Hilda - The Challenge

and falling, while to the east the land of king Walt was waiting for them. It was also the direction that presented most danger to them. The trip down here had not been too bad, but now the brooms were stuck together and they had a passneger, although the two were quite certain that Bilgar would not give them a lot of problems.

  Hilda made some food and tea while William woke up the sleeping cook. "Bilgar, food. We're leaving soon.

  "What? We're still alive? Good!" The hostage told William he had stayed awake through most of the night, feeding the fire so the animals would not be feeding on them.

  "Good show, Bilgar. Here's your breakfast. No delaying, we're about to go up and away."

  Soon they were indeed up and away. Bilgar had insisted on being tied to the broomaran. The first leg of the trip went without many incidents as it was still nice and early and not many guards were on their stations yet, or so it looked. After about half an hour though, William saw the first small tree being shot at them. Good thing about this one was that it was aimed poorly, even Hilda was ashamed of it.

  "There is no challenge in avoiding something like that," she muttered.

  "What's going on?", asked Bilgar who was trying to see what was going on.

  "Shut up," the other two told him. More humongous arrows were coming at them, and those were aimed much better so they needed all their attention to stay clear of the large objects.

  "Come on, tell me what happens!", Bilgar demanded, making wild movements. For some reason he was keen on watching impending doom come closer. It also meant that Hilda and William had loads of problems keeping the brooms with the added wood in a stable flightpath.

  This time the link from Willaim to Hilda came in handy as it had never done before. The wicked witched nodded, said: "I got us", and then William let go of his broomstick and whacked Bilgar into oblivion.

  Shaking his hand, he said: "Damn, cooks have hard heads." Then he was back in the race of avoiding the big arrows.

  Some of the moves they had to make with their broomaran were so violent that the wood that held Bilgar complained loudly. At one time a ominous cracking sound made the both of them swallow.

  "This is not good," said Hilda, "this is very much not good."

  Somehow they managed to make it to the kingdom of Lorn without being shot down, and there they could breathe easy again.

  "Want to stop and chill for a moment?", William asked Hilda.

  "Yes, a stop would be a good plan, although I can't understand why we would call up a cold wind. I'm not that hot, you know."

  "Okay, I'll explain that later. Let's find us a nice place to touch down."

  Ironically enough, the place where they landed their broomaran was near a family of shepherds who looked at the strange construction touching down. The shepherds came closer, to have a look.

  William whopped Bilgar another one, to make sure the cook would remain unconscious during their time on the ground.

  "Good day," said the woman that was in the small group of shepherds that approached them. "We hope you can forgive our curiosity, but we have never seen a flying arrangement like yours before. Will you accept some water, and bread and cheese?"

  Both Hilda and William were grateful with the simple food. It tasted great, and with Bilgar enjoying small stars or so, there also was not commenting on it.

  The shpeherds saw the unconscious cook strapped to the boards, but did not dare ask the reason for this awkward way of transportation. After all, these were magical people, and they had their own rules and standards for doing things.

  As they were getting ready to fly on, William had the feeling he should pay the shepherds some money, if only one silver piece. Hilda picked his intention up and said: "We thank you for your hospitality."

  The shepherds smiled. "It is always our pleasure to share what we have. We wish you a good day."

  "Thank you. You too," said Hilda, wiggling her eyebrows at William who understood. No paying. It would be offending to the nice people.

  The magical couple lifted off again, Bilgar still in the land of sorcery dreams. The passage over the kingdom of Lorn was calm and quiet, the red soil and trees a welcome sight and a promise that they would be home soon.

  Bilgar had regained his awareness again and was complaining about a sore back, sore arms and sore legs. On William's friendly request if he should put him out of his misery once again, the captured cook responded with a growl and remained silent. Hilda sensed that the man applied some magic to make his stay on the wooden board a bit more comfortable, which was fine with her.

  45. And now it's our turn

  After landing the broomaran, they untied Bilgar. As the cook rubbed his wrists, he looked around. "So this is where you live. Very nice area. Bit quiet though, I guess."

  William undid the excess boards from their brooms and Hilda removed the chains from the house.

