They traveled for eight days through the strange forest, growing accustomed to the peculiar changes that occurred without warning. They would be riding on firm ground, the forest all around them, when suddenly things shifted imperceptibly so that the forest seemed to waver in and out of their vision and they would find themselves riding on the prairie, the forest gone completely. And then, just as mysteriously, the forest reappeared as solid rock.
Sometimes both dimensions were present at the same time and Mika was uncertain where they really were. It was disconcerting, but there seemed to be no real harm in it, and he soon learned to carry on as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
On the evening of the eighth day, they set up camp at the base of an enormous oak tree in a strange, circular depression. A number of large trees had fallen to the north of the oak, victims of blight and windstorm. Their piled trunks created an effective windbreak against the cold night wind.
The land rose slighdy on all sides of them, cupping their campsite in the center of the depression. Tall ferns grew thickly on the perimeters and spilled down the slopes. A small pool of water welled between the massive, gnarled roots of the oak.
One thing, however, was very unusual. A large number of enormous boulders were scattered about the edges of the circular depression on the high ground, their presence totally inexplicable. Each was taller than either Mika or Hornsbuck and could not be encircled by both men together. Marks found in the center of the depression suggested that they had once rested in the circle. But no amount of thinking told them how or why the boulders had been moved, or by whom.
Finally giving the problem up as unsolvable, they set about making camp. Several times during the night, Mika had had the eerie feeling of being watched, yet there was nothing to be seen. Even the wolves seemed nervous, whining and looking up abrupdy.
After dinner, Mika, Lotus Blossom, and Hornsbuck scouted the area, the wolves running before them, sniffing the thick ferns and whining through their muzzles, a shrill, high-pitched sound that Mika knew meant they were nervous and uneasy. Yet despite their thorough search, they found nothing to warrant further suspicion. Looking at the boulders, Mika had the nagging feeling that there was something obvious that he was missing.
They returned to camp and got ready to sleep. Mika's sense of being watched grew stronger as he unbraided his hair for the night, shaking it loose around his shoulders and combing it out with his fingers. He thought he caught a glimpse of a small, blue face looking at him through the ferns. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes the face was gone. The fern did not move. It must be my imagination, he thought. But then he noticed the princess staring at the spot and he wondered. Shrugging, he rolled himself up in his cloak and slept.
Sometime later, deep in sleep, long after the last coal had crumbled to ash, he heard a wolf barking. All of the wolves. It was the sound of danger, but he could not seem to rouse himself. He snuggled deeper in the warmth of the cloak, thinking that it was a dream. Then he felt the earth tremble beneath him, and he heard soft whispers. He wakened, but before he could even leap to his feet, he felt teeth grab hold of the tunic at the nape of his neck and jerk him backward. He came fully awake and jumped to his feet just as something large rushed past him, displacing the air with a great rush.
Mika stumbled; tripping over Tam, he fell to the ground heavily, an accident that saved his life. A club crashed through the space where he had momentarily stood and thunked into the soft ground. Mika leaped at the shadowy figure who wielded the club and wres- ded it to the ground, struggling to reach his knife without losing the unknown assailant.
All around him, small blue figures flitted through the camp and, silhouetted against the grayness of the sky, Mika saw a multitude of bodies darting through the ferns.
"Hornsbuck! Blossom!" he yelled at the top of his voice as he struggled with the small, strong body. All chaos erupted: strange, high-pitched shrieks, guttered voices speaking an unknown language, snarling, snapping wolf sounds, Hornsbuck's roars, and the alarmed whickers of the tethered horses.
Mika wrestled with his assailant, rolling over and over, each struggling to overwhelm the other. Then it was over. Rolling up against an oak, Mika pounded his opponent's head against a hard root, and the man lay still. Blue paint and blood stained Mika's hand, and from the limpness of the body, Mika sensed that the man would never rise again.
Then, with a rush, they were gone. Mika, Hornsbuck, and Lotus Blossom were left standing back to back, heaving great gasps of air. A wolf barked in alarm. Mika turned and saw a dark movement, barely leaping aside before one of the huge boulders came crashing down the eastern slope and rolled over the spot where he had stood. An enraged yell told him that Hornsbuck and Lotus had also jumped clear.
"Here comes another one!" yelled Lotus Blossom. Mika looked up in time to see a second boulder picking up speed as it rolled down the western slope.
"Look out, the first one's coming back!" screamed Mika, seeing that the boulder had come to a halt high on the opposite bank and was now rolling back toward them.
