TWELVE

IT TOOK BLADE FIVE HOPS to get back to where the soldiers were—almost as many as Derk would have needed—and the only good thing when he got there was that it had stopped raining. He arrived to find Pretty galloping about in a crowd of dogs, the soldiers yelling steadily, something about their human rights, and Kit, Don, and Shona gathered anxiously around Barnabas.

Barnabas had brought three heaps of what looked like large black kites. Blade gathered that Barnabas had fetched them from the store in the University. “What are they?” he asked.

“Leathery-winged avians,” Barnabas said cheerfully. “They don’t have to look real. They attack in the dark. Your father not back yet? Then I hope you know how to animate the things. There are three Pilgrim Parties over in the coastal hills needing to be attacked tonight. I’d help if I could, but I haven’t nearly finished the base camp yet.”

He departed in his usual cheerful clap of noise, leaving Kit and Blade staring glumly at the kites.

“Well,” Kit said at length, “we’d better get busy.”

They spent the next three hours trying to animate the kites. Kit once or twice got the things two feet into the air and sort of flapping. Blade could not move them at all. They seemed to need a magic that was quite different from any Blade could do. Don suggested tying them to some of the magic reins and towing them through the air, but when Shona sacrificed more of her robe and Don tried it, the things behaved exactly like kites and simply soared. Nothing would persuade them to look as if they were attacking anything. The soldiers inside the dome of magic pointed and laughed and jeered. Then they chanted again. This time it was “Got no food. Got no food.”

“It’s entirely their own fault for refusing to come out,” Shona said. “They could have been nearly to the food in the next camp by now. Take no notice. What do we do about these avians?”

“Get the wizards guiding the tours to animate them?” Blade suggested. “If three of us each take a pile and explain—”

They decided to do that. Kit stayed behind, sitting by the entrance to the camp with his head bent, glowering at the soldiers. Don and Shona set off straightaway, Don flapping laboriously with a pile of kites clutched in his front talons, Shona with her pile balanced in front of Beauty’s saddle. Blade stayed to milk the Friendly Cows and feed the dogs and set off an hour or so before sunset with his arms wrapped around the third awkward bundle of kites.

He came to what he was sure was the right place in the hills. Finn was in charge of this Pilgrim Party, and Blade translocated to home on Finn. Blade was rather excited, to tell the truth, at the thought that at last he might see some of the Pilgrims all this fuss was about. He set down the bundle of kites, sat on a rock, and waited. And waited. There was a big red sunset. Blade watched it. When the light was almost gone, he began wondering if this was the right place after all. It was pretty well dark when he heard someone coming slithering and scrambling down the hillside above him.

Blade stood up. “Over here!” he called.

“Oh, there you are. I was hunting all over,” said Finn. “Sorry about this. Blasted tourists insisted on getting as far as they could. We’re camped on the crest up there, a good couple of miles away. Got the avians?”

“Yes,” said Blade. He gave Finn the careful explanation that he hoped Don and Shona were giving to the other Wizard Guides around now. Derk had been called north to a dragon. He had sent Blade with the kites and asked Finn to animate them.

“I suppose I could,” Finn agreed, grudgingly. “Hard work after a day walking, but I suppose the things only have to swoop a bit and terrify people. Let’s have a look.”

Blade led him by feel to the pile of kites. It was quite dark by then. Finn conjured up a little ball of clear blue witchlight, making Blade acutely envious. He wished someone had taught him how to do that. Wistfully he watched Finn loose the ball of light to hover over the pile of kites, so that Finn could see to pick one up and turn its leathery shape over, muttering. Finn stopped muttering after a while and held the kite close under the floating light. “This has got some damn queer spell on it,” he said. “I can’t make it do a thing. Didn’t your father give you a word to activate the spell at all?”

“No,” said Blade.

“Or even tell you what sort of spell?” demanded Finn.

“No,” Blade said again, wishing now he had thought of a way to say Barnabas had brought them the kites.

