by Thomas Head
At this, the pub hushed, and every eye turned to us.
Then I saw something I would not have guessed at in a thousand lifetimes. A woman. A chubby human lady, gorgeous in a tight dress of purple and silver, filled our flagons.
“Here! Here!” Gilli said to her, then turned and said the same to all who looked at us.
A few mugs were raised, but not one soul returned his greeting. This place was a wonder, I mused. The shelves piled high with cheeses, smoked fish, newly baked bread, salted pork, and a barrels and barrels of ale, all of which was served by some of the prettiest dwarf maids I had ever seen. And yet there were no chuckles, no fights.
Is this how folk behaved when you get a little bit out of the mountains?
I doubted it. There was something amiss here.
As they turned back to their conversations, I reached for a small loaf and had my hand slapped away by the woman who said the cakes were for Mayday.
I smiled. In Goback, Mayday was one of the biggest celebration of the year, a whole week of food and ale and mead and fights and laughter and drunken dwarves vomiting in the new grass. There would horse races, wrestling matches, competitions in throwing spears, axes, and rocks, and, my favorite, the bare naked women, so helplessly drunk that their legs would not work but to wrap around me as we go moaning and thudding like a pair of spring rabbits. But I doubted these fellows would be doing any of that. There was an undercurrent of sadness to this place, which got deeper the more you looked, and I could feel it now as sure I could have felt a cold stream.
I saw Jickie watching them too, wrestling with the same thought: Had folk here fallen prey to the wyrm as well?
Fewer fires were lit than Goback, I suddenly noticed. Dwarves were talking low.
“Harvest time,” someone said in disgust.
I turned.
“What?”
It was the woman. “They call this the season of the dragon,” she explained. “Just before the greening of the land, the Thunderwyrm takes its harvest.”
I cocked an eye, inviting her to sit in my lap. By some miracle she nodded, hiked her dress a bit, and obliged with a shrug.
It was a shock. But I could pay no attention to those ripened, soft buttocks as they sat on my knees. I watched an old dwarf maid, who was for reason I sensed was the woman’s adoptive aunt, eyeing me. Yet the woman in my lap did not notice, or else care. She braced herself with an arm around my neck, her left breast almost removing my memory of the fact that I was a man on a mission.
“Oh?” was all I could manage.
“We are a town in our prime,” she said, “and we intend to stay that way by not incurring the Black One’s wrath.”
I waited for Uncle Jickie’s thunderous response, but none was given.
I asked, “And every able dwarf is supposed to be unnerved and moody?”
“Nay, but they say it is laughter that draws it—draws it like rats to cut barley.”
“Which…” Halvgar began, but had to cut himself short.
“Come,” I said to her. “Walk with me, won’t you?”
“Walk? We are to walk?”
The dwarf maid that was watching us laughed. “Easy, Dhal! That one looks like he’d fall in love!”
“Oh! Just let him try!” was her answer, which only made the dwarf maid laugh all the more.
I was about to offer Dhal my arm to escort her from the pub when I heard the woman calling once again. “Ye fool lad ye! Ye blundering idiot! Dhal’s a hungry wolf-child!”
At which the rest of my party had a good chuckle.
“Aye? Careful, my lad!” was all my uncle with only to say.
While there was a break in the rollicking, which was perking up the whole pub now, I strode quickly out. She was just behind me, chuckling with the glossy eyes of a drunk as she gathered up two flagons of mead.
We ran down to the river, and seeing that our vessel was fine, took a path through the greening willows. We fled along a trail beneath the cliff till the shouting of the guards for me to “Watch that one, man-lad!” could be no longer heard.
Finally, I turned to offer her my arm. “Permit me,” I said, offering my damp sleeve to her as if she had been some grand madam in the drawing room of a lord’s castle.
“Thank you—but I’m afraid I can’t,” she said.
“Oh,” I said, remembering she carried two flagons of mead.
