"Keep it rollin' straight," Mickey assured Gary, the leprechaun standing in front of the quadricycle's steering bar and peering intently ahead. Gary looked at the leprechaun's back incredulously, for all he saw ahead of them was a wall of thick trees blocking the exit from Dread-wood.
"And keep it fast," Mickey remarked, with absolute confidence.
Gary didn't disagree with that second request. Many times over the last two hours, sentient trees had reached down to grab at them, and only their great pace had gotten them through. But now, Gary didn't see how they could go on. He closed his eyes, as Mickey had previously suggested, and trusted the leprechaun to guide him past the forest's illusions. He sensed the wooden wall coming up fast, though, and had to look, nearly screaming aloud when he saw that the wall of trees loomed just a dozen feet away.
Instinctively, Gary threw up his arms in front of his face, locking the steering bar with his knees. He thought a crash unavoidable, but suddenly a break appeared as the road bent around one wide elm. In the splitsecond it took the rambling quadricycle to rush past, that break widened, and then it was as though someone had switched on a powerful light as the gnomish contraption burst out of the tangled wood.
Lathered in sweat from his run, Gary let the quadricycle roll to a stop. He looked back to the forest, simply amazed that they had gotten through. Lines of black smoke continued to rise in the west, a reminder that though they were out, they were far from safe.
"What are we going to do?" Gary whispered harshly, as though he expected the dragon to descend on them at any moment.
Mickey peered up into the sky in all directions, then settled a firm and unblinking gaze on the young man. "We're going to get to Giant's Thumb," he announced. "And finish our business."
"How far is it?" Gary asked.
"How fast and long can ye pump this thing?"
Gary had no honest answer. He was tired from his wild rush, but again, whether it was the incredible gearing or some hidden magic, the quadricycle had outperformed his wildest expectations, had taken him farther and faster, and with far more ease, than the most expensive racing bikes of his own world ever could. "What about the dragon?" he asked suddenly, looking back to the smoke, remembering that most of the land between here and their destination was open and barren.
Mickey shrugged and seemed to Gary, for perhaps the very first time, very much afraid.
"We can go back through the forest," Gary offered. "Maybe we'll find Kelsey and the others."
"No!" The leprechaun's tone was cutting-edge sharp, and an angry light flared in the normally cheerful sprite's gray eyes. "We're on to the mountain," he declared. "To finish our business. Now, if ye've got the wind and the strength left in ye, get this thing running fast." "What about the dragon?" Gary asked again, more firmly.
"Robert's tired," Mickey reasoned. "He's been flying a long way, by me guess, else he'd not have let us out o' Dreadwood alive. That's the weakness o' dragons, lad. They're all fire and muscle and killing claws, but it takes a mighty effort to move that mountain body about, and they do get tired." "He'll be rested long before we get to Giant's Thumb," Gary replied ominously.
"Aye." Mickey nodded. "But will he know that we're well on our way? Kelsey and Geno'll have a trick or two to keep Robert busy back here, don't ye doubt, but if ye plan on sitting here talking, their efforts will go for nothing."
Gary took a deep breath, adjusted himself as well as he could in the low and tight quarters, and started to pump his legs. He stopped abruptly, though, and snapped his fingers, then began unstrapping the metal leggings of his armor and the bulkier plates along the rest of the suit. "I don't think this will help much if we meet up with Robert," he explained.
Mickey nodded gravely.
Barely fifteen minutes later, the quadricycle kicked up a trail of road dust in its wake.
Kelsey nodded to the north, to a high perch on the nearest Crahg, where sat Robert, his great leathery wings wrapped about his gigantic torso and his reptilian eyes closed to evil slits.
The three companions were still under the thick cover of Dreadwood, still back near the eastern entrance of the wood.
Kelsey took an arrow from his quiver and fitted it to his bow. He nodded to Geno and Gerbil, as if asking their opinion, but he knew in truth that they could not disagree with this action. Gary and Mickey were out of the forest, headed for Robert's lair by Kelsey's reckoning, and that gave Kelsey, Geno, and Gerbil the unenviable job of keeping Robert's eyes away from the east, of keeping Robert's eyes focused on them.
