The Glass Mountain (Faerie Book 2)

by Jenna Grey

  “We need to get you warm, you’re in shock,” Lily said, trying not to give way to tears. “I need to get you down the mountain and find shelter. Can you stand?”

  Connor tried to sit up, almost screaming his pain, and holding his side. The blood was already seeping through the wadding. He put his arm over Lily’s shoulder and she helped him up, but he was doubled up in agony, struggling not to pass out. He was wobbling far more than was good when you were standing at the edge of a precipice, but he managed to stay upright.

  “There could be more of those things, so watch out,” Connor cautioned.

  Lily looked at the pathway in front of them and realised with some relief that it had widened out a little and they could almost make their way down, side by side. Connor steadied himself against the cliff face, with Lily on the other side, taking his weight as he leant hard on her shoulder.

  Together they managed to negotiate their way down until they found the ledge widening out a little. There was a small overhang in the rock with just enough room for them to shelter under it, but there was nothing they could use to build a fire. Connor was already in shock; this cold on top of his injury was killing him.

  Lily lifted her hand, palm up and tried to conjure a decent fireball. She had produced small ones before but they had never had much power to them, now their lives might well depend on her being able to step up to the plate and pull off some serious magic. The ball of fire appeared in her hand, warm enough for her to feel it on her face, and she willed it to expand, until it grew to the size of a melon. It hung in the air in front of them, giving wonderful comfort.

  “It won’t last long,” she said, but it will give us a bit of warmth. I’ll see if I can heal you a bit now.” But Lily felt so weak, so cold. Just producing the fireball had sapped her of her strength, and when she laid her hands on Connor’s trembling body she felt hardly any power travel from her hands into the wound.

  “It’s all right,” Connor said. “My own healing ability will kick in. I just need to rest. We both do.” They snuggled together for warmth, making the most of the fire until if finally fizzed and spluttered to nothing and they were left alone in the cold darkness. Outside they could hear the sound of night creatures coming out to hunt. Lily could only pray that they weren’t on the menu. They huddled together through the night, both so desperately cold and miserable that Lily didn’t think she’d ever feel happy again. Connor was trying to put a brave face on it, but when Lily pressed her hand to his forehead she became increasingly concerned as his temperature rose steadily, minute by minute, until he was burning up. What little healing she could give him, seemed to be doing nothing to stave it off.

  Morning came, bright whiteness that made her head ache with its dazzling brilliance. She was cold, through to her bones, stiff and so hungry that her belly was one great knot of pain. She picked up a handful of snow and sucked on it to try and quench her thirst.

  “We have to get some food from somewhere,” Lily said, “We’re getting weaker by the minute.”

  “We can’t be far from the bottom. We might be able to find something down there.”

  Lily gave Connor and appraising look. He was deathly pale, his lips almost blue with cold and blood loss, he looked truly terrible. He needed more than just food; he needed a warm bed, and proper healing. There was little chance of getting any of that, any time soon.

  Lily helped him stand, and with faltering steps they began to make their way downwards again. Lily was astounded at his tenacity, he was hanging on to life by his finger tips, but if they could find some food, she really thought that they would make it.

  Connor had been right, they weren’t far from the bottom, within minutes they found themselves on the valley bed. Here and there were signs of wild life, paw prints in the snow; Lily didn’t want to kill, but if it was a case of life of death, then she would.

  And there, miraculously, was the holdall.

  “Oh, thank Hecate,” Lily said, rushing to it and hugging it. “I never thought I’d see it again.”

  She lowered Connor down gently and he gave a sigh of relief as he settled on the small stone ledge.

  “At least we’ve got the knife back. Is there anything in your mother’s spell book that could help us get some food?”

  Lily pulled a face.

  “It’s mainly potions and healing spells, but we don’t have the ingredients to make them.”

