How to Stop a Witch (4 page)

The spirelings bared their teeth, or so it seemed. Six inches long and sharp as razors, spireling teeth jutted out at all angles from their jaws, even when the creatures’ mouths were closed. As if the expressions weren’t threatening enough, the two warriors carried heavy double-bladed axes, which they thrust forward now.

“Gnash?” Greg said hopefully. “Gnaw?”

These were the names of the only two spirelings Greg knew. Gnash and Gnaw were relatively friendly for monsters, but Greg wouldn’t have had the slightest idea how to tell them apart from others, as all spirelings looked the same to him.

“No, I am Grunt,” said one.

“And I am Growl,” said the other. “But Gnash and Gnaw are with us now, as are all of our kind. We are most honored to meet the Mighty Greghart, though of course, in one respect we already have.”

“Mighty Greghart?” said Kristin.

“It’s a long story,” Greg said. “I’ll tell you later.”

“If we survive this, you mean.”

“We shouldn’t need to worry now,” he told her. “What one spireling sees they all see, and apparently I’ve already been recognized and accepted. Oh, by the way, they think I’m some kind of hero.”

“Why would they think that?”

“Greghart is a legend among our people,” said Grunt. “He has fought monsters we have never even heard of on this world, and he has always emerged the victor, no matter how overwhelming the odds.”

“Is there more you’re not telling me?” Kristin asked Greg. “Later, remember?”

Grunt suddenly screamed and jerked backward. Growl yelled and raised his axe. As if she thought it was the fashionable thing to do, Kristin joined in with a scream of her own, but Greg knew what had disturbed the spirelings so.

“Get back in the pack, Rake.”

The shadowcat hissed and arched its fur, clearly reveling in the sight of the spirelings shrinking back, their axes raised to protect their faces. After what Rake surely must have felt was a sufficient interval, he chattered playfully and crawled nonchalantly into Greg’s pack.

After a longer interval, Growl lowered his axe. “Queen Gnarla wishes a word with you. You will come with us.”

“You mean I really do get to meet a queen?” said Kristin.

“She’s not what you think,” said Greg, and from the look on Kristin’s face when they met up with Queen Gnarla later, he was correct in his assumption.

“You’re a queen?” Kristin said before Greg could warn her not to speak.

“Silence,” ordered Queen Gnarla, who was not particularly friendly, even for a monster. She wore a cloth robe and a jagged crystalline crown, while the guards who surrounded her wore tattered pants and chain mail, but otherwise she looked identical to the others.

The guards leaned close and showed off their axes.

“You shall not speak unless spoken to,” Queen Gnarla announced in a haughty tone.

“Well, I’ll admit you sound like a queen,” said Kristin.

“SILENCE.”

Greg shot Kristin a glare she couldn’t possibly misinterpret. Even so, she nearly apologized. Instead, she caught herself and simply nodded.

“Have you not heard about the dragon?” Queen Gnarla asked Greg.

“Ruuan? What about him?”

“He has been taken against his will,” the queen said, “by the human Witch Hazel. Apparently she holds some sort of amulet that grants her power over dragons.”

Greg gasped. “The Amulet of Tehrer.”

Even though spirelings could communicate clearly without a sound, they started up a whisper that shook the walls as it echoed its way down the tunnel.

“Does no one listen to Us?” Queen Gnarla held her hands over her ears and glared at Greg. “As We recall, you were responsible for the loss of the key piece of the Amulet of Tehrer. Why would you give something that powerful to the witch?”

Greg gulped. “Because Nathan told me to?”

“Nathan? He is that magician who was with you when last We met, no? He warned Us that there may come a time when he needed Our section of Ruuan’s amulet, yet We have not seen him since. If not now, when?”

“Nathan hasn’t come?” Greg said. “Maybe I should take the amulet with me.”

Queen Gnarla’s expression suggested otherwise, far better than words. “I will give it to the magician, when he asks.”

After a long moment of awkward silence, the queen indicated Kristin with a wave of her hand. “Tell Us, who is this?”

“Kristin Wenslow,” Kristin answered.

“Silence. We were not speaking to you.”

“Sorry,” said Kristin. She realized she’d talked again too late and quickly placed a hand over her mouth. Queen Gnarla rolled her eyes before looking to Greg for an answer.

