Fairy Metal Thunder (Songs of Magic, #1) (10 page)

“Are we there yet?” Rhodia gasped.

“I hope so,” Aoide replied.

Below them, the Acheron River grew wider and
shallower, eventually spreading out into a dark marsh that
stretched from horizon to horizon, full of swampy little islands.
Stalk-shaped plants, giant sugarcanes, grew from the swamp, some of
them taller and thicker than city watchtowers. Their foliage
overlapped, concealing most of the ground beneath them.

Aoide sighed in relief when Icarus began to
spiral down from the sky towards the swamp. Aoide and Rhodia
followed.

He landed on a small, marshy island, where
Aoide and Rhodia’s bare feet splashed into the wet mud. Icarus’s
black boots sank even farther. The thick towers of cane
overshadowed them, and they were walled in by dense stands of
smaller canes, which were still four times taller than Aoide.

The entire swamp smelled sweet, as if they’d
landed in a confectioner’s shop. The humid, syrupy air was dense
with flying insects.

“This place is so gross,” Rhodia said. She
lifted one foot, which was covered in gloppy, sticky mud.

An insect landed on Aoide’s arm and pressed
its big, trumpet-shaped snout against her skin. It began to suck,
and the sensation was painful. She slapped it away, but its mouth
left a coin-sized circle of itchy red on her arm.

Overhead, a fuzzy creature the size of a
small dog with huge, leathery wings swooped down at Aoide with its
mouth open. She and Rhodia screamed and ducked, while Icarus backed
away, drawing his bright iron sword.

The creature ate a swath through the flying
bugs, leaving a streak of empty air behind it. It tilted upwards
and flew high along the trunk of a giant old cane. It grabbed onto
the thick leaves on the cane’s side and hung upside down, chewing
its mouthful of bugs.

“What was that?” Aoide asked.

“A sugar bat,” Icarus said. “The sugar cane
makes the swamp water sweet, and the sugar water attracts all these
swarms of bugs. So the bats grow very fat here.”

“Ugh,” Rhodia said, waving away more of the
trumpet-mouthed suckerflies. “I can’t believe we had to come all
the way to the sugar swamps. I’m ready for a nice bed and a
tea-and-pastry.”

“You won’t find those here,” Icarus said. He
swung his long sword at a wall of sugarcane, felling a dozen of the
plants. Then he stepped forward and swung the sword again, hacking
a path through the dense growth. “Come on.”

Aoide and Rhodia followed at distance, leery
of his sword. Iron was deadly to fairies, which was why the
Queensguard used iron weapons.

The mud slurped at their feet with every
step, and they swatted flies from their faces and arms as they
walked along the path of chopped sugarcane. High, dense staffs of
cane surrounding them on both sides.

“We are
literally
in the sticks,”
Rhodia complained.

“Watch out for the swamp bugs,” Icarus called
back. “They’ll suck the sweetness right out of you.”

“I don’t have much sweetness left,” Rhodia
said.

They hopped over a creek of dark sugar water
onto the next marshy island, which was also dense with cane. Icarus
held up a hand for them to stop, and then untied a spiral-shaped
goat horn from his belt. He blew a long note to announce their
arrival.

“Who blows there?” a deep, gristly voice
asked through the screen of sugarcane.

“I am Icarus, a captain of the Queensguard,”
Icarus said. “With me are Aoide the Lutist and Rhodia the
Harpist.”

“Fairies!” the voice sneered. There was a
sound like hacking, and then spitting. “Go away.”

“We’ve come on the orders of the Queen,”
Icarus said.

“
Your
Queen,” the gristly voice said.
“We are queenless here.”

“All of Faerie is the domain of Queen Mab,”
Icarus said.

“Not this patch of swamp,” the voice
replied.

“We’ve come to hire your services,” Icarus
said. “The Queen offers a generous payment.”

“I don’t take fairy gold,” the voice said.
“It has a way of turning to broom flowers in a day or two.”

“We have brought many forms of payment,”
Icarus said, looking Aoide. Aoide carried in her pouch an
assortment of jewels and silver coins, all of her savings, as well
as the savings of Rhodia, Neus, and Skezg. The Queen was making
them pay the hunter’s fee.

“Then come around,” the voice said. “There’s
a break in the cane off to your left.”

Icarus sheathed his sword. The three fairies
followed the wall of cane around the curve of the marshy island and
found the opening. Aoide and Rhodia shared worried looks as they
followed Icarus through.

