The X’gäthi dragged
Kevin away as the Unicorn trotted up to stand on a small mound, shining like a pure white star against the gathering night, breathtaking in his grace. The thought of that goodness being ripped apart and consumed by the Black Wolves was unbearable. How could it be? Kevin’s eyes misted over. But suddenly there were two Unicorns on the meadow, one yet standing and the other, insubstantial as a pond’s still reflection, galloping away with his snowy mane streaming back like a flowing mantle from the wind of his passage. The Black Wolves slowed, confused by this apparition that waited there so unafraid, and then fell upon it in a rage scarce credible to the beholder. Lightning crackled crazily across the field. A great clamouring and yammering arose from the massed lupine ranks. Many dashed about like dancing candles, burning bright and hot as the noonday sun, igniting their fellows in their demented throes.
The charge scattered and collapsed as the
Black Wolves gave way to their primal fear of fire. Kevin cheered weakly as Zephyr, in full and supple stride, came streaking after them with such speed that the only way he could tell the Unicorn was not floating above the ground, was the spray of turf kicked up by his flashing hooves, and the gap between them and the pursuing hordes widened appreciably meantime.
But before Zephyr overhauled them, the foremost
Black Wolves again scented their quarry. A kind of madness came upon them. Snarls of untrammelled bloodlust burst forth. As the great paws flexed for purchase upon the loamy sod, the inexhaustible founts of stamina were stoked for the chase, and the pack sprang forward as one in pursuit of the fleeing travellers. Wild and tawny were their eyes, glinting from sable faces, and powerful their loping strides that devoured the intervening ground with relentless efficiency. Thus was Zephyr’s brief abeyance ended.
Mistral Bog was not far now. There was between solid and infirm ground a clear demarcation, from grass to foul water, as if that separation had been etched in mute warning to the incautious traveller. A desperate hope blossomed in
Kevin’s breast. If they could hold out for a few minutes longer, there might be a reprieve. But the hairsbreadth that now separated the foremost wolves from the X’gäthi was insufficient–something had to give. A charcoal-coloured powder billowed suddenly from the Unicorn’s back, of which he caught a peppery tang, and drifted innocently into the faces of the straining Black Wolves. Pandemonium ensued. Kevin’s fleeting look showed him blinded wolves whirling aimlessly in their panic, being bowled over and mauled by their fellows as the leading edge of their mad, headlong rush crumbled into a gigantic pile of snapping, fighting animals. Again, even though their fellows on the wings of the charge continued unimpeded, a vital few seconds were won for the fleeing travellers. But they were even now snapping at the Unicorn’s heels, for he had slowed to release the pepper, and Alliathiune was barely a nose-length in front of him. She was tiring visibly. Her face was contorted in pain.
“Faster!” Zephyr
screamed. “Into the water!”
Fangs rent the air near his hamstrings.
Kevin could not believe that they did not tear him down, for the foremost wolves were now leaping stride for stride with the straining Unicorn, and must any second now spring at his throat and flanks and–disaster! For the Dryad, stretched to her utmost speed, tripped up on a hidden snag and fell with a cry, yet had sense enough to tuck in her head and roll over and over in a bid to preserve her momentum. The Unicorn skidded to a halt beside her and then lashed out with his hind legs, sending Black Wolves spinning away like so many lifeless rags. A swoop of his horn drove them back. Alliathiune had already scrambled to her feet–but was unable to put any pressure on her twisted ankle. Pain masked her face. She looked this way and that, but rescue had never been further away.
Kevin
’s heart sank. Was she about to be torn to pieces? But Zephyr, showing astonishing poise and imagination, snatched a mouthful of the Dryad’s garment between his powerful teeth and swung her up into the air, flicking his head dextrously so that she tumbled against his upper shoulder and became snared in the hawk’s harness, which she instinctively clutched with both small hands and thus employed to haul herself astride his back. Alliathiune clung there with a white-knuckled grip as the Unicorn reared, striking out with his forefeet and loosing a spray of some brief, incandescent fire.
