Deglan thanked Earth and Stone for the great toad’s excellent vision. They crashed through the dark forest, the unseen leaves above jealously guarding all starlight, banishing the face of the moon. Deglan saw quite well in the dark, but at this speed he surely would have dashed his skull into a tree by now. Not so for Bulge Eye, who charged between the rushing trunks with the full might of his back legs. Deglan leaned forward in the saddle, his face near touching the back of the toad’s lumpy head. He did not need a low hanging branch knocking him from the saddle, nor a broken neck. He would breathe easier when they reached the plains of An Curragh, where no obstacle would stand between them and the fort.
He parted from the piskie not an hour ago, trusting she could find her own way back to the Wallow and raise the alarm. In truth, he had no doubt she would succeed, but whether the stubborn herdsmen would heed her was another matter. They had suffered the need to flee already. Twice in less than a moon’s turn was enough to turn their pride against them, force them to dig in and stand their ground. Without Kederic’s warriors they stood no chance and even with them, there was little hope. Hope turned to an elusive cinder caught on the wind when a Flame Binder was on the loose.
“Buggery and spit!”
The thought of one of those mad bastards running free was the most infuriating kind of jest. A jest Deglan had seen coming for centuries. And there were times when he hated himself for being right.
The Red Caps were on the move. They cheered and cackled, waving their weapons, their torches dragging harsh light through the forest. They were not difficult to follow.
Padric kept close to Faabar and out of sight as they shadowed the boisterous horde, using no light of their own, staying on higher ground, keeping the trees between them and the goblins as much as possible. They were regularly forced to halt and keep low when small groups of Red Caps broke off from the main body in twos and threes.
“Scouting parties,” Faabar whispered as they hunkered down in the underbrush, hoping they would not be stumbled upon and discovered.
Padric did not need to be told their destination. The Red Caps had been making their way steadily towards Hog’s Wallow ever since the bonfire birthed its terrible predicant. The hunched goblin was given a robe, then helped onto a crude wooden litter and carried out of the gully, his followers saluting him in a frenzy. They were on the warpath, marching boldly with no care taken for silence or subterfuge. Padric and the others waited on the ridge until the raiders were out of sight then rushed back to where his pack and Deglan’s toad lay waiting. Decisions were made quickly; arguments flared and were snuffed in a few words and before Padric could make sense of it, Rosheen and the gnome were gone and he was chasing after the goblins, Faabar’s hulking shadow leading him through the darkness.
Padric had lost all sense of time, but it seemed they had been tracking the Red Caps for hours. His back was sore and cramping from running while bent low, his wet clothes steadily working a chill into his bones. Surely they were near the village by now. Surely they would find it abandoned; the people forewarned by Rosheen and fled for the safety of the Thegn’s fort. Fear had long ago given way to fatigue and now Padric just wanted an end to it. An end to fires and wizards and blind pursuits through the night.
The Red Caps seemed to be taking the most direct route, eschewing the winding game trails and sheep runs. They cut straight through the forest, over streams and gullies, ridge and rise, riotously bushwhacking towards their bloody purpose.
And still Faabar followed.
Padric was stone bruised and thorn scratched from a thousand unseen assailants by the time the goblins finally halted. They were on the edge of the forest; the stone-walled meadows that marked the beginning of the herd lands lay unprotected before them. Bwenyth Tor loomed off to the right, a mute and useless sentry. Hog’s Wallow was still some distance away, lost to sight over the rolling fields.
Damn fools! “Damn fools! You cannot stay here! They will be coming!”
“And we will be waiting,” Ardal said without turning.
Rosheen’s wings were tired from her long flight through the wilds and now she was forced to chase this mule-headed man all over his precious hamlet. The people of Hog’s Wallow were emerging from their houses, confusion and fear dispelling the bleariness of waking. Ardal had wasted no time when she rousted him from his bed and set about the manful business of dooming his neighbors. He strode purposefully from door to door, pounding until he was answered before moving on, spreading the call to fight, a woodcutter’s axe riding one shoulder.
“Every moment you delay brings them closer!”
