Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  Hubba Hubba lumbered to the end of his perch, threw his tail over it and lumbered his way back. With no warning at all, Ugleeuh was standing right next to him. He gave an apoplectic gasp, missed his next step altogether and tumbled to the floor. “Hey!” he cawed, backing away from her in a ruffled heap. “Don't do that!”

  “Dearest,” she said. “I only wanted to let you know that I was home.”

  Hubba Hubba gave himself a thorough shake and lunged into a half dozen flaps up to his perch. “Yea?” he said, zipping his beak down a flight feather. “Well, I've been starving this whole time and you haven't been home at all.”

  “But I'm home early...”

  “Yea? Well, I've been lonely longer than that. And did you see how weak I was, getting up on my perch? Well I nearly never made it, as if you cared or something. It's your fault I fell. And look. You could feed me instead of just standing there. And you could tell me where you've been forever.”

  “Calm down dearest,” she said as she began scratching him around the back of his head. “I'm wrapping up my business in Niarg. After tomorrow I'll be done there. Isn't that worth a little trouble on your part?”

  “As if I cared,” he said, biting her on the knuckle with a sudden clack of his beak. “Hey! Where are you going?”

  “You think I'm going to scratch you with you leaving red marks on me?”

  “Are you really going to stay home?”

  “After tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'll be here until tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh you are, then. Really? Well. You can fix me cherry cobbler with lots and lots of sukere and apple pie with lots and lots of sukere, as long as you give me a scratch, first.”

  ***

  “I hate to rush you,” said Hebraun, stepping in the door of Razzmorten's tower flat. “They just brought in this fellow who was horribly burnt. He died as he was talking to me. Razorback's not above ten mile out of town, beyond South Cross, burning field and farm with a half dozen of his slave dragons. So how about that sword you said you were working with? What do you think?”

  “I've got it in here,” said Razzmorten as he turned on his heel and led him into a cramped library where a pair of pigeons took flight from the sill of the open window. He cleared away a jumbled pile of papers and a leather bound volume open to a water color of an herb with purple flowers. He retrieved a long wooden box from amongst the book shelves and set it on the table.

  “Why that's a big old claymore,” said Hebraun as he reached for it. “May I?”

  “Certainly. You'll have to pick it up before you can use it.”

  “That thing's six foot long. Quite a handful. Where'd it come from?”

  “Neron,” said Razzmorten, idly studying the length of it in Hebraun's hands. “It's name is Scolteyder, or Cleaver. It's right neigh a thousand years old. It was used in the great Marooderyn Imshee massacre which ran the Elves out of the Eternal Mountains on the Eastern Continent, back when they first came here. It belonged to Asmund, who meant a great deal to Neron back then, and it carried a right smart amount of really old magic on it's own. It had as much wallop to it as a respectable wizard's staff before I ever did anything to it.”

  “It's beautiful,” said Hebraun as he set the blade back into the box,” but I've always used a saber. I can't imagine being very dangerous with it without a lot of practice.”

  “You seem to be forgetting what we talked about. Have you figured out a ruse to throw off Razorback's concentration? You'll need it to get close enough and to have a moment to throw Scolteyder...”

  “Throw? Did you say throw?”

  “Take it by the pommel and throw it overhand as hard as you can possibly manage...”

  “But it will go end over end. What if the blooming pommel hits first?”

  “No, no. That's what I've done. It straightens out immediately and flies point first. The point always goes exactly where you look. And it hits like the hammer of Thor.”

  “So how much practice do you reckon...?”

  “None, really,” said Razzmorten. “That is, you don't need to practice in order to hit the mark with a killing blow. The sword does that. But you do need to be able to keep your concentration on the spot you want to hit while the blade's in flight. And I suppose you'll need to practice drawing it quickly without fumbling, since you've always carried a saber and aren't used to drawing over your shoulder.”

  “Could you go see Minuet?” said Hebraun as he buckled on the huge scabbard. “She's been very brave, but she's really scared and upset.”

