The Elves found it vastly easier to follow along behind Oisin with Radella and Alvina lighting the way. They followed them for a good long way further up the tunnel to a hole that forced them to crawl on their bellies and elbows until they reached another tunnel which ran parallel to the one they left behind. This they followed until it suddenly broadened into a huge room with a low ceiling, lit with a soft green glow from a field of phosphorescent mushrooms, watered by the tinkling stream which was running through the middle.
Radella turned to them with a flash of her aura. "This is where you will sleep," she thought to everyone. "Please feel free to drink the water and to eat all the mushrooms you want. Alvina and I will leave you and watch for trolls. When you're ready to leave, Oisin will think out to us and we will come. Sleep well." And with that they vanished.
"These mushrooms glow like lightning bugs," said Kieran. "Are we really going to eat them?"
"I'm not sure, but I think I'm hungry enough to do something like that," said Olloo with a shrug. "Look at Oisin champing them down. Hey Oisin! Have you done that before?"
Oisin gave a ravenous nod as he wolfed down a big one.
Olloo and Mian shared a look and got down on their knees to try the mushrooms. They offered some to Doona and were delighted to see her nibble at them. Soon all the Elves were on their knees harvesting the choicest morsels in reach.
Before long, they drifted off to sleep one by one, though Doona continued to sit and stare off into space. At last she too lay down and closed her eyes.
Doona slept a deep sleep until nearly dawn when she dreamed that a troll captured her in a tunnel and drug her to the very heart of Mount Sliabh, where he slit her open and stuffed her with huge glowing mushrooms. She woke everyone with her screams.
Chapter 4
The sun had not yet risen above the peaks of the Eternal Mountains when the
Elves turned their backs on the camp and set out.
"Well," said Jamys as he and Edard picked up Sigurd's stretcher, "that was home for a year."
"A year it was," said Edard, "but I'm afraid Baile Gairdin was home..."
"And you all will never find another one before you're eat by the trolls if you've no better sense than to haul my sweet masanna up the slope," said Sigurd.
"Your 'sweet masanna' needs to stop flapping its cheeks," said Jamys.
"You fools. If a troll knocked me down and killed me right here, you'd run off to save yourselves and call me a hero because I gave my life to save everyone. Now here I am trying to save you all by asking you to drop the stretcher and go, and you don't have any more sense than just to..."
"Save your scaoil broim asat, Sigurd," snapped an old woman, withered as the bark of an oak. "Ye've got me convinced."
"What do you think you're doing, Vorona?"
"Minding your advice. I'm planting my feet. It's as ye said, I'm a-slowing ye down. I've not exactly been smote down, but I'm the eldest amongst you ones and move like a tree. See? I've slowed you already. Go on with the lot of ye. Shoo!"
"But you're needed," said Sigurd. "Everyone's the stronger for having you along."
"And so are you," she said, thrusting a glare at him as if to say, old as I am, I'll smack you if you need it. "You've already spared the lot of us three troll for those knees. Who knows when we'll need your knees bursted again?"
Sigurd gave a sheepish look and lay back with a sigh.
Jamys gave Vorona a quick nod of gratitude across his shoulder as he watched his step with the stretcher.
Sigurd shut them out with his eyes. Soon he was asleep. He awoke with his head spinning when his stretcher went dead still in a crunch of leaves. He could hear a creek bubbling nearby. A waterthrush called overhead. "Nearly noon already," he thought.
"Well now, I can't tell a whole lot about these tracks," said Jamys, speaking up by the sound of the water, "but it's some of the kids for certain. And didn't it rain a little bit, right after Aedan rode in and died?"
"Yea," came a voice from across the creek.
"Then these kids survived his attack, anyway. Come over here and see what you think, Brenden."
There was a splash and then some talking that Sigurd couldn't make out over the water.
"As are we all," said Brenden's wife.
"She's right," said Edard. "So do we track the kids now or do we wait until we've found a safe place to camp, first?"
"And come back when I can't make out the tracks?" said Brenden. "Let's save the kids."
