The pale dread faced midwife carefully held out the child with trembling arms. The moment Demonica took him, the poor woman broke into sobs.
“No, no dear,” said Demonica. “We're not having you kill him...”
The midwife gave a whooping sob and threw her grateful arms around Demonica. “Oh, thank 'ee!” she wailed. “I don't care how powerful ugly he is, I didn't want to kill him! My joy is a-bringing them into the world, not taking them out. I'm just so terribly afraid to say no to the queen, don't ye know.”
Demonica carefully stepped aside as if two messy ones against her bodice at one time was just a bit much and walked smartly back to her chamber.
“Just what in the hot black Pit do you think you're doing, Demonica?” snapped Spitemorta as she floundered in her wads of bloody sheets.
Demonica turned aside to the midwife with her finger to her lips before looking Spitemorta straight in the eye. “I'm afraid I'm asking you that very thing, dear,” she said with angry crispness. “Is murdering the strongest mage to be born in an age the way you show your motherhood...?”
Spitemorta worked her jaw and sputtered, but Demonica wasn't done: “Or was this merely another of your idiotic displays of power and wisdom? Or maybe you just went mad for a bit, since you can't handle two at a time? This child, dear, is your son, your flesh and blood, and he'll grow into a very powerful tool. Think about that.”
“You're the crazy one, Grandmother!” spat Spitemorta as she kicked a wad of bloody sheets onto the floor at the arrival of fresh linen. “He's a stinking troll! A beast, a troll-brute! And it's all your fault!” she shrieked. “You just had to actually change me into one of those...those things instead of just giving me the glamourie of one...”
“You know very well why that wouldn't have worked. You did agree to the change, my Rouanez sukret.”
“Because you refused to have it any other way...”
“No one made you,” said Demonica as she laid the troll on the bed beside Spitemorta.
“And you should have been Fnadi-yaphn! I thought so at the time.”
Demonica threw up her hands and began pacing as Spitemorta stuck out her tongue at her back. The troll began crying.
“Take your brute off the bed before I kick him onto the floor, Grandmother!” growled Spitemorta, as she put the baby girl to her breast. “He sounds like a goat with catarrh. At least I don't mind nursing this one. Ow! Owee!” She grabbed at her breast. “How can something this new bite like that? Abaddon had his swaddlings off for a good long time and everything.”
“Got a bit of a bite, aye?”
Spitemorta thrust a slit-eyed look at Demonica. “What have you done to my children?” she growled between her teeth.
“I wasn't aware of 'doing' anything to them, dear, truth to tell,” said Demonica, picking up the troll and easing herself into a chair. “And truth it be, in spite of how you may wish. So now you want the poor midwife to dash out your daughter's brains too, aye?”
Spitemorta looked at the bundle in her arms. “She's gorgeous. She's perfect. And you're ugly, Grandmother,” she said, blowing out her cheeks.
“Well, one does what one must in order to stay in control, dear...”
“Fine. And since you have so much control, you can take the ugly little beast for yourself. You can be a mother for once, or kill him if you get smart. Just get him clean out of my sight for good.”
Demonica studied Spitemorta for a moment. “Oh, I most certainly will,” she said suddenly, as she stood up to leave with the wee brute. “And before we leave dear, I do suggest that you find a gaggle of wet nurses. Twelve might be a good start, at least until they toughen up. Ta-ta, now.” She scooped up her scrying ball and with an airy flick of her fingers, stopped the hearts of the midwife and the two chamber maids who had been busy cleaning up Spitemorta.
“Hey!” shouted Spitemorta, as Demonica stepped into the hallway.” What's the meaning of this?”
“Eyes and ears, if you can't figure it out,” said Demonica, already out of sight.
“Who's going to finish cleaning up?”
“You know where the bell pull is!” echoed the corridor.
At the bottom of the cramped stairs of a servant's passage, Demonica closed the narrow door behind her and sat down on a frosty stone bench hidden by holly bushes. She fumbled as she rolled the scrying ball out of her robe and into her lap with the baby troll. “Ah, larks out already,” she said with a glance overhead at the black dawn sky.
“Well wee brute, let's see if the other trolls are still awake.” She looked down at the ball and mumbled a traveling spell.
***
The trolls had spent the night in a narrow forest bottom near where Vyr-pudi had first arrived with news of finding Olean Gairdin, taking frequent spells of frenzied dancing as they pounded on the hollow trunks of three enormous sycamore trees, poont-boont, poont-boont, poont-boont, poont-boont...