  In short order, he was jogging down the tower stairs, thinking all this over as he paused here and there to draw the big claymore with great whistling swings. He hurried into the back outer ward over the crunching gravel, as a catbird called and whistled from the shade of the plum trees. At last, he broke into a run for the armory where a pair of wide-eyed squires helped him into his cuirass, which he kept to breastplate and back plate only. And though he also donned a gorget, skirt of tasses and tuille, he wore no helm and no armor over his arms and legs at all.

  The moment his claymore was strapped back in place, Vindicator, his great white stallion march streiciwr brenhinol unicorn was brought to him, saddled and draped with a caparison bearing full regalia, but wearing no armor. He found his stirrup, mounted, fit the long ash lance into its socket and galloped out the front gate, past the astonished onlookers who watched him ride away for South Cross with no escort in sight, his long brown hair afly in the morning sun.

  A few miles south of South Cross, he saw the first white smoke rising from a field of wheat in the distance. From there, it was a long and tiring ride before he was at last able to make out a lone dragon, setting fire to a row of wheat shocks. He came to a stop and shifted his weight in the saddle as a meadowlark called from a nearby post. “Now where do you reckon the other dragons are?” he said as he patted Vindicator's neck. “Well, wherever they be, that one's Razorback and no mistake.” He took his lance from its socket and nestled it under his arm. “Get up, then.” And they were off at a canter, down the lane and across the ditch into the smoldering wheat field.

  Just as they crested a rise in the field, Razorback saw them and roared with laughter. “It's the liar!” he boomed, puffing out wisps of smoke. “Hoy, King Liar! Over here!”

  “We can see you!” hollered Hebraun as he halted Vindicator.

  “I wondered! From here you look every bit as stupid as you did up on the wall walk! Where's your army? Oh Fates! You're going to try the same idiotic stunts as your jouster!”

  “If I can!” cried Hebraun as he came a bit closer and stopped again.

  “This is astounding,” said Razorback with a smoky chuckle as he reared onto his hindquarters. “I'll even let you go out yonder a dozen rod or so and have a run at me. Go on.”

  Hebraun galloped out between two rows of shocks that were still in various stages of burning and tumbling apart, where he turned about and stopped. “Here we go, old boy,” he said, giving Vindicator a pat. “Let's go right for him. Get up!”

  Vindicator charged right toward Razorback, gathering speed as he came. As they neared, Razorback drew in a great breath and dropped onto all fours, ready to spew out a fatal blast of flame. At the unexpected sight of Hebraun dropping his lance into the wheat stubble, Razorback reared up again and threw back his head with a roar of laughter just in time for Hebraun to fling Scolteyder with every last fiber and sinew he had.

  Truly awake from its thousand year sleep, the great claymore flew like an angry bolt from the lofty mountain, cleaving Razorback's breastbone to the hilt with a boom like the bursting of a great bladder. Razorback was on his side at once, kicking and flinging blood as he threw his head from side to side against the smoldering wheat stubble.

  Hebraun came forward on Vindicator and dismounted. Vindicator nickered.

  Razorback was coughing and gurgling, but maybe chuckling here and there as Hebraun squatted beside him. “Think you've won, King Liar?”

  “Looks t
hat way,” said Hebraun.

  “It would to a fool,” said Razorback, growing still for a very long moment before drawing in a rattling breath and continuing: “Sukere's on its way to Niarg whether you want it or not. Your own children will eat it in front of you as you lie helpless on your deathbed.”

  Hebraun watched his silence for a long spell, then rose to his feet and tugged on Scolteyder. With a whistle and a shake of his head, he drew his dirk, dropped to his haunches and began to carve.

  ***

  Ugleeuh held out her looking glass the length of her arm, trying to see as much of herself as she could. “Damn this!” she cried as she flung the mirror across the room to smash on a corner of the table by Hubba Hubba's perch.

  “Ugleeuh!” he cawed, leaping into a tight circling flight through the room and back to his perch where he crouched, skinny and panting. “That mirror lied,” he said, pausing to pant some more. “You're without a doubt the handsomest human that this humble crow knows about. It deserved to smash.”