“Well, I can’t work it,” Finn said. He combed his fingers angrily through his long gray beard. “Now what do we do?”

“We’d better skip them,” Blade said. “I’ll take them away again. The Pilgrims don’t know they’re supposed to be attacked tonight by avians, do they?”

“I daren’t skip them!” Finn said. His blue-lit face was horrified. “I don’t know what the Pilgrims know, but I know one of them reports to Mr. Chesney at the end of the tour. I’ve seen her taking notes. I’ll be in real trouble if I skip anything!”

“Oh,” said Blade. “All right. Give me another hour. Wait here.”

“What are they supposed to think I’m doing here?” Finn demanded.

“Meditating,” Blade said, and translocated away from what he saw was going to become a long and useless argument. He went to Derkholm again, in another set of translocations, landing goodness knew where in the dark, until around moonrise he finally arrived home, somewhere near the paddock. Big Hen promptly began cackling. “Shut up,” Blade said to her. “Please.” He felt his way along the fences to Derk’s workshop and, by the growing moonlight, managed to find one of the big wicker hampers Derk sometimes used for taking pigs across country in. A blue ball of witchlight would have been a great help, he thought, as he heaved the hamper down the path beside the cages and the pens. Big Hen cackled again as he went by. And now the geese woke up and shouted Big Hen down. “Be quiet,” Blade said to them. “I’ve come to talk to you. Shut up and listen.”

The geese understood Blade perfectly. They just did not use human speech themselves. The noise from them died down, although there was one final sound from the rear, the sound of a goose sarcastically wondering when anything from a human was worth listening to.

“This,” said Blade. “You know you always want to peck people. How would some of you like to go and fly at some people tonight and really peck bits off them and scare them properly?”

There were thoughtful, wistful croonings from the geese. It was a nice idea. But people never let them do that. Blade didn’t mean it. The noises grew harsher. There had to be a catch.

“Yes, there is a catch,” Blade told them. “The people have swords, and they’ll try to hurt you back. You’ll have to be really quick and cunning to hurt them without getting hurt yourselves. Come on. Who’s clever enough to hurt humans? I want six volunteers.” He opened the gate of the pen. He dumped the hamper on its side just beyond and opened the lid with an inviting creak. “Anyone volunteering just step in this hamper.”

The geese thought about it, with sarcastic little nasal yodels. Blade could dimly see their white heads turning to one another, discussing it. Then one goose stepped forward.

“Blade!” said Callette, at that crucial moment, almost invisible in the dark. The goose stopped dead. “What are you doing? I thought it was thieves.”

She made Blade give such a jump that he felt dizzy. He had forgotten how cat-quiet Callette could be. “Oh, bother you!” he wailed. “I need them for leathery-winged avians, and now I’ll never get them into the hamper!”

Callette considered this. “Yes, you will,” she said. “You should have come and asked me instead of creeping about. You have to dare them. I always get them to do things by daring them to. Watch.” She leaned forward with her great head over Blade’s shoulder. “Come on, geese. Scaredy old geese. Daren’t sit in a hamper, then? Scared to climb in a big wicker box, are you?”

There was an instant rush for the hamper. Geese fought one another to get into it. Callette had certainly got it right, Blade thought, shutting the lid down on at least eight geese. Callette hit the gate of the pen smartly with her tail so that it shut and cut off the rest of the flock. “See?” she said above their yells of protest. “Want help carrying it?”

“I can manage,” Blade said, hoping this was true. “Thanks. That was brilliant.”

“You’re welcome,” said Callette. “Dad’s a lot better, by the way. He sent Lydda out with the clues.”

“You’re joking!” Blade said, sitting himself astride the restlessly creaking hamper.

“No, I’m not,” said Callette as Blade departed.

It took him ten hops to get back to Finn. Partly he was wondering if it would take Lydda twenty years or only ten to fly round the continent; partly he was truly tired. The geese were highly annoyed at the jerky journey. Finn was not pleased either.

“What have you been doing?” he demanded.

