Page 55

In the Caverns of Mist two exhausted frogs squatted on the floor, eyeing one another balefully.

No matter how hard they tried, they had each failed repeatedly in their attempts to clamber back up the table to where the huge spellbook lay open.

The large, darker frog made one last attempt, only to flop gasping onto its back.

The spots on its pale belly were curiously shaped, almost like small stars and moons.

“This is all your fault,” Illusius said between gasps, flailing his webbed toes in the air.

“Nonsense,” Niniane snapped, hopping fretfully back and forth in short, nervous arcs.

Although human time meant little to a wizard’s apprentice, she was tired, her jumping muscles ached, and there was nothing to eat but a bug perched on a rock.

She’d die before she ate bugs! It took all her willpower to keep her long tongue coiled neatly in her mouth.

“Oh,” she said with a sigh, “how I do wish we’d been turned into something that could fly.

At least that way we could reach the table to read the spells and try to figure a way out of this fine mess you’ve gotten us into.

And my poor princess is in terrible danger.

” An idea came to her. “Illusius! See how that wand is tipped up at one end? If I got on the other side and you hopped on that end, you might be able to flip me up to the tabletop. Then I could hunt through the students’ handbook for a spell to free us. ”

The darker frog hopped over to the wand and examined it. “It might work. But how do I know you’ll keep your word? You might just change yourself back and leave me croak!”

Niniane rolled her big, bulgy eyes at him. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

He didn’t move, just waited with his toes splayed out. “Oh, very well. Hop on.”

Before Niniane had even reached the wand, a curious thing happened. A puff of sparkling smoke twinkled through the caverns. When it cleared, she found herself in daylight, floating in a river’s shallows on a lily pad. She was, to her intense disappointment, still a frog.

“What happened?” Illusius croaked beside her.

“I don’t have the froggiest…er, foggiest notion.” She hopped a few feet to the reedy bank and looked around. “But at least I know where we are—the rebel camp where Cador brought Tressalara last night. Let’s find her and see what she’s doing.”

Illusius was facing the opposite direction, across the riverbank “I already have, Niniane. And you’re not going to like it one ribbit! ”

“Who are you calling a pimple-faced boy?” Nidd shouted. How dare this newcomer try and make him a figure of fun before the others, especially Ulfin.

Tressalara had tried to ignore Nidd’s taunting earlier, but things had finally gone too far.

For the past two weeks he’d made her life miserable.

Today he’d managed to push her into the horse manure, making her spill her morning’s allotment of bread into it as well, and now he had splattered Cador’s saddle, which she had just cleaned and polished, with claylike mud.

If she didn’t stand up for herself now, he would, like all bullies, make her life hellish from dawn to dusk.

She stood with her hands on her hips. “If you have doubts, custard-face, look at your reflection in the river. Better yet, bathe in it. Saints know, it must have been long enough since your last washing, as anyone standing downwind of you can tell!”

She turned away with the laughter of the other young people ringing in her ears.

That should silence Nidd for a while. Instead, there was the unmistakable sound of a weapon sliding out of its sheath.

She whirled around like a cat and found Nidd mere paces away from her, with his rapier drawn. He lunged at her.

“Let us see how brave you are now, Sir Trev!”

She had only her jeweled dagger. Swallowing hard against the lump in her throat, she drew the weapon and switched to an alert, defensive posture.

“Not fair!” someone in the crowd cried. “A dagger is no match for a rapier blade.” The speaker, a sandy-haired older boy, took out his own weapon and tossed it to Tressalara. “This will equal the match.”

She hefted it and grinned. The balance was perfect, the blade strong and true. “A fine piece of the swordmaker’s art. I thank you for the loan of it.”

With a swish and a flourish she brandished it in the air. Nidd was too angry to recognize the skill evident in the way she handled the rapier. But the onlookers did, and they looked forward to an exciting test of arms. “Have at it, then!”

Tressalara waited for him to make the first move. Nidd thrust wildly, and she parried it with ease. He was briefly startled, then weighed in. Although she was well trained, with a quick eye and the reflexes of a cat, Nidd’s height and reach gave him a slight advantage.