  “Oh dearest,” she said with a spreading smile. “I'm glad you see it. But I'm afraid that's not the issue, here.”

  “No?” he said, giving his feathers a thorough shake. “I'll help if you tell me.” He ran his beak down a flight feather.

  “There's nothing you can do, dearest. What I need is a full-length mirror like the one in my room at Uncle Razzorbauch's keep, and I've not yet learnt the spell for one.”

  “How about your traveling spell?”

  “Traveling spell?” she said, struck dumb by the stray idea. “Traveling spell!” She grabbed up her scrying ball and dainty staff at once. “Thank you, thank you, dearest.”

  Suddenly she was gone.

  A maid in Ugleeuh's room at Razzorbauch's keep gasped and dropped her armload of folded linen at the sudden sight of her. “Mistress Dewin!” she said. “Razzorbauch didn't warn... Razzorbauch didn't tell us that you would be arriving today.”

  “Oh?” said Ugleeuh. “Then why are you in here with fresh linen? Is it merely a means to be in here, checking for things to pocket?”

  “Mercy no, Mistress! I'm paid well enough. He ordered me to see to your apartment regularly. He wanted it ready for you at all times.”

  “Well!” she thought, flattered by the idea of his consideration for her, in spite of her conviction that he owed her. “Very well,” she said as if the woman stank of rotten fish. “See to the linen and go. Once I've gone, you can come back in.”

  The poor maid curtsied, gathered up her folded linen and vanished to the sound of Ugleeuh's laughter.

  “Now,” said Ugleeuh as she slipped her scrying ball and staff into her kirtle under her cape to vanish by virtue of a glamourie that she had cast upon herself. She walked up to her uncle Razzorbauch's magnificent mirror, turning this way and that. “No...” She flung aside her cape and looked again, here and there. “Nope. No one will ever know that I have them without an intimate search. And no one will dare do such a thing to the king's sister in law, not even Captain Strong.” Presently, she produced her ball and staff and winked out amidst her own laughter.

  “What's so funny?” said Hubba Hubba, startled as always by her sudden appearance.

  “You, dearest,” she said with a subsiding chuckle.

  “Thanks,” he said with a snap of each wing. “You're so skilled at making me feel special.”

  “Aw,” she said, giving him a scratch at once.

  “Uh, did you see how beautiful you look?”

  “I certainly did, thanks to my wonderful, wonderful dearest. And now, I'm ready to go back to...”

  “Right!” he said, turning his back to her at once. “Abandon your wonderful, wonderful dearest for however long is convenient for ever so important you.”

  “I'm coming right back,” she said innocently enough, as she felt of her vial of nimh bitsie and her hidden ball and staff.

  “Nope!” he said, taking a hop away from her on his perch.

  “I am, too. I'll be back in no time, and then we shall celebrate, celebrate, celebrate.”

  “I'm not listening...” he said as she mumbled something and vanished. “'Cause their ain't no stinking point.” He gave each wing a snap and wiggled his beak into his breast feathers. “Bad!”

  “Well, here we are,” she said as she began at once, looking about in her tower bedroom. “Now where are those lovely rose crystal goblets which Talamh Coille gave me?” She dug through the chest at the foot of her bed. “Ha! Here they are, still wrapped in velvet. They don't need a thing more.” She looked into her scrying ball and appeared in the dining hall with the goblets. She gave a furtive glance about the empty hall. There was only a pair of hounds, lolling about on the cool stone floor. “Damn!” she said, suddenly ducking out of sight when she saw the two guards standing at the door. She propped her elbow on the seat of a chair and peered into her scrying ball to see what was going on in the kitchen. “That has to be their food on that table,” she thought as she felt of her vial of nimh bitsie. “Well, no one seems to be looking.” Suddenly she was standing by the very table in the kitchen, right by the fat cook she hadn't seen, who was arranging dainties on a silver tray.

  “Oh!” screeched the cook, flinging up her hands as a steaming toad-in-the-hole plopped onto the floor. She wheeled about with her red lardy face. “Now look 'ee here, missy-poo, that was the king and queen's dainties!”

