Dark Waters of Hagwood Read online

  The Hagwood Trilogy

  Thorn Ogres of Hagwood

  Dark Waters of Hagwood

  War in Hagwood

  DARK WATERS OF HAGWOOD

  The Hagwood Trilogy

  Book Two

  Robin Jarvis

  Contents

  Characters

  Prologue

  1. The Arrival of Nanna Zingara

  2. Moonfire Farm

  3. Sprites and Bogles

  4. Into the Dark Waters

  5. Gypsy Magic

  6. The Lair of the Candle Sprite

  7. Peg-tooth Meg

  8. The Journey to the Pool

  9. A Fearful Awakening

  10. Summoning the Spirit

  11. Filthy Lying Lolly

  12. To the Crone’s Maw

  13. Blood in the Water

  14. The Tower Lubber

  15. The Lost Prince

  16. Treasure and Music

  17. The Finding of Harkul

  18. The Race to the Top

  19. The Witch’s Leap

  20. Feather and Sword

  21. The Battle of Watch Well

  22. The Doom of Hagwood

  23. Meg’s Greatest Treasure

  A Biography of Robin Jarvis

  CHARACTERS *

  GAMALIEL TUMPIN

  A young, clumsy werling, once stung by the monstrous Frighty Aggie; the lingering traces of her poison affect his wergling in peculiar ways

  KERNELLA TUMPIN

  Gamaliel’s bossy older sister, who has a crush on Finnen Lufkin

  FIGGLE AND TIDUBELLE TUMPIN

  Gamaliel and Kernella’s loving parents

  YOORI MATTOCK

  A respected elder of the werling council

  BUFUS DOOLAN

  The twin brother of Mufus, who was recently killed by the High Lady’s thorn ogres

  FINNEN LUFKIN

  Disgraced young werling, who was once the best wergle student; Finnen feels he has a lot to make up for

  TOLLYCHOOK UMBELNAPPER

  Timid young werling, more interested in food than adventure

  LIFFIDIA NEFYN

  A gentle classmate of Gamaliel; loves all animals but is afraid of birds

  NANNA ZINGARA

  Mysterious human dwarf, with magical powers, who roams the land in a brightly painted gypsy caravan

  RHIANNON RIGANTONA

  The High Lady, merciless Queen of the Hollow Hill

  CAPTAIN GRITTLE, WUMPIT, and BOGRINKLE

  Three spriggans from the Hollow Hill who are part of the High Lady’s bodyguard but itch to go marauding in the forest

  GRIMDITCH

  A slightly crazy barn bogle who has lived alone on Moonfire Farm for many long years, with only rats and his memories for company

  PEG-TOOTH MEG

  The strange ruler of the caves beneath Hagwood

  THE TOWER LUBBER

  The inhabitant of the ruined tower at the western edge of Hagwood who has wooden pegs instead of eyes

  THE WANDERING SMITH

  The last of the Puccas, a race skilled in the forging of metal and the arts of transformation; was killed by the High Lady’s thorn ogres

  RISING HIGH ABOVE THE shadow-filled forest of Hagwood, a great green hill shimmered and sparkled in the climbing dawn. The glittering dew-drenched grasses on its slopes looked fiercely magical and proclaimed in loud, scintillating colors that beneath this lofty mound were ancient secrets and mysteries long hidden from mortal eyes. This was the Hollow Hill, and under its smooth contours lay the stone halls and mansions of the Unseelie Court.

  The herd of small elf cattle that had been grazing throughout the night were now gathered in subterranean byres while, within deeper regions, the strange inhabitants of that forgotten kingdom slumbered beneath silver lamps, their hands resting upon long swords and thin, cruel daggers.

  Yet not all were sleeping. In a small chamber delved deep beneath the hill, a small, wizened creature sat hunched upon a low stool. Surrounded by the shadowy swathes of fine dusty silk that draped and festooned the cold stone walls, the goblin nursemaid wagged her head, causing the straggly, twisted spire of her wild white hair to teeter and lurch from side to side. Muttering to herself, she carefully inspected the rows of dirty knitting her bony fingers had wrought that night and threaded a few more nettles and thistle heads into the wool.

  A gentle radiance, like the first glimmering beams of a rain-washed sunrise, played across the goblin nursemaid’s ugly face, dancing over the crop of toadstool-shaped warts that bloomed around her mouth. The rosy light pulsed and flickered, shining through the spider-crowded canopy of gossamer strands that covered the basin-shaped cradle next to her, and, sucking her one wobbling tooth, she resumed her knitting.

  So intent was she on her work that the nursemaid did not hear the stout door open and close behind her, and the clatter of her needles masked the firm, purposeful tread of her mistress’s approach.

  “Gabbity,” a strong voice suddenly rang out in the chamber.

