Bronwyn's Bane

by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

  “This is never going to work,” she moaned.

  “Wait,” Jack said. “Crazy lord, you have the shield. It will protect us from Carole’s magic.” Everyone scrambled frantically in the dark and when the scrambling stopped Jack said, “We are ready now, Carole.”

  “Good. When I start again, could you try to light your tinder?”

  “I have a bit of candle. I—I had planned to go exploring,” he said.

  “Wonderful. Just light that as soon as I start.”

  She whistled again, and after a few moments of the scraping of flint against tinder and heartfelt cursing on Jack’s part, the tinder caught and Jack lit the candle. It made a poor feeble light but it was heartening to be able to see. She waddled forward, pigeon-toed, as she did when she wanted to be careful walking across ice. She slipped anyway, grabbing at someone’s leg and jerking herself to a stop that almost knocked the whistle out of her. The effort chased some of the chill that made her feel as if an icicle had been rammed down her spine. Standing in front of her friends, with their warm breath at her back, she could still barely manage to look where she was whistling. The invisibles didn’t so much hide from her as repel her eyes, as if they were always just about to materialize into something so unbearably ugly, so terrifyingly gruesome, that she wouldn’t be able to look when the change came. Much of the energy she needed for her magic was consumed in shrinking from a touch that wasn’t forthcoming but was threateningly close. Not knowing what would happen when the things did touch her made her all the more afraid. What did hidebehinds do to their victims after they made them disappear? Torture them? No one had said. As she whistled, the small portion of cavern illuminated by Jack’s flame smudged and wavered, not randomly, as the hot air of a flame does, but in time with her music.

  “Gotcha,” she said, and stopped, knowing the music should hold them for several minutes after she quit whistling, since they were animate beings. Cups and rocks and other objects with no movement of their own ceased moving when she ceased a song, but animate objects were held a little longer.

  She heard a rustling behind her and Rusty whispered, “Never mind me. Keep them occupied,” and darted out into the light, her gown shimmering with pale luminosity. Carole, afraid the spell would wear off just as Rusty reached her quarry, refused to watch until she heard a cry, and her head turned in spite of herself. Rusty was half gobbled by darkness. Carole winced, and began whistling again. Gilles and Jack started forward, but a slim hand popped out of nowhere and waved them back. Suddenly they heard a great whoosh, like the air going out of one of the fabric balloons Carole’s parents inflated on holidays, and Rusty reemerged into the light, her teeth bared and jaws slightly parted.

  Reaching up, she pulled at a space between her upper and lower teeth. “There now,” she said, her lips relaxing over her teeth as if she’d just removed a chunk of meat from between them. “I’ve never fancied attending battles without being properly dressed for the occasion. I’ll have some disguises from this hidebehind sample whipped up in a jiffy and then we’ll see if we can get out the way the Duke’s associates got in.”

  They had to follow close by the banks of the stream to avoid getting lost or taking a wrong turn, and even then, no one could be sure the stream wasn’t branching. Jack’s tinder, with nothing substantial to feed on, kept going out. The cave floor slanted sharply downhill too, and the spring tumbled into occasional waterfalls, spraying droplets across the stone floor and making the footing even trickier. Carole longed to dash forward, running as fast as she could, but instead she practically had to crawl, fearing always that something would fall on her from above or catch her from behind.

  They were perhaps under the outer bailey, by her reckoning, when Jack suddenly flew into the spring and vanished—all but one leg, which they only knew existed because he kicked out with it and in the process kicked Kilgilles, who had the presence of mind to grab. This awkward rescue was sufficient to cause the thing Jack later claimed had grabbed him first to release him. It was also almost sufficient to drown him, but finally, with Kilgilles’ assistance and a great deal of advice from the others, he turned right side up again and sloshed back onto the cabin floor. He was unharmed, but the candle was extinguished, and the tinderbox soaked beyond redemption.

  Later, they heard a rushing sound, a thump and the thud of feet over their heads, but not until they rounded another down-tilting curve and saw the faint light filtering into the cavern through iron bars did they spot the bat-like creatures with the spear-shaped proboscises hanging overhead. Carole saw perhaps two hundred of them.