In spite of having done so for hours, Dyr-jinyryy and Fnadi-phnig-nyd sprang up and down, leading the chanting of a veritable sea of bobbing troll-brutes filling the wooded bottom: “Ndyrd-sirr! Ndyrd-sirr! Deeph- nyrr! Deeph-nyrr! Ndyrd-sirr! Ndyrd-sirr! Deeph-nyrr! Deeph-nyrr...!”
Presently Fanadi-phnig-nyd leaped with a roar as high as he could into the air and came down, furiously beating his chest and crying: “Ooot-ooot, ooot-ooot, ooot-ooot...!”
At this, the tree thumpers drummed out: thoompitythoompitythoompitythoompity-thoomp! and then stopped short to begin beating in time with Dyr-jinyr-yy, wearing his bear's head, as he shook his terrapin rattles: boont shicka-shick, boont shicka-shick, boont shicka-shick, boont shicka-shick... while the multitude formed circles and brutes took turns within the circles performing mock killings of “Elves” as they stepped in time to the beat.
With the “Elves” all killed, the crowd gathered around Dyr-jinyr-yy, who was now whirling and leaping with everything he had. Suddenly he stopped short, grandly holding wide his arms as all the trolls in the bottom hooted, stamped and cheered.
“Quite impressive, Dyr-jinyr-yy,” said the winged harbinger of the Fates, halo and all, as she stepped from the shadows with a bundle in her arms. “And I see that you've carried out my bidding right well indeed.”
The crowd drew back with a gasp, leaving Dyr-jinyr-yy and Fnadi-phnig-nyd standing alone before her.
Dyr-jinyr-yy pulled off his bear's head and stood still as a beetle-browed stump, keenly eyeing Demonica's bundle.
“Yes indeed,” she said, “This is the newborn god-brute, son of Fnadi-yaphn.”
“Ah,” said Dyr-jinyr-yy with a knowing nod, “veyf-na-ryr amongst us...”
“Veyf-na-ryr!” cried Demonica with a gasp. “I am stunned! 'His Supernatural Power' is indeed the very name chosen for him by Fnadi-yaphn. Then you are verily in tune with her. She said that you would be. You hear her, even when she does not speak, for the name, 'Veyf-na-ryr' has never been uttered before the ears of any living Dyrney. After these livelong years, your doors to her are finally open.”
Dyr-jinyr-yy gave a wide-eyed swallow and a speechless nod.
“I bring unto you Veyf-na-ryr, precious god-brute from your beloved goddess Fnadi-yaphn!” she declared with ringing pronouncement before the stunned crowd of trolls, as she held out the baby before them. Then she turned smartly and placed him into Dyr-jinyr-yy's arms, saying: “Take the god-brute and find amongst your Dyrney the sow who is to be his blessed foster-mother. Go now. Fetch her forth at once. I shall wait for you here.”
She took her bodhran and its two headed stick from her back and began drumming with a flourish: fludum-diddy, dum-diddy, dum-diddy...as she took up the chant: “Veyf-na-ryr, Veyf-na-ryr, Veyf-na-ryr...!”
Dyr-jinyr-yy turned at once and charged into the crowd with his bundle of godbrute, the first troll mage in history, as they took up stamping and chanting with a roar: “Veyf-na-ryr, Veyf-na-ryr, Veyf-na-ryr...!”
***
“Lukuss,” hissed Shot 'n' Stop as he fluidly lifted his
head from the floor of the corridor. “How am I ssuppossed to hail you if you don't look down?”
“Hey Shot 'n' Stop!” cried Lukus as he spun 'round. “You're awake! Did we step on you?”
“I don't think sso, but they jusst pulled me out of hibernation for thiss, sso my brainsses are sstill sslow ass molassess. Sso where are you two russhing off to in ssuch a sstir?”
“Great Grandfather wants us to evacuate,” said Soraya. “Trolls have been spotted on their way. They could be right outside as we speak for all we know...”
“Oh, I really doubt it, Ssoraya...” he said as he glided forward along his own zigzags.
“But he does.”
“Oh, abssolutely. Evacuate, yess...”
“And he told us that the diatrymas saw the trolls less than an hour away, coming straight for us.”
