"I am not!" Stegoman howled. " 'Tis thou who dost roll as thou dost fly!"
"Well, sheer off, then! I'm going to find the top of this fog if it kills me!"
"Nay!" Stegoman cried in a panic. "We have need of thee! Thou art too good a monster to squander thy life so untimely!"
There was no answer, except for a high, long, fading screech, as of a falcon stooping.
"He has gone!" Stegoman's voice grew louder. "Nay, Sir Knight, call out to me, so that I may land not too far from thee!"
"Back, everyone!" Sir Guy called. "Back, but stay linked by touch! Give the dragon room to land!"
"I hear thee!" Stegoman's voice boomed out overhead. "Keep thy call sounding!"
"Come nigh!" Sir Guy called. "Come hither! We await you! Come, kindly dragon! Lower thy great bulk to us again, that we might—"
His voice was drowned out by a huge thundering of wing beats that abruptly stilled. Matt strained to see, worried that his friend might have crashed...
"I am landed," Stegoman's voice boomed out. "Come nigh me, friends!"
They all started to move, but Matt called "Wait! We might miss you in the fog! Give us a light!"
Stegoman roared, and Matt saw a dim orange glow ahead and to his right. He slogged over to it, picking up Sir Guy on the way and pulling Yverne at full reach behind him. He was careful to note just how far he was angling away from his former direction of travel. Then he felt Stegoman's scales under his hand, and called out, "We're here!"
The roaring stopped, and he heard Yverne weeping softly behind him. Sir Guy said, "Nay, fear not, maiden. You know the dragon to be a good friend and true. His roar is fearsome, aye, but only for our enemies, not for us."
"You are a great comfort, Sir Knight!" Yverne said, and there was a quality to her voice that kindled jealousy within Matt. "I am assured. But what of our friend the dracogriff
"Dumb beast," Stegoman growled. "Flew away. Up high. Couldn't fmda topsh ofa cloudzh, and izh shtill tryin'."
Matt looked up, alarmed. He tried to stall it, and called, "You need to turn around, Stegoman! We're going the other way."
"How y' know?" But Stegoman slewed around toward Matt, mumbling and looking surly.
Matt frowned. "How's that again?"
"I shaid, shtupid shorsherer who triezh to blind ush all sho he c'n steal our blood," Stegoman grumbled.
Matt felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. He would have recognized that slurring anywhere! Stegoman was drunk again.
But how? On what? Had Matt's cure for his hatchling trauma worn off somehow? Or been counteracted?
Or...
"Vile shtuff musht be shtraight from Hell," Stegoman muttered.
"Even so." Sir Guy frowned. "Is't not made by a demon, Sir Matthew?"
"You bet it is!" Now Matt recognized that vile smell—it was charred rum! "Uh, come on, Stegoman. We've got to get out of this fog, before we suffocate."
"Ohh, awright." The dragon lifted his head. "Uh...which way izh out?"
"That way!" Matt pointed straight ahead with total conviction. "I was careful to keep facing the same way I had been as I angled over toward you! Just turn around and head that way! We'll be right on your tail!"
" ' Sh not long enough for all of you." Stegoman lumbered around, headed roughly the way Matt was pointing, and started waddling.
Matt laid a hand on the dragon's tail and stumbled after, yanking on Yverne's hand.
Sir Guy strode along beside him, leaning over to set his helmet near Matt's ear. "Lord Wizard—dare we trust ourselves to a drunken dragon?"
"I think so—he's always had a great sense of direction. But if you think it'll help, you could ask Puck. I mean, this fog is mischief of the first order—if anyone can understand it, it would be him."
"A good thought. Dost'a hear, Puck?"
A diminutive head poked out of the knight's helmet, clambering halfway up on forearms and elbows. It scowled at Matt, squint-eyed, and gave a careful, well considered hiccup.
Matt felt his blood run cold.
"What dost'a wish, knight?" Puck slurred.
"Canst tell us which way to travel in this mist, Puck?" Sir Guy asked.
"Why, whishever way you wanna go!" Puck's eyes widened, and a slow smile spread across his face. "There izh fog! Id'n it purty? Haven't sheen it in sho long I misht it!"
