“Tion,” Kail moaned, clutching at Tion as though his legs could no longer support him. “Please, please tell me he didn’t say what I think he said. Please?”
Tion clutched at Kail in reply, knowing full well his legs could no longer support him.
Confusion tugged at the corners of Conway’s lips. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Conway, are you on a quest, by any chance?” Tion’s voice was earnest. Despite his now-frantic bailing, his stomach sank to the bottom, because he already knew the answer.
Conway sat up, apparently pleased with the question, and he smiled broadly. “Yes! How did you know?”
Kail thumped heavily to the ground, and Tion followed shortly after, though thanks to Conway, not as short as before.
“Which was it?” Kail asked. His voice was so resigned he could barely lift it off the ground. “How did you hear about Wylde? Was it written in a scroll, did some herbs witch read your fortune, or did the…?” He glared at Conway half-heartedly and shook his head. “No, it can’t have been that, because you’re the village idiot, so which was it?” The glare seemed to sap his strength, and he leaned heavily against Tion.
“I bought a scroll,” Conway replied, confused once again. “Tion, what’s wrong with him?”
Tion looked up at Conway’s confused, innocently hopeful human face and sighed deeply. “You were duped, Conway. Wylde, the Wandering Warrior Wizard, is a myth.”
4
“Ow. Damn!” Kail stopped to pluck a thorn from the bottom of his bare foot. When he was finished, and despite the sprite’s loud objections, Conway lifted him up onto his back and continued walking without a word. Kail immediately saw the advantage and shut his mouth, much to Tion’s relief. For his part, Tion managed to avoid most of the road’s pitfalls by virtue of keeping his head down, thinking, as he followed Conway.
Both sprites had redressed themselves with begrudging help from Conway’s pack, and despite Tion’s not having noticing it before, it proved to be invaluable in allowing the trio to continue on their journey. From it came an extra shirt for Kail that was more than long enough to allow him to shuck his leaf briefs all at once, rather than a piece at a time, and for Tion, the pack reluctantly gave up a pair of what Conway named “shorts” before he blushed bright red. On Tion, they reached almost to his knees, and with a bit of rope to keep them from sliding off his slim hips, he found them rather comfy except where the front stitching had apparently come loose and let in an annoying draft.
“Any idea how much further, Conway?”
“We should get there by nightfall, I think,” Conway replied. Late afternoon sun slanted across his face as he squinted down at the altered sprite. “I’ve never been this far from home before, so I’m not entirely sure.”
“I understand.” With his increased stride, Tion was finding it difficult to judge distances, and while he agreed with Conway that there was a village ahead, he had no idea where it might be. “If we were our normal size….”
Conway flushed. “I really am sorry about—”
Tion cut him off. “I know, lad. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” Kail muttered.
“Never mind him,” Tion replied, tossing a wink to Conway.
Startled, the human caught it and grinned sheepishly. They walked silently while their shadows grew longer, and after a time, Tion caught Conway casting furtive glances to either side and over his shoulder.
“What? What do you see?”
“Nothing,” the man said, turning his eyes back to the road ahead.
“Come on, spill it. What’s wrong?”
Conway looked down at Tion, and his face held a mixture of apprehension and dismay. “It’s the woods. I don’t think we’re going to make the village before darkness falls.”
“Conway, you’re not afraid of the dark, are you?” Tion looked up, grinning.
“No! Of course not. It’s just—”
“Ow! Damn and dash it!” Tion stubbed his toe and swore, hopping on one foot while cradling the other. His invective scorched nearby bushes, and Conway laughed out loud. He bent and lifted Tion into his arms.
“Put me down, you fool. You can’t carry us both.”
“Yes, I can,” Conway said simply, and Tion stopped struggling.
“At least tell me when you get tired.”
“I will,” Conway said and resumed his ground-eating stride.
“Dragon’s balls, man! What are you doing out at night, and with childer no less?”
The gruff male voice roused Tion to confusion, and he reached for Kail blindly. Instead of his partner’s warm angles, his hand encountered the wall of Conway’s heaving, gasping chest. He opened his eyes to guttering torch light, a woman’s voice running counterpoint to the gruff man, and hands snatching him out of Conway’s grasp.
“Foolish man! What were you thinking, dragging your tyke about in the middle of the night like he weren’t no more than a sack of potatoes?” the overly plump woman chided, trading Tion for the heavy iron skillet she’d been holding and hoisting him onto her soft shoulder as though he were a toddler. Once she had him settled, she took the skillet back.
“Now, Em, mind yourself. I’m sure he’s a reason for such, and we’ll not get it out of him standing here on the porch with him all but done in.” The man tugged Conway into the dim light of what Tion supposed was the common room of an inn or tavern. It was hard to tell with the way the woman kept jiggling him.
“Bollocks! Another one?”
Tion turned his head to see the gruff-voiced man, his hair tousled and his skinny white legs poking out from beneath a striped nightshirt, pluck Kail from his perch atop Conway’s pack and cradle him in his arms.
