Elf Killers (12 page)

"Sounds like love to me, Doona."

"Do you really think so?" she said as she handed over Cairys and carefully turned about to resume the climb. "No wait. If we talk here, you'll get yourself killed."

"No I won't. And I also think that with a bit more encouragement from you, he'd ask Brenden if he could come courting you."

"But surely, the way he smiles at me he knows that I ..."

"Well, at least enough to keep on flirting with you, but he knows you care for Kieran, too, and it's holding him back. You know it is."

"So you think I need to let him know, aye? Maybe I need a new dress after all."

Lilee paused to give Cairys a private little squeeze. "Well, I've got a few notions about that, Doona. And we're really, really not going to talk any more until we're on top or you'll be the one to fall and kill all four of us."

The Strah fowl could be heard booming from somewhere well away over the grass from Carraig Faire. Up on top, under the vault of blue sky growing light, the Elven women squatted around Onora's skillet, working sticks into the coals beneath it as they tended sputtering strips of elk. Presently Onora rose to her feet with several pieces of hot meat in a deer skin. She gave a generous piece to Brendan and came to wake the girls. "Time to wake up," she said as she gave Doona a pat on the shoulder, "even if you two did stay awake all night whispering about young men and clothes."

"You heard us?" said Doona, up on her elbows at once. "Fates! We didn't keep you and Brenden awake, did we?"

"You know as well as I do that nothing short of a troll raid would keep him awake. And I only heard you from time to time as I was drifting off, but I was a young lady myself once, you know."

"What do you mean by that?" said Doona, sharing a quick look with Lilee, who had just closed off a yawn.

"Oh, trip on trenchers," she said as she held out her deer skin to each of them, "I just overheard snippets, but I was enough like you ones once to know how they all fit together..." 

"Well, just how do I let Oisin know that I'd like him to court me and not break Kieran's heart at the same time?"

"My. That is a most serious question to ask at breakfast, young lady. I'll tell you what, though. It's our turn to watch the children this morning while everyone works on sod or thatch. Maybe after we get the children rounded up, we could talk about this."

Doona gave Onora a sudden hug. "Thank you for not treating me like a silly girl."

"'Silly girl.' I'm right aware that you passed 'silly girl' long before you came over the mountains and are now on the doorstep of being a woman grown."

The sun was just rising as Oisin, Olloo and Kieran rode into the briary edge of the East Maidenhair Woods, weary at the prospect of the long climb ahead yet grateful to be able to cross the Strah at night, safe from the shawkyn spooghey. And even though there were not any trolls on this side of the Eternal Mountains, they were grateful to be able to climb their flanks by day. For the rest of the morning they climbed as the sun rose higher and hotter at their backs. By noon, they got above the trees and began the laborious job of clambering over a jumble of boulders and ropes of lava as they led their mounts to the cleft in the lip of the crater of Mount Sliabh, where they had last seen Radella and the Fire Sprites.

Soon they entered the cleft, too exhausted to talk, as they listened to the echoes of the scuffling and crunching of cinders under the hooves of their unicorns on its sheer walls, while rock wrens gave their ringing calls far overhead. At the edge of the glistening waters of Lake Na Gealai, they fell to their knees without a word amongst them and drank, bathed their faces and filled their water skins. They were on their feet at once with the melancholy memory of Mian and Aland growing on them as they made their way along the shore to where they had abandoned their ashes. When at last they spied the big flat rock where their pyre had been, they dashed up to it and stood in silence.

"What are we standing here for?" said Kieran as he turned to fling a stone out into the water. "They're long gone."

"Yea?" said Olloo. "Well I miss them and I feel bad, myself. I hated watching them die..."

"I see the spillway down into the mountain where Radella brought us out," said Oisin, wrapping his reins around his fist. "Let's go. The day's getting away from us." A pair of sandpipers ran twittering ahead of them along the edge of the water before taking flight to a place further down the shore. Soon the three of them stood watching crystal clear water from the lake race into a cavernous lava tube.

"This looks like the mouth of the Pit to me," said Kieran. "Are we really going to do this? I mean, I liked the Fire Sprites and all, but remember it was trolls in there who killed Aland and Mian. I'm not sure I want to go in."

"Oh pooh, Kieran," said Oisin. "We've been all through this. If you objected, you had plenty of time to back out before we left. We did promise them we'd be back to see them, after all. They did go to a lot of trouble to get us through the mountain alive and well.”

"Actually, Oisin, you told the Sprites we'd be checking on them. I don't remember you asking any of us..."

"What does that matter, Kieran?" said Olloo. "You knew all this and came anyway. And besides, I'd think you'd have some gratitude for the Sprites' getting us out. You were the biggest whiner in the mountain, as I remember."

"I agreed to come, all right, but remember the whole subject was discussed in mixed company where I'd have looked like a coward for not agreeing to go."

"Mixed company?" said Olloo. "What does that mean?"

"He means Doona and Lilee," said Oisin.

"So what?" said Olloo. "You had all kinds of time to back out."

"Right. And Doona would've known why the minute you all headed off into the grass without me," said Kieran as he sent another stone skipping out across the water. "But maybe that's just what you wanted, aye Oisin?"

"Oh dry up!" said Oisin. "Why would I bother sitting about thinking up ways to make you look bad in front of Doona when you keep doing that all by yourself?"

"Will you two shut up?" said Olloo, "I don't think any of this belongs out here..."

"We're going in, Kieran," said Oisin, "and you can either come with us or go back by yourself and really look good for Doona..."

"You all need to shake hands and not another word like this as long as we're out here..."

"Shake?" said Oisin, thrusting out his hand.

