“Well,” said Ocker, giving himself another thorough ruffling, “I appreciate your words, and I do give them credit, but theah is always something behind each party to a deal, if ye know what I mean.”
Lladdwr gave a respectful nod of acknowledgement from atop his long fluffy neck and let his eyes droop as everyone fell silent, listening to the rustle of the maidenhair leaves in the arid late morning breeze, punctuated by the rattling calls of the cactus wren. Urr-Urr settled onto her egg in the moss and closed her eyes.
The crown of Meri Greenwood's green haired head slowly rose up out of the moss in the middle of the Fairy ring and paused with a blink and a look about with his emerald eyes. The birds seemed to be napping. He tip-toed up the last of the steps and stepped out of the moss as it closed solid behind him. He looked this way and that with his fists on his hips as he cleared his throat.
Eight sleepy bird eyes came open at this.
“Ich am sory to wake you,” said Meri, “but seurly thou to haven a bit of myn ioye woulden lyche.” Suddenly he ran and did a cartwheel, ending with a leap and a click of his heels. Ocker and Urr-Urr stood up, shook and began preening as he jogged back.
“Neron me told that my paramour Celeste beth a-lyve and wel and in Bedd Chwiorydd Tair lyveth,” he said as he squatted before them. “That beth wher she hath al this tyme yben. That beth wher Razzorbauch hem didde putt.” He caught Ocker's eye.
Ocker looked away at once, and began an immediate sorting through his flight feathers.
“She ther with hir sustrin Alvita and Nacia and hir litel brother, Rodon lyveth,” he said, turning to Lladdwr and Ceidwad. “And hee seyth they yunc tweye didde reysen, righte wher they now lyven. Nis nat that righte?”
“We were just there,” said Ceidwad with a snap of each wing.
“O Ich most hir to seen!” he cried, doing a handspring ending in a headstand. “For al thise lyve-longe yere, Ich have of hir ech howre of everych day ythoght. O do tak me. Tak me this verray moment.”
Lladdwr and Ceidwad exchanged a look. “We will,” said Lladdwr as the pair of them nodded.
“But there are considerations,” said Ceidwad.
“But thou wol for to takyn me, righte?” he said, dropping from his headstand and sitting earnestly upright.
“Certainly,” she said, opening and closing the feathers of her long neck. “But we're still exhausted from our journey here. We spent most of the way catching up with the rest of the party, after a hurried sortie off to the side to Mount Bed while everyone else went on. We must have another day's rest, particularly since we'll be carrying you.”
Meri looked disappointed in spite of his best manners.
“And you will want us to carry you, since I'm certain that you want to arrive as quickly as possible. You could never keep up on foot.”
“And if I may,” said Lladdwr, “we could rest much better if we were allowed to stay right where we are, rather than running errands. It's not definite, but I believe Neron had in mind taking all of us to where the dragons have fled in the Black Desert. And since we don't know just where that is, it looked like he was planning on sending us to find them while the party recuperated here at Gerddi Teg, though I know he planned on discussing all that with you. If we rest for a day right here, perhaps you could do the leg work for us by asking Arwr and maybe some of your diatrymas to go find the dragons.”
“In dede,” said Meri. “Heere am Ich, ytaking you al awey juste by cause of my passiones. Ich wol Neron this minut to fynden. Ich have a drede ful hoost yben. And dragounes in the Blake Decert. Didde they ther to fleen by cause of Demonica and Spitemorta?”
Lladdwr and Ceidwad both nodded.
And with that he gave a nod of his own as he sprang to his feet, vanishing through the moss of the Fairy ring.
Ceidwad rattled her beak through the feathers all about Lladdwr's eye as they listened to another medley from the cactus wren in the sighing breeze. “As much as I know how Mother Celeste pines for Meri,” she said, suddenly stopping short, “I wonder what it would do to her, having him see her the way she is right now, aye? Do you reckon this is the right thing to do?”
“What way's that?” said Ocker, giving a quick two footed hop around to the front of them. Why would hit a problem for Meri to see her?”
