while she caught her breath.
There in the moonlight she pulled off her helmet, undid
the thick belt that held both swords, and put it aside. Then
she leaned back against one fallen trunk. Her bright yellow
eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. Physically she was
unharmed by the fighting, though her armor showed plenty
of cuts and dents.
“We owe you our lives,” he finally told her.
“Yes, ah expect that’s so. Damned if ah know how
ah’m going to collect on that debt. Yo told me yo didn’t
mean to conjuh me up in the first place?”
“That’s right,” he confessed. “It was an accident. I
was trying to put our jailer to sleep. When it didn’t work I
got upset and spellsang the first thing that came to mind
and—poof—there you were.”
“Ah was the first thing that came to yo mind?”
“Well, not exactly. Matter of fact, I’ve never seen
anybody like you. This kind of thing happens to me a lot
when I try to spellsing.”
She nodded, turned to look to where Mudge was already
searching the bushes for something edible. “Is he telling
the truth, squirt?”
“Me name is Mudge, lady o’ the long tooth,” said the
voice in the bushes, “and I’ll make you a deal right now.
You can like me o’ not, but you don’t call me names and
I’ll respond likewise.”
“Ah favor politeness in all things, being a lady of
refined tastes,” she replied evenly.
Mudge restrained the first reply that came to mind, said
instead, “Aye, ‘e’s tellin’ you the truth. A powerful spellsinger
‘e is. Maybe the most powerful ever, though we ain’t yet
sure o’ that. ‘E certainly ain’t. See, ‘e ‘as this bad ‘abit o’