  The house let out a sigh of relief. "You really took your time, didn't you?"

  "Oh, how cute, an ancient talking house!", exclaimed Bilgar.

  "Who's this?" The house was not eager to allow entrance to someone that called it 'cute'. After all, standing came with age.

  "This is in some weird way family of Lamador," said Hilda.

  Bilgar frowned as he heard that. "Who told you that? And I was family. His niece divorced me."

  "Good for her," said Hilda.

  "That is a nasty remark, witch," said Bilgar.

  "I know. But I'm good at that. So now off with you." She shoo'ed him away with her hand.

  "What?" Bilgar stared at her, then at William, not understanding a thing.

  Go. Leave. Go home to Heraldion, or wherever you want to go. Oh, here, you may need this." Hilda took his large wand from her pocket. She waved her own over it a few times, then handed it back. "It won't be any good for big magic for a week, but at least you have your big wand again." She had a big smile on her face as she talked, making William grin.

  "Do you know what the punishment is for magical castration?", Bilgar said as he stared at his wand that was rendered mostly inoperative.

  "Do you think we care?", asked William who stepped in front of the angry cook sorcerer.

  William was a lot taller and wider than the cook. "What we care about is the way your big sorcerer is abducting witches from this country. And if he thinks he is the only one who can do that - well, I think we have just proven that we can take people away also. And we hit home, on the side of his family. Divorced or not. Now you go away, unharmed. Contrary to what your big Lamador does to the less powerful witches he kidnaps."

  Bilgar put his fists in his sides. "The Great Lamador would never do something like that! I know him."

  "Sure," said Hilda, "you know his nice side, since he does not want to get into trouble with his family. We know of at least three witches he took away. We don't know what became of them so we fear the worst."

  "How can you know they did not leave by themselves?", Bilgar demanded to know, his in-law family pride taking the lead.

  "We found a Grizble at one of the places. A young witch did not return home after an evening with friends. One was taken from her home with force, the house shows that. Signs of voluntary leave, right?"

  "I don't believe that." Bilgar looked angry at the accusation, even if it did not involve him directly.

  "Believe whatever you like. But now you are free to go home. Heraldion is that way, I suggest you first head to the village and find a place to sleep. Perhaps there is someone who can take you along on a cart tomorrow," said Hilda.

  Bilgar was close to fuming. "You take me from my kitchen, knock me out, tie me to a piece of wood and drag me over 3 countries to send me home after this? Are you insane?"

  "As I already said, I am local," said Hilda, "and William here is the insane one. But he is very good at it. So now you know it all. This is all you will get to hear, and therefore I advise you to walk to the village quickly because the darkness here falls fast and we are not going to tell you what scary animals live in the f
orests here."

  William put an arm around Hilda's shoulders, and standing together like that they saw the dismayed sorcerer walk off.

  "Bilgar? The village is that way," Hilda corrected the man, who looked back in anger where she was pointing and then changed course.

  "Are there scary animals in the forest?", William asked.

  "No." She chuckled, turned around and they went inside, their brooms following them.

  When the door had closed, Hilda wrapped herself around William and rested her head against his shoulder. "You are really insane, William. And what worries me is that I like it. We dragged that man over three countries just to let him go again. And it was fun, despite the Ringeholm soldiers shooting at us. And the crappy place to sleep."

  They went to get some food from the kitchen and turned in early. Eventually, they slept...

  With the remains of breakfast still on the table, William studied the original challenge Hilda had received. "I'm not going to use that style of handwriting," he declared. "My own paw will have to do, and otherwise he'll have to hire a specialist."

  "That's fine, William. He'll be able to read it." Hilda stared at the tip of the quil as William was writing on the piece of paper that lay in front of him. It was obvious that he was not used to writing this way, she grinned, but he gave it his best. He had messed up several bits of paper already, to get the hang of it, and now the writing was for real.

  As he finished, he blew over the still wet ink and handed the paper to Hilda. "That should be it. What do you think?"

  Hilda looked at the paper. "To the sorceror Lamador," she read out loud. "Shouldn't that be Great Sorcerer?"

