Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  “If the day turns out to be eventless, then certainly,” she said. “I'm every bit as tired of this food as you.”

  Lukus bounced in his saddle and renewed his interest in their surroundings. There were ironwood and muscled hornbeam trees all over the flat of the creek bottom near the banks, but as he looked, he saw that there wasn’t a single tree of any kind, not even a sapling, that was not bent and twisted into some horribly unnatural pose. “I'll declare,” he thought. “How could trees make me shudder?” He kept seeing ordinary looking leaves on the ground, much like the white oak leaves in Niarg. When he looked overhead to find where they came from, he saw that they weren't oaks at all, but bore brilliantly colored succulent fruits in bunches, each bunch a different bright color. “Fresh fruit and lots of it, just hanging there for the taking. And I think I shall,” he said as he steered Starfire toward the nearest tree. Directly he had a handful. “Hey Rose!” he hollered. “Come back here and try some of this fruit! They have to be better than your old figs! And they're all different colors!”

  Rose turned Mystique about at the word fruit and came galloping back.

  “Wow Rose! This is good,” he said, champing away. “Strange, but real good. It's got milky white juice which is real bitter but really, really sweet at the same time.” He popped another one into his mouth and savored his prize. Suddenly his eyes bulged open with strained urgency. He turned frighteningly red as his veins stood out. He wheezed in a gasping panic as though he might explode. And now he was gagging in desperation.

  Rose sprang from Mystique and mounted Starfire behind Lukus, who by now purple and nearly unconscious. She wrapped her arms around him, grabbed her fist and yanked, making him cough out chewed fruit all down his front. He slid to the ground and sat there gasping and coughing as tears streamed down his face. Rose knelt beside him, and saw that the inside of his mouth and throat were still swelling.

  “Needles! It felt like needles,” he said as he labored onto Starfire. “I don't understand what happened. Those berries weren’t nearly big enough to stick in my throat like that, not to mention fill up my mouth the way they did. My throat hurts.”

  “Lukus, I just remembered something that Grandfather once told me. He said the berries here were all the different colors of the rainbow. I think the pits can be roasted, but anyone who eats the fruit strangles to death while his windpipe swells shut. That's why they're called chokeberries and this place is called the Chokewood Forest. Those trees are called choke oaks, though they aren't true oaks at all. I guess they grow all over here.”

  “In that case I'm even more grateful than you'll ever imagine, that you were here to help me,” he said, looking at Rose with his tremulous smile. “If not, I’d have been a goner for sure.”

  “Well one thing's certain: when we get back to Niarg, we can add a lot more scary stories to the tales about this place, only these stories we’ll know are true.”

  ***

  Rose rode Mystique back onto the deer path along the stream which was now the size of a river by anyone's reckoning. She wondered idly at what point a creek becomes a river. She shook herself and studied their surroundings with care. They had been too lax. This place was dangerous. She glanced back at Lukus. He was very quiet and subdued. Talking above a croak or a whisper could be difficult for him for days. She sighed. It was going to be a long day with no one to talk to. Actually, it took four long quiet days for Lukus to regain his normal voice. Fortunately, they had been uneventful days, except for the two plump rabbits, eleven trout and some heavenly late morel mushrooms on the fourth of those days.

  Lukus savored his last bite of the baked trout and patted his stomach as he studied Rose in the light of their campfire. She looked tired and drawn to him. He hoped this ordeal would at least turn out right for her, but this was their fifth day in this Niarg forsaken woods and they had seen no sign of Ugleeuh. In fact, they had seen no sign of humanity anywhere.

  “Well Rose,” he said at last, “the only predators we've seen in this forest for the last four days have been us. Looks like if we could just find our dear lost auntie, we’d be home before summer solstice.”

  Rose gave Lucas a smile, then suddenly tensed rigidly upright on the tree stump she was sitting on. Her eyes took on a faraway expression, and then she toppled onto the ground. Icy prickles of fear ran down his spine at the sight of this and he sprang to his feet in alarm. He saw no sign of attackers as he rushed to her side to discover a tiny dart sticking above her left shoulder blade. “Thank the Fates! At least she's breathing!” he said. “Is this to put her to sleep or to kill her? Why would the little devils need darts like this, hunting in packs with all those teeth? Why just Rose?” He jumped up, certain he could feel eyes watching him.

