Earth's Magic (12 page)

The next hour was spent with Heather and Merlin trying to satisfy the locals’ curiosity about the fabled royal court without giving away just how much they really knew about it. In exchange they learned little more about the local situation than they already knew: that creatures from a dark Otherworld were abroad and that some but not all local muties seemed to have allied with them.

Finally, the landlord, recognizing how tired his two newest guests seemed, shooed everyone to their rooms and showed Merlin and Heather to a small alcove off the common room where straw-filled mattresses were spread over two broad benches. He apologized that their accommodations were so limited, but the two assured him that after nights of camping along the road, this seemed very luxurious. After their host had banked the fire and retired to his own room, they sat on their two makeshift beds and talked.

“We keep hearing tales of dark Otherworld-sounding creatures in the countryside,” Heather said. “But why do you suppose we haven’t seen any ourselves?”

“Maybe it’s because we’re traveling with dragons. Even though they’re small, Sil and Goldie have quite a magical aura
about them. Ogres and other shadow things might sense them and steer clear of us. Just a guess.”

Heather laughed. “Maybe we could make some money that way. Grind up shed dragon scales and market the powder as ogre repellant.”

“Or hire the dragonlets out as bodyguards. It seems that my asking them to act as guards wasn’t as absurd as I thought. Though I don’t think we should tell them how good they are at it, even if it’s inadvertent. They’ll get too proud to live with.”

Finally, wrapping their now dry cloaks around them as blankets, they stretched into the crackling straw of their two pallets. In moments both were sound asleep.

The rain dwindled from downpour to pattering to silence. They slept soundly, noticing nothing. What woke them was a piercing howl that snapped across their minds like a whip.

E
NCOUNTERS

M
erlin jerked awake so suddenly he fell off the narrow bench. Stumbling to his feet, he stared across the inn’s common room. Beyond the window, the night sky was stained red, the red of fire.

Grabbing up his staff, he hurried to the window with Heather close behind him. Silhouetted against the rising glow, strange shapes ran and battled. They heard footsteps on the stairs behind them as the innkeeper hurried down to join them.

“The barn!” he exclaimed. “The barn’s on fire!”

Merlin had already thrown open the front door. On bare feet, he rushed out, followed by Heather, the landlord, and several other guests. Dark creatures moved about the barnyard, their shapes as difficult to fix on as shadows. Flames licked up one side of the barn. For a moment, the firelight clearly showed two distinct shapes. Two young dragons flapped their wings, screeched, and dove at the black things.

Running into the yard, Merlin lit his staff with blazing purple light. The shapes it showed were distorted creatures, whether mutants of this world or beings from a darker Otherworld he could not be certain. But the dragonlets, diving and pouncing at them, were driving them all into the night.

Merlin charged across the yard into the barn. Hastily weaving a spell with hands and words, he extinguished the fire, then dashed toward the paddocks, where three panicky horses were trying to kick their way through the wooden walls of the barn. Heather was beside him now, speaking calming thoughts to the frightened horses, and soon others came to help lead the animals into the now peaceful darkness of the barnyard.

As Merlin walked out of the barn, trying to avoid stepping on smoldering embers with his bare feet, he heard a harsh whisper from behind the charred building. Merlin looked that way, then sidled toward the concealing shadows.

“We did just as ordered,” said a voice he recognized as Sil’s. “Kept guard. Saw those nasties sneaking up on the barn. Probably wanted horsemeat for dinner. Goldie and I dove down on them, scaring and scarring them with fang and claw and fire. Drove them right away, we did! Aren’t you going to congratulate us?”

“Er, yes,” Merlin said. “Hearty congratulations. But the fire?”

“Well, that was an accident. Haven’t quite got the hang of aiming our fire yet. But, hey, we’re proven warriors now!”

“Yes, you are, and our thanks for saving our mounts. Stay close,
but out of sight
. We’ll be under way again soon, I think.”

