The crimson witch

opposition. But they would be very confident. His young witch was gone and could no longer help him, could no longer fry his opponents in the air, turn them into ash before they touched claw to him. And the hag was not there either; she could not deter them from tearing him into small, bloody pieces. Yes, they would be very confident indeed. They would come rushing in without fear. And that was just what he wanted them to do.
        They started walking toward the fire, squinting, hunched and scuttling, their razor claws rattling against the slate and gravel that strewed the ground there. They hissed back and forth, exchanging viewpoints, issuing suggestions and orders, splitting into two groups that clung to opposite sides of the narrow pathway. But that would do them little or no good.
        Jake pulled lightly on the rope made of fine fibers, felt it go taut. That was ready. He just had to give it a stiff, sudden jerk, and…
        The manbats cautiously entered the cavern formed by the interlocking tops of the trees. They were no more than forty feet away, their black-black eyes gleaming with reflected flecks of the blazing campfire. He fancied he could almost smell their stinking breath, almost feel their cold skin against his, their sharp claws drawing his blood. But he shook his head and concentrated on the plan…
        They were in the target area.
        He waited another few seconds.
        They advanced a few more steps.
        He pulled the rope, leaping to his feet and drawing his Thob sword at the same moment. He had made his play now. If his device failed, it was certainly the end for him, certainly the end for Cheryn, too.
        The manbats cried out when they saw him, stopped their advance and hissed to one another, trying to decide what to do next, whether to advance recklessly in a single group, relying on their superior numbers to overpower him before he could kill many of them, or to stalk him and worry him until he opened himself for a death blow, as he surely would if they tired him enough.
        Kaliglia bumbled erect, his long neck swinging to and fro.
        And then the rocks fell.
        It had only been a split second since he had tugged the rope and jumped to his feet, but the second had somehow become involved in a time warp, and it seemed as if minutes had passed instead. For a moment, he had been afraid that his device had failed and that death was the only logical end to this little confrontation. But that was not to be so.
        He had spent all afternoon and evening constructing a net of vines and slinging it above, between the arched trees that shielded the trail, rigging a trigger rope that collapsed the net when jerked abruptly. Then he had searched about through the woods and adjoining clearings and had collected over two hundred stones which he distributed evenly in the net so that no matter where one stood on the pathway below, the stones were bound to strike him. Now the net collapsed as it was meant to, and the stones fell, bouncing off the heads and shoulders of the manbats. All nine went down under the heavy hail, screaming in fright…
        Jake leaped around the fire and came upon them after the stones had stopped falling. All of them were down and bleeding, but not all of them were dead. To his left, one of the demons groaned, hissed, and wobbled erect, holding its head in its clawed, bony hands. He ran forward and thrust the blade of the Thob sword deep into the beast's chest, twisting it as he did so. The manbat shrieked, gurgled, dribbled blood through his thin lips, and toppled backwards onto the ground. Jake drew the sword out of the demon and whirled to the others. Four of them were obviously dead, their heads split by the avalanche. But another four were only groggy and would be standing and calling for help shortly. He moved among them, ramming the sword into them and finishing them off before they could be a greater menace to him. But the last shrieked out a string of what could have been words, and he knew as he plunged the blade through the mutant's neck that it had summoned the three above. He hoped there were only three…
        Kaliglia had moved to his prearranged spot while Jake had finished off the manbats felled by the stones, and now they were prepared with their second bit of strategy. Kaliglia had moved through the woods to a spot farther down the trail. If the other three manbats landed, they would be trapped