by Jenna Grey
“Connor,” Lily whispered, “Connor, come back to me.”
Her words fell on deaf ears and he lay quite, quite still.
Cumudgeon had put his shoulder to the massive boulder and with great grunts of exertion he rolled the boulder over the entrance to the cave, sealing it so completely that not even the smallest hob would be able to get through it.
“What if there are others trying to use that as an escape route?” Lily asked. “They won’t be able to get out.”
Nob tapped his nose, and winked at her.
“Old Nob aint daft. There’s other ways out that all the hobs know. They wouldn’t use this way in and out. Lots of little tunnels and ways out for ’em see. Come on, we can’t hang around here, too much chance of unwanted company.”
The boulder, now that it had settled in place looked as if it had always been there. Bending forwards, Cumudgeon reclaimed his precious cargo, lifting the still unconscious Connor up a little more gently this time and popping him over his shoulder again.
It had begun to snow, a driving snow that blew into Lily’s face and blinded her, stinging her cheeks until they were red raw. She pulled her scarf around her mouth and nose, trying to keep out the bitter air and the swirling flakes that took her breath away. There was no choice but to go on, even though she could no longer see where she was going and only knew which way she needed to go by clinging onto Cumudgeon’s belt. They reached the top of the ridge, and from there they could look back to the city gates of Tunneltown.
They strained their eyes to see through the swirling snow to the entrance to the city. The small encampments that lay in the canyon in front of the city were all either on fire or destroyed, the sleighs burning with thick black smoke, the caravans smashed and broken. Camelaks, reindeer and dogs lay dead around them, and in between them, the small, pitiful bodies of the hobs and other creatures that had made their camp outside the city for the night. It was a massacre beyond belief or reason.
Trolls were at the mighty gates, wielding a battering ram to take down the great logs that barricaded the entrance. The great mechanical contraption slammed again and again into the massive structure, until finally the wood splintered and logs toppled like bowling pins. There was a tremendous roar from the trolls, who began doing a rather macabre dance on the broken palings of the gate ‒ and on any goblins that happened to get in their way.
Nob wiped a tear from his eye, and Cumudgeon was weeping openly, great racking sobs, that dropped like pearls into the snow.
“I never thought I’d see the day that Tunneltown would fall. It’s a terrible day indeed for us hobs,” Nob said, shaking his head. Lily put her arm around his shoulders and gave him a hug.
“I’m so sorry, Nob. But it will be put right.”
“Bring back the dead, can yer?” he asked, his words biting. “All me friends were in there, all me family.”
He gave her a look that would have curdled milk and Lily whispered a pathetic platitude. ‘I’m so sorry’ hardly seemed to cover it somehow.
Lily could see that he was battling to hold back his misery. Lily could feel the terrible anguish inside him and knew just how much it was costing him to keep it in check.
“Ahriman has taken everything from me as well, Nob,” Lily said, “murdered my friends, my family, and stolen my little brother and sister. He has them now, and I have no idea whether or not they are safe, or what he intends to do with them. I sometimes think I can’t hold all of this misery inside, but we have to keep going, because we are the only ones that can stop this happening.”
Nob finally broke down.
“I couldn’t save ’em, I went back ter see if I could, but I was too late. Me sister and all her family was already dead. There was goblins everywhere, hundreds of ’em and there weren’t no way me and Cumby could have taken ’em all. We did our best, but we was lucky ter get outta there alive…” He broke down then and began weeping harder, wringing his hat in his hands and using it to mop the tears from his face.
Lily found she was weeping as well, unable to hold it back any longer. Before she realised it she was sobbing her heart out. They could still hear the screams of the dying floating across the air from the city gates.
“They got my Ronald too,” Cumugeon said, tears running in great rivers down his face. Connor was bouncing up and down in his arms as he hiccuped out the sobs. “We was gonna get married, we was. He was the love of me life.”
“I am so sorry, so very sorry,” was all Lily could think to say, and it sounded so pathetic.
“And worse… they aint even gonna get a decent burial. They’s gonna end up in some stinkin’ goblin’s belly,” Nob, said, and now his voice was filled with nothing but pure unadulterated rage.
“We will make them pay, I swear, on my life. If we have to we will spend the rest of our days hunting down the ones that did this and we will make them pay for every single death and misery,” Lily said, and she meant every word of it.
Connor stirred slightly, and Cumudgeon laid him gently down in the snow. Lily went to him, kneeling beside him; the cold of the snow bringing him back to consciousness. He seemed so weak and dazed, holding his head and looking around as if he had no idea where he was.
“What happened?” he asked, trying to sit up.
Lily was smiling through the tears now, so relieved.
“Honestly you seem to be unconscious more than you’re awake these days.”
“Did we kill it?” he asked.
Lily blushed.
“I did,” she said, “but you did all the damage. I just finished it off. I think you bit off a little more than you could chew,” Lily said, placing her hand to his forehead. He was terribly cold. He tried to sit up, but couldn’t, falling back into the snow.
“I feel strange,” he said, rubbing his fingers together, trying to feel his fingertips.
“Me too. Connor, I’ve lost my power. I can’t perform any magic at all, not even simple healing. It will come back, won’t it?”