When he returned to the inn’s common room, Merlin found that the fire in the hearth had been rekindled. He sat down on his sleeping bench, trying to ignore the awed stares from the innkeeper and the other guests. Shaking her head, Heather noticed the patches on his feet and legs that showed ugly charring. Kneeling beside him, she spread her hands over the spots, muttering healing charms.

“Did our friends cause the fire?” she whispered.

He nodded and whispered back, “But saved the horses.”

When he finally pulled his boots on over his healed feet,
Merlin looked up to see the landlord cautiously approaching them. “You, eh … you two are, perhaps, not just ordinary travelers?”

Merlin sighed. “We do know some magic. One of her specialties is healing. But you needn’t fear us. It’s the ilk of those things that attacked your barn that should be feared.”

“Yes, we saw,” said the plump woman guest. “All manner of dark, twisted figures. And two dragons. I distinctly saw two dragons!”

Heather stepped forward. “Yes, two dragons. I saw them too. But don’t assume they were part of the attack. Dragons are not among the dark forces. After all, our High King, Arthur Pen-dragon, has a red dragon as his symbol.”

“That’s true,” said the innkeeper. “The coins he issues have dragons on them.”

“And we’ll leave you a few more. Coins, that is,” Merlin said, fumbling under the bench for his pack. “I think the dragons accidentally started the fire trying to drive away the Otherworld horse thieves. Not much damage was done, but it’ll need some repair.”

“Otherworld creatures, maybe,” Dave snarled. “But my bet is they were mostly vile muties from right around here. We ought to scour that lot from our hills, I say!”

“Dave, you thickhead,” the woman snapped. “Some muties are bad eggs; some are not. And, anyway, I’ve never seen muties that kind of ooze and quiver like some of those things, like shadows on water.”

Merlin plunked several coins into the innkeeper’s hand. Then he pointed to the window. “Looks like dawn is coming, so we two might as well be on our way. Tonight we have witnessed some of the reasons a battle is indeed brewing. Those in your Welsh hills and valleys who can see clear to joining
the King’s forces on Salisbury Plain will surely be welcome there.”

As he and Heather finished packing their bags, the young ginger-haired guest shyly said, “My cousin’s a local bard. He’ll want to make a song of tonight’s affair, I’m sure. Can I ask your names?”

Heather looked at Merlin. He shrugged, and she answered. “I’m sorry we weren’t as forthcoming with you all as we might have been. Traveling incognito is sometimes easier. He is called Merlin, and I am Heather McKenna. But we are traveling on the King’s business, somewhat secret business, and would appreciate it if your cousin’s song didn’t ring out for a few days yet.”

The others in the room all babbled their thanks and assurances of discretion as Merlin and Heather closed and shouldered their packs. Then they took their leave, stepping into the yard, where their horses were waiting. The ground was still wet from the previous day’s rain, but the predawn sky was clear except for the perpetual high clouds now shading from purple to pink.

In a few minutes, their horses were saddled and the two travelers were once again on the road. Once out of sight of the inn, two pony-sized dragons and a mutie dog strutted proudly out of the underbrush and frisked ahead of them down the rutted road.

Heather leaned close to Merlin as he rode beside her. “What do you want to bet that in those new songs, the dragons grow to giant proportions?”

“Bound to,” Merlin laughed. “And I’ll probably have acquired a long gray beard and a pointy star-speckled hat. And you’ll have healed everyone in the room of truly grievous burns. History that’s passed on through bards is always a little questionable—but entertaining nonetheless.”

The rain of the previous day did not return, but the clouds
overhead began to thicken and lower. The wind picked up as well. By afternoon the fat brown clouds began shedding flurries of snow. The white powdering on the ground thickened, and the rain puddles in the road froze into treacherous plates of ice.

“Springtime in Wales was always chancy,” Merlin muttered bitterly. “But this is bad even for post-Devastation weather. I guess the freak storms your mind contacts have been reporting are hitting us too.”