  The nursemaid dropped a stitch and shifted upon her stool. “My Lady!” she croaked, rising to her large, leathery feet and curtsying.

  The High Lady Rhiannon stepped into the pale, pinkish radiance that emanated from the carved oak cradle and breathed deeply. Throughout the years of her reign, her unearthly beauty had remained undiminished, and all loved and feared her. The dark cloud of her raven hair contrasted powerfully with the frozen pallor of her exquisite features.

  “How passed the night?” the Lady Rhiannon demanded in a low voice.

  The nursemaid showed her black gums in a leering smile and nodded eagerly. “Most quiet,” she said. “Not so much as a yelp when I pinched his fat little legs. The little lordling was still as a pretty corpse.”

  Reaching out a slender hand, the High Lady parted the canopy, causing the spiders to flee this way and that into dark corners. She gazed at the infant within the cradle.

  Lying upon cushions of moss-colored velvet, the mortal baby was fast asleep, and the rich pulse of human life that shone from him waxed and waned with each tiny breath.

  “No change in all these long years,” Rhiannon whispered. “Not a moment older since he entered the Hollow Hill.”

  Stooping over the sleeping child, she bathed her hands in the light, then drew her elegant fingers over her face and took another deep, intoxicating breath.

  Behind her, the goblin nursemaid cackled. “No, no change. Not now, not never. Not since your poor father the King was killed. Permanent as the roots of the Dooit Stones our little lordling is. Locked in your power for good an’ always, the dainty mite. Why do you ask, My Lady? There’s nothing occurred to alter matters, is there? Nothing to give you worry and fret?”

  Rhiannon paused. The baby had stirred in his sleep to raise a chubby hand, seeking love and comfort in his dreams. No emotion disfigured the High Lady’s face; she regarded the infant a moment longer then retreated, letting the netted canopy fall across the cradle once more.

  “Remember to whom you speak,” she warned the nursemaid. “If you question me once more, I will cut off your head and impale it upon your own knitting needles.”

  With a gasp of terror, the goblin nursemaid stumbled backward and covered her wizened face with her wool, stinging her skin with the entwined nettle leaves. Taking a last lingering look at the web-shrouded cradle, the High Lady left the chamber and stepped into the dimly lit gallery beyond.

  A mob of spriggans was waiting for her return. These foul-looking creatures, dressed in long mail, with a hideous array of knives and daggers spiking from their belts, were the royal bodyguard. Nothing escaped their yellow-eyed vigilance, and they suspected treason and treachery everywhere.

&nb
sp; When Rhiannon appeared before them, they lumbered to attention and the clamor of their hobnailed boots thundered through the hill. With a rattle of armor, they straightened their short, crooked bodies the best they could, and the dark dots of their eyes darted within their slits.

  The spriggans were restless. They were itching to go seek out her enemies. They lived to fight and stab and gash and slay. Their big fleshy noses sniffed assassins around every corner, and they had been cooped up inside the Hollow Hill for too long.

  “There’s plotters an’ traitors all ’round, M’Lady!” their captain cried, drawing his bright dagger and executing several practice thrusts. “I smells treason brewin’. Let me go deal with them dirty killers, sharpish.”

  The other spriggans whooped in bloodthirsty agreement and stamped on the floor.

  Standing before her brutish escort, her slim frame towering over them, the High Lady raised a hand and at once the commotion was stilled.

  “Your Queen thanks you, Captain Grittle,” she said. “Yet be not overzealous in your duties. There are no enemies here. Not in this, the silent heart of my kingdom. Leave me. Go tend the elf cattle in their byres. I will call when next I need your protection.”

  Not daring to say any more, Captain Grittle and the other spriggans whirled about and hurried noisily back along the gallery.

  Waiting until the racket of their stomping departure had disappeared, the High Lady turned and strode toward the end of the passage where a long tapestry depicting strangling weeds and brambles hung from a silver rail. Quickly, she pulled the heavy cloth aside to reveal an arched opening in the wall, beyond which a flight of stone steps wound up into the Hollow Hill. With a forbidding look upon her face, she began the long ascent.

  IN THE TOPMOST REGION OF the hidden realm, in a domed chamber where written histories and parchments of lore were preserved, a klurie gazed around himself and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  He was stunted and squat, with long arms and short, crooked legs. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles was jammed on to his upturned nose, but there were many others arranged over the shiny pate of his head, and countless more sprouted and dangled from the pockets of his crimson coat. Shaking his head, he glanced at the stone shelves he had emptied, then ran his long, spoon-shaped fingers over the books and scrolls piled nearby. His ears twitched slightly when he heard familiar footfalls rising up the spiral stair, and he gave a despondent shrug.

