Dyr-jinyr-yy had watched the birth of Veyf-na-ryr in his skinweler. The trolls took up positions squatting or kneeling in the spruce needles amongst the trees without the slightest rustle or the snapping of a single twig.
Demonica stood, peering out across the black waters to what she was fairly certain was Oilean Gairdin, but since she could not begin to see as well in the blackness as the trolls, she was not about to let on. “The water's going to be a problem,” she said turning to Fnadi-phnig-nyd. “Did you see any boats when you were here?”
“What's a boat?”
“You came on one,” she said impatiently.
He made no reply.
“Very well then, you came to Gnyr-jan ntu Afajoy on seven can't-go-back, can't-go-back, can't-go-backs. Did you see any can't-go-backs?”
This was a poser. Fnadi-phnig-nyd stood in mute silence like a negligent schoolboy standing at the blackboard.
“Uh...we walk-here...”
Demonica looked down at a tug on her skirt to see Vyr-pudi on all fours at her heels. The moment she did, he threw himself flat upon the ground. “Well what?” she snapped.
“I was the first-go-look to tell-back-from the great pink-stone hut-cave...” he said as he carefully rolled back onto his haunches.
“And?”
“I saw grab-up-squeakers, grab-up-squeakers, grab-up-squeakers and metal-heads, metal-heads, metal-heads walk-on-water to the great pink-stone hut-cave...”
“Where? Show us.”
“We-go or all-go?” he said as he rose to his feet.
“It would certainly serve our purposes better if we all went,” she said, as a screech owl called out quite nearby.
“Then we should grow-forth with moth-powder possum-foot,” said Fnadi-phnig-nyd with a fierce nod, suddenly getting hold of himself.
The queue of trolls followed them heavily through the weeds with the silence of wraiths along the banks of Jutland Lake. As they approached the place where Vyr-pudi had seen Elves crossing the lake, they found it guarded by thirteen sentries.
“Lots of holdy-breath-tooth-grit and far-eye,” whispered Vyr-pudi, “lots of fly-out-bites.”
Demonica could see that it was at the edge of the village of Oilean Giardin, which looked abandoned. “They must all in the castle,” she thought.
The trolls took up positions in the shadows between the houses and waited like stones. Presently an Elf on a white unicorn galloped from the woods to pause amongst the sentries, talking urgently before heading on to the castle across the lake.
“Ha. A submerged isthmus,” thought Demonica. “And no splashing. An enchantment. This works to our advantage.”
She grabbed Fnadi-phnig-nyd by the ear. “See where the rider goes?” she whispered. “That's how you lead the brutes.”
Suddenly the trolls sprang on the sentries out of the dark, seizing them before a single one of them could cry out.
Demonica took Dyr-jinyryy and Vyr-pudi and climbed into a small boat. The two of them had utterly no idea whatsoever about what to do with oars, so Demonica took over and rowed far out into the lake, away from the isthmus to land well out of sight of the front of the castle. They made their way from the boat through the arboretum to a corner of the castle hidden by shrubbery.
Demonica withdrew the Heart from its pouch.
“Heart-thump fire-flashes!” gasped Dyrjinyryy.
Demonica shushed him, then quickly stepped between the shrubs, planted the Heart against the front wall of the castle and began mumbling an incantation. Presently the Heart began humming faintly like some distant tuning fork. As it grew louder, she took a big step back from the wall, which now was humming with the same note.
Guards shouted from across the garden. Keeping her hand held high, she quickly jogged backward several rods and halted to give the Heart a furious shake as if she were trying to fling water at someone from a sponge in her fist. A bolt of ruby light shot from the Heart to the castle wall, which ballooned out into a thundering cascade of bouncing rolling stones.
“What kind of stone gives heart-thump fire flashes?” stammered Dyrjinyryy, looking her up and down.
“One that lets me bring you a mere taste of Fnadi-yaphn's power,” she snarled. “And now that I've done that, are you going to just stand there and let your Elves escape?”
