Christopher Stasheff - The Warlock Unlocked

Then Gwen cried out in fright, and Rod whirled. She was running after him, waving frantically at the boys. Behind her, Cordelia was shrieking and kicking her heels against the bull’s sides. It rumbled, and lumbered into motion.

The boys screamed behind him—high, hoarse, with raw, absolute terror! Rod spun about again, running. The horse was running flat-out toward the lake, and the boys were yanking and tugging, trying to pull themselves loose from its back.

Rod swerved, and fear shot a last ounce of adrenalin into his veins. He tore through the grass, shouting.

The horse hit the water with a huge splash; fountains of foam shot high. When they cleared, its back was bare; it reared up, wheeling about and plunging down at three small heads in the water, mouth gaping wide—and Rod saw carnivore’s teeth!

He bellowed rage, and leaped.

Spray gushed about him as he hit, directly under the horse. It surged down, jaws gaping wide; he leaned to the side and slashed, back-handed, straight into its jaws. It screamed, rearing back, and lashed out at him with razor-edged hooves. Fire raked his side; then a thundering bellow shook the earth, and a juggernaut knocked him back, floundering. Water closed over his face; daylight glimmered through water. He fought his way back, broke surface, and stood—to see the horse twenty feet farther from shore, scrambling back upright, wheeling about in time to catch the bull’s second charge.

The great dun beast slammed into the chestnut stallion. It folded over the bull, gleaming hooves slashing, needle-teeth ripping. The bull bellowed in anger and pain, and dove down. Blood sheened the water as both animals went under.

Rod didn’t stay to wait for the curtain call. He floundered over to his boys, shot a hand down under water to grapple Geoff’s collar and yanked him back above the surface, spluttering and wailing.

“Papa!” Magnus yelled. “Elidor! He can’t swim!”

Rod wallowed over to the sinking princeling, bellowing, “Get to shore!” Water whooshed in as Magnus disappeared, shooting Elidor briefly to the surface. Rod caught him under the arms in a cross-body carry and backed toward shore, towing both boys. He stumbled and fell as he hit shallow water, scrambled back up, and hauled the two boys out onto the grass. And he kept hauling, yanking them up, one under each arm, and ran. He stopped when he fell, but Gwen was there by that time, with Magnus beside her, to catch Geoff in her arms. “Oh, my boy, my foolish lad! We near to lost thee!”

Rod followed suit, yanking Magnus to him, hugging him tight to reassure himself the boy was still there. “Oh, thank Heaven, thank Heaven! Oh, you fool, you little fool, to go near a strange animal like that! Thank the Lord you’re alive!”

A high, piercing scream shattered the air.

They whirled, staring.

For a moment, the horse and bull shot out of the water, the horse leaping high to slash down at the bull with its teeth, catching it where neck joined shoulders. But the bull twisted, catching the horse’s hind leg in its own jaws. Even a hundred feet away, they could hear the crunch. The horse screamed, and the bull bellowed, rearing up to drive down with its forelegs, slamming its opponent back under the water with the full force of its weight. It sank, too, but the water churned like a maelstrom, and the blood kept spreading.

Gwen shuddered and turned the children’s heads away. “ ‘Tis a horrid sight, and one that only thy father need watch, that he may warn us to flee if need be.” Then she noticed the blood dripping from Rod’s doublet. “Milord! Thou’rt wounded!”

“Huh?” Rod looked down. “Oh, yeah! Now I remember. Unnnngh! Say, that’s beginning to hurt!”

“Indeed it should,” Gwen said grimly, unlacing his doublet. “Cordelia, seek out St. John’s Wort and red verbena! Boys, seek four-leafed clovers! Quickly, now!”

The children scampered to search. Elidor stood, blinking in confusion.

“Four-leafed clovers, lad,” Gwen urged. “Surely thou mayst seek them, no matter how little herb-lore thou knowest! Quickly, now!”

Elidor stared at her indignantly; then fright came into his eyes, and he ran to join Magnus and Geoff.

“Strange one, that,” Rod said, frowning. “Ow! Yes, dear, the skin’s broken.”

“ ‘Tis not pretty,” Gwen said, tight-lipped. She tore a strip from the hem of her skirt.

“Here, Mommy!” Cordelia was back, leaves in hand.

“Good child,” Gwen approved. A flat rock lifted itself, a few feet away, and sailed over to land at her feet. She plucked Rod’s dagger and dropped to her knees, pounding the herbs with the hilt.

“Here, Mama!” Magnus ran up, two four-leafed clovers in hand, with the other boys right behind him.

“Any will aid. I thank thee, lads.” Gwen added them to the porridge, then gave Rod’s ribs a swipe with his doublet and plastered the herbs on the wound.

“St. John’s Wort, red verbena, and four-leafed clovers,” Rod winced. “Not exactly the usual poultice, is it?”

“Nay, nor wast thou ripped by a usual beast.” Gwen wound the improvised bandage around his torso.

Rod tried to ignore the prickling in his scalp. “As I remember, every one of those herbs is supposed to be a sovereign against fairies.”

“Indeed,” Gwen said, carefully neutral. “Well, I have never seen such as these two beasts afore—yet I mind me of certain tales from my childhood. There, now!” She fastened the bandage and handed him his doublet. “Walk carefully a week or so, mine husband, I pray thee.”

A long, piercing shriek echoed over the meadow. Before it died, a rumbling, agonized bellow answered it.

They spun about to face the lake. The maelstrom subsided; the waters grew calm. Finally, they could make out the body of the bull drifting toward shore.

“Children, be ready!” Gwen warned.

“No, I don’t think so.” Rod frowned, and stepped carefully toward the lake. About twenty feet away, he could see a thick stew of blood and chunks of flesh drifting away toward the east. A passing crow noticed, too, circled back, and flew down for a sample. Rod shuddered and turned away. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about the horse, either.”

“ ‘Tis courtesy of thy good rescue,” Elidor said solemnly. “An thou hadst not come to our aid, this land had lacked a sovereign. A King’s thanks go with thee!”

Rod looked down, startled. Then he darted a questioning glance at Gwen. She looked as startled as he felt, but she was nodding in confirmation.

Well, maybe she could read the kid’s mind, but he couldn’t. “Are you the King of this land, then?”

“I am.” Elidor was wet to the skin; his fine clothes were torn and bedraggled, and he’d lost his coronet somewhere along the fray—but he straightened his shoulders, and bore himself regally. “By courtesy of my mother the Queen, though I never knew her, and of Eachan, my father the King, dead these three years, I am King of Tir Chlis.”

Rod’s face composed itself, hiding a stewpot of emotions—incredulity, sorrow for the boy, a yearning to take him in his arms… and the realization that this could be a huge stroke of good fortune for a family of wanderers, marooned in a strange world. “It is my honor to greet Your Majesty. Yet I cannot help but notice your age; may I inquire who cares for you now?”

“A thousand thanks for kind rescue, brave knight and fair lady!” gasped an anxious voice.

Rod looked up, startled.

A gross fat man, a little shorter than Rod, with a gleaming bald pate surrounded by a fringe of hair around the back of his head, and a ruddy complexion, waddled toward them, swathed in an acre of white ankle-length robe topped with a brocade surcoat, and belted by a four-inch-wide strap. Behind him trooped thirty courtiers in bell-sleeved skirted coats and hose, and two peasants with a brace of belling hounds.