The Eyes of the Dragon

131

Why doesn’t he move?” Naomi cried, digging one mittened hand into Ben’s shoulder. Her eyes were fixed on Peter’s twisting form. The way it hung there, slowly turning, made it look dreadfully like the body of a man who had been hanged. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t-”

Above them, Flagg’s chilly laughter abruptly stopped.

“Who goes there?” he called. His voice was like thunder, like doom. “Answer me, if you want to keep your heads! Who goes there?”

Frisky whined and shrank against Naomi’s side.

“Oh gods, now you’ve done it,” Dennis said. “What do we do, Ben?”

“Wait,” Ben said grimly. “And if the magician comes down, fight. We wait for what happens next. We-”

But that was all the waiting any of them had to do, for in the next few seconds, much-not all, but a great deal-was resolved.