Sir Guy turned a mournful gaze on Matt. "It would seem even our sprite is not immune."
Matt could only stare while little prickles ran up and down his spine. What kind of a spell did it take to make Puck succumb to the smell of the demon rum?
"Roashted crabzh!" Puck muttered. "Roashted crabsh, floatin' inna bowl!" His grip loosened, and he slid back inside Sir Guy's armor.
"Wizard," Yverne's voice said behind him, "can you not banish this unholy elixir?"
"Well, I can try, I suppose." Matt tried to remember the spell he had used to dispel a fog three years before.
"Western wind, come now to save us!
Restore the breezes you once gave us!"
He felt the magical forces strengthen about him, felt as though he was trying to push his way through a wall of molasses...
"Clear this fog that you've allowed!
Rid us of this reeking cloud!"
He was actually surprised when the fog began to lighten.
Surprised, with good reason—the magic field strengthened, in a way that gave him a peculiarly nasty feeling inside, a feeling that reached all the way down to his groin with a painful, sickening wrench. Then the fog thickened again.
"You had some small success, Wizard," Fadecourt noted.
"Small, yes. Then my opposite number, whoever he is, clamped down with a counterspell." Matt turned to Sir Guy. "Gor—uh the king, that is, has some really powerful sorcerers, doesn't he?"
"He always said so." Sir Guy frowned off into the fog, his feet still moving in time to the dragon's waddling. "Yet an he had some who were so much more powerful than you, surely he would have sent them to the siege we but now broke."
"Yeah, you would think that, wouldn't you?" Matt frowned as though he was only puzzled, but inside, he was hollow with dread. He had a nasty, unpleasant notion that he was opposing the magic of the king himself. "Let's give it another try, though.
"When the moan of the breeze
Echoes through the trees
And the mist lies low on the plain,
From earth and stones
Come boulders' groans
As the heat rises from them again!
And away the fog goes
As the warm breeze blows
In tatters and shreds quite soon,
For the sun's rays quench their holiday,
The end of the night's high noon!"
It must have been his imagination, but he could have sworn a male chorus echoed those last two words. Certainly the chord of magic seemed strained all about him, and for a moment, the mist glowed about them as sun rays broke through the clouds above—then dimmed and vanished, as the evil magic strengthened about him. Matt shook his head. "Too strong for me—and I think it's several sorcerers working in concert, not just one."
"In concert!" Yverne sounded appalled. "Nay, surely it must be the king himself who leads them—for none other can compel sorcerers to meld their powers!"
"I was afraid of that," Matt grunted. "But we're not licked yet. We have one more weapon in our arsenal, anyway." He opened his pouch and saw the glow within. "How about it, Max?"
"Indeed, how?" the Demon sang. "How could I clear this fog for you, Wizard?"
"Precipitate it," Matt said. "Bind the droplets of water together into raindrops."
"And how shall I do that?"
Matt took a deep breath. He had forgotten just how explicit Max wanted his instructions to be. "Reduce the surface tension, so the water vapor will condense into bigger drops."
"No sooner said than done!" the Demon cried.
"Put your hoods up, everybody," Matt called. "Sir Guy, we'
d better see about some rust remover."
The air began to clear a little, and Matt felt a few raindrops strike his head. But only a few; they stopped, and the fog thickened about them again.
" 'Tis too much for me," the Demon reported. "Some power resists; a greater force than mine seeks to maintain the surface tension."
Of course, Matt's shiver could have been from the weather. He could only think of a few sources of power that could surpass entropy, and only one of them had always tried to cloud men's sight and lead them astray in a world gone murky. "Try heating it! Accelerate the Brownian movement of the water molecules! Make it all evaporate!"
"I shall," Max agreed, and again the fog lightened for a few moments—but thickened again. Max began to jump about, agitated. "Again it thwarts me! Some agency that has greater control over heat than I has bound it into mist!"
"He exceeds your power, and that of all our allies," Sir Guy said heavily. "In truth, it must be the king himself whose power you encounter, Lord Matthew!"
