Elf Killers (10 page)

"We're certainly grateful, Radella," said Vorona. "Had you not appeared when you did, we might never have made it out, let alone find our children, since we dropped our lamp."

"That's been my impression," thought Radella. "Now, can you manage on just a bit of star or moonlight?"

"By all means, but of course neither gets inside Mount Sliabh."

"I was merely worried about you all and your children. They insisted that they could manage, but young ones often get carried away describing their own abilities, don't they?"

"Ah!" said Vorona. "Kids can get windy. They told you right, though. We just don't see nearly as well in the dark as trolls, I'm afraid. And you're right certain that they stay clear of this side of the mountains?"

"You've no fears about them," thought Radella. "Just make certain that you reach Carraig Faire before daylight. Now we must take our leave. Fates' speed to the lot of you." And with deep curtseys from each of them, the Sprites filed back into the cleft, leaving the Elves to face the Strah.

Chapter 8

The sun had just settled out of sight beyond the Eternal mountains as a dickcissel and a vesper sparrow called from somewhere in the grass just below Carraig Faire. 

"After all the darkness in Mount Sliabh, I would never have imagined I'd be relieved to see the sun go down," said Doona, as she felt of her sunburnt nose, "but what are we going to do about water? We used the very last of it when we got up here this morning."

"Well, I know there's water out there close to the surface because I could tell it when we walked here last night," said Oisin. "All I need is some kind of switch to find where to dig. The real problem is getting it up here." He sat up on his heels and studied the grass. "I think... Doona, we'd better decide right now if we're going to stay here or go on, while there's still enough light to get the little ones down off this rock."

"Where to?" said Olloo.

Doona wrinkled her brow and gave a big wave. Everyone gathered 'round and got quiet at once. She nodded at Oisin.

"We need to use this night," he said, looking down to scratch on the sandstone as he found his words. "We have to decide if we're going to try to live here or if we are going to travel on somewhere. At this point, any choice we make will probably be the hardest thing we ever set out to do, so we'll have to have our hearts set beyond doubt..."

"You mean somewhere further east?" said Olloo.

"Perhaps, or south, maybe..."

"We seem to be safe enough up here," said Doona. "Isn't there some way we could settle here?"

Oisin sighed and returned to scratching the sandstone. "Oh, this is undoubtedly the safest place in the entire Strah, but we're already out of water, we're all sunburnt and we have no shelter at all, and getting anything up here is going to be a poser. We don't have a rope or anything."

"And no strike falcons," said Lilee as she fiddled with a string she was braiding.

"Does anyone have anything to add?" he said.

"We don't exactly have carpentry tools, you know," said Kieran. "And what do we have to build with out here, anyway, grass? Grass huts really ought to keep out the strike falcons."

"Even those would need timber for some kind of frame," said Olloo. 

"Yea?" said Alister. "Sod wouldn't."

"Good point," said Olloo.

"Even a sod house still needs trusses, purlins and ridgepoles," said Kieran.

"So what?" said Alister. "Wouldn't sod walls keep us safe until we could get to the woods for timber? And we've got grass for thatch, so we wouldn't need wood for shingles..."

"Oh go on,” said Kieran. "What kind of tools...?"

"This spade!" cried Alister. "I hope I didn't drag it all the way out here for nothing. And we've got another one, too. Who asked you anyway, Kieran?"

"Doona and I did," said Oisin. "It's only fair to have everyone's opinion."

"Well if you want mine," said Alister, "I think it's real good and stupid to head off into grass full of shawkyn spooghey with no water. How come our ancestors chose to live by the trolls instead of out there, anyway?"

"Let's take a vote and get this over with," said Olloo.

Oisin went from face to face. Everyone wanted to stay.

Kieran caught Doona's adoring look as she nodded her head to Oisin. "Yea," he said dryly as he looked at his feet. "It's stupid to try for anyplace else...now."

"So how do we get water up here?" said Lilee as she knotted the end of her string.

"Where'd you get that?" said Oisin with a nod at her hands.

"This? Oh, there's some kind of plant with spines on the ends of its fat leaves. I kept seeing it in the grass on the way here. When I snapped off the spines, I got these long strings of fibers. They're really strong. They've got to be at least as tough as flax..."

