"Of course, it really doesn't matter anymore," she went on bravely, attempting but failing to hide her dismay. "Me poor old heart is so weak now, I'll probably pass on before next Solstice anyway," she resigned, expelling a heavy sigh, then again pausing for effect while noting his expressive reaction to her obviously unavoidable fate.
"Oh, how I dread the cold, cold winter!" she cried pitifully as her shoulders began to twitch in rhythm with his involuntary sobbing.
He knew well just how miserable cold weather could be. It can bite through the warmest of clothes and embed itself into one's very bones. He would not wish such a hardship on anyone, much less such a truly sweet old Lady. "How may I help you, milady?" he moaned as huge teardrops ran down his face, and then fell from his greasy beard to his dusty boots.
"Would it be a great imposition to ask ya ta climb yon tree and dislodge that rapscallion?" she asked, then sniffled.
"No, milady, not in the least," he sniffled while wiping both his eyes and nose on his sleeves.
"Ahh, yer a good…" She paused, and then with slightly less flair, and perhaps slightly greater sincerity, added, "Ya really are a good lad." She smiled, briefly taking both canes in one hand while reaching up to pat at his face with the other.
He shinnied up to the lowest limb. It wasn't easy, but he finally managed to pull himself up. It did not occur to him that what he had just accomplished with great effort might be an impossible feat for an adolescent Halfling of just under one quarter his own height. "You get down here, Dobin!" he shouted while craning his neck upward, hoping to catch a glimpse of the boy. Other than a gentle creaking of limbs in the breeze, there was no reply. "You have your Nanna all upset, you scamp, you! Get down from there, right now! She is too frail to chase little Halflings all over the place!" He continued to ascend, climbing and jumping from limb to limb, until he finally rose high enough to look out over the entire camp.
He could see every wagon and tent. The sun was almost touching the horizon of the western lowlands, but still provided sufficient light to make out most of the people walking about. He couldn't discern many, not as to their precise identities, but their silhouettes told their Race. Most Tarots were Human, although there were a mixed group of Dwarves, Half elves, and even a few of his own minority. There was even an Ogre, though Nere could not locate that particular unmistakable silhouette. This was not surprising. It just meant Huey intended to fish through the night again.
Then he spotted someone's hairy feet sticking out from the far side of Magmata's tent. Nere jumped to another limb that offered a better view of the camp. The boy was crouched beside the tent, as if hiding. It looked as if he were holding something in his right hand. Then, when yet another adolescent Halfling silhouette came around the corner of the wagon, he threw what he had been holding, hitting the newcomer squarely between the eyes.
From Nere's vantage, it was too far to hear what she was yelling, though he could tell she was very upset. She ran into the family wagon while Dobin plopped down in front of the campfire to open what looked like a tome of some sort.
He pointed in Dobin's direction. "There he is, milady!" he exclaimed, but when he looked down, Magnatha was not to be seen. His cart was still there. He had made sure to stake it out before climbing the tree. However, the beetle was as absent as Magnatha herself.
He scowled, scratching his head. This day was getting stranger by the minute.
***
"Isn't that Warrior out of there yet?" Magnatha asked as she hobbled behind Albin and Niry's wagon.
"Not yet," Niry replied, with a spyglass trained on the wagon in which she knew Borin to be.
"Where's Jester?"
"Oh, he just entered Ezy's… I mean, Ezlea's wagon," she reported.
"Well, I do hope Lordship Thistle takes his own sweet time," she crooned in as sarcastic a tone as she could muster. "I'd hate ta think we've put a rush on him."
"Isn't this exciting, Nanna?" Niry exclaimed in a wistful tone.
Magnatha's sharp expression went unseen by Niry, who was concentrating intently on the image of Ezy's wagon as seen through her husband's spyglass.
"I mean, it's just so romantic," she continued. "Did you ever have anyone fight over you, Nan?"
"Get away from there, ya Ninny!" Magnatha chided as Niry abruptly felt her left ear being pulled away from the rest of her body.
