Elf Killers (30 page)

"No!" said Doona, springing to her feet.

"Get your bow and take my quiver so you'll have enough," said Oisin as he grabbed her for a fleeting hug. "Let's get to the mews. If Onner's not there, go find Vorona. You and she can watch each other's back." They stepped outside and ran, hand in hand.

  They found Olloo, looking very pale, already in charge of everything. He was darting about the mews, shouting orders and encouragements as if the previous battle had merely been a drill. Oisin let Marroo out of his pen and was the first austringa to be outside with his bird. When the first three trolls came hooting and running between the houses, Oisin stepped into their path and cleaved a head while Marroo slashed open the fronts of the other two.

Baase was there at once, taking down the very next troll to arrive. Olloo looked pained and perilously slow with the first few swings of his claymore, but Baase was keenly alert and quick to finish his kills. Baase flashed him a picture of Brenden cornered against a wall without his sword. Olloo was racing to his aid the moment Yeearree landed on the front of the troll as Kieran took off the beast's arm with a loud metallic ping.

"Whee-oo!" crowed Vorona as she and Doona toppled their sixth troll from her garden gate. "Got the bastard!" She nocked another arrow as Doona sent yet another brute to staggering about with an arrow in his neck.

Fnanar bounced his club off the top of Jamys's head with a pop and drummed his chest, hooting, "Ooot-ooot! Ooot-ooot! Ooot-ooot!" as he dashed after his next Elf.

"I've got to go see!" cried Doona.

"You be careful, honey!" called Vorona as Doona sprinted away to where Jamys lay, beyond the well.

Soon the pandemonium was falling silent. Oisin could see that the trolls had been escaping for some time, but that most of them lay slain throughout Baile Tuath. He began searching for injured Elves. "There's all kinds of room for both Elves and trolls," he said as he squatted to look at Jamys. "Why can't they be satisfied with that? Stinking Marfora Siofra!"

"He's just plain dead, isn't he?" said Sigurd with a quaver to his voice as he jogged up and knelt.

"I'm sorry, Sigurd," said Oisin as he stood up to see Vorona urgently hurrying over.

She looked frail and wide-eyed in a way that went through him like a white-hot fire. "Oisin, have you seen Doona?"

"No," he whispered.

"She came this way some time ago and I lost track of her."

"Oh no!" he murmured as he struggled to keep his legs from going out from under him. "No!" he cried as he ran hither and yon through Baile Tuath. "Doona! Doona!" He ran to the stables and saddled his Dulish unicorn with such frantic fingers that the poor beast was dancing with fright by the time he threw his leg over. Marroo saw him leave the houses at a pounding gallop and dashed after. 

"Everyone to the stables!" cried Olloo as Baase planted picture after picture in his head of Oisin's departure. After a brief eternity of banging gates, slapping leather and rattling buckles, the Elves raced across the common with hammering hooves, vanishing into the tall grass with their host of great white birds. At first they tried following the confusion of wallowed paths in the grass heading west, but it quickly became clear that the shawkyn spooghey knew exactly where to go. They fell to silence at once, standing in their saddles as their little unicorns thundered and jingled along with everything they had trying to keep up with the steely-eyed birds who were floating along with determined springy strides like giant white dusters.

An elk sprang to its feet with a snort to race away and vanish. Grass whipped their cheeks and arms. The sun rose hot above the mountains which loomed ever closer. Had the trolls made it all the way there? Or had they overtaken the brutes without knowing it? There was nothing for it but to put their faith in the strike falcons.

Fnanar tramped along quite winded from towing Doona as he led his surviving brutes through the thick grass, for even though she was in a state of shock from her ordeal and her wrists were mercilessly bound, she made quite a tiring load after some leagues. At last he stumbled across the spot where Gnydy-af and Phnyr-phaf held Martyn, Donachan and Lulach.

"Doona!" shrieked Lulach as Phnyr-phaf clamped his meaty hand over her face. He held onto her until she lay still, snickering at his own cleverness.

As Fnanar paused to catch his breath, Doona saw her moment and bolted.

"Nyr-vyr-nirr-trad!" he roared, grabbing her by the hair with a vicious yank to throw her onto her back and pin her down by sitting on her and slapping her face from side to side.

Gnydy-af strained to peer out over the Strah through the tops of the grass while Fnanar was busy with this. He stepped to one side and put his ear to the ground. His eyes went wide, and he trotted away further from Fnanar's hateful noise and planted his ear again. "Thunder-man!" he cried, pointing east as he sprang to his feet. "Spear-head-snort-whinnie-clops cloppety, cloppety, cloppety, cloppety!"

"Run!" cried Fnanar as he picked up Doona and set her on her feet.

"Grab-up-squeakers wobble-slow!" cried Gnydy-af.

"Then hup, hup, hup humpy-doodle!"

"Look!" cried Kieran, pointing ahead. "There's Oisin! Hoy! Oisin!"

"Oisin!" cried Alister.

If Oisin heard, he was too intent on reaching Doona to respond. He stayed far ahead, standing in his saddle, scarcely visible through the grass.

"Look yonder, Olloo!" cried Alister "Coming from 'way to the north, a strike falcon!"

"Could that be Onner?" cried Kieran.

Fnanar gave Doona a cruel shake and heaved her over his shoulder. She immediately smashed his mouth with her knee, setting him down hard as she fled into the grass.

"Doona!" cried Oisin at the sight of her beautiful red hair bounding in the sunlight.

Fnanar grabbed up his club and ran after her in furious pursuit.

"Doona! Doona!" cried Oisin at the sight of Fnanar's club coming down, over and over. "No! Fates! No!"

With stinging fury, Onner ripped open Fnanar's face. Fnanar swung out with his club in blind panic. Onner ripped open his front.

