The songsmith started after the black half-bred as he plunged at the web-riders, shrieking his battle cry. A flashing forehoof struck, sending one of their attackers fluttering to the ground. Monso pounced like a cat, trampling the downed web-rider into the short turf.
Lydryth managed to grab Monso’s halter, then halt him. She was surprised at his sudden docility, but the reason for it soon became clear. As he took a step backward, the stallion nearly fell when his right foreleg buckled beneath him. The songsmith glanced down at the leg, but the light was too dim for her to see clearly. Bending down, she ran an expert hand down the slim, sinewed length, discovering a rapidly swelling area above the knee. It was hot and throbbing. “Alon!” she cried. “He’s been stung or bitten!”
The Adept was already hobbling toward them, still wheezing. He flung himselfdown beside the Keplian. “We’ll have to get a poultice on it immediately, to draw out the poison,” Lydryth gasped. “I have herbs and bandages in my-”
Alon shook his head, halting her words. “Just hold them off for a moment,” he ordered. Lydryth straightened, her sword at the ready. The web-riders ringed them now, but none had crossed into the light Alon had summoned. The songsmith kept one eye on them, while stealing glances at her companion as he grasped the stallion’s leg in both hands, all the while muttering under his breath. Violet light shimmered from between his fingers.
Catching a flash of motion in the comer of her eye, the bard whirled, raising sword into guard position. She was barely in time to duck and parry as a glowing shape swooped down at her head. Seen this close, the web-rider appeared more crab than insect as its pincers snapped viciously, barely a handspan from her eyes.
Repelled, she slashed upward, her sword catching the creature in its midsection, slicing it in two. It made a shrill noise that hurt her ears as the blade clove its body. Even as she winced back from that eerie sound, a glowing greenish ichor sprayed outward from the dying thing, sending a spray of droplets spattering across her right hand.
Lydryth screamed with pain as the web-rider’s “blood” seared her hand. Her skin felt as though she had been doused with liquid fire. Clamping her teeth onto her lip, she quickly caught up her blanket and wiped the noxious slime off her flesh, but the ichor still burned fiercely; her vision blurred with the pain of it.
Swallowing, she forced herself to flex her fingers, pick up her dropped sword. Perhaps some virtue emanated from the quan-iron in its gryphon’s-head hilt, for, as she touched it, the pain eased a little, though she still had to stifle a groan every time she moved her fingers.
The web-riders were now closing in on every side as the breeze picked up. Lydryth caught up the blanket, wrapped it around her left hand and forearm, using it as makeshift shield to buffet the drifting creatures away.
With her right hand, she wove intricate patterns with the point and edge other sword, parrying and thrusting, trying to watch everywhere at once. Even as she strove, she recognized that her efforts could not save them for long; sooner or later an attacker would swoop at her from behind her back, and she would find herself stung or bitten.
For long moments Lydryth held them off, moving with a precision that she had never employed against a human opponent. Suddenly she sensed something behind her, nearly brushing her hair!
Stifling a shriek, she whirled, only to see Alon behind her, his hand sweeping in a blow aimed at her head. She ducked, wondering if he had gone mad, but a second later, with a muffled curse, he grabbed her shoulder, holding her steady, then knocked a web-rider off her head with his bare hand. Lydryth shrank back as he struck it to the earth with the songsmith’s quarterstaff. Quickly he pounded the staff’s steelshod butt into the center of the creature’s back. The web-rider squealed, convulsed and died. “We have to get away!” the songsmith shouted, pointing to the east. “Into the woods, where the wind cannot carry them! How is Monso? Can he move?”
“I drew the poison out,” he gasped, “but he’ll need-” He broke off as he batted away another of their attackers.
“But can we get away?”
“We don’t have to run,” he promised grimly. “Just hold them off until I get my wand.. . .”
Quickly he upended the saddlebag, spilling its contents, then grabbed the branch of elder. Extending it before him, he began to hum, then thread the fingers of his free hand through the air, as though combing it, or gathering up something invisible. The breeze against Lydryth’s face intensified, tossing her hair into her eyes, plucking at the loose sleeves other shirt.
Even as he continued those gathering motions with one hand, Alon began to make circling motions in the air with the wand. The wind picked up, now blowing so hard that Lydryth staggered, then braced herself against it. Something long and dark lashed her face, stinging her eyes, and for a terrorstricken moment she thought one of the web-riders had landed there, but her attacker proved to be naught but Monso’s tail. She brushed the clinging horsehair aside, realizing that the sudden gale must be Alon’s doing. Blinking, she looked about her for the web-riders.
With that first gust, the noxious creatures had been blown away from their intended prey. Lydryth sighed with relief and lowered her sword, painfully loosing her swollen fingers from their tight clench about its hilt, holding it now with her left hand.
As the minstrel watched, fascinated, Alon began to make circling motions with the tip of the wand, just as if he were stirring soup. The wind began to swirl around the massed web-riders, blowing them against each other. Each glowing shape was caught up by that tiny maelstrom, caught past all escaping. Within moments their attackers resembled a small, sickly greenish cyclone.
“Good!” Lydryth raised her voice to be heard above the wind. “How far away can you be from that thing and still keep i76 them so prisoned?” She wondered whether she could find some way to cut them down while they were helpless. Cold iron seemed to work against them… but the throbbing of her hand was a warning against close-quarters sword-wielding.
If we can get far enough away before his power over the web-riders fails, then we can surround ourselves with trees and a protective circle, so no menace can come at us again this night, she thought. Then she remembered the Keplian’s injured leg. Monso could not carry them; they would be limited to the distance they could make afoot.
“I have other plans for these vermin,” Alon told her, in a voice that was cold and even with suppressed rage. So saying, he closed his eyes, concentrating. After a moment, sweat sheened his forehead. The whirlwind with its spinning, squeaking inhabitants seemed to glow even brighter-
-and then, without warning, exploded into flame!
Even though she had been considering ways to kill the evil things herself, Lydryth bit back a cry of protest. Kill them, yes, but to bum them alive-!
For many heartbeats the trapped creatures struggled against the inferno that was consuming them, shrilling protests in high-pitched hisses and cries. Then, just when the songsmith thought she could stand the sounds no more, and must run gibbering away into the night, silence fell. Of their attackers, there remained naught but ash drifting on the soft breeze.
Lydryth clenched her teeth as the pain other wounded hand reawakened, but it was not the pain that made her stomach turn over queasily. In the waning moonlight, she had caught a glimpse of Alon’s face as he contemplated his victory.
The Adept was smiling.
It took the travelers until the first faint flush of dawn to tend each other’s wounds (Alon had a livid welt along the side of his jaw where the venom from one of the creatures had sprayed). After poulticing and binding up each other’s wounds, they turned their attention to the Keplian. The stallion’s leg showed only a slight swelling now, but Alon worked again at drawing out any remaining vestiges of poison. r
The stallion could not be ridden until the swelling was completely gone, but Alon decided that he would be able to carry their packs.
Finally, when all their tasks were over, Lydryth sat on her bedroll, regarding the pearl-touched sky with a listless indifference. She knew that she should climb to her feet and set off across those meadows again, but her body cried out for respite. She felt that she could not have been more wearied if she had walked every step from Escore to Arvon without halting.
“We ought to go,” she murmured to Alon, who was sitting beside her, slumped over with his elbows resting on his drawnup knees, head bowed with an exhaustion like unto her own.