Then something narrow and bright flew past my head. I heard a thud of impact as I dove to the ground. With a flutter of wings, the bird changed course, veering up to the treetops.
I glanced up. A huge sword was sticking out of a tree, vibrating like a plucked guitar string. Who had thrown a sword?
“Would you pull that out?” came a familiar voice from behind me. “I want to kill the evil bird.”
I whipped my head around to see my sister-in-law, Gnoflwhogir, large as life and twice as green. She was balancing awkwardly on one leg and looking very grumpy aboutit.
“I’d do it myself,” she continued, “but these annoying boots would carry me away. What have you done with your hair?”
My brain was beginning to catch up with the situation. I finally recognized the distinctive magic boots she was strugglingnot to use by accident. A single step would send her far into the distance. I couldn’t remember the last time my stepmother had let someone borrow the seven-league boots.
“How did you get here?” I asked. “How did you find me?”
“A cranky magic mirror told me. But the sword? Now? Because the evil bird is—”
She broke off, her gaze flicking upward as Angelique shot toward her like a stooping hawk. Gnoflwhogir cursed, shifted her weight, and hammered her fist forward. It connected with an audible crack against Angelique’s head. The bird tumbled into the underbrush.
“Sword!” Gnoflwhogir shouted, turning her eyes back tome.
I rose to my feet and tugged on the hilt. The blade was stuck fast in the tree.
“That’s not a bird, by the way.” I braced my foot against the trunk and pulled harder.
“It looks like a bird.”
“She’s a sorceress. She can probably look like whatever she wants.”
“Oh.” A pensive look crossed her face. She fingered her necklace of left ears fretfully. “I should have brought my witch-slaying axe.”
A familiar hissing growl came from the woods around us. A few of the young furred snakes poked their heads out of the underbrush. They flared their hoods at us, and feathery spines rose from their bodies like the fluffed-out fur of an angry cat. They must have been small enough to escape their cage and weave their way through my hair. A disquieting thought.
Gnoflwhogir turned sharply to see what was making the noise. She nearly lost her balance, windmilling her arms in a desperate attempt to keep from toppling over. I wrenched her claymore free at last and tossed it to her as soon as she stopped wobbling.
“These snake things,” she said, snatching her weapon out of the air, “do they die if you stab them?”
“Probably.” More of them slithered into view. I retreated as rapidly as I could without tripping on my own hair. “But there are an awful lot of them, and a single bite might be deadly.” Were the juveniles as dangerous as the adults? I wasn’t eager to find out. Out of the combined venoms of a cobra, a devil firefish, and a platypus, one would probably kill us even if the others didn’t.
Gnoflwhogir bared her teeth in a grimace. She swung her huge claymore as easily as someone else might brandish a knife. With a quick shift of her weight, she settled into as good a fighting stance as she could manage on one leg. I scurried behind her since it seemed like the safest place to be. Somewhere deeper in the woods, I was sure, Angelique was watching.
“I will fight you, enemy snakes!” Gnoflwhogir shouted. “You are many and I cannot move, so horrible death shall be our fate! But I will do battle with you nonetheless!”
Dozens of them darted closer, surprisingly fast. She chopped at one and then another. Her claymore blurred into a streak of bright metal. In moments, half of the monsters had been bisected, strange blue-green blood leaking onto the ground. But there were simply too many. Only one had to find an opening. And as she slashed at a serpent to her right, one on her left struck to kill, lunging at her exposed ankle.
Its fangs snapped closed on air when a dragon caught Gnoflwhogir in its claws and yanked her up and out of the way.
“Light them up!” Jonquil shouted from her seat on the dragon’s back. It bent its sinuous neck into the shape of a question mark and disgorged a burst of flame. The fire scorched bark and leaves and fur, and it left the snakes dead or fleeing in its wake.
Behind Jonquil sat Calla, and behind Calla sat Liam, clinging to his wife and looking rather airsick.
My family had come.
“The snakes aren’t the worst threat!” I yelled. “There’s an evil killer bird!”
I gestured toward where I had last seen Angelique. Jonquil obligingly turned her dragon’s head in that direction and sent another stream of fire into the trees. There was a startled squawk, and something dark fluttered up and out of sight.
“Here!” Jonquil flew the dragon low to the ground and reached out a hand. “Hop on!”
I grabbed hold and swung myself up as they passed. Calla shifted to let me on and took a firm hold around my waist. “Get us out of here!” I said.
