Page 62 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“I didn’t mean you and I split up, oaf.”

Ilianora roused to alarm earliest. “Perhaps it’s a sign we should ditch the Clock and take the book; we can move faster on our own.” The Lion flashed her a warning look; however dizzy this Wren, they oughtn’t reveal to her that they had any books. But it was too late now.

“If you got the singular volume they’re after, pity upon you,” said the Wren. “Grayce Graeling thought you might. But the longer you sit here and mull it over, the easier a job to round you up. Those horsemen on their way are all done up in silver plate, bright as icicles, armed with saw-ribbed swords and quivers of skilligant arrows.”

The dwarf had heard enough. “On we go, then. When you return to that Bird Woman, tell her we thanked her for the warning.”

“There ain’t a whole lot of he

r left to thank,” said the Wren. “Ozspeed, you little egglings. Wind under your wings and all that. I’ll sing out to alert what remains of the Conference of the Birds that I saw you safe, once upon a time, and I left you safe. What happens next belongs to your decisions, and to luck. Is that girl who I guesses she is?”

“Don’t go,” said Rain. Brrr and Ilianora looked at each other. Even in the face of mortal danger parents are attentive to the smallest improvements in the capacities of their children.

“I’ll sing you cover best I can,” said the Wren kindly. “If you’re looking for Liir, he’s well hid. But what a sight for sore eyes you’d provide him, on some happy day! Meanwhile, I’ve done me best, and now you do yours.”

II.

Having finally been roused to worry, they made up for lost time. “We’re history,” said Little Daffy. “Even without the Clock, we can’t move faster than soldiers on horseback. Not with a child.”

“I can run faster than you can,” said Rain.

“I know. We’re both three feet tall but I’m two feet stout.”

“We’re not ditching the Clock,” said Mr. Boss. “That’s a nonstarter.”

They were hurrying along; their chatter was nervous chatter. “Why armor, at this time of year?” asked the Lion.

Little Daffy spoke up. “Against some sort of spell, hammered metal can afford a minimal protection. Or it can at least slow down a spell’s effectiveness.”

“You’re not a witch, except in the boudoir. Are you? You witch,” huffed her husband, almost admiringly.

“It’s no secret that some professional people can manage a bit of magic in their own line of work. Sister Doctor and I used to sew sheets of hammered tin into our clothes when we worked among the Yunamata, for instance. The mineral prophylactic. Only common sense.”

“Can you do us something useful? A pair of seven-league boots for each of us, to settle us more deeply into the safer mess of Quadling jungle?”

“I’ll need two pair,” said Brrr. “Though I’d also accept a seven-league settee.”

“Bring me an ingrown toenail and I’ll trim it without my sewing scissors,” huffed Little Daffy. “That’s about the size of what I can do, people. Anyway, even the most powerful enchanter doesn’t have the power to do anything he or she might want. Only certain things. No one can point a finger at a dozen horsemen and turn them, poof, into a dozen doughnuts. No one can, as a single campaign, magically remove the Emperor from his throne, nor bring Elphaba back from the dead. Magic powers are limited to start with, and more limited by the history and aptitudes of the person attempting a spell.”

“Look,” cried Rain. Brrr turned, aware that for once she was paying more attention than the rest of them.

Across the open meadows through which they were hurrying, they saw a clot of horsemen emerge from around a stand of larches, miles back. With a zealotry of spear and sawtooth sword. If the companions could see the horsemen, they could be seen too. It could be mere moments before the kettledrumming of horses at gallop.

“We’re lost,” cried the dwarf. “Brrr, take the girl onto your back; you can cover the ground faster.”

“Anything to get rid of her, eh?” roared the Lion. He turned once, three times, five in desperate circles. The cart turned with him. He was tempted by the moral acceptability of a personal escape for himself in the service of guarding a human girl—but then he set his pace forward again. “I’m not leaving the book to the Emperor,” he growled, “nor the rest of you to the Emperor’s spears.”

“We should fly,” cried Rain, “din’t the Wren say we should fly?”

“Now isn’t the time to discuss figurative language,” ventured Little Daffy, “not when our livers are about to be diced in situ.” She pulled herself up onto the Clock, where Rain and the dwarf were already riding.

Rain gave out as much of a curse as she could, given that her fund of vocabulary remained on the spare side. She crab-walked up the side of the Clock and put her foot upon one of the long wrought-iron hands on the time face. “I seen a real dragon that could fly. This one knows about it as good as I do,” she cried. Using the leathery flaps of the wings to scurry higher, she eventually thumped the dragon on its reticulated proboscis. “Fly, you stupid worm, and do the work you was made to do!”

Maybe she’d hit a secret lever or a magic nerve still potentially alert while the rest of the Clock remained paralyzed. The great wings shook. Browned leaves and the husks of forest insects dusted out upon them. The creak, when the sallowwood ribs attained their fullest extension, was like the snap of an umbrella when it catches. The batlike wingspan reached twenty-eight or thirty feet from tip to tip.

“Pretty, en’t it,” said the dwarf. “If they didn’t see us before, they’ll see us now. We’re a whole dragon-cloud on their horizon, soon as they look to their left.”

A cry of discovery. The avalanching sound of horses’ hooves. As Brrr strained to pull even harder, he noticed that the wind had swung round. It had been blowing from the north, bringing with it the cool of Gillikin summer farmland, but now from the west the wind picked up with a sudden, drier emphasis. As if it meant business.

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