She could do this. Her hours of relentless practicing and the physics that William and Gaius had taught her paid off. Without hesitation, she gestured from the crackling bolt to the dark form of the boulder traveling across the sky, directing the inertia of the lightning javelin into the flying rock.
“Turlu!”
The javelin stopped moving and then dropped straight down. The spearhead impaled in the snowy ice and trembled there, crackling. Overhead, the lightning imp cursed and sped away.
“Woohoo!” crowed Sigfried. “Yeah! Don’t mess with us! We’ll take the voom right out of your voomerang!”
“That…doesn’t make any sense,” murmured Valerie.
KABOOM!
Fire blossomed in the distance, on the slopes of Stony Tor. Rachel frowned, wondering what could have caused such an explosion. Then, an eerie horripilation spread through her until the hair along the back of her neck was standing up straight. The orange flames were in an exact straight line from where she had cast the force from the lightning javelin into the boulder. Had her cantrip caused the boulder to fly more than half a mile to collide with the tor?
There would be time to worry about that later. They were nearly back.
“Quick, let’s keep going!” she called.
“Help!” A high-pitched cry came from their left. “An ogre! It’s got Kris!”
“Ah! There’s the target!” cried Siggy, gleefully.
The ice beneath them shook. Something huge came crashing through the trees, into the range of the princess’s golden lux-light. An enormous humanoid creature pelted across the snowy ice. It towered well over a dozen feet tall, with horns, tusks, and stony skin. Over its shoulder, it carried a girl whose legs were kicking wildly.
Rachel’s heart hammering so loudly that she could hardly hear, she grabbed her wand and pointed it at the monster.
“I’ll save the damsel in distress!” shouted Siggy. Lifting his head, he called, “Come on, Lucky! Stop dawdling with that Mexaxkuk!”
“You can’t save her!” Valerie shouted back. “Look at the size of that thing!”
“The ogre’s going to eat that girl. I can’t just stand here!” Sigfried looked over his shoulder, the crazy humor gone from his eyes. “Besides, I vowed a vow.”
Siggy blew his trumpet. Nastasia, who had her violin ready, drew her bow across the strings. The night glittered with a whoosh of dancing silver sparkles and fresh, pleasant scents. When they struck the ogre’s back, however, they flared oddly and winked out.
No wind pushed the monster. Rachel gulped. Everything she had feared was coming to pass. Her wand would not help. Neither would whistling. All she had left was her tiny frame, which would offer no resistance to the muscle-bound brute.
Suddenly, she nearly laughed aloud. What was the point of having all these powerful protectors, if she did not call them when she needed help!
“Gaius!” she called softly, her hand on her black bracelet.
Her boyfriend’s voice spoke in her ear. He did not sound panicked, but she heard a distinct note of alarm. “Rather busy here!” His voice rose, shouting, “Hold still, Topher! I’m coming! Vlad! We need you! Now!”
To the east, a pillar of light flared in one part of the sky and then another. Rachel’s heart sank. No help would be coming from that quarter, not anytime soon anyway.
Around her, her friends were backing up, except for Sigfried, who stood his ground, staring back at the brute that stood glaring at him with its beady eyes. The monster was enormous and entirely immune to their magic. There was nothing she could do.
Should she run? After all, Sigfried had asked her to vow with him to stop the ogre, but she had never answered. She was not bound to stay and fight a battle she had no way of surviving. She could flee and live.
With a disdainful snort, Rachel thrust that thought aside as unworthy of her. She would never desert her friends. There must be something they could do. Some hint she had picked up from Daring Northwest, some clue that Mr. Fisher had given them. As she searched her pristine memory, the voices of the pixies rang out in her mind: Let us trade them to Big-Ugly in the cove for sparkles! No good! No good!…That one only fears the lightning-throwers!
The ogre was a member of the compact of fey who wanted to keep the Heer imprisoned, and he lived in Dutchman’s Cove. Could the Big-Ugly in the cove mean…
“The javelin!” cried Rachel. “The ogre’s not immune to lightning!”
“If only we could pick it up!” said Nastasia. “But we would be killed.”
