The Salamander Spell (11 page)

With the destrier slowing them down, the knights didn’t go far before stopping to lay the first trap—just far enough that no one from the village could hear them. While some of the men dug a deep hole, others cut down branches and saplings, whittling the ends to make sharpened stakes. Once King Aldrid declared the hole deep enough, one man was lowered in to line the bottom with the stakes, angling them upward so they’d impale anything that fell in. When he was finished, they rode on to the next likely spot, leaving two more men behind to cover the hole and erase any sign of the trap.

“How do you know where to put them?” Grassina asked her father when they’d stopped once again.

“We dig the traps near the road where a werewolf might lie in wait for an unsuspecting traveler. Werewolves are stronger and faster than either men or wolves. They have the wolves’ fangs and a man’s intelligence, yet they avoid fair fights whenever possible. For all their nasty, brutish ways, werewolves are basically cowards. They hide from their prey where the wind will carry their scent away, sneaking up when they are sure to take them by surprise. Only stout locks and tall trees will keep them at bay, because they can neither manipulate locks with their paws nor climb higher than they can jump.”

Grassina shuddered as she peered into the deeper gloom of the forest. “What should I do if I see a werewolf ?”

“Just stay in the castle,” said her father. “It’s the only place you’ll be truly safe, especially if there are dragons around as well.”

Nine

G
rassina was still in bed the next morning when a buzzard smelling of its recent meal of rotting muskrat flew in through her window and dropped a note on her. “She was right,” said the bird as it landed on the sill. “Although why anyone would be in bed this late in the day is beyond me.”

Rolling over, Grassina blinked, then sat up with a start when she saw the filthy bird. The buzzard snickered at the frightened look in her eyes, clacking its beak in irritation when the note fluttered off Grassina and onto the floor.

“Don’t just sit there,” said the buzzard. “Pick it up and read it! Why do you think I’m here? She said you were slow as well as lazy and that I should lend you a wing if you needed it.” Extending a wing covered with dried blood and reeking bits of offal, the bird snickered again when Grassina retreated to the far side of the bed. “She said you’d be prissy. You might as well get the note though. I’m not leaving until you do.”

Keeping her distance from the bird, Grassina slipped out from under her covers and knelt on the floor, reaching under the bed for the wayward note. “Good,” said the buzzard. “It’s officially delivered, so I’m off. I’d read it right away if I were you. You don’t have much time since you’ve already slept away most of the morning.”

Grassina glanced out the window as one of the castle’s roosters crowed. The sun was just rising over the tops of the trees in the distance, and the first rays had yet to reach the cold stone walls. The buzzard flapped its wings and flew away, shedding a loose feather that drifted onto Grassina’s bed. She didn’t notice, however, because she was already trying to decipher her mother’s handwriting.

Grassina,

Get your lazy rump out of bed and go to your precious swamp. Find enough eggshells from just-hatched blackbirds to fill a washtub and bring them back to me before midnight tonight. If you fail to do this, go straight to the moat and make yourself comfortable, because I’ll be turning you into a slimy, loathsome snail.

Signed,
Queen Olivene (your mother)

P.S. Have Cook bring me some rotten grapes, stale bread, and a flagon of brackish water. Yesterday’s breakfast was so good I can’t wait to taste it again.

“How am I supposed to do that?” Grassina muttered, thinking about the size of the washtubs she’d seen in the kitchen. The task was so daunting that she was tempted to give up before she’d even begun, but she couldn’t—not if she didn’t want to become a snail for who knew how long.

This time when Grassina sought out a scullery maid, she asked for the smallest washtub. Unfortunately, even the smallest tub was unwieldy when the princess tried to carry it herself. Grassina staggered under its weight as she lifted it with both arms and lugged it out of the castle and across the drawbridge. She had to set it down twice so she could rest before reaching the tree house, groaning each time she picked it up.

Grassina was setting the washtub down once again when she thought about Pippa. It had been days since she had last visited the little snake, but she’d been so busy, she hadn’t had a chance. Grassina bit her lip. She hadn’t taken Pippa any food in all that time either, and with the queen’s magic keeping the snake inside . . .

Something crunched under her feet as Grassina approached the ladder. Broken glass sparkled on the ground, some of it still in the shape of feathers. Worried, Grassina hurried to the ladder and began to climb, almost falling when a rung snapped beneath her foot. She gripped the ladder with white-knuckled hands, her heart racing. After that she tested each rung before putting her weight on it and was relieved when she reached the platform. Her relief gave way to dismay when she saw the cottage. Wasps buzzed through the open window. Branches from the supporting tree had broken, smashing through the roof and some of the platform boards.

“It’s like the castle,” murmured Grassina. “When Mother changed, she stopped caring about a lot of things. She must have let the maintenance spells lapse.” Stepping over the larger debris, she set her hand on the door, which was sagging so badly that she had to give it a hard shove to move it out of her way.

More shards of glass littered the floor inside, and the copper birds were gone. The fire was out in the fireplace, where even the ashes were cold.

“Pippa!” called Grassina. “Are you here?”

At first there was no reply, but then over the creaking of the tree’s branches and the angry complaint of the wasps, Grassina heard a faint, almost tentative tapping coming from the wooden trunk in the corner. Skirting a branch that protruded through the ceiling, she reached the trunk and lifted the lid. Hector’s eyes were wild when he whinnied to her, but Marniekins looked even worse. Her dress was disheveled, her wool hair a stiff corona around her head. The poor doll was so upset that she couldn’t stop wringing her hands.

