Chapter 67
CANNIBALS, CAST IRON SKILLETS, AND MUSIC MAKE FOR A RAMBUNCTIOUS EVENING
Bradley dove out of the way of the attacking toad and rolled back up onto his feet.
The amphibian immediately homed in on a closer target, striking after Dirk with its tongue.
The luck dragon swerved, the stone tongue sticking to the very same pedestal that had served as a perch to the toad.
It splintered in the toad’s jaws as if marble was as brittle as balsa wood, and it spat rubble to the ground.
“The hells with this!” The little dragon spun and blasted the toad across the workroom with a gust of wind from his tail.
Millie had just enough time to look up from her translation, snatch up Small Magicks, and throw herself out of the way before the desk shattered under the toad’s weight. It kicked web feet, digging gouges into the hardwood floor as it fought to right itself.
“You mistranslated this passage, Bradley!” She picked herself up off the floor and limped out of the way. “It’s not just any magical object you can feed the toad. It has to be enchanted, not cursed. Otherwise you get this.”
The toad sprang into the air, swiping after Dirk. “Feed.”
“Not today, bucko!” He evaded with an artful corkscrew that would’ve earned him an approving nod from Sir Roger, then manifested a wind that lobbed the toad into the sorcerous clutter.
“Anything in there on how to kill it?” Pocket demanded.
“Reading right now,” Millie said testily, which was quite a difficult task when she had to lift her eyes every three characters to make sure she didn’t need to run away from a murderous toad.
The pickpocket screamed and whacked the striking tongue aside with the cast iron skillet. The toad erupted from the clutter and pinned Pocket to the ground. She bashed it repeatedly on its fat lips as it tried to stuff her into its mouth, but the cast iron skillet was no match for living stone.
Bradley rammed into it, knocking the toad onto its side and sending it sliding across the floor. He howled in pain as his shoulder cracked like a tree unlucky enough to receive the business end of a lightning bolt. With that arm hanging limp, he used his good hand to haul Pocket away from the frog.
“Music,” Millie screeched. “We can turn it back to stone with music. Prince Henri! Quick, sing something. Anything!”
The frog prince was flattened against the bars of his cage, eyes bulging and little chest heaving. “But I don’t sing well under pressure.”
The toad whipped around, sensing new prey less capable of defending itself. “Feed.”
“Gah!” Prince Henri flung himself against the cage, knocking it off its pedestal.
It bounced once before lodging in the gap between a cedar chest and a life-sized Matryoshka doll.
With a few more shoves, he got it rolling again.
The toad’s wicked tongue caught the birdcage and hauled it back into its jaws.
The enchanted phoenix cage wouldn’t bend or break, so the toad just tried to swallow it whole.
“You fucking cannibal,” Prince Henri screeched.
Millie snatched up a spear from the clutter and jammed the butt of it into the toad’s carbuncle eye. The garnet cracked, and the toad spat out the birdcage with a snarl.
“Sing, Henri,” she implored. “Please sing!”
The toad struck her in the shoulder. Millie flew back into the very suit of armor that had caught Pocket her first night in the tower.
Dirk snatched up the birdcage and lifted it into the air out of reach of the toad. “Sing or I’ll eat you myself. Unlike that toad, I can get into this cage.”
“‘A-a wink for the rogue and a grin for the b-bard,’” Henri sputtered. “‘A swish of her skirts for the knight on guard!’”
Pocket thwacked the toad with her skillet, but when it turned to give chase, Bradley walloped it with the spear Millie had dropped. The princess herself was riffling through a cardboard box labeled “Definitely Not Safe.”
“Keep going, Henri,” she urged.
“‘But the prize they all crave when the ale runs glad: a slip of the nip for the sailor lad!’”
“Ha!” Millie lobbed one glass bottle after the next at the toad, and a concussive blast knocked it off balance before a cloud of yellow smoke blinded it.
The stone tongue launched out of the yellow smoke, wrapping around Millie’s midsection and plucking her off her feet.
“Bestie,” Pocket cried, charging in with her skillet. She whacked the toad on the head over and over again, but her arms were heavy and cast iron was a test of endurance to swing after three or four times.
Millie, who’d had time to reload before she’d been lassoed, threw her remaining glass bottles at the toad.
One released a splash of green acid that sputtered and hissed as it tried to dissolve the toad’s stone skin.
The other super-heated the frog’s front foot until it glowed red-hot like iron ore in a forge, but it only served to scorch the floor.