As if in response, the wind picked up. In moments the snowfall turned almost into a blizzard. The horses lowered their heads against the onslaught and continued along the icy road. Their way had dropped them into a shallow valley, and down its rocky sides the wind howled with animal fury. The two riders pulled their cloaks more tightly around them, but suddenly Heather threw back her hood.

“Did you hear that?”

Merlin grunted. “I heard wind that sounds angry enough to peel our skin off.”

“No, a voice. I heard a voice.”

Heather strained to listen. The voice came again.
Help!
Suddenly she realized the voice wasn’t being carried by the wind. It was in her head.

“Someone’s in trouble!” she called to Merlin. “Someone near here, I think. But I don’t know—”

Help! They after us. Help, hurry, save sheep!

Now they both heard a noise carried by the growling wind. A frenzied, panicky bleating blew down at them from the bleak hillside. Then, at the crest of the hill, dark shapes appeared and began rolling downward. The snow thickened, blowing about them with increasing fury as the darkness flooded toward them. Suddenly they were engulfed in a flock of dark-wooled and clearly terrified sheep.

Through the driving snow, Merlin could see that hairy orangish shapes clung to the backs of several sheep. Were these why the animals were frightened? He had just raised his staff to strike at one when a much larger, more terrifying shape launched itself through the snow and knocked Merlin off his horse.

Looking up, he found himself staring at a creature that looked like a huge wolf—except for the glowing red eyes, the sharp horns, and the row of jagged spines down its back. He fended off its lunge with a desperate swipe of his staff. As he scrambled unsteadily to his feet, the creature crouched, ready to spring again.

Merlin fumbled to pull out his sword and awkwardly whacked at the beast with his staff, that he hadn’t even had time to ignite with power. The Eldritch blade glowed blue as he swiped it through the air. The wolf thing flinched back and was momentarily diverted by colliding with a fleeing sheep, which met a bloody end as the fanged jaws clamped onto its neck.

In that moment of reprieve, Merlin glanced around him. It was hard to see anything in the swirling snow and the tumult of sheep and attackers. He couldn’t see Heather. He couldn’t see their horses. He thought he saw the glow of a swooping dragon through the curtain of snow, then that too was gone.

A snarl brought his attention back to the horned wolf, that had now been joined by another creature that looked like a huge, bloated lobster. His staff glowing purple now, Merlin swung it at the newcomer. The creature clung to the wood with thickly armored claws, nearly yanking the staff out of his hand. Now the wolf lunged again. Merlin barely brought his sword up in time. A gargling yowl nearly deafened him as the beast’s hairy side was sliced open. The twitching beast dropped to the snow. Immediately, the other creature let go of Merlin’s staff and
pounced on its former companion, tearing chunks of flesh from its still-writhing body.

Merlin reeled back from the blood-splattered patch of snow only to collide with a pair of stampeding sheep. He stumbled to his knees and was nearly trampled by three more sheep. Still grasping his staff, he finally staggered to his feet again. Through the snow and chaos around him, he could see and hear nothing but bleating, stampeding sheep and snarling, galloping monsters.

“Heather!” he cried at the top of his lungs. In the upheaval around him, his cry sounded as faint as a bird’s. “Heather, where are you?”

A dark shape hurtled toward him. Briefly he glimpsed the huge ram’s wide, terrified eyes before the massive horns hit him squarely in the chest. He was catapulted through the air to smash against a snow-shrouded boulder. By the time he slid into the snowbank below, he was already unconscious.

Heather heard the voice in her head coming nearer. Suddenly a dark herd crested the ridge. Sheep, she realized. They were stampeding in panic. Then she saw why. Other dark shapes were close behind them. Even through the driving snow, she could tell they were hideously twisted.

Help! Save sheep! Herd to safety!

Even as she pulled out her own Eldritch sword, Heather glimpsed shaggy orange shapes clinging to some of the larger sheep. A dark, scaly creature lunged forward and sank claws into a sheep’s flank. Slicing downward with her sword, Heather severed its armor-plated head from its body. Panicky sheep trampled over the decapitated creature.