by Chrys Cymri
No such luck. ‘Penny.’ Peter pulled me into a tight embrace. ‘Lord Willis told me about the attack.’
‘We’re all right,’ I said into his chest. ‘James stayed here, and so did the gryphons.’
Peter released me. ‘Lord Willis told me you two went out into the town.’
‘Our rector is a human of great courage,’ Lord Willis stated. ‘I suspect that, like unicorns, she never seeks a fight. But neither does she shy away from a battle once commenced.’
‘Battle?’ Peter’s face paled.
‘Raven put paid to that,’ I said quickly. ‘Fried snails.’
‘Father Penny also convinced the remaining snails to retreat.’ The unicorn looked up at Raven. ‘From the back of this equally brave dragon.’
I put a hand on Peter’s arm, and he bit back whatever he was going to say. ‘Lord Willis, I’d like to go and visit the injured.’
The unicorn shook his head. ‘Normally, yes, a rector should see to her flock. But feelings are running high. Many blame Clyde for the attack, and you’re his friends. Let me work on calming them down first.’
‘Is that why they came?’ Peter asked.
I nodded. ‘The snail shark I talked to said they’d come to kill the Great Leader.’
‘Clyde’s obviously a bigger draw than I am.’ Peter managed a small grin. ‘I’m not certain my ego will ever recover from this blow.’
‘We might as well go see Clyde. And maybe he can tell us more about these numbered snails.’ I looked up at Raven. ‘What’re we doing about three humans, one dragon?’
Raven threw back his head. ‘Tyra!’
A bellow came from behind the house. ‘Coming!’
I watched as the female search dragon flew over the high roof and landed neatly beside Raven. ‘How long have you been here?’ I demanded. ‘You could’ve helped.’
Her green-black skin rippled as she lowered her muzzle to me. ‘Why should I? This quarrel has nothing to do with me. And I value my hide.’
My eyes flicked guiltily to the fresh scabs across Raven’s forelegs. The sores cut across the old scars and promised new ones. ‘At least he has friends.’
Tyra snorted. ‘What’s your human expression? “With friends like you, who needs enemies?”’
James tumbled out of the house. Morey and Jago still rode on his shoulders. Small packages wrapped in brown paper filled his hands, and he handed one each to me and to Peter. ‘Lunch. Or breakfast.’
I slid the parcel into a coat pocket. Peter turned to offer me his cupped hands. Although I had no need of it, I accepted his help, and placed my hand into his palms. After I’d settled myself onto Raven’s back, Peter climbed up to take a seat behind me. James placed Jago into his shirt pocket before clambering up Tyra’s neck. Morey remained on his shoulder, falcon head angled to check on his son.
‘I’m not happy about this,’ Peter said into my ear as Raven took us away from the town. ‘You know how dangerous snail sharks are. You should’ve stayed in the mansion.’
‘We had protection,’ I replied around a mouthful of cheese sandwich. ‘The local police assigned us a gryphon.’
‘So all you did was add to their work. As civilians, you were liabilities.’
I felt Raven’s laugh rumble against my legs. ‘The magnificent Penny a liability? Never!’
Peter said nothing further. I silently went through numerous arguments, pointing out that I’d survived thirty-seven years without his protection. That I carried a sword of my own. That I’d managed to see off snail sharks and unicorns without his help. But even in my head, my tone sounded defensive rather than matter-of-fact.
Raven dived through the small thin place, Tyra quick behind him. The moor was warmer today. I found myself admiring the rock formations and the rabbits which hurried away from the shadows of two dragons. How was Clyde doing, after five days in the company of his own kind? My hands fidgeted against the dragon’s spine.
As we approached the hill, Raven extended his wings and carried us over the tors. Tyra, off to our right, followed his angle. But as we reached the top, both dragons pulled out of their glide. They carried us several hundred feet into the sky.
I looked down and bit my lip. The hill was covered with snail sharks. Hundreds of shells were packed across the grass, wedged so closely together that body rubbed against body. Only the area within the standing stones was free. No dragon could easily land in that small section of grass.