“The eyes, go for its eyes!”
Bradley cracked its other eye with the butt of the spear, and the toad reared back in pain. It struck out with its clawed feet, shoving both its assailants out of the way.
Dirk eased Pocket and Bradley’s fall with his wind magic, then gave the birdcage a little shake. “With feeling, Henri. That’s my princess about to get eaten down there.”
With flicks of his tail, Dirk lobbed everything he could at the frog from antiques to crystal balls to sacks of heirloom wild rice. The beastly thing just squatted and endured.
The apprentice ran and slid across the floor, tangling the princess with his legs. She linked her arms around his thighs, and he buried the tip of the spear into the floor and held on.
“‘So lift your mugs, let the ale flow free,’” Prince Henri sang. “‘Salute the lass who brings such glee!’”
The dragging tongue began to slow as the frog’s song finally broke through the toad’s rage, but it did not stop. Millie screamed and Bradley shouted as the spearhead began to carve through the floorboards.
Pocket heaved herself upright for another round with her skillet, only to be shoved back on her ass.
Then Fink sprang from Pocket’s sleeve. Chittering a war cry, he scampered up the toad and attacked its eyes.
Within a second, his clever claws had pried loose a sliver of garnet.
The toad howled and shook its head free of the ferret.
“‘For who can brawl or stay downcast, when the barmaid’s charms go bouncing past?’” Henri screamed.
The light dimmed in the toad’s eyes, but it would be too late.
Already Millie was at the toad’s mouth, and she was kicking a frenzied flamenco against the toad’s front feet as they tried to scoop her into its mouth.
Bradley had given up on using the spear as an anchor and had his good arm wrapped around Millie, his own legs braced against the frog’s fat lower lip to keep her from being swallowed.
Prince Henri thrust his webbed hands high into the air, imploring. “‘O the bouncing breasts of the busty barmaid! There ne’er was a sight so grand, that could lift the gloom or stir a tune in the heart of every man!’”
The hellish light in the Tianzi Toad’s eyes winked out.
Whatever life animating it diminished, and its dark gray skin returned to the pale gray of age-worn granite.
Its stone tongue was still wrapped around Millie’s waist, and they all took turns beating it with the bejeweled sledgehammer Dirk had found in the clutter.
Finally, its tongue and lower jaw cracked and crumbled to the floor.
Millie rose, brushed the gravel from her clothes, and readily accepted a hug from Pocket. Fink gave her cheek a quick ferret kiss and held up the garnet he’d stolen. Millie praised the little ferret, then the two women helped Bradley pop his shoulder back into joint.
“I am the god of song,” Prince Henri panted from the bottom of his birdcage.
Dirk settled it gently upon its pedestal.
“That truly was some wonderful singing, Prince Henri,” Millie agreed. “I would kiss you if that didn’t mean you’d turn around and kill my friends.”
“I will settle for some extra sashimi and some wine, but just this once.”
“The mead’s still a little young, but it’ll have a nice fruitiness to go with the fish,” Pocket offered.
“If I must.”
“I say we could all benefit from a spot of supper after that adventure,” Millie announced.
She clapped her hands for their attention.
“Dirk, you swirl on down to the dungeons and inform that napping hedge knight and that weenie of a bookworm of all the heroics they just missed. Pocket and I will start on the dinner prep. And Bradley—”
Crowded as they were at the trapdoor, they all turned to look at the one member of their party who hadn’t joined them.
The apprentice stood in the middle of the wreckage, holding his injured arm to his chest. His long black hair and the slump of his shoulders hid his face from view.
Though the sandstorm raged outside, turning the view beyond the balcony archways a wall of ochre and orange, it was impossibly silent in the workroom.
Like the tower was holding its breath. Or mourning.
Millie’s heart wrenched when she saw a tear bead up at the bottom of his chin and splatter against the scratched floor.
With two weeks left in the tower, the Tianzi Toad Treasure Hunt had failed.
When Bradley spoke, his voice was barely audible over the sandstorm. “I need to be alone.”
“Bradley,” the luck dragon began.
“No, Dirk,” Millie said, voice hushed. “Not now. Let’s all go.” She shooed them down into the stairwell. She paused with her forearm bracing the trapdoor open above her head. “We’ll save you some dinner, Bradley. For after. And I won’t let Pocket or Dirk eat all of the teacakes.”
Then she shut the door and left the apprentice to his grief.