“Getting you some avians,” Blade panted. He climbed off and bent down to the hamper. “I dare you,” he said to it, “to chase every human in sight at the top of this mountain. Then I dare you to come back to the hamper. Coming back will be worse, because I’ll be very angry if you’ve hurt anyone.” He got behind the hamper, prudently, and took hold of the lid. “Stand beside me,” he said to Finn, “and make them look leathery as they come out.”

“I can do that perfectly well from here,” Finn said crossly.

“No, don’t!” Blade implored him. “Come back here!”

It was too late. A goose head and neck had already forced its way past the edge of the lid. The hamper was thrown open, and the geese came out fighting. Finn never got a chance to make them look like anything. He ran. He ran away up the mountain with the blue light bobbing above him, his beard flying and his robes hauled up around his knees. The geese went after him like yelling white demons, some running, some flying, and all of them with their necks stretched straight and vicious. Finn screamed once or twice. When he and the geese were well out of sight, a lot more noise broke out, somewhere above in the rocks.

“Oh, well,” Blade said. He sat on the hamper and resigned himself to not seeing any Pilgrims tonight, and probably not any more of the geese either.

The noise stopped after a while. Blade went on sitting there, tired out. Shortly, to his surprise, the geese came marching back in a brisk huddle, uttering satisfied little noises as they came down the hillside. If they had had hands to dust together, Blade felt they would be dusting them. It was obvious even by moonlight.

“Had fun, did you?” he asked.

They made noises like laughter.

“Good,” said Blade. “Now I’m very angry, and I’m going to carry you off to a place full of murderers. I dare you to get in the hamper again and let me.” He held it invitingly open.

The geese climbed in, making scathing noises.

“Well, I warned you,” Blade said. He sat on the lid and took himself and the geese back to the camp.

Shona and Don were back already, and Shona was getting worried. She had returned first and early, because the wizard she met had simply seized the armful of kites from her and marched angrily off with them. Don’s wizard had not been able to animate his kites. “He didn’t even do as well as Kit did,” Don said. “And he was furious. He made me swoop over the Pilgrim Party in the dark instead, and it wasn’t fun. They shot arrows at me. We ought to have thought of the geese before.”

“I’ll go and fetch the rest of them tomorrow,” Blade promised. “But oh, gods! I wish you could have seen Finn legging it up that mountain!”

They settled down to sleep, chuckling. The soldiers, when Blade thought about it afterward, were oddly quiet. He saw why when he woke in the dew-cold back end of night to bedlam and horror.

What seemed to have happened was that someone among the soldiers had worked out that the magics holding the walls of their dome to the ground were only skin-deep, and particularly weak where Kit had amateurishly sealed the opening. They must have spent all the previous day making plans. When they were sure that the comings and goings with the kites were over for the night and everyone was truly asleep, they started walking up the wall opposite the opening. It must have taken hours. But with six hundred strong men persistently stepping on one side of it, the dome gave way in the end. When Blade woke, the camp was a misty egg shape, filled with dark, scrambling people at the end where the bulge was. The other end was rising into the air. The dark shapes of soldiers were ducking under that end and rushing out.

It was the geese who gave the alarm. Someone fell over their hamper, just beside Blade’s sleeping bag, and the geese came out fighting again. At the noise Pretty instantly took off into the dark sky, screaming, followed by Beauty. That roused the dogs, who began rushing around barking and yelping like the Wild Hunt itself, followed by Friendly Cows, bellowing distressfully.

Blade sprang up. The geese had driven off the soldiers who had been making for him, but while he was shaking himself loose from the sleeping bag, he saw a seething dark crowd around Shona and realized that the soldiers had caught Don and were using Don to catch Kit. Two soldiers were standing on each of Don’s wings. Don was screaming and slashing and pecking, but quite unable to fight them off, and Kit was making thundering dives from the graying sky, trying to help. Every time he dived, a cluster of soldiers around Don hacked at him with swords. Kit was so angry he was roaring. Blade could hardly believe the noise was Kit. He had never heard Kit make a noise like that in his life. He hovered, wondering whom to help. Then Shona screamed. Blade realized he just had to trust to Kit’s size and strength and ran toward Shona.

