At the snap of a breaking stick, he shot to his feet.
“I can't find him!” whispered out Cardell.
“Right over here,” said Cunedda. “Report.”
“We've not yet found a way across,” said Carbines, “but we did find a big sandbar covered with willows out in the middle of the river on the downriver end of the first horseshoe bend. It's up to your chin, but you can wade it. Maybe we could be safe for a spell in a bivouac there while Cardell and I hunt for a place shallow enough to ford.”
“Pass the word, and remind them to be quiet as possible. Then help me lead the way.”
Soon the men were following along, not saying a word, but noisy as ever, otherwise. Shrill calls of cricket frogs fell silent up and down the bank as they reached the water. The sandbar was actually not very far away and the men reached it in short order. Cunedda counted heads as they stepped out of the water. “One hundred, eight and ninety,” he thought as the last man came ashore. “Is that Lieutenant Marrack?” he said.
“Why, yes sir,” said the soldier, surprised at being recognized.
“Are there any more behind you?”
“Nay. I'm certain that I've been bringing up the rear, and I've been straining to hear the slightest sound behind me, the whole way.”
Soon everyone was on the far side of the willows, sitting in the sand along the water's edge. Cricket frogs sounded like a chorus of colliding glass marbles. Cunedda pulled off his riding boots and began wading back and forth before them. “We ran into the Niarg army 'way before I'd ever imagined that we would,” he said. “We had allowed that they'd be at least another league upriver. Even with all the brush, I still don't understand why we didn't see their fires. They may have heard us coming soon enough to get off the first shots, but that was no ambush waiting for us or there would have been no fires. In spite of what we ran into, though, you all fought very damned well this evening and I salute each one of you.
“Carbines, I want you and Cardell to pick out two other men apiece and go ahead and find a place to ford the river. Station a man on each side of the ford. When you get across, you take one of the men you picked and go downriver and try to find General Coel. And Cardell, you take a man and go upriver and try to find General Coel, in case he got by us when we were fighting. Which ever one of you finds him, tell him what happened and bring him and the troops to your ford and bring him across the river. If they get here soon enough, the Niarg troops ought be easy to surprise. As soon as you get them across the river, come get us.
“Corporal Cargeeg, form a small detail and secure the sandbar. And station a pair of men on the bank of the river.”
“Sir?”
“Yes, Cardell?”
“We saw something right where he'd have his two men stationed that made our hair stand on end.”
“Well what?” said Cunedda, still being careful to keep his voice down. “You don't mean some of Niarg's men, do you?”
Cardell came over close to Cunedda in order to speak even more quietly. “It was 'way too big for any of their men, sir.”
“Well now, Queen Spitemorta insists that the woods here are infested with creatures carrying a were curse, but I'm afraid I have a hard time swallowing it. You didn't see a bear with red eyes glowing in the dark, did you?”
“No. This thing was like a naked man only three times as heavy as any man you ever saw. Maybe. I mean I could hardly see in the dark, but it reminded me of things the old folks used to tell about trolls, before they all vanished from this world.”
“No they didn't, even if everybody did think so,” said Cunedda. “Queen Spitemorta and Demonica came and removed hundreds of them from the caves back home on the west coast of Brastyr Howldrehevel and turned them loose here. We'll keep an eye out. And you and Carbines need to be long gone by now.”
“Yes sir!” And with that, the two soldiers waded into the river.
***
The soldiers of Niarg were busy enough everywhere in the camp and in the leafy river bottom 'round about, waving torches, gathering up arrows and taking a tally of the dead and wounded, that no one seemed to notice the growing flickers of sheet lightning lighting up the sky in the west through the trees. Somber voices echoed under the cathedral of the cottonwood canopy, submerged in the vast chorus of katydid calls which gave a syncopation to everything. Guards on the perimeter yawned and blinked at the blackness with their backs to the battlefield.
“Damn you!” said Corporal Bevan. “What are you trying to do, LLlygad, make me jump out of my skin?”
“You're supposed to be watching...” said Sergeant LLlygad.
“Yea, but not where you came from. I'm not watching the ding-dong camp itself. I'm supposed to be a-watching the other direction to catch the enemy sneaking up.”
“Well Strutly has me out, creeping up on everyone on guard. He says a good start will keep ye awake.”