“I don't mean to be rude,” said Ceidwad, “but something like this is probably kindest to Celeste being regarded as a private matter...”
“Yea? Well maybe hit ain't so swyving private as ye think. If ye would just be straight about it, maybe I could decide if I caused hit.”
“Caused it?” she said, fluffing up and smoothing out. “What could you possibly have caused?”
“I might have something to do with all this. That's probably why Meri talked to you two in front of me.”
“Why should I disclose something of Celeste's privacy in exchange for your being evasive?”
“You pissen me right smart!” he awked, fluffing up his neck like a pine cone to strut from side to side.
“Ocker!” awked Urr-Urr.
“Look,” said Ocker. “Meri probably wants me to set something straight in order to square up over Urr-Urr's egg. So just be that way if you must, but I'll dampne wel find out, because Urr-Urr and I are going with you ones the whole swyving way there and the whole swyving way back.”
***
King Theran trotted down the steps of the back stairway to the garden.
“Your Majesty!” came an echoing voice from the head of the stairs. “Sire!”
Theran stopped on the landing and heaved a sigh. “Very well Arianrhod,” he said before turning about to watch his steward's stiff decent. “What now?”
“I'm sorry about this sire,” said Arianrhod with a totter as he steadied himself against the stone wall. “I know you've had quite a morning...”
“If its anything about irrigation, I don't want to hear it. I'm positively dieing to get outdoors. I want to sit in the shade and listen to the catbirds and the doves.”
“Well it's a good thing it's not any more people upset over the ditches, but you do need to come back upstairs. The two...”
“Shit fire! Show them to my end of the board at supper.”
“I do apologize, but unless I'm altogether misreading... It's our spies, sire. And they say it's urgent.”
“Tell them I'm coming,” he said, starting up the steps. He could see that he was catching up with Arianrhod. “Take your time. I don't mind scaring them myself. Besides, since it's the spies, we're already well beyond what's proper.”
“The witches are what's not proper, sire,” echoed Arianrhod from down in the stairwell behind him. “Their evil's 'way beyond dishonorable protocol.”
“Maybe so,” he said, pushing off the top step into a determined stride down the hall, “but I'd a hundred to one rather find a troop of naked Beaks in my audience chamber.”
For no particular reason that he was aware of, Theran chose to take the long way around and tramped past the surprised spies without a word on his way up the carpeted runner to his great chair where he flopped down, parking his crown upon his knee. “Sir Trefor Pugh and Sir Cefin Bedward,” he thought.
The pair followed at a respectful distance and halted at seeing him seated.
“Oh fiddlesticks!” rumbled Theran, waving aside their bows. “Arianrhod thinks you all have bad news. So what is it?” Without warning, he yanked off first one shoe and then the other and flung them across the room to kick up a cloud of ashes in the stone cold fireplace. He thrust out his feet from the edge of his chair and wiggled his toes. “Well?” he said.
Sir Bedward shared a glance with Sir Pugh at Theran's unexpected fire as he cleared his throat. “Niarg has fallen to Demonica and Queen Spitemorta, Your Majesty, and no mistake,” he said. “After Spitemorta brought the Gwaelian armies to Goll, General Coel of their mercenaries had me keeping their pigeon cote in the mow of the castle stables. He released three birds when they captured Captain Bernard of the Niarg Royal Guard
and his army of volunteers upriver from Jut Ford on the Loxmere...”
“This is bad,” said Theran, springing from his seat to shove a couple of chairs at Bedward and Pugh with a pair of echoing screeches. “Please sit. Go on.”
“Niarg Castle is nothing but ruble,” said Bedward, “and Queen Minuet, Wizard Razzmorten and everyone else in the castle proper were dead of the plague long before Goll's Gwaels ever got there.”
“Yea,” said Sir Pugh, speaking up, “but Niarg got Castle Goll, by Fates! They set it alight and blew it sky high with kegs of Gwael's gonne powder. Hit was a sight. You see, the witches left with the armies for Niarg. And they hadn't been gone long when Bernard and his men showed up and brought it down. Then they took off for Jut Ford, apparently, with neigh all of Castle Goll's service and Queen Spitemorta's goats and even her own newborn daughter...”