"Doona! Doona!" wailed Oisin, scooping her up to find her gone. He laid her down gently. "You filth!" he screamed as he sprang to his feet with his claymore. "You son of a bitch! You Marooderyn Imshee!" With a ping, Fnanar's head rolled away into the grass. Marroo hit Gnydy-af, knocking him onto his hands and knees.

Onner ripped out a length of intestine as Fnanar's corpse hit the ground. She wheeled aside and sprang, knocking down Phnyr-phaf who cried out and let Lulach tumble away into the grass.

Oisin ploughed into the wide-eyed trolls with sobs of rage and despair as he cleaved and slashed.

"No! No! Doona!" cried Olloo as the austringas thundered into the trolls with their slashing shawkyn spooghey to spring from their mounts, swinging their blades.

Martyn and Donachan soon found themselves swinging troll clubs.

Fnana-fnyr stood on a rock in a thicket of fringed maidenhairs and crab apples, staring out over the Strah from under his hand. Chats and towhees called. 

"It be big big head-nod, Thunder-man," said Ni-oow-fn. "Runaway grab-up-squeakers do-do have gut-rip-birds, gut-rip-birds." 

"Yea?"

"Should-we help Fnanar?"

"Bite your flabber-tongue, mudful hollow-head!" snapped Fnana-fnyr. "If hollow-head cluck-meats can bloody-rip head-smash Fnanar, then we no-have to."

Ni-oow-fn hung his head and stepped off the rock to hide in the shade with the other brutes. Jays scolded overhead. Dyr-jiny stroked the hairs of his chinless jaw, knitted his beetle-brow and climbed up onto the rock to amble over to Fnana-fnyr as if he were testing his weight on new ice. "Aye Thunder-man?" he said quietly, shading his eyes as he looked out over the grass. "Red-facing him might be tumble-down, head-nod? Ni-oow-fn be your big big tag-behind nod-nod. Too-much thunder could-might be big big tumble-down."

"Yea? 'Help Fnanar' be-same as-be rotten butt in my-face..."

"Thunder-man! Looky-look!" cried Dyr-jiny at the sight of a host of strike falcons coming straight for them.

Fnana-fnyr leaped from the rock and ran crashing into the brush. Dyr-jiny broke free of his paralysis and followed. As the brutes scattered, stumbling and dashing away, the white birds arrived to run them down, leaping and slashing.

Oisin was on his feet, thrusting and swinging, felling troll after troll until the woods grew silent. "Doona!" he sobbed as he ran and leaped astride his little Dulish and pounded away through the leaves, out into the sunlight. "Doona!"

Martyn and Donachan stood up with Lulach from their vigil at her side as he came. When the others arrived they found him lying with her in his arms, murmuring her name as Onner and Marroo sat on their keels on each side of him hissing and popping their beaks to keep them away. After a respectful time of silence, as the meadowlarks sang in the waving grass, Olloo threw his leg over his unicorn and they all rode home.

One evening, nearly a millennium later on the longest day of the year, Olloo rode out across the Strah with Baase. Near the woods, he looked down to see a bunch of flowers nodding their heads in the breeze. "Doona's rose," he said. When he dismounted, he realized that this was the very spot where she fell. As a tear streaked to the bristles of his chin, he looked up to see Doona and Oisin traipsing hand in hand along the edge of the woods followed by two great white birds.

GLOSSARY

adpyrfn (trollish) - meat

Adpyrfn nyrnirrfnyr! (trollish) - Watch the meat!

aooifn-ntnruyuyfyuyuy - see baby-out root

arrdsey (trollish) - first

Arrdseyphnyrpheyfne (trollish) - First-father

baase (Gwaelic Elven) - death

biskee (Manx) (Gwaelic Elven) - biscuit

bodhran (Jutish Elven and Old Gwaelic Elven) - an
             
open backed, shallow drum with a

             
16"-18" head, played with a short double-headed
             
stick

brat (Jutish Elven and Old Gwaelic Elven) - cloak or
             
mantle

bruchtadh  (Jutish Elven and Old Gwaelic Elven) -
             
eruption

cac (Jutish Elven and Old Gwaelic Elven) - shit

Caith aon... caith dha...

Caith tri... ceithre...

Ursula aici buachaill...

Duine i ndiaidh an duine eile. (Jutish Elven) -

             
             
             
             
Toss one... toss two

 
             
             
             
             
Toss three... four

 
             
             
             
             
Ursula has a boyfriend...

 
             
             
             
             
One after the other.

carraig (Jutish Elven and Old Gwaelic Elven) - rock

da (trollish) - dad

Damnu air! (Jutish Elven and Old Gwaelic Elven) -
             
Damn it!

Deatalamh (Jutish Elven) - Northern Continent

doras (Jutish Elven and Old Gwaelic Elven) - door 

drfnyrifyrri (trollish) - goat

duda (trollish) - no

Dulish (Jutish Elven and Old Gwaelic Elven) -
             
Douglas, a short legged breed of Jutish

             
Elven unicorn, sharing a common ancestor with
             
the Gwaelic Elven Doolish unicorn.

duyuy (trollish) - and

-dyr (trollish) - great; large

dyrgnyfn (trollish) - bitter

dyrgnyfngnyrr (trollish) - see Elven ginseng

dyrija (trollish) - you are coming

dyrjiny (trollish) - wizard

dyrney (trollish) - being; man; person

Dyrney (trollish) - the People

Dyrney dyrija! (trollish) - Dyrney come!

Dyrney Fnanar pirrfey! (trollish) - Dyrney
             
headsmash (kill) Fnanar!

Fafnyoydfyphn? (trollish) - What?

faire (Jutish Elven and Old Gwaelic Elven) - lookout

fmoo (trollish) - mom

fnadirrfanf (trollish) - buttock, rump