There were so many people around Shona that Blade could not even see which she was. He did the only thing he could think of and turned the carnivorous sheep in among them. It was very faintly light by then. The sheep were easy to see in their white huddle, and even easier to hear. They were yelling to be allowed to join in. Blade fumbled them loose from the magic reins around them and drove them fiercely toward the seething soldiers around Shona. He followed them in himself with the large stake the reins had been tied to. He banged heads and whacked arms and backs with it, and he seemed to make no difference at all. And all the time more soldiers were getting out from under the dome of magic. Don was being hurt, from his screams, and Kit’s great roars went on and on. Blade felt helpless and hopeless, but he went on banging away.

Then all at once there was a roaring so much louder and deeper than Kit’s that it seemed to come up from the earth and down from the sky at the same time. It came from all around, as if the whole world were roaring. Something massive and dark passed over Blade’s head in a surge of hot air and hit the tipped-up dome of magic. SLAP. The dome fell back into place with a wallop that shook the turf under Blade’s feet, tumbling yelling soldiers in a heap down the wall with it. The massive shape wheeled above the dome and swooped down upon Kit and Don. The great roaring became words.

“GET BACK INTO THAT DOME, SCUM!” Flames flickered as if the words were on fire.

The soldiers around Don looked up, saw the gigantic dragon powering down on them, and ran.

“It’s Scales!” Blade said. “Oh, thank goodness!”

Scales somehow backpedaled in mid-dive and whirled about. Hot fumes, grass, and clods of earth blew every which way in the wind of it. Kit was thrown out of the air and landed on his back with a grunt, a few yards from Don.

“You! Little black cat-bird!” Scales bellowed at him. “Get up and go and guard the entrance to that dome!”

Kit picked himself up without a word and limped hurriedly over there. Don gathered himself into a heap, where he crouched, whimpering. Scales glided forward to land, lightly as a wren, beside the brawling group of men and sheep around Shona. The sheep instantly struggled out from among the men and fled in bleating panic. The men had not yet noticed anything was wrong. Scales stretched out his monstrous head above them.

“I said get back into that dome, scum!” he growled.

Their faces turned up to him. It was now light enough for Blade to see individual expressions on those faces: fear, anger, bravado, horror, but mostly annoyance at being interrupted.

“It’s only one of their illusions,” one said.

Scales bent forward, picked up the nearest black-clad body in his jaws, and crunched. The man jerked and let out the most horrible sound Blade had ever heard. It was not even a scream. It was the noise of something in more pain than it could stand. Scales tossed what remained of the man down on the turf. “In the dome or get eaten,” he boomed. “Your choice.”

The rest of the soldiers untangled themselves with incredible speed and set off at a run for the dome. Kit opened the entrance there to let them in. A goose that had accidentally got shut inside the dome blasted out in a cloud of white feathers just before Kit sealed it again. After that she was forced to stand with her back to everything, preening her dignity back, too irritated even to notice the rest of the geese, who stood at a tactful distance, hooting respectfully.

Blade was kneeling by Shona. Shona’s hair was over her face, and her clothes were torn. She had blood on one arm, but Blade thought that was from someone else’s sheep bite. “Don’t touch me!” she said.

“Are you all right?” Blade asked.

“Just don’t touch me!” Shona said.

Blade looked doubtfully up at Scales.

“Leave her be. Go and help the black cat-bird,” Scales rumbled. “I want you to hold the opening shut against the ones inside, while the cat-bird lets in the ones I bring back.”

It was now white dawn, light enough to see that the distance in every direction was full of frantic cows and black-clad men running away as hard as they could. Scales took off again, in another blast of hot air and flying grass. He flew low in a huge, sweeping circle, at the limits of where a man could run to in the time. Every so often there would be a billow of fire and some roaring in the distance, and Scales would come sweeping inward, driving a panting huddle of men toward the dome, where Kit struggled to let them in, while Blade tried to stop the ones inside from getting out.

