veered to avoid the heavily smoking crater.
'Hey!' a centaur bellowed from the wall. 'Stay on course! I almost catapulted a pineapple on you!'
Cedric got back on course with alacrity. 'Centaurs have sharp eyes and quick reflexes,' he remarked. 'Otherwise something could have gone wrong.'
Murphy's curse had tried, though, almost causing Dor to interfere with the centaur's careful marksmanship. Dor realized that he would do best to stick to his own department.
He put the flute to his lips, thankful that Jumper was there to help him, so that he had his hands and attention free. He blew experimentally into the mouthpiece. The flute played an eerie, lilting, enticing melody, which floated out through the clamor of battle and brought a sudden hush. Then dwarves and gremlins, vampires and harpies, and numberless goblins swarmed after the centaurs, compelled alike by that magic music.
The winged monsters closed in faster, diving in toward Dor. Cedric twisted his human torso in that supple way centaurs had, facing back while still galloping forward. He swung the hoop through the air in an arc, intercepting the dirty birds as they came-and as each passed through the hoop, she vanished. Dor wondered where they went, but he was too busy playing the flute-if his labored blowing could be called playing-and keeping his body low so as not to get snagged by the hoop himself. He could not keep his attention on all the details!
With two of his legs, Jumper held a spear with which he prodded any goblins or similar ilk that got too close. No ilk could match the galloping pace of the centaur, but since they were forging through the whole goblin allied army, many closed in from the sides. Dor saw Vadne converting those goblins that she touched to pancake disks, and her centaur was fending off the aerial creatures with his fists.
Quickly they reached the zombie contingent. 'Follow the woman in!' Dor cried. 'I'll lead the monsters away! Block off your ears until I'm beyond your hearing!' Yes, that would be a fine Murphy foul-up, to lure the goblins away only to lure the Zombie Master and Millie into the same forget-spell trap! But a problem anticipated was a problem largely prevented.
Then he was off, playing the magic flute again. No matter how grossly he puffed into it, the music emerged clear and sweet and haunting. And the creatures followed.
'Where to?' Cedric inquired as they galloped. Dor had an inspiration. 'To the Gap!' he cried. 'North!'
The centaur put on some speed. The air whistled by them. Experimentally Dor held the flute into the wind, and sure enough: it played. That saved him some breath. The goblins fell behind, and the elves and dwarves, but the trolls were keeping up. Cedric accelerated again, and now even the vampires lost headway. But Dor kept playing, and the creatures kept following. As they had to.
At centaur speed, the Gap was not long in drawing nigh. They had to wait for the land and air hordes to catch up.
'Now I want to get them close to the brink, then detonate the forget spell,' Dor said, dropping the flute to his side for the moment. 'With luck, the harpies will fly on across the Gap and get lost, and the goblins will be unable to follow them, so won't be able to fight any more.'
'Commendable compassion,' Jumper chittered. 'But in order to gather a large number here, to obtain maximum effect from the spell, you must remain to play the flute for some time. How will we escape?'
'Oops! I hadn't thought of that! We're trapped by the Gap!' Dor looked down into the awesome reaches of the chasm, and felt heightsick. When would he stop being a careless child? Or was Murphy's curse catching them after all? Dor would have to sacrifice himself, to make the goblins and harpies forget?
'I can solve it.' Jumper chittered. 'Ballooning over the-'
'No!' Dor cried. 'There is a whole hideous host of things that can and will go wrong with that Last time we tried it-'
'Then I can drop us down over the edge, into the chasm, where the goblins cannot follow,' Jumper suggested. 'We can use the magic ring to protect us from descending harpies.'
Dor didn't like the notion of descending into the Gap either, but the harpies and goblins and ilk were arriving in vast numbers, casting about for the missing flute music, and he had to make a quick decision. 'All right. Cedric, you gallop out of here; you're too heavy to lower on spider silk.'
'That's for sure!' Cedric said. 'But where should I go? I don't think I can make it back to the Castle. There are one or two zillion minor monsters charging from there to here, and I'd have to buck the whole tide.'
'Go to Celeste,' Dor suggested. 'Your job is honorably finished, here, and she'll be glad to see you.'
'First to the warlock!' Cedric exclaimed, grinning. He made a kind of salute, then galloped off west.
Jumper reattached the dragline to Dor, then scrambled over the cliff edge. This easy walking on a near-vertical face still amazed Dor. However, it was decidedly handy at the moment
Dor resumed playing the flute, for the goblins were beginning to lose interest That brought them forward with a rush. They closed on him so rapidly that they wedged against each other, blocking themselves off from him. But they were struggling so hard that Dor knew the jam would break at any moment. Yet he kept playing, waiting for Jumper's signal of readiness.
Finally his nerve broke. 'Are you ready?' he called. And the goblins, loosed momentarily from their relentless press forward, eased up-and the jam did break. Dor fumbled for his sword, knowing he could never fight off the inimical mass, yet-
But what was he thinking of? It was the magic ring he should use. Cedric had left it with him. He picked it up and held it before him. The first goblin dived right at him. Dor almost dropped the hoop, fearing the creature would smash into him-but as it passed through the ring, it vanished. Right before his face, as if it had struck an invisible wall and been shunted aside. Potent magic!
'Ready!' Jumper chittered from below. Just in time, for three more goblins were charging, and Dor wasn't certain he could get them all neatly through the hoop. More likely they would snag on the rim, and their weight would have carried him back over the cliff. 'Jump!'