Dyr-jinyr-yy went quite wide eyed at this and dashed across the garden to where he had dropped his bear's head. He shoved it on down to his shoulders, picked up his staff and ran with all his might down to the water to meet Fnadi-phnig-nyd, who was just arriving with the vanguard of brutes. There would certainly be plenty-to-eat tonight and for many more nights to come.
***
“Is there anything left to pack?” said Soraya as she came into their room to find Lukus sitting on the bed. “Surely everything we need is already down there, and running back down every two shakes to nurse Ariel and Daniel is starting to wear me out.”
“Right there's the last of it,” said Lukus with a nod at the four bags on the floor in front of him. “I just kept picturing us marooned for years upon years, wishing we could have a scrap of anything at all from back here, and threw it in, particularly with a boat that can be any size it needs to be...”
“Lukus! Listen!”
“So ol' Danneth hasn't figured how to nurse the twins yet, aye...?”
“Hear that sound?”
“Yea! Sounds almost like it's in the walls...”
“What earthly kind of instrument makes an endless note...?”
Suddenly Soraya gave a wide-eyed gasp and yanked Lukus off the bed with all her might to land on top of her as she tumbled backward into the hall, just in time for the outside wall of their bedroom collapse out into the courtyard.
Lukus whirled round on his haunches to see their bed, the rug it was standing on and everything else in their room give way and fall onto the floors below. “Out of here!” he cried as he grabbed her by the hand and dashed down the hall to halt at the sight of its outside wall tumbling out into the air just as the floor began to buckle. They spun 'round in a frenzy and ran the other way with everything they had.
“Lukus! Great-Grandfather!”
“There's no time...!”
“But Grandfather!” she cried, planting her feet.
“I'm sorry Soraya! We've got to get to the stairwell! Think of Ariel and Daniel!”
“Down the chute!” she panted. “That's right! That's exactly what Great-Grandfather would have us do!”
On they charged to the far end of the castle, as Lukus felt through her hand the pull of each anguished woman and child they passed along the way. “There's the stairwell!” he cried. But just as they reached it, a massive thud shook the floor under their feet.
“Nooo!” wailed Neron from behind them.
Lukus and Soraya drew their blades as they spun about to find him on his knees beside a huge chunk of ceiling in a spreading pool of blood with his head thrown back, crying out in anguished sobs.
“Jerund!” screamed Soraya.
“Don't look at him! He's crushed!” cried Neron, holding out his arm to stop her as he looked up at Lukus. “Fuair sé bás!”
“He's gone Soraya!” said Lukus, kneeling to put his arm around her. “There's nothing anyone can do...!”
“Slán!” she squeaked. “Slán leat Jerund! Slán leat deartháir beag!” She buried her face in Lukus's shirt with a whoop and shook with sobs.
“Go!” boomed a deep reedy voice. “Go now!”
“Ceidwad!” cried Lukus, looking up with a start.
“The Marfora Siofra are right on our heels,” said Lladdwr as he stepped from behind her. “You have no time at all.” And with a rustle of feathers they wheeled about and sped away down the corridor like giant dusters.
“Go!” cried Neron as he gave Soraya a hug that bore no resemblance to his stern command. “Get down the chute before it's too late!”
Hand in hand they sprang to their feet and raced to the head of the stairwell. When th
ey looked back before going down, Neron was nowhere to be seen. Down they flew, to be taken completely by surprise by a huge grinning troll, furiously swinging his club.
Lukus managed to draw Gearr Téigh Síós, but it took everything he had to dodge each of the swings. Suddenly, the troll bounced his club off the wall, hitting himself in the head.
“Pen cachu!” cried Lukus as he gave a mighty swing, taking the brute's head clean off to splatter and thump down the chute. “Soraya!” he cried, spinning 'round to find her gone. He charged to the top of the stairs.
“Soraya!” he hollered at the sight of her at the far end of the corridor, kicking and lurching against the grasp of three trolls carrying her outside. He flew to the end of the hall to see her hauled over a pile of rubble and out of sight. “Soraya!” He furiously churned his way over the top of the pile in spite of the white fire in his chest, not noticing in the least the jagged tumbling stones against his feet and legs.
