She ran faster, scrambling over the low stone wall at the foot of the hill that marked the orchard’s boundary. Only when she was under the shade of the plum trees did she slow down a little and chance a look back.
Coils of black, red, orange, and green smoke were rising up from Brokenmouth Hill, and there were flashes of flame between the stones. Anya saw witches running down the slope, but they weren’t chasing her—they were fleeing whatever was happening in the stone circle. One witch fell over and was helped up by two others, but they didn’t stop; they ran on again.
Anya ran again too, weaving between the trees, her heart pounding and breath coming in gasps. She knew that even though she’d escaped the witches, Duke Rikard was still coming in his bone ship, and he would scour the countryside looking for her. He would summon ravens and weaselfolk and bandits and assassins.
The carpet had landed in the tenth row of the orchard from the stone wall. Anya had counted on the way out, and she counted now on the way in. Bursting past the ninth row, she skidded to a stop, and looked to the left and right, expecting to see the carpet and her friends.
But there was no sign of the rich red-and-blue carpet.
Or of Ardent, Smoothie, Shrub, and Prince Denholm.
Either she’d counted wrong, or they’d disappeared.
Frantically, Anya ran to the next alley and looked up and down, then the next and the next. She ran back again in case she’d overshot, all the way to the low stone wall. Beyond that, the plumes of multicolored smoke rising from the hill were extending into huge billows, accompanied by distant explosions and strange shrieking or zinging noises. She saw no more witches outside the stone circle.
Anya sprinted back through the trees, hitting her head every now and again on a low-hanging plum, counting aloud as she ran.
“Ten!” she said at the tenth row. The princess was really beginning to panic. Rikard was getting closer with every minute she wasted looking and she was beginning to fear she would never find the carpet.
If she couldn’t, she had no hope of escape.
Ardent!” she screamed at the top of her voice. “Ardent!”
“What?” asked a sleepy dog somewhere to Anya’s right.
“Ardent! Where are you?”
A pile of grass under a nearby tree moved, and Ardent’s snout emerged, followed by the rest of him. He loped over to Anya and licked her hand. Several other lumps rose in the cut grass and proved themselves to be Smoothie and Shrub.
“Thought we’d better hide ourselves and the c-c-carpet,” said Ardent, trying and failing to conceal a very big yawn. “Tanitha taught us ‘surprise a superior enemy from hiding’ and I thought if it’s witches, they’d be superior enemies—”
Anya crouched and hugged him as best she could with the bottle of tears between them.
“Good, great, excellent idea,” she babbled. “But we have to get out of here. We have to fly in the carpet again—”
“I’m not going back in that,” complained Shrub. “I got so cold I couldn’t even think, let alone wriggle my claws, and I—”
“We have to,” Anya insisted. “Duke Rikard is coming in a bone ship, one that flies, and he’ll be here soon. He might already be ordering his minions here as well. Get the carpet out while I look at the map.”
“I’m not going to get—”
“You promised your mother!” interrupted Anya. She set the bottle of tears down and hastily unfolded the handkerchief map. “We’ll ask the carpet to fly slower. Now, it was twenty leagues southeast from the Wizard’s place to here, and it’s twelve leagues south from here to New Yarrow—that’s too far. And we can’t just fly into the city anyway. Shrub, I need your knowledge now. Where can we fly to that’s this side of the city? Somewhere safe?”
“I don’t know,” said Shrub mulishly. He blinked his eyes several times and pushed some fallen plums around with his blunt head.
“Think!” Anya urged.
“I suppose there’s the Moon,” Shrub said.
“What?” asked Anya. She looked up at the sky, as if either the silver or the blue moon might suddenly have appeared and be hanging low and reachable above them.
“It’s an inn,” Shrub explained. “On the road to New Yarrow, by the river. A couple of leagues this side. Thieves and pirates use it.”
“Like Bert’s robbers? Good ones?”
“Nah,” said Shrub.
“It’s no use if they’re ordinary ones,” said Anya. “They’ll just steal from us. Or even kill us.”
“Not if you know the passwords. They’re guild thieves. And the river pirates are what d’ye call it? Fellow travelers or something. Got rules.”
“Do you know the passwords?”
“Might do,” acknowledged Shrub.
“Do you know the passwords?” shouted Anya.
“All right, no need to shout,” said Shrub. “I know some. Enough so they’ll leave us alone.”
“Are you sure?” asked Ardent.
“Course I’m sure,” said Shrub.
“That’s not a good place,” said Smoothie, her eyes narrowed. “Too many evildoers go there. One day we otters will clean it out.”
“It’s not that bad,” Shrub protested.
“It’ll have to do,” Anya concluded. “It’s a couple of leagues this side of the city?”
“I reckon,” said Shrub.
“The carpet can probably fly that far. Oh, I wish I knew for sure. We’ll have to ask it to land a bit short to be on the safe side. Come on!”
Smoothie had dragged the carpet out while they were talking, and was now brushing leaves off it. Anya joined her, trying to be both quick and careful. She didn’t want to upset the carpet. Even as she swept busily, she couldn’t help but glance up every minute or so, looking for signs of the Duke’s bone ship speeding to the hill, to catch a princess and undoubtedly kill her.
As they lay down on the carpet, Anya did see it. The shadow of the ship almost passed over them as it flew over the orchard, its feather wings outstretched. The princess jumped as she saw it, then settled back down.
“Quick!” she said. “Ardent, talk to the carpet!”
“Pathadwanimithochozkal, prepare for flight!”
The end of the carpet snapped up and over, and within two seconds everyone was rolled up tight, though not without protests from Shrub.