Elf Killers (14 page)

"Do you ever play your lyra with him, Aunt Reina?" said Oisin.

"I tried once, but the moment I drew the bow across the strings, he covered his ears and howled. He won't have anything to do with it. I don't play much anymore, but the instant I pick it up he runs outside. But so much for that. Tell me, how are your mother and father?"

"They're quite well, or at least they were the last I saw of them..."

"Now just what does that mean? They did make it through the attack, didn't they?"

Oisin shared a look with Olloo and Kieran. "Well you see, they and most of the rest of Baile Gairdin have set sail across the sea to Deatalamh with King Faragher to make a new start."

Isbal and Reina set their cups in their laps with wide eyes.

"Well then," said Isbal, picking up the teapot, "we don't have to feel guilty any more. This nice sitting room and the rest of the house are indeed ours. I'm glad they're alive. We'd feared the worst."

"Your buoyancy sounds awful, Isbal," said Reina. "Here I was all set, the moment I laid eyes on them, to have everyone follow them home and bring Baile Gairdin back to life."

"So was I. I expect it'll never be."

"Well then," said Reina, turning to give Oisin careful study, "are you three alone, just as we are, or are others on their way? Where have you all come back here from?"

"The Strah..."

"Out with the shawkyn spooghey?" she said with a gasp as she and Isbal set down their cups again and gaped at each other.

"We're safe enough, and we're clean away from the trolls..."

"Does anyone live out there with you? And how on earth did you ever end up out there instead of across the sea with Faragher?"

Oisin began the briefest account he could manage of the death of Aedan and the flight of the Elf children from the trolls up the lava tubes of Mount Sliabh and out into the Great Strah to Carraig Faire, and of Vorona and the others finding their way to Carraig Faire to join them. When at last he told of the coronation of Queen Vorona, Isbal broke into laughter.

"You don't approve of her as Queen?" said Oisin.

"No, no. You misunderstand. I'm utterly delighted. Vorona may be a commoner, but she is the eldest of the Elves and possibly the wisest. And Faragher showed his fitness to rule by consulting with her."

"She won't wear a crown," said Olloo.

"I'm not surprised in the least," said Isbal, as she poured the last drop of tea and held out the pot to Reina. "And if I know her, she'll die defending the lot of you as equals."

"Well, speaking of fighting and dying, if you know what I mean, how ever did you come by Darragh?” said Oisin. “Do you really trust him?”

"So the dear child scares you, does he?"

"Not as much as on first sight. Child? I can see that he sort of acts like one, but he's a good head taller than me and might weigh as much as all three of us." 

"He's not an Elf Killer," said Isbal, looking up as Reina returned with another pot, "Well troll he be, but he is indeed innocent."

"How can you call any sort of troll a 'dear child,'" said Kieran, "or innocent?"

"Because that's what he is, Kieran," said Isbal. "Darragh wouldn't harm so much as an insect unless it bit him first.”

"You say he's actually a child?" said Olloo.

"Aye," said Reina as she poured tea all 'round. "We reckon that trolls are grown enough to start pestering sows at about eleven. You'd have to bathe him, but you'd see he's not near there yet.”

"Eleven!"

"They're pretty short lived. When did you first get giddy over girls, two hundred and ten or two hundred and twenty, perhaps?"

"But trolls are monsters, Reina," said Kieran.

Reina sighed and carefully set the teapot on the marble tea table. "Monsters they be, Kieran," she said. "We were captured, don't you know, along with who knows how many others." She turned a haunted look to Isbal and licked her lips. Isbal took up her hand and squeezed it, but neither of them smiled.

Everyone sat for a moment, stunned by this. "How did you ever...?" said Oisin.

"Oh, as far as we know, we were the only ones to escape their horrible fires. They had so many captives, and were all gone wild with their hellish carousal that they seemed to have no interest in a couple of dried up old gammers. They never even bothered tying us up. They just threw us down in the dirt outside where everyone could see us. We were so terrified that we just stayed right where they put us, doing everything we could not to watch what was going on. We still wake up in the night with horrible dreams..."