“Yess, my prinscess, but the diatrymasses jusst came back again with tidingsses that all the ugly trollsses have camped right where they firsst ssaw them, sso that meanss ssome exstra time for uss to prepare.”
“Us?” said Lukus. “Are you coming with us down the Magic River?”
“Oh abssolutely. All of uss Peppermintersses are going down the schute. In fact, it lookss azth though I'm one of the lasst to go.”
“We're right glad to have you along,” said Lukus. “What about Mary and the diatrymas?”
“Well if the Marfora Siofra have camped,” said Soraya, “how much extra time does that give us?”
“You two are ssilly,” said Shot 'n' Stop as he swayed mercurially from Lukus to Soraya. “You sspin my eyeballsses and they're fixsed in my ssocketsses. You need to warm me up before going sso crazsy and confussing. Uh...let'ss ssee...Yess. Mary and the diatrymasses are going, too, but I think they're the onesses who are keeping an eye on all the trollsses for the time being. Do you need to ssee them or ssomething?”
“Just wondered...”
“Weren't you ssaying ssomething, Prinscess?...Oh! Exstra time, you ssaid. With all the trollsses camped, that givess me time to sslither all the way down to the boat without having to sswim after it. I jusst detesst getting about like nassty old Natrixsess. Sso, I'd better be going. Ssee ye down there.” And with that he set out for the chute in much the same way as determined syrup from a cold bottle.
“Do you suppose that actually gives us time to think about our packing...?”
“Oh it'ss given me all kindss of time to think about how I'm packing already, Ssoraya,” said Shot 'n' Stop now fully five and a half yards away.
Lukus took up Soraya's hand, kissed it, and pulled her along with him to their room. “Well, I'd wondered about Mary's menagerie,” he said between breaths. “I can't imagine them surviving the trolls.”
“Nor can I,” she said with a shudder. “I'll not say another word of the kind until we are safe and sound, but I just hate this.”
“Well, unless you know something I don't, at least they'll not be able to breach the castle walls. Of course the larders and stores will have to give out in time...”
“If it were just that, they could find a way to get food in. This is about Demonica and Spitemorta, though....and about Daniel and Ariel and the Prophesy.
Remember, Lukus, those witches now have the Heart and the Great Staff.”
“You're right. We'd better hurry.”
***
“This be Fnayooph,” said Dyr-jinyr-yy to Demonica, as he led forth a tall broad shouldered sow with fiery red hair and mottled skin, who now clutched Veyf-na-ryr, suckling hungrily. “She has biggest-breasts of all milk-sows.”
“I see,” said Demonica as she put down her bodhran. “and she's leaking rivulets on the other side. “What did you do with your kid, dear?”
“Sister lost hers,” she said as she ran a beefy hand through her spectacular bush of snarled hair. “She cried-and-cried-and-cried. So I gave-her mine. Now I be godmother.”
She gave a nervous glance overhead at the growing blue of the early dawn sky.
Demonica took Dyr-jinyr-yy and her by the hand. “Be it known,” she cried, turning to the crowd of trolls standing in awed silence, “that here stand Fnayooph, godmother to Veyf-na-ryr, son of our Dyrney-mother-goddess Fnadi-yaphn, and Dyr-jinyr-yy, spiritual father of them both!” She raised her bodhran: fludum-diddy, dum-diddy, dum-diddy, dum... and led the multitude through three rousing roars of: “Veyf-na-ryr! Veyf-na-ryr! Vef-na-ryr!” before silencing everyone to cry: “So comes the new dawn!”
Fnayooph shifted His Supernatural Power to her other breast, and with demure bows to Demonica and Dyr-jinyr-yy, hurried off into the brush with him to curl up in her nest of leaves.
“Just a moment, Dyr-jinyr-yy,” said Demonica, motioning him back. “Find Fnadi-phnig-nyd, if you would, and tell him that we move on the great pink-stone hut-cave with the next darkness!”
Chapter 118
“What is this?” chirped Tweet, as he, Hubba Hubba, Chirp and Squeak settled into the branches of an ancient gnarled pine, high on a rocky slope. “Could this possibly be Cwm Eryr already?”
“Carnage and mayhem,” rattled Hubba Hubba as he pointed himself at the lower reaches of the vista before them.
“What do you mean?” tweeted Squeak.
