Elf Killers (6 page)

"Look 'ee here. There's actually a bit of mud down here. See? There went our kids, all a-heading into that hole. Looks like they made it this far..."

"Well of course," said Edard. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I can make out troll prints, no mistake about it, right on top..."

"Then we don't know what we're in for," said Sigurd, sitting up with interest. "So where do you reckon that hole goes?"

"Right up the side of Mount Sliabh," said Edard, "underground all the way..."

"Fates!" said Sigurd. "I can just see running into the Marfora Siofra up there."

"No you wouldn't," said Jamys. "You wouldn't even see my hind end."

"No problem. I haven't been looking at it..."

"So how do we go in there with them a-seeing like owls?" said Edard. "Did anyone trouble to lug along a lamp and some oil?"

"I sure did," said Brenden's wife, Onora, as a soaring hawk gave a cry from far above.

"Well then Onora, if we can get it lit out here, do you think you can keep it going all day in there without it going out?" said Edard.

"I'll help her make sure," said Vorona, "as long as you fellows have the sense to keep your swords out."

Edard pulled out his sun crystal from around his neck.

"I'm getting some sticks," said Jamys. "Somebody find tinder."

Radella found Olloo's dirk hidden by the tiny stream racing down the tunnel. She handed him the knife. "What is to be done with Mian and Aland?" she thought.

"We'd make pyres, since they died in battle," said Oisin, "if only we had them outside."

"The children have seen enough horrors," thought Radella. "Give me time to put them in shrouds. When I'm done, I'll call you. Then we can bear them out." And with that she steered them into the opening to the next passage.

"My word!" cried Olloo over the sound of thundering water in the blackness ahead. "What is this?"

"Something safe enough, I'd reckon," said Oisin. "Just be careful."

With a gasp, Olloo tumbled into a racing current, down the steep slope which rushed over his shoulders, as he crawled along on all fours, struggling to keep his face out of the water.

"I'm right behind you," shouted Oisin.

Soon they could make out a faint glow up the tunnel, and before long they beheld an enormous empty lava chamber, all aglow with phosphorescent mushrooms, sown in a thick carpet covering huge terraces. Water cascaded from one terrace to the next, where it collected in great warm pools. Presently they heard frolicsome laughter. 

"Look at that," said Olloo.

Kieran went bouncing with the current from one pool, all the way down to tumble into the one below. "Hoy!" he hollered. "Come on in! The water's as warm as your bath and clear as a crystal!"

There were bobbing wet heads everywhere. Oisin and Olloo found themselves struck dumb by the glee all about, after what they'd just been through.

"Well nobody knows, do they?" said Oisin.

"I'd think the Sprites would..." said Olloo.

"You can count on it.”

"So I guess it's up to us to tell everyone."

"As soon as Radella lets us know. Until she does, why don't we see if we can enjoy the water like everyone else?" And with that the two of them waded out into the first pool and lunged forth like a pair of exhausted frogs. Right away they contented themselves with meandering along the bottom, keeping their shoulders submerged while they looked about over the top of the water.

"Look," said Oisin. "Their plews are swimming along with everyone, just like we'd been living here with them."

"Look down at your feet," said Olloo. "There are snow white catfish all over."

Oisin wasn't paying one bit of attention. He was watching Doona and Kieran waist deep in the water, laughing and splashing each other.

"What's so special about Kieran flirting with Doona, anyway?" said Olloo. "He's been pestering her for ages."

"Kieran's sweet on Doona?"

"Well yea, everybody knows that."

"Well I didn't," said Oisin as he ducked under and swam off by himself.

The moment the lamp was lit, Brenden drew his claymore and led the way into the tunnel with first Jamys and then Edard following, hauling Sigurd. Behind them came Onora with her lamp and Vorona, followed by the rest of their party of twenty-seven. They walked for a very long way, stumbling here and there in the leaping and wavering shadows of the lamp, scarcely talking. From time to time Brenden would stop dead still as everyone listened to the silence and trickling water before going on again.

They had just started walking again after one such pause when Brenden heard snuffling and meaty footfalls just ahead in the wet. Jamys did too, and dropped the foot end of Sigurd's stretcher in a panic to draw his sword.

"Hey!" cried Sigurd, waking from his nap to his painfully buckled knees.

Three quick twangs of a bowstring sounded from behind them as arrows flew by in the dark. Up ahead came an urgent gurgling as a huge troll toppled forward into the light, still tightly clutching his arm where Mian had cut him.

"I want to see my kill," said Vorona as she stepped across Sigurd with her bow to stand warily before the troll. "Stick him, Brenden. I don't trust him, yet."

Brenden ran his sword deep into the troll at the collar bone, cut the brute's throat, and then tugged at the arrows sticking from his chest. "That was really something, Vorona."

"What I want to know," she said with a fierce look as she nocked another arrow, "is if that was the only one of the curses, or if there are more of 'em up the tunnel."

"What I want to know," said Jamys, "is whether Brenden and I should be the ones to stay in the lead, or..."

Verona turned right to him with her knitted brow and said, "Well now, I don't see any harm in it if ye don't act like teats on a boar."

Olloo stayed in the water for a while and then noticed Alvina sitting on a rock not far away. He swam over to her and climbed out. "How much longer do you reckon it'll take us to get through this mountain?"

"Another night and then we'll come out on the east side of the mountain before the sun sets again." she thought in his head.

"Night would be kind of risky, don't you think? I mean, that's right when the trolls wake up."

"Trolls stay away from that side of the mountain," she thought.

"Why would that be?"

"They fear the terror birds of the Great Strah."

"You mean the shawkyn spooghey? The strike falcons? They're real?"