The dragons turned and flew us partway down the hill. I dismounted, and turned to Raven. ‘I’m certain Clyde would want to see you.’
He grunted. ‘When I don’t have to wade through a rabble of snail sharks, certainly I’ll pay him a visit. But for now, we’ll wait for you here.’
Morey flew on ahead while we three humans trudged up the slope. My legs, I realised, felt tired after the morning’s exertions. I could only hope that the promised tour of Clyde’s land wouldn’t demand a lot of walking. James, to my relief, was still breathing easily as we crested the hill. Peter, of course, looked like he could carry on for miles without breaking a sweat.
Sharp claws dug into my right shoulder. I glanced over at Morey. ‘I thought you’d be at Clyde’s side by now.’
‘Didn’t see him.’ Morey folded his wings. ‘I was going to land on one of the stones, but the snails hissed at me.’
‘The stones could be of spiritual importance.’
‘Clyde is a Christian.’
I shrugged, disrupting the gryphon’s balance. ‘That doesn’t mean his subjects are.’
The packed snails blocked our route to the clear area beyond. ‘There’s no way past this lot,’ James said. ‘Morey, can’t you try to find Clyde again?’
‘No need, y’all,’ called out a familiar voice. Cornelius stood on the slab, his green body bright against the dull grey. In Welsh, he called out to the snails, ‘Make way! The Great Leader’s companions are here!’
Two of the largest snail sharks detached themselves from the outside of the circle. They slithered across the grass, bellies splitting open to reveal their fierce jaws. To my horror, they slashed at the snails nearest us. The creatures squealed and roiled, desperately trying to move out of the way. I skipped back as snails tumbled past my boots, a number of them bleeding from jagged wounds.
James muttered a few words which I hoped Jago wouldn’t repeat. A narrow path had opened up. I led the way past the huddled snails, my left hand searching in vain for a sword hilt as I glared back at the two bullies.
The praying mantis waved his antennae as we stopped at the edge of the slab. ‘I reckon I know three of y’all. Who are these young sirs?’
‘I’m James White,’ my brother said. ‘And this is Jago.’
The insect bent his triangular head in a bow. ‘Welcome, all y’all. I’m interpreter to the Great Leader, and my name’s Cornelius Eleanor Winchester von Gockelspruch the Third.’
‘That’s a mouthful,’ James said. ‘Can I just call you Corney?’
‘Do that, and I’ll cancel your birth certificate.’ Cornelius clicked his forelegs. ‘The Great Leader will see y’all now.’
Clyde slithered onto the slab. Fresh colour had been added to his shell. Lines of purple radiated from his spiral, and the flat side featured a series of rough circles, the blue, green, and red blending together. ‘Who’s going to tell him,’ Peter murmured to me, ‘that he looks like a target?’
‘He is a target,’ I said sadly. Then I raised my voice. ‘Clyde. How are you?’
Blues and pinks trickled along his body. Then Jago launched himself from James’ arm. ‘Uncle Clyde!’
Morey strained forward on my shoulder. But although Jago tumbled more than flew, the small gryphon managed a bumpy landing onto the rock. Jago stumbled forward, and pressed himself against Clyde’s side. And the snail curved his head to touch the gryphon’s blue feathers with his tentacles.
Then Clyde straightened. Colours swirled through his body. ‘The Great Leader welcomes his companions,�
�� Cornelius said, the drawl dropping from his speech. ‘And he’s particularly pleased that you have brought--sorry, Great Leader, I don’t get you.’
Clyde opened his jaws. ‘Godson.’
The insect clacked his forelegs. ‘Sir, I done told you before. Best you don't use that word.’
I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, but James was already speaking. ‘Hey, what’s Clyde’s real name?’
‘Uninterpretable,’ Cornelius said.
‘Why, because it’s even longer than yours?’
The praying mantis turned his head to Clyde. ‘Great Leader, sir, please say your moniker?’ Hues of gold and red, shot through with shades of purple, pulsed through Clyde’s body. The assembled snails sighed and murmured. ‘There. Y’all tells me how I’m to say that.’
