A Meddle of Wizards

by Alexandra Rushe

  “We want the girl, Finlar,” the man said. “Glonoff’s offered a tidy sum for her. Give her to us without a fight, and maybe we’ll let you and your pet monkey live.”

  Mauric answered with a wolfish grin. “I’d like to see you try and take her, Shad. Please.” Without taking his eyes off the horsemen, he said, “You heard, mor? Glonoff knows about Raine.”

  “I heard.” Gertie’s yellow eyes were flat. “Kill them. Kill them all. The less the Dark Wizard knows about our whereabouts, the better.”

  “Right.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Raine stared at Gertie and Mauric in alarm. “There are two of you. You can’t fight all those men.”

  “Get out of the way, Raine,” Mauric said, his gaze still on the Shads. “Go climb a tree or something.”

  “Climb a tree? Is that your answer for everything? Now listen here, Mauric—”

  The horsemen charged. Raine took one look at the wave of churning hooves and sword-wielding men bearing down on them and scrambled up the nearest oak. Clinging to a branch some twenty feet off the ground, she watched the Shads attack. Mauric and Gertie were badly outnumbered. Short of the Shads being squashed into jelly by the unexpected arrival of a certain wandering behemoth, the situation seemed hopeless.

  Tiny, where are you? Raine pressed her forehead against the tree. We need you.

  With a savage cry, the leader of the horsemen swept toward Mauric. The blond warrior waited, knife in hand, as he had during the ograk attack. The black-and-red clad horseman swung his curved sword in a downward whistling arc. Raine screamed, certain that Mauric would be decapitated, but he spun aside at the last moment in a blur of movement, and the Shad’s blade whistled harmlessly through the air. As the Shad surged past, Mauric grabbed a handful of the man’s uniform and pulled himself onto the back of the horse. With brutal efficiency, he slit the soldier’s throat and dumped the body onto the ground. Grabbing the reins, he drew his sword and turned to face the remaining attackers.

  Something moved at the edge of Raine’s vision. Tearing her horrified gaze from the battle, she found Mimsie perched on the limb beside her. The ghost seemed oblivious to the battle raging a few feet away.

  She smoothed her rose-printed dress. “Those men raided a river camp in Durngaria and stole some children from their parents.”

  Raine jerked her gaze back to the fight. Gertie bellowed and heaved a huge log at a group of oncoming horsemen, knocking them from their saddles. The troll leapt on the back of an abandoned steed, driving the terrified animal at two more Shads. The horses collided with a violent crash. Gertie sprang off her mount, unhorsing the riders with a swipe of her apish arms. She back-flipped in the air and landed on her feet. One of the men she’d unhorsed hit the ground head first and broke his neck. The other lay on his back, gasping for breath. Bending over the downed man, she tore out his throat with her claws.

  Raine shuddered and scanned the field for Mauric. He was still astride the fallen leader’s horse. With lethal economy, he attacked and killed three more men. The unmanned horses wandered to the edge of the glade and stood trembling, reins trailing from their necks. Wheeling his mount, Mauric faced two more attackers.

  Raine averted her gaze from the carnage, but there was no escaping the sounds of battle: the clang of sword on sword, the meaty thud of metal cleaving into flesh, the scream of wounded horses, the horrible gurgling cries of the maimed and dying.

  “They locked them in a cage and left them about a mile from here,” Mimsie continued, calm as an eggplant. “The soldiers plan to take them to Zorbash—that’s the capital city of Shad Amar—and sell them in the market. Seems the slave trade is a profitable business and there’s a high demand for children. Prosperous Shads buy captives and offer them to the temples as sacrifices to Magog. The rich Shads are happy, their young ones are kept from the altar, and the slavers make a tidy little profit in the bargain. If a few peasant children are slaughtered, no harm done, as long as it’s not their little darlings.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “I thought so too,” Mimsie said, and disappeared.

  The skirmish continued. Mauric dispatched two more men with bloody ease, and engaged a third. Gertie ran up behind a soldier, slashing the back tendons of his mount with her claws. The horse screamed and stumbled, and Gertie caught the rider as he fell. Holding him in a lover-like embrace, she snapped his neck. She flung him to the ground and attacked another rider.

