“Indeed.”
Slate heard a rustling in what looked like a blackberry thicket. She looked over into it, and something looked out at her and giggled.
She started to warn her companions and was seized with a sneezing fit so explosive that she thought the top of her head was going to come off. She put out a hand to thin air, as if to ward off the suddenly excruciating scent of rosemary, and Caliban put a handkerchief into it.
Where the heck is he keeping all these, anyway? I know I never give them back. And they’re always clean, too.
“Thanks, but—snrrk—something’s in the bushes. Magic.Ackchoo!”
“Hmm.”
Another giggle came, off to their left. Slate sneezed again.
“‘Ware the bushes,” said Caliban, as calmly as if shrubs laughed at him every day. He pulled his sword free.
Something flashed between the trees ahead, running low to the ground. It got ten feet and dropped with a squeal. A blade quivered upright in it.
Brenner drew another knife and nudged his horse forward.
The giggles were replaced with angry, squirrel-like chatters.
“Perhaps we should not antagonize them,” said Learned Edmund.
“Does killing them count as antagonizing them?” asked Brenner, holding up his quarry on the end of his knife. “And what the hell is this thing? It looks like I just knifed a turnip.”
They crowded the horses together in the center of the clearing. Learned Edmund peered down at the bulbous brown thing on Brenner’s blade. “I think it’s a mandrake root.”
“Do they often run around?”
“Never, as far as I know.”
“I think we want to go, guys,” said Grimehug worriedly. “Bad vegetables in the trees, now.”
Slate clutched the handkerchief to her raw nose and followed the gnole’s gaze.
Something that looked like a cross between a rat and a potato was clinging to a tree trunk at head height, chattering at them. It had a number of beady black eyes and two separate heads.
Another one skittered up a tree trunk as she watched, then another. Slate looked around, seeing the straight trunks grow lumpy boles as mandrake after mandrake scurried upward.
Brenner got back on his horse, sprawled awkwardly across its back for a moment, then managed to get upright. Learned Edmund tugged on the mules’ lead rope.
A pebble bounced off the back of Caliban’s head. He winced and ducked.
“They’re throwing rocks.Hurry.”
The next one took Brenner in the shoulder, and then a veritable rain of stones came showering down from the trees. The horses stamped, neighing furiously as pebbles stung their hindquarters.
“I can’t hold them!” yelled Learned Edmund, as the animals crowded him, a tangle of hooves and outrage.
“Then stop trying!” yelled Caliban back, and spurred his horse forward, trying to cover Slate.
They fled. It was not glorious. It could only be described as a complete rout. The mandrakes chased them, herding them with showers of stones. They did not dare strike back for the river. Every time they tried, rocks pelted down, and the horses bolted back for the safety of the woods.
When they ran out of rocks, they threw nuts. When they ran out of nuts, they threw owl pellets, and after that it was almost a relief when they went back to rocks again.
The mandrake roots appeared to have a particular loathing for Caliban and Brenner, pelting the men with so many stinging stones that they looked as if they’d been attacked by angry wasps. Slate and Learned Edmund came in for less abuse, and Grimehug got away almost unscathed.
“They’re herding us!” shouted Caliban.