“Oh, Princess, I’m glad you came!” exclaimed the doll. “There was a big storm and the wind shook our tree and there was crashing and banging and it was just awful!”

“Are you all right?” asked Grassina.

Marniekins nodded until Grassina feared that her head would come off. “We’re fine. We stayed in the trunk while your friend told us what was happening. Pippa was so nice! She talked to me after you left and told me about monkeys and bright-colored birds and scary lizards and all sorts of things. But then the storm came and everything changed and she left to get something to eat and never came back.”

Grassina frowned, wishing she had come sooner. “I hope she wasn’t hurt. She already had an injured tail.”

“She told us about that,” said Marniekins. “She told us about how she met you, too. Were you really a rabbit?”

“Yes,” said Grassina, scooping up the doll and tucking her in her sack. “And I’ll be something else if I don’t find the eggshells my mother wants. I’m taking you and Hector with me. You can’t stay here any longer.”

“Where are we going?”

“After I do something for my mother, I’ll have to hide you in the castle. Rag dolls and wooden horses don’t last long outside in bad weather.”

“But didn’t you take Pippa out of the castle because it wasn’t safe?”

Grassina nodded. “That’s true. But this time I don’t have any choice.”

As the swamp wasn’t far from the tree house, Grassina forced herself to carry the washtub without stopping once. She sighed when she finally set it down by a pond.

“This is a beautiful place,” Marniekins said, peeking out of Grassina’s leather sack. “But what kind of errand would your mother send you on that would bring you here?”

“I have to collect enough blackbird eggshells to fill this tub. If I don’t, she’ll turn me into a snail and I’ll have to live in the moat.”

“That’s so mean! I saw your mother only a few times, but she didn’t seem mean to me.”

“Mother wasn’t horrid until recently. A curse turned her nasty. Now she orders us around and makes us get her all sorts of strange things.”

“And if you don’t get them, she turns you into a snail?”

“Not always. She turned me into a turtle yesterday. And when I met Pippa, I was a rabbit, remember?” Grassina sighed. “I don’t know how I’ll ever find the eggshells, let alone enough to fill this tub, so I’ll probably be a snail before the day is out.”

A sound like muffled thunder made Grassina look up. An angry-looking cloud was forming over the trees to the north. As it grew, it seemed to writhe and churn, becoming darker and more ominous each moment. With a muffled shriek, Marniekins pulled her head into the sack and tugged it closed behind her.

When Grassina finally realized that the cloud was coming her way, there wasn’t time to reach shelter. She was looking up into the heart of the cloud when it started to break apart, raining bits of itself down on her. Crouching low to the ground, she covered her head with her arms, squeezed her eyes shut, and waited for whatever it was to strike. A roaring wind nearly knocked her over, carrying with it a pungent odor. The sound grew so loud, it was deafening, yet Grassina remained untouched. Warily opening her eyes, she was surprised to see blackbirds hurtling past, one after another, slowing long enough to drop something from their beaks into the washtub. Having decided that the birds weren’t coming after her, Grassina sat back on her heels to watch the cloud lessen and finally disperse. When the sky was clear once again, she peered into the washtub and was surprised to see that it was filled with bits of broken eggshells.

“The blackbirds brought me the eggshells I needed!” Grassina exclaimed. “I wonder who did this.” Turning her head from side to side, she tried to spot her mysterious benefactor. “Those birds wouldn’t have done it on their own. It’s just like when the toad jumped in the basket. Someone with magic must be doing this. A fairy perhaps . . . Maybe even the swamp fairy. Hello! Whoever you are—thank you for your help!”

When no one appeared, Grassina picked up the tub, staggering under its even greater weight. The way back seemed longer than the trip out had been, and she had to set the tub down five or six times before she had the castle in sight. Whatever magic had made the birds bring her their shells hadn’t made the tub or its contents any lighter.

Grassina had passed the practice field and could smell the fetid water of the moat when she heard a woman screaming. An anguished, wavering cry of loss and despair, the sound would have made her turn and run if it hadn’t been coming from the castle. Dropping the washtub with a loud thump, she ran toward the drawbridge. Her first thought was that the werewolves had somehow gotten past the defenses, but she couldn’t understand how it could have happened. The moat completely encircled the castle, and the drawbridge was always well guarded. Only something with wings could have gotten over the castle walls, and even then . . .

A piercing shriek made Grassina stumble and nearly fall. The sound dissolved into a wordless wail that clutched at her heart and brought involuntary tears to her eyes. She looked up when a woman wearing a long, white gown drifted through a tower window, wailing and tearing at her streaming white hair. The woman swooped low enough that Grassina could see her bloodred eyes and gaunt features. “Woe is me!” the woman wailed. “Death and destruction shall visit this castle before the day is out!”

As the woman flew off, heading north toward the enchanted forest, a feeling of absolute desolation swept over Grassina, leaving her feeling lonely and bereft. The guards on the battlements, the farmers delivering chickens, and the pages chucking stones into the moat were frozen in place as if the wail had the same power to render them as immobile as the frigid north wind.

When the cries of the woman had faded away, Grassina was once again able to move, although with a dragging step and a heart that ached with unnamed sorrow. The faces of the guards stationed by the drawbridge were pale, their expressions stricken. Grassina tried not to look at them too long, knowing that their faces mirrored her own and only made her sorrow harder to bear.