  "No way," replied William, "this way we tell him without words that we don't find him so great."

  "Oh. Right." Hilda looked at the paper again. "Through this official note I challenge you to a duel on the next dark moon, in the forest where the witch Baba Yaga lives. You are free to bring an aid with you. The challenge is for points, not for lives. Signed, nothing."

  With a frown she took the quil and signed her name under it. Then she looked at William. "Why do I have the feeling that I have just signed my own death cerfiticate?"

  "Because you still don't trust the plan, sweetwitch," William said. "He can bring an aid, but he is probably so full of himself that he won't."

  "He won't need to," said Hilda.

  "Don't forget, Hilda, that he does not know the terrain, and we do. Well, you do, I do just a bit. We're fighting on our terrain, even if it doesn't look like it. He won't have time to prepare much as we set the time for the challenge so tight."

  "He'll be very surprised about this challenge," Hilda nodded, "I have to give you that. He'd never expect that."

  "Which is what we are aiming for. We take the lead away from him for new, and do all we can to unnerve him. Anything that gives us an edge on him."

 

  Hilda nodded. "Yes, you told me before. I hope that you are right, William. This has never been done before as far as I know. And I know a lot about this stuff."

  The goldfish on her cup looked at the two magical people, then at each other. This was puzzling even to them.

  The magical couple got ready to do the rounds. As they walked outside, Hilda touched William's hand. "You know that you deserve these colours now, don't you?"

  William looked at the clothes. He had worn the blue and silver so often that he didn't really realise what the colours stood for.

  "You've progressed well, my sweet man. I have no problems calling you a wizard now. You're not all great and fabulous, but you make a pretty decent wizard all the same."

  "Oh. Wow. Thank you." Willia knew that Hilda was not throwing compliments like that around easily, so this meant quite a great deal to him.

  "No need to thank me," she said as she mounted her broom. "You did all the work. And you listened to me. That is remarkable."

  Before William could ask her why it was so remarkable, she was already in the air. He kicked off and followed her.

  "I have a very silly plan," Hilda shared with him as he had caught up with her. "I intend to let Walt win today, if he's there."

  "You mean..."

  She grinned. "Yes. The weather's nice, the sun is warm, we'll be dry so fast. It will be fun, and it will make his day also."

  "Well, that's fine with me." William was in the mood for some silliness also, so they both hoped the king would be ready and waiting for them. They were not disappointed.

  Calmly they hovered over the fountain, looking for the door to move through which the king would come running to see the attempt. William quickly mumbled a spell.

  They saw or sensed the water coming. They saw the door move.

  "Not too fast," said Hilda, as the water from the fountain came up to them.

  Walt was out the door and his hands went up in the air as he saw the sprays of the fountain engulf the two floating figures that were over the marble assembly.

  Hilda and William flew up as they were getting soaked by the water jetting from the pipes. It chilled them, it was colder than they had expected, but it was a thrill nonetheless. They sped up to get away from the water as they heard Walt yell and scream. The couple was laughing too as they swooped out of the water's way and dropped down to the ground.

  "You got us, king," said Hilda.

  "Yes! See! I told you I'd get you some day!" Walt was almost dancing for joy. "And I'll get you again, some day."

  Leaving the king in a fabulous mood, they flew off, on the way to the village. They knew they had done a good deed.

  "Good thinking with the spell, William," Hilda complimented him. She had sensed his shock as he realised that the note with the challenge was going to get soaked also, and had heard him mumble a protection spell to keep it dry. "One day you'll be a proper wizard."

  "Thank you. I hope I will be able to live up to your hopes," he said.

  "You'd better. Or I'm going to come after you," Hilda said, her face straight.

  "That sounds nice," he grinned.

  "You know that you are terrible, don't you?" Too bad, she thought, that a hug in flight counted as irresponsible acrobatics.

  They reached the village, landed in the market square as that had most space, and then William followed Hilda to the house where the archers were taking in notes to be distributed.

  "Oh, hello, honourable witch," the administrative archer said, "long time since we have seen you. And welcome, honourable wizard," he added, noticing William. "How may we help you?"