“Never underestimate a robot, human!” declared Sigfried.
Pulling a nettle cake from a pocket, he shoved it into his mouth. Then he charged forward, practically running across the ice with his skates. Only now, as she watched him—his ankles turned at an awkward angle, his feet moving in a straight line instead of in a V formation—did Rachel realize why he and Valerie had been skating so close together. Sigfried had needed stabilizing. This was probably his first time on skates.
He raced across the ice. Instead of gliding, he relied on sheer brute strength to run across the ice. At any given second, he was an inch away from a very hard fall. It was only by dint of extraordinary athletic abilities that he kept going. Maybe he really was a robot!
Sigfried grabbed the abandoned lightning javelin, where it crackled in the ice, and pulled it free. Continuing his awkward rush, he charged forward, striking the ogre in the only place he could reach without hurting its prey, its ample, meaty backside.
The javelin crackled. Blue-white lightning leapt up and down its length. The ogre let out an enormous, angry roar and stumbled. The girl screamed.
“Oh yeah!” Siggy vaunted. “Pays to be a robot!”
The crackling spear bounced off the brute’s pebbly flesh and fell to the ground.
“Oops,” murmured Sigfried.
The spearhead had not hurt the brute, but the lightning had discomforted him. Kris’s limbs, unfortunately, twitched as well. Rachel’s heart leapt into her throat.
Sigfried stabbed at the ogre again and a third time. Electricity crackled over its pebbly skin. The ogre bellowed in pain and tossed his prize aside.
The pink-haired girl flew high into the snowy air. Whipping out her grandmother’s silver wand again, Rachel caught the falling girl with a charge of tiathelu and lowered her to the ground near where two other girls from De Vere waited. The other two girls quickly helped her up. Rachel was gratified to see that Kris was able to stand and take a shaky step.
The ogre spun and bore down on Sigfried, who tried to run—on skates. The ogre thundered after him, cracking ice with his huge ponderous steps. Despite the fact that her sorcery kept fizzling out when it struck the monster’s skin, Nastasia continued playing, attempting one spell after another. Valerie, desperate to help her boyfriend, tried several cantrips, but they had no effect. Rachel, too, tried a few spells from her wand. Nothing.
Siggy dashed behind a tree. The ogre pulled up the tree. The ice from which the tree had been plucked broke, cracks spreading rapidly outward. Luckily, the water, which was only about a foot deep, was entirely frozen.
Siggy lunged behind another trunk. That tree, too, was uprooted. Siggy skated toward a large boulder and tripped over the cracked ice. His skates flew out from under him. Unable to rise, he began scampering backward, sliding on his behind with his hands and skates pushing him frantically along in his effort to get behind the boulder.
The ogre lunged and caught him by his skates.
“Siggy!” shrieked a terrified Valerie. “Wh-what do we do? That th-thing has a charmed life! We’ll never stop it!”
Holding the boy by the blades of his skates, the ogre flung Sigfried into the air and then smashed him toward the ice. Siggy could do nothing to save himself. This did not stop him from trying. As his body swung toward the ground, he crunched his stomach muscles, performing a sit-up in mid-air, so that his head escaped the brunt of the impact. At the same time, he did not cease from shooting the ogre
in the face with ineffective spells from his wand, drawing his knife and—after not being able to reach the ogre’s hand to stab it—throwing the blade at the monster’s face, and spitting at it.
Bellowing like an enraged boar, the ogre shifted his grip and slammed the boy’s head against the ice, twice. Siggy’s body went limp.
Valerie screamed. In her panic, her skates went out from under her, and she tumbled to the ice.
The ogre stood over Sigfried, its chest heaving. It looked as if it were contemplating whether or not to eat him. Nastasia played more frantically, even though her spells continued to do nothing. She sawed her bow so hard that a string broke. Rachel, too, felt panicky. She had known something bad was out there tonight. Now, Sigfried’s life was on the line, if he were even still alive, and she could think of nothing to do. A scream threatened to leap from her throat.
No. She would not panic. Losing her nerve would do Sigfried no good.
Her grandfather’s words echoed in her mind: Fierce as a tiger. Calm as a lake in August. And cool as ice—when you are not as fiery as a furnace.