But it was useless. The lout kept walking, summoning the townsfolk to meet before the alehouse, instructing the men to arm themselves.
The gnome was right. They will fight. And they will die.
“Ardal!” she flew around, forcing him to look at her. “Do not do this. You have families to think about. They must make for the fort.”
He stopped. “I will not send them out into the plains at night unguarded. They will be safer here with us.”
This foolishness has no end. “There is no safety here!”
Ardal’s face remained resolute. “If Master Loamtoes went to warn the fort, as you say, then there is nothing to fear. Kederic will send his warriors.”
“You are quick to put trust in a man who so readily abandoned you.”
Ardal continued walking. “He will come.”
Rosheen followed him to the alehouse. The wives and children were gathered, their faces flickering with uncertainty in the light from the building’s fat lamps. The men were rushing over in singles and pairs, pitiful weapons in hand.
“Faabar bid me advise you to flee,” Rosheen pressed on, hoping her words would reach someone of sense. “He is out there now. Padric, too. Shadowing the goblin advance. Giving you every chance! Would you throw that away?”
“We must defend what is ours!” Ardal countered, making sure the crowd heard him. “We have flocks and homes here. Would we give those up so willingly? See it all destroyed and ourselves with nothing but the Thegn’s charity? Then we really are his tenants for good and all! Brogan did not want that. I do not want that.”
“Ardal is right,” one of the men declared. Laoire. His name is Laoire. “We will drive them back. With iron!”
Someone laughed.
It started small, and then grew to an obtrusive cackle. Every head turned towards the sound. Two-Keg stood unsteadily in the door of the alehouse, his face flushed with mirth and drink. He teetered out into the middle of the crowd, barely the height of the smallest child. He swept the people with heavy-lidded eyes, chuckling sourly, stopping when he found Rosheen.
“Best let’em stay, lass. They can do it! They’s shepherds, affer’all. More than a match for what’s coming. Only Red Caps. Pfssh!” He waved his hand dismissively in the air. “They’ve only been fight’n wars, murder’n folk, burning life to the ground for…A… THOUSAND…YEARS!”
He screamed at the assembly, his face a twisted mass of disdain. “You fuck’n fools! What will ya do here? Stand? With your pitchforks and peat cutters? With your…IRON? They won’ care! They’ll run right over you and rip those tools from your hands… use them to butcher your children! And they’ll laugh. Think it merry sport. ‘Cause that’s all you will be. They’ll set your precious sheep on fire while they’re still livin’ and delight as they run around, bleating as they burn. They’ll kill you men, but not before you been good and scalped…given the same red hat they all wear. They’ll rape your wives and your daughters…savage them mercilessly with hands covered in the ash of your homes!”
The crowd stood silent. The faces of the men were a mix of fear and fury. Tears fell silently down the mothers’ faces, the sobs of their little ones giving voice to their weeping. Two-Keg gave them all one last pitiful look, than seemed to shrink.
“You can all stay for that…if you want,” he mumbled. “Not me. I seen it all before.” The clurichaun shuffl
ed off, away from the crowd and into the dark.
The villagers stood unmoving, heads bowed, eyes lost and wide.
Scolded children.
Ardal’s face was the worst, all resoluteness vanished, replaced with doubt and defeat, the axe hanging limply at his side.
It was the alewife, Jileen, who spoke. “Ardal. We should go.
All of us.”
And then one of the men cursed, his voice feeble and afraid. His arm was outstretched, pointing out into the night-covered fields. A fire burned out in the dark, just passed the last house. Another gasp, another fire, this one just over the river. And yet another on the hill to the south where Rosheen and Padric had first spied the village. Then they were everywhere, surrounding them. A dozen red, angry eyes opening in the death mask of night.
Watchfires. Too familiar even after a thousand years of peace. Rosheen had hoped never to see them again.
“It’s too late,” she said. “Ardal, listen to me! You cannot flee now.” She pointed out to the fires. “The goblin magus can see you through those flames. He is watching and will know where you go! The Red Caps will not stop here, but follow you into the fields where you have no hope of defense. They will run you down before you reach the fort. You wanted to stand and fight…and now you have no choice.”