‘Then Clyde will have to do,’ Peter said. ‘Which is a shame, since he seems to have a very colourful name.’ He crouched down, bringing his eyes level with the snail’s. ‘We had another attack, this time at Caer-grawnt. Would your people know anything about that?’
Cornelius translated the words into Welsh. A dark snail moved forwards. ‘The General,’ Cornelius said, ‘sorrows to hear that the rebels have struck again. They will be destroyed.’
James grinned. ‘I guess you could say that their days are numbered.’
I groaned at the joke. ‘They must be far from here, General. I’m certain it’s quite a distance between these moors and Caer-grawnt.’
‘Snail sharks can travel very quickly,’ Cornelius interpreted. ‘And the rebels will return to those who remained behind. As long as they live, the Great Leader isn’t safe.’
‘Anyway, we’re looking forward to this tour,’ I said. ‘What do you plan to show us, Clyde?’
But the snail was allowing Jago to climb onto his shell. ‘The Great Leader,’ Cornelius said, ‘will remain here with his young friend. His interpreter will take you to honour the Eternal Leaders.’ The mantis cocked his head. ‘You reckon that’s best, sir?’
I needed no interpretation for the red-orange streak which passed along Clyde’s body. Nor for the downward tilt in the insect’s antennae. Cornelius rustled his wings, and turned back to us. ‘Ma’am, sirs, the tombs are over yonder. But first off, y’all need to bow to the Eternal Leaders.’
My mother’s training always held true. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The snails decided, last time, that y’all didn’t know your tentacles from your tail. Now the Nation’s keeping eyes on you. Watch what they do.’
A sucking sound, like boots being pulled from mud but magnified several hundred times, filled my ears. Snails turned in place, somehow finding enough space to move until they were all facing the standing stones we’d walked past. I blinked. The angle of the sun revealed that the outlines of snails had been carved into the flat surfaces. No, not just any snails. The spirals were on the left, and wings swept up from the bodies. The snail sharks all extended their tentacles, then they lowered their eyespots as far as they could bend.
‘Y’all place hands besides your heads,’ Cornelius told us, ‘then bow.’
‘Like this?’ James placed his wrists just above his ears, and wriggled his fingers as he bent his head. I heard him giggling quietly to himself.
‘Yes, sir. Y’all do the same.’
Peter and I glanced at each other. ‘When in Rome?’ he suggested. So we followed suit, Morey temporarily hopping down to the ground for his own bow. I half expected a camera man to leap out from behind a stone, laughing as he told us we’d all been filmed for some comedy programme. But there was only the wind and the snails around us when I straightened and dropped my arms back to my sides.
The mantis opened his wings and flew onto a large snail’s shell. ‘Ma’am, sirs, this way.’
Morey returned to my shoulder as the Labrador sized snail led us through the previously opened corridor. I winced as I saw several snail sharks had died from their wounds. ‘This is one of the less appealing aspects of your country,’ I told Morey. ‘The casual waste of life. Dragons, gryphons, unicorns, snails--you all seem to take the death of innocents for granted.’
Morey snorted. ‘And you humans are such paragons of virtue. You had Hitler.’
‘Germany had Hitler. I’m British.’
‘Hitler was human. You’re human. He’s yours.’
We’d turned to our right and walked around the assembled snails. I again found myself marveling at the gathering. There were at least a thousand, still crowded near the standing stones. ‘How many citizens are in the Great Leader’s lands?’ I called out to the mantis.
‘Actually,’ James interjected, ‘what do the snails call themselves?’
‘Better not be something like “Democratic” or “Republic”,’ Peter muttered. ‘Countries which do never are.’
‘They’re the Nation,’ Cornelius said. ‘And there are around two thousand mature snails, one thousand juveniles, and three hundred pups in the escargatoires. Now that the Great Leader’s back, they’ll be breeding like rabbits in the spring.’
‘But not Clyde,’ James said. ‘What did the vet say? He can only mate with another lefty.’
‘Left handed snails are as rare as a hen’s tooth,’ Cornelius agreed. ‘The Noble Leader’s partner only laid the one before he pushed up daisies. But her bloodline continues in other snails. We reckon the breeding pens will give a consort for the Great Leader.’
