stairs, preceded by a pair of big, heavily armed wolves.
They saw Roseroar about the time she saw them. She
emitted a battle cry, a mixture of roar and curse, that shook
moss from the ceiling. Waving both swords like propel-
11” lers, she charged the stairway, which cleared with astonishing
speed.
Mudge executed a little bow and gestured with his right
hand. “After you, master o’ magic and spellsinger
extraordinaire.”
Jon-Tom made a face at him, hurried to follow Roseroar
upward. From ahead sounded shouts, screams, frantic
cries, and yelps. Above all rose the tigress’s earthshaking
growls.
“Don’t be so quick to compliment me,” Jon-Tom told
the otter. “She’s not what I was trying to conjure up.”
“I know that, guv’nor,” said Mudge, striding along
happily in his companion’s wake. “It never is, wot? But
58
Alan Dean Poster
even though you never get wot you’re after with your
spellsingin’, wotever you gets always seems to work out.”
“Tell me that again when she finds out there’s no way I
can send her home-”
“Now, mate,” Mudge told him as they started up to the
next level, “wot’s the use o’ creatin’ worry where there
ain’t none? Besides,” he went on, his grin widening, “if
she turns quarrelsome, you can tell ‘er ‘ow beautiful ‘er
eyes are.”
“Oh, shut up.”
They emerged into the main guardroom, which looked
as if a modest typhoon had thundered through it. Every
table was overturned and broken furniture littered the floor.
Broken spears and pikes sopped up spilled liquid from
shattered jugs. A couple of the guards remained, decoratively