"Ouch!" she cried, while desperately craning her neck in such a way as to follow her hostage ear before it actually did become separated. "What did I do?"
"Just get yer carcass in the wagon before I tan yer hide! And gi'me that!" she commanded, wrenching the spyglass away with surprising strength for one so old and supposedly frail.
As soon as Niry had entered the wagon and closed the door behind her, Magnatha took her post as lookout. She adjusted the spyglass to her own eyes, which just happened to be as sharp as a Roc. "I don't see how we're gonna save that boy's hide when everyone about me is nuthin but boobs and ninnies! Is everyone a slave to his glands then?" she muttered in exasperation.
In her survey of the wagon, Magnatha found every curtain of every window to be drawn tight. Try as she might, there was simply no way to observe what was going on within Ezlea's abode.
"Well, Troll spoor!"
***
"I said, get out!"
"Wait, you have to listen to me!" Jester pleaded.
"I don't have to listen to anything! Especially anything you have to say!
"If you would just hear me out for one min…"
"What's wrong with you, Druid? Are you deaf, or just daft? Or maybe both!"
"Now, boys," Ezlea chided gently. "Let's just calm down a moment. I think I know what the problem is."
Borin and Jester appeared dubious.
"Well obviously, Jester is concerned for my reputation," she declared with a certain prideful tone.
"What?" Jester and Borin exclaimed in unison.
"Jes," she soothed, with only the slightest hint of a patronizing tone. "You have nothing to worry about."
"He doesn't?" Borin inquired, grown somewhat confused after considering certain recent events.
"Well, of course not, silly. We were just having fun," she smiled, using the same playful tone again.
Borin raised a confused eyebrow.
"It's just so sweet of you to protect my honor like this, Puppy."
Puppy! Borin thought, with rising alarm.
"But really, Jes, I'm fine," she smiled warmly.
"That's great, Ezy," Jester offered hastily. "But really, I'm just here to…"
"Do you mean to say you have some sort of relationship with this…this fleabag, milady?"
"Well… I've known Jes for a long time…" she seemed to be trying to remember something.
"Borin! My name is Borin!" he shouted indignantly.
"First off, Ezlea is like a sister to me," Jester intoned, correcting Borin's obvious mistake.
"Sis…"
"And further more, it's not me or Ezy's bad memory for names you should be concerned with right now."
"All right, fleabag!" Borin shouted as he turned his full attention and anger toward Jester. "You've done just about everything possible to drive me insane ever since I first laid eyes on your sorry carcass! And now, when I finally let my guard down to enjoy the company of a Lady, lo and behold, you pop up yet again, apparently to point out that I've stepped into yet another of your traps by falling for your sister's charms! Well, ha, ha! Congratulations! The dunderhead was successfully tricked into consorting with a tree-hugger's sister! Big joke! Ha, ha, ha!"
"Huh?" asked Jester and Ezlea.
"So let's hear it, Squire Thistle! Tell me something I should be more concerned with than the sorrowful state of affairs at hand!"
Jester's own patience had been wearing ever since Borin's first insult, back in the Dwarven jail. Being Druid, his temper was naturally slow to boil, even when faced with certain unpleasant duties, like seeing to it that tardy ingrates make it home safely. Ne
vertheless, even good-natured Priests of Nature have breaking points.
"So far, you have referred to me as a tree-hugger, a fleabag, and a foul sprite."
"And fool. Don't forget fool!" Borin added quickly.
"No, of course not. Thank you for reminding me," Jester replied in mock appreciation. "So, if I were actually deserving of all you've accuse me of, then I…"
"Trust me, you deserve it."
"All right, fine!"
***
Nere had given up his search for the beetle. He was on his way back to the cart to load up on as much as he could carry when he came across his wife's guardian. Ordinarily, the enchantment was only to be used for guard duty. However, under the circumstances, Nere saw no reason why it shouldn't do a bit of honest labor. In no time, he had both gauntlets tied to the front of the cart.
"Pull," he commanded.
