Spellbinder (29 page)

“I hate this,” said Steve. “What is he waiting for?”

“Maybe he’s waiting for this,” said Belladonna.

They’d just reached the crest of the next rise, but instead of more undulating peaks and valleys, there was only flat ground ahead. The perfect place for a dog to run.

“Better and better,” said Steve.

Belladonna nodded hopefully as they started their descent into the flat ground, but they hadn’t gone far before the Hound was at the crest of the last rise. This time, however, he didn’t just watch, but loped slowly down toward them.

They picked up the pace a little, but the dog was getting closer, and now they could hear the low guttural growl that they’d first heard on the night they’d eavesdropped at Grandma Johnson’s.

“What are we going to do?” said Steve, casting about for cover.

“We’re going to have to stand and fight,” said Elsie grimly.

“Easy for you to say,” said Steve. “You’re already dead.”

Belladonna stopped. “Use your ruler,” she said.

“You
are
joking, right? That dog would snap it like a twig!”

“Maybe not. Try it.”

Steve rolled his eyes and pulled the sorry-looking plastic ruler from his pocket. If anything, it looked even more flimsy now than when Belladonna had handed it to him.

They all looked at it.

“Look—” began Steve dubiously.

“Maybe we should run,” said Elsie. “It can’t be that far to the forest. We might make it.”

“Point it at the Hound,” said Belladonna.

By now the Hound had picked up speed and was running across the dead grassland toward them. Steve sighed and pointed the stick at the black beast.

“There. Happy now? Whoa!”

He dropped to one knee with a thud. The ruler was no longer a ruler but a four-foot-long sword, the blade gleaming in the fading light and the guard and handle inlaid with gold and precious stones. Steve could barely lift it. He hauled himself to his feet as the dog leapt toward them and swung it with all his strength.

The Hound flew over their heads and landed behind them. Steve spun around, carried by the momentum of
the sword, before lowering it slowly to the ground. Belladonna could see that it was far too heavy. How on earth was he supposed to fight anything with this? Yet even as she watched him, the sword seemed to become less unwieldy. He lifted it up again and bounced it in his hand a few times, then he tried a few small practice swings. The more he held it, the more comfortable he seemed to be and the more the sword became like an extension of his arm, as if he’d trained for years for just such a moment.

“My hat!” said Elsie. “Good show!”

“Right,” he muttered, ignoring her. “Right. Come here, you rotten Chihuahua!”

The Hound circled them, waiting for that split second when Steve would lose concentration or drop his guard. It felt like hours—only a fingernail of blood red sun remained above the horizon, and a fetid wind had started to blow from the distant forest. Finally the great Hound took his chance and with a blood-curdling howl, he leapt at Steve’s throat.

Steve swung the sword and hit the Hound squarely across the neck, but instead of the expected blood, nothing but black dust spilled from the wound. Steve hesitated for a second, then struck again, hitting the dog in the stomach. Again, nothing but dust spewed forth, as if the dog were a bag of soot. The Hound wasn’t prepared to give up, however, and made one last attack, not at Steve but straight at Belladonna.

She dropped to the ground and covered her head
as Steve stepped forward and slashed at the Hound again.

And then it was gone. The black dust filled the air and clogged their lungs, and there was the stench of death and rotting eggs, but no Hound. Steve pulled Belladonna away from the cloud of dust and stared in admiration at the sword, but even as he watched, it shriveled back to a frail plastic ruler.

“That was amazing!” he said. “Did you see that? Whack! Whack! Brilliant!”

Belladonna nodded.

“Thanks for not letting me throw this thing away!” he said as he slid it back into his pocket. “Too brilliant!”

“What did it feel like?” asked Elsie, her face flushed with excitement. “You know, when you sliced into it?”

“It was just—”

“We ought to move,” interrupted Belladonna. “He might send something else. You know, if he was watching us through the Hound.”

“Yes, yes, right. Wow. Did you see that? That thing was heavy too. I didn’t think I was going to be able to lift it at first and then—whang!”

They walked on through the dark toward what they hoped was the forest and the House of Mists beyond.

“I suppose this means you
are
the Paladin, doesn’t it?” said Belladonna after a while.

