The Dark Portal (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 3) (26 page)

“Come back here!” Jake ordered, only to be ignored.

“What are they?” Dani cried.

“Not sure yet, but
they certainly seem to fit what Emrys said about the pixies. Believe me, I intend to find out when I catch one, little spies!”

“How
are you going to do that?” She chased after him.

Jake wa
s already following the tiny woodland folk from along the ground, his angry strides crunching over the fallen leaves as he abandoned the forest path. “Good question,” he conceded. Then he pulled off his jacket as he walked and tossed it to her. “I’ll knock ’em down with my telekinesis. Use this for a net to catch whoever falls.”

“Don’t hurt them, Jake!”

“I won’t. But just because they’re small, that doesn’t mean they’re harmless. They seemed awfully curious about my Garnock story. They could be working with him, for all we know.”

“They could?” she asked
, scrambling after him.

“
Why else would they be spying on us? Keep up, Dani. Come back here, you lot!” he yelled up into the trees. “Why are you eavesdropping on us? I want answers! You’re only making it worse for yourself!”

Spotting one of
the wee folk running away among the leaves, Jake brought up his hands and shot an invisible lightning-bolt of energy from his fingertips at the slender branch that was their getaway route.

Dani heard a small shriek from above and brought Jake’s coat up like a net, racing to catch the mouse-sized fellow as he plummeted past the branches toward the ground
.

Miniature, high-pitched voices screamed from the branches above:
“Whorty!”

Dani
dove for him. “Got you!”

CHAPTER SIX
TEEN

Pixie Mischief

J
ake spun around and saw Dani swiftly close his coat up like a sack.

Then he laughed aloud at
the sudden panic on her face as their tiny captive started thrashing around inside the makeshift bag.

She glanced at him in desperation. “Jake!”

“Coming! Don’t drop him! He’ll get away.”

As he ran toward her, Dani grimaced and held the makeshift bag out at arm’s length, waiting for him to take it.

All the while, the mouse-sized man inside it was moving around furiously. They could hear his muffled protests. “Let me out!”

“Hang on, Whorty!
We’ll save you!” With a voice only as loud as a cricket’s chirp—but much angrier—one of the tiny men in the tree shouted at his fleeing brethren. “Come back here, you cowards! We need to rescue Whortleberry! Quickly, get into formation!”

A tiny horn blew from somewhere up in the tree, then came a
tapping of little running footsteps along the branch. Before Jake could take the sack out of Dani’s hands to deal with their prisoner, the wee forest folk rallied and charged.

“Attack
!”

Suddenly, Jake and Dani were under siege
as the pixies rained down acorns like cannonballs and started shooting their bows at them with splinter-sized arrows.

“Ow! Ow!” Jake and Dani said.

“Release Whortleberry! Put him down, you oversized oafs!”

More pixies were joining the fray with every second that passed. At their size, they must have known full well that their only hope was overwhelmin
g their enemies with sheer numbers.

It was like walking into a cloud of mosquitoes. The pixie archers and acorn artillery on the branches above them continued to fire, but now the tiny shock troops swung down off bits of twine and landed on their heads and shoulders, where they proceeded to beat them and pull their hair.

“Get off o’ me!” Jake yelled to no avail as now the infantry rushed over the leafy ground and stormed the beaches of their feet, and immediately set about climbing up the bluffs of their knees.

Dani shrieked as the pixies swarmed up them, clutching miniscule handfuls of fabric to pull themselves up; they scaled Jake’s tan trousers and the puffy skirts of Dani’
s party dress as easily as squirrels running up a tree.

She k
ept trying to brush them off, but they’d merely catch themselves on the green satin ribbons of her sash, swing from it, and scamper up once more.

T
enacious as she was, however, the carrot-head held onto the sack containing their prisoner.

Jake was losing patience
with the pixies’ battle. Their punches felt like harmless finger taps, but the pinpricks from their spears kind of stung. “Stop that!”

“Let Whortleberry go, you ugly giant!” their leader shouted in his ear from his perch on Jake’s shoulder.

“Why were you spying on us?” he demanded.

They wouldn’t an
swer, too intent on beating Jake and Dani into submission.

Plagued from all direction
s by angry pixies, neither of them realized that all the poking and prodding from the tiny fighters’ spears was herding them deliberately toward a particular spot on the forest floor.

They were so distracted by th
e attack, they had not noticed the fat little pony grazing contentedly among the tall shrubberies several yards away; nor did they see a distant team of pixies slide the halter over the pony’s head and slap it on the rump.

But the pony suddenly vaulted to attention and broke into a spooked gallop, and until that very moment, Jake and Dani had no idea that they were standing on a trap concealed beneath the autumn leaves.

“Retreat!” the tiny leader hollered to his troops.

Instantly,
the pixies dove off them all at once, leaving them standing there, still dazed by the attack and baffled as to why it had suddenly stopped.

But even at that moment, the pony
yards away leaped into motion; the ropes went taut, racing through pulleys far above in the tree, and suddenly, the two of them were scooped off their feet, clunking their heads together as they fell into the pixies’ snare.

T
he rope netting instantly lifted them high, higher, into the tree as the spooked pony ran.

Smushed together in the trap, they
gripped the ropes of the net that now held them, and neither stopped screaming until they reached the top of the giant oak tree.

Dangling many, many feet above the ground, at least they had an admirable view of the lovely Welsh landscape.

They were terrified but could see for miles around: the town, the coalmine, even the distant school and cemetery.

Jake’s heart was pounding and he could hear Dani practically hyperventilating beside him.

“Jake?” she squeaked. “What just happened?”

