Elf Killers

by Phipps, Carol Marrs

  Elf Killers

  A thousand years before Heart of the Staff

  by

  Carol Marrs Phipps

  &

  Tom Phipps

  Elf Killers is a work of fiction. Characters, names, place, incidents, organizations are a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Elf Killers

  by

  Carol Marrs Phipps &

  Tom Phipps

  Copyright Carol Marrs Phipps &

  Tom Phipps 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-10: 1479156221

  ISBN-13: 978-1479-156221

  Cover art by: Marija Vilotijevic

  ※ Dedication ※

  For Jesse and Eleanor Marrs, the most wonderful parents anyone could ever have.

  To the Old Man Tree and to Mom and Dad, where ever they be.

  To Alma Bitoy, who gave us the encouragement we needed.

  Authors' note:

  Trollish is an actual language, a transposition of an aboriginal tongue which uses such peculiarities as noun-verbs. For translations of words or of entire sentences of Trollish or of Elven Gwaelic, Old Gwaelic or Jutish, please refer to the glossary at the end of the book, where we also include taxonomic descriptions of our beasts and beings.

  Our Websites

  http://niarg.com

  http://landofniarg.com

  Elf Killers ◊ Carol Marrs Phipps & Tom Phipps

  Chapter 1

  Aedan glanced up the tall trunks as a breeze chased through the treetops and died away amongst the echoes of the bellbirds. "Make sure that each one of the kids has a nice wet ball of sphagnum on the seedlings, if you would, Oisin," he said as he sank into the ferns to sit on his heels. He watched as each young Elf dutifully opened his vasculum in turn for Oisin's inspection.

  "All that's left of the sunlight is 'way up in the treetops," said Oisin with a nod. "You reckon it's still safe to try for the blue maidenhair at the summit?"

  "I was hoping for all four kinds of maidenhair," said Aedan, as he ran his hands through his hair. "Looks like I let the time slip away. Listen. Hear that purple-rib, yonder?"

  "Sure do..."

  "Well, he thinks it's a-getting dark..." he said, suddenly looking up at a muffled snap in the leaves.

  "Oou-yuyf!" bellowed a troll covered with black and red ochre hand prints, as he took a sudden tramp out of the pawpaw leaves to run a spear under Aedan's collarbone and out his back.

  "Run!" cried Oisin as he loosed an arrow into the troll, sending it staggering about to stumble and fall, as the wide-eyed young Elves scrambled to their feet and vanished into the woods. Trolls were starting to appear everywhere. As quick as he could manage, he loosed four or five more arrows, striking one of them and scattering the others. He dropped to his knees where Aedan lay on his side in the ferns.

  "Go!" grunted Aedan, blowing blood off his lips.

  "Here..." said Oisin, starting to scoop him up.

  "No!" coughed Aedan. "They'll get you if you even try. I'm gone. Go! Save the kids! Damn it! Do it!"

  Oisin jerked up at a waft of wind by his ear in time to see a huge rock land and roll through the leaves beyond him. He was on his feet at once, wheeling 'round with his drawn bow to find two trolls about to run him through with a spear. He loosed his arrow at once, killing the one with the spear as the other one fled out of sight. "I can still carry you, Aedan!" he cried.

  "Get out of here. Please!"

  Oisin was immediately underway, batting aside branches. "We'll never forget you!" he hollered as he hurtled out of the brush to take huge bounding strides down the side of a steep hogback.

  The troll tramped to a halt beside Aedan and pummeled his chest with his fists. "Ooot-ooot, ooot-ooot, ooot-ooot," he cried with a look of crazed triumph, slinging spittle from the black and red ochre paint on his face. "Gnydy."

  "Ay-ooo," sang out Gnydy, planting his spear with a fierce nod of his cap of mud-caked hair as he appeared on the far side of Aedan. He jabbed the point of his spear into Aedan's thigh, drawing blood. "Should-we hair-drag the grab-up-squeaker, Dyr?" he said as he licked the blood off his spear point.

  "You-want to haul-meat both-ways?" said Dyr with a beetle-browed glare, as a purple-rib took up calling nearby. "We'll-quarter him on the way-back.”

