adventures

From downstairs, there came a crash. 'Fix that window,' Bernice told the dwarves, meeting
Moody's eyeline for a moment. 'I must just see what my cat's getting up to.'
Wolsey, as Bernice got to the bottom of the stairs, was actually doing a cartwheel down the dinner
table, at the end of which he leapt off and kicked a Grel in the chest, sending him flying backwards.
Half of the many Grel in the room turned to look at Bernice, and she suddenly realized that
she was unarmed and almost completely unprepared for this.
Two of them rushed at her.
She grabbed a frying pan that had been hanging on the kitchen wall and pointed it at them like
a gun. 'Stop!' she roared. 'Or be atomized!'
The Grel stopped, unsure – as Bernice had bet on – of anything in their environment at that
moment.
'But that's just a frying pan . . .' murmured Wolsey.
The Grel looked at him. Then back at Bernice, who glowered at her cat.
'Sorry!' Wolsey slapped his own forehead. 'I see what you were trying to do now . . .'
The Grel leapt at Benny again.
She swiped the first one aside with the frying pan. The other one slashed at her with its axe.
Gashing her across her arm.
The cut swelled with blood. She dropped the frying pan. 'I can be hurt!' she cried in excitement.
Then her face froze. 'Bugger, I can be hurt!'
The Grel raised its axe over its head to deliver the knockout blow, but Wolsey leapt at it and
chopped the haft of its axe in two with one singing swish of his sword. He shoved the unarmed
Grel away into a corner, where it gathered with its fellows for a final rush that would at least drive
Bernice and Wolsey back up the stairs, if not overwhelm them altogether.
'Hold on to me, Dick,' muttered Wolsey through clenched teeth.
'I beg your pardon?' said Bernice.
They braced themselves for the onslaught.
And then, from outside the cottage, a trumpet sounded.
The Grel Master poked his head through the doorway of the cottage and shouted to his troops.
'New fact: A large body of troops is approaching! Leave this place and hide!'
Hooting in urgency, and casting dark squiddy glances over their shoulders at Bernice and
Wolsey, the Grel gathered up their weapons and injured comrades and ran for the door.
Slowly, the dwarves and Candy trooped down the stairs behind the two friends.
'They stopped trying to get in upstairs,' Moody reported. 'They're running off into the forest.'
They all sat down on the steps, gazing at the wreckage of the kitchen.
'At least the place doesn't look so neat any more,' said Laddish.
'Good cat,' said Bernice, hugging Wolsey's arm. From outside, the trumpet sounded again, this
time much closer. 'Come on, let's see who's come to our rescue.'
Outside the cottage stood a small army. Bernice and the others staggered out of the door and
stared at it in the morning sunlight, the massed armour of the mounted soldiers reflecting silver
and gold. At the head of the column of knights, with their banners and lances, sat a young, square
jawed man with squarely cut, bright blond hair. On top of the hair sat a crown. He stared at Bernice
as she stepped into the sunlight, his mouth open in amazement. 'Why –' he breathed.
'She's–'
'Not on top form at the moment, actually. We would invite you in . . .' Bernice gestured to the
cottage. 'But the place is such a mess.'
'She's –'
Bernice was trying to pay attention to the young man. For one thing, he looked very familiar,
as were a number of his fellow knights, and she was having trouble placing them. But something
else was demanding her attention. Namely, that from the column of elegantly groomed and muscular
horses, a very different animal, without rider or braid, had detached itself, and had
wandered up to her, looking at her expectantly. This horse was small, grey and shabby-looking,
totally unlike all the others. It seemed to be trying to communicate something to her in its stare.
Bernice was about to at least find it a sugar lump when the man at the front of the column fin-