'Since when does an assassin?'
'You'll eat those words!'
'Makes me want to cry,' put in Morven, 'seeing you boys get along so nice. Warms the cockles of my old withered heart-'
Greensleeves murmured, 'I th-think… I have…'
A flare like lightning lit the sky, but this brilliance lingered.
Once again, the nightmare rode the heavens.
The flaming horse billowed upward as from a green-brown cloud. It galloped from over the ocean, prancing on air. Gray body sleek as a seal's, fire trailed from its mane and tail and feet, flickering, guttering, but never quenching.
Gull thought that for such a horror, it was achingly beautiful. But then it made dreams, and dreams could be both beautiful and horrid at once.
'That's a girl!' he shouted. 'It beat the djinn last time, smashed it like a rotten pumpkin!'
'That was at night!' Morven countered. 'The sun ain't set yet! And this rain might douse its fire!'
'That's magic fire!' Kem argued. 'It don't burn like wood! But that horse looks sickly!'
They had to agree. Colorful, the phantom yet looked filmy as a mist or rainbow, whereas the djinn looked solid as a thunderhead.
The nightmare whinnied, a high, piercing shriek like a saw binding in oak that set everyone's teeth on edge. As it closed, the blue-cloud djinn, swelled up, head ballooning, and blew. The blast of air-Gull heard its roar-stalled the nightmare's charge, bowled it across the sky. The horse's flame all but extinguished, and its body grew paler, more ethereal. It coasted a hundred yards before finding its feet. Again it laid flaming hooves against an invisible road, and charged, and again the djinn puffed, sending it asail across the dark sky.
'The horse-demon's licked,' muttered Kem.
Gull wiped his axe handle, but couldn't dry it for blood and water. He gestured inland, called above the noise of rain and sky battle. 'Let's move while there's no lightning! We need to see who's out there! If it's those blue barbarians, maybe the archers can drive 'em off! We can rush the wagons! They'd make good shelter and Towser won't destroy them-'
'You forget the bodyguards!' Kem cut in. 'They're better fighters than you are! I hired 'em!'
'Kem, if you can't help, belt up!' Gull hefted his axe. 'We'll see what's what, flee if we must-'
Stiggur's cold hand grabbed Gull's arm. 'Look!'
Atop the black, rain-slick monolith, Towser perched like a peacock.
Kneeling on the rounded top, the wizard clung with one hand. Gull could have pitched his axe and hit him.
With that thought, a score of elven black arrows whizzed through the night. Every one hit the wizard dead center-before bouncing off and disappearing into the dark eventide.
Damn that infernal magic shield! thought Gull. Damn all magic! The bastard wasn't even wet!
A white stripe flickered in Towser's hand. A silver wand aimed down at them.
Gull's body spasmed from head onto toe. His bad knee shot out and he crashed on the turf, almost braining Greensleeves with his axe. But she'd pitched backward into briars that held her like a prickly bed. Kem was down, crawling as if from bellyache, as did Morven. Stiggur lay on his side and twitched like a dog with nightmares.
Gull fought the jerky paralysis, but couldn't even clench his teeth without biting his tongue. His fingers hooked into claws, his arms shook, one leg kicked on its own.
The disrupting scepter, Gull agonized, that made a man's body betray him. But why hadn't Towser simply drained their energy? For Gull knew, somehow, it had been Towser who'd flown and stolen the life forces from his village. Yet Towser wanted Greensleeves's magic. Perhaps draining her would waste it? He didn't know-didn't know anything about magic, and cursed himself for his ignorance.
And his helplessness. For this was the snap of the trap. They lay exposed as baby mice in a spilled nest. Growing more vulnerable by the minute. The raging of Liko and the rock hydra had diminished, so one must have lost, and last time the victor had been the hydra. The flaming nightmare had vanished from the roiling sky. From the corner of his eye, Gull saw the elven captain crawl away, dragging her bow. Magic must affect them less, but still they were running.
Gull would have too, but it was too late. He tried to grab his axe, to sit up, but only flailed himself in the face and fell back. Towser could walk over unarmed, seize Gull's sister, stretch her on the altar…
A whispering came to him. Greensleeves's voice, cooing as when she'd been simple. Maybe terror and exhaustion had twisted her mind to its earlier state. In the dimness he saw her white face staring upward, rain speckling her cheeks, blipping her eyes. Her small rough hands pressed flat against the earth as she whispered. Or chanted.
Then, deep under Gull's back, the earth groaned.
With his head against the wet grass, Gull's teeth rattled with the force of the earthquake. His vision danced until he thought his eyeballs would pop. Shock waves made his spine jiggle until he felt he'd break into pieces.
A roaring sounded as the earth shuddered, a strange grumbling and rushing as the dirt and rock of the bluff tore apart. Clickings and clackings and pingings told him rocks flaked from the cliff and bounced onto sea rocks below. Overhead, briars shivered and danced, flinging water droplets he could taste. The roaring increased until it filled his ears, his brain.
Then the black basalt monolith began to dance.
Towser found his perch swaying. Alarmed, he snatched at his grimoire. For his flying spell, Gull knew.
With a sliding grinding rush, a slab of the monolith split from the top, smashed dirt and rocks from the bluff's edge, and cascaded into the sea with a boom. The missing piece almost took Towser with it, but he launched into the air, flapping his arms, ungainly as a chicken.
A thought burned in Gull's brain. My little sister did this? She'd lived through one earthquake, back in White Ridge. But to conjure one…? How much power did she wield?
The woodcutter heaved a shoulder, tried to clutch his axe, touched the haft with clumsy fingers. His whole body shook: he couldn't tell which juttered more, him or the earth. Gritting his teeth, he flipped over. The spasming spell must be wearing off.
Not soon enough.
Slowly, slowly, the huge monolith teetered toward the ocean, the unbalanced side, tilted farther -then the entire bluff collapsed under the shifting weight.
The sound of sliding, smashing, crashing stone striking the foamy, rocky shore was horrendous, ear- shattering. Aftershocks rippled up and down the beach and shorn bluff, spraying soil and grass like a snapped blanket. The ponderous clockwork beast, so heavy it sank into loam, went cartwheeling out to sea like a toy.
Through his hips and breastbone, Gull felt the earth slip farther. The earthquake and toppling monolith were too much. Before his eyes, a chasm split the bluff. The broken edge jumped at him in big bites, as if swallowed by an invisible monster. Grass and dirt disappeared at a hand's reach.
Halfway erect, Kem spit a bitter oath. Morven prayed. Stiggur went white with terror. Greensleeves just looked wide-eyed and amazed at the destruction she'd wrought.
Then, suddenly, as if they sat on a flying carpet, the earth dropped away, and they dropped, screaming.
Gull was unsure how far he fell, or how he survived the fall. He could only suppose their portion of bluff slid whole before bursting apart.
One second he sailed through space on the earthern carpet, actually lifting from the wet grass, the next he plunged below icy salt waves, deep, deep, deep.
Blasts of icy water and panicked thoughts almost overwhelmed the woodcutter, buried in the sea. He had to retain his axe, his only weapon. He had to find Greensleeves. He had to get air.
The axe went immediately, his hand letting go on its own. He clutched water, clawing for the surface, unsure if he rose or sank. His lungs burned, ready to rupture, but then his head broke water. He gasped fresh salt air-and was buried anew in dirty churning waves. Down he went, but by kicking and clawing, found the surface again, was almost sucked under by another wave. The sea had been rough enough with the storm, but tons of plunging cliffside had set the ocean itself heaving.
Another wave batted his face, then his bare feet- his clogs were long gone-bashed against something first soft, then unyielding.