As I finally remembered to help her carry them, I did not like that embarrassed feeling that came over me, of course, but I did need to find out if the town had been visited by the wyrm. And I continued on, walking past the cliffs to a spot that rose like stone steps back away from the water. We trudged up through the dark to a quiet place.
Then I heard a strange noise on the wind, like a low sigh or a silent weeping, and I turned to find her laughing.
“Do you know, master, that I am completely unaware of your name?”
“Indeed, madam. I am quite aware of that.”
Her eyes widened. “Well then. I suppose it isn’t necessary to name a stray, so long as they come when they’re called.”
“Feed them well enough, and they may even leave without biting.”
I was hoping to add some sense of puckish mystery to the night. Instead, there was a sudden, awkward moment.
I could only shrug and tell her, “That was not very clever was it?”
“Yes,” she said, with no emphasis on whether she meant yes, it was clever, or yes, she agreed with me. And I suddenly realized that I had been silenced by the very game I’d started.
I grunted, then pulled off a plaid blanket from the top of my pack. When I placed it on the ground, she looked at me sternly.
“I am not in the least bit inclined to sit,” she said, then went cheeks-deep into her flagon.
“Please forgive me, Miss Dhal,” I begged. “I’m such an animal—I assure you, my intentions were purely sexual.”
At which she spit beer all over me, laughing.
“A stray dog indeed, sir!”
“I quite agree with you. Though you should probably at least name me before you offer me any food.”
She strode forward and pinched my arm, then gave a little interested grunt. She bent down and traced my face with her hand, grabbing a handful of check, which she pulled back to inspect my teeth. Then she put a finger to her lips and looked me over.
“What kind of urine do you brush with?” she asked.
“Cow.”
“Hmm. Interesting. ” She turned me sideways and looked at me, her head tilting. “Favorite food?”
“The brisket.”
She glanced down at her own chest, then eyed me sternly. “Odd. I took you for a lover of the hams.”
Who doesn’t like hams? I was about to ask her as much when she made a motion with her finger.
“Turn around,” she demanded.
I was awkwardly conscious of myself as she walked around me.
“Sturdy. Well fed. A bit of pooch here in the middle though. You belonged to somebody once.”
“Really?” I said, strangely thrilled at the odd witchery she was making me feel.
“Oh yes. The body, the posture, the gait, the voice… They all tell an interesting story.”
“Story?”
“Don’t you know you’ve been talking in gushes for the past ten minutes? No?” she said.
As she continued her inspection, I took a long pull from the flagon. “Well!” I said, the tasty beer propelling me. “If you’ll give me a week’s warning, I’ll try to keep up my end of the conversation.”
“Ah! There! I’ve pulled you enough to break through the ice at last! It’s been such hard work!”
“And you come up badly wet.”
“Oh. You’re doing well, handsome!”
“Thanks to my instructor,” I said, and I swept her a courtly bow.
“There! There!” she cried, dropping her blouse as soon as I stood up.
“Madam! You’ve never given me my name—”
“That, my dear Dhal, is not going to be a problem.”
Chapter 11
“Handsome!” she whispered, interrupting my sleep at some point in the night. “Let’s begin again.”
With a strange hope in my heart, I crawled cautiously down through the silent shadows of my dreams in the waking world.
But she had not uttered the words.
I smiled anyway.
She was curled up next to me, naked in the cold grass, also smiling. I pulled her a bit closer.
The wind moved through the empty solitudes of the forest, and it brought a warm, aching sigh of unutterable satisfaction. I stared into the vast wastes of stars, completely content with my place in it all.
I breathed, reflecting on my experiences in life, on Halvgar’s maddening heartache. I’ll tell you and you alone, I was beginning to think of life as a senseless jumble with no purpose but to get through it. Now, something in the calm of the forest around us, or the certainty of our unerring moment together, quieted my unrest. The curves and gentle noises of breath that came from the woman beside me were too flawless for the limitation of speech. Every faint breath brought me peace, a peace as vast and noiseless as the wheeling of planets through the star-speckled black, and any attempts to describe it seemed sacrilege. Perhaps it was. And that was purpose enough for my life. For now.
