“There it is, let’s get moving. Quickly everyone, we don’t want to linger any longer than we have to. Give me. Follow me.” She took up a brisk gallop and led the others away from the large rocks. As she did so, Siouxsie returned and swooped low, hovering ahead of them.

  “This way!” She waved them on. “The smoke is working but it doesn’t last long!” Idris and Prince Damron ran as fast as their legs would carry them, arms pumping to keep up a frantic pace to escape the open field before being sighted. Idris’ long legs covered so much ground with each stride that the prince had some trouble keeping up. Hoxley saw this and slowed down to run alongside him. “Hop on my back!” she said.

  “Ride you?” he panted.

  “Let’s go! We need to move faster!” The pair slowed enough for him to throw a leg over the top of her lower horse half before she took up her gallop. Prince Damron clung to her top half to keep from falling off as she ran. He bounced all around until she twirled the length of her spear horizontally behind her back for him to grab onto. With his weight more stable and not pitching around, Hoxley sped up to carry him away on pounding hooves. Strong breezes passed across them and Hoxley kept her eyes upon on the shifting grey clouds as they started to dissipate.

  “Keep running!” She yelled to Idris. “The smoke is starting to fade!” The man continued his sprint; lungs heaving and limbs pumping in time to keep up the frantic pace. Further they ran, further and further until the mouth of the pass and the clouds that had obscured them were far out of sight. They didn’t slow down until they’d passed the lush tree line. Idris staggered to a stop before collapsing next to the underbrush, his chest still heaving from the duress of the run.

  “I…*PANT*…would…rather………fight ten men than…..have to run….. such a distance ….ever again.” Prince Damron quickly dismounted from Hoxley’s back and knelt beside the man to offer him some water from a canteen. The man drank the first gulp so fast that he choked and lapsed into a fit of coughing.

  “Easy Sir, easy.” Said Siouxsie. “Don’t drink so much. We still have far to go and I’m not sure where the next spring is.”

  “It won’t be a problem,” offered Hoxley. ”Once we climb high enough to reach the snow plateau we’ll simply pack our canteens full of snow and keep them pressed against our bodies. Our body heat should be enough to melt it.”

  “That makes sense.” She nodded. “Look! Here come my brothers.” A swift pair of black streaks cast their shadows upon them before dropping from the sky. Whooshes of air accompanied their arrival. The boys looked elated on their own, but Siouxsie became excitable when she noticed an arrow that had pierced Robert’s hat just above his head and embedded itself in the fabric.

  “Look at this!” She said sourly, snatching the arrow by its fletching and yanking it free to hold it in front of his face. “You were divebombing those men, weren’t you?”

  “Only a few times.” Robert giggled as he took the arrow back from her. “It frightens the cowards. You should have seen their faces. All I had to do was swoop low and shout ‘BOOGITY BOOGITY’ and the weak ones run away screaming.”

  “Yes, but it puts you within bow shot distance.” She pouted. “You have to be more careful than that.”

  “Oh, let me have my fun.”

  “Your idea of fun is dangerous.” She reminded him

  “Yes, it is. That’s what makes it fun.”

  “Enough, you two.” Said Ignatius. “We should keep moving. The last of the smoke is vanishing and those that were frightened may soon regain their courage. He then walked over to stand before Idris still reclining in the grass and offered him a hand up. “On your feet, Sir. We still have far to go and there still may be eyes around to spy on us.” Idris took his hand and the witch easily lifted him to his feet so fast that his feet momentarily left the ground. “Come, follow me. I know the straightest path to the base of Faustacon Mountain. It goes through a grove of gumfruit trees. If we’re lucky, the buds have started to mature.”

  To the delight of everyone, Ignatius was right. At the base of Faustacon Mountain a lush grove of trees with branches full of bright red fruit lined the way. The companions rushed to pull at the low hanging limbs and collect the bounty they found. Greedy hands went to work collecting two at a time and stuffing them into knapsacks.

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  “What are these?” the prince asked aloud.

  “Gumfruit.” Said Morell as he grabbed some more and set them on the ground. “You’ve never had it before?”

  “No, never.” How do I eat it?”

  “Eating gumfruit can be a sticky disaster if you don’t know how.” Morell said as he plucked one final fruit before standing close and holding it out for the prince to see. The boy reached to his waist and pulled out a small knife. “The fruit has four parts; the skin, the shell, the gum and the pit. The pit is the edible part. Its’ very nutritious, like nutmeats but you have to go through the other three to get to it. The skin is almost like cloth. It’s tough but easily gives way to a knife.” He slit the bright red skin from top to bottom and it easily peeled away the parchment-like covering to reveal a light brown smooth shell. “This is the shell, it’s easily broken so you have to be careful. Gum and the pit are inside. Here, listen.” He held the egglike shape up to the prince’s ear and shook it about. It made a sloshing sound with the occasional ‘bonking’ like something hard was knocking around inside as well. “Hear that? That’s the pit swimming in the gum juice. Now here comes the hard part if you’ve never had this to eat before. The moment the shell is broken and the air touches the juice, it quickly begins to harden and become incredibly sticky and petrifies to a substance as hard as hardened tree sap. Don’t let it get on your hands or clothes. The only way to get it off is to completely submerge the gum in water until it turns soft again.”

  “So how am I supposed to get the pit if it’s in the middle of the juice?”

  “Watch what I do. You have to be quick.” Morell held the fruit in his left hand, his canteen in his right and bit down on the blade of the small knife to hold it in his teeth. He turned away to face a tree that was nowhere near the others in the group. In quick succession he hurled the at the exact spot where the trunk of the tree closest to them met the ground. The shell shattered to reveal a bright gooey pink mass with a dark brown sphere mostly obscured in the middle. Morell pulled the knife from his teeth with his free hand and approached it to begin pouring water on the pit where it was barely peeking through the gelatinous blob. Where the rest of the mass was already hardening, the addition of water kept the fruit pulp in a quasi-liquid state in the parts it touched. And when the pink had parted enough to reveal most of the pit, he smacked the pit with the tip of his knife. Once embedded, he lifted the pit from the mass and stopped pouring. The gum immediately petrified and became as stone.

  Morell pressed the pit with the blade still in it against his thigh and the knife and the brown bulb cleft in twain. He handed the prince half as they both popped them into their mouths. Each one chewed happily as the food yielded a delicious and hearty nutmeat inside.

  “Mmmm.” The prince chewed happily. “I want more.”

  “We don’t want to use all of our water extracting these. We should wait until we find a stream or river so we can refill our canteens when we’re done.”

  “That’s good thinking.” Said the prince. “Help me fill my pack.” When the packs could hold no more, Hoxley corralled everyone and they started up the base of the mountain as the witchly trio scouted ahead. For a few hours or so, those on the ground didn’t see the black blots zipping across the sky. It wasn’t until they crested a steep embankment that they found the siblings on a small plateau. The twins were practicing magic as Ignatius guided them.

  “We’ll take a small rest here.” Hoxley told the others. Everyone watched in amazement as Robert stood in a fighting stance with a ball of roiling fire cupped in his right palm. The fire roared like a campfire on its own. He made a rapid throwing motion as a person skips a stone across a pond and the fire leapt from his hand to strike an already black and smoldering stone. When it impacted, the size of the fire increased tenfold to engulf the rock and continue burning for several seconds on end.