Elf Killers (22 page)

"That's quite a storm on its way," she said as she carefully ran her hand down the other side of Baase's neck.

"Yea, the air feels good already," he said, "though I don't smell rain yet." He nodded at Sorcha curled up in the deep grass bedding with Tashtey, both of them sound asleep. "I reckon I could carry her to your house, but I'd bet she'd rather stay here. Besides, where would she be safer than here in the mews with fifteen strike falcons? If I dream about trolls, I'll come out here myself."

"I'd say leave her, but I'll bet my folks make me come back out here and get her. I'm exhausted."

"Shall I carry her then?"

"No. Tashtey has become the center of Sorcha's world, and now that Tashtey has helped save all of our lives, I'd bet that if we woke her, she'd beg to stay out here, just this one night. And you know? I want to be in on the next wild egg hunt. If the Marfora Siofra are going to start raiding, I certainly want a pet who can save my life.”

Baase gave his feathers a thorough shake and eased himself down onto his keel in the bedding. Roseen leant against a timber in the doorway and glanced out at the sky.

"I'll bet even some of the old mossbacks will agree with that after tonight," said Olloo as he sat down in the bedding and began running his fingers through the feathers of Baase's back. "Strike falcons just might not be considered a kid's pastime by tomorrow. But even if by some miracle, that part doesn't change, there'll be changes. You know there will be. Everyone's been going about his daily business as if everything was safe for good out here on the Strah and Elf Killer danger was just a thing of the past, but there's always been that little seed of doubt in everyone's mind. No one talks about it, but you can see it every so often, just under the surface."

"I do know what you mean, Olloo. We kids keep it to ourselves because we don't want to look like we're afraid of our shadows or something childish. And you think the elders have been feeling the same way?"

"You know they do. They've lived through more raids. Just think about it. Once in a while at night you can see any person who lives here suddenly stop what he's doing to listen and look for movement in the dark, and you know that he's heard something which made him shudder. I think that every person who lives here, has known in his bones all along that the day would come when trolls would jump out of the shadows..."

"There you are," said Brenden as his silhouette stepped into the doorway. "Have you seen the sky? There's quite a storm a-coming. Good morning, Roseen."

"Yea," said Olloo, as he stood up. "I smell rain..."

"Onora sent me looking for you to see if you had moved in with Baase or if you'd like to come home for some supper before you get soaked."

"Supper well after midnight sounds good, but do you reckon that the council is going to insist that everyone has to stay awake at night, just as they did two years ago? I sure like normal hours."

"They might. They'll meet tomorrow."

"Oh they probably will," said Olloo, coming to the gate in the doorway and looking out at the storm, "but it wouldn't make much sense. The shawkyn spooghey are out and about in the daytime, and that's when we need to be awake to train them."

"I thought you austringas, as you call yourselves, had your falcons trained."

"Only the older ones, and that's just been to hunt game. What about training them to protect us and to hunt trolls the way the curses have hunted us?"

"That's a good idea, Olloo. You need to tell the council. Would you?"

"I sure would."

"Perfect," said Brenden as he smacked the top board of the gate and turned to leave. "Then you'd better come home and have a nap, because they're meeting this morning at eight sharp."

"Roseen, I'll walk you home if you like," said Olloo.

Roseen gave a shy look at Brenden, who smiled and nodded. "Thanks," she said. "I'd like that, Olloo."

"I'll tell Onora that you're coming," said Brenden as he walked away into the dark.

"So, are we leaving your sister here in the shed?"

"Yes. Let's go, but we'd better hurry."

Far up the east slope of Mount Sliabh, near the end of the trees, a shivering owl called out to answer another one, far away through the timber. As Fnanar paused in the sliding rock rubble to get his breath and let his brutes catch up, he spied the faint light of campfires, above. "Milk-sow," he murmured as he resumed his climb with a lunge. Presently he and his company of brutes clambered onto the ledge with the fires in front of a row of large lava tubes. He made straight for the middle one where his sow knelt, fleshing a skin with a fresh flint. "Ninar-dern," he grunted as he grabbed her by the waist and began snuffling and licking at her neck. "I need juicy-champ."