I have no idea why such a moment came to pass with her, specifically. There had been many others. But let anyone who would hear a fool mutter absurdities, hear this—just like a mother quiets a fretful child, that rowdy, clever, gorgeous woman so free with her love, calmed and lulled my tumultuous thoughts. And I loved her for that. I did. I loved her. Say what you will, and trust that I know it’s difficult to understand. Or perhaps it is challenging to even believe.
But I did.
I loved her.
Finally, with the creeping morning light, she stirred.
“If you’ll wear this tartan, or maybe put away somewhere safe, perhaps you’ll remember the stray that came through your village on Mayday’ Eve.”
She yawned, then smiled sleepily .
“If you’ll keep one end of the plaid for yourself, handsome, I’ll take the other.”
“Brilliant,” I whispered, tightening my clasp around her fingers. “You are… just brilliant.”
I kissed her neck. She laughed a low, mellow laugh that set my heart beating. I felt a great intoxication, a “beer strength”, they call it. Hell, but I could have conquered a good chunk of the known world if she had asked.
“Fie!” someone shouted in the distance.
“Ooooh, no.”
“Fie?” she asked.
“Me—I mean, yes,” and I gulped down my embarrassment.
From the river came, “Fie, where the devil are you, lad!”
“Damn it.”
“By thunder, that’s it, you scoundrel! We’re leaving without you!”
Struggling to get dressed, I was shocked that she was in no rush to do the same. She was reclined there on the cold ground, naked as the day she came into the world, smiling. I sat to put on my boots and kissed her stomach. As I stood, I looked down with a questioning look, but I did not have to ask why she did not cover herself. She was allowing me to digest what I was walking away from. This is not to say she was full of conceit. She was just comfortable. Comfortable and gorgeous and wise.
Stooping, I picked a bunch of green ferns, then felt foolish as I gave them to her.
“Fie, you young fool” came a call from the distance, but it might as well have been her words. “We’ll see you upon our return!”
Then she blew me a kiss, and it made a dull thud echo through my stomach—it was the most erotic and heart-melting thing I’d ever known. What other absurd things I might have said, I cannot tell. But we were at the end of our time together, and I had to go.
“Go, you handsome young scoundrel! Go! You’ve already rescued your maiden… now go slay your dragon.”
* * *
The purple hills were a frosty mirror to the morning’s new sunlight. Between their deep shadows and the forested banks I found the lads in a tight circle. Their backs to each other, their weapons jutted like thorns. I could hear the shouts now, shouts of defiance and shouts to give a fellow courage. Then unseen archers on the city walls loosed their bows. I saw the glitter of the feathers as the arrows slashed down toward my fellows. A moment later, throwing spears came, arching over the high wall to fall on the upheld shields.
Amazingly, at least to me, it seemed that none of our dwarves was struck, though I could see their shields were stuck with arrows thick as hedgehog spines.
Still the lads advanced toward the ship. And I noticed that it was not archers that were attacking. It was maids that were attacking. All of them, maids. Three small parties of war-maids advanced.
Now my lads were wielding their bows, shooting at them, seemingly careful to land their shots in the maid’s shields. A handful of younger maids broke from the ranks to hurl their spears at the small shield wall.
“By thunder lads, we can’t wait! We must hurry along now!” my uncle cried nervously.
