The Salamander Spell (22 page)

Grassina collected her spear and was leaving the hut that Haywood had finished in her absence when Pippa wriggled through the interwoven branches, landing on the ground in front of her. “What are you doing here?” Grassina asked, startled.

“Making ssure that you don’t leave me behind again. You have a habit of doing that.”

“Sorry. I didn’t dare take you to the castle. It would have been too hard to hide you from my mother.”

“I’ll forgive you thiss time,” said Pippa. “At leasst I had Haywood for company. Did you know that he’ss very good at finding mice?”

“I thought you looked a little plumper.”

“Are you almost ready?” Haywood called from the head of the path. “It’s nearly dark out.”

“We’re both coming,” Grassina replied as she picked up the little snake. “We have one more weapon to take with us. Pippa wants to go, too.”

The stars were shining overhead as they neared the edge of the forest. Grassina reached into her sack, took out the whiskers, and held them up to the light of Haywood’s witches’ ball.

“These are the werewolf whiskers that Mother gave me,” she said. “They don’t look like much, do they?” She turned them over in her hand and bit her lip while she thought. “Do you have any idea what to do with them? Mother forgot to tell me.”

Haywood shrugged. “I’ve never seen anyone do tracking magic. Have you?”

“It wasn’t included in my deportment lessons. I don’t know if Mother ever showed Chartreuse either. I guess I’ll have to make up something again. I hate doing this, but here goes.”

Holding the hairs on the palm of her hand, Grassina thought for a minute, then said,

As a bird flies to its nest
And a fox runs to its den,
Show us where the werewolves are—
The wolves now, not the men.

“I hope it workss,” said Pippa. “That wass really awful.”

“Don’t be so critical,” said Grassina. “I’m new at this, remember?”

“Look,” said Haywood. “They’re changing color.”

At first it was difficult to see in the flickering light of the torch, but it soon became obvious that the whiskers were turning red. Before long they were glowing a brilliant scarlet. Rising into the air, they rotated until they were both pointing in the same direction, and then they took off like two flaming arrows.

“Hurry!” shouted Grassina, sprinting after the whiskers. “I don’t have any more. If we lose sight of those, we’ll never find the werewolves!”

“Too bad you didn’t usse one at a time!” Pippa said into her ear.

“Don’t you think I know that now?” puffed Grassina.

“Save your breath for running,” said Haywood. “Look, they’re over that ravine.”

While Haywood slid down the steep incline, Grassina picked her way more carefully, grabbing hold of branches and crouching when she slipped. Haywood had almost reached the top of the other side when he saw two glowing lines waiting just above his head. He was reaching for Grassina’s hand to help her out of the ravine when the whiskers took off again.

“They went that way!” Grassina shouted, stumbling when Haywood jerked her toward him and started running.

Concentrating on keeping up with the racing red streaks, running without regard to being stealthy or quiet, Grassina and Haywood soon forgot why they were running. They kept going until their lungs burned and they had stabbing pains in their sides. They ran until they thought they couldn’t run anymore, then they stopped thinking and just put one foot in front of the other. When the whiskers finally grew still and hovered over the remains of a fallen log, Grassina and Haywood didn’t notice at first and nearly stumbled past them. In the distance, the full moon rising behind the castle showed them exactly how far they had gone.

“Do you see . . . the werewolves?” Grassina asked, gasping for air.

“Is that . . . them . . . by those rocks?” Haywood whispered back, pointing beyond the last of the trees at a jumble of boulders. A shape moved, jumping onto the tallest rock so that the body was silhouetted against the night sky. Larger than an ordinary wolf, the creature was more muscular as well, as if he were a throwback to a beast of an earlier age that had required greater size and strength to survive.

When the werewolf turned his head and looked directly at them, Grassina whispered, “He knows we’re here! Look, the others are spreading out. They’ll surround us if they can!”

“If we could keep them together somehow . . . ,” said Haywood.