What she lacked in strength or reach she made up for in wit and cunning. Tressalara danced away, darted beneath his thrust, and came up with her blade singing against his. A fast bit of footwork and she was out of reach again. “Catch me if you can!”

Time and again she evaded his rapier, laughing at his bewilderment.

She was proud of the way she handled the blade and hoped that Cador was watching.

It had become more and more important to her that she truly win his approval.

Whether the stories told of the wicked outlaw of Kildore were true or not, she had seen no villainy in him—and much to admire.

Perhaps too much, for as her thoughts slid to Cador, Nidd gained a slight advantage.

She turned her wits to the task at hand.

The angry youth bore in once more, pressing her sorely.

He thrust beneath her rapier, only to have his quarry slide her blade along his.

He charged in once more, in deadly earnest. By the saints, he’d make this upstart Trev sorry he’d ever set foot in camp!

It took only a few moments for Tressalara to realize that Nidd was not interested in merely besting her—he intended to do her serious harm.

Now that she appreciated the danger, she fought back with all the skill she’d learned from Jeday.

Her only hope of escaping injury was to let him see that she could hold her own—and more.

She led Nidd to give her the next opening, then darted through with a time-thrust, lightly nipping his arm.

It had taken great skill to nick him without going too deep, and for a tiny moment she was proud of her control.

Then Nidd staggered back, clapping his hand over his sleeve. The fabric was stained with a small spot of red from where she’d nicked him. How many times had Jeday told her that pride and anger had no place in such a duel? Tressalara lowered her rapier, remorse flowing through her.

“Let us cry friends, Nidd. Come, I will bind up your arm for you.”

The look he gave her should have been warning enough, but Tressalara didn’t see it.

As she stepped toward him, he stood mute, his complexion changing from red to white and back again.

To be shown up publicly by this scrawny boy filled him with unbearable shame.

The flurry of snickers from the onlookers was like a spear in the side of a maddened boar.

Red mist covered his vision. Nidd stood with his foil half raised, made as if to pull back, then lunged in, aiming for her heart.

A gasp went up from the crowd. Tressalara was caught off guard by his cowardly attack.

Although she reacted with all due speed, it was too late to fend off the blow entirely.

The tip of his rapier slit her sleeve and sliced a thin line of fiery pain up her arm toward the shoulder.

Fear and anger spurred her reflexes. As she was forcing his blade away, another flashed up between their crossed weapons, and her rapier went flying out of her numbed and tingling hand

“Enough!” Cador roared.

He stood before them like an avenging angel, broadsword raised and the morning sun creating a halo around his head.

There was nothing angelic about his face, though.

It was dark with fury. The princess had almost been killed in a brawl, and his wrath was so great it boiled up in his chest like lava.

He could scarcely contain it. Another instant and he might have lost her.

Tressalara might have been dead in a pool of blood, and the fault was his.

His heart thudded with the echo of fear, and with the first stirring of emotion he did not dare acknowledge.

The onlookers stepped back as one, and Nidd cringed. Tressalara stood her ground and lifted her chin defiantly. Violet lights blazed in her eyes, although her voice shook slightly. “I need no one to fight my battles for me, Cador!”

“And I need no quarreling pups to tear the loyalties of this camp asunder!”

She blanched, but he had already turned away to vent his anger on Nidd. “Nor do I need to count among my followers anyone so dastardly as first to attack an unarmed colleague and then follow it up with a coward’s treachery! Nidd, son of Hewel, you are hereby banished from this company!”

He gestured with his shoulder, and two burly men stepped forward, disarmed Nidd, and ordered him out of the camp. The others watched in utter silence. Not a one spoke up in his defense.

Cador faced Tressalara. “For all your slender build, you are a noteworthy swordsman. Your teacher was a master of the art.”

“Yes. Jed…” She caught herself before admitting that it was Jeday, King Varro’s captain, who had instructed her. “My brother Jed taught me well.”

Cador’s eyes narrowed. Yes, he thought he’d recognized Jeday’s techniques in the way she’d wielded that blade to parry Nidd’s near-fatal blow.

His heart had almost stopped when he’d seen it coming and known himself to be too far away to save her.

He imagined the repercussions to their cause if the Princess Tressalara was murdered while under his protection.