At the highest point in the island sat a hut
made of sugarcane, brambles and mud. A garden of beets grew beside
it.

Next to the hut was a sugarcane the size of a
tree. An elf with graying beard stubble and a tattered old
gardening hat sat back against it, chewing a juicy splinter of
cane, his horsehair clothes and sandals caked in dried mud. The elf
eyed them suspiciously.

“Thank you for the invitation,” Icarus said.
“We would like to hire you as a tracker and hunter. Four objects of
high magic must be found.”

“And you fancy city fairies came all the way
here, just to ask a simple country elf for help.” The elf
smirked.

“But you aren’t just a simple country elf,”
Icarus said. “The scrolls say you were a highly decorated knight in
the Great Elf and Fairy War.”

“A war your side won,” the elf said. “It
wasn’t so ‘Great’ for our side.” The elf spat.

“That was thousands of years ago,” Icarus
said.

“Doesn’t seem so long ago.” The elf sneered
at Aoide and Rhodia. “The whole realm used to be known as Aelfer,
or the Elflands
.
I bet you young brats didn’t even know
that.”

“I’m not a young brat,” Aoide said. “I’m
nearly seven centuries old. And Rhodia just had her five hundredth
birthday.”

“And I’ve lived ten thousand years longer
than you children!” the elf barked. “Show some respect for your
elders.”

“The Queen requires your service,” Icarus
repeated.

“Now, hold your quarterhorses there, city
fairy.” The elf stood, leaning on a thick staff of sugarcane. He
looked at the golden seal of the Queen on Icarus’s breastplate, and
then pointed at Aoide and Rhodia. “I know what you are, warrior,
but who are these two?”

“As I said, Aoide the Lutist and Rhodia the
Harpist. Musicians.”

“You’ve brought musicians?” the elf asked. He
raised his hat in greeting, revealing long and stringy hair. His
left ear was tall and pointy, but his right ear ended in scar
tissue, and the tip of it was missing. “Ladies, welcome to my back
corner of the sugar swamps. I am called Hoke the Swamp Elf,
unfortunately. A wind of ill luck blew me here long ago.”

“Hoke?” Rhodia said. “I’ve never heard of an
elf name like that.”

Aoide elbowed her to be quiet.

“If you like, you can call me by my given
name, Hokealussiplatytorpinquarnartnuppy
Melaerasmussanatolinkarrutorpicus
Darnathiopockettlenocbiliotroporiqqua Bellefrost. But most people
call me ‘Hoke.’” He chewed on his sugarcane splinter. “So, you
brought musicians to entertain me. Why don’t you play a song for
us?”

“That’s just the problem,” Aoide said.
“Someone stole our instruments.”

“And so the purpose of our visit—” Icarus
began.

“I would think musicians could improvise,”
Hoke said. “Can’t you sing or nothing? There’s not much music to be
had, way out here. No taverns, no amphitheater. Nobody to talk to,
really.”

“I would like to discuss the terms of our
bargain—” Icarus tried again.

“First, I want my song,” Hoke said. “Then
I’ll hear whatever it is you want to say.”

Aoide and Rhodia looked at each other. Rhodia
cleared her throat.

“
Mi mi mi mi miiiii…
” Rhodia sang,
warming up.

Aoide sang the first line of the song, and
then Rhodia joined in. It was “Sometimes in the Night,” a ballad
about an elf and a fairy who fell in love during the Great War, and
had to keep their love a secret. It began as a sweet and romantic
song, and ended tragically.

As Aoide and Rhodia sang the last verse,
Aoide thought she could see a little wetness in Hoke’s eyes. He
wiped them with the back of his muddy hand and looked away.

“I do miss being young,” Hoke said. “Young
and foolish and ready to love.”

Aoide and Rhodia smiled and curtsied, as if
he’d applauded.

Hoke looked at Icarus and sighed.

“What is this help that you and Mad Queen Mab
want from me?” Hoke asked.

“You will not refer to Her Majesty that way!
It is forbidden!” Icarus snapped. His black-gloved hand flew to the
handle of his sheathed sword.

“She’s the one crushed the whole realm under
her iron boot.”

“Treason!” Icarus said.

“Relax, Icarus,” Aoide said. “He’s ready to
listen now. Right, Hoke?”

“I will listen, but no promises,” Hoke said.
“I am very busy here.”

Rhodia looked around the swamp with a puzzled
expression, probably wondering what could keep him busy in this
dismal place.

“Go ahead, Icarus,” Aoide said.

“As I have been attempting to say,” Icarus
said, “Four instruments of high magic have been stolen.”