"Then a scrap broke out right in front of us," said Isbal. "The big old troll-brutes tore Darragh away from his mother. The moment they took out their sharp flints, fixing to cut him open, she stopped kicking at them and began licking their feet..."

"With her tongue?" said Olloo.

"Yes indeed, all over the tops of them and between their toes, and it stopped the curses from cutting him open. They yanked him up onto his feet by his hair and shoved him at his poor mother..."

"And the instant they did that," said Reina, "I grabbed Isbal and we ran for the brush as hard as we could go. Just after we'd got well out of sight of the fires, the mother caught up with us, grabbed us by the hair and yanked us onto our backs. As we were a-struggling to get up, she shoved Darragh at us and got on her hands and knees and went to whimpering and licking at our feet. Poor Darragh was crying and carrying on too, and she bit him good a couple of times and made him go with us.

"We ran for what seemed like hours, and Darragh stayed right with us, hanging onto us for dear life. When we got back here, we found no one alive and we spent the next several days, burying bodies. We just kept running into them. Darragh kept trying to help us, so long as we didn't go out in the bright sun. He also started in right away, trying to use our words. He won't use trollish..."

"How can you be sure he won't turn on you sometime?" said Kieran.

Reina heaved a sigh. "Well he's not about to," she said. "A few weeks ago, maybe fifty troll-brutes came back here late in the evening and nosed around through building after building for long enough, we thought they'd never leave. Darragh hid us in a passage in the palace that he'd found. He was playing outside when they showed up and the very sight of them terrified him. He was trembling all over and he kept calling them 'monsters,' and we couldn't begin to coax him out of the passage until long after they were gone. He won't ever talk about living with the other trolls, but over time we have managed to piece together that he was tormented by them day and night, and that they were continually threatening to eat him." She clapped her knees with sudden resolution and stood up. "I think the pies must be ready by now."

"Yea," said Isbal. "It might do you some good, Kieran, if you went out and got Darragh. My guess is that he's out in the stable. He won't be far. He's crazy about blackberry tarts..."

"Me?"

"Just go out through the kitchen."

Seeing that no one was about to come to his aid, Kieran sheepishly rose and followed Reina. Beyond a long roofed breezeway, he stepped into an enormous barn, like a rough-hewed cathedral. "Darragh?" he called. There was no answer. He went from stall to stall along both walls, standing empty in the cobwebs. "Darragh?" Not finding him, he climbed into the mow. Pigeons cooed and strutted along a great timber, high up the far wall. "Darragh? Darragh! Come on! They've got pie!"

"No!" cried Darragh, standing up in the hay. "You dirty butt meanie!"

"Come on, Darragh! I came out to get you for pie!"

Darragh shook his head from shoulder to shoulder. Without warning, he threw a fist sized rock, taking off Kieran's hat, making him see stars and setting him down hard upon the mow floor. Darragh was standing over him at once. "We even, Dirty-butt!" he cried as he gave his chest a good drumming with his fists. He held out his hand. "Now maybe you no more be meanie."

Kieran took his hand and stood up.

"Now. Any more meanie?"

"No. I came out here to get you for pie."

"Good, good. I like pie."

"Even better than what you ate when you lived with the Marfora Siofra?"

"Boof! Dyrney no eat good things. Dyrney say they'll eat me and say they'll eat me and say they'll eat me. Dyrney even want Fmoo to eat me."

"Are Dyrney the Marfora Siofra? Who's Fmoo?"

Darragh clenched his teeth and his fists and gave an angry shudder as he nodded and hissed through his nose. "'Dyrney' be troll talk for 'people,' but Dyrney no be people. Dyrney be awful, awful, awful, awful monsters."

"Who's Fmoo?"

"Fmoo be my real momma. But 'fmoo' and 'Dyrney' be troll words. I hate troll words. Just Elf words, please? I be Elf now."