  Dead and dying men, blood, and body parts littered the once-peaceful glade. Raine’s stomach churned and she lost her meager breakfast. She sat up, wiping her mouth, and yelped in surprise when Tiny stuck his face in the tree.

  “Best be leaving, now, Rainey.” The giant’s brown eyes brimmed with anxiety. “Eaters a-coming.”

  “What’s an eater?”

  He snatched Raine off the tree limb without answering and waded into the thick of battle. Of the twenty-one Shads, five remained. Three were engaged in a ferocious fight with Mauric. The other two were trying without success to kill the troll. The horses got a whiff of the giant and panicked. The fighting ceased as the Shads and Mauric struggled to control their terrified mounts.

  Ignoring the Shads, Tiny lumbered up to Gertie. “Eaters coming.”

  Gertie swore and whirled on Mauric. “Run. It’s your only chance.”

  Mauric nodded and drove his heels into his horse’s flanks. The animal tore across the clearing as a cloud of tiny black birds descended upon them in a clamorous whir. Raine saw Mauric disappear beneath the swarm and then the birds were on her and Tiny, tearing at them with beak and claw. Raine screamed and flailed, trying to ward them off. She lost her balance and toppled off Tiny’s shoulder. He grabbed her by the back of Mauric’s borrowed cloak and sidestepped. The world shifted and blurred and they were standing on a hill.

  “That be close,” Tiny said, dropping her to the ground.

  She landed on her feet and cried out at a stab of pain. An eater, no bigger than a hummingbird, gnawed at the top of her hand with mechanical ferocity. Repulsed, she snatched the clinging thing off her hand. Its delicate wings, fragile as blown glass, crunched beneath her fingers.

  “Ugh.” Raine stared at the creature in revulsion. “I like birds, but these things are wrong.”

  “Nasty beasties, eaters,” Tiny agreed.

  Raine flung the broken creature aside and looked back. A sea of black birds blanketed the clearing, consuming everything in their path with terrible, mindless hunger. A horse stumbled and fell under the weight of hundreds of birds that picked at its flesh. A man—a Shad, judging from his size—struggled against the ravenous tide, his mouth open in an endless scream as he tried to protect his eyes from the greedy swarm feasting upon his hands.

  Where was Mauric? Raine’s gaze slid past the dead and dying and found him. He was galloping toward them astride the borrowed horse, a trail of eaters flowing close behind him in a dark stream. The birds overtook the fleeing rider, swallowing him and his mount.

  Raine screamed. “Mauric. We’ve got to help him, Tiny.”

  “Right-o,” Tiny boomed.

  He flung Raine back onto his shoulder and reached the downed warrior in a single lurching step. Mauric was on the ground, rolling like a man on fire in his effort to dislodge the gnawing birds. Tiny snatched him up like a doll, scraped the eaters off him with one huge hand, and slung the warrior over his other shoulder. Two shambling steps later, the battlefield and the ravenous flock were behind them.

  “This’ll do,” he said, halting on a grassy knoll. “Them eaters won’t leave so much meat to follow us.”

  Bending, he gently laid the injured warrior on the ground.

  Raine half slid, half jumped down from the giant and hurried to Mauric’s side. He was covered in blood. With each bite, the eaters had gouged a nickel-sized piece of flesh from his body. His pants and boots had protected hi
s lower extremities, but he’d neglected to don his leather coat that morning. Blood oozed from hundreds of circular marks on his chest and arms, and his once handsome face was pockmarked with dozens of wounds. One eyelid had been consumed, and his lips were a ragged mess.

  Mauric struggled to his knees. “Gertie.” He tried to stand and collapsed “She’s back there.”

  “Don’t move.” Tears streaming down her face, Raine eased him onto his back. “You’re hurt.”

  Tiny shook his head, his brown eyes sad. “He can’t move. Them eaters stuns you wiv’ their bite, don’t you know. Thas’ how they bring down big game.” His throat worked. “Like giants.”

  “What about Gertie?” Raine wiped her tears away. “Did you see what happened to her?”

  “Nah. All’s I seen was them eaters.”

  A ball of red feathers slammed into the ground, blurred, and transformed into the troll.