Hobson took orders from anyone his Mistress had given clearance to, and of course, her husband would naturally be on such a list. So it pulled. As a matter of fact, it pulled better than the beetle had, and didn't even require a rabbit.
***
He was getting closer. By Magnatha's estimate, he could not be more than sixty or maybe seventy paces out.
She turned the spyglass back to the wagon, just as Jester was walking back toward her general direction. The young Warrior was not with him.
"Where's yer friend?" she asked when he was close enough to hear without shouting.
"He's still in the wagon, and he's no friend of mine," Jester replied without slowing.
"Didn't ya warn him?"
"He doesn't wish to be warned."
"That boy's about to get himself killed if we don't help!"
"I seriously doubt it," he laughed dryly while passing her.
"How's that?"
"Cause I'm just not that lucky!"
"Boarwash!" she snapped, swinging a cane down hard into his Achilles tendon with a resounding whack.
Howling in pain, Jester quickly drew up his injured foot and grabbed it with both hands, while hopping in a circle on his other foot.
As he hopped and howled, Magnatha hobbled up, snatched him by one ear, and then set off in the direction of Ezlea's wagon, with Jester in unavoidable tow.
As all of this transpired, Tuda and Dobin watched silently from under the front steps of their parents' wagon. The children loved their Jester fiercely. Not more than an hour ago, they had both been prepared to battle a Roc on his behalf. However, there was a vast difference between Rocs, and upset Nannas.
***
"Where's my armor?" Borin asked dispassionately while re-donning various articles of the steel mesh padding.
"You aren't leaving, are you, Borin?" she asked in a pouty tone.
"I'm afraid so… Ezlea!" he replied, mocking her difficulty in recollection.
"Please don't go!" she pleaded. "Am I not desirable, milord?" she whimpered softly in his ear while pressing closely to him.
"Greatly so, milady. Most desirable," he admitted without slowing his progress.
"Then why are you leaving?" she whined in a tone not unlike that of Tuda after being refused a third helping of honeyberry pie.
Borin turned to look Ezlea squarely in the eye. "I have but two rules concerning Ladies," he announced. "First, I make it a rule never to consort with Druids, or their relatives. And second, I expect a woman to at least remember my blasted name!"
***
"Stop, Nanna! Stop it! Please?"
"Ahh, Gwaurdenbog!" Magnatha cursed in Dwarfish without slowing. Nere had pulled the cart to the side of the wagon and was currently stepping around to the front. "We're too late!"
***
"Please?" Ezlea pleaded, dropping the playful baby doll manner she had previously adopted.
"You should not carry on so," he chided. "It isn't becoming to a Lady."
"So who said I was a Lady?" she asked while smiling and reaching both arms about his neck as he reached for the door
***
As Nere reached for the handle, the door suddenly burst open. There, right in his own doorway, stood a half-dressed Half-elf and his own sweet Angel, who currently had both arms and both legs wrapped tightly about the stranger's neck and waist in what appeared to be an attempt to jerk him backwards. "I'm not…letting you…get away!" she grunted in exertion.
Unaccustomed as he was to this particular image upon entering his household, Nere found himself temporarily befuddled. As he searched his poorly equipped mind for an answer to the aberration before him, he could come to only one conclusion. "PROWLER!" he roared.
***
"PROWLER!" assaulted the ears of Magnatha, who lurched to a stop, and released Jester, who accordingly fell to the ground, holding his sore foot in one hand, and his sore ear in the other while she looked up to witness the seven-foot Barbarian's seeing his wife wrapped tightly about another man. As Nere's oversized fist drew back, she reacted quickly, which is to say she closed her eyes tightly.
***
"PROWLER!" impacted the hearing of Borin and Ezlea, who both looked up in time to witness Nere drawing back with all his might. Borin had no time to evade the attack. Ezlea, on the other hand, had just enough time to scream.
***
"PROWLER!" all but deafened Hobson, who spun quickly to confirm the alert. The following scream from its Mistress was all the confirmation required. The enchantment immediately bolted to her rescue.
