Mufaddal screamed.
CHAPTER XVI
Heraj uncoiled like a spring, his mind hastily flitting through mental file cards for an appropriate spell against gorillas. He had no doubt that it was the gorilla. He was turning to check, and had just decided on the brief but pithy incantation which sent victims to the plains of Afghanistan, when a large firm paw smote him on the nape of the neck, and the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.
Habu clutched for his wand. He was a very minor warlock and needed a wand to do anything more complicated than the three-shell trick. His hand never reached the ebony stick. Godwin picked him up and threw him contemptuously at the wall, which he hit so hard that his backbone was telescoped into itself and some twenty-nine of his other bones were fractured in more or less intricate ways.
Pepi woke up, saw the tip of El Sareuk's sword held steadily at the hollow of his throat, and closed his eyes as if he had been sand-bagged. "One move of those lips, witch-man," said the old Arab pleasantly, "one small spell begun, and you will be breathing through several more orifices than nature intended." Pepi lay as silent and motionless as a defunct stork, which he vaguely resembled.
Mufaddal was waving his scimitar in arcs before him, bellowing for his soldiers, calling on Allah to smite these heathen devils, and cursing the magic of Heraj that had turned a plain man into this ghastly demon-thing advancing on him. He had entirely forgotten that it had been his idea to change Godwin to an animal for vengeance's sake.
Ramizail lay on her back and drummed her heels on the floor and laughed with delight at the spectacle of her beloved—and despite his present shape, he was her beloved—wading in amongst the enemy in such headlong fashion. "Smear the big hellhound all over the wall, darling!"
"Ramizail," said the gorilla, maneuvering for advantage, "that is not ladylike. Get up off the floor and stop swearing." He then feinted with one paw, caught the scimitar by the flats with the steel fingers of his other, twitched it out of Mufaddal's horrified grasp, stepped up to him and gave him a splendid uppercut on the point of the jaw.
Mufaddal joined his sorcerers on the floor.