  ***

  Lukus awoke feeling nauseated, face down in the dirt with his hands so tightly bound behind his back that they were numb and swollen. His feet, tied together at the ankles, were the same way. His head throbbed and his tongue felt dry and swollen from the poisoned dart he had been shot with. He painfully raised his head to see Rose trussed up just as he was, staring at him. The sight of her vacant look scared him, but then he saw her blink and stir.

  “Lukus,” she said over the throbbing clangor which he had yet to identify. “I think we’ve been captured by those dorchadas you told me about, and I don’t like what they're up to at all. Look 'ee yonder.”

  Lukus struggled to see. “Dorchadas!” he said. “Must be! Just as old Powder Face described them. But what are they doing chanting and dancing, Rose? I can’t understand a thing they're saying. Can you?”

  “No, but they're about to cook us,” she said with a painful swallow. “No mistake about that. Look at the size of that kettle on the fire which they're dancing around.”

  “What are we going to do, Rose?” he croaked.

  “I don’t know, Lukus. I really don’t know.”

  Chapter 34

  Suddenly there was silence. Rose fought to quiet her panic. She had not yet gotten hold of herself when she and Lukus were set upon and viciously jerked from the ground by the dorchadas. To her grateful astonishment, the sinews which bound her wrists behind her back were cut. She gave an agonized sigh of relief as blood pumped through her numb fingers, making them tingle and burn. She saw that Lukus's hands were also being freed. But as she watched, expecting them to cut the bonds on her ankles, Lukus and she were dragged to two nearby choke oaks, slammed against them and mercilessly tied with coarsely braided rope.

  “I hope we're as tough as old boots and taste like rotten fish!” growled Lukus, as he spat at the two dorchadas who were binding him. One of them jabbed his side with the butt of a spear for his cheek, knocking the wind out of him.

  “Lukus!” cried Rose. “Are you all right?”

  “So what?” he said with a wheeze. “They’re going to kill us. This is no illusion. And guess what? Nobody ever said that the dorchadas were cannibals. And those two who tied me up had short dark indigo fur all over. And don't you think that their lemon yellow hair looks like manes? They're like upright versions of giant lyoths, Rose. I’ll bet they're actually some kind of enchanted changeling made from them.”

  “Maybe the only ones who ever lived to tell about them didn’t get close enough to know anything about them,” said Rose as she stared at the dorchadas who were chanting and prancing maniacally around their huge kettle. The stoking of the very fire which might cook Lukus and her was not soothing to watch. She quickly looked away to see human bones and skulls on stakes and pikes all about the perimeter of the clearing, making it seem all the more likely that she and Lukus were indeed to be boiled. Motion overhead caught her eye, where she saw even more human skulls dangling from the twisted tree limbs. To her astonishment, she saw thatched huts nestled throughout the canopy of the choke oaks. “So that's where their village is,” she said. “How could it have escaped our notice all this time? Wow! They must have put it up there to avoid being taken by the little red demons.”

&
nbsp; Lukus looked up to see what she was going on about, but heard a crash and snapping twigs in the treetops, as a shriek from there plummeted clean to the ground. The dorchadas stopped short, wide eyed and statue still. In the quiet alertness all about, something began rolling in the leaves of the forest floor, cracking sticks, cursing and tramping brush.

  Rose and Lukus struggled to see. In spite of its spewing epithets, anything able to crash into the tops of the choke oak trees, fall all the way to the ground and get right up and tramp away couldn't be human, particularly if it had the dorchadas frozen wide eyed. Something that tough couldn't possibly be good for them, either.

  “Lukus!” croaked Rose. “If we're ever able to get loose, now's our chance! Whatever fell from the sky certainly has their attention.”

  “I’m already working on that one,” he said, as he nodded at the rope he had nearly frayed in two.