  “Gertie,” Raine cried. “It’s Mauric. He’s . . . oh, God, he’s hurt.”

  “Fetch my medicine pouch.” The troll crouched beside the wounded warrior. “I’ve got herbs that may counteract the poison in these bites.”

  Raine’s heart sank. “Mauric dropped the packs when the Shads attacked. They’re back there with the eaters.”

  “What’s that on your back then, a hump?”

  “What?” Raine shifted her shoulders and flushed. “Oh. I forgot.”

  She shrugged the leather bag off her shoulders and dumped the contents on the ground.

  “The pouch with the drawstring. Quickly,” Gertie said with an impatient motion. “If the venom reaches his heart, he’ll die.”

  Raine complied, and the troll sifted through the contents until she found a sachet of white cloth tied with string.

  “It would work better with a little brandy,” Gertie said. “Too bad we don’t have any.”

  Tiny cleared his throat. “Jes so happens, I has a bit o’ brandy on me,” he said, and untied a large flask from his belt. Taking the giant’s offering, Gertie uncorked the bottle and took a sniff.

  Her eyes widened. “Valdarian, unless my snoot deceives me and it seldom does.” She gave the giant a squinty-eyed glare. “Later, we’ll discuss how and where you got this. For now, you have my thanks.”

  Fishing a small, stone mortar out of the pack, she splashed a measure of brandy into it and added a generous pinch of herbs.

  “Now for a little heat to infuse the brandy with the herbs,” she muttered.

  Holding her leathery paw beneath the cup, Gertie spoke a few words. The skin on the palms of Raine’s hands tingled, and she felt a slight rushing sensation, like a breeze blowing through a curtained window. She gasped as a tiny flame sprang to life in the center of Gertie’s left paw. With utmost care, Gertie swirled the contents of the cup over the flame. When the liquid began to steam, she closed her paw and the flame disappeared.

  Sliding her arm under Mauric’s wide shoulders, Gertie lifted the brawny warrior into her lap as easily as a child, and held the cup to his tattered lips.

  “There now, boy,” she said. “Drink this for Gertie. It will ease the pain.”

  Mauric gazed up at the ugly troll, his blue eyes bright in his ravaged face. “Takka, glogg mor yorne.”

  “Gogta,” the troll replied in a hoarse voice.

  The tender exchange made Raine feel like an intruder. She heard a loud snuffle and glanced up. Tears trickled down Tiny’s ruddy face. Motioning for him to follow, she led the giant to the edge of the hill and sat down in the grass. Tiny lowered his big body beside hers, taking care not to crush her.

  He wiped his wet cheeks on the edge of his kilt, and blew his nose with a loud honk. “Sorry I be such a blubber puss, but that be beautiful.”

  “They were speaking Trolk, right?”

  Tiny nodded. “Takka, glogg mor yorne.” His rosy bottom lip trembled. “That means Thank you, beautiful mother of my heart. Gogta be you’re welcome.”

  Raine bit back a sob. “Will he live?”

  “I ’spect so.”

  “But he’ll be scarred?”

  “Aye, seems likely, and that be a right shame. Him being such a fine-looking lad, and all.”

  Raine’s throat closed. Thanks to those dreadful little birds, Mauric’s beautiful face and body were mutilated beyond recognition, and he might die. She wanted to cry and scream and rage at the unfairness of it.

  She couldn’t sit here and do nothing. Mimsie’s announcement replayed in her mind. Those men have stolen some children . . .

  Children that would be sold and butchered by Magog’s priests, unless she intervened.

  “The children.” Raine leapt to her feet. “I forgot about the children.”

  “What children?” Tiny asked, looking at her in bewilderment.

  “The Shads raided a river camp and took a group of children captive. They left them in a cage not far from here.” Dear God, what if the eaters had found them already? The thought made Raine queasy. She tugged on the giant’s hide kilt. “Get up, Tiny. I hope we’re not too late.”

  Tiny shook his head. “I ain’t going nowhere near them eaters, if thas’ what you be thinking. You’d be no more than a mouthful to ’em, but they’d be feasting on me a week.”

  “We’ll go around the eaters then. Please, Tiny. We have to try. They’re children.”

  “How you be knowing about these little ’uns anyhoo?”

