Robe

Chapter 11

When Rusty caught sight of what was coming down the road toward them, the layers of disbelief, piling themselves one after another on his already wretched mind, seemed to reach a breaking point. It didn't help that he was looking at the retinue from ground level. And sideways, at that.

"Holy hector," he said... and remembered that it was one of his mom's favorite sayings. It was also milder than the phrase he wanted to use.

What came into view, past the large tree at the corner of the garden (which appeared to have eyes on its leaves?), was a trio of armor-clad men on what he first thought were horses. To begin with, the armor the men wore, complete with face-obscuring helmets, triggered yet another memory: a medieval show that his dad used to stream on Saturday afternoons. Champions of Athens, it was called. And it was crap. Still, these guys on horses and the armor they wore were dead-ringers, and Rusty crazily wondered for a moment whether they were out-of-work extras.

He tried to sit up, and the considerably hot girl – Sonic, she said her name was? – held out one hand. He took it, mindful of the fact that he was, once again, holding a girl's hand. A ridiculously good-looking girl, at that.

"One who can read minds," Sonic said sharply as he got to his feet.

"Sorry," Rusty said, not really that sorry at all. "Who the heck are these guys?"

There were more coming up behind, maybe another half-dozen or so, the rumbling of hooves slowing as they arrived. Now that Rusty was upright, he got a good look at who exactly these new arrivals were. And, more importantly, what, exactly, they were riding.

He thought they were on horses, and could be forgiven for the error. The creatures they rode were four-legged, muscular beasts that stood higher than their riders, and were generally horse-shaped. But the pale-colored heads of these creatures were perfectly tubular, maybe two or three feet in length, ending in an open, toothless orifice from which a stubby pink tongue lolled. Rusty was reminded of open ends of the storm guttering that was tacked to the outside walls of his house. The creatures had eyes, too, but these waved curiously about on stalks close to where their heavy necks met their cylindrical heads.

"And just what the heck are those?" he asked. It was a question aimed at no-one in particular.

"Wouldn't have a clue," Sonic answered. "And I'm actually quite used to aliens and strange creatures and such. These things be weee-ird."

"Right," Rusty said, because it was all he could say. He once more felt strength beginning to drain from his legs, but held tight. Somehow, standing next to Sonic was giving him energy. Well, the energy not to faint like an idiot, anyhow.

The three medieval men at the front dismounted from their tube-headed horse things, and now Rusty did pay attention to the men, because they all suddenly appeared to be carrying spears of some sort. Long ones that ended in a glowing blue fire. How he could have missed that, he did not know. They weren't carrying them as they approached.

"They materialized them as they got off their whatever-the-heck-those-things-are," Sonic said. "Gives me some hope."

"Huh?" Rusty said. It was more of a half-grunt than a question. Sonic's ability to reply to something he'd only been thinking was disorienting to say the least.

"If I'm not wrong, I'll be able to pull off a trick or two," Sonic said. She looked over at Dresden, who stood in the center of the garden with Mohon at his side, motionless apart from his hands, which were clenching and unclenching. This Sonic noted with some concern; the boy was nervous.