"You've got a deal, Darragh."

"Good, good!" cried Darragh, with a thundering leap on the mow floor. "We eat pie." 

The heady aroma of blackberry tarts met them as they returned to the parlour beyond the kitchen. "Kieran no more be dirty-butt meanie," said Darragh as he scurried up to sit on the floor before the tea table.

"Why, that's remarkable," said Olloo, earning another smack on the back of the head as Kieran took his seat. "We never quite managed."

"Before you went for the pies, Aunt Reina, you were telling about the trolls being here a few weeks ago," said Oisin as he picked up a steaming tart.

"Now that you've told us your story," said Reina, "It would make sense that they had come here to see if that's where you'd gone when you ones fled the beach camp.”

Everyone nodded at this.

"It can't be safe here," said Olloo. "Why don't you come back with us to the Strah? The trolls stay on this side of the mountains because they fear the strike falcons."

Darragh clapped his hands with glee at the sight of Baase starting to get into everything in the room.

"That one doesn't," said Olloo, with a nod at Darragh.

"I no troll!" cried Darragh. "I be just as Elf as you, meanie!"

"Here Darragh," said Isbal as she fit four fat tarts on a saucer. "Why don't you go outside for a bit so we can talk? Just don't lose the plate."

"Oh, good, good," said Darragh, springing to his feet. "Thank you Isbal."

"We need to see," said Isbal as she pulled open the drapes. She paused to make sure Darragh had gone out. "Well, as much as we yearn to see everyone, we do have a commitment to Darragh. And I'm right sure everyone would make the best of having us around, but in spite of the smiles, most would resent him. That would bad for him. He's already spent most of his life in one place where they hated him. He may be too slow for numbers or mechanical things, but he's very sensitive. He'd know. Trolls don't live long, though. After he dies, Reina and I could come join you then. We can find Carraig Faire."

"We understand," said Oisin, "but we certainly hope you'll think better of it before we leave and come with us. If not, please know that we will always be thinking of you."

"We'll think it over. Now you'll probably want to follow me to the library while Reina starts supper. I'm pretty sure I can put my hand on that old book Vorona wants."

Olloo tied Baase into his basket and hurried to catch up with Kieran as he followed after Oisin and Isbal. By the time they returned to the parlour with the crumbling book, Darragh was sitting at the board in the next room while Reina laid out a delicious meal of bean, kale and green onion soup with steaming hot barley bread, butter, honey and cucumbers.

"Now I would imagine you'd find your framing tools in Eamon's shop down at the south end," said Isbal as she drank the last of the soup from her bowl. “The trolls didn't take anything. They just threw things around. I think I saw framing tools when we were in there last year, hunting for axes and the like to cut firewood." 

"Good," said Oisin. "After we help you do the dishes, we'll go see what we can find."

"We'll not have guests working for their supper," she said. "Just go on and see what you can find and by the time you get back, we'll have the guest rooms ready so you can get a good night's sleep before you start back to the Strah."

It was still quite light when they stepped outside, but the sun had slipped below the mountains some time ago. A great grey owl gave a baleful wail from the maidenhairs just above Baile Gairdin to be answered by another much further up the slopes. Chickens were already flapping up to the lower branches of an apple tree by the stable. "We'll just go get the framing chisels and mallets," said Oisin as he glanced at the sky and strung his bow. "If it looks like there are a lot of other tools we could use, we'll cut two poles for a drag for each unicorn in the morning and load up everything then that Aunt Isbal and Reina don't need. We sure don't want to take anything they could use." He set out at a brisk stride through the weeds sprung up in the gravel.

"Well I hope they have enough sense to come back Carraig Faire with us," said Kieran, lowering his voice as he jogged to catch up.

"Yea," said Oisin. "But I see why they mightn't. And they're right, don't you know. People might pretend to accept Darragh, but that's all they'd be doing. Fates! I don't know what I think about him myself."