Hubba Hubba gave a thoughtful saw of his beak across the branch a time or two before running it down a feather in each wing. “Look at those shiny things here and there all over the place, down yonder,” he said with a thorough shake before pointing himself at the valley again. “I'd say they're probably helms and shields and things like that. What else would they be? I can't imagine rocks, and this simply has to be Cwm Eryr. The way I understand it, Hebraun engaged the Golls on Ashmore and then led them up Cwm Eryr to ambush 'em.”
“Should we go down?” squeaked Chirp as he hopped to a new perch on the branch.
“Might as well, boys. Just for a peek before we go back to let Herio know. At least we'll know what we're a-talking about, then.”
The four of them were aloft at once, Hubba Hubba descending in a broad sweeping spiral as Chirp, Tweet and Squeak fluttered down just above him.
“Oh look!” tweeted Squeak. “It really is.”
“Gollians, Gollians, with their bones picked clean,” said Hubba Hubba. “Helms and shields. That is indeed what we saw.”
“So many,” squeaked Chirp, “They run down the whole valley, looks like.”
“Thirteen thousand, I think they said,” said Hubba Hubba. “Well neigh the entire army of Goll and most of Loxmere's, too.”
“In one fell swoop,” chirped Tweet. “King Hebraun really knew what he was doing.”
“Do we?” tweeted Squeak. “I mean, should we show this to Herio?”
“Why not...?” said Hubba Hubba.
“What I really mean is,” tweeted Squeak, “should we lead him around this valley?”
“That would be a right smart amount of going back,” said Hubba Hubba. “He's been in the mountains most of the day, following the North Fork. That would mean losing two days at least, which is probably a bad idea, first of all, and I think he'd feel cheated not getting to at least see where the varmints cleaned up the bones of the villains who murdered his mother, his brother and everyone else he ever knew before he got to Niarg.
Nay boys, he'd be right upset not having us report this, though I'm here to tell you ones it ain't goin o' take away the pain. Now, showing him what's left o' Ash Fork is what I dread, and you know there's no way around that.”
“Hebraun was the best king ever was,” squeaked Chirp. “And if those were Spitemorta's bones down there, I'd love to go down there and snap up the sexton beetles which crawl out of her eye sockets...maybe.”
“Yea? And it wouldn't take the pain away either,” rattled Hubba Hubba. “And after a certain point, death is death. Anyway, let's fly back over the ridge and let Herio know what's a-comin'.”
***
They found him in the sighing pines, dancing about with his burnt fingers after yanking a pan of scorched beans out of the coals. �
��Aw, I didn't keep my mind on the beans,” he said as he licked his fingers and shook them some more. “I wanted to have something nice for you all when you got back.”
“Well thanks Herio,” said Hubba Hubba as he did a two footed hop around the fire. “but did you ever stop to consider what the boys here eat? I've seen 'em eat mealworms and earthworms and roaches with their insides squished out their hind ends and all manner of wiggling rot. Chirp here even said he'd eat sexton beetles...” He paused to shudder, ruffle his feathers and wipe his beak upon the ground.
“Yea!” squeaked Chirp with a proud nod.
“What's a sexton beetle?” said Herio.
“Oh good gracious!” said Hubba Hubba with watery eyes as he wiped his beak again. “They crawl out of eye sockets and nose holes and out from under the tails of things all dead and rotted. So you see, they surely won't mind your beans.”
“How about you?”
“I don't have much of an appetite...”
“What? From my beans or from your story about Chirp and the boys?”
“I flew back down the hollow that way, I'm afraid,” said Hubba Hubba. “Listen, there's no place better to camp up yonder. This is definitely the best place to camp for the night...”
“You birds really want this mess?” said Herio as he looked up to see Chirp, Tweet and Squeak fluttering about as if they actually would eat if he would only set down the pan. “So what's up the hollow, Hubba? We've reached Cwm Eryr, haven't we? Is that what got your appetite, bodies? Is there really that much left of them?”
“Well yes, actually,” said Hubba Hubba as he hopped up on a big stick, lying out away from the fire and quickly found something under one wing. “That is, Cwm Eryr is just on the other side of that ridge. It didn't look like there was anything left but bones, but I can't imagine wanting to sleep the night amongst them, if ye know what I mean, and there's nothing but sharp rocks between here and there, and there were little patches of snow on top, so here has to be the best place...but what took my appetite was Chirp and his stupid sexton beetles...” Suddenly he went madly hopping and flapping off into the pine needles to cough up a string of drool.
Heart of the Staff - Complete Series Page 129
