But who cared? He’d gotten a good deal of what he had come for. The old bag of bones could suffer and crumple if she wanted. That was what she had wanted. And anyway, wasn’t bolting from a crisis his special skill and trademark?

He turned back to stalking up and down a few more times. It moved the blood, loosened the joints, bulked up the muscles. It had been a long time since he had had to throw his weight around. Humiliating if he couldn’t actually defeat a door in a mauntery, but he tried not to think about that yet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dwarf rooting through the pocket of the Lion’s own weskit.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing-”

Too late. The dwarf had folded the piece of official vellum into a chevron, and was aiming-

“You don’t dare!”

The paper soared out the window before the Lion could snatch at it. “Now we’re all in the same boat,” said the dwarf affably. “No one is supplied with special defenses against being aggrieved by the Messiars, or whichever army gets here first. So stop stalling, Lion. Get us out of here before the soldiers arrive.”

Brrr could have sprung on the dwarf, swiped him sideways out the window. Mashed him to an ugly organic patty, internal organs extruded like sausage meat through a grinder. Good-bye to Mr. Boss’s unblinking unretreating stance, his outthrust bearded chin and agate eyes. His belligerence. His confidence. In one so small: so concentrated. Like Sakkala Oafish. Where did it come from?

Was the dwarf a Glikkun-avenging the Traum Massacre, after all this time?

No: That was his own nerves attacking him, a case of the humors. Or, as some called it, paranoia. As much to shake himself up as anything else, Brrr roared. The boys started. The dwarf did not.

The Lion tensed and sprung, rolling his spine forward and sideways, to take the brunt of the impact on his shoulder rather than his skull.

There was a gratifying thud, a shriek of splitting wood, and an echo, but the door did not split. The old oaken planks ran in two depths on the bias, they were laid tongue-and-groove and reinforced by iron braces. And the doorjamb was stone.

“Good one,” said the dwarf. “Very nice, that. Expected no less.”

“In words of one syllable or less,” said the Lion, “first: ow. Next: shut up. You want to take a turn, be my guest.”

Ilianora came up to Brrr to press her hands on his shoulder muscles. “Your old auntie needs help,” she said. “Wasn’t that Munchkinlander maunt who locked us in here a healer? An apothecaire? We must find her.”

“You don’t understand. If Yackle is failing at last, the last thing she wants is help,” said the Lion, shaking Ilianora off. “But I’ll try again.”

Three, four times at the door.

“Who’s in a hurry?” said the dwarf. “Not me. I can’t see the army approaching through that high window. I’m too short. So I’m totally unconcerned. I think I’ll sit here and teach myself to count in a foreign language. One, two, three, fuck, fuck, six, seven, eight, nine, fuck.”