James stretched his legs and passed me. ‘By the way, what’re you doing here? I didn’t think we got praying mantises in England.’
‘I hatched in les Etats-Unis, one of the English-speaking parts.’ The triangular head turned to look up at James. ‘I was fixing to tie the knot, but y’all know how it is. Rooster one day, a feather duster the next. So I found me a dragon to take me far away from the wife-to-be.’
‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure?’
‘Bless your heart.’ Cornelius whistled a laugh. ‘After marriage, and the dirty deed done, the wife bites off her husband’s head.’
James chuckled in return. ‘Women do that over here too, mate.’
‘That’s beneath you, James,’ Peter called out. ‘And I won’t have any sexist jokes in the best man’s speech either.’
‘I was dropped here,’ the mantis continued. ‘I was so broke, I couldn’t pay attention. The insects here are no bigger than a minnow in a fishing pond, and the winters are cold enough to freeze the wings off a bee. And I hadn’t reckoned on finding so many snail sharks. They nearly ate me as much as look at me.’
‘Maybe you should’ve stayed in America,’ James said.
‘If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay under the porch.’
The constant metaphors were beginning to wear away at my patience. ‘Why would praying mantises have dogs, or a porch?’
‘Bless your heart,’ Cornelius said. ‘The Noble Leader found me and realised I could speak. So she kept me alive. I learned Welsh from the were-rabbits, and taught it to snail sharks. I also learned their ways of talking. Now I have lemmings for eating and a warm place for the winter.’
‘Do the snails often need an interpreter?’ Peter asked.
‘There are other beings in this area. Were-rabbits, for example, who pay tribute to the Great Leader.’
‘I can’t imagine,’ Morey whispered in my ear, ‘that this tribute consists of carrots. Maybe they don’t only eat lemmings.’
We paused at the top of the hill. The land plunged down on the other side. To the left, in a large hollow, several hundred large snails moved backwards and forwards in unison. They reared up to expose their jaws, then sliced at the air with their teeth.
‘Soldiers in training,’ Cornelius told us. ‘Everyone serves in the army for five years. Some stay soldiers. Others go on to other things.’
‘Sounds like a large military,’ I said.
‘Well, lots of folks take against the Nation. Y’all have to understand that the army comes first.’
I swept a hand around the bu
mpy land of moor and hills. ‘They have enemies? Here?’
The mantis cocked his head, antennae twitching. ‘Do y’all reckon the snail sharks want to live here?’
‘They were driven out of other areas,’ I said, recalling the prejudice which Clyde had faced time and again.
‘Yes, ma’am. Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over.’
The snail soldiers finished their manoeuvres. They turned, and bowed. I followed the angle of their tentacles, and saw that five stones stood nearby. The rough outlines of flying snails had been carved onto the grey surfaces.
‘What’s that on their shells?’ James pointed at the two crescents of blue painted the flatter side. The slender bottom ends touched, forming a stylised ‘U’.
‘That’s the mark of the Great Leader,’ Cornelius replied. ‘The army fights under the sign of the wings. It’s the mark of his right to rule.’
I glanced back at the stones. The same double crescent symbol, I now saw, was engraved on each rock.
The mantis clicked his forelegs, and led us down towards a gorge. The narrow sides rose from the hard ground, rock walls softened by the growth of moss and tangling ivy. I slowed my pace. Grass had given way to gravel, and I had no intention of acting like a Doctor Who companion and twisting an ankle. The large snail carrying Cornelius was also picking his way. I dreaded to think what the rough ground was doing to his foot.
Just as well Raven hadn’t come with us. Morey pressed closer to my ear as we stepped into the gorge. The walls were in touching distance on either side, and leaves brushed against my shoulders. The lack of sun and the dank smell made me glad I was wearing a coat. I heard James mutter as he fell into place behind me. Peter took the rear.
Darkness on our right marked the entrance to a cave. The snail pulled up, and Cornelius turned to address us. ‘Okay, y’all, we’re fixing to enter the Tombs of the Eternal Leaders. Only the most loyal followers are allowed in. Make sure y’all bow when I tell y’all.’