"Make for the high ground," shouted Hornsbuck, pushing Lotus Blossom before him. Mika dashed forward, clawing at the ferns, attempting to reach safety before another boulder crashed down on them. Just as he reached the top, a swarm of tiny men, barely as tall as Mika's chest, darted toward him, brandishing small spears and swinging heavy, thorn-tipped clubs. Any one of the blows would have been painful, if not fatal, and Mika tumbled backward, rolling head over heels to the foot of the incline.
"Mika! Flannae! Aborigines! The spears and clubs are tipped with poison. We're surrounded. Get us out of here-use the gem!" Hornsbuck cried in alarm. Mika dove to one side as another boulder barreled down the slope, barely missing him and filling the air with the sharp scent of crushed ferns.
Wolves yelped and the horses plunged and neighed in fear all around him; giant boulders hovered on the edges of the deadly depression. The black night rang with the excited cries of the tiny aborigines who shouted out their hatred in an unfamiliar tongue.
Mika's party was in great danger, that much was obvious. They could not continue to avoid the boulders forever. Sooner or later, one of them would be struck and killed, crushed beneath the great weight, ground into the earth. And there was little that they could do about it. They were sitting ducks, fools for not having seen the trap they'd ventured into of their own accord.
"Damn you, Mika! Where are you?" cursed Hornsbuck as yet another boulder rushed down the slope, almost pinning RedTail between it and another stationary stone. "Stop fooling around and use the gem!"
But Mika did not want to use the gem, nor had he told Hornsbuck about the dreadful ramifications. A spear thunked into the ground next to him, slicing open the edge of his tunic. Another landed between his feet. A boulder appeared above him and wavered on the edge of the incline.
Mika turned and ran, dodging another boulder, larger than most of the others as it rampaged down the southern face of the depression.
He did not want to use the gem, but it was obvious that he would have to do something. Fumbling in his leather pouch he pulled the spell book free and quickly flipped through the pages as he searched for the first-level shield spell he had learned as a youngster. In the darkness it was hard to see the words, and Hornsbuck kept pulling him from one side to the next as boulders continued to crash down the slopes. He found the spell and tried to read the words in the dim light.
"Mika, hurry up!" bellowed Hornsbuck as another boulder passed close enough to nearly brush his eyelashes. Squeezing his eyes shut, Mika quickly recited the words of the spell and prayed that he had gotten it right. Suddenly he heard a low hum, and he sighed with relief, knowing that the invisible shield was in place.
"Hornsbuck, you and Lotus Blossom get behind me!" he whispered hoarsely, then called the wolves to him, hoping that the horses would be all right. The shield would not be big enough to protect them as well.
"I've put up a shield," Mika told Hornsbuck and Lotus Blossom softly after they'd followed his directions. The trio of wolves followed immediately, milling about, their harsh panting betraying their nervousness.
"Took you long enough," growled Hornsbuck. "Damned aborigines! Always trying to kill you."
Mika was about to ask why, when Lotus Blossom was knocked off her feet and thrown into Hornsbuck, who in turn landed on top of Mika, pushing him to the ground and burying him beneath his bulk.
"Damn it, Mika, I thought you said you put up a shield!" cursed Hornsbuck as he spat out a mouthful of leaves and dirt.
Mika blinked the dirt out of his eyes and tested his ribs to see if any were broken. He got to his feet and stared around as he picked the twigs out of his hair and realized what had happened.
A boulder had struck the rock behind them and shoved it forward. Fortunately, it had been at the very end of its momentum and had exhausted most of its velocity, or Mika and the others might have been fatally injured. As it was, they were merely jostled and frightened.
"Um, a shield spell only protects us from frontal attacks. Improves the odds a bit, but it's not perfect," mumbled Mika, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the shield was breached. He would have to do something else. But what?
As Hornsbuck cursed, Mika searched his memory. He had it! A web spell! Webs would keep out the boulders and would protect them from all sides! And best of all, he wouldn't have to use the gem!
Once again he hurriedly leafed through the book until he found the right page, closed his eyes amid a cacophony of clashing rocks, wolf whines, and foul curses, and spoke the words of the spell.
Instandy, great, gobby, gray webs dropped down from the branches above and circled them in a small space no wider than six feet across in any direction. They could see through the gray, gauzy webs, yet Mika knew that his party was almost completely concealed.
"Hope this works, Mika," rumbled Hornsbuck. "Here comes another one of those damned rocks. How many more can there be?"
