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“Magic, I think.” I threw another circlet and strangled another head until its neck went limp.
“Fucking amazing,” he growled. “Smart too—you don’t have to kill them—just choke them out.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said, distractedly. I only had two heads to go and I quickly took care of them.
When I was finished, the enormous T-Rex body wobbled and then fell with a resounding crash to the forest floor. It shook the ground and I stumbled and would have fallen if Rath hadn’t caught me by the arm.
“Watch out, baby,” he growled hoarsely. “Stand your ground—I’m going to finish the damn thing.”
He pulled the curving knife I had noticed on his belt earlier from its sheath and held it up. Then he said a word that hurt my ears—it was spoken in a low, guttural language I didn’t understand but somehow I felt the magic in it.
At once the knife began to glow…and then it began to grow. Its blade went from six inches long to six feet or two meters. Then it stopped growing.
Rath nodded in satisfaction.
“All right—that ought to do it,” he muttered.
“What are you going to do with that?” I asked, eyeing the knife, which had become a massive sword in his hands.
“Going to use it to stake the fucking thing in the heart,” he told me. “That’s the only way to kill it. I was trying to get to it before, but I didn’t have time to draw my sword.” He shook his head. “I thought I was going to die before you started in with your magic.”
“I’m still worried about you.” I eyed all the gashes on his green skin. “That thing bit you all over and I saw the venom dripping from its fangs!”
“I’ll be fine,” he said briefly. “Though I wouldn’t be if you hadn’t stepped in. It’s a damn good thing you didn’t run and hide like I told you to.”
“I couldn’t leave you to fight it all alone,” I objected. “Not if I could help—I’m just glad I could.”
“Not as fucking glad as I am,” he rumbled. “Hang on—this should only take a minute.”
He stomped out into the trampled snow which was black with the ashes of the beaten heads and red with his own blood. When he got to the enormous T-Rex body, he took aim and I saw him stab it in the chest area, almost between the two grasping arms. The claw-tipped hands were waving feebly I saw, as though the beast was still alive, despite all its oxygen-starved heads.
But the minute Rath stabbed it and pierced its heart, the arms spasmed once…twice…and then went limp. As I watched, the whole enormous creature began to turn to black ash, just as the heads Rath had bashed in had done. In just a few seconds the whole thing had crumbled and blown away on the whipping wind, leaving only a huge black mark in the snow to show where it had been.
The Hydra was no more.
“There—that should do it.” Rath came tromping back to me, now streaked in the black ash of the defeated monster. “We met and bested all three of her challenges. Now Baba Yaga has to see us.”
“Will she—” I began.
“VERY WELL! You have proved yourselves.”
The enormous, booming voice startled me so badly that I slipped and fell to my knees in the dirty snow. Rath hooked a hand under my arm and hoisted me up again, then he pulled me against his side.
“Baba Yaga!” he roared, making me clap my hands over my ears. “Where are you? Show yourself!”
“Not yet,” the booming voice said. “I have no taste for company tonight. You may spend the night in my hut and tomorrow I will see you.”
Suddenly, something came walking through the forest towards us. At first, I couldn’t tell what it was—I only knew it was coming through the trees from the same direction the Hydra had appeared.
I tensed and reached for my magic, holding a hot wire of it in my hands and encouraging it to grow.
“You will not need that, little witch,” the voice of Baba Yaga informed me. “You have proven yourselves—now I offer my hospitality.”
I clutched the magic wire in my hands nervously anyway, not sure if I could trust her. But a moment later, the thing came through the trees and I saw what it was—a large wooden hut was moving towards us. No, not moving—walking. Because under it were a pair of enormous, yellow, knobby legs and splayed, three-toed feet.
“Chicken legs,” I whispered, staring at them in disbelief. “That hut has chicken legs!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
