around the monolith.
The wizard held up a hand, fingers crooked, and backed away. He shouted over his shoulder, 'Kill him! A hundred gold crowns to the one who beheads him!'
Like hounds to the scent, the bodyguards, who'd stood stunned by the strange turn of events, rushed Gull. All except Kem, who was rooted, face twisted by conflicting loyalties.
That left only three tough fighters with swords seeking Gull's head.
If they killed him-and they would-Greensleeves would be next.
The word returned.
Unless…
Whirling, Gull plucked his sister from the altar, sending the smaller badger tumbling. Plunking her down, he snatched up his axe-thank the gods he'd sharpened it-and parted the rope on her wrists.
'G-Gull,' she bleated. 'What do we d-do?'
Running was out. There was no place to go but over the cliff edge onto rocks.
'Conjure something!' He took a new heft on his axe, ready to swing on the three killers.
'W-what? I don't kn-know-'
'Anything! And hurry!'
Behind him came a small sigh of despair. This wouldn't work, he thought savagely. His sister was unpracticed in magic. Conjuring was an accident, an act of desperation. She couldn't just reach across the void and…
The air before him shimmered. Colors flickered like a rainbow touching the earth. Brown near the ground, green in the middle, blue at head height, yellow above…
Gull was bucked off his feet as the ground erupted.
Brambles, trees, and stone spears shot into the air.
Walls exploded everywhere across the bluff, random, rambling, haphazard.
The tall curly green-brown briars, from the battle of White Ridge, intermixed with the cave swords of the burned forest, as well as curiously stunted trees that twisted back on themselves to make an impassable barrier. The last, Gull knew, were from dismal reaches of the Whispering Woods.
Red earth supported the briars, white muck marked the stone swords, and carpets of dead leaves gave birth to the wall of wood. Smells rolled over Gull. Iron from the red earth, ammonia from bat guano, rot from churned leaves, all mixed with the salt tang of the sea breeze.
Yet the walls made no sense.
A jumble of trees, briars, and stone swords ran from the bluff's edge at his right hand, twenty feet or more thick, then ended suddenly, leaving virgin grass. Another mixed wall curled on the left, no wider than a privet fence, then spun in a spiral like a maze. Way past the wagon circle stood a stand so thick it looked like forest, dense and black with white stripes. Another patch at a stone's throw was square as a kitchen garden.
The thick wall on the right rose fifteen feet, and tendrils of vines hung down and snagged Gull's hair. He backed and snapped stone spears with his clogs.
And swore. Defensively, the right wall was fine, but the leftmost wall wouldn't delay a child. And between was a gap twenty feet across. Towser's bullies could rush the breach easily.
Within seconds. Gull saw the ragged Towser jog past a wall for a better view, then point and shrill orders. Having recovered from the surprise of the green explosion, the three bodyguards raised swords and shot the gap. Yet their feet dragged when they beheld another wizard with her hands in the air.
'More!' Gull shouted. 'You've slowed them! Now conjure more!'
'I-I c-can't!' the girl wailed. No higher than his shoulder, tousled hair around her face, tattered shawl drooping off one shoulder, she gripped her brother's elbow. 'T-that's all I h-have!'
Gull stifled a groan. He took a fresh grip on his axe. 'Try something else! Conjure Morven!'
'W-who?'
She knew no names. 'The sailor, damn it, with the gray hair! And the cook's boy, Stiggur! And the centaurs- the horse folk! Hurry!'
Earth tones rippled alongside the woodcutter, and Morven stood there holding his breeches. He cast about wildly. 'Ahoy, we're back!'
Gull took one look, roared, 'Where's your cutlass?'
'One second I laid it down to hit the bushes! Right beside me-'
'What's the good making plans-'
Behind his bodyguards, Towser set a finger in his grimoire, pointed another, barked in an arcane tongue, then smiled smugly at Gull.
Before the woodcutter's eyes, in the shadow of the monolith, a twinkling filled the air. He reared back.
Whatever Towser conjured, it was big. Like fog issuing from the ground, a body big as a house took form. Slate gray. Above it writhed a half dozen misty gray necks. A fearsome hissing made him flinch.
We'll be eaten, he thought. Like minnows by a bass. Six bass.
Frantically the woodcutter backed, banged into Morven, who cursed as he buttoned his breeches. 'Watch where you're-Lance of the Sea! A rock hydra?' The twinkling deepened, solidified, until Gull could bearly see the bramble wall through it.
Better to jump to the rocks, Gull thought. Some of us might survive. None will up here.
Yet Greensleeves hummed, and earth colors rippled not a dozen feet from Towser. With a flurry of brown, green, blue, and yellow, the cook's boy stood coiling his whip, blinking.
'Stiggur!' shouted Gull, and the boy jumped. 'Hit him!'
Confused, but heeding his hero's voice, the boy flicked the whip backward along the ground, not straight, and whisked it forward, too hard and fast.
But the tip of the mulewhip cut the air, popped almost in Towser's eye. Startled, the wizard grabbed his bloodied cheek.
The conjuring spoiled, the twinkles before Gull's eyes faded. The fierce hissing gasped out. Like the last smoke of a campfire, the rock hydra dwindled and disappeared. Gull saw dents in the grass where its feet had begun to form.
He heaved a great sigh. That had been too close.
But their luck couldn't last. They needed to organize a defense.
Or die.
Towser had ducked behind a bramble wall. Stiggur stood, whip lying limp on the ground, and regarded the bodyguards, who cast about for orders.
'Stiggur! To me!' Gull bellowed. The boy zipped past the confused thugs before they could stop him. But Stiggur looked up, over the monolith.
A steel spike flashed from the heavens and thudded into the ground at Gull's feet. Another few inches and it would have buried in his skull.
Overhead lofted four balloons, their baskets filled with shrieking goblins. The onshore breeze pushed them rapidly over the bluff. Dangling from rigging, tussling with awkward loads, squabbling with one another, the first crew of leering gray-green goblins dropped spears at the company trapped in the pocket.
Spears clattered off the monolith, ricocheted off the black altar, bounced off the earth. Grabbing Morven and his sister, Gull hauled them into partial shelter against the shadowed monolith. Goblins cackled with glee.
Gull's head throbbed as he tried to track the confusion. They still needed a solid defense. The bodyguards hung back, guarding the gap, but Towser must be conjuring something dreadful. He barked, 'Greenie! Fetch the rest! Anything you've touched! The clockwork beast! The centaurs! Our own stinking goblins, even!'
Frowning with concentration, Greensleeves shot her green sleeves to her elbows, raised her hands, murmured. Gull didn't know what she whispered. Prayers? Rhymes? Nonsense?
Close above, the second crew of goblins upended another basket of spears. A steel spike chipped wood off the toe of Gull's clog. Morven stabbed out a hand, deflected a spear. 'Quickly, darling!' Two more balloons had yet to assault them.
From behind the twisted wall, a barbarian shout shook the sky.
'Oh, no!' Gull groaned.
Then suddenly they stood in shade deeper than approaching dusk.
Four tree trunks appeared around them. Jointed trees, like a horse's legs. Gull recognized a lower back leg-