"Wonderful!" he cried. He stood up to address everyone. "Lilee has found what we need to make ropes. In the meantime, Alister and Olloo are going to come with me and dig a well. As soon as we have water, the rest of you make a queue down the way we climbed up and hand up water bottles from person to person." He turned and pointed out across the grass. "It's getting dark, but can anyone still see the elk way out yonder? We may be stuck with just water bottles until tomorrow night, but I'll bet by then I ought to be able to have an elk skinned for a water tub. For now, don't anyone leave this rock without me being along with this bow."

The full moon had not yet peeped over the tops of the Eternal Mountains when Dyr and his troll-brutes quietly appeared in the shadows between the red maidenhair trees overlooking the Elven camp across the beach. Calls of purple-ribs filled the air. He studied the camp closely as he waited for the last of the brutes to get into position. Suddenly he saw that there were no ships. His eyes darted nervously over the tents. The corner of one of them had fallen in. There was no sign of unicorns outside anywhere. "Duda!" he murmured as he slowly sat back in the sprangling maidenhair ferns. "Jyga duda, duda. I should have made a sacrifice. Jyga Arrdsey-phnyr-phey-fne please forgive me."

Dyr remembered the very night when he took down his uncle Dyyp and became Thunder-man. Thunder-man Dyyp had also made this very mistake. He had raided the great Elven castle of Baile Gairdin, and had gone back the next night without at least paying thanks to Arrdsey-phnyr-phey-fne by roasting someone's first son and feeding him to the raiding Dyrney-brutes beforehand. Dyyp was trying to blame someone else for there not being any Elves, but Shaman Dyr-jiny called him down in front of his own brutes. Dyyp tried to kill Dyr-jiny to silence him, but Dyr saved Dyr-jiny by killing Dyyp.

Dyr threw his face down into the leaves. "Forgive me, Arrdsey-phnyr-phey-fne." he quietly squealed into the moss and the roots of the ferns. "I was crossy-arm wide-eyed big-nod that the Dyrney-brutes juicy-eating Dyyp was still-enough for Your Thunder-big-big-bigness, so-that we-would-have your head-pat to grab-and-run these last grab-up-squeakers."

The waves lapped lazily against the sand beyond the camp, as a purple-rib took up calling very close by. Dyr flung aside the leaves he had wadded up and sprang to his feet to furiously hammer his chest with his fists. "Ooot-ooot, ooot-ooot, ooot-ooot, ooot-ooot!" he roared into the echoing trees, silencing the purple-rib. "Dyrney-brutes!" He pummeled his chest once again. "Dyr-jiny!"

Dyr-jiny shoved on his bear's head at once, down to his shoulders, as he jogged forth from the shadows to plant his staff in the sand and begin springing up and down, chanting, "Ay-ooo, ay-ooo, ay-ooo, ay-ooo..."

"Ay-ooo, ay-ooo, ay-ooo..." chanted Dyr as his brutes gathered round one by one and began bobbing in time. Suddenly they all froze as he leaped into the air, crying, "Ooot-ooot, ooot-ooot, ooo-ooot!" He pummeled his chest and strutted in amongst them, glaring at each one of them in turn from under his louring ledge of bristling brow. "Arrdsey-phnyr-phey-fne is thunder-vexed," he rumbled as he tramped about with bristling arms, hissing through his nose. "He says no grab-up-squeakers!" he suddenly roared, flinging out his arms as everyone stepped back. "Dyr-jiny!"

Dyr-jiny started a choppy rattle with two small terrapin shells, shicka-shick, shicka-shick, shicka-shick, shicka-shick, shicka-shick... as he began a dignified shuffle into their midst, shick, shick, shicka-shick, shicka-shick... Directly, he had backed everyone out into a circle and was furiously rattling, shickity-shick, shickity-shick, shickity-shick, shickity-shick, shickity-shick... By the time two burly hands were smashing stones into the trunk of a nearby red maidenhair, boont shickity-shick, boonk shickity-shick, boont shickity-shick, boonk shickity-shick, boont shickity-shick... the bright moon had risen, revealing his rivulets of sweat. On he danced, rattling high, rattling low, shickityshickityshickityshickityshickity... until suddenly he collapsed in the sand.

"Ay-ooo!" boomed Dyr, "What-say?"

