out, then turned to help Rosa, her heart pounding and her nerves on fire. Her breath burned in her lungs and somehow flooded her with electric energy. If only she knew what to do with it!
Rosa was fighting for her life. The Blood Witch hadn’t marked her yet, but the thing’s speed was incredible, and it was clear that it was all Rosa could do to keep the knife and the cleaver from connecting. It was concentrating on Rosa as the truly dangerous one, however, and didn’t sense Giselle charging it from behind until Giselle struck it in the back with her ax. She managed to hit it at the top of the thing’s humped back, between where the shoulder blades should have been.
The ax bit for a moment, and stuck, and the Blood Witch screamed. It was a sound so piercing, so painful, that Giselle fell helplessly to her knees, clapping both hands over her ears.
The Blood Witch whirled furiously to meet the new attack, only to have to turn back to face Rosa again as the Earth Master resumed her attack. Giselle staggered to her feet and looked for another weapon, as the Blood Witch redoubled her blows on Rosa, driving her back, and back and back—
Now she panicked. Rosa couldn’t bear up under that punishment for much longer! Something! Anything! I have to—
“RED CLOAK!”
Before the Blood Witch could beat past Rosa’s defenses, a deafening howl of rage and outrage shattered the night. The Blood Witch turned again, and Giselle felt herself shoved to one side as Pieter charged past her, his other hand outstretched to seize the monster.
The Blood Witch howled in response, and leapt to meet his charge, Giselle’s ax falling off its back as the monster jumped.
She landed on Pieter’s face, more like some kind of hideous insect than ever, and clung there, hacking away at his eyes with her cleaver. Pieter cried out. In anger? In pain?
Rosa threw her ax.
Giselle watched it fly, shining in the light from the cottage windows. It spun through the air, lazily turning over and over three times. And then it hit the Blood Witch squarely in the back, right in the same place that Giselle’s woodcutting ax had cut it open. Giselle prayed it would at least slow the monster down.
But this weapon nearly split the Blood Witch in two when it hit.
The Blood Witch screamed again, and this time both of them, all the children in the cages, and the girl who had been feeding them, clapped their hands to their ears and dropped to the ground from the pain. It felt as if someone was driving red-hot needles into her brain!
Only Pieter stayed erect. And he pulled the Blood Witch from his face with both hands, threw her to the ground, and stomped on her. There was a terrible crunching sound. The screaming stopped abruptly. And in the silence that followed, Pieter rumbled something unintelligible. But it sounded very, very angry.
Giselle sat up, slowly. Is Pieter all right? That thing was trying to dig out his eyes!
Then Pieter allayed her fears as he spoke up. He peered anxiously at both of them, and shuffled toward Rosa. “Is Red Cloak all right? Is Yellow-hair all right?”
Rosa got up first and staggered toward him. He held out his massive hands, and she embraced him. “Oh Pieter!” she cried. “You did it, Pieter. You were wonderful! You got here just in time. You saved the life of at least one of these children. And very probably mine as well.”
Both Pieter and Rosa were so engrossed in each other that neither of them was paying attention to what was left of the Blood Witch. But just as Giselle stood up and started toward them, she caught motion out of the corner of her eye.
The Blood Witch was pulling itself erect, broken limbs snapping back into place, split body pulling back together again.
Giselle shrieked at the top of her lungs and pointed, and Pieter whirled, faster than she would have ever believed possible for a creature of his bulk, and grabbed the reforming Blood Witch in both hands.
It screamed shrilly, and writhed in his grip, clawing at his massive hands, scrabbling for his face with its long arms.
“The oven!” Rosa cried. “Pieter, the oven!” She ran over to the oven, knocked the red-hot latch open with a piece of firewood, and the doors swung apart, showing the interior, so blindingly hot that Giselle winced and looked away. That was when she