“And I can guess it from there,” Hoke said.
“You want me and my cornhorses to track them down.”

“What’s a cornhorse?” Rhodia asked.

“Some call ‘em unicorns, I call ‘em
cornhorses,” Hoke said. “Best creature for sniffing out magic,
except for a banshee wolf, and good luck finding one of those for
hire.”

“So, where are the unicorns?” Rhodia
asked.

“Unicorn’s a shy critter,” Hoke said.
“Everybody get down low, on your knees, so you don’t look so darn
big.”

Aoide and Rhodia lifted their skirts and
squatted on their heels in the mud. They looked around the thick
stands of cane, eager to see a live unicorn. Aoide had only seen
them in sculpture or paintings. They were very rare, very
skittish.

“You, too,” Hoke said to Icarus.

“A Queensguard will not kneel to an elf,”
Icarus said.

“You aren’t kneeling
to
me,
wasp-brain,” Hoke said. “You want these cornhorses to come or
not?”

“Just sit down already,” Aoide whispered.

Icarus scowled at her. He spread an
embroidered silk handkerchief on a muddy log of fallen sugarcane
before sitting down on it. He kept his hand on his belt, near his
sword.

Hoke squatted and lay his sugarcane staff on
its side in the mud. He hummed a high note.

“Cinnamon!” Hoke sang out. “Berrymuffin!
Buttercake! Come on, girls!”

There was a tiny splashing sound behind a
thick patch of sugarcane. The first unicorn nosed her way out,
timidly, tiptoeing on her cloven hooves. She was smaller than a
pygmy pony, with a reddish coat. Her tail and mane, and the spiral
horn that spiked out from the center of her forehead, were the
color of dark cinnamon.

She took a few steps forward on trembling
legs, then stopped, staring at the fairies.

“She’s just a little scared,” Hoke
whispered.

“Awww,” Rhodia whispered. “It’s okay, little
girl.”

The second unicorn emerged just as
cautiously. Her coat was the color of brown sugar, her mane and
horn a strawberry shade of red, her eyes like big blueberries. She
stood close to the first unicorn, their sides nearly touching.

“Buttercake!” Hoke called again.

The third unicorn walked out meekly, with her
nose lowered until it almost dragged the swampy earth. Her coat was
the color of yellow cake, and her mane and horn were like pink
frosting. Buttercake stayed behind the first two unicorns, gazing
at Aoide with huge chocolate-colored eyes.

“Hi, Buttercake,” Aoide whispered,
smiling.

“Don’t speak to my cornhorses!” Hoke
snapped.

“Are we ready to give them the scent?” Icarus
asked.

“Not so fast, city fairy,” Hoke said. “First
I see my payment.”

Icarus nodded at Aoide.

Aoide sighed and lifted the drawstring pouch.
She was determined to keep as much of her friends’ savings as she
could.

She chose a big ruby, one of her own jewels,
and held it out to Hoke. “Will this do as a first payment?”

The elf yawned.

Aoide took out a pearl, also her own, and
laid it next to the ruby in her palm. “This?”

Hoke crossed his arms and looked away.

“You don’t have to use all your own things to
pay him,” Rhodia said. “Throw in that emerald Neus gave you.”

Aoide added the emerald to her palm.

The elf squinted one eye and leaned close to
Aoide’s hand, then snatched the gemstones away. They disappeared
from his hand—he must have slipped them into a pocket somewhere in
his mud-caked clothes.

“And twice as much when the task is done,”
Hoke said.

“We can do that,” Icarus said.

Aoide bit her lip. It was going to cost
nearly everything, leaving the four musicians broke. They had no
choice, though.

“Now, we’ll need the scent,” Hoke said. He
pointed at Aoide. “You. Come and stand by me. Don’t move too fast,
or you’ll spook off the cornhorses.”

She did as the elf said, stepping lightly and
carefully.

“Buttercake,” Hoke whispered. He pulled a
beet from the garden and held it out. “Come here, little girl.”

Buttercake advanced slowly towards Hoke,
giving Aoide a wide berth and a spooked look. Buttercake nibbled
the beet in Hoke’s hand, and the elf petted her mane.

“There,” Hoke said. “Now, we need to find
these missing instruments, Buttercake. Have a sniff.”

His calloused hand seized Aoide’s and put it
close to the unicorn’s mouth. Buttercake sniffed Aoide’s palm, then
swished her pink tail.

“What kind of instruments am I looking for,
exactly?” Hoke asked.