The Monsters of Stephen Enchanter by D.J. Natelson Read Free Book Online Page B

escaped him.  Stephen slapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late: the wolves had remembered him—the lone man without any sharp weapons, on the outskirts of the group, the serpent dead.
     
    Stephen knelt hurriedly and scrapped up his snowballs.  Ten—twelve—why had he only made twelve?  He began throwing them wildly, pelting the earth as often as the wolves, pushing more magic into the snowballs, wild magic without purpose or direction, and flinging them—
     
    And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the battle was over.  The remaining wolves dragged one of their brethren away from the edge campsite, and melded into the shadowy woods.
     
    Stephen tried to rewind the last few minutes, tried to see the decisive move that had turned the tide, but all he could remember were teeth and snowballs and the increasing weariness of his arm.  Whatever the others had done, whatever stunning fighting they had performed, he had missed all of it.
     
    Had any of the company survived?  Yes, all of them—or, at least, he could not see any dead, and when he counted, he found nineteen.  There—he could see the Jolly Executioner and Tinkerfingers and Granite and Miss Ironfist and Craggy and Banananose—where was Youngster?  Yes, there, with that little man in blue, who was bandaging an arm injury.  Tinkerfingers had been obscuring Stephen’s view.
     
    Stephen didn’t know the others by sight, yet.  It occurred to him that he never would have known it if one had died and been replaced by one of the wolves in the guise of a man.
     
    “Is the Enchanter hurt?”
     
    It was the little man in blue talking to him.  Stephen started.  He had dazed off again.  He did not think he like battles.  “What?”
     
    “I’m a doctor.  Is the Enchanter hurt?”
     
    Stephen shook his head.  Medic looked him up and down, nodded, and moved on without another word.
     
    A locksmith, a child, a mirror of his old governess, a mad executioner, and now a doctor who spoke to people in the third person.  Fabulous.
     
    All around him, the companions were going about their tasks in a humdrum way that never would have suggested they had fought off fairy wolves summoned by their leader.  Several of them took to skinning the wolves and collecting meat.  Stephen caught the eye of one—a stock man with a warthog nose and dark, beady eyes.  Warthog waved him over.  “You’re the Enchanter,” he said.
     
    “I am.”
     
    “Can you do anything useful?  I hate to see you sitting around all the time when there’s work to be done.”
     
    “I can enchant weapons—but not just now; I’m pretty drained.  I can, um.”  What could he do?  He had once thought of himself as accomplished.  ‘I can sew,’ was unhelpful, ‘I know several languages,’ boastful and ‘I can play the fife’ daft.  “What do you need?”
     
    “Can you skin a wolf?”
     
    “It how many ways?”
     
    Warthog looked blank.
     
    “I guess so—only, I don’t have a knife.”
     
    “We have extra.  Your predecessor left them in his saddlebag.”
     
    I’m not going to ask , Stephen promised himself.  “My predecessor?  What happened to him?” Drat .
     
    “He was slow.”
     
    “Ah.” Stephen hesitated.  “I don’t suppose the Jolly Executioner would mind if I took some—some trophies from the corpse?  Ears and snout, sort of thing?”
     
    “Don’t suppose he would,” said Warthog.  “I don’t mind either, if you keep them to yourself and don’t tell me what they’re for.”
     

IV
 
    It is almost invariably unpleasant to meet a monster,
    But equally unpleasant to be the monster who is met.
     
     
    Stephen awoke cold and uncomfortable, but without any sign of a sniffle—which was, in his opinion, worth a tree-root in the back.  Or possibly a rock; he couldn’t tell under all that snow.
     
    The rest of the company was already awake and shuffling around and packing and doing all sorts of other work with which