"I'm afraid you're right" Matt muttered a quick prayer to Saint Iago, his own tap into a high-Power line, then turned back to his friends. "Not much we can do except forge ahead, no matter how slowly, and try to stay together. We'll call out to one another and home in on voices." He boosted his own volume. "Do you think that will work, Robin Hood?"
"We shall essay it," the outlaw leader called back. "Should our good friar join you in leading the way?"
"No—I think we'll be safer with one wizard in each half of the party..."
"I am not a wizard!" Tuck said quickly.
"Whatever. We'll all follow Stegoman. Sir Guy, deploy your forces."
"Sir Loring, lead the right flank!" the Black Knight called. "Sir Michael, the left! Sir Dai, lead the center in pursuit of me!"
The knights answered him with a chorus of "ayes." Matt wondered how the other noblemen and knights had come to acknowledge Sir Guy's leadership—not that he doubted it had been earned. They'd had two years to figure out how vital he was. It was no doubt a fascinating, not to say hair-raising story, and Matt intended to hear every word of it—some day, in front of a roaring fire inside a stout castle, without an enemy for miles around.
At the moment, though, he needed to try to get his forces through this mess. "Ready, then? Away!"
"Away, he shayzh!" Stegoman muttered. "Doezh he have to lead the way? Nay! Izh he the one who getsh blamed if we go ashtray? Nay!" But, griping and protesting, he lumbered into motion and began a slow, if constant, movement across the plain.
Matt felt Sir Guy's hand on his shoulder, so he knew his own immediate party was together, linked hand to hand. "Robin Hood! Are you near me?"
But his voice echoed strangely in the fog. "Aye; I am nigh!" Robin's voice called from behind him—then called again, off to his left, "Aye, I am nigh!"
Matt frowned. "You only needed to say it once." He was startled to hear his own voice completely echoed from behind—"Say it once!"
"I spoke but the one time, in truth!" Robin called, but he hadn't quite finished before the words sounded again from Matt's left, then a third time, from his right.
Matt felt the dread creeping higher. "The sorcerer is trying to confuse us by making our voices sound from different directions!"
"Sir Loring!" Sir Guy called. "Do you follow me?"
"You follow me," the voice repeated, from behind and left.
"Follow," it said again, from ahead and to the right.
"Aye, Sir Guy! I follow the sound of your words!" But Sir Loring's voice faded even as he called—then came back, more strongly, from Matt's far side.
"Sir Nigel!" There was a tinge of iron in Sir Guy's tone. "Guide on my voice, and touch hands with me!"
"Guide on my voice," the Black Knight's echo called from his left, and, "Touch hands with me," the same voice called from behind and to the right.
"I come, Sir Guy!" But Sir Nigel's voice faded away, too.
"Sir Dai Do you march forward double-quick, and link hands with the cyclops!"
"March forward," Sir Guy's echo called from behind, then, "Link hands with the cyclops!" from off to the left.
"I come, Sir Guy!" But even as he called it, Sir Dai's voice faded off to the left—then sounded from the right.
"Robin Hood! Do you hear me?" Matt called in a panic.
"I hear!" Robin's voice called from behind. "I shall summon my men by my horn!" it said from the right.
The horn sounded, and a ragged cheer went up from the men of Sherwood, off to their right, swerving around to the front, then back to the left. Another horn blew from the north, then its echo sounded from the south, then again from the east.
"I just hope his men know which one is the real horn," Matt groaned. "Are your people still together, Robin Hood?"
But this time, only the echoes of his own voice answered him—and, in the distance and fading, the blare of a hunting horn. On the other side, knightly voices called to their men, growing more distant. Steel clanked as the army marched, and the whole plain was filled with its distant susurrus—but all far away, and going farther.
"He has fragmented our army!" Sir Guy groaned. "He has led us away from one another in the fog! Pray Heaven the men of each flank stay together."
"Do," Matt agreed. "Please do. As for us, let's find out who's here. I'm still feeling Stegoman's scales—and that must be your hand I'm holding, Sir Guy, because it's metal. Squeeze the hand you're holding, and tell its owner to say his or her name."
"I am Sir Guy," the knight called. "Say your name when I squeeze your hand!"