“And that's where this General Coel got them?” said Theran, chewing on his beard as he watched Arianrhod quietly step inside.
“Yes sire,” said Pugh.
“Well now,” said Theran, “if Castle Goll was blown to bits, how does anyone know that the baby and all the help went with them? Couldn't they all have burnt up?”
“As far as Spitemorta's concerned, I reckon no one knows for sure,” said Pugh. “She already has a reward out for them, but she has no way of knowing. But I not only do know, I left Castlegoll with Bernard's army for a short way, so I know that they all went with them. I was hired help, remember. Just made steward.”
“Since no word about them came back with the pigeons,” said Bedward, “I'd allow that Bernard left them camped somewhere and just the army went on to the ford. Anyway I don't know, since I only went a short way with them. I wanted to find Sir Pugh right away when I got back and take an accounting of things at the castle.”
“I'll bet that was some sight,” said Theran, raising his eyebrows for Arianrhod, who had quietly taken a seat.
“Well now I didn't see them return,” said Bedward, “but I heard these terrible screams...”
“Who? Whom didn't you see?”
“The witches. I was about to look for Pugh at the pigeon cote in the mow of the stable when I heard this awful caterwauling coming from the castle basement. I ran up to see if someone needed help and found Demonica a-standing over the queen, who had her legs and armor all broken up and twisted. Well I knew better than to be caught watching that lot, so I high tailed it up into the mow to hide for a while.
“Pugh was there and we got quiet, a-hearing someone come into the stable below us. We found cracks to peer through, and there was Queen Spitemorta in her armor in perfect shape, a slapping Demonica's mare on the rump, all hateful. She was tramping about raving about this and that about 'the Heart,' which might well have been the huge red crystal I'd never seen before, which she had on the end of her staff. She was raving about Niarg this and that, too, as ye might imagine. Next thing we knew, she'd saddled her own mare and was clean gone.”
They all sat quiet for a moment, listening to the flourish of muffled twitters from the nesting swifts in the flue of the fireplace where Theran had thrown his slippers. “That's some tidings you all bear, my good knights. Is there anything else?”
“Well, Spitemorta's announced on her skinweler that she's now queen of Niarg- Loxmere-Goll,” said Pugh, “though I know for a fact from snippets I was allowed to overhear between her and her generals, that she has deliberate designs on not only the whole continent, but the whole blooming world.”
“And as we've already let you know, she and Demonica brought several shiploads of Elf killer trolls here from the Eastern Continent, right before they burnt Ash Fork to the ground and lost their own army,” said Bedward. “The trolls were in on that in some way. And right after that, they made several raids on the Elves, and King Neron and every last remaining one of them just up and vanished.”
“Yea,” said Pugh. “And every last dragon along with them.”
“And we're next,” said Theran. “And that means we've got work to do. But this evening is the last carefree supper. And I want the pair of you sitting on either side of me at the head of the board.”
Chapter 155
The new west wind drove a peppering shower from the leaves of the canopy, as the storm rumbled away into the east, inviting katydids to call again hither and yon. Spitemorta lunged step by careful step through the sopping wet stinging nettles, finding her way back to where Coel and Cunedda were fiddling with things out of Captain Bernard's marquee, trying to start a fire.
“Here,” she said, setting alight their kindling with a bright whoosh in their faces that made them tumble backward into the wet muddy leaves. “Better hurry up and find sticks or I'll have to do it again.”
Coel and Cunedda scrambled to their feet with wide eyes, whisking at the muddy leaves sticking to their backsides.
“Well then,” she said. “Your armies are safe from my beasts, so shall we be about our business?”
“You can actually converse with them?” said Coel. “There's never been a soul back home able to do such a thing in all the time we've shared the continent with them.”
“Grandmother and I have never had a problem.”
“And they say sensible things?” said Cunedda. “People still argue about whether their babble is actually a language.”
“Yea,” said Coel. “And no one ever gets close enough to hear them, either way.”
“We've spoken to them from the beginning,” she said. “They certainly do talk, but I'm not sure what I think about how sensible they are. So. Are we ready to move out?”