Rachel took a deep breath and calmed her thoughts. There was one thing she had not tried. Closing her eyes, she recalled her meeting with Kitten’s familiar in the Memorial Garden on a chilly day in early November. In her memory, the Comfort Lion sat beside one of the tall shrines. Tilting his head, he spoke: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Oh. Rachel’s shoulders slumped. That had not worked. That was the same thing he had said last time. Except…
Rachel carefully compared the two memories—the time she had recalled him when she was before the burning furnace in Carthage, and this memory now. In one, the little feline stared directly at her. In the other, he had cocked his head to the side. The memories were different.
Time seemed to stop.
Only for a split second but, in that slice of eternity, a tremendous sense of peace settled over Rachel, as if whether she lived or died was immaterial. In the way of visions, she suddenly knew that these words were meant to remind her of her contemplations earlier that evening about the same verse: Most likely, she would never need to know about fly eyelashes….Yet, sometimes the most trivial fact, overheard in passing, was the one that proved crucial.
As certain as a dream, she understood the message. Somewhere in her memory were the clues she needed to save her friends.
Rachel stood motionless on the ice in the falling snow, listening to the steady beat of her own heart. Everything seemed unusually crisp and clear. A nimbus of bright, tiny wisps illuminated the air around her. Beside her, Nastasia was helping the trembling Valerie to her feet. Both girls shook with fear. Ahead of her Sigfried lay on the snow, a dark puddle spreading onto the ice behind his head. Somewhere behind him were Kris Serenity Wright and two of her friends, unless they had run. She hoped that they had run.
Between her and Sigfried, breathing slow, labored breaths, loomed the man-eating ogre. The brute was at least three times wider than any man and twice as tall. His eyes were small and beady and bright with malice, his mouth an enormous gash across his ugly face. His thick top-knot of black, oily hair was adorned with bones. Even where she stood in the cold, Rachel could smell his fetid breath. The stink of it made her want to run.
Her legs trembled, but she stood her ground.
How did one revoke a charmed life? She rapidly rifled through the library in her mind, searching for any clue that might help. The sword Nothung had slain Baba Yaga. The dragon in the sewer claimed it had a charmed life, but Sigfried had defeated it. The wraith they had fought during their first week of school had seemed invulnerable until…
Oh. Of course!
Glancing northward, Rachel could see nothing in the dark. Calculating times and distances in her head, based on speed, motion vectors, and her experience flying her broom, she guessed that they still had two or three minutes to wait.
“The ogre can be defeated!” she cried to the other girls, “But we need to stall him!”
“On it!” cried Valerie.
Valerie’s voice was panicky, but her actions were brave and sure. She dashed forward, skating recklessly across the broken ice. As soon as she was barely parallel to the ogre, who was leaning over the fallen Sigfried and licking its lips, she lifted her camera and set off the flash.
Brilliant, white light illuminated the darkness, leaving everyone temporarily blinded. The ogre yowled and threw its arm in front of its face to protect its tiny, pig-like eyes.
The flash faded. The ogre growled and blinked. Then it lunged forward, grabbing at Valerie. Valerie turned and skated away. Unlike Siggy, the Maine-borne girl was a natural on skates. Even in the near darkness, she avoided the cracks and trunks with ease.
And yet, the ogre was gaining.
“Miss Hunt!” cried Nastasia. “Brace yourself!”
The princess ran her bow across her instrument. Despite the broken string, beautiful silver sparkles illuminated the darkness. With a swoosh, they danced across the intervening distance and struck Valerie, imparting a tremendous burst of speed. Valerie flew forward several dozen feet, arms windmilling. Then her found her balance again. Pulling her left foot in fast, she went into a tight backwards spin and barely missed slamming into a tree.
The ogre paused, breathing heavily. Valerie was quite some yards away now. It glanced back and forth between the supine Sigfried and Nastasia with her violin.
Sigfried and Nastasia were both in danger. Both needed saving. Both suddenly seemed irrepressibly dear to Rachel. She could not bear the idea of the monster harming either of them.