“That's nice of him,” said Bevan, scratching his head and replacing his helm. “Say. Any word on the number of fallen?”
“They're still counting. But they're starting to say we lost better than half.”
Lightning lit up a great wall of towering clouds in west. A rumble of distant thunder had both of them looking through the trees in time to see the next winks of light.
“That's a goose drowner a-coming,” said LLlygad.
“Well how about Goll's Gwaels? How many? Any word?”
A sudden surge of wind chased through the trees, furiously rattling the leaves and setting the tops of the cottonwoods to swaying overhead, quieting the katydids.
“What did you say?” shouted Bevan over the wind.
LLlygad made no reply, belly up in the stinging nettle with his throat cut. And before his very next breath, Bevan lay in the weeds beside him.
Across the camp, the wind blew out the torch and candles and sent Strutly's map flying off the table from between him and Bernard. As he shot to his feet to give chase, he was seized by a look of alarm on Bernard's face and wheeled about to find himself at the points of three swords and the entire camp suddenly swarming with armed Gwaels.
Bernard rose and stood straight to face a man in full armor ambling to a halt directly before him on a great black unicorn.
“I'm General Coel of the Gwaelian First Mercenary Army,” said the man on the unicorn. “And you, sir?”
“Captain Bernard of Niarg, and I'll guarantee you and your men kind treatment and free passage back to Gwael if you surrender unto me this minute without a fight.”
Coel threw back his head with laughter. “I like a man with a sense of humor,” he said, removing a gauntlet and running his eye along the back of his hand, “especially one who commands such exceptional soldiers. Do you realize that you came within two hundred men of slaying all ten thousand of our Gwaelian regulars? I'd be honored to fight alongside you any day.”
“Yea?” said Bernard. “Well I would too, except I'd never stoop to being in the service of the two rottenest witches ever to tramp the face of the earth.”
“Now that's just rude, Captain Bernard,” said Spitemorta as she gently settled down between them on the Staff and stepped off. “And you don't really have room to talk, since from the moment we arrived, you've been in my service.”
“In a pig's eye!” barked Bernard, “It'll be a long day and a hot one before I fight for a witch like you!”
Without warning, Spitemorta jabbed the Staff at the table, setting alight the entire table top with a whoosh, making Cole's unicorn nicker and step back. “Your problem, Captain, is not just intractable rudeness, but no apparent grasp of power at all,” she said, waltzing around the end of the burning table like a cat brushing against legs. “Makes one wonder how you got to be captain at all, especially with you so powerful ugly. If I were your mother, I certainly would have killed you, long ago...”
“Yea. Ugly is as ugly does. Like yours gave you away.”
“And how soon I actually do kill you, depends on you, Captain...” she said, stopp
ing short as lightning connected the sky with a cottonwood across camp, lighting up an arriving wall of rain with a deafening boom as it swept the length of camp. She paused for a moment, looking at everyone all about her getting thoroughly drenched in the downpour while she stood by with the Heart and Staff, perfectly dry.
“I'm sorry,” said Coel, getting off his unicorn with a bound, “I'm standing under the captain's marquee while you all enjoy the rain.”
“So Captain,” she said as if they were all having a sunny chat in the garden gazebo, “where might I find Herio?”
“Buried over yonder with several score others,” he said with a nod, as water streamed from his chin.
Spitemorta laughed like a debutante by the punch bowl, suddenly stopping like a slammed door. “No, you didn't, dear,” she said, nodding aloft. “I've been up there while you and the wet Captain Map-Chase did nothing but sit here, watching your men count bodies.”
“Find him then,” said Bernard.
“Oh, I'm not about to bother, my good captain. It doesn't really matter where Herio is. You see, he's earned my having the pleasure of removing his eyes and fingers at the very least. So if you don't deliver him unto me in due time, I'll simply keep track of removing your eyes and fingers when you're done with them. You'll still be in my service, no matter when that happens to be.”
“Poop!” said Bernard.
Spitemorta paused, serenely studying the length of her staff as though she had never had the chance to examine it before. Suddenly she jabbed it into his face, breaking his nose.
“Aah!” he cried out, grabbing at his face.
As she was gloating over this, two great naked trolls stepped quietly out of the glistening leaves and fell to their knees before her. “Fnadi-yaphin, du vyrs fnyf dyphn-dy- yf da,” said one of them, tugging at her dress.
