Spinning on one paw-foot, it leaped away, down the hill, and into the cloaking rain. Ardent began to pursue it, but Anya called him back.
“No, Ardent!” she croaked as she clambered to her feet. “Let it go. There might be more. We have to get away. Only which way?”
She looked around, her heart still beating what felt like a thousand times a minute, her whole body trembling with the shock. She saw Denholm was still safe in his cage. Shrub was nearby, trying to look as if he had been just about to join in her defense. Smoothie was looking back into the rain where the weasel thing had gone, her face set in a snarl.
Ardent was staring in the opposite direction.
“What is it?” snapped Anya.
“Ah!” the dog cried, leaping up and pointing, nose out, back straight, and one paw outstretched in front.
“More weaselfolk?” asked Anya urgently.
“No!” barked Ardent happily. “The road. The rain c-c-cleared for a moment, and I saw it. That way!”
It was easier and faster walking on the road, which had once been a major royal highway. Though many of the paving stones were broken, it was still considerably broader and in better shape than any road Anya had seen before. It ran between the low hills, so there was little climbing up or down, and it even had deep, stone-lined gutters on both sides, which at the moment were running fast and spilling over, the rain continuing to come down in thick, blinding sheets.
“How far to go?” Anya asked Shrub.
She sneezed as she spoke, and then shivered. A cold was rapidly expanding its initial foothold in her nose and was getting ready to move into her chest. She was also starving and very tired. They had been walking over the dales and then along the road for hours and hours. At first they had gone as fast as they could, for fear of the weaselfolk behind them. But that pace had gradually lessened as they had grown wearier and they saw no further sign of pursuit.
It was impossible to tell what time it was without being able to see the sun, but she felt it had to be well past noon. Perhaps two or even three o’clock.
“Dunno,” said Shrub. He kept licking his huge bulbous eyes as raindrops unerringly fell directly on them. “Depends where we met the road. Got to look for a milestone, or one of the Good Wizard’s ‘Keep Out’ signs, I suppose.”
“I’m looking!” barked Ardent. Despite being sodden from nose to tail, he was still cheerful, constantly running ahead and then circling back to act the advance or rear guard, in each position sniffing everywhere and rushing any small bush or tree that might harbor a (small) enemy.
Smoothie seemed happy enough too. Every now and again she plunged into one of the gutters and undulated through the water before bursting out with a shrill cry and turning over a few stones here and there to snap up beetles and worms, well before Shrub could lumber over to try to get a share.
“If I’d known I was going on a Quest I could have packed an oilskin coat,” said Anya. “And a lot of other things.”
“Isn’t there a spell to keep off the rain?” asked Shrub.
“Of course there is!” snapped Anya. “Only I don’t know it, because I’m not in my nice warm library learning magic. Instead I’ve had to go out in this freezing rain just so I can turn all of you back.”
The truth was, as Anya knew, that even if she had been home in the library, weather magic was well beyond her abilities. It took a great deal of power to move masses of air and water vapor, and it was like sliding tiles in a puzzle, because if you moved one lot somewhere, then everything else moved. The best weather mages did things very slowly, with small nudges and encouragements, rather than wholesale shifting around of storm clouds and the like. When weather magic was done inexpertly, storms got worse, droughts lasted longer, and snow fell out of season.
When it was both amateurish and done with evil intentions, for example trying to flood an enemy’s city, it might culminate in a tidal wave that drowned your own city. As had happened with the last High King and the city of Yarrow.
It made Anya reconsider the whole idea of sorcery, just a little, thinking of things like that. A sneeze was one thing, but then there was the price Rikard had paid and was paying for his powers.
“Don’t you want to turn us back?” asked Shrub. “I wonder if I stole the Only Stone now and put it in my mouth … maybe I wouldn’t need your help at all.”
“No, of course I want to turn you back,” said Anya. She wiped her nose. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired and cold and wet. I’ll be better once we get to the Good Wizard’s. I hope I can have a hot bath.”
“A hot dinner. Or a c-c-old one. Or lukewarm,” said Ardent. “Dinner. Mmmmm.”
He licked his lips and then chased his tail suddenly for a few seconds.
“Something up front,” called Smoothie, who had just emerged from a gutter and was standing up very straight about twenty yards ahead. “Might be a sign. Or a person standing very still.”
“I’ll look, I’ll look!” cried Ardent, stopping his tail-chasing to dash forward. His paws sent up huge splashes of water as he raced through the puddles. Anya almost couldn’t see him as he disappeared into another curtain of heavy rain, but he emerged again very quickly, racing back so swiftly he sent a plume of water over Anya as he skidded to a halt.
“It’s a sign,” he said, sitting back, his tail furiously wagging backwards and forwards, splashing as much water up as was coming down. “Says ‘To the Good Wizard, by Appointment Only’ and ‘Beware the Giant.’ Different writing, though.”