Ardal stared at the nearest fire. “There is a choice,” he muttered gravely and then turned to his people. “Women and children to the fort! You men, to me! We will stay and give what time we can.” He looked to Jileen. “Be swift as you can. You need not cover the whole distance. The warriors from the fort will be coming on swift horses and will reach you ‘ere long.”
The woman looked as if she might protest, then nodded and began marshaling her charges.
“They will never make it,” Rosheen told the man. “Even if you can stall the main force, the scouts that lit the watchfires are out there waiting. Who will protect your people from them?”
Ardal did not answer. He was not even looking at her. His gaze was fixed behind her.
Rosheen turned.
The dwarf had donned steel mail under his traveling cloak, a heavy bladed sword hung from his belt, along with a quiver full of grey goose shafts. His hands were covered in thick gauntlets of leather and metal plating, one of them clutching a stout bow.
“I will,” Fafnir said.
Padric rushed across the fields, the stars and moon revealing less than his instincts. His breath burned in the canals of his ears, accompanied by Faabar’s ragged gasps, drifting farther and farther behind. He had dropped the pack his mother gave him, his father’s rope within it, left them behind somewhere in the dark. He ran with only his axe and his knife gripped tightly in his fists. The black mass of a field wall squatted before him and Padric vaulted it without breaking stride, leaving the limping fomori farther behind.
“We may not make it,” Faabar’s words haunted him. “We may not make it, but we must try.”
They had waited and watched, every moment more horrible than the one before. Padric saw the armored goblin barking orders, his voice echoing mercilessly inside the swine-shaped helm. He saw the goblins form up in bands and despaired as he tried to count them, each one a tally to hopelessness. Three score torches hungry for life, three score weapons thirsty for blood. And above it all, sitting atop his litter, the twisted goblin craned forward, leering at the dark horizon. Without warning, his eyes erupted into tongues of sputtering flames, smoke billowing from the sockets. It made Padric jump, hairs prickling. The armored goblin, the one called Torcan, approached and knelt before the litter.
“What would you have of us, my lord?” he asked.
The goblin on the chair grinned, his eyes still ablaze, watching something only he could see through vile sorcery. “The mortals remain,” he said. “They send the sows and sucklings away, but the men stay behind. Two dozen, no more…your lads may have them.”
Faabar cursed and drew Padric off with a touch. When they could no longer see the goblins, the fomori squatted and leaned into Padric’s ear.
“We must make for the village while his attention is diverted,” he hissed. “They will be slowed by that damnable chair and that gives us a chance. Go with all speed. Do not wait for me. We may not make it, but we must try.”
And so they snuck away. Snuck away and ran, determined to reach the village ahead of the Red Caps. Padric could not hear the fomori behind him anymore, but he did not slow. They had ventured out hunting a threat to the village and found another entirely. He did not understand much of what he had seen, but he knew the Wallow was in great danger along with everyone who called it home, so he ran on. There was only the breath in his lungs, the fall of his feet and the weapons in his hands. He had time for nothing else.
They were clear of the trees and flying across the flatness of the plains when Deglan spied the torches. They were moving fast, held too high off the ground to be goblins.
“Riders,” he told Bulge-Eye. “Cut them off you tub of guts.”
The toad surged ahead, covering the distance in moments. The lead horse spooked and reared when Bulge-Eye leapt into its path. The rider struggled to get the animal under control, cursing as he pulled at the reins. Deglan did not waste breath on pardons.
“Hog’s Wallow is threatened! Goblins are on the raid!”
The riders clustered around, torches fluttering. Deglan knew them and he knew the man who spoke for them.
“Then it is a day of bad omens,” Acwellen said. “And piss-poor luck.”
The man was smiling and Deglan’s patience evaporated.
“Did you not hear me? Red Caps threaten the herdsfolk! They bring Fire and Magic and death! Even now, Hog’s Wallow could be burning!”
Acwellen swept his men with a theatrical look, his smile contagious.