I saw the closely touching shields vanish along the docks. Then I saw the shield wedge emerge from a far ditch, and, like a monstrous beast, to crawl out closer to the vessel. Now I could see nothing except the flash of blades rising and falling, and as the maids charged, I could hear that sound, the real music of battle, the chop of iron on wood, iron on steel. The wedge was still moving. Like a boar’s razor-sharp tusks, the blades began to swing and lunge. The wedge had pierced the maids’ formidable ranks along the docks, knocking several of them into the water. Soon after, the Feisty-Goat heaved upstream by dint of a Big Frobhur, rowing with two oars, and though the maids plunged into the water and tried to wrap around the vessel, my merry lads pressed forward.
More of them rowing now, they went swiftly across a small sandbar and into the deep green waters beyond it.
The lads suddenly cheered and surged beyond sight.
I muttered under my breath, realizing the surreal situation they had left me in—one moment I was asleep, and very much naked with a rare beauty, and now they had vanished into the curves of the river.
“What the devil have they done?...”
With a mixed sense of panic and relief, I charge into town, careful to remain unseen. Almost immediately, I spotted a lone nun, walking her horse. She was leading it by the bridle. I snuck behind her. Then I lifted her robes over her head, and twisted them. While she struggled, panicked, I tied the large knot of robes to a tree, curling twice around a sturdy branch.
She was soon free, though, and in the next instant she was running after me.
“Thief! Devil!”
“I am sorry, good sister!”
And so I was on her large black horse, scrambling through the city’s ramparts. Then I was down the bank’s farther side into the streets. The way led through a side entrance in the city walls, then the alleyways and outskirts beyond. In the next instant, I was cutting through a dense thicket of pines with ferns the height of a dwarf.
Here, only dim light penetrated the maze of foliage, and the trail led the horse and I at least a mile away from the river. Little Fellow, as I called the enormous steed, was trotting hard, but with controlled glee. We both glided through the brake without disturbing a fern branch, while I—after the manner of humans everywhere—seemed to catch every twig in the forest with my face.
The horse seemed to know what I wanted though, as only the finest steeds can do. Twice I felt Little Fellow pull up abruptly. He would look warily through the cedars on one side. Once, he stooped down and peered among the fern stems. Then he silently whinnied back toward the river, galloping through the undergrowth again without explanation.
I looked back. At first I could see nothing, and regretted being led so far into the woods. I was about to reign him back onto the tra
il when Little Fellow pricked his ears again and halted.
It was as if he feared to move.
For the fourth time, we came to a dead stand. Now, I also heard a rustle. I saw an elusive, sinuous movement, distinctly running abreast of us among the ferns. When we stopped, it ceased for a moment. Then it wiggled forward like a beast or serpent in the underbrush. It did not move far. But I could never discern what it was.
Little Fellow eased back. We stood noiseless, until by the ripple of the green, it seemed to scurry away. I suspected an amber wyvern, though I had no idea they could remain so nondescript amid the green, and the thought was terrifying.
I shuddered atop Little Fellow, before urging him along. Then at last, I saw them.
My merry band of old lads.
Chapter 12
Just before the river narrowed to series of rapids, I called out with a series of three bird whistles.
My dear little Jickie, whose cunning eyes seemed to gleam with the malice of a snake, silently twisted in the vessel. He turned to the bank. Then he shook his head and motioned for the others to row ashore.
The swish of waters rushing past, I gave the horse a drink and set him on a course back the way we came.
Wrapping my half of the plaid tartan around me, I propped my arse on the gunwale and slid into my place among my fellows. When we were midstream again, I felt the heat of their silence. Half dazed by the wonder of my night and half shocked still by the unexpected, unexplained flight my lads had taken from the war-maids, I just breathed the clear air, and began rowing.
All I had seen and heard during the day still floated in my mind like a sigh of wind through the forest, and I was only half-conscious that cedars, pines and cliffs were engaged in a mad race past the sides of the canoe. During all this, I tried not to notice their lack of attention. Dwarves, I can assure you, are rarely so silent. I dared not pierce their quiet anger with any questions.
I just yawned and kept rowing.
Which was more less when my uncle cuffed me across ear, to an uproar of laughs from the lads.