"Juicy-champ," woofed Dyr-jiny into the sand. Boont-boonk, boont-boonk, boont-boonk, boont-boonk... went the stones. "First-kid. Dyrney-brutes juicy-champ first kid right after birth-grunts."

There were alarmed glances amongst the brutes at this.

"Whose first-kid?" said the wide-eyed brute with the stones.

"Your kid, Gyrn," said Dyr-jiny. "You be Dyyp's kid, and when the Dyrney-brutes juicy-champ Dyyp, it no-be enough so..."

"But my sow not-yet birth-grunt," he stammered, dropping his stones into the leaves.

"She will," said Dyr-jiny as he got to his knees. "You and I will make her eat aoo-i-fnnt-nru-yuyf-yu-yuy, baby-out root until she clamp-teeth howl-out birth-grunt."

Gyrn looked horrified, standing there, working his mouth.

Dyr-jiny got to his feet. "You-be Dyrney-brute of standy-tall big-nod," he said, putting a fatherly hand on Gyrn's shoulder. "You not only get to juicy-champ your bite of debt-baby, but you-get to juicy-champ the whole after-birth. After that, Arrdsey-phnyr-phey-fne will give us grab-up-squeakers, grab-up-squeakers, grab-up-squeakers." 

Oisin took Olloo, Alister, Mayl and the two spades and set out into the dark in search of water. It took almost as long to find a forked willow sapling for a switch as it did to find water near enough to the surface to reach in one night's digging. There was indeed water nearly everywhere, but it was much too far below the surface. At last they found a nice stream of it, not much more than six feet down, nearly four furlongs west of Carraig Faire. "If you two don't mind," he said as he took his bow off his shoulder, "I've just got this feeling, you might say, about those elk I saw from up on the rock. I want to take Olloo and see if we can't get one. Do you all feel safe here unarmed? We'll stay if you don't."

"How would we know?" said Alister.

"We'll stay..."

"No. We've got this well to dig. You've got a brute to bag. We'll be right here. Don't forget us."

Oisin handed Olloo his claymore and made off through the grass for where he thought he had last seen elk from atop the carraig. Each time they stopped, they only heard the rustling of the grass in the breeze and could see nothing more than the stars and the moon above grass taller than someone astride a unicorn. They had been discussing turning about for some time when the grass thinned out enough for them to see large dark rocks nestled in the grass ahead. Suddenly one of the rocks stood up and began to graze, yanking off mouths full with wise nods here and there as it sauntered forth. As the others got to their feet, it slowly ambled about to face Oisin and Olloo, snuffling as it grazed. Without warning it looked up. Oisin immediately loosed his arrow, planting it in the creature's brisket. With a loud snort, it toppled onto its side as the others vanished into the tall grass. Olloo was astraddle it at once, cutting its throat. Oisin nocked another arrow.

"Oisin! Behind you!" cried Olloo, as two ghostly white strike falcons jogged out of the grass. The instant the first one of them crouched to spring, Oisin shot it in the breast, dropping it onto its keel to flap and kick, flinging blood from side to side from its beak. The second bird sprinted straight for Olloo only to dance aside at the last moment, rushing to the aid of the first one. Olloo gave a whistling swing with Oisin's claymore, slicing its thigh, causing it to stumble and weave as it made for Oisin. Oisin's last arrow went awry, spearing its other thigh. As it struggled to keep from falling, Olloo stepped up with a furious swing of the sword, neatly cleaving its head with a ping.

"Take my blade," said Oisin as he began at once cutting at the downed bird's thigh to retrieve his last arrow, "and go get Alister and Mayl and the girls and maybe a half dozen kids. Let's try to drag all three carcasses out of here in one trip. Remember it's still dark and we have no idea what got these two shawkyn spooghey onto us in the middle of the night, so keep everyone quiet. And watch for snakes..."

Olloo was already out of sight, running through the grass for all he was worth, back the way they had come. No more than a furlong away, he tripped on a twist of big bluestem and fell. "Cac!" he cried as he hit the ground. As he got up onto his hands, he saw the glint of something glossy in the moonlight, nestled in a low mound of matted grass. He crawled over to it at once and reached out his hand. "Eggs. Three of them, and if they're not the size of baby’s heads, then I'm the size of a mouse. Cracked! One of the little buggers is hatching. Wow!" He was on his knees at once, gathering them into his linen leine.