"Certainly, but how could you ever doubt it?" she thought. "Isn't that why your people have always lived on the west side of the mountain in spite of the danger of the Marfora Siofra?"

"Well I've heard about shawkyn spooghey before, but I was born in the West Maidenhair Woods and never once crossed Mount Sliabh. I only heard the elders speak of them once in a great while, so I just figured that they were legend."

"The shawkyn spooghey aren't a myth, Olloo. They're fierce enough to take out the bowels of a troll with a single kick or rip out his windpipe with a bite."

"Fates! How is this safe? Most of us are just children." 

Chapter 5

Fnarry-irrny was Dyr's sow, which allowed her to choose the best place in the biggest cave to spread out her things, rear her children and to attend to Dyr's whims and needs. She chose an airy alcove just inside the mouth of the Hooter Cave, well out of the weather, which allowed her the most convenient access to the fire just outside and the best place to flaunt her wealth of beads, shells and skins to all the envious sows who were forced to pass by her on the way to their respective spots further back in the cave. One troll evening (which was just before dawn), she rolled her bushy red head from side to side, gnawing and tugging on an Elf leg as she watched her family eat.

"Boof!" cried her eldest son, as he spat out a great cud of chewed Elf onto the ground. "Gnydy hee-hee-grabbed my grab-up-squeaker rump. Every time, I get shin-bone-meat. I eat rump."

"You think like rump," said his younger brother. "You snuff-snuff like rump..."

"Gnydy juicy-champs my rump, Da, and you let him," said the eldest, as two wolf-dogs squeezed in to bristle at each other and snatch up his cud of Elf. "You be easy-let, Da. Gnydy will head-smash you, then he'll be Thunder-man. And if Gnydy be Thunder-man, then I'll no be Thunder-man. I'll be hoo-hoo-crawl-animal." He turned to the younger. "But you'd be hum-dee-dumdle with that, Fnana-fnyr. You already be crawl-animal for yuck-champs. Poofy-letter Da grand-showed you..."

"Rump-jaws, Fnanar!" roared Fnana-fnyr as he shot to his feet to run at Fnanar's head with a furious kick.

Fnanar ducked as the kick flew by his ear, flinging Fnana-fnyr onto his back, the arm of Elf he was eating smeared all up one hip.

Dyr stopped chewing and glowered at his sons from under his bony brows.

"Ooot-ooot! ooot-ooot! ooot-ooot!" cried Fnanar as he flailed his chest with his fists. "That be proud-show rump-trick." He wheeled 'round to leave the alcove and stepped right into Dyr's stony fist which put him flat on his back, seeing stars. 

Dyr was a-straddle him immediately, furiously strangling him. 

"Duda! Nyr-vyr-nirr-trad!" screamed Fnarry-irrny, ropes of beads and greasy breasts flying about as she sprang at Dyr to claw at his gnarly hateful fingers. "No! Stop!" 

"He's begged for-this ever-since he wet-held Fnana-fnyr under the fast-water," he said, growling spit between his teeth as he gave an extra shove and stood up. He tramped out of the Hooter Cave and past the glowing fires.

Dyr paused to glance at some kids who were poking sticks and giggling at an Elf child who was well beyond utterances of any kind, tethered and trembling uncontrollably as she awaited her turn over the coals. "No be Fnanar and Fnana-fnyr," he sighed. "Never-once have Fnanar and Fnana-fnyr giggle-romped that well-together. I can't even hunt with them-together."

He shook his head and walked out under the stars. A shivering owl called. "One-thing I know-be with all head-nod," he said. "Fnanar has-had his last greedy-champ in the Hooter Cave. Let him yank-bite squeaker-rump from Gnydy. He got his hairy-face new-name cold-time, cold-time, cold-time, cold-time ago.

"But I have-to slip-let Fnarry-irrny pincher-twist me so Fnanar gets-to stay until he's giggle-grabbed a sow. But he grabby-wants the biggest milk sow. Mudful hollow-head. He drool-dreams the wrong end. Hoof! He has sly-kids in every-other cave but the Hooter Cave and diggy-fingers his nose at me.

"Ooot!" he bellowed into the echoes, silencing the owl. He gave his chest a good three thump drum. "And let Gnydy come at me for a good head-smash. He needs his thunder-stamp, too."

The party of young Elves broke out in gasps of awe at the sudden sight of stars overhead as the Fire Sprites led them out of the last tunnel to the edge of a great lake in the crater of Mount Sliabh.

"Alvina!" cried Olloo as he looked all around him. "Have we gotten to the east side?"

"Not yet," she thought in everyone's head. "This is Lake Na Gealai. Its water washes our tubes. It has no bottom. This is where all of Mount Sliabh's fire and stone once came from."

She led them for a long way over barren ropes of rock like frozen taffy, around the edge of the lake until at last they came to a small brushy hollow, wooded with small cottonwood trees whose leaves rattled like raindrops, though the breeze scarcely rippled the waters of the lake. There they found a great knotted rope of rock, where they laid out Mian and Aland on a deep bed of sticks and set them alight. Before the fire died down, she had them moving once more, following the lake's edge again until at last she led them through a cleft in the crater's rim, out onto the east slope. "Below you is the Eastern Maidenhair Woods which runs down to the foot of Mount Sliabh. From there on is the Great Strah," she thought to everyone.

"It certainly looks peaceful enough," said Olloo, staring out over the woods to the dark ocean of grass which stretched clean to the horizon under the vault of stars to meet the great orange moon, just rising. "So the strike falcons just stay in the grass, do they?"

"No," thought Radella. "They stay and hunt in the grass for the most part, but we've seen them chase game far into the woods and up the slopes."