Where was he? Rachel looked northwards over her shoulder but saw nothing. Yet, she knew for certain he was coming. He would save Valerie and the princess, and Sigfried, if Siggy were still alive.
All she had to do was stall the ogre.
But how? Rachel had no idea what to do. Yet, she could not bear the idea of the parents of one of her friends receiving the same message Tommy Check’s parents must have received. She had met both the King of Australia and Detective Hunt, and as for Sigfried, he had Lucky. She pictured her friends’ fathers’ faces becoming pale as they learned the news; their child—their precious one—gone forever. She imagined their grief feeling much like her father’s agony, which the Raven had shared with her, only a thousand times worse. The thought was so painful, so wrong, that something deep inside her rebelled.
She had to distract the monster until he could be killed.
It was time to act.
Barreling forward, she skated directly towards the ogre. A mere dozen feet from the hulking brute, she turned her blades sideways, sliding to a stop.
“What are you doing?” Valerie screamed in terror, grabbing hold of the nearest tree. “Get away! He’ll kill you!”
“Rachel!” the princess cried simultaneously. She started forward as if to join her and then halted, terrified and uncertain. “Back up! He is utterly enormous! There is nothing you can do! Run!”
The creature was enormous. A mere step and its thick, ropy arm could reach out, grab her head, and squeeze it like an orange. But Rachel could not think about that now. It did not matter whether she lived or died, only whether she stalled him long enough to save her friends.
Donning her mask of calm, she drew a deep breath and cast out the net of her thoughts, looking for something, anything of use. In her memory, Kris Serenity Wright’s voice repeated: He said the ogre came from far away and didn’t fit in well with the local spirits. How far away? As far as the Steppes of Russia, or wherever it was that Baba Yaga and her wandering hut had come upon an ogre?
Hoping against hope that this monster might recognize the only ogre name she knew, she shouted, “Mambres!”
The ogre tipped its ugly head one way and then the other, cracking its neck joints with loud pops. “Who calls my name?”
Dear gods! It had worked!
Only now the brute was looking right at her. Well, she might as well die with cou
rage as die a coward. Tipping up her chin, she met its gaze squarely. “I am The Lady Rachel Griffin.”
“I have heard of you, Rachel Griffin. You are the Raven’s pet.”
What?
Rachel had never felt so terrified and so delighted at the same time.
Desperate to keep it talking, she blurted out, “Is it true you’re the brother of the Ogre of Smeeth?”
A strange change came over the monster’s face. He looked almost…human?
“My brother, Jannes!” He breathed, a heavy snort of breath misting the air before him. “I have not thought of him in many a century. We were the greatest of sorcerers once, before that le Fay woman stole our book!”
Random bits of trivia clicked together in her mind with lightning speed. Rachel almost smiled. “You are from Egypt.”
“Egypt?” murmured the princess behind her, puzzled.
“Yes,” grunted the monster who had once been a man. “We served the great Pharaoh Menthesuphis, called Merenre Nemtyemsaf II. We were the greatest sorcerers who ever lived!” He snarled. “Until the one drawn out of water ate our enchanted staffs with his.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. She recalled a tale she had read in one of her grandfather’s history books. “I’ve heard that story. There was a slave revolt. They had a powerful sorcerer who prevailed for a time—sending plagues. In the end, however, his sorcery failed, and he and his entire tribe were drowned in the Red Sea.” She frowned slightly. “Though some historians say that the Gypsies are descended in part from these people, so some of them must have lived.”
“Is that how they tell it now?” The great hulking monster seemed almost alarmed. Then he laughed, a very grating and unpleasant sound. “The world has gone mad! Dark and awful changes have been made to the minds of men. They have forgotten all the truths that kept the darkness at bay.” He leered at Rachel menacingly. “Not so gray anymore, is he?”
“I beg your pardon?” asked Rachel, puzzled.
Mambres stomped toward Rachel, reaching for her head with his long, ropy arm, bulging with muscles. Her mind shouted at her to flee, but she held her ground, glaring back at him. Only a little while longer, and her friends would be safe. She was certain of it.
The Awful Truth About Forgetting (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 4) Page 43