“The Only Stone does not merely provide protection against sorcery to its wielder,” interrupted Dehlia. “All the ancient laws are codified within it, including many that have been lost or forgotten. We must regain it from the sorcerers at some time. But that will be, I think, another Quest. It is beyond our power now. As Bert has said, we must start small—with Trallonia, and Princess Anya.”
“All I want to do is get the ingredients for the lip balm, get enough allies to defeat Rikard, and go home!” Anya protested. “I’m not signing up to rebuild the High Kingdom, and I’m not the heir to Trallonia, so you’ll have to talk to Morven about the Bill and all that.”
“Oh dear,” said Bert. “I guess that means we’ll have to rob you after all.”
“Can’t you just rob me later?” asked Anya. She felt very tired all of a sudden. It had been a long and difficult day, and the prospects for tomorrow looked even worse. “Or in the morning, at least, if you absolutely can’t put it off till I finish my Quest?”
Bert saw Anya’s hand go up to smother a yawn. She looked across at the raven, who dipped her beak in agreement to the robber leader’s unspoken question.
“Yes,” she said. “We will talk in the morning. The day may bring a different view, as so often happens. The ferns are fresh cut; gather them closer together for your bed, and here is a blanket. Rest.”
Anya had turned into a frog. A big, very bright green frog. She was looking at her reflection in the moat, wondering how she had become a frog, and why one so bright green? She dipped her head into the water, felt it wash over her cheek—and woke up.
Ardent was licking her face urgently.
“Wake up!” whispered the dog. “I c-c-an smell weasels. Or maybe stoats. Mixed up with people. It all smells wrong.”
“What?” asked Anya blearily. It was very dark. The silver moon was long gone, and the blue moon wasn’t doing much for illumination, though the sky was clear, so the stars did help.
“Weasels!” said Ardent. He let out a short, sharp bark.
“Weaselfolk,” said another voice. Bert loomed up next to Anya, a dim silhouette against the starry sky. “Weasels turned into people-size soldiers. Lots of them. We have to get you out of here!”
Anya scrabbled around for her staff, frog cage, and bundles. She had just managed to get the load balanced on her shoulder when there was a cry from somewhere high on the edge of the theater, a shout of very human pain. It was followed by the blast of a horn nearby, the sudden clash of weapons, and many decidedly nonhuman squeals, frenzied snarls, and screeches.
Bert took Anya by the elbow and hurried her down to the stage. Robbers leaped past them up the terraces, swords and axes drawn, towards the horrible screaming battle that was taking place above. Ardent turned back too, growling the fiercest growl Anya had ever heard from him, wanting to join the fray.
“No! Ardent! Stay with me!” ordered the princess. The dog growled again, but spun about to follow. Bert hustled Anya to a doorway in the low wall at the back of the stage and pushed her through, Shrub darting past her legs.
“Take the path down the hill! Shrub will show you the way to his father,” Bert said very quickly. “I will meet you there. If I am … delayed, don’t go to Rolanstown. There are no trustworthy alchemists there, and it is a dangerous place. Head towards the Good Wizard!”
Then she was gone, sword in hand. A question about where exactly the Good Wizard was located never came out of Anya’s mouth; instead she stumbled down the steps beyond the stage, and from there to a narrow path between thornbushes. Shrub lolloped ahead, an orange beacon to show the way. Ardent came close at Anya’s heels, turning every dozen paces to look and smell behind, the hair on his back raised in a ridge, as if he had become a razorback boar.
The sounds of fighting lessened as they reached the forest edge at the foot of the hill. Anya lost sight of Shrub for a moment and stumbled into a branch. She gasped in fright, thinking for a split second she’d been attacked, her fingers clutching at the hilt of her knife.
“Come on!” said Shrub, reappearing near her feet.
“There are weaselfolk coming down the side of the hill,” Ardent reported, half growling his words.
“Come on!” repeated Shrub.
“I can’t see!” Anya protested.
It was even darker under the trees.
Ardent thrust his head against her and gave her hand a comforting lick.
“Hold my collar,” said the dog. He sounded less excitable than usual, more like one of the older dogs. “I can see well enough to follow Shrub.”
Anya thrust her fingers through his collar. Her hand shook a little, but she quelled the tremors. She didn’t want Ardent to think she was afraid, though to tell the truth, she was terrified. The darkness made everything worse, and the very idea of weaselfolk was horrifying. Which parts would be weasel, and which human? Maybe each weaselfolk was different …
These feelings of dread were intensified by the hideous yowling and screeching she could still hear faintly from the arena. Not to mention the shouts and screams of the wounded—possibly even dying—robbers. Anya grimaced and tried to put all that out of her mind. You need to focus, she told herself. Concentrate on what’s important. And what’s important right now is getting away.
“Go on, Shrub,” she said quietly, though it took a great effort to keep a telltale quaver out of her voice. “Go on.”
Shrub led them quickly through the forest, his pace not quite at a run but significantly faster than a walk. Anya still stumbled, and occasionally got scratched by a smaller branch, but with Ardent’s help she didn’t actually run into anything serious.
An hour, or perhaps two hours, later—Anya had no real feel for how much time had passed—the sun began to come up, its soft yellow light filtering in through the canopy of leaves. Anya shivered, not because she was cold, but simply because she was relieved to be able to see properly again. No matter how much she’d tried not to, she’d been thinking constantly about some half-weasel, half-human thing dropping on her in the darkness, or suddenly looming up in front of her, jaws snarling, claws reaching …
“We’re almost there,” Shrub reported. “Pity Dad doesn’t make soup like Ma.”