  There was no time to explain the ghost to Tiny. “I just do. If you won’t help me, I’ll go by myself.”

  Tiny’s eyes widened in alarm. “And leave me to tell Gertie you done took off? I don’t think so.” The giant groaned to his feet and lifted Raine to his shoulder. “Right. Where do the little ‘uns be?”

  “That way, I think.” Raine flapped her hand in the general direction of the trees on the far side of the gruesome field.

  “You think?” Tiny shook his head. “I don’ like the sounds o’ this, Rainey.”

  “We have to try. They’ll die.” Cupping her hands to her mouth, Raine called to Gertie. “We’ll be back shortly.”

  Gertie was absorbed with her patient, and paid them no heed. Tiny retraced his steps, making a wide path around the eaters.

  “’Cause I don’t wants to be a tiny meal, don’t you know,” the giant said, chuckling at his own wit.

  A thick carpet of birds still covered the ground where the scuffle with the Shads had occurred. Several lumps were visible beneath the blanket of eaters, but nothing else moved. The birds shuffled and fought as they feasted, making Raine’s flesh crawl.

  “There,” she said. Averting her eyes from the eaters, she directed Tiny to a path that ran into the forest. “That’s where the Shads came out of the woods.”

  The trail between the massive trees was scarcely wide enough for the giant. Fresh ruts marked the dirt and leaves. Tiny stomped down the shaded path, stooping every now and then to avoid a low hanging branch. A short way down the path they found a two-wheeled cart abandoned beneath a large tree. Hanging from a sturdy limb was a large cage. Six children, four girls and two boys, huddled behind metal bars. The children took one look at the giant and shrieked in fright.

  “Hush.” Raine glanced over her shoulder, half-expecting the eaters to fall on them. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

  A blond girl with a dirty face and a runny nose pressed her face to the bars. “What about him?” She pointed a grimy finger at Tiny. “Giants eat children.”

  “Me, eat a little sausage like you?” Tiny scoffed. “Why, you’d scarcely be more ‘n two bites.”

  “If you ate all of us, we’d be more than two bites,” the blond girl said.

  Tiny scratched his head. “My, ain’t you the smart one? All the same, I wouldn’t think o’ it. Children gives me indigestion, don’t you know.” He folded his arms across the mountainous expanse of his c
hest. “You lot can stay here or you can come wiv us. That be up to you.”

  A little boy with dark wavy hair pushed to the front of the cage. “Are the bad men gone?”

  “Aye,” Tiny said. “They don’t be feelin’ so well right now. I think it be something that ate them.”

  “You mean something they ate,” the first child corrected, growing bolder.

  “Do I?” Tiny shook his head in wonder. “I daresay you be right. Now, if you lot will shut your cake holes, Tiny will have you out of there in a jiffy.”

  He untied the rope and lowered the crate to the ground. Tiny’s fingers were too big and clumsy to operate the latch, so Raine climbed down and opened the door. Keeping one eye on the giant, the children crept from their prison. To her relief, they were warmly dressed in plain long-sleeved woolen tunics, thick leggings, and hide boots. She’d been worried they might have been snatched in their nightclothes and suffering from exposure.

  “You’re pretty,” the little boy with the wavy hair announced.

  Raine blinked at the unexpected compliment. “Thank you.”

  “No, she ain’t.” The blond girl scowled. “She’s skinny as a sapling and her hair looks like a thicket.”

  “So does yours,” the boy pointed out. He regarded Tiny with wonder. “Is that your giant?”

  Raine thought quickly. “Yes, he is.” She crossed her fingers behind her back at the lie. “I have him under an enchantment.”

  The boy stared at Raine, round eyed. “You do? For how long?”

  “A long time. Maybe forever.” Raine gathered the children around her in a circle. “There’s only one thing that can break the spell. Do you know what that is?”

  The children shook their heads.

  “I have to make him a new suit of clothes,” Raine confided. “You can see what a great big fellow he is. Why, it would take a hundred bolts of cloth just to make him a shirt. Do you think he’ll be getting new clothes any time soon?”

  “No,” the children shouted.

  Raine gave Tiny a stern look and pointed to the ground at her feet. “Kneel, giant.”