CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The belt's magic was strained, but not broken. Rather than shooting toward the sky, they dropped, jerked level, and then started to gently descend to the ground.

Sanval hung straight down from his collar, where Ivy held him in a tight grip, his body rigid, his arms and legs pointing hopefully toward the earth, his face a frozen blank. He made a slight choking sound, and Ivy tried to shift her grip so she would not strangle him before they hit the ground.

Zuzzara had let out a single huge bellow when they leaped off the wall. Ivy looked down at the half-orc, dangling from her white-knuckled grip on Ivy's heavy weapons belt. Beads of perspiration popped out on the half-orc's forehead. Zuzzara was as pale as Ivy had ever seen her. Suspended with Zuzzara's arm around her waist, Gunderal looked like some pretty bird, her body perpendicular to the ground, her arms stretched out like wings, her hair and skirts fluttering around her. She seemed to be shaking with soft laughter.

Ivy looked past them to the two hanging on her legs. Mumchance was staring at the ground, or was that his good eye that he had squeezed closed? Wiggles was a lump in his pocket, not even an ear sticking up over the edge. Kid clung to her other leg, and it did not surprise Ivy to see him look up at her, wink, then grin at the floating Gunderal.

They sank slowly, spiraling down in an odd zigzag pattern, and then they all hit the ground in a tumble of legs and arms.

"Oooh," Gunderal moaned, flattened beneath her big sister.

"Sorry," Zuzzara said, rolling off her onto all fours. She pushed herself upright and pulled her little sister into a standing position.

"It's all right," said Gunderal. She smoothed down the front of her skirt and ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face. Her blue-black curls fluffed obediently into perfect ringlets, with highlighted streaks of blue and aquamarine framing her pearly features. "Good fighting up there, big sister."

Zuzzara shrugged. "It's what I do best!" Imitating Gunderal, she straightened her waistcoat and shook her head so that her many braids swung out, the iron beads clattered, and the braids fell neatly into place. She smiled weakly and wiped the perspiration from her face with her hand. "Give me a hundred hobgoblins every day, as long as I never have to fly."

"No, it was wonderful," Gunderal said with a little laugh. "I must get a new spellbook-one with flying spells in it."

"How could you like that? You are water genasi, not air genasi!" said a surprised Zuzzara.

"Oh, you remember daddy. He always leaped before he looked. I must have inherited a love of flying from him," replied the little sister.

"Shut up and grab me!" Ivy shouted, as everyone released his or her hold. What was the stupid spell to make the belt stop, she wondered, as she once more began to drift skyward.

"Twist twice to the right and then open it, my dear," Kid called, grabbing at her leg as she started to float up. A heavy, solid, most welcome weight of steady Procampur hands fell on her shoulders, pushing her back down until her feet touched ground. Ivy glanced around quickly while her fingers worked at the belt buckle.

Mumchance had been right about their location. They had landed at the southwest juncture of Tsurlagol's walls-the very point that the Siegebreakers had originally identified as a weak spot. Above them Fottergrim was screaming at a bunch of barbarian archers, driving them into place along the shattered edge of the wall. Across a field were Procampur's forces, obviously readying themselves for a charge against the same wall.

"I know it hasn't been two days," grumbled Ivy as she twisted the clasp of the belt. "Twice to the right, then open. Twice to the right, then open. Ah, blast. If I wanted to be a bird, I would have grown wings."

Only Sanval's strong grip on her shoulder and Kid's firm clasp on her thigh were keeping her on the ground. The stupid belt was tugging her toward the sky again. She fumbled the buckle and wondered exactly how high she would go without a ceiling to stop her, if their grip slipped.

"Breathe," whispered Sanval in her ear. "You have won. You have saved us all. Do not panic now."

She rather suspected he used the same murmuring voice to calm his horses, but it worked. Her heart rate slowed, her own hands stopped fumbling at the clasp. She grasped the belt buckle ornament firmly, her fingers tightening on the little silver wings of the serpent, and the ancient metal crumbled under her hand. The narrow red belt slipped from around her waist and shot up into the clouds with a little whistling noise, rather like a child's jeer at adult authority.

The barbarian archers on the wall saw it, their heads turning and tilting back in unison to track the red whip of belt. They all knelt to a firing position, one knee down, and lifted their crossbows. Their arms snapped back to grab bolts from the quivers strapped between their shoulder blades, and with the speed of a blink, they filled the sky with bolts. Perhaps they thought the belt was some wily mercenary trick, meant to magically bring down the wall. The archers followed the belt's path with flying bolts until it rose beyond their reach and disappeared into the sky.

"Good riddance," panted Ivy, who could feel a whole new set of bruises around her waist where the pull of the belt had crushed her chain mail against her. The cavalry across the field was obviously getting into formation. Banners were raised, snapping in the wind. She could hear the faint echoes of the big war drums being pounded, so the various leaders of the horse-mounted troops would know their position. "What is Enguerrand trying to do? He can't be charging the gate on this side. That won't work. I told him that wouldn't work."

She glared at Sanval, as though expecting an explanation. He stared at the Procampur cavalry through narrowed eyes. "I do not think that he has an extra plan in his back pocket," worried Sanval.

"Look," Kid whispered, and Ivy felt his hand brush her elbow. Turning to see where Kid pointed, she saw the giant Nalfeshnee do a crash landing, its wings beating. It rolled in a furry tumble with the two bugbears.

"Any moment now, my dear," Kid added.

While they watched, the giant demon disappeared. There was no puff of smoke, no shooting sparks, just all at once gone.

"What happened?" Ivy asked.

"Very short term spell, my dear," Kid said. "Another few moments and he would have changed while still in the air."

"Let me guess. Another artifact that he stole from Toram."

"Oh yes," said Kid. "I rather hoped that he would crash."

"But we all would have missed him so much. He kept our day so exciting," Ivy said, looking at the magelord running around the field, gathering up his fallen belongings. "All right, come on. We'd better see what he's up to."

Back in his human form-a tall bony creature with dirty yellow hair sticking to his neck, his robes torn and pulled askew-the magelord strode toward the wall, then stood a short distance away from it. He hunched his shoulders, and Ivy could see him raise his arms, hands together. The high-pitched crying began again.

"Thought we'd heard the last of that," Zuzzara complained.

"You wish," her sister said.

The Moaning Diamond cradled in Archlis's hands increased its eerie noise. It attracted the attention of Fottergrim's archers on the wall above them. A multitude of faces turned from scanning the skies after the belt's surprising flight to searching the ground below. They lowered their bows and held their hands above their eyes to shade them as they looked down and tried to locate the source of the sound.

A cry of "Archlis! Archlis!" went up. It was not a happy sound, more like the scream of a cage full of enraged tigers. A bloody and bruised Fottergrim could clearly be seen peering down.