"Juicy-champ? You come-back after dark, dark, dark and dark with brute, no-brute, brute, no-brute, brute, no-brute, brute, no-brute. Where-be no-brutes? Where-be grab-up-squeakers? Where-be Da?"

"No-brutes be mudful hollow-heads. Gut-rip-birds bloody-rip no-brutes..."

"Where-be Da?"

"Gnydy be mudful hollow-head. Gut-rip-bird bloody-rip Gnydy..."

Ninar-dern gave a rasping sob and furiously wrenched away from Fnanar's grasp. "Where-be grab-up-squeakers?" she snarled. "You-said grab-up-squeakers, grab-up-squeakers, grab-up-squeakers."

"No-be..."

She gave a grating squeal and flung her flint skittering away into the lava tube. "You no-be big-big Thunder-man!" she shouted. "And I no-be your big-big milk-sow," and with that she dashed from the cave and kept on running.

Fnanar sank into his pile of skins and heaved a heavy sigh. He heard running footfalls and sat up. "What do you want Phnyr-phaf?"

"I look-saw Ninar-dern run away over the top. She-be trot-loping down the other-side by-now. She went-by with a face like dark wolf-dog stinker-dung..."

Fnanar sprang to his feet and thrust his chest at Phnyr-phaf with a two fisted thump. "I don't need stinker-sows!" he boomed. "I sent her to whimper-crawl at Dyr's heels for turn-back darty-eye-runoff with us. If he not head-smash her, she can snuffle-champ the pee-spot stinker-bones with the wolf-dogs." He threw back his head and laughed roundly.

Phnyr-phaf was careful to laugh for as long as Fnanar. "You no-be rolly-eye that Ninar-dern will sly-say our no grab-up-squeakers...?"

Fnanar grabbed him by the throat. "Ninar-dern be turn-back run-off. Gnydy be Dyr's slit-eye jump-bite and Ninar-dern's Da. Ninar-dern will be big big-nod-lucky if he doesn't head-smash her, first-look. Big-nod?"

"I big-nod big-nod your every-all-say, Thunder-man," coughed Phnyr-phaf as he strained to breathe.

Fnanar shoved him against the wall of the lava tube. "You will no-no open-mouth tell-of Ninar-dern any-once if you no-like head-smash."

"Who-be Ninar-dern, Thunder-man?"

"Good. Go ay-ooo, ay-ooo, ay-ooo the brutes to my big-rock. It be time to dance plans to go-show grab-up-squeakers who be their thunder-men."

The cramped hall at the end of Vorona's house flashed pink and blue right before a deafening boom made everyone jump. Olloo concluded his testimony by thanking the council and took his seat at the great round table. There was a pause as everyone listened to the torrent of rain drenching the thatch over their heads. Brenden closed his inkwell and stood up.

"Well now, you've all heard Olloo's account of how the strike falcons saved him and the other children from the Marfora Siofra during last night's raid," he said, speaking up. "And many of you in this room saw for yourselves how Doona's shawk spoogh, Onner, almost certainly saved Oisin's life by killing three out of the four trolls which had set upon him with clubs. And if by chance you happened at that moment to be too busy fighting trolls to see for yourselves, surely you saw Onner afterward, valiantly fighting alongside us until the curses were routed. We had no casualties. Every single one of our children was spared, and there are above five and twenty slain trolls out in the grass right now. And did you not hear him say that the kids have only trained the strike falcons to hunt? What we have witnessed is merely a sample of these birds' valor. These birds chose to do this. Can each of you picture what might be accomplished if these birds were trained to fight with us? What if we take the kids' little falconry pastime seriously and choose to expand it?" He paused, looking 'round the table at the unreadable faces. 

"You're proposing that we raise a much larger number of the birds and train them to kill trolls?" said Martyn.

"Indeed sir, that is exactly what I am suggesting."

"I've heard that the children have been teaching them to hunt game for their families' tables," said Donachan as he traded looks with Martyn. "Is that working?"

"It certainly is. Olloo's shawk spoogh, Baase, as a matter of fact, brought down a magnificent six tine buck for us last week."

There was a stir of murmurs amongst the council members, particularly the mossbacks who had been most opposed from the beginning to Olloo or any of the children having strike falcons.