“Whatever that is,” said Steve, still flushed with
excitement. “We must be really close to the forest. I can hear the trees.”

He was right. The silence of a moment before had been replaced with the rustle of leaves in the breeze. Belladonna stopped walking to listen. She pushed her hair behind her ears and cocked her head. Something was wrong. There wasn’t a breeze. And there wasn’t a tree in sight. She turned and looked back, just in time to see a great black cloud bearing down on them out of the sky.

She yelped and pulled Steve and Elsie down to the ground. The black Night Ravens raced overhead, the moonlight glancing from their murderous beaks and claws. They swooped by, narrowly missing their quarry, then wheeled around far above the ground and prepared for another attack.

“Ow!” yelped Elsie. “They’re not supposed to do that!”

“No? What are they supposed to do?” Belladonna ducked again as a single huge bird zoomed by her head.

“They’re supposed to watch. That’s all, just watch. That’s what I was told anyway.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Steve. “Who told you that?”

“Slackett,” said Elsie.

Belladonna and Steve almost forgot about the birds. They both turned to her in utter amazement.

“Slackett?!”

“Yes,” said Elsie, a little sheepishly.

“And you believed him?” Belladonna couldn’t
believe that Elsie had trusted Slackett even for a moment.

Elsie shrugged and then dived to the ground as the flock came screaming down at them again.

“Oh, great,” said Steve. “How are we supposed to fight them? You can’t even see them!”

“Let’s run,” said Elsie, jumping to her feet.

Belladonna and Steve hesitated for a second and then nodded. They all sprang to their feet and tried to get as far as they could before the birds swept down again. Belladonna estimated they’d gone about a hundred meters before the sound of the wings bore down once more. They dropped to the ground and the birds missed their target, then leapt to their feet and ran again. Once more the birds tore in and once more they dropped to the ground, but this time Belladonna felt a wing brush past.

“They’re getting better.”

“I know,” said Steve. “I think we’re going to have to take a stand. We can’t do this all night.”

He was right. They were nowhere near the forest, so far as she could make out, and even if they were, the birds would get them long before they reached the shelter of any trees. When she turned back, Steve already had the ruler in his hand and was waiting for the telltale sound of the great black wings. There was silence.

They strained to make out anything in the starless sky, but nothing could be seen.

“Maybe they’ve given up,” said Steve.

“I should cocoa!” scoffed Elsie. “Look out! Here they come!”

Belladonna looked up. The great black birds were circling far above. They seemed to stop moving for a moment and then, like a single guided missile, they shot toward the earth.

Steve pointed the stick but this time, instead of a sword, he found himself holding a great longbow, six feet of seasoned yew. He looked around, desperate.

“There are no arrows!” he yelled.

Belladonna froze for a moment as the Night Ravens screeched in their descent, then she reached down, tore a handful of rotting grass from the ground, held out her right hand, and yelled, straining to be heard above the birds.

“Nadu ti am!”

No sooner had she said the words than there was a slight hissing sound, like air escaping from a balloon, and her hand was full of arrows.

Steve didn’t say anything; he just grabbed an arrow, strung it into the bow, and strained to pull it back. At first it seemed that the bow was not going to bend. He grunted with the effort, then relaxed, took a deep breath, and pulled on the string again. This time the bow bent back and the arrow screamed toward the birds, hitting one. The wounded bird let out a great cry of anguish and dissolved into a green vapor that fell to the earth like foul-smelling rain.

“Right,” he muttered. “Right.”

The birds had wheeled away in surprise after the first had died, but now they regrouped and poured out of the clouds toward them again. Belladonna handed some of the arrows to Elsie.

“Here,” she said, “keep giving them to him.”

Elsie nodded and fanned the arrows out in her hands to make it easier for Steve to grab them.

“This is like
Ivanhoe
!” she said. “I can be Rebecca and you can be the drippy Rowena.”

Belladonna rolled her eyes and passed Steve another arrow.