  "We have a note that should be sent," Hilda said. She looked at William.

  "Oh, right." He brought the note up and handed it to the administrator. "To the attention of the sorcerer Lamador, at the castle of king Herald."

  "Okay..." the man was scribbling something on the shaft of an arrow, rolled the note around it and handed it to a second person who wrote something down on a piece of paper.

  "Two silver pieces," said the writer.

  "That'll be two silver pieces then," said the administrator.

  "Suck an elf," Hilda muttered, "rates went up a lot since I last was here." She grabbed into a pocket and counted two silver coins. "I could go bring it myself for that money."

  "But not as fast," grinned the administrator.

  "If that were a bet, I knew where my money would go," said William, slipping his arm around Hilda. The smile on the administrator's face disappeared.

  They left the archery office.

  "Nice of you, telling him off, sweet man," Hilda said, collecting her broom from the wall. "Come. We do rounds and have fun. And then we have to talk to Babs about what you- we are planning."

  46. Our turn

  "Are you both out of your witching minds?" Baba Yaga stared at them from inside the crystal ball. "You sent a challenge to Lamador? And you want to settle that here, in MY forest?!"

  Hilda understood that it would take some explaining to make the Russian witch see their side of the idea. "Yes. You got
all that right, except us being out of our minds."

  "Run that by me again? Didn't you just tell me you went to Heraldion and snatched someone who was related to Lamador?

  "Yes. We did that. We just told you." Hilda nodded. "And we sent him home again, unhurt."

  "Willy... I don't recognise my girlfriend. What the hell did you put into her? No- don't even answer that. I suddenly remember that I don't want to know that. Forget I even asked."

  William pinched Hilda's butt. She slapped him.

  "That's my girl," Baba Yaga muttered who only saw Hilda's move. "But still you are strange folks. You send this powermonger a challenge for the next dark moon, which is close. You want to mess things up in my forest, to make it worse. And to top it off, you are telling me about it and want to know when you can come to set up some... goodies?"

  "Yes," the two said at the same time.

  "You two..." The ugly witch shook her head. Then the magical couple made out, among the wrinkles, the expression Babs claimed was a smile. "I love your brazen disregard for how it's done. Get your hineys on brooms and come over whenever you want. You're always welcome here!"

  Hilda grinned. "If we hurry, we could make it over there today... But I don't feel like hurry. We'll drop by tomorrow, okay, Babs?"

  "Sure, Hilly baby, I'll have tea when you get here."

  After the call to Baba Yaga, they tossed who would make dinner. William won, so Hilda had to wait until he was done. The result was good though. William was making friends with most objects in the kitchen. The only thing that remained a hazard was the oven. Perhaps it had a masochistic streak in it, that it wanted to be kicked ever so often.

  They spent most of the evening writing down lists of things they wanted to take along to Babs' forest, and also how they would set up the goodies they had in mind. As they were busy on their snide plans, Hilda or William got another new plan for a goody, so the list was amazingly long when they finally ended their hard work.

  "We may have to enlist some more witches to get all that in place," said Hilda as she looked over the stack of sheets they had filled up with ideas and plans.

  "I am sure we can get the best ones set up already. No need to worry about the whole list now, sweetwitch," William said.

  Hilda, who had settled in his lap again, put her arms around William's neck. "You are one crazy person. And you have crazy ideas. I hope they are crazy enough to shock Lamador."

  William's hands rested on her hips. "I hope so too. We'll make them work. You and I together."

  "And we have to hide from him that you are magical," Hilda added. "That might be difficult however. Although no other magical person so far has sensed magic in you, and that's a good thing." It was clear that this was something that worried her, at least occupied her mind. William being not magical in other people's view was one of their trump cards.

  "You know what?", said William, "We'll get drunk. Well, at least have a glass of wine, and we'll toast to our victory."

  Hilda looked at him, her eyes shining blue. "Yes, that's a good idea. And I'm getting one like yours! No water."

  "Uhm, perhaps you should be careful. You know what you're like. One whiff of a barmaid's apron and you're singing