  She sat for a few minutes, desperately trying to come up with a solution. The light bulb that went off in her head was little more than a candle flicker, but she snatched at it eagerly. “I saw a programme with Ray Meers where he showed you how you could eat pine bark. It’s worth a go. It will fill our stomachs up, if nothing else.”

  Connor looked dubious, but gave a half-hearted nod. He seemed to hardly be there, his eyes glazed, his face so pale that it lacked any kind of colour. Lily took off her cloak and put it around his shoulders, and although he protested she refused to take it back.

  There were plenty of pine trees around. Lily went to the nearest and stripped some of the bark, trying desperately to remember what the programme had said. It was the inner bark that was edible, and you had to cook it in strips over a fire to make it crispy, otherwise it was too tough to eat. She managed to find enough dry wood to make a small fire, and they huddled around it. Lily found a flat stone and laid it on the fire, putting the thin strips of bark on it.

  “Are you sure about this?” Connor asked, testing a bit of the raw bark. ‘It’s as tough as old boots.”

  “It won’t be when it’s cooked and at least we’re getting warm.”

  As they sat and watched the strips turn brown, neither of them felt their was much hope of getting any kind of edible meal from it.

  “I believe you.”

  Lily put a mouthful in and chewed. It was disgusting, but the cooking had at least made it possible to bite through it. It tasted like a year old Dorito, well, a year old Dorito that have been left in the oven about three hours too long, but after forcing down as much of it as she could, it did stop her feeling hungry… nauseous, but not hungry.

  “Not exactly lembas bread, is it?” Connor said, trying to get the last of it out of his teeth.

  “Better than starving to death. If we had something to boil water in, I could make us a kind of tea out of the pine needles.” She glanced up at Connor as she said it, and watched in startled horror as he collapsed sideways, and lay very, very still.

  “Connor!” she yelled, scrambling over to him. She bent over and examined him. His face was burning hot, sweat beading on his brow, and he had started shaking. She peeled back his eyelids and saw that he was out cold. She had no idea what to do, or what had happened, all she knew was that something had gone very wrong. She didn’t think it could have been the pine bark; she’d eaten enough of it, and apart from feeling a bit sick, she was fine.

  It had to be the wound.

  She peeled back his clothing and carefully eased away the make-shift dressing. What she saw there almost brought the pine bark back up again. The wound was a suppurating mess, but worse, the flesh around it had begun to turn a ghastly grey colour ‒ exactly the same colour as the piece of rock that had pierced his side. She should have realised. That wasn’t ordinary rock, it was a part of one of those rock creatures, who knew what dark magic there was in that shard of stone. She panicked. She had no idea what to do. Connor was dying and she had no idea what to do about it.

  “Hecate, help me! Please.” she called out to the air.

  She waited, and there was nothing but silence.

  Connor was shaking violently now, his teeth chattering. If anything was to be done, it was going to have to be Lily that did it.

  She examined the wound again, trying to recall anything that might help. Her first thought was, ‘How would a human treat an ordinary wound like this?’ They would cut away the putrid flesh and cauterise it. This might be magic, but its effects on Connor were the same as gangrene. She took her small knife f
rom the holdall and held it in the fire… then decided that wasn’t hot enough, so she conjured a small fireball and held it in the flame, until the handle was almost too hot to hold.

  “I’m so sorry, my darling, but I have to do this,” she whispered.

  She pressed the knife into the vile looking mess around the wound and began to cut it away. Connor reacted instantly, thrusting his head back so hard that Lily thought he would tear the muscles of his neck; his eyes shot open, even though she wasn’t sure he was conscious, his back arched, and the knife slipped, digging deep into the wound.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, tears blinding her. She began gradually cutting the wounded flesh away, and thankfully, Connor passed out. It made it a lot easier. Once most of the damaged flesh had gone, the wound looked clean, just a red raw patch of open wound that spread for several inches around the deep entry wound. She desperately wished that she had some alcohol to pour on it, but she hadn’t thought to pack a first-aid kit when she left home. Instead she gave him as much healing as she could, and then, with trembling hands, she created a bright white fire ball, and pressed it to Connor’s tortured flesh. He let out a scream that must have been heard for miles, and all Lily could do was keep apologising through the sobs. When the fire died, the wound had become a charred waste of smoking flesh. It might not have cured him, but she hoped, at least, that it would buy him some time until they could get him some real help.