“Goblins,” he said and they all laughed, Fat Donall loudest of all. “Magic.” More derisive chuckles. Acwellen looked back at Deglan lazily, mouth twisted with amusement. “And gnomes… lost in the fields at night. What are we to do?”
“Ride for the Wallow, you daft prick!” Deglan had no patience for this fool. “Should I beg? Pay for your service and your loyalty like the Winetongue? Well and good, name your price! But waste no more time!”
Deglan watched his pleas fall on deaf ears. Acwellen continued to grin down at him, unaffected even by insults. This man’s pride was as thin as his intelligence, usually rankling at the smallest slight, but now he remained calm, even relaxed. And then Deglan realized his mistake. He had been distracted by that damn smile, concerned with the safety of the village and the desperation of his message. He had not noticed Acwellen’s eyes.
He saw them now.
“You knew,” Deglan’s teeth ground into each other. “Damn you, Acwellen! You knew!”
Poncey Swan’s spearhead caught Bulge-Eye just behind his right leg. The toad let out a high-pitched shriek of agony, lurching away from the villain who drove the weapon deep. Horses whinnied and reared, men shouted and Acwellen cursed as Bulge-Eye spun and lunged. The toad’s bulk slammed into the chest of one of the horses, knocking it to the ground in a kicking mass of legs and panic. Deglan clung desperately to his mount as the toad barreled out of the encircled warriors, leaping away from the spears, the torches and the trap.
He heard Acwellen shouting orders and the horrible thundering of pursuing hooves. Another thrown spear shattered off a boulder to the left, but Deglan did not look back. The An Curragh was leagues of open plain, but still treacherous, especially to galloping riders with nothing but torchlight to guide them. Bulge-Eye’s surefooted and powerful leaps should have quickly outdistanced the horses, but Deglan could feel the injured toad flagging. They could not run forever. The sky was already beginning to turn the deep blue that heralds the sun and soon there would be nowhere to hide. If they could make it back to the forest, then there was a chance.
The shouting grew closer as the toad grew slower and the sounds of hoof beats drummed into the back of Deglan’s head. One of
the rider’s overtook them and came up on the left side, the horse frothing as it kept pace. The rider had abandoned his torch in favor of a sword and Deglan ducked the first vicious swipe. Bulge Eye did not give the man a second chance. He leapt sideways, his weight crashing into the horses pumping legs, knocking it into the air. Something cracked hard into Deglan’s head as man and animal lurched overtop, landing in a horrible chorus of snapping bones and helpless screaming.
Deglan’s skull was throbbing, but he thought he could see the dark line of trees ahead and felt Bulge-Eye surge ahead with newly-found vigor. He leapt erratically in haphazard diagonals, scrambling as he landed, almost spilling Deglan from the saddle. There was no controlling the toad’s headlong rush and they crashed into the trees. Deglan was pitched forward and thrown off the toad’s back, his face punching into the unforgiving turf. His mouth filled with blood and the gritty fragments of shattered teeth. He rolled to his feet and tried to rise, but the ground seemed to tilt and he pitched back over. He lay in the leaves, willing his head to stop spinning, but waves of nausea overtook him if he so much as moved his eyeballs. Bulge Eye lay on his back not far off, the stark white of his belly strangely grotesque. Deglan crawled over, dragging himself along by his fingertips. One of Bulge Eye’s legs was outstretched, quivering uncontrollably. Deglan pushed himself to his knees beside the toad, his skull and stomach trying to switch places in his body.
“Got… to roll over,” he placed his hands under the toad and lifted vainly. “Need to see…the wound. Come on, you old sack…get up.” He strained, ignoring the lancing pain in his head, but he could not budge the toad’s weight. Bulge Eye’s mouth was closed tight, his front feet moving slowly, pawing feebly at the air. His breathing was loud and labored. “Don’t you give up, you lazy lump of lard! Don’t you do it! I can fix this. I can…but you have to get up. Bulge Eye, I can’t see the wound unless you get up!”
The sounds of men and horses drifted into the forest. Deglan looked out across the plain. They were coming swiftly.
The Exiled Heir (Autumn's Fall Saga) Page 18