Connor looked at her, mild horror in his eyes.
“I don’t know. I have no idea what that power was. It was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should have listened to you,” he said, clinging onto her and burying his face in her hair.
Nob came up to them, a little more himself now, and said:
“No time for sorry now, we gotta get you ter the Citadel.”
Lily was too much in shock, too befuddled to think about doing anything just yet. She was shaking violently, her teeth chattering and she wanted nothing more than to just sit and get her breath back for a few minutes. The terrible feeling of ‘oddness’ that hung over her, made her so very afraid. She forced herself to take in what Nob was saying. She got to her feet, swaying slightly and helped Connor up.
“It’s a few hours walk ter the Citadel, and there aint no chance of a lift… we’re gonna have ter hoof it, mates,” Nob said.
“I wonder what happened to Gertrude?” Lily suddenly asked. Then realised it was a stupid question. Poor Gertrude would be roasting on some spit somewhere now, along with as many hobs as those monsters could fit on a barbecue.
“I wonder what happened to Grendel,” Nob said dejectedly.
They picked up their belongings, discarding anything they really didn’t need to take with them and began to walk again. Connor still seemed disoriented, not quite sure where he was or what was going on. Lily could barely manage to put one foot in front of the other, her feet sinking deep into the newly fallen snow. If she never saw another flake of snow as long as she lived, it would be too soon.
Chapter Thirteen.
They travelled on, deliberately keeping away from the road, hoping to avoid detection. In the normal course of events either she or Connor could have erected a glamour around them all to keep from being spotted, but without power all they could do now was rely on good, old fashioned stealth. This wasn’t quite so easy to achieve when one of the party was close to eight feet tall, with feet the
size of the average dustbin lid. They were travelling in the thicker wooded area running parallel to the road, trying to keep under the cover of the thick pine trees and low evergreen shrubs. The terrible black pall that hung over Connor was fading, but not nearly quickly enough. Lily couldn’t help but wonder if it would ever leave him entirely. What powers he had called on, she had no idea, but she thought that it must have been one of the hell gods, like Belphegor or Asmodeus and they always asked a terrible price for their aid. She wondered if the price that Connor had paid was his magic, the power of the Tuatha Dé Danaan which was a worthy prize in anyone’s book.
It had finally stopped snowing, and Cumudgeon shook the white cloak from his great shoulders, almost burying Lily, who was standing just behind, under an avalanche of snow.
“You just wait ’til yer see the Glass Mountain, mistress,” Nob said, taking off his cap and giving it a good shake “It sparkles like a million diamonds, and knocks yer eyes out it does. Been there for a thousand years, and like to be there for another ten thousand.” He trudged off in front a few feet and disappeared almost up to his knees in the loose packed snow.
“I’ve seen it already,” Lily said, thinking of the little scene in the snow globe, rather than the actual Citadel that she’d only seen from a great distance.
“Aint no-one ever climbed the Glass Mountain that I heard of. That’s their best defence, see? Yer have to go up the path through a narrow openin’ and its easy defended. Bloody big gates, see?”
Lily was going to say that bloody big gates didn’t seem to have done Tunneltown any good. She could still see pictures of those great gates falling in her head, and those poor little hobs being skinned alive. Connor shook her out of her reverie.
“Like the Pass of Thermopylae. In Midgard there were race of people called the Spartans, a great warrior race, and they were being attacked by a mighty army. Three hundred of their greatest warriors were able to hold the pass and defeat the enemy, because they could only come through a few at a time. It’s the same with the Citadel.”
“Not exactly, the Persians didn’t have the Djinn to contend with. We don’t even have any idea how powerful Ahriman’s magic is. He could be capable of anything,” Lily said, trying not to sound too negative, but feeling it.
After that they fell into silence, and before long the snow began to fall again, making it impossible to speak to one another anyway. So they carried on like this for hours, until Lily thought that if they didn’t get under cover soon, she would have to just give up, lie down in the snow and die. The driving snow had stopped, but the temperature had dropped as the day wore on, and now the air was a bitter assault on her lungs, every time she breathed in, even with the scarf around her face and her hood pulled as far forward as she could get it. She’d lost feeling in her fingers and toes hours ago.
“It’s no good, I can’t go on. I’ve got to stop and rest,” she finally said, just sitting down in the snow and tucking herself into a little ball.
“You can’t, Lily. If we stop now, we’ll die. We have to keep moving, we’re almost there,” Connor said, pulling her to her feet again.
“I can carry yer fer a bit,” Cumudgeon grunted. And without even waiting for a by your leave, he reached forwards and hoisted Lily up, putting his great arms under her, and lifting her gently. He tenderly held her to his massive chest, the way a mother holds a baby and she pressed in against him and let him carry her for the next few miles.
Nob suddenly stopped for a moment and looked across at the deserted road, some distance to the right of them. The snow that covered it was pristine, unmarked by foot or sledge runner, no sign of any movement on it at all. The recent snow storm had covered any tracks that might have been there.
“This road is usually packed with people comin’ and goin’ to and from the citadel, traders and travellers,” Nob said, scratching his head. “This is bad.”
