Heart of the Staff - Complete Series

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  “Would you look at that,” said Coel with a nod at Hubba Hubba, as he eased over to the bucket and carefully picked out a rock.

  Hubba Hubba stopped short with a couple of gawking thrusts of his head at the sight of both of them looking right at him.

  With an explosive fling, Coel sent the rock whooshing by the feathers of Hubba Hubba's neck to bounce away down the length of the pier.

  “Damn! Damn! Damn!” cawed Hubba Hubba as he gave a startled lunge and pumped his way up into the sky.

  “Well for my part,” said Coel as he straightened up, watching Pebbles join Hubba Hubba in a wide circling flight that ended with them settling back onto the top yard of the fishing dogger, “she's not only dangerous, a-doing things with no warning at all, but I don't quite understand her, and I don't intend to set her off while I'm figuring her out.”

  “Yea? Well for all I can tell, she's the very Pitmaster himself. So what are we to do?”

  Coel threw back his head with a laugh. “She certainly has her moments, all right. For now though, I say we just see where it all goes. Besides, there's still land in it for me, and you have your orders from Vortigern. Let's get Niarg and see.”

  “I'd like to think that nailing them would take care of my orders.”

  “Could be, but I believe that, 'military engagements to Goll's satisfaction,' is how it went in my case,” said Coel. “We'll have plenty of time to talk about...”

  Suddenly Coel and Cunedda found themselves stumbling backwards at the sight of Spitemorta standing in their midst. “Oh without a doubt,” she said, checking her wave of nausea with a wincing swallow.

  “I was just saying you'd be here any moment...” said Coel with a bob of his head for a bow.

  “Yea?” said Spitemorta with an unmistakable predatory look to her brown eyed twinkle of delight. “Right.”

  Cunedda snapped to, wide eyed, with a deep and proper bow.

  “So where am I to sit?” she said, eyeing first one then the other of them.

  Coel drew a breath as if he were about to draw a chair in time for her lay the Staff on its side in the air and sit upon it where it hovered. “So,” she said as she scratched around in her bag for her skinweler, “let's make certain that Niarg hasn't run off somewhere.”

  “That doesn't sound much like them,” said Cunedda.

  Spitemorta gave him a disdainful glance and turned to her ball. “Ha!” she cried. “First thing. There he is...”

  “The one you called Herio?” said Coel.

  “Good! You're on your toes. Come have a look. You too, General Cunedda. If either of you run onto him, seize him. And keep him alive. I want the pleasure of butchering him,” she said, catching Cunedda's eye as Coel peered into the skinweler.

  Cunedda gave a nod and straightened his doublet over his bristling wave of goose- flesh.

  Spitemorta saw his discomfort and smiled.

  “Well then,” said Coel, straightening up with a nod, “I'd say it's time we moved out.”

  Spitemorta shut him out completely. “What do you see, General Cunedda?” she said, looking up.

  “Those two crows...” he said.

  “Spies!” she cried, springing to her feet with the Staff in her hands.

  Hubba Hubba and Pebbles were already in the air, fleeing the quays with everything they had.

  Spitemorta shot a lavender beam from the Staff, knocking Pebbles to one side in a confetti of scorched feathers to fall with a great plummeting spiral into a forest of horseweed, grown up in an abandoned chicken lot on the far side of the fish market.

  “No! No! No!” cawed Hubba Hubba as he swooped madly down into the tall weeds where she had vanished.

  Spitemorta threw her leg over the Staff and bolted aloft. “Damn! Where did they manage to go?” She flew madly all about the abandoned buildings next to the quays. She landed and tramped to the open door of a stable to peer in. She threw her leg back over the Staff. “And as for you, pretty boy Coel,” she said as she shot into the air, “you just earned it. I don't know when, but for daring, I mean actually daring to give the orders when things are this important, I'm tying you down and skinning your know it all face.”

  “No! No! No!” rattled Hubba Hubba as he crashed his way through the crowd of green stems.

  “Over here by the broken crock!” called Pebbles.