  “Fliers,” Jack whispered. “They itch you to death.”

  “Not if they’re in here and we’re out there, they don’t,” Rusty told him. With the light, they made their way quickly to the iron gates, and looked out—across the broad expanse of the moat, filled with the red snarl of the Great Tape.

  “Now what?” Carole asked woefully.

  But before anyone could answer, from far back in the cave they heard the first unmistakable rasp of the tub being pulled away from the hole.

  Jack dashed back the way they’d come, but Mistress Raspberry grabbed his arm. “Before we return, we must prepare ourselves. I’ve made magical disguises for us from the essence of the hidebehind. Everyone take one of these invisible pellets and swallow it,” and she held out little pieces of air to them. Jack stuck his in his mouth and disappeared. Mistress Raspberry did likewise. However Gilles took the pill with no visible, or rather, invisible, effect.

  “Give me the shield,” Carole said, tugging at it. “That’s what’s holding you up.” He didn’t stop to ask questions but took her word for it, handing the shield to her, and winking out of sight as the others had done.

  Carole shoved the arm strap over her wrist and plunged forward, feeling suddenly alone, though she could still hear the patter of her friends’ feet ahead of her. She slipped her pellet into her medicine bag. She harbored a distrust of Rusty’s spell, and didn’t want to risk not being able to turn visible again. If worst came to worst, she’d take it, of course, but for now, she thought it best to trust the protective powers of the shield and the mobilizing powers of her own two feet and run like mad back up the slippery, slanting floor.

  Though the space beneath the hole was empty when she arrived several bruises and a wild dash later, light still poured into the cavern from above. The ladder had been lowered again, and at the top of it hunkered a chunky form, greenish in the torchlight—Loefrig. He gave a triumphant croak when he saw her. “Aha! There you are, my gurik—girl. Where are the others?” But before she could answer he seemed to fling himself forward into the hole, hurtling past her into the stream.

  Chapter 10

  Bronwyn missed the capital of Greater Frostingdung, stepping over it and back three times before she had the presence of mind to stumble backwards at an angle and take half a step and hop the other foot down with the first. This expedient threw her off balance and she landed rolling in the courtyard. Anas-tasia had disengaged herself from the Princess after the first miss and had flown the last seven leagues to the palace. Now she flapped above the Princess, hissing, “For mercy’s sake, Your Highness, take off those blasted boots.”

  Bronwyn, only too glad to obey, sat tugging at them in the middle of the courtyard when something snagged on her foot and swore, then said in a voice very like Jack’s, “Ah, my Princess, I knew you would return to save us!”

  “I’ll do no such thing!” she snapped, looking vainly around for him. She was already half wild with frustration and the overwhelming desire to rise and wield her sword where it most needed wielding, dispensing with this minor local dispute which had had the gall to involve her friends so she and they could move smartly along to the real war at home.

  “The boots, boy—er—wherever you may be. Help your lady remove her seven-league boots or she will not be long for this country.”

  Bronwyn stuck out her feet, though she still saw neither Jack nor anyone else. S
he was startled, therefore, though not at all displeased when the boots were sucked from her feet as if by the wind.

  “Excellent,” Anastasia said. “I take it, young man, that you have some reasonable explanation for not showing yourself.”

  “It is my hidebehind disguise,” Jack’s voice said from the direction of Bronwyn’s throbbing feet. “Mistress Raspberry made it. Is it not clever?”

  But just then Carole stumbled out of the castle and ran toward them. “Bronwyn! You’re back. The Mother be praised! I was trying to rouse someone in the palace to help us, but Droughtsea’s put a sleeping spell on everybody, from the look of them. We’ll have to lower the drawbridge ourselves.”

  “That’s not important,” Bronwyn told her, “Wait till you hear—”

  A gargling scream rent the night. “Never mind. We have to hurry. Come on! Droughtsea and Loefrig have locked the Emperor and his men outside the palace and sicced monsters on them. We may be too late already.”

  Bronwyn rose, digging her fingertips into her ears and wiggling them to try to stop the popping caused by the up-and-down movement of the boots. When the background roaring in her ears ceased, she could hear more clearly the scuffle emanating from the battlements.

