The witch snarled.  Falling.  Down.  Down.  Impact.

He felt himself go.  It felt like falling, and as though he’d stopped long ago.  No sound.  I’m cold, he thought.  The heat leaves the limbs first, the heart and head last.  It’s cold.

No, there was sound.  Crunch, crunch, crunch.  A wind.  Were his eyes open?  Louder: crunch, crunch–

“Ow!”  A boot came down on his head.  “Mind your step, if you please!”  The sound of the boots halted, and he looked up.

“Oh, it’s you, fool,” said Radskyrta.  “Reckon you’d best get up.”  The soldier offered an icy gauntleted hand.

Magnifico let himself be drawn in a direction that might have been up.  “You.  You’re here.  We’re here.  Where?  My head aches.  What happened?”

“You fell down.  I did, too, but I’m not gonna just lie there.  Always got to be moving, right?” said Radskyrta.  “You stop moving, you…don’t get up again, maybe.  You freeze.”  He shrugged, and drew a cloak around him.

“Where are the others?”  Magnifico shivered, becoming aware of a frigid twilight, and of snow.

Radskyrta shrugged again.  “Back there,” he muttered, barely inclining his head in a familiar gesture.  “Think I’m done.  You coming, or what?”

“No,” said Magnifico quickly.  “You go ahead, friend.  I will see what is keeping the rest.  Don’t go too far.”

“Got to keep moving,” said Radskyrta, trudging on through the snowy wood.  “Miles to go.”

“Don’t go too far,” Magnifico heard himself repeat, and turned–back?–in the direction from which the plodding Radskyrta had come.  The forest was darkening, and still but for the scuffle of his own feet, or the echoes of Radskyrta’s.

No, there was a light that flickered.  That would be Mendel, or Gestlin, or a fire built by the others, and it would be warm.  He would find out what had happened.  Fight.

It was a blue light, and the light was armor, and the armor encased a man, tall as Rainald, and the man moved gracefully from tree to tree, seeking something or other.

“You there, sir knight!  Hail and well met!” cried Magnifico cheerily.  “I am a performer who has lost his way, and would welcome your company.”

Shaking his head, the glowing man in blue turned on the clown.  “Who…ahhhh…you?” his voice rasped.  Glittering eyes pierced, and a chill stabbed at Magnifico’s heart.

“I, sir, am Magnifico, fool and songster.  What is your pleasure?”

The stranger looked long, pointed, and said in his oddly accented Anglish, “Your clothes.”

“These are but the trappings of my trade, sir knight, and in my charming gear I seek with my friends to rid the land of evil.  I was just looking for them–”

“You put on…dot…and fight crime?”  The thick vowels made him hard to understand, and he began to chuckle.  “With your friends?”

“Eccentrically put, kind sir, but essentially correct.  My friends are around here somewhere, and would no doubt make a place for you at their fire.”

The blue knight laughed, pointing again at Magnifico.  “You…AHHH…super!  You need to”–he drew from his back a kind of rod that made a whining sound–“chill out.”

Magnifico fled, numb feet leading him away into the gloom.  Behind him, the knight’s voice mocked him.  “You’ll be back!”

And then it was warm. and there was dear Merasiel, arguing with Sir Dane over the disposition of the corpses, and Mendel was there, watching him wake.  “Radskyrta,” said the monk sadly, shaking his head.

“Yes,” replied Magnifico, remembering snow and the fresh track of familiar boots.