  “Pebbles!” cawed Hubba Hubba. “Are you dying? Did she get me too? Are we both dead?”

  “Over here, silly! See? I'm on my feet and everything. I'm even pretty sure I can fly, but my breast is all burnt and blistered.

  Suddenly he was preening her for a good long time.

  “So what do we do?” she said at last.

  “Shh! Listen!” he said. “Hear that?”

  “My. That's all the soldiers tramping by yonder, isn't it?”

  “Yea. And we don't dare try going anywhere as long as we hear that sound. You remember what she did to Myrtlebell's head.”

  “And then after it has been dead quiet for a good while, we fly and overtake them, careful not to be seen by her and Demonica, and keep going, on to this side of Ash Lake and warn Bernard, Herio and the Snappers, right?”

  ***

  Spitemorta hovered on the Staff, fidgeting as she watched her armies march into the countryside. She certainly enjoyed the awed looks from the soldiers below as she maintained a disinterested stare into the distance, but she could not sit still for long. Soon she was dashing madly about over the tops of the abandoned houses of Oyster Cove, having another look for Hubba Hubba and Pebbles. When they were nowhere to be seen, she shot back to the marching ranks to slowly overtake the right hand column to the front, where she hovered for a time behind Coel astride his great black gothfargh unicorn, studying him.

  “So!” she said, suddenly swooping down to float alongside him. “If it's not wise of me to be at the scene of battle, what about the wits of one who prances about above the heads of his vanguard, making himself a splendid target?”

  Coel threw back his head with a good natured laugh. “Why, to set an example for my men,” he said with eyes of merriment. “They need my encouragement. Makes them brave to see me up here a-swinging my sword. It's what I do. I lead. Now you, my good queen of three great realms,” he said, grandly doffing his helm, “you rule. I may be important, but I can be replaced. You can never be replaced.”

  Spitemorta did not know what to say. Her insult was not supposed to come back as a good natured complement, and she dearly resented finding herself enjoying it. Worse yet, she could not think of anything to do but to fly along beside him. It would not do to fly off, just like that.

  “Say. Where were you?” he said as if they were chums. “I thought maybe you'd flown back to Castlegoll until we had your new construction gang.”

  “I'd not miss the fun I've been waiting for. I was off bird watching.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “I saw no crows. If you happen to see any, have them shot.”

  “I'll pass the word at once, then,” he said with a cheerful nod.

  “Just why must he be so stinking impossible to aggravate?” thought Spitemorta as she shot away to fly along elsewhere in spite of how it might look.

  ***

  “It has to be an hour since we last heard them,” said Pebbles with a snap of first one wing, then the other. “I've been watching the sun through the horseweed. Maybe its been an hour and a half.”

  “You still think you can fly?” said Hubba Hubba.

  “It may be painful at first, but sure. I'll be all right,” she said. And in short order, they were aloft, winging their way over the abandoned farmland along the bottoms of the Loxmere River which was quickly replaced by open woodland.

  At first Hubba Hubba was continually asking Pebbles how she was managing with her burns, but she would have none of it, and they fell to silence for a good long time as they flew along in the mottled light of the afternoon sun, shining through the leaves of the towering sycamore trees along the
banks. So intent were they upon catching up to and overtaking Spitemorta and her armies, that neither of them said a word at the sudden flash of white wings, when a pair of huge ivory billed woodpeckers dropped from a dead tree just ahead in an echoing duet of honking as they galloped away through the air.

  “Are you still managing all right?” said Hubba Hubba at last.

  “Why haven't we seen them?” she said.

  “I'm beginning to wonder. And you're not telling me how you are. Should we find a roost in another hour or two? Look how long the shadows are a-getting.”

  “I can fly if I don't think about it, and you seem determined to remind me. Look. I'm afraid to stop, aren't you? I mean, we have no idea at all where Spitemorta's army is.”

  “Well they must be a long way behind us,” he said, flying closer. “There's no way they could walk as fast as we fly...”

  “Are you sure? I'm not. She's got the Staff and the Heart. We both saw what she did. What if she could use them to make them walk faster than we fly?”