Remembering the large number of stones scattered about the area, Mika doubted that the aborigines would run out of boulders any time soon.
The boulder paused on the lip of the crater and then, urged on by a chorus of high-pitched cries, sped down the bank, picking up speed until it seemed to fly above the ground. It struck a small incline, giving it enough impetus to leave the ground and sail through the air, striking the web from above.
Though Mika, Hornsbuck, and Lotus Blossom had ducked and were not struck by the rock, the force of the impact dislodged the web from the tree limb, causing it to collapse on top of the group, burying them in its glutinous folds.
"Mika!" bellowed Hornsbuck as he tried to fight his way out of the enveloping, sticky, gray mass. But all the big man succeeded in doing was to pull the web down from the other branches until all of them, wolves and humans alike, were completely covered with the clinging material.
The web wrapped itself around Mika's head and nose, effectively blinding and all but smothering him. Unfortunately, he could still hear Hornsbuck cursing him for a blundering fool, and feel, as well as hear, the rumbling passage of another boulder which seemed to be coming directly toward them. Loud cheers broke out around the perimeter, and Mika knew that this boulder would be the last.
In desperation Mika gripped the magic gem, closed his eyes, and with a sense of awful inevitability, he calmly spoke the words to the third-level protection from missiles spell, one he was very familiar with, having used it many times to protect himself in batde. No sooner had he finished speaking than he heard a loud crash a short distance away and saw a hint of shimmering, blue light through the web, similar to that caused by massive storms. The rumbling movement ceased instandy.
Mika pulled the last of the webs from his head and saw that the immense boulder had stopped a hand's width away from the wriggling, web-covered mass still caught beneath the sticky shroud.
Still enveloped by a peculiar sense of fate, Mika slowly looked through the book until he found another spell, one he had never used before. Somehow he knew that the magical stone would enable him to use the spell.
Clutching the stone in one hand, Mika recited the words; slowly the entire group of them rose above the ground. All three wolves shrieked with fear; Hornsbuck was still shouting and struggling with the clinging mantle of webs; Lotus Blossom clutched at him as though she were drowning; and with Mika pointing the way like some strange figurehead draped in amorphous folds, they floated out of the depression and drifted above the ground until they were level with the treetops.
Below them, Mika could see a scattering of aborigines waving their spears and crying aloud with what he fervently hoped was fear. Unfortunately, it did not seem so, for even now he could see several of the small, blue men reaching for their bows and arrows while others made ready to throw their poison-tipped spears. Hovering as they were, Mika's group made excellent targets. Mika sighed and closed his eyes once more.
New words rolled off his tongue with ease, even though he had never used the spell before and had read it only once or twice. Holding the stone in his hand, he reflected that the gem did indeed heighten one's abilities, for he could picture the words of the spell as clearly as though they had been written on the inside of his eyelids. The gem made it almost too easy. And it exacted a terrible price for its power, as well.
Alarmed cries broke out beneath him. Opening his eyes, Mika looked down and saw billowing smoke pouring from his fingertips and drifting toward the ground in great clouds of noxious, yellow fumes. He moved his hand, gesturing in a broad, sweeping arc, and the bilious vapors spread out over the entire area, excluding only the northern portion of the crater where the horses were tethered.
The aborigines pointed up at the descending cloud and gestured wildly, conferring with each other, no doubt in an attempt to figure out what the mysterious manifestation was. They soon found out.
No sooner had the cloud reached them than did the blue men begin to cough and clutch their throats.
A few-very, very, few-managed to stagger out of the affected area and stumble away. The others crumpled to the ground instantaneously and did not move again.
Holding the gem, Mika pointed his hand and spoke again, causing a great wind to rise and sweep the area clean, ridding it of the last of the poisonous fumes. Then, and only then, did he cause the three adventurers to be lowered to the ground.
"Well, Mika, when you do something, you do it up right," said Hornsbuck. "But I don't understand why you waited so long in the first place. Why didn't you just use the gem right off, instead of messing around with those other spells that didn't work?"
"Uh, well, uh…" stammered Mika, feeling sick inside and wondering how soon the feminine changes he anticipated would make themselves apparent.
"Never mind," said Hornsbuck. "Let's go and take a look at them and see what we've got here."
Mika hung back as Hornsbuck and Lotus Blossom strode up the bank. He had no real interest in looking at the corpses of his victims. He did not really care that they were dead. After all, they had attacked him first and tried their best to kill him, hadn't they? Better they were dead than him! But he did care thai he'd been forced to use the stone not once, not twice, but three times in order to save their lives.