“What in the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, you oaf! Get your hand off my ass or you’ll draw back a stump!” Kail roared his outrage, and bright green fire flashed from his eyes, brightening the gloom and igniting the innkeeper’s surprise like a firework.
“He can hear you, you know,” Conway rasped.
“What the…?” Singed by the green flash of Kail’s anger, the innkeeper let go, and Kail landed unceremoniously on his butt. The sprite stood, spluttering his outrage and rubbing his abused backside.
“What’s the big idea dropping me, you clod?” Kail straightened his oversized shirt and planted his fists on his hips as he glared at the innkeeper. “And get a lamp lit, will you? I think I bruised my left butt cheek.”
The innkeeper hastily struck a sulfur match from a box nailed to the door frame and lit the oil lamp that was pinned to the wall beside it. Yellow light flared, almost but not quite masking the flashing green fire in Kail’s eyes.
“Tion, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Tion said, turning his head to look at the woman who still jiggled him. “I feel like a tossed salad, but it’s a hell of a lot safer up here.”
The woman turned to Tion, got a good look in the bright lamp light, and shrieked. She dropped Tion and the skillet with equal alacrity and promptly fainted, taking out two chairs and a table as she staggered and fell backward. Tion landed on his feet, and the skillet landed on the innkeeper’s.
“Em!” the innkeeper cried, hopping on one foot.
“Tion!” Kail shouted, dodging the hopping innkeeper.
“Guys?” Conway said, collapsing into a heap. Almost immediately, he began to snore.
“Yes, we’re really sprites,” Tion told Marvin, the innkeeper, for what must have been the eleventh time.
“You’re too damn big to be sprites,” Marvin muttered for the twelfth time, clutching Em’s hand between his. Once she had revived, she became a perfect, if somewhat wary, innkeeper’s wife, directing her husband to set up a cot by the fire while she chivvied Conway out of his pack and told him to lie down. She even drafted Kail to stoke the fireplace.
“Blame the Oaf,’” Kail replied, gulping beer from a large cup before handing it to Conway.
“We had an accident and got bigger,” Tion
explained.
Marvin nodded. “I c’n see that, youngster, but it still don’t explain why you’d be fool enough to traipse around in the dark woods.”
Tion sat on the edge of Conway’s cot, swinging his feet, distracted by how they almost touched the floor. At the mention of the woods, he looked up sharply. “Conway mentioned something earlier about the woods. I got the impression he was afraid.”
“He was wise to be,” Em said, patting Marvin’s hand and standing to resume her innkeeper’s wifely duties. She filled Tion’s smaller mug—it had once belonged to her own childer—and poured another for Kail. “Them woods are anything but safe since the woof showed up and started chewing on things.”
“What’s a woof?” Kail asked, sitting gingerly on Conway’s cot beside Tion. He leaned appreciably to the right.
“Big hairy brute,” Marvin replied. “Long fangs and flashing eyes. Kinda like his, only they’re red and not green.” He nodded toward Kail, who belched loudly.
“Oh, a wolf,” Tion said, sipping his beer. Behind him, Conway groaned, and Tion patted the not-as-big man’s arm sympathetically.
Marvin shook his head. “No, a woof. Only comes out when the moon is dark.”
“Were?” Tion asked.
“How should I know where?” Marvin said, shrugging his shoulders. “I ain’t going out there and get my face chewed on.”
Em shivered, and the ale pot splashed. She set it down and sat beside her husband. “It makes the most awful racket sometimes.” She looked at Conway significantly. “When you came scratching at the door, we thought….”
Tion glanced over his shoulder at the heavy skillet that had been replaced on its peg beside the fireplace. He looked back at Marvin and Em. “Hasn’t anyone been able to do anything about it?”
“Tion.” There was a note of warning in Kail’s voice. “We’re just passing through, remember?”
“But—”
“Exactly,” Kail said. “Mine’s broken, and we weren’t here more than a few minutes.”
“It doesn’t hurt to ask, Kail.” Tion’s voice held a dull edge.
“Yes, we did something about it,” Marvin said, his eyes bouncing from one sprite to the other, watching the exchange. Marvin himself shook his head trying to keep up with them.
“What?” Conway spoke up, startling them all. “What’s being done about the woof?” He sat up, jostling Kail and spilling his drink.
“Watch it, Oaf,” Kail muttered.
Tion waited for the inevitable reply. When it didn’t come, he turned to face Marvin instead.
“We hired out,” Marvin said.
“Ouch. That must have cost a pretty penny.”
Em nodded to Tion. “And a few ugly ones too, but even that’s a pittance compared to the service Herb’s witch promised.”
“What!?” Kail choked out the surprised word. It splashed into his mug and sloshed his beer. “Did you say ‘herbs witch’?”
Marvin bobbed his head. “Sure. Herb’s the butcher two doors down. He married a witch last spring.”