“You’re
good and caught, that’s what,” a small but authoritative voice said. “They don’t look like tree goblins to me. Captain Coltsfoot? Explain.”

“They kidnapped Whortleberry, sire.”

“Is that so?”

As the trap spun slowly
on its main rope, rotating to face the tree trunk, Jake and Dani gasped in amazement to find the pixies’ base camp right before their eyes.

At an intersection of two main branches, a h
orde of pixies stood on a ledge-shaped tree fungus, inspecting them with obvious hostility. They were about five inches tall, with pointy ears and pointy noses, rosy cheeks, and outdoorsy complexions. More of them kept hopping out of their papery, round shelter—an abandoned hornets’ nest—to see what was going on.

The tiny,
robed king with an intricately carved walnut shell for a crown turned to his Captain of the Guard, awaiting an explanation.

“Your Majesty,” Coltsfoot started, stepping forward.

Jake furrowed his brow when he saw him. Coltsfoot turned out to be the same tiny fellow who had stood on his shoulder seconds ago.
How did he get up here so fast?

Dani couldn’t contain herself. “Who are you?” she burst out.

Captain Coltsfoot started to protest, but the king looked pleased by the question. “I am King Furze—oh, and here is my wife, Queen Meadowfoil. Hullo, my little sweet sedge.” King Furze took his wife’s hand and kissed her knuckles as the tiny queen stepped out of the hornets’ nest and joined them.

“What’s afoot, my dear?” she inquired, staring at their captives in the net.

“Our brave head of security has informed me these hideous giants have kidnapped one of our people.”

“Oh, no!” said the queen.

Jake strove to take control of the situation. “First, we aren’t giants—”

“Well, yo
u’re certainly not tree goblins,” the king replied. “That is what my soldiers usually catch when they venture into our territory.”

“W
e are humans,” Dani said.

“And your men were spying on us,
” Jake said.

“Well, you’re the one who’s trespassing. These are our woods. We have every right to eavesdrop on intru
ders if we wish, and besides, without humans, who would we make fun of?”

The pixies laughed at the king’s jest.

Jake and Dani exchanged a scowl
. Coltsfoot stepped over to King Furze. Hiding his mouth behind his hand, he whispered something in His Majesty’s ear.

“Really?” King Furze murm
ured. “Indeed…hmm.” The tiny chieftain then passed along the secret message to his wife.

Queen Meadowfoil’s dainty face turned grim.
She turned to Jake and Dani. “Humans, we have just been informed that the reason our soldiers were spying on you is because you were discussing a matter of some interest to our tribe. The so-called black fog. You have information on who or what this thing may be?”

“It’s just a theory—” Da
ni started, but Jake interrupted.

“Careful, Dani. This
could be another trick. Emrys said that pixies are crafty. He also said they’re thieves. They can’t be trusted.”

“I beg your pardon!” King Furze looked outraged.

Coltsfoot aimed his spear at Jake in warning. “You’ll show Their Majesties respect!”

“Nice pony.
Where did you get him, eh?” Jake retorted. “See, Dani? I’m sure they stole him.”

“We liberated him!” King Furze exclaimed. “Poor Tim. He used to be a pit pony down in the
coalmine before we freed him. Trust me, he’s much happier with us.”

“Underground is no place for a pony,” Queen Meadowfoil agreed, then she hesitated
, with a slightly nervous look. “Especially with the strange beasts lurking down there lately.”

“Now answer the King’s question!” C
oltsfoot ordered Jake. “Tell Their Majesties what you told the orangey girl about the black fog and who it really is.”

“Orangey girl?” Dani muttered.

Jake narrowed his eyes at the tiny soldier. “Make me.”

“I could always cut yo
u down. Long fall for your kind,” Coltsfoot warned.

“But first, free
Whortleberry—or else!” said the king.

Dani gripped the rope netting with a frightened look at t
he distant ground. “Jake, I think we should do as he says. This is no time for your stubbornness. I’m going to let Whortleberry go.”

“Fine,” he muttered.

Smushed as she was by the trap, Dani gingerly opened the makeshift sack of his coat and freed their pixie captive. She let him climb onto her palm and then stretched out her hand so he could hop off onto the ledge-fungus.

“Starchwort, Featherfew, quickly, go
and help him,” the queen said.

“Whorty!” The other two pixies steadied Whortleberry, slapping
him on the back with smiles all around. “We thought we’d lost you!’

“I’m all right, I’m all right,” he assured everyone, though he still looked rather shaken.

After Featherfew had walked Whortleberry in toward the safety of the hornets’ nest to recover from his ordeal, King Furze eyed Jake closely. “Starchwort?” he said all of a sudden. “Bring out Wake-robin. I think these two need to hear his story.”

“Yes, Your M
ajesty.” Starchwort dashed into the hornets’ nest.

“Who’s Wake-robin?” Jake asked.

“One of our finest pranksters.” The king paused. “At least, he was, until he saw something dreadful several days ago. Something so terrifying that it turned his hair white, though he’s only twenty-seven. I think it’s a story you’ll want to hear, if you are interested in the black fog.”

Starchwort
soon returned with another pixie leaning on him like a frail old man.

Sure enough, his hair was
snow-white, though his face still looked young.

Coltsfoot brought over a chair for the weakened pixie, and the king gave him leave to sit in his presence with a wave of his hand.

“Wake-robin, tell these human younglings what you saw the other day in the mine,” King Furze ordered.

Still swinging in the net,
Jake and Dani waited while Wake-robin sat down and slowly collected his thoughts. He still looked dazed by whatever it was that he had experienced.

Jake knew the feeling.

“Where do I start?” Wake-robin asked.