He gestured vaguely at the others of us. “And these?” He was staring at the turnips, frankly staring, as though he could not believe what he saw.
Sometime deep in the night we heard a yelping scream from the sky, followed by a dull, squishing thud. Torchlight found the source, an Armiger, dead as a Ghoul fetch. He had been Flying some fifty or a hundred manheights up and run abruptly into the Immutable’s screen. We moved the body behind some rocks, heaping some others over it. He had been a scout. Huldra wouldn’t be far behind.
Before dawn, Murzy and the others joined me, together with Mertyn and his men. When the sun rose, we saw them, all drawn up in battle array from wall to wall of the valley, with some Armigers floating high in the air and others just above the creekbed to keep the lines straight. They had a Herald out front, floating importantly along. He stopped just short of the place the Immutable screen would have touched him and gave voice.
“All within sound of my voice, give ear; Huldra, Witch, Student of the High Arts, having taken the person of the Shifter, Peter, offers him now in exchange for the insignificant person of one Jinian, so-called Wize-ard, named Footseer. Let her come forward and the exchange be made.”
Huldra was standing at some distance behind the Herald. The person next to her did look like Peter. Murzy sighed and did Bright the Sun Burning in the affirmative mode, a disclosing spell. The person next to Huldra no longer looked like Peter. Shit. Huldra wasn’t going to let Peter go. Even from this distance I could see the creature was a mere semblance, not unlike a Sending or a wraith. She’d spent some poor fool’s blood on it, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. We had a quick conference, and our Herald jumped up on the rock.
“All within sound of my voice, give ear. Mertyn, King, most Powerful, most Puissant, calls the Witch Huldra to account for her un-Gamely abduction of Mertyn’s thalan, Peter, Shifter, friend of Wizards. Let Huldra make her camp where she stands, and then between the lines will her accounting be heard.”
Where was Peter? Back at the rear of the battle, no doubt. In one of those tents pitched far back along the flat. I hiked back to the Immutable lines and found one of Riddle’s men, then pointed out the tents. “Could you get close?” I asked him. “Not close enough to be noticed, just close enough to damp any Talent in those tents?”
The man nodded, grinning at me. I rather like Immutables. They are so very secure in everything they do, knowing we Gamesmen are utterly harmless when they are around. “Any price you ask, Sir Immutable,” I said. “My love is in one of those tents, and your presence may help him escape.”
“No price, lady,” he whispered, putting down his banner and preparing to slip away along the mountainside among the trees. “Your love is Peter, and it was Peter who broke the evil at Bannerwell, and Peter who destroyed the evil of the Magicians. Any small assistance I can give, I am only too willing to provide.” And he took himself off, still grinning, at what, I had no idea.
Behind the ledge of rock, other Immutables were marching to and fro with banners in their hands, first one banner, then another, giving the appearance of an army. From the canyons above the knoll I heard shrill cheering. The turnips had half planted themselves along a ridge to watch the battle. I thought of Big-blue and Molly-my-dear, wondering where they were. The last I had seen of them, they had been squirming into the earth outside the cavern entrance, and I had not thought of them since. There was no time now, for Huldra’s ranks surged forward. She had no intention of camping and negotiating anything. The Peter semblance at her side stood in idiot confusion. She had forgotten to tell it what to do.
No time to think about that. Armigers darted forward through the air, arching high to get a sight behind our rock parapet before releasing their arrows. Elators flicked out of existence at Huldra’s side. A line of Tragamors stepped forward, Sorcerers just behind, their eyes fixed on the rock wall that protected us and on which the other six members of the seven leaned, casually, as though watching a display of horsemanship or a class in cooking.
Armigers screamed, fell, thrashing about like wing-clipped birds. They had encountered the Immutable barrier. Elators appeared halfway to the wall, their faces bloody, battered. Most of them fell at once, one or two staggered about, shrieking. The Tragamors were holding their heads, and a Sorcerer blew up all at once in a flash of violet flame.
“Snakes,” said Murzy to Dodie casually, and Dodie nodded, beginning to make a complex set of gestures, her face set in concentration. From the rocky slopes of the mountain to the left of the approaching army, snakes appeared, as big around as two men, heads reared high and eves fixed on the approaching men. Some hundreds of Huldra’s minions dropped their weapons and fled as the snakes reared even higher and hissed with a harsh, venomous breath that seemed to choke all those before it.
Huldra’s voice was raised in fury, screaming words I had not heard before. The snakes vanished, all at once.
“Oh, quite good,” said Murzy to Cat, “She did that very quickly.”
“They were designed to be easy to disperse,” said Cat. “We want her lulled into a false sense of security.”
“Still,” Murzy murmured, “she was quick. I think deep dwellers next, Dodie, if you don’t mind.”
This was only one
