Shale dove out of the knife’s path. It stuck into the tree right beside its twin as she somersaulted away. She popped up and flung a handful of seeds at Pelias, shouting a word Calvin didn’t understand.

  The seeds glowed, scattered to the ground around Pelias’s feet, and sprang into a mess of vines. The vines nearest Pelias groped for him, wrapping around his ankles and wrists.

  They didn’t hold him for long. He twisted out of their grasp with impossible nimbleness and gave Shale an amused smirk. “You think I haven’t seen such magic before?” He readied another knife.

  Shale ducked behind a tree and whipped out her bow. Pelias’s knife whizzed past her, barely missing. She peeked out from the tree and loosed an arrow. Pelias hissed in pain and clutched his wrist. Her arrow was stuck in his throwing hand.

  “Bob! Martin!” he called. “Get out here!” He dropped to the ground to avoid Shale’s next arrow, which thunked harmlessly into a bush.

  Shale hesitated for a moment. Calvin tried to rock, to roll over, to ward her away, but his body wouldn’t budge. “Run!” he wheezed. Still, Shale seemed uncertain.

  Her hesitation gave Pelias time to get back up and draw his sword with his offhand. At the same time, Bob and Martin arrived with their own swords drawn.

  “She knows of the negotiators,” Pelias said, pointing his sword at Shale. “Don’t let her escape.” The two of them started after Shale with immediate obedience, bloodlust flashing in their eyes. Shale, finally coming to her senses, turned and bolted toward town, but her pursuers were faster. Bob headed her off, blocking her way, and Martin slashed the back of her leg. She screamed and collapsed.

  Calvin closed his eyes in despair. They would kill her now, and he could do nothing to stop them. Even if he could tell them to stop, they wouldn’t listen. They’ll probably kill me next, he thought.

  “Aaaaaarg!” Heavy feet pounded against the forest floor. Metal clanged against metal. A strange word rang through the air, and Pelias yelled in pain.

  Something’s changed. Calvin rallied his willpower and forced his eyes open again. Arg and Julius were clashing with Bob and Martin. Dorothy was at Shale’s side, helping her to her feet. Pelias was on the ground again, clutching his wrist. The wound had healed around the arrow in his hand, leaving a scar where the flesh had broken.

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  “Aim for their stomachs!” Shale said. “That’s where the evil is!” She reached for her bow, but Dorothy stopped her so she could finish attending to her injured leg.

  Julius plunged his sword into Martin’s gut. Martin sputtered. Julius jerked his sword free, and Martin fell. Instead of blood, snakes poured from the wound. The very same serpents that had “negotiated” Martin into Tikray’s service abandoned him now, spilling to the forest floor and slithering up Julius’s sword, trying to get to the knight.

  Pelias shouted, “Don’t let them in your—” he froze, unable to finish his warning. He groaned with pain. Julius batted the snakes off of his limbs, but they kept coming. Arg split Bob’s gut with a slash from his axe, and a bigger wave of snakes burst from his wound. Some of them went straight for Arg, but others turned to attack Dorothy and Shale. The snakes slithered up their legs and weapons. The mercenaries brushed them away, but they kept coming.

  A sneaky one made it up Arg’s back and into his mouth. Arg sputtered, then bit down, chomping the snake in two. He coughed up the head and said, “They aim to enslave us! Don’t allow them inside!” With that, he began slashing at the snakes with his huge axe.

  Once the mercenaries started fighting the snakes instead of just warding them off, the ordeal drew quickly to a close. There were a few more close calls, but each ended with the snake bitten in two and coughed up. Within a minute, the snakes were defeated. Some fled, but most lay in pieces on the ground. Julius wiped his brow and leaned on his sword. Dorothy sank to the ground, shaking. Shale patted her back, her own face a mask of forced calm. Arg was exhilarated. “Who would have expected such a foe? It makes me start to believe the idea that size may be irrelevant, after all.”

  “What do we do about these guys?” Julius asked.

  Martin and Bob still lay on the ground where they’d fallen. Their wounds had begun to bleed profusely, but they hadn’t so much as twitched a finger. Their faces were pale from blood loss and frozen in expressions of fear and pain. Pelias was in a similar state where he’d fallen.

  Dorothy immediately went to Martin and put a hand on his side. She muttered something, and a white glow gathered at her hand and spread over his wound.

  “Hang on,” Shale said. “He would have killed us if he could, even without those snakes.”

  “Tie him up, then,” Dorothy said. “We were fighting the snakes, not him.”

  Shale hurried to get some rope. Julius shrugged and bent to heal Bob, too. The wounds closed. The two former cultists were still paralyzed, but the mercenaries tied them up anyway.

  Seeing Bob and Martin healed lifted a degree of anxiety from Calvin’s mind, letting him relax enough to gather a little more willpower. It was just enough to groan, “Oil.” Another spike of pain shot through his gut, and he twisted against it.

  Shale snapped her eyes onto him. “Now you want it?”

  The pain was too much for him to respond. He squeezed his eyes shut, then did his best to pull his lips back. His jaw was locked, but he hoped that wouldn’t stop Shale. Something clicked against his teeth, and a warm, thick, foul fluid poured into his mouth. It flowed along his gums and found its way behind his molars. Its horrible taste hit his tongue, making him want to gag, but even those muscles weren’t working. The stuff crept down his throat for what felt like hours. Then it hit his stomach, and he retched.