  "Should-we stamp-him to head-smash?"

  "No-be mudful hollow-head. Let-him gurgle-bleed to cold-meat. There-go all-the Dyrny-brutes. Let's-go."

  Aedan listened to the trolls tramp away through the leaves. "Damn this!" he thought as he squeezed shut his eyes. I loved my life... Suddenly he opened his eyes at the sound of light four-footed walking in the leaves, making straight for him. "Niall."

  The deer-like unicorn slowed to hesitant steps and lowered his head for a careful sniff.

  "I may be out of time, but I have this minute," he said, wincing with pain at his attempt to pat Niall's muzzle. "If I can get up onto your back, we're going back to camp to show them what the Marfora Siofra did to me and to have them try to find Oisin and the children. And even if I don't make it, you'll get me there."

  Though Niall understood not one word of this, he would soon know what to do, for he was a terraing pictiur, a picture catcher unicorn. Difficult as it was with all his pain, Aedan managed to clear his mind enough to picture Niall lying down in order for him to mount. At once, Niall lay down before him, patiently waiting for him to get on. Crying out from the horrible pain, Aedan heaved himself onto his knees, where he steadied himself long enough to cough blood down his front before throwing his leg across him. He had a long struggle to keep from passing out before he could manage to picture Niall rising to his feet. Niall got up at once, but it was an eternity of fighting down the pain from the jostling before Aedan could manage to picture the camp. At last they were underway.

  "Prince Neron," cried the orderly, as he slid off his Dulish unicorn and jogged to a halt. "King Faragher wants you at the council tent, right now. There may be trolls on the way."

  "Tell them I'll be there as soon as I find my other boot, Finbar," said Neron as he ducked back inside his tent. A purple-rib was starting to sing nearby as he sheathed Gearr Teigh Sios over his shoulder with a smack and leaped onto his unicorn with butterflies in his stomach."Oh my word," he said at the sight of Niall, shivering and thoroughly soaked with blood, tied in front of the council tent. "Has something happened to Aedan and Oisin?" His legs went so weak that he nearly slipped from his stirrup as he dismounted.

  He quickly stepped inside the tent, and seeing others present, bowed briefly to Faragher, catching his eye.

  Faragher's regal posture sagged as pity swept across his face. "I'm sorry Neron," he said with a sigh. "Aedan showed up just now with a trollish shaft run clean through him and died telling us that they were set upon by the Marfora Siofra while it was still light out..."

  "Survivors. Oisin. Did anyone make it?"

  "Well, we have no way of knowing. I mean, how could we? Aedan was dead before his feet ever touched the ground..."

  "I'll lead the search party. I'm ready this minute..."

  "And you'll lead it, but not until morning..."

  "But Oisin's my son...”

  "And I'm your brother," cried Faragher, taking off his crown to thrust himself forward in his chair. "And your King, Prince Neron. And we've got trolls on the way and a whole night ahead of us. I'm not forgetting my nephew, but there are far more lives at stake right here than out in the woods. We can't forget our duties here, but you'll be on your way with a party of your choosing at f
irst light. Those stinkers must have seen our ships and the camp and are wise to our escape from Lobhadh. There's no way of knowing what they have in mind, but you know as well as you're a-standing there, that it's some variation of swarming in here to butcher us. Maybe Oisin will show up with the children during the night, or more likely, they've found someplace to hide in the woods. They may be safer out there than here."

  Neron gave an incredulous look, but quickly hid it.

  "In the meantime," said Faragher, searching his face to find the expression which he had just missed, "In the meantime, I'm afraid you must stay here and help oversee the guarding of the ships and the perimeter of the camp until sunrise."

  Neron turned on his heel and started out.

  "Say, Neron?" said Faragher. "How much longer do you reckon it will be until the ships are fully stocked and ready to leave?"

  "Less than a day. Two if I'm wrong. Count on two." And with that, he stepped out into the velvety blackness of the sea air and the calls of chorus frogs and purple-ribs.

  Three of the children ran stumbling and scrambling up a steep mossy slope in the failing light.