“Her name is Kristin Wenslow,” Greg repeated. “She’s a friend of mine from my own world.”

“Ah.” Queen Gnarla looked her up and down without seeming to notice Kristin’s discomfort. “She is a warrior too, then?”

“Women aren’t warriors where I come from,” answered Greg.

“I could be a warrior if I wanted,” said Kristin. “Oh, I know,” she told the queen. “Silence.”

Queen Gnarla frowned. “Well, that is a shame. She has a lot of spunk for a human.”

Kristin smiled and regarded Greg smugly. He took only a second to notice how cute she was. Then he told the queen of the letters he’d received and how he’d traveled between worlds to do what he could to save the kingdom. Queen Gnarla glared at her guards.

“Why are We always the last to know of these prophecies?”

The guards cleared their throats and quickly looked away.

“I don’t suppose you would be willing to help us?” Greg asked the queen.

“Normally no,” said Queen Gnarla, “but then normally We would have eaten you the moment We found you trespassing in Our tunnel. Since you are the Mighty Greghart, We are making an exception. Today you may have anything you need . . . aside from Our amulet. How might We help?”

Greg felt embarrassed to have to say what he was thinking, but these were desperate times. “We need to get to Pendegrass Castle. Even if we found our way, it would take weeks on foot. Obviously your warriors can get there much quicker.”

“Your point?” Queen Gnarla asked impatiently.

Greg looked to Kristin and back to a spot somewhere near Queen Gnarla’s feet.

“Do you think they might be able to . . . well, you know . . . carry us?”

And so it was that Greg
and Kristin found themselves riding atop a litter carried by four spireling warriors, watching the blurred forms of snow-covered trees whiz past on both sides, close enough to touch.

Two of the litter-bearers were Grunt and Growl, who Greg and Kristin had met inside the spire. The others claimed to be Greg’s friends Gnash and Gnaw, though in truth, Greg had no way of knowing for sure. Not only did they look just like every other spireling Greg had ever seen, but when Greg traveled with Gnash and Gnaw on his last visit, all the other spirelings shared the experience. There was nothing these two alone would know that could prove they were the actual pair who accompanied him during the last prophecy.

“This is incredible,” shouted Kristin. “How can they move so quickly?”

“It is something, isn’t it?” said Greg, “Next to traveling by dragon, I don’t see how we could make better time.”

“Dragons can move faster than this? You’re kidding?”

“Much faster. Ruuan could have carried us to the castle in a matter of minutes.”

“I’m not sure if I’d like to see that or not,” Kristin admitted.

“You’d like Ruuan,” he told her. “He’s really cool for a dragon.”

Kristin began to relax after that. She looked to be enjoying her adventure, and Greg accepted his, too, partly because he was glad to be there with Kristin, but mostly because he’d temporarily forgotten all about Simon’s prophecy and his “rather unfortunate demise.”

Earlier, just before the group left the spire, Queen Gnarla gave the children vests identical to the kind her spireling warriors wore.

“Is there going to be another battle?” Greg had asked worriedly.

“These will keep you warm,” Queen Gnarla told him, which was hard for Greg to believe, since it was freezing outside, and the chain mail was little more than a collection of holes. But amazingly, when he slipped the gift on under his windbreaker, he felt quite cozy, and he had since discovered that with it he could barely feel the torrent of wind that threatened to lift him off the litter at any moment.

Since all four spirelings were dressed alike, in tattered pants and light chain mail, shortly into the journey Greg suggested they each wear some accessory he could use to tell them apart. At first they thought he was joking, as there was clearly no way one spireling could be confused with another, but later, when Kristin admitted having trouble telling them apart too, they knew Greg had been serious.

Quickly they did as he asked, and Greg was only mildly insulted when Growl suggested that it might be helpful if Greg and Kristin each wore some identifying accessory, as well. Greg found an oddly shaped twig he tucked into his belt. Kristin picked a cluster of bright red berries to adorn her hair, which Greg felt Growl might have noticed was easily five times as long as Greg’s.

Gnash had managed to find a bright purple flower peeking up through the snow just outside the spire. He’d plucked it out of the ground and poked the stem though a hole in his chain mail, which was the only way Greg could be sure it was Gnash who cried out now.

“Attack!”