"So," said Donachan, "you suggest training them to include the Marfora Siofra as another kind of quarry?"

"To render us the most effective. Remember that our children are alive and with us this morning in spite of the birds having no training to slay trolls. Training and more shawkyn spooghey may very well end the Elf Killer menace for good.

"But I'm not suggesting that we train the strike falcons in order to actually go out and hunt down trolls," he said, speaking up over the rising murmurs. "What I am saying is that the strike falcons show such loyalty to their bond mates, as they refer to both master and bird, that they will do everything within their power to guard and to protect them. It would seem then, that if we had a commanding number of strike falcons, each bonded to its austringa and trained, that we would at last have a way of completely protecting ourselves against the trolls."

"Well said," said Vorona as she rose to her feet and glanced around the table while the room hushed. "Thank you, Brenden. Please have a seat." She paused, waiting for a peal of thunder to subside. "The cursed trolls are upon us again, ladies and gentlemen. You all know very well that they'll be back. We may have run them off, but when they come back they'll know what they must overcome in order to go on eating us. And even if they're somewhere licking their wounds this morning, you can be certain that they are planning this very minute to return, and that they'll not stop until there is not an Elf left alive in Lobadh."

"But we are so few," said Creena and Rory's mother. "Even with all the children, we number scarcely fifty. Who would be these trained strike falcon handlers? You surely don't mean to use the children."

Vorona glanced at Brenden's eye. "It's because we are so few that we've no choice, Brede," she said as a fiery look swept across her face. "In fact, if we're well protected, everyone needs to at least make the attempt to bond with a strike falcon, even you." She paused, waiting for the laughter to die away. "Do some of you think I'm being excessive? How many trolls have we guessed there to be over the years? Eight hundred? A thousand or better? And you point out that we are fifty? Oisin slew two troll last night. Did any Elf here slay more? Do I need to remind you that Doona's valiant bird slay six? What's fifty times six?"

"So the Council's decreed that every man, woman and child should be bond mate to his own strike falcon, aye?" said Oisin.

"Yea," said Olloo, "and they expect me to take charge of the whole thing. I'm supposed be the master of the undertaking. Can you imagine? I'm just a kid."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," said Doona. "You were the first one to dare raise one. And you were the one who discovered that you can share thought pictures with one, just like with tarraing pictiur..."

"It takes a person, born with the ability to trade pictures with the picture catcher unicorn, in order to be able to do it with one of them," said Olloo, "but I think just about anybody can share pictures with a strike falcon, so long as he and the bird have a bond. Everyone who has a strike falcon so far can share what he sees in his own heart with his bird. You'd think that if he had to be born with a special gift to, that not everybody..."

"Yes," said Doona, "but you were the first to figure it all out, and you were the first one to train one to hunt, and the first one to..."

"Maybe I was, but having me in charge of all the austringas, is like having me in charge of some kind of army. I'm just a kid."

"And the mossbacks think you're the best for the job," said Oisin.

"And," said Doona, "I know very well that you'll do the job the best you can and that you'll succeed. You always do."

"Yea? Well, now I'm going to be forced to work my tail off so I can prove that everyone's trust in me hasn't been misplaced. I guess that'll keep me out of mischief for the rest of my life. I've got plenty of work ahead of me and I might as well get to it," he said as he rose from his chair and paused by the door. "We go after eggs first thing tomorrow morning, Oisin. Make sure you're armed in case we run into uncooperative parents." And with that, he stepped out of their new cottage into the wet morning and closed the door.

On the other side of the mountains, the following evening, Dyr lolled on his rock in front of the Hooter Cave while it grew dark and drummed his fingers as he listened to a shivering owl flying from tree to tree, giving breezy whistles as it searched for voles.
"
Boof!
"
he thought as he smacked the rock and sat upright.
"
It's all-got ho-humdy. The jump-bites are just hunt-grabs. And the grab-ups? They're just beasties and hairy-ho-hum-champs. There no-be no-be juicy juicy-champs since all the grab-up-squeakers went no-see no-see. I no-even have to choose who hunt-grabs, since no-be Fnanar.
"
He closed his eyes, listening to the owl.