But he had to do something!
“Abernathy!”
The dog’s cold nose shoved into his ear, and he jerked away. “High Lord?”
“These things can’t see, taste, or smell — but they can hear, right? Hear anything? Anything even close to Mirwouk, maybe?”
“I am given to understand that the Flynts can hear a pin drop at fifty paces, though I often…”
“Never mind the editorials!” Ben pulled the dog about to face him, furry features held close, glasses glinting with sunlight. “Can you hit high C?”
Abernathy blinked. “High Lord?”
“High C, damn it — can you howl loud enough to hit high C?” The Flynts were no more than a dozen paces off. “Well, can you?”
“I don’t see…”
“Yes or no!”
He was shaking his scribe. Abernathy’s muzzle drew back, and he barked right in Ben’s face. “Yes!”
“Then do it!” Ben screamed.
The whole roof seemed to be shaking. The G’home Gnomes had fastened themselves to Ben once more, crying, “Great High Lord, mighty High Lord” in chorus and wailing like lost souls. The kobolds were crouched in front of him, ready to spring. The Flynts looked like tanks bearing down.
Then Abernathy began to howl.
He hit high C on the first try, a frightening wail that drowned out the G’home Gnomes and expanded the grimaces on the faces of the kobolds into a whole new dimension. The wail lifted and spread, cutting through everything with the tenacity of gastrically induced stress The Flynts stopped in their tracks and their massive hands came up against the sides of their heads with a crash as they tried in vain to shut out the sound. It came at them relentlessly — Ben would never have believed Abernathy capable of such sustained agony — and all the while, they battered at themselves.
Finally, the pounding proved to be too much, and the Flynts simply shattered and fell apart. Heads, arms, torsos, and legs collapsed into piles of useless rock. The dust rose and settled again, and nothing moved.
Abernathy stopped howling, and there was a moment of strained silence. The scribe straightened and glared at Ben with undisguised fury. “I have never been so humiliated, High Lord!” he snarled. “Howling like a dog, indeed! I have debased myself in a way I would not have thought possible!”
Ben cleared his throat. “You saved our lives,” he pointed out simply. “That’s what you did.”
Abernathy started to say something more, stopped, and simply continued to glare voicelessly. Finally he took a deep breath of air, exhaled, straightened some more, sniffed distastefully, and said, “When we get those books of magic back, the first thing you will do with them is find a way to turn me back into a human being!”
Ben hastily masked the smile that would have been his undoing. “Agreed. The first thing.”
Hurriedly they picked up Questor Thews and carried him back down the stairway and out of Mirwouk. They encountered no further Flynts. Perhaps the two they had escaped had been the last, Ben thought as they hastened back into the trees.
“Still, it is odd that Questor didn’t see them the first time,” he repeated the wizard’s observation to no one in particular.
“Odd? Not so odd if you consider the possibility that Meeks put them there after he had the books, expressly to prevent anyone from coming back into the fortress!” Abernathy huffed. He would not look at Ben. “Really, High Lord — I would have thought you could figure that one out by yourself!”
Ben endured the admonishment silently. He could have figured it out by himself, but he hadn’t, so what was there to say? What he couldn’t figure out now was why Meeks would bother placing guards at Mirwouk. After all, the missing books of magic were already in his possession!
He dropped that question into the hopper with all the other unanswered questions and concentrated on helping the others lay Questor on a patch of shaded grass. Parsnip wiped away the dust and blood from the wizard’s face and brought him out of his stupor. Questor recovered after a brief period of treatment, Parsnip patched up his injuries and the little company was back on its feet, once more.