  Suddenly they saw that the something which had crashed through the canopy was a gnarled hag, stumping right past them, tugging at the back of her black dress where it had crammed from riding astride the broomstick which she carried. She had sticks and leaves clinging all over, even a thorn in the bridge of her nose. She stepped right up to a particular dorchadas as she adjusted her pointed black hat and thumped him smartly on his breast bone with each angry phrase that she shouted: “How many times, dorchadas, have I told you and your so called 'people' about setting up trip lines in the tree tops?”

  “Many times, Your Worship,” said the fellow in perfect Niarg Standard speech. “It's just that we live up there and need protection. Your Graciousness knows the dangers here in the Chokewoods. Surely you'd not deny us the right to be safe in our homes.”

  “Idiot!” shouted the old woman. “Then run your lines under your miserable huts so that you'll be alerted to intruders from below. Nothing will be attacking from the skies, unless I do. I ought to boil up a few of your clan in that kettle of yours. In fact, if you don't remove those trip lines now, that's exactly what I'll do. And don't forget, dorchadas, you owe me!”

  “Yes, Your Worship,” said the dorchadas. “We'll do it immediately.”

  “Good,” she said, turning to Rose and Lukus. “And what have we here, then?” She stumped up to them for a look. “I’ll be taking these with me when I leave, dorchadas, as a token of your appreciation for my letting you keep your miserable lives.”

  She squeezed them each by the chin and studied their faces as if she were thinking over the purchase of a pair of unicorns. Rose stiffened.

  “You should be more appreciative, girlie,” she rattled. “I've just saved your life.”

  “Yes ma'am,” said Rose, looking at her feet. “I beg your pardon. My brother and I are both very grateful to you.”

  She lifted Rose’s chin on her finger for a final squint, then waved her hands in an odd way which instantly released their bonds. “Don't you dare to think of running away from me, either,” she said, running her tongue in front of her teeth. “I saved you from the dorchadas, so you owe me. And what you owe me, I've yet to decide. So until I do, you'll obey me without question. If you vex me, I'll fetch you back here. Understood?”

  Rose and Lukus gave wide-eyed nods.

  “Good. I like things simple. Old Steadfast here can't hold the three of us at once, so you're going to walk,” she said, throwing her leg over her broom. “Let’s go. It's a right good piece and my dearest will be waiting. He gets all rumpled if his breakfast is late.”

  “Breakfast?” said Lukus. “How far is this, anyway? And, what about our unicorns? Are we just going to leave them to be eaten by the dorchadas?”

  “You ask a lot of questions, boy. So stop it! You won't like getting on my nerves. Unicorns, aye?” she said, with eyes like obsidian. “Yea, they'd eat those.”

  Lukus nodded at Starfire and Mystique standing tethered to a particularly twisted choke oak.

  “Just wait right here,” she said, leaving her broom hovering in the air. She stumped straight for the unicorns and returned at once to thrust their reins at Rose and Lukus. “Now get up and follow me.” She mounted her broom and waited, drumming her fingers on her leg.

  She shot away in the failing light, dodging the trees as she flew, doubling back here and there to wait impatiently as they caught up. Soon they could only make out their way by looking up at the sky and the ground was utterly lost in blackness.

  “Rose, shouldn’t we tell the old bat that we can’t see in the dark?” said Lukus.

  “Surely she knows that. And I doubt that she'll be nice about us telling her we can’t see.”

  “Yea? Well what are we supposed to do, run into a tree? Fall down a hole?”

  “Shush Lukus! She’ll hear you!”

  “So what? We might've agreed to come with her 'cause we owe her one, as she says, but we didn’t say we'd break our necks for her.”

  Without warning, the old woman wheeled about and hovered before them. “So! Mutiny, aye?” she said, causing them to shudder.

  “Not at all,” said Rose. “We can't see in the dark, and our mounts can't either. We're certainly at your service, but if we run into a tree and get hurt, how are we going to pay our debt to you?”

  “Oh I don't put up with burdens. And are you calling me a fool, sweetie? I saved your necks. Does that make me stupid?”

