Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [104]
“These groats!” he yelled at Knucker, who was having a hard time keeping up with the pace. “What would they do if they killed us? Eat us?”
“Oh no,” the wheezing little man assured him. “They’d just make sure we were dead and then go away. They only want their forest back. As I said, they don’t like visitors.”
“Can’t they tell that we’re trying to leave as fast as we can?” Raising a hand over his head, the swordsman warded off a cluster of small cones. Despite their moderate size, they still stung when hurled from a considerable height.
“They probably can’t.” Knucker was gasping for air now. It was clear to Ehomba that their new companion would not be able to keep up for much longer. Something had to be done. But what? How did one fight an opponent beyond reach and impossible to see except for its eyes?
Simna thought he had the solution. “Do something, Etjole! Blast them out of the treetops, turn them into newts, call up a spell that will bring them crashing down from the branches like stones!”
“How many times do I have to tell you, Simna—I am not a sorcerer! I can make some use only of what wiser ones have given to me.” Looking up, he dodged to the right just in time to avoid a pinecone as big as a beer tankard, and almost as heavy.
“Hoy, then use the sky-metal sword! Call up the wind from between the stars and blow them clear out of the woods!”
“I do not think that would be wise. The wind that rushes between the stars is not a thing to be trifled with. You do not bring it down to earth every time you have a problem.” While running, he waved at the imposing, surrounding trees. “I could try to bring down the wind, but once summoned it cannot be easily controlled. It could bring down every tree in this forest along with the groats. Better to endure a pounding by seed pods than by falling trees.”
“In your pack.” Simna was tired of running. He wanted to stand and fight, but doubted their assailants would oblige him. Even if they did, it would be hard to do battle with three-foot-long invisibilities. “There’s always something in that pack of yours! A magic amulet, or a powder to make smoke to hide us, or another figurine like the one that summoned Fhastal the younger.”
“Fhastal’s sword would be of no more use to us here than our own.” The herdsman looked for a place to halt that offered some concealment from the arboreal barrage. “And I have no magic pills or conjurer’s tricks. But I do have an idea.”
“Glewen knows I’d rather have an amulet,” Simna yelled back, “but at this point I’ll settle for an idea. If it’s a righteous one.”
There were no caves in which to hide, no buildings in which to take refuge, but they did find a lightning-scarred tree whose base had been blasted into a V-shaped hollow. In this they all took refuge from the steady rain of spiky projectiles. Glittering eyes gathered in the branches overhead as the peripatetic yet silent groats continued to pelt this temporary sanctuary with cones.
Slipping his pack off his back, Ehomba dug through its depths until he found what he was looking for. Simna crowded uncomfortably close. The tree hollow was barely large enough to accommodate the three men. With the addition of the litah’s substantial bulk it was difficult to breathe, much less move about.
Removing his searching hand, the herdsman displayed a slim, irregularly shaped, palm-sized slab that was dull gray metal on one side and highly polished glass on the other. The reflective surface was badly scratched and the metal pitted and dented. It looked like a broken piece of mirror.
“What is it?” The swordsman was openly dubious. “It looks like a mirror.”
Ehomba nodded. “A piece of an old mirror. An heirloom from Likulu’s family.”
“That’s all?” Simna stared uncomprehendingly at his tall companion. “Just a mirror? What would you be carrying a mirror around for? I haven’t noticed that