Elf Killers (13 page)

"But how do I keep from hurting Kieran?"

"You don't. But you can be kind about it. There's no way he'll like it. In fact it'll be quite a wound for him, but in time he'll come to recognize that you're still his friend and that you had no choice but to hurt him."

"He'll get over it, then?"

"I didn't say that. He'll be your friend again, but he'll never be the same friend he once was. And you don't want him to be, either."

"Surely there must be a way to let him down without hurting him, Onora. He's been almost like another brother to me."

Onora shook her head and took up her hand and smiled. "It doesn't work that way, dear."

"What if I just wait a while? Maybe Kieran will get discouraged and find someone else. Then I can..."

Onora was still shaking her head. "That isn't the kind of affection Kieran wants from you. And the more you ignore him, the harder he'll try, and the more you'll hurt him before it's all over. You have to be kind enough to tell him no." She paused to brush a lock of hair from Doona's cheek. "Unless you're still uncertain whether you care more for Oisin than for him, you must do what is right and let him know. The sooner, the better."

Doona studied her hands for a long spell. At last she took a deep breath and looked up with a smile. "Thank you Onora. You're right, and when Oisin and Kieran return..."

Onora already had her in her arms, stroking her hair.

By the time Oisin, Olloo and Kieran had ridden back around Lake Na Gealai, they realized that they were utterly exhausted and chose to camp for the night on the shore near the cleft. The next day, they rode their unicorns down the east slope of Mount Sliabh until they were well below the tree line before heading north along the east flank of the Eternal Mountains. They spent the entire afternoon studying the ridge of mountains as they rode, with a growing fear that perhaps they had gotten beyond Vorona's gap, Kieran was convinced that they had.

"No, we have not," said Oisin, studying the peaks as he swayed with the determined rhythm of his unicorn. "Have you noticed that the mountains don't rise as far above the trees as they did? Vorona told me that the peaks start being covered with spruce and blue maidenhair, right before we reach Doras..."

"Doras?" said Olloo, heaving himself into a new position in the saddle.

"Yea. No one would have known it as Vorona's Gap back when we all lived at Baile Gairdin. And you probably never heard of Doras because it was pretty well forgotten except in old stories."

"Think it's far?" said Kieran.

"Not too far. Couldn't be."

"Then let's camp right here by this stream," said Olloo. "I've never been this saddle sore in my entire life."

Olloo was awake at the first light, listening to the cries of jays over the rushing water in the stream as it dashed down the mountain from somewhere far above. At once he was on his knees, rolling up his blankets. He paused to stare at the peaks above, awash with the red light of dawn. Oisin was just getting to his feet.

"Hey Oisin. That looks like trees, 'way up yonder on the rocks, don't you think?"

"Yea. I'm not just pretty sure that they are. I'd lay odds that they're all blue maidenhair."

"Well the gap, Doras if you must, is supposed to be a tight fit, right?"

"Yeap. Onora said that there'll be places where we'll not be able to ride abreast..."

"Well, if that's the case, how are we to see it from 'way down here when it's covered with trees?"

Soon they were under way, continuing north in hopes of reaching the peaks by the time they were forested, so that they would not possibly miss Vorona's Gap. Their unicorns plodded steadily through the leaves, nodding in purposeful rhythm as they climbed, turning their ears this way and that as they listened to the cries of ravens far overhead. The deep shadows of morning slowly turned into a mottle of light on the forest floor, as the sun climbed aloft. By noon they were meandering along a carpeted path of spruce needles and blue maidenhair leaves amongst a great tumble of basalt boulders just below the peaks.

Kieran was following Olloo, and Oisin had just disappeared from sight ahead of them. "Hoy!" cried Oisin. "Come look at this! This has to be it!"

They found him peering into a chasm, a great crack in the rock so narrow that they could have thrown stones to the far side, yet so deep that they were going to have quite a long trek down the mountain in order to enter it from the bottom.

Olloo rode up and dismounted, carefully walking to the edge to see. "It looks like the mountain's just one big rock that split open," he said.

"We're not riding all the way down there, are we?" said Kieran.

"Not you," said Olloo, giving him a sudden look in the eye. "We're going to save ourselves a lot of trouble and throw you over the edge."

Kieran gave a huff of disgust and wheeled aside with a yank of his reins.

It was steep going down the mountain to the entrance of the gap. They spent most of the way struggling to keep their balance on the sliding talus as they lead their unicorns, here and there, kicking loose showers of rocks to go bouncing and rolling down through the trees. At last they found themselves riding single file into the gap as their unicorns stepped carefully through the water running along its bed from springs far up the sides, which made a dribbling cascade down a mantle of liverworts and moss. In spite of the hot early afternoon sun, it was quite cool down where they were, splashing along as they listened to the croaking of ravens from the ledges above. 

At last they came out of the gap into the upper reaches of a great cathedral of towering maidenhair trees, just as the bellbirds and peewees were beginning their late afternoon calls. There, they followed the gentle slope of a long leafy ridge down the mountain in the emerald light until at last they reached a prominence overlooking Baile Gairdin and the meadows and orchards which lay 'round about it.

"Look 'ee yonder," said Oisin as he paused and took off his hat to wipe his brow. "From here you'd swear no one ever left." 

"Yea," said Olloo, "but I'm not sure I'm ready to go see it up close. You know it'll be all torn up from the trolls."

Oisin gave a solemn nod and leant forward to spit into the leaves. "Nothing's ever as bad as the dreading of it," he said, taking up his reins.

"So I've heard," said Olloo as he turned to peer over his shoulder. "Hey Kieran!"

Kieran snapped to from his trance of staring at the village and followed after at a canter.