Chapter 154
“Fnadi-yaphin, du vyrs fnyf dyphn-dy-yf da,” said the troll once again, as his companion fell forward from his knees to completely flatten himself in the wet leaves.
Spitemorta threw up her hand to halt Cole and several of his soldiers as they went for their swords to come to her aid. “Dyrney dyrija!” she barked out in practically the only trollish she could remember, as she waved for them to follow her into the shadows. She cast a spell of tongues upon herself at once. “That takes care of me understanding them,” she thought as she stepped into the dripping weeds, “but when magic does nothing to them, what would Grandmother do? I can't very well go through the entire ordeal of becoming Fnadi-yaphn right before their eyes. Ha! I've got the Heart. I'll give myself Fnadi-yaphn's very tongue and throat.”
“Fnadi-yaphin, du vyrs fnyf dyphn-dy-yf da,” said the troll at her heels, the moment they were out of sight of the others. “Goddess no-still-like Dyrney?”
“Gaah-hoof!” she bellowed out, yanking the glowing red Heart away from her throat as the trolls shrank back in bug-eyed fear. “Of course I still like the Dyrney!” she snarled in Fnadi-yaphin's booming trollish, as she steadied herself with the Staff and a nearby tree. Her head felt as though it would unscrew and sail away into the thundering clouds unless she clenched her glowing red teeth. She gave a fling of her fingers, making the three of them go dry in the midst of the pounding downpour. “I still like all Dyrney, Fnadi-phnig-nyd, but you and Dyr-jinyr-yy are idiots. How does someone with faith dare to ask a question like that?”
“That-be easy,” said Dyr-jinyr-yy. “We ay-ooo-talk-to look-see-moon-rock, night and night and night and night and no-see and no-hear Fnadi-yaphin. Fnadi-yaphin no-be any-see, no-be any-hear. We ay-ooo-talk-to look-see-moon-rock, night and night and night and night and no-see and no-hear Demonica. Demonica-big-wings no-be any-see, no-be any-hear. No-anywhere. Look-see-moon-rock just-be dark. Then after night and night and night and night, I roll-out moon-rock for look-see one last looky-look. And there-be Fnadi-yaphin-human-birth-grunt-goddess, all big-head-nod stand-up-straight chest-thump for her Human metal-heads, metal-heads, metal-heads. So my faith-say: Fnadi-yaphin no-still-like Dyrney?”
“Why do you think I gave birth to all Dyrney?”
“All-Dyrney and Veyf-na-ryr and baby human goddess,” said Dyr-jinyr-yy as he and Fnadi-phnig-nyd threw themselves down at her feet.
“Veyf-na-ryr?”
“Yea!” cried Dyr-jinyr-yy, propping himself up like a frog at once. “You do-do know our most-inside head-nods. That-be the very-when Demonica nod-say all Humans in land of Plenty to Eat be chest-thump Elf-hugs and want to head-smash all Dyrney. That be the all-say whole-head-nod of why you birth-grunt god-brute Veyf-na-ryr. He be our new thunder-magic.”
“Thanks Grandmother,” snapped Spitemorta from the gravel of her trollish throat.
“Do we-be Grandmother?” said Dyr-jinyr-yy with a gasp, trading looks of wide- eyed guilt with Fnadi-phnig-nyd.
“What sort of utter dolt do you happen to be?” said Spitemorta.
“Why, you the only-one with the head-nod for that,” said Dyr-jinyr-yy, getting up onto his knees. “You-be goddess. So why you head-nod thunder-lead these Human metal- heads, metal-heads?”
“Damn you! Why didn't you let the midwife do him in, the way I ordered?”
Dyr-jinyr-yy and Fnadi-phnig-nyd scuttled back out of her reach like a pair of pop-eyed crabs.
“Stand up, fools!” she barked, immediately dropping the spell which protected the pair of them from the drenching rain.
They inched forth in the downpour like a pair of delinquent school boys, plastered with their hair and streaks of body paint.
“O Fnadi-yaphn!” said Dyr-jinyr-yy. “Have we diggy-nosed or flabber-toomphed in your face in some-way?”
“Very well,” she snapped. “More powerful than Razzmorten. Now shut up, Demonica. Beat it!”