Oisin awoke to the sounds of running water in the greenish ambience of the field of mushrooms. Everyone lay asleep. "How would a person ever know when it was morning?" he thought. He sat up and fastened on his claymore and his quiver, which seemed to him perilously low on arrows, strung his bow and began tiptoeing amongst the mushrooms. He paused here and there to eat a few and look about. No one was stirring in the least. There was no way he could possibly manage to sleep again. "Surely it's time everyone awoke," he thought.
"Then wake everyone," thought Radella in his head, giving him quite a start. "I'll be along with all the others to help light your way as soon as we take the white plews to new pasture..."
"The others? What are plews?"
"We're going a very long way to reach the outside where the trolls have never been and many of the tubes are long and narrow. We reckoned that if we all came, we'd be a better comfort to the children. And plews? We raise them." And with that, she was not there.
Oisin gave a shrug and stared at the sleeping children for a moment before setting about waking them.
"Hey Olloo," said Doona as she gave his ear a gentle tug. "Oisin's getting everyone up..."
"Doona," he said, sitting up wide-eyed.
"Thank you for saving me, Little Brother," she said as she gave him a sound hug.
"Your soul came back..."
"Yes. And I don't want to talk about it..."
Olloo returned her hug. "You have no idea how glad I am that you're back and don't want to talk about it."
By the time they were all stretching and talking, Radella and Alvina had arrived and were introducing four new Sprites. Presently Alvina raised her arms and flared brightly before setting out with everyone to where the tunnel narrowed at the far end of the field. In short order they were making their way single file. Hardly anyone spoke. In spite of the light provided by the Sprites, it was a very long way to walk, particularly with the tunnel being small enough that the bigger Elves had to stay stooped to keep from hitting their heads. Down the center of the floor ran a trickle of water which they had to avoid to keep from slipping and falling. The further they went, the steeper it became, so that by now they found themselves down on all fours.
Up ahead, Alvina raised her arms and flared. "Here is another small passage," she thought in everyone's head. "You'll have to get down on your elbows. The little ones should go first, I think. I'll lead the way." She crawled into the hole at once, followed by the four smallest children, another sprite and the next smallest four...
"What on earth are these?" cried Oisin, stepping back with a start to peer down at the huge white rats galloping up the slope to swarm by everyone's ankles.
"These are our white plews," thought Radella as she looked about this way and that. "I can't possibly imagine what would've frightened them and why they would be up here. Please children, don't kick at them! They won't harm you..." Suddenly she let out a terrified cry as she planted a throb in Oisin’s head, “Help me!" shooting a scald of fear all through him.
The moment Oisin looked up, he found that three trolls had taken them by surprise, and that the biggest one of them already had Radella by the waist. He drew his bow only to have the brute use her like a shield. He put away his bow in a frenzy, dropping his arrow to clatter into the shadows as the troll wheeled away to jog down the tunnel. He drew his claymore, making a mad rush after them only to slip and fall down the slope, stabbing the brute in the back of his leg as he came, causing him to roar out in pain as he tumble
d onto his hands and knees, letting go of Radella.
Radella immediately snatched up Oisin's arrow and with a brilliant flash of her aura, stabbed the troll in the eye. As he bellowed out in pain, Oisin ran him through between the shoulder blades. Radella yanked out the troll's eyeball on her arrow and dashed up the tunnel with Oisin on her heels to the sounds of screaming children to find that one of the other trolls had Olloo fast by the arm and had Mian pinned to the wall, trying to grab him by the neck. Mian ran him clean through the forearm before he lost hold of his dirk. The troll let go of Olloo and yanked out the dirk to begin reeling and tottering, spraying blood everywhere.
Mian's little brother wailed out in terror as the other troll threw him to the ground to pin him with his foot and bludgeon his head to silence.
"You mac suiri!" cried Mian as he threw himself at the troll, in a fury of kicking and flailing his fists. "You killed Aland!"