"Find some cover," Geno whispered to Gerbil, and he pushed the gnome off, then scampered in a different direction. Kelsey gave them a good start, then lifted his bow the dragon's way and drew back on the bowstring. He knew that he couldn't really hurt the beast, not from this distance and probably not even from a point-blank position, but he could certainly get Robert's attention. The trick, Kelsey reminded himself, was to be far, far from this spot before the arrow ever clicked against Robert's thick armor.
He fired and never watched the projectile, running with all speed in a direction different from the ones taken by Geno and Gerbil. A moment later, the ground rumbled under the thunder of a dragon roar, and then a shadow crossed over that section of Dreadwood and all the trees went up in a line of furious fire.
Robert made several passes, but, as Mickey had said, the dragon was weary and could not sustain the assault. He dropped into one group of trees and thrashed them into kindling, then lifted away to another perch near the eastern end of the wood and sat back, watching, waiting.
"Your cover will not last!" Robert's roar promised. "I will burn away all the trees and then where will you hide, puny enemies?"
Gerbil, in a deep hole under the roots of a great oak, Geno, comfortably flattened under a boulder, and Kelsey, farthest from the sight of destruction, heard the dragon's reasonable claims and each of them, even the sturdy dwarf, wished at that time that he was back in his homeland, many miles from Dreadwood.
The miles rolled out behind them, Gary pedaling relentlessly that morning of the first day out of Dreadwood. For an hour, the bumpy horizon of the Crahgs remained north of them, but it soon gave way to flatter plains. Mickey's spirits soared that day, with no sign of the dragon apparent and the Giant's Thumb fast approaching. The leprechaun could feel his magical energies returning as he drew ever nearer his precious pot of gold. "Keep it straight and keep it fast," he would often say to Gary, always careful to temper his boiling excitement, always remembering that Gary Leger didn't know the whole truth of the matter.
Gary seemed not so happy. He was glad, of course, that Robert was nowhere to be seen, but his thoughts were behind him, not ahead, back to the tangled wood where he had left his three companions, where black lines of smoke were still rising into the sky. Even if they succeeded in putting Robert back in his hole, Gary would consider it a hollow victory indeed if Kelsey, or Geno, or Gerbil had perished in the process.
Still, barely hours later, after a short midmorning rest, Gary could not deny his own excitement when they came around the southern edge of the ruined forest and saw the great solitary obelisk that was the Giant's Thumb protruding from the dragon-ravaged plain.
On Mickey's orders, Gary veered to the north and came in by the dry lake bed of Loch Tullamore, up to the lip of the valley before the mountain, sheltered by the few living trees east of the Crahgs.
"Now where?" Gary asked, realizing their dilemma as he began strapping on his armor once more. He saved the helmet for last, and wound up simply strapping the bulky thing to his back, realizing that he could not possibly climb with it bouncing about his head. With that thought, Gary looked up again to the towering obelisk, to the castle walls that seemed to grow right from the stone, several hundred feet above the vale.
The last time they had come to the mountain, they had gone in through a cave above the red waters of a steamy pool, hidden around a rocky outcropping not so far away. But Gary and his friends had a giant with them on that occasion, a giant who was able to carry them across the deep water to the cave entrance. Even if they could now get to that entrance, which Gary doubted, the tunnels would only take them so high. And again, it had been the work of Gary and Mickey's companions, and not of either of these two, that had allowed them to scale the rest of the way and get over the walls.
"Leave the gnome's contraption here," Mickey explained. "There's a wide and easy road around the other side of the mountain that's fit for walking."
There was indeed an easy way up, Gary knew, but he knew, too, that the road the leprechaun spoke of led right between rows of barracks, right through the heart of Robert's army, lizardlike humanoids called lava newts, as tall and strong as a man, that would swarm the intruders at first sight.
"Don't ye worry," Mickey casually remarked into Gary's doubting expression. "I'm feeling me magic today. We'll get through the stupid lizards." Mickey gave a cocky chuckle, which seemed odd to Gary, considering the leprechaun's almost pitiful use of magic thus far on the adventure.
The young man only shrugged and followed, though, when Mickey started away, for he had no better ideas and he didn't want to remain anywhere near this dangerous place a moment longer than necessary.