"Squeeze not overly hard," quavered a female voice. "I am Yverne. Nay, say your name as I squeeze your hand."
"I am Fadecourt," the cyclops' voice answered.
Matt waited.
No one called.
Finally, he said, "Who's holding your other hand, Fadecourt?"
"I feel no hand upon that arm, Lord Wizard"
"Down to our original group," Matt groaned, "plus yourself, Sir Guy. I see why you stayed in that castle."
"Even as you said, we could not remain there forever," the Black Knight reminded him. "To live is to place oneself at risk, Sir Matthew. We must make that risk as small as possible, and lay protections in case we are beset—yet still is there risk."
"I knew I needed a savings account." Matt sighed. "Well, there's nothing to be done about it now."
"You did not pray while peace lasted?"
"Well, sure, but..."
"Then you have a font of strength to draw on—the channel you established between your God and yourself. Go forward boldly, my friend."
"Yeah, sure," Matt muttered, and followed Stegoman, somewhat shaken by the Black Knight's combination of theology and military science.
" `Boldly,' he shaizh," Stegoman muttered. "Channel, he talksh about Pretty good, for a man who spendzh all hizh time making noizh with a shword." Then his voice trailed off into ramblings that didn't make much sense, aside from the occasional reference to a foul hatchling hunter and vampires who drained dragons' blood to strengthen their charms. Matt realized there was still a lot of Stegoman's biography he didn't know about. "Anybody have any idea where we are?"
"Aye," Puck's voice slurred. "We wander on a darkling plain, beset by ignorance and confusion."
"Thanks for a summary of the condition of humankind," Matt grunted, then stopped bolt still. "Stegoman! Hold on!"
"Wha' for?" But the dragon ground to a halt.
Matt took a few more steps to catch up, making sure his hand was firmly on the dragon's tail plates. "I just had an idea." He ignored Puck's gasp of amazement and recited,
"Then to the rolling Heaven itself I cried,
`Asking what Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?'
And, `A blind understanding,' Heaven replied."
It worked. He actually did begin to understand where he was—and the fog began to thin.
"You have done it!" Yverne cried. "Y
ou have lifted the fog!"
"Don't celebrate too soon," Matt cautioned, but he was almost limp with relief himself, as he began to be able to see all of Stegoman's bulk, then to make out the dragon's head and even, in front of that, the road, with huge boulders lining each side, a grove of fir trees ahead on their right...
And an armored man half as wide as he was tall, with a huge broadsword and an evil grin. "Wise advice," the armored man gloated. "Do not celebrate at all."
"Duke Bruitfort!" Yverne screamed.
Suddenly there were soldiers everywhere, erupting from the rocks and racing up from behind. A squadron of knights came charging out of the clump of fir trees. Stegoman saw the men on horseback, gave a roar of drunken rage, and pounded off to slam into them...
Leaving the humans' flank exposed. The evil duke laughed and stepped into the gap, sword slashing. Sir Guy's blade flashed out, but it was Yverne who leaped on the enemy. Grabbing a halberd and twisting it out of a trooper's hands, she swung it about with a sweeping motion that bespoke years of training, and clipped the trooper smartly with the butt, then swung the axe head to chop the next soldier in the hip.
Sir Guy leaped in front of Matt, blocking the duke's blow and riposting in a huge, deadly, sweeping cut.
Fadecourt roared, leaped on a soldier, and threw him into the men behind. He grabbed up the fallen halberd, broke it over his knee, and waded into the soldiers, chopping with his left hand and whirling his right as a club.
A net sailed out of nowhere and settled down over him. The cyclops bellowed and chopped at it. He slashed through the mesh, but two men caught his arm, and a third stepped up to slam a cudgel against his skull. Fadecourt slumped.
Matt scarcely noticed; he had pulled out his wand and was wielding it as a club, ducking pike thrusts and cracking skulls. Then some sixth sense warned him just in time to spin around and see a weighted club swinging down toward his sinuses with a fully armored knight behind it. He was just realizing that he might not have used the wand in the most effective way possible, when the club connected, and he didn't get to see how they managed to disarm Sir Guy.
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