“Please forgive my astonishment, Your Majesty,” said Coel as he scratched the top of his head, “but we've won our fight. And it's dark. We gave the word to bivouac. Why would we go on before daylight?”
“You astound me!” she snapped. “We're in the midst of a war, General, or haven't you noticed?”
“Well now, it may be that I actually haven't,” said Coel. “General Cunedda has just slain nigh onto two thousand and nine hundred of Niarg's finest, and I came in behind and captured Captain Bernard and every bloomin' one of his remaining sixteen hundred. Now notice that I've posted six and thirty sentries in case someone slipped away, or in case someone we've overlooked shows up...”
“Like Herio,” she said as she set the Staff to hover in the air and threw her leg over it. “Who knows how many he'll bring back. It's your job to be ready.”
“Which is the reason for my sentries,” he said with an amused look as he picked up a stick to toss into the new flames, “though if Herio shows up with a fresh army, I'll bet it'll take him a good while.”
“And it's your job to be ready.”
“And the only possible way to be more ready than I am right now would be to know just exactly where his army is going to be coming in from and exactly when he'll get here. Do you happen to know?”
“Why aren't you dividing up your prisoners right now?” she said. “You should already be underway.”
“How?” said Coel, glancing at Cunedda, squatted by the fire, who looked up at once.
“You should be able to count,” she said. “That's how. You take half of the prisoners to Niarg, where I'll be waiting, and begin clearing away the rubble for a new castle right where the old one was. And General Cunedda? You take Captain Bernard and the other half to Goll and begin there.
Cunedda tossed a stick into the fire and shot to his feet.
“General Cunedda only has one hundred, eight and ninety men,” said Coel, catching Cunedda's eye with a careful shake of his head. “He has just lost nine thousand and eight hundred good men...”
“So what?” said Spitemorta. “You still have five thousand. I should hope that between the pair of you, you can manage to divide by two.” And with that, she shot away into the blackness above the trees.
“That stinking witch!” cried Cunedda as he furiously flung a stone after her. “Fates damn her! I lose ten thousand men. I'll see faces when I close my eyes f
or the rest of my life and all she can worry about is getting even with a hired boy.”
“Yeap,” said Coel, casting about for sticks for the fire in the renewed chorus of katydids. “And she'll be right back here, worrying about us if we don't get started. Look. As soon as you get things set up to her satisfaction in Goll, send word to King Vortigern. Maybe you can convince him that he's better off with you all back in Gwael. But I can't imagine that he'll be very upset by you finding yourself in the building trades.”
“Well I appreciate that, but the first rule of command is: you can be forgiven for losing a battle, but never for being surprised. Vortigern lives and breathes that one. I'll have to get around it, first.”
Spitemorta could see a line of winking clouds vanishing into the eastern horizon as she hurtled through the cold black air, far above the trees. “Let my army march all night,” she cried above the whistling of the wind through the joints of her armor. “I'll have the fat old biddy at Peach Knob fix a nice hot bath for the very queen of Niarg-Loxmere- Goll. And something good to eat. I'll make her come up with something.”
“That's my granddaughter,” said Demonica's voice in her ear.
“Aah!” wailed Spitemorta, clamping her hands onto both ears at once, as the Staff veered off in a plummeting spiral. She made a frantic grab for the Staff and held on with everything she had as she resumed her course. She struggled to catch her breath.
“Just be self-centered, dear,” said the voice.
“Damn you!” screamed Spitemorta. “Shut up!”
“It doesn't matter to me if you are, but you shouldn't let...”
“Go away Demonica! You're dead!”
“You shouldn't let them know, or they'll get you...”
“Shut up! Shut up!”
“Get you,” laughed the voice, “get you...”
“Shut up!” screamed Spitemorta as she shook her wrenching grip on the Staff. “Shut up! Shut up!”
After a time alone in the black sky, she could see that the voice was finally gone, but she could also see that the fire burning in her chest was not anger toward Demonica at all, but mortal terror.
Heart of the Staff - Complete Series Page 166