“You don’t think the goblins have killed everyone, do you?” Lily asked.
“P’raps. Either that or people have heard the rumours, and are stayin’ hidden,” Nob said.
“But surely Elidor already realises what’s going on, he can’t be that stupid, can he? He must have spies and scouts bringing news back to him,” Lily persisted.
“Elidor aint nobody’s fool,” Nob replied, “He don’t need no spies or scouts, he’s got that witch wife of his.”
Lily gave an ‘ahh’ of comprehension.
“So she is a witch. Sauergum said she didn’t know what Adeline was.”
Nob made a disgusted noise and grimaced.
“Witch or sorceress, somethin’ like that. All I know is that she’s got power and she knows things. Dangerous woman she is and you best be careful. She aint gonna like yer comin’ in there and telling her that you’re one of the Tuthy Daninn, that you’re gonna be Queen over her.”
Lily felt a little better now, warmed through by Cumudgeon’s mighty arms around her. He set her down gently and she managed to find her feet.
“But that’s not our doing,” Lily said. “We didn’t ask to be born who we are, didn’t ask for all of this. It’s been forced on us, and if you want the truth, I’d much rather be at home with my brothers and sisters tending to the garden!”
Connor slipped his arm around her waist and planted a kiss on her cheek.
“It’s not given to us to choose our fate. This is ours and we have to learn to live with it.”
Lily tossed a scowl in his direction, and they trudged off again, letting her cold back give him her opinion on the matter. Nob looked awkward and scampered along beside her.
“It aint far now,” Nob said. “We should be there in the hour. Get yer some nice mulled wine then, ter warm yer right through.”
That cheered Lily up a little and she managed to force out a frosty smile.
“You ever heard the story of the Glass Mountain then, ay, ay?” Nob asked.
Lily looked down into his ugly, comic face and nodded. Of course she’d heard the story, she’d read every fairy story ever written.
“I have, but…there are a few different versions of it. There was one with a young boy that got carried up there by an eagle… but I think that one was just made up.”
Nob grinned at her.
“Oh, tales get mangled in the tellin’, lady. But they all go back to a true story somewhere. The Citadel, way back was owned by a great king and he had many riches, and he wasn’t a good person, bit of an arsewipe as it happens. Great princes all fancied pinchin’ his throne see, but they had to get inter the Citadel ter do it. Lot of hem were even worse than he was, though, so all these princes tried ter get in and failed. Once them gates is barred at the entrance of the pass, no-one can get through.
“Some tried to get their horses up on some of the kinder ridges, with sharp nails in their horses hooves, and they could never get more than half way up, before they fell back down, some got injured bad and some died. They tried every way they could to get up with grappling irons, and all kinds of gizmos and gadgets, and in the end there was so many dead at the bottom of the mountain that it looked like a slaughterhouse. But even thems that got a good way up came to a sticky end, cos there’s enchantments, see, cast by sorcerer’s a long time ago. Right up at the top, just before yer gets to the walls of the Citadel is a great chasm, and there aint no way over it, on account of the magic, see? Too far fer a man to jump, and no rope or gizmo will go across it. They’ve tried, tried over and over, but all of ’em land in the chasm below, toppled over the edge and dead as cold pork. Nobody ter this day has ever got into the Citadel unless they was let in.”
“And that little story helps us, how?” Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I just think he’s saying we better hope they let us in,” Connor replied.
Then he stopped in his tracks, and Lily joined him a split second later.
“Can you hear what I hear?” he asked.
Lily wished she could have answered ‘no’, but she knew exactly what she was heari
ng, a sound that she would have given anything not to hear.
As they reached the top of the ridge to look out over the valley she knew what she would see. There indeed was a spectacle that drew her breath from her lungs, but it wasn’t the beauty of the scene that kept her transfixed. Across the bed of the plain directly in front of them was a vast army, goblins, orks, boggarts, trolls, every foul creature that ever walked Midgard or Elphame. There were so many of them that Lily couldn’t even hazard a guess at their number. They covered the entire valley like flies on a bowl of sugar.
“Oh dear God,” Lily said, feeling her knees go dizzy.
“Look,” Connor said, pointing upwards.
Circling above the encampment, like vultures, were the Djinn, perhaps a hundred of them, and as Lily looked more closely she could see that they swelled the ranks of the army below, clothed in their many guises, wolves, black dogs, snakes and panthers, even human form… all of them far more solid than they should have been. There were fires scattered through the encampment, with creatures huddling around them for warmth ‒ a dreadful hotch potch of evil, united for once by a common goal, the destruction of everything good in this world and every other. The sound that they had heard from so far away was the restless grumbling of a dissatisfied army, forced to camp in the bitter cold, with very few home comforts.
“Strike me dumb,” Nob said. “This aint good, this aint good at all.”
“You think so?” Lily said, giving Nob the look he justly deserved.
“Why aren’t the Djinn entering the Citadel?” Connor asked more to himself than to anyone else. “They could simply fly over the battlements and take the place, with the power they possess, Lily and I have seen what they can do now they have gained so much power, and they have it in them to lay waste to a legion of men.”