Baudi stiffened and immediately released her hold on me as she turned to look.
‘Get ready!’ I yelled towards the trees, addressing an invisible – and non-existent – cavalry. ‘Get ready to attack!’
‘There are more of you?’ She grinned, revealing pointed, yellowing teeth. ‘Marvellous!’ She lurched towards the trees, determined to catch more prey. It wouldn’t take her long to realise that she’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book.
If I tried to run away, I wouldn’t get far before she came after me. I had to reach the others and try to free them from their trance. If even one of them was fully conscious, we might get out of this situation unharmed.
I headed for Hugo first. Baudi was crashing around in the trees only metres away, so I knew I didn’t have long. I shook him hard and, when he didn’t react, I slapped his cheek. He still didn’t react. I conjured up a burst of water and threw it in his face but it didn’t do a damned thing: I couldn’t wake him.
There wasn’t time to haul his body out of the clearing – and anyway, I was already up to my ankles in gloopy mud. I hissedand grabbed Otis and Hester from his shoulders. That was the moment when Baudi careened out of the tree line and came for me again.
‘You thought you could fool me!’ She aimed a fist towards my head that I couldn’t dodge. It caught my cheekbone and sent a jolt of pain reverberating through my skull. As I reeled backwards, I dropped Otis and Hester who landed in the mud with a wet splat. The mud was like quicksand; they would be swallowed up within seconds.
Desperate to retrieve them, I scrabbled forward, pinched Otis’s legs and pulled him up. I hastily dropped him into the dubious safety of my pocket.
‘Look at me!’ Baudi screeched. ‘Look! At! Me!’ She aimed another blow and another, both of which connected with vicious, agonising pain. Yep, she was thoroughly kicking my arse.
I managed to scoop Hester up in the palm of my hand and felt her limbs stir beneath my fingers; perhaps the seconds she’d been trapped in the mud had knocked her out of her trance. I didn’t have time to check because Baudi smacked me hard on the back of my head and I collapsed once more into the quagmire.
I sensed rather than saw her body circling around mine. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
I didn’t answer, mostly because my mouth was full of mud. She hit me again. ‘I said what’s your name?’
I spat out the dirt. ‘Daisy.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘I live in Edinburgh but I’m originally from the north of England.’
‘Do you dye your hair that colour or is it natural?’
Eh? ‘It’s natural.’
‘If you could choose between fighting onehundred duck-sized elephants or one elephant-sized duck, which would you pick?’What? ‘Answer me!’
‘One elephant-sized duck,’ I said quickly.
‘You’re stupid,’ she muttered. ‘Why did you come here?’ She wasn’t pausing for breath but firing out questions like a skilled interrogator. And some of those questions were very strange indeed.
Before I could answer, Hester’s tiny body spasmed and she started to cough. Delight coursed through me. As I raised my head to look at her, my gaze snagged on Gladys propped up against a pile of wood only a few metres away. Ah-ha.
A half-baked plan started to form. Baudi was a will-o’-the-wisp who lived in the middle of nowhere. The last reports about her activities were from years ago, and she was clearly a creature who attacked first and asked questions later, so she probably didn’t know about the law that protected her in her habitat. She certainly didn’t know that I always tried to stick to that law, so all I needed to do was threaten her enough for her to release us. I simply needed to convince her that I was bigger, badder and scarier than she was – and Gladys could help me do that. So could my innate magic.
I spat out more mud, then reached inside myself and tugged on my power. I conjured up a vast, powerful spurt of air magic and angled it behind Gladys before releasing it and using the techniques I’d been working on with Slim.
It worked. Despite her hefty weight, Gladys was thrown forward until the tip of her blade scraped against my cheek. I grabbed her hilt with my free hand and hauled myself up, tossing out several more bursts of magic at the same time. None of them were aimed at Baudi because I didn’t want her to feel their effect, but I did want her to witness what I was capable of.
A heaving flash of earth magic rocked the ground and sent splatters of mud flying up into the night air. Water magiccrashed down on both sides of the wisp’s body and pooled by her feet. A ring of fire magic appeared in mid-air and surrounded the whole clearing with flickering flames.
‘I came here to kill you,’ I said, hoping she wouldn’t catch the lie. I kept my eyes fixed on a point over her shoulder so I couldn’t judge her expression.
When she started to laugh hysterically, it was clear what she was thinking. ‘Kill me? Killme?’ she spluttered. ‘You won’t be the first elf to come here and try that, and I hope you won’t be the last. I will keep you till last. You’ll be here for months and you can watch me kill your companions. You and I will be spending a lot of time together.’ She sounded pleased at the prospect; the one thing she didn’t sound was scared.
Hester coughed again and I gave her tiny body a reassuring squeeze before I swung Gladys menacingly in the air. The sword, helpful as ever, vibrated and hummed in response.
‘Your sword doesn’t scare me,’ Baudi said. She lunged forward in a blur of motion.
I steeled myself for the blow but the will-o’-the-wisp was cannier than I’d given her credit for. She feinted left so that I thought she was aiming for Hester. With a flash of fear, I altered my stance – and loosened my grip on Gladys. At the very last second, Baudi switched her attack: instead of trying to grab Hester, she knocked Gladys clean out of my hand.