The absence of grazing livestock and the unmowed fields could be seen long before they reached the houses, and the weeds and the dark vacant look of the windows were apparent the moment they sauntered amongst the first buildings. Song sparrows and catbirds called from gardens gone wild.

"Chickens," cried Kieran. "You'd think the foxes would have eaten every last one of them by now."

"That is odd as can be," said Olloo. "Someone surely must have had a strain of unusually alert ones."

Presently they tied up their unicorns at the picket fence around the foot of the Sacred Maidenhair tree and looked about, studying the front of the palace.

Kieran was the first one up the steps with his bow, arrow knocked. "So where's this library, Oisin?" he said, pushing open the great door, hewed from a single oak plank. "You were part of the royal family."

"Just be patient. I'm headed straight there. I hope the Marfora Siofra haven't ransacked it."

"So far it looks like the stuff they tore up was just random," said Olloo, stepping inside after them with his bow.

"Yea," said Kieran, "They wouldn't have been interested in anything sensible like books. They just wanted to eat us. If no one tried to hide in the library, it's probably untouched..."

Suddenly they all froze in wide-eyed shock at the sight of a white-haired troll across the foyer, standing still as a statue, keenly studying them with dark pink eyes. They drew their bows at once.

"Isbal! Reina! Strangers!" bellowed the troll as he wheeled and vanished into the adjoining room.

"It talks," cried Kieran, springing after to let fly an arrow which glanced off a long polished table top and stuck in the far wall.

"Stop!" shrieked a woman, suddenly appearing from the hallway.

"Aunt Isbal!" cried Oisin, letting down his bow. "You're alive!"

"Yes I am. Now don't shoot our troll..."

"'Our' troll? Who else made it through the massacre? And how would you ever have a troll?"

"Your aunt Reina is who else. Now you heard me about not shooting him, right?"

"How does one not shoot a troll?" said Kieran.

"By being polite enough not to, Kieran," said Isbal.

"I'm sorry, Isbal. I just saw them kill..."

"Yes. So did I. But this one won't. Come on out Darragh. Come on now."

After a pause, a chair scooted away from the long polished table with a screech on the stone floor as Darragh lumbered out from under it and slowly stood up.

"Now this is Darragh, and I swear he'll not harm a single hair on your head..."

"What's the matter with it?" said Olloo. "I've never seen one with snow white hair before. And what's wrong with the thing's eyes?"

"Shake their hands, Darragh," she said as she gently took him by the wrist and held his hand toward Kieran.

Kieran stepped back as Oisin came forth in his place and took Darragh by the hand.

"How do you?" rumbled Darragh with a beetle-browed nod as he pumped out a couple of giant handshakes.

"Carefully, sport," said Oisin with a wary look as he stepped back.

"Meanie. And he meanie, too," said Darragh, wrinkling his nose with a sneer and pointing at Kieran and Olloo.

"Well shake his hand, Kieran," said Olloo.

"No," said Darragh, shaking his head from shoulder to shoulder. "He big big meanie. He dirty butt stinker man."

"Well," said Olloo, "there've been moments on the way here when we've thought so ourselves, Darragh."

Kieran bit his lip and kicked Olloo in the ankle.

"See?" said Darragh. "Meanie."

"So how did you come by him?" said Oisin. "And where's Aunt Reina?"

"Back through the house," said Isbal. "I can see that this will require some refreshments. Let me take you to the sitting room. Come along, Darragh."

Soon they had exchanged greetings with Reina and were all seated comfortably around a tea table in a small parlour. Isbal and Reina disappeared into the kitchen and returned shortly with hot blackberry tarts and tea. "We harvested the blue maidenhair you're about to drink last year right after the massacre," said Reina as she set down the tray with the steaming pot.

"Why do you have it so dark in here?" said Oisin.

"The light hurts Darragh's eyes," said Isbal. "If we don't keep it dark, he'll sleep all day and keep us awake all night..."

"Drum and hoot-hoot, Isbal?" said Darragh as he tumbled onto the floor in front of her and pressed his cheek to her foot. "Please hoot-hoot?"

"That's probably a good idea. Go get the instruments," she said as he sprang to his feet and raced out.

He was back in short order with a field drum and two clay jugs. He set the drum on its side with a bang and reverently nestled the smaller jug in Isbal's lap before plumping down cross legged on the floor with the larger jug. He scooted the drum about until he could touch its head with the ball of one foot. Like a conductor tapping his baton, he shifted about for a moment and got still. Presently he began a brisk tapping of the drum with his foot, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum...

Isbal joined him in time with her jug, foof...foof...foof...foof...

Darragh in turn added a commanding, toofa...toofa...toofa...toofa... so that together they went, foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa... for a very long time. After a spell, it became quite mesmerizing indeed. Suddenly he stopped his jug with a loud thump of his drum, bam!

Isbal continued, foof...foof...foof...foof... until Darragh went, wham! on his drum, sprang to his feet and gave a dignified bow. For a moment, there was not a sound in the room.

At last, Oisin set down his teacup with a clink. "Why, I've never heard the like," he said. "That was quite impressive, Darragh."

Darragh grinned hugely and bowed again and again.

"Darragh," said Isbal, holding out her jug, "why don't you go out and play for a while? I promise that as soon as Reina has the next pies out of the oven, we'll call you in."

"Oh good, good," he said with a bounce as he gave her a squeeze and took her jug. He scurried out at once with the jugs. He was back immediately for the drum, pausing to stick out his tongue at Kieran. "Bad meanie stinky privy seat," he rumbled. He gave his chest two good thumps with his fists and tramped out.

"Just what does he have against me?" said Kieran.

"I expect he takes exception to being shot at," said Isbal.

"Nay. He's just a good judge of character, is all..." said Olloo.

Kieran leant aside with a frown and gave Olloo a smack on the back of the head.