With a sigh and a nod, Kieran took his hand.

"Good," said Olloo. "Shall I tie up the unicorns on that little old cottonwood back yonder?"

Olloo returned directly and the three of them carefully stepped inside the lava tube, feeling their way along the slippery ledge which ran alongside the rushing stream.

"Hey!" cried Kieran above the thundering water. "What are we supposed to do for light?"

"I figured the Fire Sprites would come light our way!" hollered Oisin. "I've been thinking out to Radella as hard as I can, but I sure haven't got any sort of reply yet. Let's go a little further while we wait on her, at least as far as we can still see daylight behind us."

They shuffled along, slipping and stumbling and soon came to a place where the lava tube formed a grotto to one side of the stream over a pool of swirling water. "What on earth died in here," cried Olloo, "some old cow?"

"What are all those things bobbing in that sink?" cried Kieran.

"Looks like a couple dozen of the Sprites' plews, all bloated up! Are you still thinking out to Radella, Oisin?"

Oisin shook his head. "I don't think they're here!"

Without a word, they turned about at once and quickly made their way out into the light. Just as they stepped outside, Kieran slipped and soaked his leg up past his knee. "Damn this stupid trip into the mountain!" he wailed.

"Yea?" said Olloo. "Well damn you! You've done nothing but balk, argue and complain from the time you got astraddle your unicorn. You may be my best friend, but you make me wish you'd stayed behind."

"Friend indeed! How come you take Oisin's side every time anything comes up?"

"How can I side with you when you make it so I can't tell which end of you I'm talking to?"

"Well it's those very times when you're supposed to stand up for me..."

"With breath like you've got, how do I manage to keep standing?" said Olloo as he threw back his head, slapped his knee and stumbled about in a fit of laughter. Soon all three of them were laughing uproariously. After a time they each found rocks to sit on to stare out over the lake.

"So," said Olloo as he scratched an aimless design in the sand with a twig, "what do you think happened to Radella and them, Oisin?”

"I can't imagine anything but trolls. Had to be."

"I'll sure be glad to stay on the east slope of the mountains while we hunt for Vorona's gap..." said Kieran.

"Now what's he saying?" said Oisin.

"Can't tell. This end stinks too bad." And with that, they made giddy tracks to their unicorn.

Chapter 10

It was not yet mid-morning and already quite hot atop Carraig Faire under the cloudless sky, as the Elves busied themselves thatching the sunshades which they had been making from the poles they had split on the ground, down below. Sweat trickled down Doona's back as she went from child to child, applying a salve she had concocted for their sunburnt noses and foreheads. Sudden shouts made her stand up at once. "What's everyone pointing at, Roseen?" she said, peering under the flat of her hand.

"See that commotion down there in the grass? It's a pair of strike falcons after a deer and they're headed right for Lilee and them."

"Now I see... No!"

As one of the shawkyn spooghey flanked the deer, the deer wheeled and shot away in a new direction. "Thank the Fates!" shouted Roseen, "They've headed north... Look! They've got it down!"

"Yea," said Doona, "but now they're awfully close to Brendan and them. It doesn't look like any of them down there cutting sod even see, for all the grass..."

"Donachan's got his bow. He's on his way down to warn everybody."

"Doona..."

Doona looked down at the sudden tugging at her skirt.

"I said, could I please have the jackstones, now?" said Cara, completely ignorant of the commotion below. "Lulach and I've decided to play right here so we won't get stepped on, since everyone's playing foxes and hens over yonder. You're sure hard to get stones out of, sometimes."

"Are you sure that you want me to be 'keeper of the stones?'"

"Oh yea," said Cara, with a huge nod. "But we just want them right now."

"Well here you go, but don't forget to get under one of the new shades before the sun gets much higher. You're awfully burnt and that salve can only do so much."

Cara and Lulach sat down cross legged at her feet at once. At the glassy rattle of stones tumbling from the sock, Onner came racing away from her grasshopper hunt to plop down beside them, pinfeathers and all. She gave each wing a confident snap, shook herself and began looking keenly up and down at each rock being picked up and tossed.

"Do you mind if Onner watches you play, or shall I come get her?" said Doona.

Both girls glanced up at once. "She can stay," said Lulach.

Onner quickly gobbled up a jackstone.

Cara turned back and gave a stone an indifferent toss before squinting up at Doona again.

Onner followed the stone keenly as it traveled up and down.

"Very well," said Doona, "but if she gets to be a handful, bring her over to where Onora and I are or have me come and do it."

Onner slyly gobbled up two more jackstones.

"We'll watch her, Doona," chorused the girls as they went back to their game.

"Well," said Doona when she found Onora near their sleeping spot, cleaning the last of the utensils from breakfast, "the little squirts are all salved up and going hard at either foxes and hens or jackstones. If we're lucky, I suppose we'll have time to talk before any of them decide they are thirsty or hungry."

"Where's your fluffy little shadow?" said Onora.

"Playing jackstones..."

"What?"

"Well, watching Lulach and Cara playing jackstones at least, but you'd think she wants to learn by the way she looks. Actually, I think she wants to swallow one if she can."

"For her gizzard?" said Onora as she set aside the last of her work. "I never noticed Baase doing that, but I suppose they'd do that just like any fowl. Though, I've not watched either bird beyond noticing that they both seem to be taming up right nice and that they aren't making messes that don't get cleaned up."

"So," said Doona, "have you thought about...?"

Onora studied her face for a moment as a dickcissel called from the grass below them. "If you're absolutely sure that you care more for Oisin than Kieran, then there's nothing for it. Lilee's right. You must encourage Oisin and discourage Kieran, and you must be clear about it to both of them right away..."