“Soraya! No!” he bellowed out, seeing flickers of her in the orange light of the burning castle, being dragged out of sight into the woods. “If anything happens, I'll die with you!” he panted, as he raced forth with every fiber he had and no plan at all for the spot where she had disappeared.
A troll tramped into his path, swinging his club. Lukus cleaved his arm above the elbow with a two-handed swing of his claymore and sprinted on. He could see commotion through the brush. He could make out where they had Soraya, but several others were trying to corner something big, just off to the side.
“Arwr!” he cried.
“Oooo...ooo...ooob!” came a call from behind as Ceidwad and Lladdwr streaked by, crashing into the thicket just ahead of him. The trolls let go of Soraya and bolted away at the sight of birds twice as big as strike falcons.
Ceidwad dropped Soraya's bow and quiver on top of her as she knocked down one of them, smashing his head.
“Oooooooff...vooov...vooob!” boomed Lladdwr, flashing the red patches in his wings and tail, lowering his head and popping his beak as he pranced alongside another troll before flattening him with a brutal sideways kick.
Lukus ran through a third one, and was yanking out his claymore when Soraya put an arrow into the mouth of a fourth, who had just stepped up with his club, all ready to brain him. Ceidwad and Lladdwr had each just taken down another brute apiece when yet another troll grabbed away Soraya's bow and started dragging her off into the timber.
“Soraya!” cried out Lukus as he dashed after them. “Stinking troll cachu!”
“Wooob...doooff...voooob!” boomed Arwr as he overtook Lukus with a half dozen springy strides to knock the troll flat and pin him fast to the ground with a scaly foot on each arm. He gave his feathers a thorough shake, pinched off the skin from the tip of the brute's nose for good measure and turned his head to face Lukus with both eyes. “So what do you want me to do with this thing, Prince Lukus? Very well, I can wait. You need a moment,” he said as Soraya and Lukus grabbed each other into a frantic embrace.
“Here are these again, dear,” said Ceidwad, bringing forth a beak full of bow and arrows.
“Well he's certainly earned his own death,” said Lukus, turning back with closed eyes to treasure Soraya with another quick squeeze.
“By all means,” said Arwr. “Well, I'd certainly do him in for you, but it would be understandable if either you or Soraya wanted to...or you might want to save him and question him, first...”
“And then kill him,” said Lukus. “That might be just the thing...”
“And we may be killed, merely a-standing here,” said Lladdwr as his neck went fluffy, swinging his head up to his full height to peer over the thicket at the pandemonium of trolls and Elves all about the burning castle.
“Make for the Magic River,” said Ceidwad as she squatted onto her keel. “Please get on, Princess Soraya. You must be exhausted. And Lukus, you ride on Lladdwr.” At once they were underway, with Lladdwr and Arwr steering the whimpering troll by popping their ponderous ebony beaks at his ears and pinching him mercilessly when he dared to hesitate or to step wide of where they wanted him to go.
“I understood why we might not want to go straight there when we turned this way,” said Soraya, as Ceidwad lifted open a cellar door ringed by thick evergreen shrubbery at the far end of the arboretum, “but why are we hiding? It's urgent that we get down to the caverns.”
“We are,” said Ceidwad, ducking to step inside as her voice took on echoes. “This is the secret way...”
“I'll say!” said Soraya. “I've spent the last two hundred and forty years growing up here, and I knew nothing about this.”
“How did you know about it, Ceidwad?” said Lukus, reaching out to feel of the clammy stone ceiling. “I never knew you ever went inside until you came into the castle to warn us.”
“It's not that we can't, we just avoid it unless it's a matter of life and death. I've been in and out of here five times, helping to see the enchanted creatures down to the river. It's a long way too, maybe four league.”
Arwr closed the door behind them. When he discovered that the troll had defiantly planted his feet, he clamped onto a buttock and twisted his beak.
“Fnafo-dyrnyr-truf!” yelled the brute as he lurched forward. “Fnadyr-difarr ja! Fnadyr-difarr ja! Fnaphn-nty ntu!”
“Fnafo-dyrnyr-truf. Fnadyr-diffarr ja. Fnadyr-difarr ja. Fnaphn-nty ntu,” said Arwr.
“You understand Trollish?” said Lukus.
