circling from afar, dimly visible in the dark, still hoping for a chance to attack.
“Must be hungry,” Noskaa observed.
“Lucky they didn’t bite a chunk out of Haskeer’s fat arse,” Jup said. That raised a laugh. “They would have spat it out, mind.” The grunts roared.
Most of them stopped when they saw Haskeer’s face.
Stryke wasn’t overjoyed himself. “Eyes front! They’re still out there.”
“ Something ’s out there, Captain,” Gant said, nodding at the gloom.
He was right, and it wasn’t the bears, which by some means, quite probably magical, had been scared off. What was in the dark now came as no surprise to any of them. They knew the sound of her mocking laughter well enough.
Dynahla got to work on the instrumentalities.
Rain pounded down on them. A bitter wind was blowing. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed.