Steve fired. Again. And again. And again. The arrows filled the air like hail and every one found its mark. Soon the cloud of Night Ravens was reduced to three huge birds, no longer flying as a single attacking weapon, but dipping and weaving overhead like fighter pilots in a dogfight. Belladonna could see that even with the magic of the mysterious ruler, Steve was beginning to feel the strain. Sweat poured down his face and he was finding it more and more difficult to raise the great longbow toward the sky. Still, he grunted, pulled back the bow, and fired twice more.

Only one Night Raven was left. It circled lazily in the sky, getting lower and lower. By the time Steve realized it was within attacking distance, it was almost too late. He fired, but this time the arrow failed to fly true—it only tipped a wing and the bird was still coming. He reached for another arrow, but even as
Belladonna handed it to him, she knew it was too late. The screeching black bird flew into his face, claws raised and beak agape. Steve dropped the bow, ripped the bird off his face, threw it to the ground, and stabbed it with the arrow. The bird screamed and vanished into a small pool of green sludge.

Steve sat down on the ground, gasping for breath.

“Ew,” he said, wiping the green goo from his fingers. “Yuck. That was close, wasn’t it?”

Belladonna nodded and pulled him away from the slimy remains of the bird as the ruler returned to its true form.

“You’re bleeding,” said Elsie matter-of-factly.

“I am?”

Steve raised a hand to the long scratch that the last Night Raven had left down the right side of his face.

“Huh, so I am! Oh, well. That one when I fell off the bike was worse. Come on, let’s get to the House of Mists before any more nasties come after us.”

Belladonna and Elsie marched off across the plain, but Steve hesitated and took one look back to where the Night Raven had met its end. The green slime had nearly all vanished into the ground, leaving a black mark that steamed slightly and seemed to sizzle softly like water on a hot griddle. He put his hand to his face. The scratch wasn’t deep, but the bird had hit with some force. It felt like a bruise was coming.

He ran and caught up as the three of them walked across the flat plain, the dead ground crunching
underfoot as unseen creatures of the blighted land skittered around them.

The inky blackness of the starless night made it difficult to see, but at least the flatness of the plain meant that there was little to trip over.

“Um . . . are you sure this is the way?” asked Belladonna.

“No,” said Elsie, “but it has to be. I mean, we’ll get there eventually, won’t we?”

“I’ve heard stories about people who were lost in the desert and thought they were going in a straight line,” said Steve, “but it turned out that they were just walking ’round and ’round in circles.”

“Oh, that’s helpful,” said Belladonna.

After going a few more meters, it became obvious that they wouldn’t get anywhere in the all-enveloping darkness.

“Here,” said Steve, pulling his keys and the tiny flashlight out of his pocket. “Whoa!” He lunged for the keys, but they fell clanking to the ground.

“Oh, great,” he muttered, dropping to his knees and feeling around among the sludge of rotting undergrowth.

Elsie bent down and pushed the ground cover around until she heard the jangle of metal on metal. She retrieved the keys, turned on the flashlight, and started to hand them back.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

Belladonna turned. There was something in Elsie’s
tone of voice that was different. It had lost its flip edge and sounded genuinely concerned.

One look at Steve told her why. His face was pale and there were dark circles around his eyes.

“I’m fine,” said Steve, “just tired. Let’s keep moving.”

Belladonna glanced at Elsie. She didn’t look happy and it was with an unfamiliar gentleness that she helped Steve to his feet. She looked at Steve again. He stuck the flashlight under his chin and made grinning zombie noises before handing it to Belladonna.

“Here,” he said, “you go first.”

Belladonna nodded and took the key ring. It was probably nothing. And why wouldn’t he be tired after fighting off the Hound
and
a flock of dive-bombing Night Ravens? She led the way across the grassland, peering ahead in the desperate hope of seeing the ragged outline of the forest on the horizon. The hours stretched on, and still there was no sign of trees. What if Steve was right? What if they
had
been walking around in circles?

“Can we stop for a bit?” said Steve. “I feel a little sick.”

Belladonna turned around. She had been going to tell him that they were nearly there, but what she saw turned her words to dust.

Steve seemed barely able to stand, and his face was white. Not pale, but white. The scratch on his face seemed larger than it had been, and something was trickling out of it. She thought it must be blood,
but from where she was standing it looked black, like oil.