The group stopped in an instant. If not for the spirelings’ dexterous manipulation of the litter, Greg and Kristin surely would have been hurled into the woods.

“What’s going on?” asked Greg. “Why are we stopping?”

As one, the spirelings dropped their respective corners of the litter and lifted their axes. Greg felt the ground rise up to slap his backside. A horrifying shriek broke the stillness, and a wyvern shot down from the sky, its claws splayed to capture anything slow enough to remain in its path. Unfortunately, Greg and Kristin were the only two around that met the description.

“Watch out!” said Greg. He dove into Kristin, who surely would have been cut in half by a talon if one of the spirelings hadn’t diverted the thrust aside with a blow of his axe.

Kristin cried out too, partly from fear of the wyvern, partly from the way the spireling had just swung an axe at her, but mostly from surprise over being tackled. “I thought you said Ruuan was friendly.”

“That’s not Ruuan,” Greg cried. “That’s not even a dragon.”

Kristin stared wide-eyed into the sky. “It sure looked like a dragon to me.”

Greg decided nothing could be gained from pointing out that dragons were about thirty times as large.

“He’s coming back around,” warned one of the spirelings. The fern poking through his chain mail helped identify him as Grunt.

“Watch yourself,” Greg warned Kristin. He wished he had the magic sword Lucky carried with them the other times he’d traveled these woods. But no, here he was with only a walking stick for protection. Then the guards moved in to surround him and Kristin, and Greg felt safer, for he knew the warriors would die to protect them. The spirelings were very respectful of prophecies.

The wyvern came in low on its second attack, barely clearing the trees with its enormous wings. So close, Greg could see blood dripping from its injured talon. For just an instant he felt sorry for the creature. Sure it wanted to tear Greg’s limbs off, but no doubt for a fair reason. To a wyvern they must have looked quite tasty.

Again the wyvern was turned aside. More cautious of the spirelings’ blades now, it managed to pass unharmed. Greg was left with a mental image of the beast long after it disappeared through the trees. There was something familiar about its brilliant teal scales and iridescent streaks, and the gold ovals encircling its eyes.

“I know that wyvern,” he said suddenly.

“What?” said Kristin.

“It’s the one that saved us at the base of the Smoky Mountains last month—the same one I saved on the ridge near the Infinite Spire a couple of weeks before that.”

“You do get around, don’t you?”

“Here it comes again,” Gnash announced.

Greg jumped to his feet. “That’s him,” he cried out as the beast soared toward the campsite.

With a blur of one hand, Grunt pulled him aside. Growl shifted his identifying evergreen branch so he could raise his axe above his head.

“No!” Greg shouted, and dove into Growl. He would have expected a less jarring impact had he dove into a rock wall, but Growl’s toss was affected just the same. It missed the wyvern by no more than an inch. Greg and Growl were both lucky not to lose their heads.

“Why did you do that?” Grunt demanded.

“Yes, why?” said Growl. “You could have got us both killed.”

“Here it comes again,” said Gnaw. The identifying strand of ivy he’d wrapped about his neck flapped in the wind as he pointed to a tiny patch of sky.

Greg couldn’t see a thing in the direction Gnaw pointed, but the remaining spirelings unanimously agreed that the wyvern was indeed approaching. And then Greg saw it too, headed straight for them. He was just regretting his earlier decision to interfere, when suddenly the wyvern’s eyes grew, as if it were the one that was terrified. Greg watched in amazement as the creature veered about and retreated in the direction it had come.

“It’s leaving,” said Kristin.

Greg breathed a sigh of relief. “I wonder why.” He was still watching the wyvern fade in the distance when from behind he heard another screech, ten times as terrifying as what the wyvern had offered.

Greg dove to the ground. He couldn’t help himself. Kristin landed beside him. To his surprise, the four spirelings landed beside her. All six of them craned their necks to search the sky.

To Greg’s horror, a huge black shape moved across the sun. The silhouette quickly grew as it moved closer, until suddenly it was passing directly overhead, and Greg could see clearly what it was. The dragon Ruuan let out another ear-splitting cry and soared after the retreating wyvern, releasing a searing jet of flames that would have annihilated all of them if it had been directed at the ground. Within seconds Ruuan had reached the spot where Greg had last seen the wyvern. The dragon released another jet of flames, but Greg could make out little else from this distance.