dogfighting the first step is to gain an advantage in altitude.
Up they went in a spiral. Busyrane came into view on his wivern, bearing towards them. The enchanter had his sword out, but as the wivern climbed after them Shea was relieved to see that he was gaining.
A couple of hundred feet above the enemy he swung the broom around. Over his shoulder he said; «Get ready; we’re going to dive on them.» Then he noticed that Bephebe was gripping the stick with both hands, her knuckles white.
«Ever been off the ground before?» he asked.
«N-nay. Oh, Squire Harold, this is a new and very fearsome thing. When I look down —» She shuddered and blinked.
«Don’t let a little acrophobia throw you. Look at your target, not the ground.»
«I essay.»
«Good girl!» Shea nosed the broom down. The wivern glared up and opened its fanged jaws He aimed straight for the red-lined maw. At the last minute he swerved aside; heard the jaws clomp vainly and the bowstring snap.
«Missed,» said Belphebe. She was looking positively green under her freckles. Shea, no roller-coaster addict, guessed how she felt.
«Steady,» he said, nosing up and then dodging as the wivern flapped towards them with surprising speed. «We’ll try a little shallower dive.»
She came down again. The wivern turned, too. Shea didn’t bank far enough, and he was almost swept into the jaws by the centrifugal force of his own turn. They went
«Busyrane, but it hurt him not. He bears armour of proof and belike some magic garment as well.»
«Try to wing the wivern, then.» They shot past the beast, well beyond reach of the scaly neck. Twunk! An arrow fixed itself among the plates behind the head. But the wivern, appearing unhurt, put on another burst of speed and Shea barely climbed over its rush, with Busyrane yelling beneath him.
Belphebe had her acrophobia under control now. She leaned over and let go three more arrows in rapid succession. One bounced off the reptile’s back plates. One went through a wing membrane. The third stuck in its tail. None of them bothered it.
«I know,» said Shea. «We aren’t penetrating its armour at this range. Hold on; I’m going to try something.»
They climbed. When they had good altitude, Shea dove past the wivern. It snapped at them, missed, and dived in pursuit.
The wind whistled in Shea’s ears and blurred his vision.
Forest and glade opened out below; little dots expanded to the pursuers on foot. Shea glanced back; the wivern hung in space behind, its wings half furled. He levelled out, then jerked the broom’s nose up sharply. The universe did a colossal somersault and they straightened away behind the wivern. In the seconds the loop had taken, the beast had lost sight of them. Shea nosed down and they glided in under the right wing, so close they could feel the air go
Shea got one glimpse of Busyrane’s astonished face before the wing hid it. The scale skin pulsed over the immense flying muscles for one beat. «Now!» he barked.
There was a whistling scream, then catastrophe. The wide wing whammed down on the aviators, almost knocking Shea from his seat. They were no longer flying, but tumbling over and over, downward. The top of a tree slashed at Shea’s face. Dazedly, he heard the wivern crash and tried to right the broom. It nosed up into a loop and hung. A cry from behind him, receding towards the earth, froze him. He saw Belphebe tumble into the grass, twenty feet down, and a wave of the monster men close over her.
* * *
Shea manhandled his broomstick around, fervently wishing he had a lighter one — a pursuit job. By the time he got it aimed at the place where he had last seen Belphebe, there was no sign of her or of Busyrane either. The wivern sprawled bloatedly in the grass with hundreds of the enchanter’s allies swarming round it.
Shea drew his epee and dived at the thick of them. They screeched at him, some of producing clumsy breast bows. He swooped towards a monster with a crocodile head as the strings began snapping. The arrows went far behind, but just as Shea stiffened his arm for the gliding thrust, Crocodile-head thinned to a puff of mist. The epee met no resistance. As Shea held his glide, parallel with the ground, he found the crowding monsters disappearing before him. He pulled up, looking back. They were materializing behind. More arrows buzzed past.
He circled, cutting another swath through them. No sign of Belphebe.
At the third charge an arrow caught in his cloak. The flint head of another drove through his boot and a quarter inch into his calf. The goblins were learning and-aircraft lire. But of Belphebe there was still no sign, and now the ghost men were streaming towards him out of the woods on all sides. In every direction they were hopping, yelling, drawing their crude bows.
He climbed out of bowshot and circled, locking. No luck. It would have to be some other way. He felt slightly sick.
He went up higher, till the vast green expanse of Loselwood spread out before him. The sun was well up. Under it he fancied he could see the region where he had tangled with the Da Derga. Beyond should be the edge of the forest, where he and Chalmers had met their first Losels.
TEN
An hour of cruising showed him a clearing with a little garden, a thatched cottage, and a circular palisade of pointed stakes around the whole. He helixed down slowly.
A man came out of the wood and entered the palisade through a gate. Shea caught a glimpse of red face and black beard as his own shadows whisking across the grass, brought the man’s eyes upward. The man dashed into the cottage as if all the fiends of Hell were after him. In a moment two armoured men came out. The shield of one bore the striking black and silver gyronny of Sir Cambell.
«By oak, ash and yew;
My broomstick true,
Like a dead leaf descending,
So softly fall you!»
That was not quite the right way to put it, as Shea immediately learned. The broom settled slowly, but remorselessly literal, carried the imitation of a dead leaf to the point of a dizzying whirl. Cottage, forest, and waiting knights came to him in a spinning blur.
Shea felt the ground under his feet. He staggered dizzily.
Artegall roared: «By’r Lady, ’tis the enchanter’s varlet!» His sword came out,
Shea said: «You’re just the man I’m looking for —»
«That I warrant!» His laugh was a nasty bark. «But you’ll accomplish no more magician’s tricks on me. I have a protection, which is more than you have against this!» He shook the sword and swung it back.
«Wait a minute!» cried Shea. «I can explain, honest —»
«Explain to the devils of Hell, where you soon will be!»
* * *
At that moment Britomart and Cambina came out of the cabin. Shea wondered frantically whether to run towards them, try to start the broom, or — What was that? A set of little patterns was faintly visible on Artegall’s breastplate as he turned in the morning sun. They were the type of pattern that would be left by soldering on brass oak leaves and then prying them off.
«Hey!» he said. «You’re the guy who showed up in the oak leaves at Satyrane’s tournament and won the