“Not a single word of it,” said Arwr.
“There's not a soul alive who does,” came a voice out of the tunnel ahead of them.
“Mary!” cried Ceidwad, “I was starting to worry. Did you get the last of enchanted moved?”
“All but Shot 'n' Stop. He was going through the castle, the last I knew,” said Mary as she turned loose a mage light from the palm of her hand and squinted at the party. “Looks like you all have found a pet.”
“Yea,” said Lukus. “He tried to run off with Soraya. The diatrymas are going to listen to him for a while before we kill him. And Arwr just repeated a whole string of troll gibberish, just as exact as can be. How can he do such a thing?”
“By listening...” said Arwr.
“That's not the half of it,” said Mary. “Diatrymas only need to hear a language once in order to be able to turn around and speak it. It might do right well for them to figure out Trollish. We're only guessing so far. It might be valuable indeed to find out just how the Marfora Siofra actually came to be here.”
“That's not altogether the way it is,” said Ceidwad. “We might have to listen for a long time. Arwr doesn't understand what he just heard. He simply will never forget any of it. We had to listen to Niarg speech for a very long time before we suddenly saw how it all was and could speak it the next day.”
Soon everyone fell silent with his own thoughts except for the padding of feet, the rhythmic satiny rustle of big feathers and the echoes of an occasional skittering pebble, for it was a very, very long way down.
“I see light ahead,” said Mary after a very long time. “I thought we were getting close.” In short order they stepped out onto the polished floor at the bottom of the chute. Ceidwad and Lladdwr squatted at once to let Soraya and Lukus dismount as Danneth and Strom, looking very worried, rushed up to meet them.
“Where are the twins?” said Soraya.
“Sound asleep in their baskets,” said Danneth, peering anxiously back and forth from her face to Lukus's. “What's happened? Where did the troll come from?”
Soraya went straight to Ariel and Daniel's baskets without a word, and knelt and kissed them on their foreheads as she adjusted their blankets. Then she rose and made her way straight back to where Danneth and Strom stood watching her. Suddenly her opal eyes brimmed over with tears as she rushed forth to throw her arms around the two of them and break into sobs.
After a long spell of grieving, Strom stood up from where the three of them knelt, walked smartly over to the chute, picked up a bucket, and took
it straight to where the Diatrymas were keeping watch over the troll. “Here big fellow,” he said as he thrust the bucket at the brute's face. “What do you think of that?”
“Vyf-japf!” wailed the troll. “Duda! Duda! Pirrfey! Pirrfey!” He covered his head with his arms and rocked back and forth on his haunches, whimpering: “Daphnid-jurrfid! Daphni-durrv-iphn! Daphni-dury-rarr!”
***
King Neron squeezed shut his eyes, taking in a breath through his teeth as Soraya and Lukus raced away to the stairwell. “The Sacred Maidenhair!” he said, springing to his feet. “I simply have to, then I'll follow.” He drew Gearr Anuas and squeezed through a break in the wall and began clambering over the mounds of rubble which once were the rooms just inside the front wall of Caislean Oilean Gairdin. “There's no choice but to make do with just a cutting...” Suddenly he looked up into a shower of debris. Something big was dropping right down onto him from above. He thrust out Gearr Anuas just in time to impale a troll as it knocked him flat. For a moment he lay stunned before launching into a frantic struggle to wriggle out from under the brute and yank free his blade. He stopped short as a roar right above him quickly became a strained hissing gurgle, as another huge trollbrute staggered this way and that, flailing his arms before dropping to his knees to grab in helpless frenzy at the huge lump of something about his neck as he collapsed into a heap right beside him.
“Shot 'n' Stop!” cried Neron, as he pulled one leg free at last. “Is that you?”
“You've had other consstrictorsses on the premissess all thiss time without telling me?”
“You just saved my life, didn't you!”
“Well he wass trying to kill you, sso I jusst sslithered off the edge up there and got him. For a king, you ssure take lotss of looking after. The sstairwell'ss the other way, or are you jusst plain losst? It'ss too late to ssave anything. It'ss time you were esscaping.”
Heart of the Staff - Complete Series Page 131