"Somewhere! Somewhere! Somewhere!" cried Olloo, groping in the dark. "There!" He grabbed up Mian's dirk and leaped at the troll, stabbing his back.
With a roar that made the tunnel throb, the troll slammed Mian to the ground, dashing out his brains. Now Olloo was in trouble. He stabbed over and over, but this brute was furious rather than half-awake like the other one he had stabbed, and his blows seemed to bounce off.
Suddenly Radella was up on the brute's shoulders sending out brilliant throbs of light with each stab of her arrow, down! down! down! like an enraged hornet through his wild red hair.
The troll threw his gnarled arms about wildly, not knowing where to grab. Suddenly he was tottering with Oisin's claymore run clean through him and he was down.
"What happened to the other troll?" said Olloo, heaving to catch his breath.
"I don't think we want to bother with him, do you?" said Oisin.
"This is lucky!" hollered Brenden in the echoes, as he stood up from where he had squatted.
"What?" cried Jamys, pausing with the stretcher to peer over the rocks.
"I found them. I was beginning to think I wouldn't manage when I saw that we were on our way into Ubh Ollmhor. Tracks don't show up well when it's nothing but rocks..."
"So?" said Edard as he and Jamys reached Brenden and set down the stretcher.
"Look 'ee here. There's actually a bit of mud down here. See? There went our kids, all a-heading into that hole. Looks like they made it this far..."
"Well of course," said Edard. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I can make out troll prints, no mistake about it, right on top..."
"Then we don't know what we're in for," said Sigurd, sitting up with interest. "So where do you reckon that hole goes?"
"Right up the side of Mount Sliabh," said Edard, "underground all the way..."
"Fates!" said Sigurd. "I can just see running into the Marfora Siofra up there."
"No you wouldn't," said Jamys. "You wouldn't even see my hind end."
"No problem. I haven't been looking at it..."
"So how do we go in there with them a-seeing like owls?" said Edard. "Did anyone trouble to lug along a lamp and some oil?"
"I sure did," said Brenden's wife, Onora, as a soaring hawk gave a cry from far above.
"Well then Onora, if we can get it lit out here, do you think you can keep it going all day in there without it going out?" said Edard.
"I'll help her make sure," said Vorona, "as long as you fellows have the sense to keep your swords out."
Edard pulled out his sun crystal from around his neck.
"I'm getting some sticks," said Jamys. "Somebody find tinder."
Radella found Olloo's dirk hidden by the tiny stream racing down the tunnel. She handed him the knife. "What is to be done with Mian and Aland?" she thought.
"We'd make pyres, since they died in battle," said Oisin, "if only we had them outside."
"The children have seen enough horrors," thought Radella. "Give me time to put them in shrouds. When I'm done, I'll call you. Then we can bear them out." And with that she steered them into the opening to the next passage.
"My word!" cried Olloo over the sound of thundering water in the blackness ahead. "What is this?"
"Something safe enough, I'd reckon," said Oisin. "Just be careful."
With a gasp, Olloo tumbled into a racing current, down the steep slope which rushed over his shoulders, as he crawled along on all fours, struggling to keep his face out of the water.
"I'm right behind you," shouted Oisin.
Soon they could make out a faint glow up the tunnel, and before long they beheld an enormous empty lava chamber, all aglow with phosphorescent mushrooms, sown in a thick carpet covering huge terraces. Water cascaded from one terrace to the next, where it collected in great warm pools. Presently they heard frolicsome laughter.
"Look at that," said Olloo.
Kieran went bouncing with the current from one pool, all the way down to tumble into the one below. "Hoy!" he hollered. "Come on in! The water's as warm as your bath and clear as a crystal!"
There were bobbing wet heads everywhere. Oisin and Olloo found themselves struck dumb by the glee all about, after what they'd just been through.
"Well nobody knows, do they?" said Oisin.
"I'd think the Sprites would..." said Olloo.
"You can count on it.”
"So I guess it's up to us to tell everyone."