  Lily pulled him into her arms and held him, rocking him gently, keeping him warm with her body heat. Even if the wound didn’t kill him, he could still die from shock or hypothermia. He was dead to the world. Lily kept the fire going for as long as she could, but eventually her power failed and it went out. She had stopped feeling cold now, all she wanted to do was lie down in the snow next to Connor and go to sleep. And that was exactly what she did.

  Chapter Nine.

  “I thought you were never going to wake up, my lovely,” the voice said, close by her ear. Lily opened one eye and tried to focus on the sideways scene in front of her. She was indoors, a room of some kind, a very strange room. She rolled over in the direction of the voice to find… something... hovering over her, its face so close to hers that she couldn’t even focus on it. The figure pulled back and she sat up, staring in wonder at the small, ugly form that was now waddling around this new strange room, moving items from table to table.

  “Where… what… how…?” Lily asked.

  “Three very interesting questions,” the creature said, turning and giving Lily a snaggle-toothed smile. “You’re in my home, you’re being looked after, and my brother, Mawgum carried you here. He’s the muscle in the family, I’m the brains.” Lily just blinked at her.

  The creature before her was one of the strangest things Lily had ever seen, she was perhaps four feet tall, and extremely hairy. There was a pallid face poking out of the great bush of hair, but for the most part all Lily could see was her nose, which seemed to fill up most of her face. There was no doubt it was a her, despite the masculine appearance and the beard. She wore a filthy dress, covered in and equally filthy apron, which wasn’t quite wide enough to circumnavigate her middle; it sat just below her belly, her massive paunch spilling over the top. She was stooped, as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, shuffling around the room, her impossibly large feet scuffing up the dirt floor.

  Connor.

  She snapped her head around, and there was Connor lying next to her, still dead to the world.

  “I… thank you,” was all Lily could manage to get out. The creature just gave her another, rather disconcerting smile and said:

  “Well, Mawgum could hardly leave you lying out there in the snow, now could he? Two younglings. like you. Besides you’re too skinny at the moment, we need to fatten you up before we eat you.” Lily made a little noise of horror, and felt her bladder weaken, raising her hand and bracing for an attack. The creature turned and saw her face and gave a laugh so loud and boisterous that the walls of the cave echoed with it. Tears rolled down her knobbly cheeks and Lily thought she was going to have a seizure.

  “Oh, child, I’m teasing you,” she blurted between gasps and cries of merry pain. “My name’s Sauergum Mumble ‒ Matron of the Mountain clan. I’m the oldest living member of the Mumble family… mainly due to the fact that most of the others have drunk themselves to death. Rest easy, I’ll get you some soup. You must be famished.” She began pottering around the cave, and Lily suddenly realised that she could smell something quite wonderful and that she was dribbling all over the covers. She looked in the direction the smell was coming from and saw the large cauldron boiling over the open log fire. Sauergum ambled over to it and began to stir.

  “Thank you…” Lily was going to ask what she was, but thought that might be a little rude.

  Sauergum turned to her and peered at Lily through the wild jungle of hair that all but covered her face and gave a chuckle.

  “Haven’t you seen any of my kind before?” she asked.

  Lily was pretty certain she would have remembered if she’d seen anything like Sauergum before.

  “No, Connor and I have been trapped in Midgard all of our lives, and we’ve only ever met a few Otherworld beings.” Lily still wasn’t sure how much she could trust her benefactor, but she had saved their lives ‒ which did make it a little easier for Lily to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  Sauergum made a clucking noise, shaking her head.

