The Riddle - Alison Croggon [53]
Then something small hit his boots, making him step backward, and he looked down. On the ground was a furious, mangy brown rabbit with black ears. It hopped forward and sank its teeth into the ankle of his boot and tried to slash the toe with its back claws.
It seemed that the Hull hadn’t quite realized that it had become a rabbit, and it still attacked with single-minded ferocity. Cadvan sheathed his sword and bent down, grabbing the struggling rabbit by its ears. He held it up and looked sardonically at Maerad, who was stumbling toward him, and then back at the rabbit. Maerad started to giggle.
“It was the first thing I thought of,” she said. She sat down heavily on the ground, exhausted suddenly by the shock of the fight and her relief that it was over, and feeling laughter bubble hysterically inside her. There was a short silence.
“Well, that resolves one conundrum about your wild magic,” Cadvan said at last. The rabbit was kicking viciously, making growling noises in its throat. “I think this rabbit was definitely a Hull. Well, what should we do with it? I wouldn’t eat any stew this rabbit was part of.”
“Let it go, maybe,” said Maerad.
“I don’t think so.” Cadvan looked at the creature, which was frothing at the mouth with rage. “It is a vicious thing, but somehow it is still hard to kill it in cold blood, much as it deserves death. Do you think the transformation might wear off, Maerad?”
“I don’t know,” said Maerad. “But turning it back would be hard.” She hiccupped; despite all her efforts, giggles kept rising inside her in giddy waves.
Cadvan made a sharp chop with the edge of his hand at the rabbit’s neck, breaking its spine, and suddenly it hung limp from his hand, its eyes glazed. “We dare not take the risk,” he said. He cast the pathetic corpse to the ground with a gesture of disgust.
Maerad stared at the dead rabbit, suddenly sobered, and Cadvan pulled her to her feet. “That was well done,” he said, searching her face. “Are you all right? Your cheek is bleeding.”
Maerad nodded and brushed away the blood. It was only a small cut. “But what about your arm?” she asked.
Cadvan looked ruefully at his right arm, pulling up his torn and bloodied sleeve. “Not so good, I suspect,” he said. “But nothing really serious.” He held his hand over a nasty slash to stem the bleeding. “I’ll attend to that later. But now we must see to Elenxi.”
Elenxi! In the heat of the battle, Maerad had completely forgotten about him. They walked hastily back to where the old Bard lay, his arms flung out before him.
He had been knocked out and seemed to have suffered nothing worse than a bad bruising. Cadvan laid his hands on the Bard’s forehead briefly and he stirred, groaning, and then sat bolt upright and looked around, sniffing.
“What happened?” he growled. “I smell sorcery.”
“We were attacked by a Hull,” said Maerad, and told him what had happened.
Elenxi was outraged that he had missed the battle, and when Cadvan told him of what had happened to the Hull, he looked at Maerad with amazement. “Is this true? You can do this?” he asked, his eyebrows almost hidden in his hair. Maerad nodded, but Elenxi refused to believe it until they showed him the corpse.
His face froze with incredulity, and then began to shake with laughter. “A rabbit, eh?” he said when he had recovered from his mirth. “I begin to see what Cadvan means about your powers. Perhaps you can do that to all the Hulls, and give the Nameless One an army of rabbits.”
“Mangy rabbits,” said Cadvan dryly. He began to attend to the wound on his arm. Elenxi grunted, and leaned forward to help, cleaning the wound with water, smearing it with a sweet-smelling balm, and binding it with clean cloth. “It bothers me that the Hull should have ambushed us here,” Cadvan said as Elenxi worked. “It knew we were coming this way.”
“I told you