  The few sword-bearing men-at-arms outlined in the night sky above the ramparts all had their backs to the courtyard, and though they seemed engrossed in whatever was taking place in or across the moat, they did not seem to be embroiled in warfare, or even particularly upset over anything. They rather looked as if they were enjoying themselves.

  Assorted screams, cries, and bestial shrieks were suddenly interrupted by Emperor Loefwin’s angry voice. “Dammit, what sort of moat monster are you, anyway, Tape? I’m the Emperor! This is MY palace! You’re supposed to be protecting me. Let me in now! I command it!”

  The Tape responded with a high-pitched squeal. Bronwyn had no doubt it was citing some regulation contradictory to the Emperor’s interests.

  “The drawbridge, Carole!” Rusty’s voice cried from the ramparts. “Lower the drawbridge! They’re being slaughtered down there.”

  Carole tore the shield from her arm and tossed it to Bronwyn and ran, and Bronwyn, still trying to decide what was happening, scrambled to her feet and ran after her.

  Rusty’s voice had been heard by others as well, and several of the soldiers detached themselves from the wall and clattered down the stairs.

  The pulley to hoist the drawbridge was beside the portcullis and Carole threw herself upon it, feeling in the darkness for the handholds by which it could be operated.

  The door to the guard tower banged open and a half dozen men, their naked swords drawn, rushed into the courtyard. Bronwyn stood between them and her cousin.

  “Your luck is ill this night, villains,” she said. “For you have crossed Bronwyn the Bold. Prepare to die.” And so saying she slashed—and felt a thrill and shock when her blade connected with another, and yet another, as she fought the six of them back to the wall, her steel ringing on theirs.

  However, the first time her sword bit into flesh, nearly severing a man’s arm, she found she had to scream her battle cry to keep from getting sick, and also to keep from watching his blood spurt. She knew that if she gave in to that sort of morbid fascination, her own blood would very rapidly join his on the ground. She tried not to think that what she was dealing her foe could very well be dealt to her—and might have already been dealt to her father.

  A man on her right lunged at her with a broken spear and tripped, nearly impaling himself. He was saved by one of his comrades, who also tripped and fell against him, knocking him aside. Bronwyn thought at first they were simply very clumsy enemies, but when they all started tripping and tumbling, and when their fellows clattering from the battlements to aid them started falling down the stairs and over each other, she knew her invisible allies had come to her assistance.

  Carole was still struggling with the pulley, and Bronwyn leaped over the jumbled bodies of three guards. Pushing Carole aside, Bronwyn grasped the wheel and turned hard, and it gave at once under her weight. As Bronwyn looked up, the bridge crashed down in front of her, braining what appeared to be a two-headed bear that had been about to tear the face from one of Loefwin’s game wardens.

  Of the hunting party, only the Emperor had been mounted, and his horse now lay bleeding in the snow. Monsters and men alike staggered, still locked in combat, across the drawbridge, while the Tape snarled itself into ever higher and more indignant tangles. Bronwyn charged the cluster of beasts surrounding Loefwin and they broke apart to face her. She cut into them with less chagrin than she had felt attacking her human foe, and congratulated herself on becoming a hardened veteran so quickly. Then Loefwin beheaded two monsters with one swipe of his sword and she abruptly turned away and searched for opponents who weren’t inclined to bleed so alarmingly.

  Invisible ribbons threaded through the melee, confusing the efforts of both sides. Bronwyn ignored them to slash a wolf-faced, five-armed boar savaging a game warden. But no sooner had she slain the beast than the man it had been attacking vanished, all except his sword arm, which hacked ineffectively and seemingly independently. Rusty’s disembodied voice cried, “Release him, fiend!” and something gave a windy scream before the man popped back into sight.

  When the next monster Bronwyn tried to engage pranced four paces back, four forward, and chased its forked tail three times in succession, and the half-griffin to its right bowed and repeated its movements, she sensed Carole’s fine choreography at work. Soon she too could hear the tune but she didn’t find it inspiring to her own sore feet. Carole was evidently learning to discriminate between the musical tastes of people and those of monsters, though some of the Emperor’s goblinesque vassals twinkled their toes as they dashed about dispatching foes.