  “Ah, you poor soul, trapped in that terrible place. Is it true that they make their young eat dogs?”

  Lily blinked at her.

  “Dogs? No, well, no...”

  Sauergum went to the dresser and took down two large earthenware bowls, putting them on the table.

  “In strange buns, with hot sauce on them,” she said.

  Lily laughed.

  “Oh… hotdogs… no they’re not real dogs. They just call them that. They’re made of beef or pork. They’re rather nice.”

  Sauergum tutted again, and Lily thought she might have been frowning, underneath her mop of hair.

  “Such a strange place to be brought up in. Poor child. I’m a hobgoblin, and proud of it. My family have lived in this cave for ten generations, ever since my great grandpappy, Bailgrim, killed the cave bear that lived here and made a nice winter jacket from his pelt.”

  Lily didn’t know a lot about hobgoblins, except that they were related in some way to the Urisk or Brownie and tended to be domesticated creatures, loving hearth and home. They were not really anything like the other goblin races, who spent most of their time fighting with one another and grumbling about how hard life was. They could be very mischievous, but generally they were a harmless race. This did make Lily feel a bit better.

  She looked around the cave and thought that as far as caves went it was quite homely. There was a kind of window, framed by red and white gingham curtains, that looked as if it was made of beer bottle bottoms, some of the glass green and some a misty clear and the snow bright light poured through, making pretty circles of green and white on the dirt floor. There were several pieces of battered furniture, rough hewn and probably made by the cave’s first occupants ‒ after the cave bear, of course, but it was rather reassuring and gave the place a feeling of permanence and security. She and Connor were lying on a strange wooden bed that looked as if it had been made from a hollowed out tree trunk, lined with a mattress filled with straw. The covers were a mixture of patchwork and fur, but so warm and comfortable.

  Lily looked across at Connor and he didn’t stir; his face had filled with colour, though, and he looked much better. She lifted the cover and realised they were both naked.

  “Oh, I had to dry your clothes out, they were as stiff as boards with ice, you could have used them as sleds. They’re over by the fire.”

  Lily looked across, and there were their clothes, sacking and all, draped over clothes rails by the fire, steaming away nicely. Connor’s wound had been redressed, with a less than clean
looking piece of old linen. Lily suddenly remembered her holdall.

  “My bag, did you find it?” she asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

  Sauergum tipped her head towards the corner.

  “Oh, don’t you worry m’dear. Mawgum brought that as well ‒ you over one shoulder, your mate over the other and the bag slung round his neck. It’s over there.”

  “I’ve got some dry clothes in there if you wouldn’t mind bringing it over to me,” Lily said.

  Sauergum gave a little laugh and waddled over to the bag, hoisting it up as if it weighed no more than a doughnut. She dropped it by the bed, and Lily leant over, pulling out her very bedraggled spare clothes, and pulling them on under the covers. She felt hugely better once there was more than just her skin covering her.

  “Ah, it looks as if your mate is waking up, just in time for the soup.”

  Connor groaned and tried to sit up.

  “It’s all right,” Lily said, helping him. “We’ve been saved. This is Sauergum.”

  Connor sat up, holding his head in both hands as if he were trying to keep it in place. He gave a low moan and scanned the room, with sleep filled eyes.

  “Pleased to see that you’re still alive, young master,” Sauergum said.

  Connor stared at the hobgoblin with vacant eyes.

  “Where are we? What happened?” he asked. He still looked dazed, and looked around trying to get his bearings.

  “Sauergum rescued us, we’re in her home,” Lily explained.

  ‘I’m not sure I entirely trust her yet’, she thought to Connor. She tried to pick up on his thoughts, but they were a chaos of sleepy nonsense.

  Connor pulled back the covers to look at his wound and suddenly woke up.

  “What happened to my clothes?” he asked. He eased himself into a sitting position, and although it was obviously causing him some pain, it was nothing like as bad as it had been. Lily moved a little closer and gave him a smiley kiss on the mouth.