Page 164 of The Discount Damsel

“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.