  “Surely not.”

  “Well she and Demonica knocked down Niarg Castle better than any army, and they used one or the other of those tools to take away all of Razzmorten's magic...”

  “Yea but...”

  “Very well! Let's say my breast feathers are all just my imagination. Who's fastest, us a-flying or her on the Staff?”

  “Probably us...”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, no... All right. I see your point. Just promise you'll tell me if you need to stop. Hey! Are you upset?”

  “Not if we keep going.”

  On they flew, straining to see any sign of soldiers or Spitemorta. The sun had set some time ago. Hubba Hubba thought he could make out the first calls of chip-fell-out- o'-white-oaks here and there, down in the blackness between the trees, as the calls of katydids rose from every tree in the woods. “Look!” he said, swerving near her ear. “Camp fires. Let's study things for a bit from the crown of that big old cottonwood, 'way up above the big tent on the other side of the nearest fires.”

  “Very well,” she said as they found a branch. “But we can't dally. If this is them, Spitemorta really can make the soldiers move faster than a human can walk.”

  Meanwhile, at the far end of the campfires, Herio found Sergeant Philpott squatted before one of the fires.

  “Did you come to find me, Herio?” said Philpott at the sight of him.

  “Captain Bernard says he wants to talk to both of us.”

  “I'll bet I know what that's about,” he said, spitting into the fire as he rose to his feet. “Maybe I shouldn't say until we talk to him.”

  “What?”

  “Well I reckon hit's all right,” he said, pointing away from a throng of soldiers with a toss of his eyes and a tilt of his head. “Ye ever hear of Bedd Chwiorydd Tair?”

  Herio shook his head.

  “Hit's a big old vulcan mountain, up in the Pitmaster's Kettles, quite a piece north of Ashmore. I never was down in it, but I grew up right nearby...”

  “Herio!” cried Hubba Hubba at the sight of him and Sergeant Philpott making straight for the tent at the foot of their tree. “Pebbles! He ain't tied up at all. These can't be Spitemorta's soldiers.” He swooped down at once. “Herio! Herio! Herio!”

  Herio saw the two birds coming and held out his arm.

  “Where's Captain Bernard?” cried Hubba Hubba.

  “Right behind you,” said Herio.

  “Captain!” cried Hubba Hubba, turning square about.

  “Are the Gwaels on their way?” said Bernard.

  “It's 'way worse than that,” said Hubba Hubba, running his beak down a flight feather. “We thought you ones were the Gwaels until we saw Herio. Spitemorta showed up at Oyster Cove and she tried to kill us, so we waited for an hour after all the soldiers had marched out of town, but when we followed, we never saw them. We saw you instead. We don't know where they are. We don't know where Demonica is, either. And why are you here instead of just below Ash Lake...?”

  “Herio,” said Bernard, “Did Sergeant Philpott tell...?”

  “About him taking me to the Kettles?”

  “I don't have a choice,” said Bernard. “You simply can not be here.”

  “But didn't I acquit myself well enough at Castle Goll...?”

  “Without a doubt, Herio,” he said shaking his head, “but there's no way under the sun that I can risk...”

  “To Arms! To Arms!” came the shouts from the far end of the fires amidst the sudden ringing and clashing of steel.

  “Herio, this is an order!” bellowed Bernard, thrusting himself into Herio's face. “Take every one of the birds and go with Philpott! Now!”

  Chapter 153

  A barred owl boomed from the treetops nearby, answering another one far off through the timber as Herio vanished into the blackness. Bernard turned to face the clash of steel and the cries of his men. He blew three long blasts on Hebraun's horn. “To arms!” he roared as the veins stood out on his neck. “To arms! To arms!” Three more great blasts he blew, while at the far end of their camp, better than ten score Niarg longbowmen loosed arrows as they backed into camp far enough to use the firelight to make targets of the enemy. One by one, they dashed to get behind trees as the Gwaels came running into the light to tumble and fall.