  "Wait Olloo!" cried one of them as he slipped, spilling his vasculum.

  "Hurry up, Mian!" cried Olloo, pausing to heave in a breath. “It's not much further. Come on, Kieran..."

  "My side aches..."

  "So does mine, but..."

  "Hey wait Olloo! I'm still picking up my seedlings.”

  "If you can't see them, leave them. We can't stop."

  "I got 'em now, but I'm all out of wind..."

  "Me too," cried Kieran, catching himself on his hands in the moss. "How far is this?"

  "Not far at all," cried Olloo from a good way up the slope, "but we'll never get there if we let the trolls catch us."

  At once the young Elves made a frantic lunge for the top, sprawling out across the carpet of moss when they got there to heave and wheeze as if they'd never catch their breath, listening to a purple-rib repeat its call endlessly from somewhere nearby on the ground.

  "Hey," said Olloo, suddenly sitting up, "I know where this is..."

  "You told us you already did..." said Mian.

  "That's when I thought so. I know so, now."

  They were on their feet at once, following Olloo, angling down the far slope, stirring up the leaves.

  "Whoa!" cried Olloo. "Hush! There's the tree, straight across the hollow. It's a maidenhair and it's the tallest tree in all the Eternal Mountains. Oisin himself told me.”

  "Go on," said Kieran. "How would he know?"

  "Somebody spent a whole day and climbed it, once. They had to do it twice because the string they had the first time wasn't long enough. He said it was well over four hundred foot. Anyway, there's a huge rotted out place where a limb broke off the trunk, ages ago. I spent the whole night in it, last summer. There's room for all of us. Let's go."

  They were across the hollow in short order, standing at the foot of the great maidenhair, peering up into its deep shadows. "You're sure this is the tree, Olloo?" said Kieran as he took a stumbling backward step, peering up under his hand.

  "I know jolly well it is."

  "Yea? Well, it's getting awful dark. I don't see any hole in the trunk.”

  "Well there is," said Olloo as he began feeling around the trunk. "Here. This is it.

  This is the grapevine. It goes right up to it..."

  "You want us to climb that?" said Mian.

  "You want to be on the ground when the trolls get here? But we'd better climb it one at a time though, so we'd better hurry."

  "Won't it hold?" said Kieran.

  "Of course it'll hold, but with three of us a-wiggling and kicking, it might be too hard to hang onto..."

  "Yea, but if we can climb it, couldn't some troll?" said Mian.

  "You still have your rope, I hope."

  "Rope...?"

  "Oh Fates!"

  "Calm down. It's around my shoulder."

  "You scared me. Well, we climb the vine and cut it. Then we use the rope to come back down..."

  "But that's my rope, Olloo. How would I get it down?"

  "Do you want to be safe from the Marfora Siofra, or what? And we'd better start shinnying. It will take a while, and they're probably still after us, don't you think? Look,

  I'll give you a new rope as soon as I can get my hands on one, all right? Let's climb."

  "You first."

  "Very well," said Olloo, parking his vasculum at the foot of the great tree and starting up. In spite of the encouragements he was getting from below, it was a frightfully long way up. Over and again he had to stop to rest, and he was beginning to wonder how he ever made it up the first time. When waves of fear began coursing through him at the thought that he might not survive a fall and that this might be another tree after all, he grabbed onto the lip of the gaping hole in the trunk, refusing to holler out for fear he'd lose his grip, but at last he was inside. "Hoy! I'm up!"

  Kieran was next, scuffling, grunting, kicking and banging his way up. Mian put his head and one arm through his coil of rope and started up the vine. Half way up, he stopped and croaked out, "I hear somebody off in the timber!" and began frantically shaking the vine with his kicking. After many worried shouts from above, he finished his way up the vine in short order. The moment he was inside the cavity with the others, Kieran began chopping off the vine as far below the hole as he could reach. As soon as it fell, Mian steadied the end still hanging, while Kieran and Olloo cut off a good long piece of it to use as an anchor for the rope.

  "Hush!" cried Mian. "I hear voices."

  The three of them quieted immediately, straining to hear above their pounding hearts and the calls of the purple-ribs.