It took them more than an hour to make their careful way around the south of the mountain to the long sloping road up the eastern side. Many times, Gary thought he saw movement on the high walls, lava newt soldiers, probably, halfheartedly manning their positions. To Gary's amazement, Mickey faded into invisibility. Gary realized then that this was the first time the leprechaun had done that on this adventure. The last time through the land, Mickey had faded away every time danger loomed near, but this time, even when Gary had faced the soldiers in the haunted swamp, Mickey had taken to a more ordinary form of hiding.
Now the leprechaun was gone, though, and he floated up to a comfortable perch on Gary's shoulder, seeming more like the old, at-ease Mickey, seeming confident that he could get them out of whatever trouble came their way. Gary saw a spark in the empty air and knew that the leprechaun had lit his long-stemmed pipe.
"Now ye walk right up the path, lad," Mickey explained. "Big, proud steps, like the kind that Robert'd take. With yer sword over yer shoulder."
Gary was beginning to catch on to what the leprechaun had in mind. He smiled in spite of his trepidation and reached for his helm, then changed his mind, remembering that Robert had not worn one. "Trust in the illusion," Gary whispered to himself, and he hoisted his spear in one hand, bringing it towards his shoulder.
"Not that shoulder!" Mickey snapped at him. "Ye trying to skewer me through?"
Gary quickly brought the spear around to the other side, thinking how hard it was to ignore such a blatantly illogical thing as an invisible leprechaun. Gary could feel Mickey atop his shoulder - if he stopped and thought about it - but he couldn't see the leprechaun there.
"You're making me look like the returning Robert," Gary reasoned. "Already have," Mickey replied. "Be a good lad and run yer fingers through yer red beard."
Gary looked down, looked for the illusion, then brought his hand tentatively through the image. He could almost feel the thick and tangled hair. His cheeks itched, he realized. His cheeks itched! Gary half believed that Mickey had magically grown a beard for him.
Gary smiled again and chuckled nervously. He could hardly believe that he was about to openly walk through Robert's army, and so he tried not to think about it, just took a huge breath and strode off forcefully, up the inclining path.
"Proud and stern," Mickey told him. "Don't ye talk to any o' them, and don't ye let any o' them talk to yerself!"
Gary glanced over at the invisible sprite - and noticed a line of white smoke drift lazily into the air, coming from, seemingly, nowhere.
"The pipe, Mickey, the pipe," he whispered. "The smoke is showing."
"So it is," came the reply a moment later, but the line of white smoke continued.
"Put it out," Gary ordered.
"Ye can hardly see it," Mickey argued. "Besides, shouldn't there be some smoke beside a dragon? Go on, then."
Gary grumbled, but decided not to argue the point. He was, after all, depending on Mickey more than Mickey was depending on him.
Rows of wooden buildings lined the trail higher up and Gary, and Mickey's illusion, got the first test before they even reached the area. Two ugly lizards, humanoid lizards with red scales and reptilian eyes, rushed down to greet him, their eager tongues flicking repulsively from between yellow-stained fangs. Each had a shield strapped about its arm, a loincloth about its slender waist, and a short sword on one hip. Other than that, the lizard soldiers were naked, though their scaly skin seemed a solid armor.
They garbled something in a hissing language which Gary could not understand. He growled from deep in his throat and pushed them aside, striding by and not bothering to look back.
"Well done," came Mickey's whisper.
Gary barely heard the sprite. He expected the two lizard soldiers to rush up from behind and cut him down at any moment. Are you ready? he asked telepathically of the spear.
Gary felt his hands tingling with the unspoken response and knew that the weapon was more than ready, was eager, to begin the bloodletting.
Having more to lose than did the spear, Gary hoped it wouldn't come to that.
And it didn't. Lava newts approached, and fell away at sight of Gary's uncompromising scowl. The great doors on this end of the castle swung wide before Gary ever got near them, and he passed between the portals without even a look to the soldiers. The road before him was cobblestoned now, continuing on this level inside the castle's outer wall, overlooking the steep cliff, and forking to Gary's right, up an incline to another set of doors that would lead him into the inner, and upper, bailey.