Wolves yelped and the horses plunged and neighed in fear all around him; giant boulders hovered on the edges of the deadly depression. The black night rang with the excited cries of the tiny aborigines who shouted out their hatred in an unfamiliar tongue.
Mika's party was in great danger, that much was obvious. They could not continue to avoid the boulders forever. Sooner or later, one of them would be struck and killed, crushed beneath the great weight, ground into the earth. And there was little that they could do about it. They were sitting ducks, fools for not having seen the trap they'd ventured into of their own accord.
'Damn you, Mika! Where are you?' cursed Hornsbuck as yet another boulder rushed down the slope, almost pinning RedTail between it and another stationary stone. 'Stop fooling around and use the gem!'
But Mika did not want to use the gem, nor had he told Hornsbuck about the dreadful ramifications. A spear thunked into the ground next to him, slicing open the edge of his tunic. Another landed between his feet. A boulder appeared above him and wavered on the edge of the incline.
Mika turned and ran, dodging another boulder, larger than most of the others as it rampaged down the southern face of the depression.
He did not want to use the gem, but it was obvious that he would have to do something. Fumbling in his leather pouch he pulled the spell book free and quickly flipped through the pages as he searched for the first-level shield spell he had learned as a youngster. In the darkness it was hard to see the words, and Hornsbuck kept pulling him from one side to the next as boulders continued to crash down the slopes. He found the spell and tried to read the words in the dim light.
'Mika, hurry up!' bellowed Hornsbuck as another boulder passed close enough to nearly brush his eyelashes. Squeezing his eyes shut, Mika quickly recited the words of the spell and prayed that he had gotten it right. Suddenly he heard a low hum, and he sighed with relief, knowing that the invisible shield was in place.
'Hornsbuck, you and Lotus Blossom get behind me!' he whispered hoarsely, then called the wolves to him, hoping that the horses would be all right. The shield would not be big enough to protect them as well.
'I've put up a shield,' Mika told Hornsbuck and Lotus Blossom softly after they'd followed his directions. The trio of wolves followed immediately, milling about, their harsh panting betraying their nervousness.
'Took you long enough,' growled Hornsbuck. 'Damned aborigines! Always trying to kill you.'
Mika was about to ask why, when Lotus Blossom was knocked off her feet and thrown into Hornsbuck, who in turn landed on top of Mika, pushing him to the ground and burying him beneath his bulk.
'Damn it, Mika, I thought you said you put up a shield!' cursed Hornsbuck as he spat out a mouthful of leaves and dirt.
Mika blinked the dirt out of his eyes and tested his ribs to see if any were broken. He got to his feet and stared around as he picked the twigs out of his hair and realized what had happened.
A boulder had struck the rock behind them and shoved it forward. Fortunately, it had been at the very end of its momentum and had exhausted most of its velocity, or Mika and the others might have been fatally injured. As it was, they were merely jostled and frightened.
'Um, a shield spell only protects us from frontal attacks. Improves the odds a bit, but it's not perfect,' mumbled Mika, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the shield was breached. He would have to do something else. But what?
As Hornsbuck cursed, Mika searched his memory. He had it! A web spell! Webs would keep out the boulders and would protect them from all sides! And best of all, he wouldn't have to use the gem!
Once again he hurriedly leafed through the book until he found the right page, closed his eyes amid a cacophony of clashing rocks, wolf whines, and foul curses, and spoke the words of the spell.
Instandy, great, gobby, gray webs dropped down from the branches above and circled them in a small space no wider than six feet across in any direction. They could see through the gray, gauzy webs, yet Mika knew that his party was almost completely concealed.
'Hope this works, Mika,' rumbled Hornsbuck. 'Here comes another one of those damned rocks. How many more can there be?'
Remembering the large number of stones scattered about the area, Mika doubted that the aborigines would run out of boulders any time soon.
The boulder paused on the lip of the crater and then, urged on by a chorus of high-pitched cries, sped down the bank, picking up speed until it seemed to fly above the ground. It struck a small incline, giving it enough impetus to leave the ground and sail through the air, striking the web from above.
Though Mika, Hornsbuck, and Lotus Blossom had ducked and were not struck by the rock, the force of the impact dislodged the web from the tree limb, causing it to collapse on top of the group, burying them in its glutinous folds.
'Mika!' bellowed Hornsbuck as he tried to fight his way out of the enveloping, sticky, gray mass. But all the big man succeeded in doing was to pull the web down from the other branches until all of them, wolves and humans alike, were completely covered with the clinging material.
The web wrapped itself around Mika's head and nose, effectively blinding and all but smothering him. Unfortunately, he could still hear Hornsbuck cursing him for a blundering fool, and feel, as well as hear, the rumbling passage of another boulder which seemed to be coming directly toward them. Loud cheers broke out around the perimeter, and Mika knew that this boulder would be the last.
In desperation Mika gripped the magic gem, closed his eyes, and with a sense of awful inevitability, he calmly spoke the words to the third-level protection from missiles spell, one he was very familiar with, having used it many times to protect himself in batde. No sooner had he finished speaking than he heard a loud crash a short distance away and saw a hint of shimmering, blue light through the web, similar to that caused by massive storms. The rumbling movement ceased instandy.
Mika pulled the last of the webs from his head and saw that the immense boulder had stopped a hand's width away from the wriggling, web-covered mass still caught beneath the sticky shroud.
Still enveloped by a peculiar sense of fate, Mika slowly looked through the book until he found another spell, one he had never used before. Somehow he knew that the magical stone would enable him to use the spell.
Clutching the stone in one hand, Mika recited the words; slowly the entire group of them rose above the ground. All three wolves shrieked with fear; Hornsbuck was still shouting and struggling with the clinging mantle of webs; Lotus Blossom clutched at him as though she were drowning; and with Mika pointing the way like some strange figurehead draped in amorphous folds, they floated out of the depression and drifted above the ground until they were level with the treetops.
Below them, Mika could see a scattering of aborigines waving their spears and crying aloud with what he fervently hoped was fear. Unfortunately, it did not seem so, for even now he could see several of the small, blue men reaching for their bows and arrows while others made ready to throw their poison-tipped spears. Hovering as they were, Mika's group made excellent targets. Mika sighed and closed his eyes once more.
New words rolled off his tongue with ease, even though he had never used the spell before and had read it only once or twice. Holding the stone in his hand, he reflected that the gem did indeed heighten one's abilities, for he could picture the words of the spell as clearly as though they had been written on the inside of his eyelids. The gem made it almost too easy. And it exacted a terrible price for its power, as well.
Alarmed cries broke out beneath him. Opening his eyes, Mika looked down and saw billowing smoke pouring from his fingertips and drifting toward the ground in great clouds of noxious, yellow fumes. He moved his hand, gesturing in a broad, sweeping arc, and the bilious vapors spread out over the entire area, excluding only the northern portion of the crater where the horses were tethered.
The aborigines pointed up at the descending cloud and gestured wildly, conferring with each other, no doubt in an attempt to figure out what the mysterious manifestation was. They soon found out.
No sooner had the cloud reached them than did the blue men begin to cough and clutch their throats.
A few-very, very, few-managed to stagger out of the affected area and stumble away. The others crumpled to the ground instantaneously and did not move again.
Holding the gem, Mika pointed his hand and spoke again, causing a great wind to rise and sweep the area clean, ridding it of the last of the poisonous fumes. Then, and only then, did he cause the three adventurers to be lowered to the ground.
'Well, Mika, when you do something, you do it up right,' said Hornsbuck. 'But I don't understand why you waited so long in the first place. Why didn't you just use the gem right off, instead of messing around with those