  Bronwyn almost wished her cousin had not been so readily able to bring the situation under control, but glory give way to expedience under the circumstances. Sometimes even a natural-born leader had to control her lust for battle when the good of the common cause was at stake. Therefore, she didn’t begrudge Carole the full use of her awesome power to turn the tide of the battle with unsporting speed. Stepping over several bodies of various persuasions, she helped Loefwin, who had been driven to his knees, rise.

  Loefwin slew a couple of monsters himself, and the misshapen beasts danced but also raked and snapped, and stank as if they’d already been dead several years. Under Carole’s spell, the creatures were dancing themselves to exhaustion, and were so vulnerable to the harvesting blades of the King’s men that Bronwyn almost began to feel sorry for them.

  Carole stopped whistling for a moment, and two of the monsters, apparently either less sensitive to music or more terrified than the others, broke and ran, waddling and howling back across the bridge. The Tape’s long thin head nipped up from the moat and gobbled one of them whole. It made an unsightly bulge in the moat monster’s sleek form. The other galloped through the deserted streets between the blocky, whitewashed, iron-banded houses to the outer gate. No guards manned the outer wall that Bronwyn could see, and apparently the great doors had been left unbolted, for the creature flung itself against them and they gave, releasing it into the night.

  “Perhaps,” Loefwin said thoughtfully, pausing before he brought his iron blade across the bulky neck of a half-bull, “we should spare these things. They’re useful for meat, after all. The men who allowed them entrance are another…”

  A bat-winged horror swept down upon the Emperor, stabbing with its needle nose. The Emperor’s trained reflexes saved him, and he rolled aside, whereupon the flier buried its nose in the monster’s neck.

  Bronwyn wheeled, her shield knocking aside the nose of another just in time. She looked up. A black cloud of the fliers hung against the moon for a brief flash, dispersed, and rained agony on the exposed party beneath it, stinging man and monster alike. Bronwyn had to dodge and twist, contorting herself until she felt like a rag to keep the shield in front of her. Som
e of the men began bolting for the guard tower—others fell, scratching themselves so hard they drew bloody circles in the snow.

  Carole switched tunes and shrilled a retreat as she dashed for the tower. The monsters, released from their previous dance, fled back across the drawbridge. Only the men remained and Bronwyn slung one of the fallen ones under each arm to lug them to safety. They scratched and writhed so pitifully that she found it impossible to carry them, so she punched each of them in the head. They straightened right out, and she delivered them and returned to the courtyard for others.

  Loefwin also carried wounded from the field. The screaming, crying, moaning, and swearing were so loud that Bronwyn wondered whether the sleeping spell was sufficient to keep the denizens of the palace in their beds. And why hadn’t the people in the village surrounding the castle sought to aid their Emperor? No doubt everyone knew when they were well off, and felt curiosity an unaffordable luxury.

  The fliers reformed, blotting out the moon again, their spear-like stingers aimed at Loefwin and Bronwyn. Bronwyn shouted to the Emperor, who had his fist raised to knock out the victim he was trying to transport. At her shout, the Emperor looked up, and his passenger’s elbow caught him under the chin, knocking him backwards into the snow.

  The other bodies, which had been levitating of their own accord, dropped like rocks and Jack, Rusty, and Gilles Kilgilles appeared, racing for the fallen Loefwin. Before they could reach him, however, something flew over them so fast it blew their hair into their eyes, and the bandy-legged, green form of Loefrig hopped down beside his brother and began dragging him towards the tower.

  The fliers stormed down upon them, one striking Gilles, another hitting the frogman broadside, not neglecting to pierce him on the way. Bronwyn threw herself across Jack and Loefwin, her shield on top of them all, deflecting fliers as they charged. Gilles’ cries and Loefrig’s pitiful croaking made Bronwyn feel like crying too but she resisted. What sort of warrior cried in the middle of a battle? Her sort, she realized, as the tears flowed while she did her best to protect her remaining friends. She had no idea where Mistress Raspberry was, until she heard a flier scream and caught a glimpse of the lady crouched under an ornamental bench. Her pointed tongue daintily licked in a feather. But even if she changed herself into a flier, Rusty alone couldn’t hope to defeat the entire flock.