“What does Lord Mandrake want with you wenches?” the soldier asked. The firelight played on his features, illuminating small, dark eyes in a face marred with wounds old and new.
Grayling took a deep breath and said, “We are powerful witches. We, of all the witches in the world, possess the secret of invincibility, and he wants it.”
“Nay,” said the soldier. He picked at a sore on his chin. “You are but an old woman and two girls. Tell me the truth.”
Grayling caught Auld Nancy’s eye across the fire and nodded. Auld Nancy nodded back. She rocked and murmured, crooned and shook her broom, and a sharp crack of thunder shook the ground.
The soldier jumped to his feet. “Fie upon it!” he shouted. “You are witches!” He sat and grabbed Pansy again. “Invincibility, you said. What means invincibility?”
“We have a potion that will make him powerful, immortal, and infinitely wise,” Grayling said.
The soldier spat. “Nonsense. Then why are you not invincible?”
Grayling shook her head. “The potion does not work on witches. But one sip of our secret brew—”
“Make it for me.”
“Nay. ’Tis too potent and special to give to just anyone.”
Pansy gurgled again as the soldier’s arm wrapped once more around her neck. “I am not just anyone,” he said. “Do it.”
“Let her go,” Grayling said. “I would brew a draught for you, but I have no pot.”
He loosened his hold on Pansy and kicked his iron helmet over to Grayling. “Now you do.”
Trying not to smile, Grayling stood. She filled the helmet from the stream and placed it in the embers of the fire. She picked the herbs she needed—mint for its flavor and the gray, fleshy root of the white bryony for its power—and added them to the water when it boiled.
The soldier reached for it. “Nay,” said Grayling, stopping his hand. “It must steep and cool a bit.”
They sat in silence. Grayling chewed on a fingernail. If this does not work, if his belly is out of sorts and that be all, we might wish we were back in the cage.
“Now!” said the soldier. He reached for the helmet and sipped slowly. “Feh! ’Tis foul!”
“Invincibility is not easily won,” Grayling said. “Drink it all. Pansy, come and sit here while the brew does its work.”
There was quiet again, disturbed only by the sound of fighting some ways off. Auld Nancy, Pansy, and Grayling huddled together while the soldier nodded sleepily. Suddenly he jumped to his feet with a mighty groan. Grayling could hear his innards rumbling like thunder. “You!” he shouted as he lunged at her, but he was interrupted by the noisy spewing forth of the contents of his belly and his bowels.
“Run!” Grayling shouted.
The three raced along the stream, which ran stronger and faster as it flowed downhill. Grayling slipped in boggy patches, stumbled over tree roots, and snagged her skirts on thorny bushes. “Tangles and toadstones!” she muttered over and over.
A rickety bridge, made of reeds strung between lengths of rope, crossed over the stream. The span swayed, although no breeze stirred, and pieces of dried reed were sloughing off into the water. Grayling studied the bridge, the stream, and the terrain and shook her head. “We must cross to the other side to discover the grimoire’s song again and return to the road west,” she said, “but I misdoubt this creaky bridge can hold us.” She threw some rocks onto the bridge to test for sturdiness and poked it with a tree branch. It shed more reeds but held.
Pansy shoved her aside. “Such dilly-dally! Bands of ruffians could be close after us. Let me by.” She took a careful step onto the bridge, then another. It crackled and swayed but held. Another step, another step. She looked back, grinned, and called, “’Tis sturdy eno—”
And with that, the bridge crumbled and dumped her in the water.
“Figs and fennel seeds,” Grayling muttered. “This Pansy be more troublous than a stew pot full of snakes!” Taking Auld Nancy’s broom, she scrambled down the bank to the stream.
She waded in near up to her knees and stretched the broom out to Pansy, who was floundering in the water, but instead of pulling Pansy out, Grayling found herself pulled in. She bounced and tumbled in the fast-running stream, while Auld Nancy scrambled alongside, calling, “Come back! Come back now!”
I would if I could, you foolish old woman, thought Grayling. After I pushed Pansy to the very bottom! Holding tight to Auld Nancy’s broom, Grayling bumped on rocks, scraped on boulders, and tangled with tree branches as she was swept downstream. Swallowed water spewed from her mouth and her nose. Sodden skirts ensnarled her legs as she was thrown hither and thither through the surging stream.