Kevin
, gazing back all the while at this daring rescue attempt, was taken completely unawares as the X’gäthi pounded full-bore into Mistral Bog. Freezing, rank black muck sloughed over him, splattering him from head to foot. They sank at once to their knees in the thick ooze. Here the warriors had made a mistake, for the wolves simply leaped in and began wading towards them, rather than turning tail at the treacherous footing as had been expected. Too close to the bank to avoid the full press of bodies, the two X’gäthi holding Kevin simply dropped him and, whipping out their blades, stood guard over his quivering form.
Black Wolves
surrounded Zephyr. His coat was streaked with crimson. The Unicorn reared and kicked out again and again, his sharp hooves striking with devastating efficiency. Now too the Dryad gestured, bringing her own magic into play. For a moment she drove the wolves back, but all too quickly the lightning at her fingertips dried up and she slumped in her perch, spent, hanging on only by a supreme act of will. The wolves pressed in, leaping for Zephyr’s throat. His horn dipped, speared, flared, but there were simply too many. He was a white speck adrift in a seething press of bodies. Three X’gäthi cleaved their way through the black creatures in a concerted effort to reach the Unicorn, but even their endeavours were relentlessly reversed by the snarling mob. Too late! Kevin’s eyes closed to the horror.
All through this latter period of the chase,
Kevin had been dimly aware that there was something growing warm in his pocket. Now he hissed as it burned his skin. He instinctively reached down, if only to spare his flesh. How useless he had been, he was thinking. What an unnecessary way to die. How his friends and the matchless X’gäthi had fought! He wrenched at his damp trousers pocket. And what had he given in return? A slew of useless suggestions not even borne out in the doing. Just then, the wet cloth gave suddenly under his hand, which slithered at once right to the bottom of his pocket, and by some fluke passed right through the wide key-ring. It came to rest about his emaciated wrist.
A
soundless clap of thunder lifted Kevin off his feet and hurled him flat upon his back. Icy blackness closed over his face. Kevin saw stars and swallowed much swamp water, before he felt a resolute hand drag him up by the scruff of his shirt. He was blinded and stunned. What was going on? Strong hands tossed him upon a slight but rock-solid shoulder, but he coughed and vomited so violently that he could care about nothing else in the world but how wretched he felt. He feared his intestines were about to surge out of his mouth, so intense was the heaving.
Some unbearable
time later, when he discovered that his entrails had not been turned inside out after all, he began to feel somewhat better. Seeing as he was still alive–to his eternal surprise–he opened his eyes to see what had happened. A pair of slime-encrusted calves greeted him, plunging rhythmically into charcoal-black water at each laborious step. Kevin put his hands on the X’gäthi’s buttocks to prop himself up for a better view.
There was an X’gäthi just behind him. “Lord High Wizard!” he exclaimed at once, bowing so low his
sharp nose picked up a smattering of mud.
Kevin
froze. “Uh–who, me?”
“High Wizard!” He grinned, displaying a jaw packed with pointed black teeth.
Kevin had not noticed that before.
“Wizard?”
“High Wizard kill many Black Wolves!”
“I’m afraid, old chap, that I really don’t understand
a word.”
“Ah, the good outlander returns!”
Kevin lifted his eyes to see Zephyr, in as sorry a state as ever he had been, plodding along an arm’s length to his right. Alliathiune was still perched atop his back, fast asleep by all appearances. What the …? Oh … oh, holy maggot infestations! Now he remembered the chase, Zephyr’s courageous stand, and being blasted backward into the mud.
T
hey must be someplace within Mistral Bog. There was nothing but malodorous sludge all around him. His face felt damp. How would the X’gäthi navigate their way through this mess?
“No magic
, my grandsire’s cloven hooves!” snorted the Unicorn, drawing his attention again. “Good Kevin, were it not for the fact that you single-handedly blew away several hundred Black Wolves in a wave of blue flame–without so much as singeing my coat or mussing Alliathiune’s hair–I would brand you the very worst sort of fabulist and charlatan!”
“I-
I d-did?”
“A mightier act of wizardry I have never–”
“Hold on,” Kevin protested weakly, feeling slightly seasick as he bounced up and down on the X’gäthi’s back. “I don’t do magic, honestly. I don’t even know what happened back there–all I remember is putting my hand in my pocket, then something like a giant hand swatted me backwards and I swallowed half of Mistral Bog–”
“Forsooth. Your wizardry bespeaks mastery of the highest order.”