  “I do beg your pardon,” said Ugleeuh. “I'm rather late getting here, you see...”

  “Why Mistress Dewin, I beg yours!”

  “And you certainly have it, dear,” she said as she pulled back the velvet on one of the goblets. “Have a look at these.”

  “Why they're lovely as snowflakes,” she gasped from behind her hand.

  “Is that the tray which they'll see brought to the table?”

  “The very one.”

  “May I have a moment to arrange them just so, for when the tray first arrives at the table? And will you be certain that they're told who brought the goblets?”

  “Why, you ones go right ahead,” she said with a nod as she wiped her hands on her apron. “I'll make sure they're told, and I'll be back directly.”

  Ugleeuh chucked the goblets between the roast and the aspic. “Ta, ta-ta, ta-ta,” she hummed under her breath as she wiggled the stopper from her vial. “Ta, ta-ta, ta-ta...” glig, glig, glig... went the vial. “Lit-tle bit-ty drop-lets... Ta, ta-ta, ta-ta...”

  In short order, the food was thoroughly peppered with the glistening coal black drops which vanished at once into everything. She stoppered her wee bottle and looked into her scrying ball.

  Immediately she found herself doubled up under the low sideboard table in the dining hall. One of the hounds looked up at her for a moment and lost interest, laying his head back down on the cool floor. It was quite cramped under the sideboard, but she did have a good view of a table on the balcony. “Good,” she said.

  Presently she heard voices echoing in the huge room, then giggles. “That's Min-Min!” thought Ugleeuh. She strained and shifted about in vain to see them from where she sat. She sat breathlessly still and listened. They were coming her way.

  “Oh, I love you more than words can tell,” said Hebraun as he and Minuet halted with a passionate embrace.

  A white-hot fire of fury swept through Ugleeuh, burning behind the throbbing veins in her neck. “Oh good!” she thought as they went onto the balcony. “This, I can't wait to see.”

  “Ungh!” went Ugleeuh, seething and fairly bouncing on her cramped hipbones when she saw that Hebraun and Minuet were sitting somewhere completely out of sight.

  “Did you hear something?” said one of the guards, as the pair of them stepped inside the doorway for a brief look about.

  “There's no way I can possibly get to my scrying ball,” she thought. “There's nothing for it then, but to just sit here.”

  “Goblets from Leeuh,” said Minuet, marveling at what she and Hebraun were unwrapping. “They're beautiful. They must be
Elven, don't you think?”

  The orderly set out the last of the dishes, bowed and went back to the kitchen.

  Hebraun spooned out a nice bowl of turnip greens for each of them. Minuet folded a fat steaming string of them into a piece of bread.

  “No!” croaked a huge raven, flying into her face, knocking her bowl off the table and sending her knife spinning across the stones.

  “Hey!” shouted Hebraun, springing to his feet with a wave of his arms as Minuet shot backwards in her chair to stand up, shaking the great splatter of hot greens from the skirts of her dress.

  The raven hovered over the table for a moment.

  Hebraun flung a stoneware lid at him.

  “That pissen me right smart, swyver!” shouted the bird as he dodged the lid and flew up higher to vanish over the top of the castle.

  “What was that?” said Minuet as she drug up a dry chair and sat again before her place at the table.

  “One bad natured raven,” said Hebraun as he slowly took his seat. “But it's the only one I ever heard talk...”

  “Then you've not seen much, King Boy,” said the bird as he swooped down onto middle of the table to step about, carefully avoiding the food.

  Hebraun loved any sort of toad-in-a-hole. He reached for the nearest one in spite of the excitement.

  “Drop that, you swyving fool!” shouted the raven. “That shite's poison!”

  Hebraun wrinkled his brow in dumbfounded amusement and raised the morsel to his mouth.

  The raven flew right at his face. “Drop hit, King Boy!” shouted the bird, leaving great red scratches all up Hebraun's brow.

  Hebraun waved his arms about and toppled over backwards in his chair.

  “Hebraun!” shouted Minuet, springing to her feet and rushing around the table to help him up.