“Where-be Demonica?” said Fnadi-phnig-nyd, looking this way and that.
“I no-see Big-Wings,” said Dyr-jinyr-yy.
“I'm surprised you have enough faith to see either one of us,” said Spitemorta as she steadied herself against a tree to keep from toppling from her dizziness. “You only manage to see me because I'm vastly more powerful than she is. Look. Forget the Human metal-heads. If they become dangerous, I'll be there to protect you, or I'll turn them all to cinders myself.”
Fnadi-phnig-nyd and Dyr-jinyr-yy nodded together.
“So,” she said. “How do I know you're taking care of the little Veyf-na-ryr?”
“Demonica no-tell you?” said Fnadi-phnig-nyd. “She said you big-nod-point her come-looky-look. She made Fnayooph Veyf-na-ryr's milk-sow-mother with your big, big goddess head-nod. You come-see at pink-stone-hut-cave...”
“Ah...!”
“You not know?” said Dyr-jinyr-yy. “She not tell you? Where has she be for sun- come-up, sun-come-up, sun-come-up?”
“I always know!” she thundered, causing them to fall down before her and lick her feet, shoes and all. For a moment she went speechless at how very much she enjoyed such worshipful trollish treatment. It certainly made her look forward to the rest of the world at her feet. “And you won't be seeing much of her either, since I've given her a job to do in the Land of the Dead.”
Fnadi-phnig-nyd and Dyr-jinyr-yy stopped short and wide eyed at this.
“I know what Veyf-na-ryr is doing every single moment, but you need to be ready when I appear before him at my whim,” she said, thumping the squishy leaves with the Staff. “Now go!”
They sprang to their feet and were altogether gone when the next moment's lightening lit up the woods.
Spitemorta dropped the Staff and grabbed her head with both hands. She staggered about for a moment before falling to her knees to grab up the Staff and press the Heart to her throat, wailing out: “Awg! Awg! A-hoof! Hoof! Shut up Demonica! No more laughing!”
***
Ceidwad and Lladdwr sat preening in the fluttering shade of the great silver maidenhair, just outside the mushroom ring portal to Gerddi Teg as they visited with Ocker and Urr-Urr. A Red Desert cactus wren called from Meri Greenwood's
favorite wax nut pine.
“So that onyx egg has an enchantment, aye?” said Ceidwad, as she gave one eyed consideration to the glistening black bauble resting on the thick carpet of moss.
“Indeed hit has,” said Urr-Urr, pecking lightly at it here and there.
“It certainly looks the part dear,” said Ceidwad, “black as night on a pillow of emerald green. It makes one wonder what its purpose might be.”
Urr-Urr made no reply at first, fluffing up her head feathers as Ocker waddled closer to give her ear a proper preening. “Well I hadn't considered letting on what hit was actually for, Ceidwad,” she said with a snap of each wing, “but I must admit that I do love showing hit off. I'll tell you, if you promise not to gobble hit up. Hit wouldn't last long enough as a gizzard stone to do you any good.”
“Why I would never think of...”
“Ocker's a proper wizard, don't you know.”
“I had no idea.”
“Well since he is, he'll go on and on, a-staying just as young as he is now. And he wants me to be with him forever, so...”
“Aww. That's wonderful!”
“So we came all the way here and told Meri Greenwood, and he just gave me this lovely stone egg to put in my nest. He says I'll stay the same as I am now as long as I keep hit there.”
“The swyving hole wants something,” said Ocker, ruffling up all his feathers. “Has to. You'll see.”
“Ocker!” said Urr-Urr.
“You know the score he's had to settle with me,” said Ocker, finding a sudden itch in some flight feathers.
“Yea. But you were the one who said he'd do something to help me...”
“Righty-o, but I was ready to pay a fat price for hit, too. He wouldn't just do that for you. He wants something...”
“Well, for my part,” said Lladdwr as he shifted about on his keel bone, “Meri Greenwood (or Dyn Gwyrdd, as they called him once upon a time), seems a proper sort altogether, and very much like unto the Fairy mothers who took us in and raised us in Mount Bed. They never asked for anything in return. If he gave the stone egg to Urr-Urr, I'd allow that he did indeed give it to her.”
Heart of the Staff - Complete Series Page 165