“That gives me an idea,” said Grassina, “but I’m going to need your help.” Unwrapping the blanket she had wrapped around the basket of lightning bugs, she set it on the ground and stepped back.

“What is that?” asked Haywood.

“Some very angry insects,” said Grassina. “You’re good at controlling birds and such. Can you tell these bugs to circle around the werewolves and draw them together?”

“Now
that
I can do,” said Haywood. Flexing his fingers, he pointed at the basket and murmured something under his breath. “Go!” he said in a louder voice and kicked the basket over.

As the lid fell off, the angrily buzzing swarm of lightning bugs hopped, skittered, crawled, and flew straight at the pack, shedding sparks along the way. The lone werewolf poised atop the pile of boulders leapt to the ground and began padding toward Grassina and Haywood. The first lightning bugs hit him in the chest, shocking him so that he fell back, whining and snapping at his fur. Other werewolves tried to bypass their stricken leader until the bugs flew at their eyes and they, too, were driven back. Bugs hopped into their open mouths and crawled over their paws, shooting sparks and shocking them at each point of contact. With sparks lighting the way, the lightning bugs herded the werewolves back toward the rocks. Even after they’d rounded up the entire pack, the bugs continued to shoot off sparks so that it looked like an invisible fire was burning in the forest.

While Haywood strode purposefully toward the pack of werewolves, Grassina followed with her spear poised to throw, just in case.

“What have you done?” snarled the werewolf who had watched them from the rocks. “Get these things away from us now or I’ll rip out your throat!”

“Isn’t that what you plan to do anyway?” Grassina asked.

“You understood it?” asked Haywood. “What did it say?”

“I suppose you have to have been an animal to understand one,” said Grassina. “Maybe you can try being one someday. The beast was threatening us, that’s all.” Turning back to the werewolf, she pointed her spear at him, saying, “Your threats mean little to me. I can kill you whenever I choose. However, if you promise to leave this kingdom, I’ll let you go on the condition that you never come back.”

“Leave the . . . Have those insects crawled through your ear holes and infested your brain? We’re not making any deals with you! You’re a human and nothing more. When I get past these pests . . .” The werewolf swatted at a lightning bug and yelped when it shocked him. Swiping at his paw with his tongue, the werewolf glared at Grassina. “I’ll find a way to get around these bugs. When I do, I’ll eat your heart while it’s still beating.”

“Grasssina,” Pippa whispered into her ear. “Bad luck. I think that sspell iss wearing off.”

“What spell? You mean . . . Oh!” Although the lightning bugs had formed a flashing, sparking wall only moments before, large gaps were beginning to appear as insects deserted one after the other, called away by the clear night sky and the temptations of the forest floor.

The head of the werewolf pack was still watching them when Grassina whispered to Haywood, telling him about the spell. “That’s one thing about my kind of magic,” replied Haywood as they both backed away. “You can’t go against a creature’s nature if you want the spell to last. They are only insects after all. We can’t really expect them to act like anything else for long.”

“I wish you’d told me this before!” said Grassina. “Can’t you repeat your spell?”

“I could, but it wouldn’t do anything. My spells never work a second time on the same batch of animals.”

Grassina frowned and reached into the leather bag. “I suppose I could try this,” she said, pulling out the tooth on the chain.

“What kind of animal did that come from?” asked Haywood.

“I was hoping that you could tell me.”

Haywood shrugged. “I’ve never seen anything like it, but whatever it was it must have been big. Look at the size of that thing.”

“I hope it was mean, too,” said Grassina. “Mean enough to take on a pack of werewolves. But I guess we’re about to find out. Here goes.” Holding the tooth at arm’s length, Grassina said,

Use this tooth to let us see
That which you were meant to be.
When you are what you’ll become,
Chase the wicked werewolves from
This, the kingdom we love so.
Do not tarry, don’t be slow.