Unfortunately, he was yet bound to Nere's cart, which was in turn staked out to restrict its wheels from turning. This did not stop Hobson, who now moved with a strength and speed born of pure magic and devotion to its beloved creator. The cart however, was affected more profoundly by inertia.
***
Fortunately, there was only one punch thrown. Borin was struck squarely upon the left eye, cheek, jaw, and ear, the resulting force of which being more than sufficient to drive both himself and Ezlea, who yet held him in both a full nelson and scissors-hold, backward and almost through the rear wall of the wagon. The resulting conclusion caused Ezlea's unconscious withdraw from both her husband's homecoming, and her own wrestling competition.
Borin, though thoroughly unconscious before hitting the wall, was in fact temporarily jolted back to consciousness as a result of the second impact.
"You get your filthy hands off my wife!" Nere shouted through a rasp of quickened breath, his already whitened knuckles now creaking with tension as he advanced on the Brigand who had dared to defile the sanctity of both house and spouse.
Borin attempted to look up through his right eye, as the other didn't seem to respond. The anger in Nere's command had lent a certain resonance to the term Wife, which seemed to echo in his good ear as the world began swimming away in shades of gray and light for yet the second time in one day, and third time that week. As he drifted toward what was rapidly becoming a familiar oblivion, he verbally cursed his source of woe, or rather, his slurred attempt was easily the valiant effort of a man quickly re-losing consciousness.
Nearing the source of his outrage, who yet had his sweet Angel pinned to the rear wall of their home, Nere heard the Felon exclaiming something beneath his breath. It was difficult to make out, but sounded very much like, "Accursed teabag!"
Hobson suddenly exploded through the side of the wagon, snapping timbers, shattering two windows, demolishing the bed, and crashing into the confused Barbarian husband of his Mistress. Without pause, it swiveled first toward the now unconscious Nere, and then toward the unconscious forms of both its Mistress and Borin, and finally back toward the massive hole it had just created, there to witness the heavily laden cart to which it was still attached, just as it rammed into said same wagon with a truly devastating force.
Magnatha stood where she was, quietly considering the massive rubble that had once been Ezlea's home. After a time, she turned about face to hobble back in the direction of her tent, shaking her head and mumbling to herself of the weights borne only by the elderly in a world of nothin
g but ninnies and boobs.
Still sitting on the ground, Jester had forgotten the pain in his ear and Achilles tendon. For some time, he continued to stare in simple disbelief at the results of the oaf's uncanny ability to attract trouble.
Chapter Seven-I Hate When That Happens!
The growing length of silent tension had at last become too much to bear. "Will you please stop sulking?"
"I'm sorry," Merfee mumbled absently.
"I don't understand why you're so upset. It's not as if this is any of our concern," she chastised. "We are neither of the Grove, nor Arbitos. Besides, I am on the verge of bearing your child at anytime!"
"I know, my love. It's just… I had hoped to accompany Mistress Ironwood. I truly should have assisted in the investigation. I had no intention of taking part in any battle, honestly."
"Oh, of course not," she returned expansively. "I suppose you've unpacked your swords, bow, and best bone-tipped arrows in order to better investigate something!"
"No, my love. I only thought to…"
"I swear, Husband! If you had your way, the morning would see me widowed, and your own child orphaned before born!"
Merfee was preparing to commence a proper display of expert groveling, when spared the indignity by the footfalls of an approaching runner. He pulled the tent flap back to see that it was in fact an Arbitos Garrison messenger.
The young man entered the Grove, pulled a scroll from his belt, and then commenced his heraldic broadcast in a dry, professional voice, easily heard by everyone in the immediate vicinity. "Hear ye! Hear ye! The Gnolls of Howling Cavern have fallen before the Federal Garrison of Arbitos. Garrison losses were minimal while Gnoll resistance was described as inconsequential. Also, a small contingence of Dark-elves were discovered in the Cavern's War room and dispatched within the due course of battle. When prompted for a response concerning the possibility of any connection to the recent Assassination of Elder Pynewood, Captain Krue's reply was simply to assure the peaceful residents of all surrounding provinces that the incident is well in hand."
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