Our Magic Binds Us

9. Home Again

Sabine took one last look at the terrified creatures in the clearing just in time to see an Ogre who had been hit in the face by something and was bleeding from his awful foul looking mouth, take a swipe at a group of pixies who were trying to conceal themselves behind a rock. They scattered, each running in a different direction and screaming. This seemed to anger the Ogre even more and as one pixie stumbled in his haste to get away the Ogre saw his chance and lifted his huge foot to stamp on the poor and frightened pixie. Without even thinking Sabine focused on the pixie and flicked her hand to the side. The pixie shot several feet to the right and the giant Ogre foot crashed down to the now empty ground beneath. Sabine backed slowly out of the clearing and was swallowed from sight by the darkness of the forest. When she looked back she saw Centaurus bending down and questioning the dazed pixie that Sabine had just saved with magic.

"Perhaps he wasn't all that bad." She thought. "He obviously had enough heart to check the little pixie was ok."

She hurried along past all the twisted and mangled branches and roots that covered the forest floor. It would have been so much easier to follow the main trails but the friends had agreed it would be safer to all take different paths back to the cottage. She could hear the stream now so she knew she was nearly half way home. She loved to hear the stream gurgling it reminded her of her childhood and her parents. They would have picnics by the stream and her and her father would go swimming while her mother lay and read in the sun. She smiled to herself at the memory but the sound of voices made her stop in her tracks. Frowning now she thought her friends had waited on the bank for her and she was just about to step out from the trees to tell them that she was more than capable of getting back to her cottage by herself and that she had navigated the forest enough to know where she was going, when she caught a glimpse of who it was, and it definitely was NOT any of her friends. She quickly ducked behind an old fallen tree and peered around the edge. Centaurus was talking animatedly to one of the Ogres Sabine had seen in the clearing. However on closer inspection this one looked more decorated than the others - he wore a string of shrunken heads around his neck and he had a bone stuck through his enormous earlobe. Why would Centaurus be talking to one of the creatures who had just attacked him? At first she thought he was arguing with the Ogre but could hear no raised voices and then it dawned on her, they didn't actually attack Centaurus at all did they?, they attacked the poor pixies instead, in fact no harm came to Centaurus apart from Pholus' thrown rock. She tried hard to hear what they were saying but she was just too far away and all she could make out were muffled sounds. Centaurus had his back to her so she couldn't even try to read his lips and trying to read the Ogres lips was an impossibility, his mouth didn't move like anything she had ever seen before and it sprayed out saliva when it did speak like a small shower of rain. She turned her nose up in disgust and moved into a better position. Making sure she was well hidden she closed her eyes and put her hand out palm facing the strange couple on the bank by the stream and whispered an incantation under her breath. It was now as though she was standing right behind Centaurus and she could hear the whole conversation, all from the safety of her hiding place behind the tree.

".........that pixie moved so fast anyway?" Centaurus commanded urgently. The Ogre grunted and Sabine took it to mean he didn't know the answer to whatever that question was. "And tell your army that although I said realistic I didn't expect to get things thrown at me from across the clearing. I could have been knocked out!" Centaurus clearly hadn't realized it was Pholus then, Sabine smiled to herself and then frowned going over in her head what she had just heard. "In any case I think it had the desired effect - everyone will now be as terrified as they were when the magical folk were being slaughtered. I don't see us getting any trouble now when I make the announcement. Not now you've reminded them how fragile their little lives are. - Pixies, good idea of yours Chief, target the pixies as an example. Yes very clever, very clever indeed."