While saying the last few words, Grassina tossed the tooth outside the ring of fire and waited. The tooth landed behind a patch of ferns so at first they couldn’t see it. Then the plants began to shake, twitching violently as an oversized manlike head appeared. Covered with a great mane of tawny hair, the creature opened his mouth wide, showing three rows of teeth, identical to the one from which a golden chain still dangled.

As a tawny back arched above the ferns, a musky smell reached Haywood and Grassina. A trencher-sized paw crushed the plants flat, cracking a branch beside them with a sharp report. When the beast shook himself, a tail tipped with a dense ball of bone and fur twitched, thudding as it hit the ground. Turning to face the werewolves, the horse-sized beast roared, sounding more like a trumpet than a living creature.

“That’s a manticore. I’ve seen drawings of them, but never the real thing,” Haywood whispered to Grassina. “He’s magnificent!”

“I don’t care what he is as long as he gets rid of the werewolves,” Grassina replied.

Pippa peeked out of Grassina’s sleeve. “How will you get rid of the manticore once he’ss chassed away the werewolvess?”

Grassina bit her lip. “That’s a good question.”

“I could bite him if you need me to,” offered the little snake.

“Thanks,” said Grassina, “but I hope that won’t be necessary.”

Having heard the manticore, the werewolves turned to face this newest threat. When they growled deep in their throats, Haywood put his arm around Grassina and drew her closer to his side. Walking stiff-legged, the werewolves approached the rocks, the fur bristling along their spines. The manticore crouched down, his tail twitching behind him as he eyed the closest werewolf. Suddenly, the beast leapt from atop the rocks, snatched the werewolf in his jaws, tossed it into the air, and caught it on the way down. The werewolf struggled to free itself and actually succeeded for a moment. Then the manticore pounced on it again, batted it with a paw, and let it go just to knock it down again.

“The manticore is playing with the werewolf the way a cat does a mouse,” Grassina whispered to Haywood.

He nodded. “It seems we got what we wanted. Those monsters don’t stand a chance.”

When the werewolf no longer responded, the manticore bit off its head with a horrifying crunch and flung the body aside like a broken toy. Another werewolf approached from behind, so the manticore swung his tail, crushing the creature’s skull with one blow of the ball. The carcass hadn’t even hit the ground before the rest of the pack turned tail and ran as fast as they could with the manticore close on their heels.

Grassina shuddered and looked away. “I should have used my spear on them. At least then they’d be turned back into humans and not . . . not . . .”

“Eaten?” said Haywood. “Except you never could have turned them all back. One of them would have gotten to you first, and then you would have been missing a few vital organs.”

“Maybe, but what that monster just did makes me sick to my stomach.”

“What do you have in mind now?” asked Haywood.

“We’ll go to the castle and tell them what happened. Will you go with me?”

“As far as the gates, but I’m not going inside,” Haywood said. “I don’t think this is the right time to meet your family.”

Hand in hand, they started toward the castle, studying the field around them with wary eyes. “Do you see that?” Haywood said suddenly. “There, by those trees. It looks like . . . Yes, I think it is. The manticore is back!”

As the manticore bounded across the farmer’s field, Grassina turned to face the beast, gripping her spear firmly. “I wish I knew what he wanted.”

“Whatever it is, it can’t be good,” said Haywood. “Manticores aren’t known for being overly friendly.”

The manticore stopped only a dozen yards from them and crouched, his wicked-looking tail flicking across his back like an angry pendulum. “You got what you wanted,” growled the beast. “I killed a few and scared off the rest.” He took a step closer, his shaggy head weaving from side to side. “They won’t be back as long as they can smell my scent, which is why you won’t kill
me
.” Another step and the beast seemed impossibly huge. “If you did, you’d have to face the werewolves all over again.”

As the manticore continued his approach, Grassina backed away, uncertain if she should throw her spear or not. One more step and his eyes were boring into hers. “You said I should be quick. Was I too fast for you? I got back before you could run away. I’m sure that wasn’t part of your plan. I’m sure this wasn’t either.”