  Bernard ran to his tent to get his bow in time to see Sergeant Llygad running right for him, leaping across logs and dodging this way and that through the pandemonium of Niarg soldiers grabbing up arms and stringing their bows. “Llygad!” he hollered, “What's going on?”

  “I was right there,” said Llygad, catching his breath. “They had to have run onto us by accident. We shushed and could hear them talking as they came, a-wallowing through the brush and stinging nettle. They looked mighty surprised by our arrows in their bellies with none of their crossbows drawn. But the woods is simply swarming with them...”

  “Take cover in the shadows!” bellowed Bernard, as hundreds upon hundreds of Gwaelian soldiers suddenly ran this way and that in the orange glow of the fires, swinging swords and pausing here and there to loose bolts from their crossbows. A crossbow bolt knocked a bucket of water off the corner of the table, right beside him. “Damn this moonless night!” he cried as he drew his longbow and dropped a Gwael who was coming at him with a mattock. “What kind of nightmare will this be when the fires die out?” Soon there were too many assailants for his bow. He drew his saber and set to work with a furious swing.

  It seemed to him that the battle raged on for a very long time indeed, but when the shouting died away, leaving the bodies and the moaning wounded to be tripped over everywhere he stepped, it occurred to him that the fires still had enough life that he could actually see some of the fallen. “And the owls are still a-hollering,” he said, steadying himself against a tree trunk. “I reckon we're no more'n a trifle to them, a-running around down here killing each other.”

  “Captain Bernard,” said a soldier, saluting in the failing light.

  “Is that Bevan?” said Bernard.

  “Yes sir!”

  “Report, Corporal.”

  “We've routed them, sir! We have no idea about the number that fled, but there couldn't have been many. Captain Strutly ordered out some volunteers on a reconnoiter, and he guesses that the enemy might be crossing the river.”

  “Well here's Captain Strutly now,” said Bernard with a nod. “Spread the word that everyone is to be paired up, gathering up arrows. Paired up, mind you, because some of the fallen might still be dangerous. Any crossbow bolts, put 'em in the fires. On the double.”

  “Yes sir!”

  “So what do you think?” said Strutly as a chip-fell-out-o'-white-oak began singing on the ground nearby.

  “How many do you think there were?” said Bernard.

  “There's no way to know, but at least there were more of them than us, maybe double.”

  “Any word back on how many got away?”

  Strutly shook hi
s head as he cut off a chaw from his twist.

  “Maybe we got 'em,” said Bernard, “but I want to be moving by daylight, even so. Remember that we counted better than three times as many of them floating down the river than there were of us. We need a tally of the slain taken right now. And if any are still determined after that, they can bury a few before we leave, but if the numbers aren't high enough, we need to break camp the moment we find out. Did you see Spitemorta flying about?”

  “Never did.”

  ***

  The only way General Cunedda knew that he had his men with him was by the sound of them tramping hurriedly through the brush all about him. “It's a wonder that we're not being ambushed and shot to death right now, for all our noise,” he thought. He heard running water. “Hey!” he said in the loudest whisper possible. “Hey! Slow down. Quiet! Stop where you are! Pass the word quietly!” He listened to the tramping come to a halt. “Is that you, Carbines?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Who's that with you?”

  “I'm Private Cardell,” said the other soldier.

  “I don't think you've been out of earshot the whole way, Sergeant.”

  “I've been trying to keep up with you, sir. And Cardell's been a-keeping up with me.”

  “You've done damned well with no moon,” said Cunedda. “Can you see anything?”

  “Just stars, but as you can see sir, it's hazy. I figure that if I don't see stars, I'm about to run into something.”

  “Well, you seem to be doing better than anyone else, Sergeant. Can you two go downriver and find a place shallow enough to cross? We'll be right here. And hurry. They could be on us any moment.”

  “On our way, sir.”

  Cunedda listened to them picking their way through the stinging nettles in the endless calls of the katydids, the frogs and the languid gurgling of the river water and the calls of owls up and down the bottom. He was exhausted. He sank to the ground and rested his forehead on his knees. In spite of his gut being in knots, it was a struggle to stay awake.