Emily Rodda - Deltora Quest #6 - The Maze of the Beast

“She is drowned!” screamed the child.

“No. She was not under for long. She will be all right,” Lief said, more confidently than he felt. He waded on, feeling with relief the water growing shallower as he climbed up to the bank where Jasmine was waiting with a blanket.

“I will see to her. Help Barda!” Jasmine said crisply, wrapping the blanket around the little girl.

“I am Jasmine,” Lief heard her say as he ran to where Barda was splashing to shore, clutching his limp, sodden burden. “This is Filli, and Kree. What is your name?”

“Ida,” cried the child. “I am Ida. Oh, take me away from the river! I do not wish to see it anymore! Marie is drowned. She is drowned!”

Lief plunged once again into the water and helped Barda carry the unconscious child up onto the bank. Like Ida, she was chilled to the bone. They laid her down gently. As he saw her face, Lief gasped in surprise. Straight brown hair, fine golden skin, heart-shaped face, long, curling black eyelashes — why, she looked exactly like Ida, even to the small brown mark on the left cheekbone, and the simple white dress. They were twins! Identical in every detail.

What were twin girls, so young, too, doing in this wilderness alone? Where were their parents?

Barda had turned Marie on her side and was bending over her, his face grim.

“Is she dead?” Lief whispered. Somehow the thought was even more terrible now that he knew the girls were twins. It was dreadful to think of one of them being left alone. He glanced up and was relieved to see that Jasmine was beginning to lead the sobbing Ida off the riverbank, towards the trees.

Then, as Jasmine stepped aside to let the little girl move onto the path before her, Lief saw a tiny movement in the undergrowth nearby. Before he could move or cry a warning, there was a twang and an arrow was flying through the air.

It struck Ida in the back. She crumpled and fell forward without a cry. With a shout of outrage, Lief leaped for her attacker. His sword was lying out of reach. He did not care. He was angry and shocked enough to deal with this bare-handed.

He tore the concealing bushes aside and threw himself on the dark-haired boy who crouched there. Knocking the deadly bow from the boy’s hand, he hurled him out on the sand. The killer fell heavily on his face, his arm crumpled under him, and lay still, moaning in pain. Lief ran for his sword, snatched it up. His ears were roaring. There was murder in his heart as he spun around once more.

Groaning, the boy on the ground rolled onto his back. He tried to rise, and fell back again, grimacing and holding his arm.

“Do you not see — they are Ols! Ols!” he shouted.

Then Lief heard Barda’s gurgling shout, heard Jasmine’s scream. He looked up.

Ida’s body had disappeared. And Marie, little Marie, was rising from the sand. She had Barda by the throat, her white fingers digging deep into his flesh. Her teeth were bared. And then her body was bubbling, stretching, growing till it was a tall, wavering white shadow with a black mark at its center and an enormous peaked head like a ghastly bleached candle flame. The thing’s eyes were burning red and the mouth was a toothless black hole, but it laughed like a child as Barda staggered back and fell beneath its weight.

Gasping in horror, Jasmine and Lief both lunged forward, stabbing and tearing at the thing, trying to pull it away from Barda. The cold, wavering mass shrank and re-formed. The thing staggered, but its grip held.

“Through the heart!” the injured boy shouted. “Stab it through the heart! Kill it outright or it will finish him!”

“It is stabbed through the heart already,” Jasmine shrieked. “It does not fall.”

Growling, the thing turned on her. With a cry she was swept aside by a rush of white that sent her sprawling.

“Now, Lief! Strike on the right side!” the boy screamed. “The heart is on the right side, not the left!”

Lief plunged his sword home. The thing shuddered, then collapsed, its body a shapeless, writhing mass bulging horribly here and there with limbs, faces, claws, ears. Choking with disgusted horror, Lief recognized the face of Marie, the pointed snout of a wood mouse, the wing of a bird …

Then there was just a bubbling pool of white, that sank, as he watched, into the sand.

Barda lay shivering and coughing, the breath rasping in his throat. Already the dark red marks of the Ol’s strangling fingers on his neck were darkening to purple. But he was alive.

“He was lucky. Another minute and it would have been too late.”

Lief spun around and saw that the boy he had attacked had managed to crawl to his feet and was standing behind him. He heard Jasmine exclaim and glanced at her. She was staring at the boy in amazement.

“It is you!” she exclaimed. “The boy who served the drinks at the Rithmere Games. You are one of Doom’s band. You are Dain.”

The boy nodded briefly, then limped to where Barda was lying and looked down at him. “Your friend needs warming,” he said. “He is wet, and Ol attacks chill to the bone.”

He turned away and began walking slowly towards the trees.

Lief hastened to make a fire and heat water for tea while Jasmine ran for more blankets. By the time Dain returned, dragging a small backpack, his injured arm in a rough sling, Barda was well wrapped up and sitting close to a crackling blaze. The terrible shivering had eased and the color had begun to return to his face.

“Thank you,” he said to Dain huskily. “If it had not been for you …” He winced, and lifted a hand to his throat.

“Do not try to speak,” Dain advised. He turned to Lief, holding out a jar he held in his uninjured hand. “A warm drink sweetened with this will help him,” he said. “It strengthens, and eases pain. It is very powerful. One spoonful should be enough.”

The jar bore a small handmade label.

Lief unscrewed the lid and sniffed at the jar’s golden contents, drawing in the sweet scent of apple blossom. “Quality Brand,” he murmured, glancing at Dain. “The initials are interesting, but the name itself is ordinary. So ordinary, in fact, that I suspect it is false.”

“As false as the names you gave at the Rithmere Games, Lief,” the boy answered evenly. “These are hard times. You are not the only ones who must be careful.”

Lief nodded, realizing that he had overheard them calling to one another before the Ols’ attack. There was no help for it, but it was unfortunate.

He took a mug of tea and stirred a small amount of the honey into the steaming brew. Then he gave the mug to Barda, who wrapped both hands around its warmth and sipped gratefully.

“What are these Ols?” Jasmine demanded, as she passed Dain a mug of tea for himself.

“Shape-changers from the Shadowlands,” Dain said, stirring a spoonful of honey into his own cup. “The Shadow Lord uses them to do his evil work. Perhaps I should not be surprised that you have not heard of them before. They are more common here, in the west, than in the east, where you come from.”

He paused, watching them under his brows. Barda, Lief, and Jasmine remained expressionless. Did he think they were going to fall into so simple a trap?

Dain laughed easily and bent to draw in the sand.