“But I want to!” Blade insisted. He was dying to pretend to be the Dark Lord.
“Oh, curses!” shrieked Kit as the dogs all shook themselves normal again.
Scales was lying up against the dome of the camp, as he had taken to doing, to make sure the soldiers behaved themselves. He was watching Kit’s efforts as sarcastically as the geese were. “If I may make a suggestion?” he boomed.
“What?” snapped Kit.
“These game-playing Pilgrims are going to see very little in the dark,” Scales pointed out. “You are black. You propose to turn the yellow cat-bird black, and you have a winged horse that is black. The other flying horse, though tiny, has wings that look like the ribs of a skeleton. All you really need to do is make the rider of the black horse black—”
“That’s me,” Shona put in.
“—then you put yourselves in the air in front and bring the dogs along as they are to make a noise,” Scales continued. “I assure you this will be enough. The cows are far too slow to keep up.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Kit admitted.
“But what about me?” said Blade.
“I require you to stay here,” said Scales.
Somehow there was no arguing with that. Blade had to watch, bitterly disappointed and furious with Shona for hogging the post of Dark Lord, while two black griffins with fiery eyes—Kit did not think Scales should have things all his own way—and a horned rider mounted on a winged horse all flew slowly away northward accompanied by a posse of excited dogs and one wildly skittish flying foal. As soon as Kit was a mile or so away, the black horned monsters he had left in the camp melted into the Friendly Cows again.
“Why do you want me here?” Blade said sullenly to Scales.
“One of you needs to be properly rested in case of trouble,” Scales pointed out. “You are the most useful, because you can translocate.”
It made perfect sense, but it did not prevent Blade from feeling like Cinderella—or worse, Lydda. “What did you do with the soldier you crunched?” he asked resentfully. “Eat him?”
“What soldier—? Oh, I remember,” Scales answered. “No, that was an illusion. I do not care much for the taste of human.”
“Huh!” said Blade. Scales had an answer for everything. Blade hunched down by the camp fire, intending to sulk, but the sulk quickly passed into staring at flames and the staring passed into sleep, almost in no time. Blade slept for three hours or more, until he was woken by the return of the Hunt, the dogs weary but exultant, Beauty and Pretty with foam under their wings, and the rest very cheerful indeed.
“Hey, that was fun!” Don said, plumping down by the fire. “They didn’t half run!”
“Marvelous!” Shona laughed. “I want to make a song about it.”
“Me, too,” said Kit, mantling hugely in the shadows beyond Beauty. “A war song!”
Blade was somehow the one who had to rub Beauty down and try to get a rug onto Pretty. Glumly he handed out rewards to panting dogs and put down water, feeling more than ever like Cinderella.
“You can go tomorrow, Blade,” Shona told him generously.
“Thanks a bunch!” said Blade.
But when he saw how tired everyone was the next day, he had to admit—grudgingly—that Scales might have been right. The dogs groaned and limped. Pretty hung his head and refused to eat. “Been too silly last night,” he told Blade. Shona was saddle-sore, and even Don was rather stiff. Blade would have felt more sympathetic if they had not all still been so cheerful. Kit might grunt every time he moved his wings, but his eyes gleamed and his crest was up cockily as he strutted over to open the camp when Scales got the soldiers walking again. “MOVE, SCUM! MARCH!”
Scales must have spiked the drink in those barrels to keep the soldiers quiet. They came out of their camp gray-faced and shambling, all with the most evident hangovers.
Shona laughed heartily. “It’s nice to see so many people looking worse than I feel!”
Blade disagreed. He could feel the soldiers hating everything, the marching, Scales and Kit for making them march, this world, the people who had sent them to this world—everything and everyone. They were ready to murder someone for it. It made Blade nervous. He rode along braced for trouble.
So it happened that Blade was the well-rested and alert one who responded at once when, about the middle of the morning, there came a loud, rhythmic banging from a clump of trees over to the left of their march.
He kicked Nancy Cobber and set off to investigate as soon as he heard it. Don only responded when Scales bellowed, “Go and see what the trouble is!” By the time Don’s rather stiff loping brought him up to Nancy Cobber, Blade was halfway to the trees, and there was shouting coming from there, as well as banging.
“Some kind of fight?” Don panted.
Blade had his mouth open to agree when an obviously terrified small pony with a large basket strapped to its back burst out from among the trees and careered toward the marching soldiers. It saw Scales. It screamed. It tried to stop and turn but lurched and unbalanced the basket on its back. The next second it was down, rolling and kicking, frantically fighting its way out of the straps that held the basket. Blade and Don broke into a gallop. But long before they could get close enough to help, the pony kicked itself free, struggled to its feet, and went racing away southward. Blade and Don were left staring at the basket, lying in the grass, spilling gold cups, caskets, plates, bracelets, coronets, and necklaces. Every object was most beautifully made, and most were studded with precious stones.