Kail’s hands shook, and he handed his mug to Tion. He armed the sudden sweat from his forehead and dashed it to the floor, where it formed ranks like a miniature army. “For a minute there I thought you meant—”
“Never mind,” Tion interrupted, watching the tiny army trundle off to do battle with the dust dragons under the table. “What did the witch promise?”
“That someone with a fearsome reputation would come to slay the fell beast and save the town.” Marvin spoke proudly, as though he himself were the fearsome someone.
Conway groaned and fell back. “I can’t slay a woof. I don’t know how.”
Kail rolled his eyes at the innkeeping couple’s confused expressions. They toppled like ten-pins. “Never mind him,” he said. “He thinks he’s cursed.”
“I didn’t know my reputation had traveled so far.” Conway spoke more to himself than anyone else.
“You’re not cursed, Conway,” Tion said, watching the dust dragons stage a counterstrike against the armed sweat army. He looked up at Marvin. “How will you know when this person arrives? Did Herb’s witch give you a description?” Tion leaned against Conway’s bulk. “Maybe that’ll prove to Conway that she wasn’t talking about him.”
“Oh, his name is all the description we needed, and it wasn’t Conway,” Em said, her eyes shining with Romance as she leaned her bulk against Marvin. “Wylde the Wandering Warrior Wizard. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
Two sprites and a human each groaned in three-part harmony.
5
Tion, Kail, and Conway stayed at the inn for more than a week, exchanging odd chores and work for room and board. Tion was delighted to find a reed pipe in Conway’s reluctant pack, and after a brief wrestle, the pack relinquished it. Conway turned out to be a fair hand as a musician, and he earned more than enough pocket change the first two nights to buy the sprites clothing more in keeping with their size. By the third night, the music and the sprites’ natural abilities for dance had enough ale flowing that Marvin gave them all a stipend.
By tacit agreement, they agreed to wait a while, “Just to see if Wylde comes,” Conway had said. Kail balked, flatly refusing to believe in the myth, although he put up very little actual argument. Privately, Tion supposed Kail’s willingness to remain had more to do with free ale than any altruistic foolishness. Tion himself had his doubts about the veracity of the wizard, but he simply could not ignore the wistful face Conway often wore whenever he caught the human looking at him too closely.
Tion untangled himself from Kail and sat up sleepily. The knock that had awakened him came again. “Come in,” he called out. Light spilled into the room as the door opened, followed by the lamp that cast it, followed by the hand which held the lamp aloft, and finally followed by Conway, who closed the door behind him.
“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
Kail muttered groggily beside Tion and rolled over. Tion rubbed his back for a few moments. “It’s okay, lad. What’s wrong?”
Conway sat down on the edge of the bed that all but dwarfed the two sprites. He set the lamp on a small table and folded his hands in his lap. After a long moment he spoke, and his voice was barely a whisper. “I’m scared.”
Tion snugged the blanket around himself and Kail. “What of, Conway?”
“Listen.” He tilted his head toward the far wall
Tion turned his head to look out the window. The moon was beyond his view, but he could still see the barest touch of silver shimmering in the stirring leaves. “What is it? I don’t—”
A faint howl sounded from what might have been deep in the forest, well beyond the open square of the village. To Tion, it sounded somehow forlorn, and yet at the same time, angry. “The woof?”
Conway nodded, his eyes wide in the fluttery lamplight. “It’s been doing that for the last hour or so.”
Tion patted the human’s arm awkwardly. “Try not to think about it, Conway. The moon isn’t quite dark yet, and even if it was, according to Marvin we’re safe enough as long as we don’t go into the woods after dark.”
“I know, but….” Conway shivered hard enough to rouse Kail briefly.
“Is he still here?”
“Hush, Kail,” Tion said, rubbing Kail’s bare back again. “He’s concerned about the woof. Go back to sleep and I’ll take care of it.”
“What, is he afraid? He’s three times our size, for crying out loud,” Kail grumbled and rolled over to peer at Conway. “What’s he got to be afraid of?”
Conway hung his head, evidently ashamed, and Tion elbowed Kail in the ribs, hard. “The same thing anybody is afraid of, Kail, no matter how big or small they are. The unknown.”
Kail protested loudly, rubbing his ribs, but when Tion began to argue with him, Conway held up his hand. “No, he’s right, Tion. I shouldn’t be afraid. Granny told us kids stories of weres and buggerts and trills and all sorts of things that live in the woods, so it�
�s not like they’re all that unknown.” He took a deep breath and stood. “I should go back to my room. I’m sorry I woke you.” Conway lifted the lamp and turned away, but not before Tion saw a shine in his eyes.
“Conway, wait a—”
Kail interrupted him. “Get back here, Oaf.” He sat up and rubbed green ire from his eyes. “You don’t get to waltz in here, wake us up, then disappear without making amends.”
“What do you want me to do?” Conway asked, confused.
Conway's Curse Page 3