we’re not cut out to be tavern-owners. Not that you don’t make a fine barmaid.”
“I’ve had the same thought, myself.” She trudged forward through the snow, her thoughts churning. Did she really miss the adventure, the constant danger, the impossible perils piled one upon the next? She couldn’t deny just how quickly she had shed her barmaid’s identity to take up once again the mantle of Beer-Sheba, and without even the promise of recompense! “Oh, my gods!” she muttered. “I’m working for free!” She glanced behind at Bud for reassurance. “Does that make me a bad mercenary?”
Bud wasn’t listening. The dwarf stood some paces back, staring back toward the way they had come. “I hear them!” he whispered fearfully when she called his name again. “They’re chasing us!”
Beer-Sheba stared back along the road, toward the bridge and the field beyond, back toward the Gravelot estate, now invisible in the distance. She saw nothing at all. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “There’s nothing there! Nothing’s following us!” Yet, Bud’s fear proved contagious. Beer-Sheba drew her sword and clutched Bud’s shoulder.
Then, in the instant her bare hand made contact with the dwarf, she saw. “Rabid weasels!”
Her heart pounded and her breath caught in her throat. Terrible chittering and gnawing rodents racing to overtake them. And so big! Giants in the field! Soon they would be over the bridge and the frozen creek! Beer-Sheba could almost smell their rabid stench! Dropping her sword, she cowered behind poor Bud.
In that moment, her hand slipped from his shoulder. The rabid weasels vanished. “What the . . . !” she exclaimed as she reclaimed her sword and leaped to her feet again. As far as she could see, no rabid weasels, no trolls, no threat of any kind.
She touched Bud once again on the top of his head, and there they were in their entire slavering monstrosity. She jerked her hand away at once. Beer-Sheba thought hard, and then sheathed her sword. “Bud!” she said. “Bud, do you trust me?”
The dwarf licked his lips and wiped a hand over his ice-crusted beard. “I think so,” he rasped. “Yes! Yes, of course I trust you!”
Beer-Sheba put both her hands on her companion’s head. Immediately, she saw the weasels and felt the same chilling grip of terror. “Then look at them, Bud. Look long and hard, and don’t turn your eyes away. Don’t flinch! Just look!”
“I—I can’t!” he cried.
“Do it, Bud! Trust me!” Beer-Sheba gripped his head and forced him to look. At first, he tried to break away, but she held him fast. Bud shivered, but he stopped fighting and looked as directed. The weasels were nearly upon them. Beer-Sheba could hear their claws on the snow, hear their gnashing teeth, and feel their cold spittle upon her skin. Yet, she didn’t flinch, didn’t give in to the fear. She stared through Bud, and he stared with her.
They both saw another shape take form, an intangible face floating in the sheets of snowfall above the rabid weasels, guiding them—commanding them.
“There’s nothing there, Bud,” Beer-Sheba whispered in Bud’s ear. “It’s a spell—an illusion. There’s nothing there!”
Breaking contact with Bud, Beer-Sheba rose to stand, and Bud also got shakily to his feet. With a loud, angry roar, he flung first one mug and then the other in the direction of the non-existent rabid weasels. “Did you see?” Beer-Sheba asked quietly.
Bud scowled. “I saw!”
They took off through the snow back the way they had come. Beer-Sheba outpaced her dwarf companion, yet she knew he would have her back when it mattered. Back across the bridge she ran, leaping the corpse of the snow-troll, charging back across the field and up to the gates of the Gravelot estate.
The Lady Gravelot waited in the doorway, dark eyes glimmering, hair blowing wildly.
Beer-Sheba drew her sword. “I suspected you were a lot of things,” she shouted, “but witch wasn’t one of them.”
“You have no idea what I am!” Lady Gravelot called back, her face a mask of raw anger. “Or what I can do!”
Beer-Sheba advanced. Gravelot had much to answer for. “Your rabid weasels won’t work anymore. They’re not real! They never were anything more than constructs of your own tortured mind!”
“I have other spells!” Gravelot answered. She made a sweeping gesture. Some glittering substance scattered from her palm and fell upon the snow.
Beer-Sheba smirked. She had seen this bit of magic before performed with dragon’s teeth or wizard dust or whatever. She raised her sword and prepared for an army of