“Mighty High Wizard!” agreed his X’gäthi bearer.
Kevin
groaned. “For goodness sake, Zephyr, I’m no wizard.”
“Your dissembling is contemptible!” Zephyr’s lip curled. “Fie, what manner of craven heart skulks beneath that frail ribcage I cannot conceive, but the evidence of my senses is clear and incontrovertible.”
“That’s so unfair.”
“We
shall speak anon,” the Unicorn said, with such menace in his tone that Kevin’s jaw sagged open.
“Mighty High Wizard,
” whispered an X’gäthi.
“You stay out of it,” he muttered crossly, closing his eyes in despair. Heavens, what trouble had he created for himself this time?
* * * *
Toward
evening, which in Mistral Bog was signified by the gloom gradually closing in until it became too dark to see one’s hand before one’s face, the Unicorn called a halt to their endless trek through the swamp in a place where a small, reed-tufted knoll rose above the freezing waters like a pustule upon mottled skin. But it was more than welcome. Even the X’gäthi warriors sighed in relief.
No path had they found that did not lead deeper into the treacherous bogs.
They had tried three times to turn back, only to find the Black Wolves patrolling the edge of Mistral Bog.
Shortly,
the X’gäthi had conjured a tiny, sheltered fire from equipment in their packs, and the travellers huddled round to partake of its meagre heat. Counting faces, Kevin was reassured to learn that no more warriors had been lost. Thanks to his alleged wizardry, he thought resentfully, touching the lump in his pocket. When would he learn to look before sticking his hand into strange places? What on earth had possessed him? Kevin Albert Jenkins had no magic, and only a sketchy understanding gleaned from that baffling tome. Lord flipping high poxy wizard indeed! In another time and place it might even have been risible.
Nothing terrified him more than the thought that they might rely on him to do it again.
He rubbed his stomach. Having been carried all day slung over an X’gäthi shoulder like a sack of potatoes, he was feeling rather tender. Perhaps tomorrow he might try a few hundred yards under his own steam–anything to avoid further bouncing up and down whilst having mud kicked into his face! A fit of coughing doubled him up. Drat. Now it began. Having swallowed all that swamp water earlier, he was bound to get ill and perish. That would show them!
Zephyr wafted a flask of Aïssändraught over to him, using his magic. “Drink a sip on
ly,” he cautioned. “It’ll help clear your lungs of what you haven’t yet expelled. I’m sure these swamp waters would be unkind to your constitution. Then give Alliathiune a drop.”
“I–er, well, she’s sleeping.”
“Wake her up.” Zephyr’s eyes were unreadable in the dim firelight, but his tone was imperative. Plucking the flask from mid-air, Kevin shifted over to where the Dryad slumbered against the Unicorn’s flank. “Gently, mind.”
“I didn’t know horses slept on the ground,” he said, unstopping the flask.
“You will determine, good outlander, that there is a world of difference between a mere horse, and a Unicorn. Shall I regale you with a few words on the subject?”
‘Few’ was not in the Unicorn’s vocabulary when it came to speech-making,
Kevin had discovered. “Blimey,” he said. “Sorry. Wake up, Alliathiune.”
“Nudge her.”
“With my hand?”
“No, with a ten-foot pole.” But his sarcasm only sounded harsh. Zephyr subsided with a small harrumph, and added, “By the Well Driadorn holds sacred, it has been a tough
lighttime for all of us. Minister to our companion, o mighty wizard.”
As nothing stood to be gained by further argument about the matter of his ‘wizardry’,
Kevin hesitantly touched Alliathiune’s shoulder. She made a soft noise–not half as daunting when she was asleep, he thought. From this close he observed now that the leafy patterns continued, albeit faintly, beneath the skin of her cheeks and neck and must run also to … goodness! His gaze jumped guiltily. Zephyr’s teeth had rent a sizeable hole in her garment when he had plucked her from amongst the terrible wolves, exposing the soft skin of her right flank. He quickly shrugged off his own cloak and spread it over her shoulders, which action caused her eyes to flutter open in surprise.