Had he not acted when he did, every one of them-he, Hornsbuck, Lotus Blossom, TamTur. RedTail, and Princess Julia-would be dead, smashed like bugs beneath a stone. He grew ill ai tbe thought and leaned his head back, drawing in deep breaths of air to clear his mind.
Slowly, things steadied around him and he ere" almost calm. Maybe the Great She-Wolf had nisr special plan for him. He could but put his faith in her and hope that this was not all a vast cosmic joke, with him as the final punch line.
As he raised his head, he saw the princess staring at him speculatively. He met her gaze squarely, and they looked into each other's eyes. Hers glinted in the pale starlight, with no hint of the usual hatred and cynicism. Instead, she bobbed her head in what might have been a nod of approval or thanks. Mika nodded in return, confused by her response, and they stared at each other a minute longer.
"Mika!" bawled Hornsbuck suddenly. Mika hurried up the bank, Tam at his side, breaking the tenuous bond with the princess. But his heart felt strangely light.
"Here they be in person, the little blue buggers," growled Hornsbuck, gesturing at a pair of bodies that lay sprawled on the ground at their feet. "Ever seen anything like them before?"
"No," Mika said slowly, looking down on the result of his handiwork. The men were small, no more than four feet tall. They were all but naked, wearing only the merest of fur loincloths and nothing else but a thick layer of blue paint from head to toe. Their hair was thick, wiry, and daubed with the paint as well, then twisted into a myriad of snaky locks that hung down to their shoulders, forming a wild and barbaric headdress. Their brows were thick and straight, nearly meeting over the bridge of the nose, which was short and flat and wide of nostril. Their eyes, which were unfortunately still open, were a surprisingly soft shade of blue. Their teeth had been filed to sharp points.
The two blue men at Mika's feet still gripped their spears; one had strung his bow and appeared to have been ready to loose the arrow when the fumes struck him down. Their weapons were made of sablewood and were beautifully crafted.
The dead men were wiry, and their musculature was well-defined. On their chests, biceps, and thighs were rows of geometric cuts that had been limned with a darker shade of blue. The men appeared to be in excellent physical condition, albeit rather thin and dead.
"Flannae, you say?" asked Mika.
"Aye," said Hornsbuck. "Aborigines. Savages. Some say they were the very first to settle the Burneal Forest. You seldom see them any more and never in great numbers. I used to run into them often farther north, years ago. Wonder what they're doing this far south?"
The question seemed moot to Mika. They were a warrior party and, from the look of the now obvious setup, it was apparent that they had played out this same scenario often and with probable success.
They found this theory borne out on further examination of the remainder of the bodies. Many of them carried weapons of nomad design and wore bits of jewelry that spoke of travelers from other climates. Mika excused himself to tend the horses, leaving Lotus Blossom and Hornsbuck to accumulate the evidence, stripping the incriminating ornaments and weapons from the dead so that they might present them to the clan council.
In truth, while he enjoyed sparring with friends, he had no stomach for real fighting in which he might actually be injured, and he truly disliked killing, doing so only when all other avenues of escape had been closed to him. But Hornsbuck, grizzled veteran that he was, had no such objections and would regard Mika's qualms as cowardice, which, in fact, they were.
Mika patted and soothed the horses, calming their jangled nerves with soft-spoken words until they stood quiet with their heads bowed low.
With the horses tended to, Mika quickly broke camp, packing what little remained of the adventurers' supplies, viewing, with a shudder, his broken and splintered spear. Had Tam not wakened him when he did, Mika would now be lying alongside that spear, equally broken and splintered.
A sudden thought struck him, and he looked up to see the princess watching him. She turned aside, but not before Mika wondered whether it had been she, not Tam, who had wakened him… and saved his life.
The group packed their booty and mounted their horses, riding out even though it was still long before dawn, unwilling to spend another heartbeat in the pit that had almost become their grave.
They rode steadily, keeping watch in case those at the pit had been part of a larger whole, but they neither saw nor sensed any others. By first light, they had left the area far behind.
Hornsbuck dozed in the saddle, trusting to Red- Tail and Mika to warn him of danger. For once, Lotus Blossom was silent, wrapped in her cloak against the morning chill. But Mika's mind was on other thoughts. He found himself watching the slim flanks of the princess as she trotted ahead of the horses and wondering what she really felt… and for that matter, what it was he really felt, as well.