"As soon as Radella lets us know. Until she does, why don't we see if we can enjoy the water like everyone else?" And with that the two of them waded out into the first pool and lunged forth like a pair of exhausted frogs. Right away they contented themselves with meandering along the bottom, keeping their shoulders submerged while they looked about over the top of the water.
"Look," said Oisin. "Their plews are swimming along with everyone, just like we'd been living here with them."
"Look down at your feet," said Olloo. "There are snow white catfish all over."
Oisin wasn't paying one bit of attention. He was watching Doona and Kieran waist deep in the water, laughing and splashing each other.
"What's so special about Kieran flirting with Doona, anyway?" said Olloo. "He's been pestering her for ages."
"Kieran's sweet on Doona?"
"Well yea, everybody knows that."
"Well I didn't," said Oisin as he ducked under and swam off by himself.
The moment the lamp was lit, Brenden drew his claymore and led the way into the tunnel with first Jamys and then Edard following, hauling Sigurd. Behind them came Onora with her lamp and Vorona, followed by the rest of their party of twenty-seven. They walked for a very long way, stumbling here and there in the leaping and wavering shadows of the lamp, scarcely talking. From time to time Brenden would stop dead still as everyone listened to the silence and trickling water before going on again.
They had just started walking again after one such pause when Brenden heard snuffling and meaty footfalls just ahead in the wet. Jamys did too, and dropped the foot end of Sigurd's stretcher in a panic to draw his sword.
"Hey!" cried Sigurd, waking from his nap to his painfully buckled knees.
Three quick twangs of a bowstring sounded from behind them as arrows flew by in the dark. Up ahead came an urgent gurgling as a huge troll toppled forward into the light, still tightly clutching his arm where Mian had cut him.
"I want to see my kill," said Vorona as she stepped across Sigurd with her bow to stand warily before the troll. "Stick him, Brenden. I don't trust him, yet."
Brenden ran his sword deep into the troll at the collar bone, cut the brute's throat, and then tugged at the arrows sticking from his chest. "That was really something, Vorona."
"What I want to know," she said with a fierce look as she nocked another arrow, "is if that was the only one of the curses, or if there are more of 'em up the tunnel."
"What I want to know," said Jamys, "is whether Brenden and I should be the ones to stay in the lead, or..."
Verona turned right to him with her knitted brow and said, "Well now
, I don't see any harm in it if ye don't act like teats on a boar."
Olloo stayed in the water for a while and then noticed Alvina sitting on a rock not far away. He swam over to her and climbed out. "How much longer do you reckon it'll take us to get through this mountain?"
"Another night and then we'll come out on the east side of the mountain before the sun sets again." she thought in his head.
"Night would be kind of risky, don't you think? I mean, that's right when the trolls wake up."
"Trolls stay away from that side of the mountain," she thought.
"Why would that be?"
"They fear the terror birds of the Great Strah."
"You mean the shawkyn spooghey? The strike falcons? They're real?"
"Certainly, but how could you ever doubt it?" she thought. "Isn't that why your people have always lived on the west side of the mountain in spite of the danger of the Marfora Siofra?"
"Well I've heard about shawkyn spooghey before, but I was born in the West Maidenhair Woods and never once crossed Mount Sliabh. I only heard the elders speak of them once in a great while, so I just figured that they were legend."
"The shawkyn spooghey aren't a myth, Olloo. They're fierce enough to take out the bowels of a troll with a single kick or rip out his windpipe with a bite."
"Fates! How is this safe? Most of us are just children."
Chapter 5
Fnarry-irrny was Dyr's sow, which allowed her to choose the best place in the biggest cave to spread out her things, rear her children and to attend to Dyr's whims and needs. She chose an airy alcove just inside the mouth of the Hooter Cave, well out of the weather, which allowed her the most convenient access to the fire just outside and the best place to flaunt her wealth of beads, shells and skins to all the envious sows who were forced to pass by her on the way to their respective spots further back in the cave. One troll evening (which was just before dawn), she rolled her bushy red head from side to side, gnawing and tugging on an Elf leg as she watched her family eat.
Elf Killers Page 4