The Iron Tempest by Ron Miller Page A

neither sword nor lance. He carried only the sheathed shield that Pinabel had described. In his other hand was something flat and square that might have been a book. She was certain that she felt, for just a split second, the hot breath of the monster and thought that perhaps the magician had made the suicidal decision to crush her into the earth beneath the meteoric crash of himself and his monstrous mount. Suddenly the wings unfolded like vast black tents and the hippogryph roared past her head like a tornado. The turbulence almost blasted her from her place and her brave horse, which had been as sturdy as rock, stumbled and nearly fell; it danced nimbly on its heavy feet in an effort to remain erect. She turned and saw the monster shooting like a black rocket straight back into the sky.
    “Coward!” she cried after the retreating magician. “You missed me!”
    The hippogryph slowed and began to describe lazy circles, perhaps five hundred feet above the rocky slopes of the crater. She watched it warily, certain that Atalante was planning some new trickery.
    Then, so suddenly that she nearly dropped her sword in surprise, the hippogryph appeared not a spear’s length in front of her, its black-armored rider brandishing a flaming sword in incandescent circles. She swung her own weapon, but the apparition vanished with a blink only to instantly reappear on her left. Experimentally, she again swung her sword and again the creature and its master vanished, reappearing to attack her right side. She knew then that the magician was attempting to enchant her and that he was no doubt engineering this mock battle from some safe distance. He must think me simple-minded , Bradamant concluded. She thanked the power of the purloined ring that helped keep her head clear of ensorcelment. She saw the illusions but she was aware of what they were. She was careful to show no sign that she was undeceived and continued to strike out against the empty air as though she believed the phantoms were real, playing the role of mouse to Atalante’s cat. In order to enhance the reality of her counterdeception, she leaped from the back of her horse and ran to attack the illusory magician on foot, trying her best to mimic desperation and panic and fearing that her inexperience at play-acting was all too obvious.
    Her amateur theatrics must have satisfied Atalante for the false images immediately disappeared. He swooped toward her, stopping to hover not twenty yards away, so close to the ground that the beating wings raised heavy clouds of dust and gravel. She saw that he was about to resort to his ultimate spell as he pulled the silken sheath from the deadly shield. Even protected by the ring, she was dazzled by a glare that seemed to pass through her head as though it were made of glass. She was hardly dissembling when she fell to the ground as though poleaxed, her hands clutching her dazzled, stinging eyes. She could not move: it was as though a great spike had been driven through her forehead and into the ground beneath. All too slowly she felt the ring’s countermagic dissolving the agony—like an underdose of medicine gradually alleviating a headache. She lay as though dead as the hippogryph, after circling once or twice, came to rest a dozen paces away. She felt the confident steps of the magician as he dismounted and approached her. She resisted the impulse to steal even the most surreptitious peek and held her breath, hoping that she was not posed overdramatically.
    As soon as she heard the scuffling of his feet in the gravel by her ear, she leaped to her feet and wrapped one arm around the magician while pressing the edge of her sword to his throat with her free hand. The man struggled feebly, but he was held as immobilely as though he were bound in iron bands. At his feet lay a chain with which he had evidently intended to bind her and the flat, square object that he had been carrying—which proved to be, as Bradamant had surmised, a book.