“No, no!” Scales said irritably as he arrived behind the third huddle. “Balance your magics against one another. Brace them, and then sway just a bit to make the opening. Don’t people do arm wrestling anymore these days?”

“Oh, I see!” Blade and Kit both exclaimed. “Like that!”

“Yes. Like that,” Scales growled, and swung around into the distance again.

By the time Scales drove in the last panting, exhausted crowd of soldiers, Blade and Kit had become quite good at the arm-wrestling style of magic. They were congratulating one another and feeling nearly cheerful again until Scales rumbled, “Don’t just stand there grinning, cat-bird, boy! You’ve work to do. You need to be on the march by sunup.”

They stared at him disbelievingly. “We do?” said Kit.

“I’m worn out,” Blade protested. “We hardly got any sleep—”

“Got to keep these murderers busy,” Scales explained, “or lose grip on them. They’ve no food here, they’re angry, and they nearly got you once. Understand? And it’s no good me trying to round up all your horses and your cows. They just panic.”

“But Don’s hurt,” Blade objected, “and Shona’s—”

“I’ll see to them now,” said Scales. His wings folded with a leathery, slithering, final-sounding slap. He turned and stepped delicately across the trampled grass toward Don. Kit and Blade watched his spiked green tail slide around in front of them and then followed it mournfully. You did not disagree with dragons.

“Sprained, are they, or what?” Scales was saying to Don. “Move them, yellow cat-bird. Come on!”

Don miserably flopped his wings about. “They stood on them!”

“More fool you, for letting them,” Scales boomed. “Where are your instincts? First rule for fledglings is: Get airborne at the first sign of trouble. Didn’t anyone teach you that?”

“No, sir,” said Don.

“Comes of being brought up by ignorant humans, I suppose,” Scales growled. “Remember it in future. You, too, little black one.”

Kit glowered. “Yes. Sir. My name’s Kit.”

“Just remember it,” Scales rumbled. “And you can be rude when you’re my size, but not before.” Blade looked at Kit unbelievingly. Kit was not going to be as big as Scales! Surely? “No, but he’ll be half as big again as he is now before he’s through,” Scales remarked. “It’s in the size of his bones. You’ll be that big, too, yellow one. Now get those wings moving. Nothing’s broken. They’re only bruised.”

Don cautiously opened his wings. His neck arched in pain. He screeched.

“Flap them. Keep fanning them,” Scales ordered unfeelingly. Don gave him a piteous look. “To get the blood moving,” Scales explained impatiently. “I can’t help you unless you help yourself.”

Don ground his beak sideways with a wretched, cracking sound and managed to flap his wings, slowly, dolorously. Scales put his vast head on one side and watched. Don’s wings began to move faster and then more freely until, in a second or so, they were truly fanning. “They’re all right now! What did you do?” he said.

“Can’t explain,” rumbled Scales. “Encouraged nature, I suppose. Keep fanning while I see to the other one.”

Blade had been worrying, at the back of his mind, at the way they had all left Shona lying beside that horrible crunched corpse. But when they went over there, there was no corpse. He wondered if Scales had eaten it in a spare moment. He felt rather sick.

“Don’t touch me!” Shona cried out as they all came near.

“Sit up! Look at me!” Scales thundered.

Shona sat up as if the ground had burned her and stared upward, cringingly, into the dragon’s huge eyes. After a moment or so her body straightened and seemed to relax at the same time. “Oh, that’s better!” she said. “Everything seems—a long time ago, somehow.”

“Best I could do,” Scales rumbled. He sounded slightly apologetic. “Try to keep it long ago.”

“I will!” Shona said devoutly. “Blade, can you fetch me my spare clothes? I’m so bruised—no, I’m not! How did that happen? I’ll get my clothes. You lot go and round up the animals.”

Blade found himself beaming with relief. Shona was back to normal, and her old bossy self.