  “Why did you save us?” said Lukus, making Rose cringe.

  “You're wasting the last of your daylight and getting on my nerves, boy. So unless you want to try out life as a nice fat toadstool, you'd better shut your mouth and ride until I say otherwise.”

  “I knew it!” he said, in spite of her hovering right in front of him. “She's a witch! She acts like it and she looks it too. You reckon she knows dear old Auntie…?”

  “Lukus!” gasped Rose.

  “Silence!” roared the woman with a swipe of her hand like strangling a hen. Lukus pawed at his throat. She gave a satisfied nod and turned to Rose. “If you'd like to take a vow of silence like your brother's, just say so, dearie-do.”

  “No. I mean no ma'am! I wouldn’t like that one bit. My brother and I are grateful for our lives and are right pleased to be at your service, ma’am.”

  “Mind that you are through and through then, girlie,” she said. “And if you can keep a tether on your little brother, I might give back his voice.” She spun about on her broom and continued on her way. The broom flared up like a torch, lighting their path as they sped through the trees in a stir of whirling shadows.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” said Rose. “I didn’t get your name.”

  “That's because I didn't give it to you, girlie,” said the woman. “But just keep calling me 'ma’am,' for now. I like that.”

  “I see,” said Rose without thinking. “Then you may call me mistress.”

  “Dear me! Mistress, is it now? You have a smart mouth like your brother. That just won't go at all well for you, dearie.”

  “Yes ma'am. As you say.”

  “Good. Now tell me what you're doing in the Chokewoods, and how you happened to run afoul of the dorchadas.”

  “We're on a quest,” said Rose, “and they attacked us for no reason that I know of except that they're beasts who eat people.”

  “One of their pastimes. So what about this quest of yours? What’s it for?”

  “I'm sorry, but it's not something I can discuss. It's a personal matter, ma'am.”

  “A personal quest to the Chokewood Forest!” said Ma'am with a laugh. “Do tell! It must be right important to come here.”

  “I had no idea the Forest was so huge. Is it much further to your house? That's where we're going, right?”

  “My cottage you might say, cabin to me. Yes. And as I said, my dearest will be quite put out if his breakfast is late, so rest assured that even if we must travel all night at this tedious pace, we'll get there by dawn.”

  “What on earth did ol' Ma'am mean by that?” thought Rose. “I guess you're used to judging distances by how the broom flies, aye?” she said
aloud, startling herself by having done so.

  “Stunning insight, girlie,” said Ma'am.

  Lukus theatrically smacked his forehead with his hand and made a gurgling guffaw, causing Ma'am to look back at him with a jerk, suddenly colliding with a choke oak which sent her sprawling. Rose and Lukus halted in shocked silence as Ma'am stumped to her feet and grabbed up her glowing broom. She thrust out her chin and vehemently strangled another chicken between her empty fists, leaving Lukus altogether noiseless as well as speechless.

  This ruled out more than utterances, for immediately after they were underway again, the woods took on a distinct peppermint aroma. Rose asked him if he smelt it and he shook his head.

  “Why does the woods suddenly smell like peppermint, Ma’am?” she said.

  “'Cause it is peppermint. And that's a very good sign, because it means that we're getting close to home. Dearest will be anxious. But all will be well, since breakfast will be on time.”

  The mention of breakfast made Rose’s stomach rumble. She closed her eyes, nodding over the pommel of her saddle for some time until Ma'am called out: “Here we are!”

  Rose jerked awake, nearly toppling to the ground.

  Ma'am stepped off her broom, motioning for them to follow as she started for the steps of her porch. She gave a tug at the folds of her skirt, crammed into her backside from sitting astride her broom. Lukus reached forward and yanked them out. She gasped and wheeled right about. “Trouble with your cheek, buster?”

  “No ma'am!” he squeaked. “You're having trouble with your cheeks...”

  Old Ma'am hissed like a snapping turtle, flinging her fingers at him as though she were flipping dishwater into his eyes. At once he was yanked aloft by the seat of his breeches and pinned securely to a porch post, where he dangled open mouthed, astonished that he had been able to speak.