  "There." said Kieran.

  "Hush!" shouted Olloo and Mian in whispers.

  "Be still, Lilee," echoed a voice out of the darkness far below.

  "Oh, Renny. We must've given them the slip by now."

  "Pooh. That's what you said right before they got Doona and nearly got us."

  "Oh no!" wailed Olloo.

  "Hoy! Up here!" hollered Kieran.

  "Kieran?" cried Renny, "Is that you? Where are you? Who's with you?"

  "Is Doona all right?" called Olloo, unable to hide the unexpected sob at the end.

  "No!" wailed Lilee, "The awful monsters got her. They took her alive, but they took her."

  "Where are you?" cried Renny. "What happened to Mian?"

  "I'm here!" he hollered. "We're up this old maidenhair! Just follow our voices..."

  "We've got a rope!" cried Olloo. "We're letting it down as soon as we get it fast up here!" He picked up the piece of grapevine which they had just cut and held it across the hole on the inside. "See where it is? You each take an end and hold it in place while I tie the rope to the middle. When it's light tomorrow, we'll cut notches inside here to hold it so we can all go down the rope..."

  Suddenly Lilee gave a shrill scream.

  "Fn-dapff-nyj-yo-yoynf!" roared a troll.

  "Run Lilee!" cried Renny.

  "Hurry!" cried Mian, "Over here!"

  "Here!" cried Kieran the moment they heard a much closer scream.

  "I can't see!" wailed Olloo, fumbling frantically with the rope in the dark.

  "Olloo! Kieran! Mian!" came the shouts from below.

  "There!" cried Olloo as he flung the coils of rope out into the air. "Renny! Lilee!

  Here! No, no, no! The trolls chased them past us!”

  "What on Earth are you doing, Olloo?" said Kieran.

  "I'm going over the side. Don't let the piece of grapevine slip..."

  "That's madness, Olloo," said Mian. "You go down and..."

  "The trolls have Doona," wailed Olloo. "I can't let them eat my sister."

  "You go chasing trolls, and they'll roast you on the same spit," said Kieran.

  "I have to try!" he sobbed. "She'd come after me. I know she would."

  With tears streaming down his cheeks, Kieran pushed hard ag
ainst the grapevine to hold it fast as Olloo clambered over the side. "I hate this," he growled. "Wait!" he cried. "Olloo! Wait!"

  Olloo was already halfway down the trunk. "What?" he hollered.

  "If you wait for us to cut notches for the ends of the vine, we'll go with you."

  "In the dark?"

  "Will you wait?"

  "Oh all right, but I'm not climbing back up."

  Mian and Kieran worked feverishly to cut notches just inside the cavity opening, able to hold their grapevine pole in place well enough to allow them to go down the rope without a fall. Meanwhile Olloo did not enjoy his wait. It seemed to take forever, listening to the calls of the purple-ribs and the deep resonant thudding of the hatchet up the tree, echoing in the trees all about. "It's not like I can hide quietly here or anything," he said. "But one thing's certain, I'm going to kill a troll."

  Presently the chopping stopped and Mian came down the rope to wait wordlessly with Olloo for Kieran to make his way down the trunk. They quietly picked up their vasculums and set out behind Olloo.

  "So we're on our way to find the caves of the Marfora Siofra, right Olloo?" said

  Kieran, stumbling on sticks here and there.

  "That's where they'd have Doona, wouldn't you think?"

  "Well yea, but nobody knows just where that is..."

  "Renny and Lilee went this way, didn't it sound like?"

  "Yea? But just because they ran off this way to escape the trolls, doesn't mean that this is how we'd go to get to their caves..."

  "Olloo," said Mian, "why don't we just wait until light and then track them?"

  "Because Doona's my sister and they just might eat her by then. Besides, the Great Rock Wall, you know, all those sheer cliffs, starts in not far from here and we..."

  Suddenly he collided with someone in the blackness and found himself on the ground, utterly paralyzed with terror.

  "Olloo!" cried the someone.

  "Oisin!" he gasped as he rolled onto his hands and knees. "I expected you to be a troll."