  “Naught anywhere, M’Lady,” he groaned morosely. “In all the ancient bestiaries there is not a single word.”

  Standing beyond that avalanche of secret knowledge, Rhiannon glared at him, and her dark eyes glinted with displeasure.

  “Do you dare tell me, Master Bilwind,” she demanded, “that nowhere in this entire library is there a mention of those puny wer-rats that infest our western border?”

  The klurie fished a larger pair of spectacles from one of his pockets and exchanged them for those already in place on his nose.

  “I have scoured every volume, M’Lady,” he answered, leafing unhappily through one of the books. “Have I not pored over these works throughout the night? Even those written in secret hands, which only the correct eyeglasses may read, have been devoid of the information you seek. Those little shape changers were too insignificant to warrant any attention from the scribes of old, and remember, M’Lady, it was your command that forbade any new writings after the death of your most worthy father. Indeed, I know not why the creatures have merited your notice now. Surely they are beneath your lofty regard? They are dirty, squalid tree dwellers without a shred of nobility.”

  A snarl marred the loveliness of Rhiannon’s face, and the librarian bowed so quickly that several pairs of spectacles were catapulted from his head and landed at her feet.

  “What else would you have me do, Majesty?” he beseeched.

  “Stand before me,” she instructed with a voice as bitter as a frozen night.

  Carefully stepping over the discarded volumes, Yimwintle Bilwind shuffled toward her and stooped to retrieve his eyeglasses. “W-worshipful Queen,” he stammered.

  “Your dusty wisdom has failed me,” she told him. “I must never be disappointed. I am your High Lady, your beloved sovereign. Look at me, misshapen turner of moldy pages.”

  The klurie raised his face to gaze up at her and trembled as the reflected lantern light flashed and flared over the innumerable lenses that adorned him. “I am blameless in this,” he yammered. “My eyes cannot see what is not there to be read.”

  “Then I shall punish your eyes,” she said coldly.

  Raising her shapely hands, she held his ugly head in her smooth palms and fanned her fingers with hideous purpose.

  “Drink whilst you can of my immortal loveliness,” she commanded. “Remember it well, for you are doomed never to look on my beauty and splendor again.”

  A moment later Yimwintle’s agonized screeches echoed throughout the chamber, and he fell to his knees, clutching his face.

  “Now no lenses, however potent their charm, will ever aid you,” Rhiannon murmured.

  Stepping away from the whimpering klurie, she stared contemptuously at the jumbled book mountains. “I must seek my own counsel,” she declared.

  Arrayed in a simple gown, as soft and gray as the winter dusk, she glimmered like a flickering shadow through the dappled lantern light, passing between pillars carved into towering images of giant dandelions, field scabious, and campion. Emerging from this colonnade of gigantic weeds, the High Lady ascended a flight of marble steps until, at last, she reached a high-backed marble chair. There, perched upon one of the ornate scrolling arms, was a large barn owl.

  The bird observed her approach with unblinking, golden eyes. Then, with a click of its beak, it spoke in a low, mournful voice.

  “Mistress of the Twilight,” the owl intoned, “why didst thou not tell the dolt the cause of thine interest in the little skin changers? Hath the hour not come for thy subjects to know?”

  “And what would you have me tell them, my provost?” Rhiannon demanded sharply. “That I did breed a race of thorn ogres in the secrecy of the cold hills and had them slay the Wandering Smith, the last surviving Pucca? Nay, you are the only one who knows my secret; such knowledge must never reach the ears of the Unseelie Court. Neither must they learn that those accursed wer-rats did vanquish my thorny pets.”

  “Truly their doughty cunning outmeasures their paltry size. What shalt thou do now, O Queen?”

  Gracefully, the High Lady sat upon the marble chair and stroked the top of the owl’s head, trailing her long fingers through its soft feathers. Master Bilwind’s wretched cries were still floating through the gloom, but she ignored them and tilted her beautiful face to glare up at the domed ceiling.

  “Out there,” she murmured, “in the world above, lies the casket that the Smith stole from me. Though I have searched these many years, I have never discovered where it was hid. If I cannot find it, then I shall not know an hour’s peace and my life is in danger with each passing moment. Too long have I endured this constant terror. Rhiannon of the Hollow Hill should fear nothing, and yet here She is cringing from the lowest creatures in Her realm. Little did I know, the day I performed those dark rites taught to me by the troll witches of the hills, it would lead me hence.”

  The owl stared at her. “And yet,” it said, “without their foul arts thou wouldst not have found the courage to put thyself upon thy throne. How else could thee have murdered King Ragallach, thy father, and lay the blame upon thy brother?”

  Rhiannon’s fine brows lifted. “Who can tell?” she muttered, feeding the bird the librarian’s eyes. “Perhaps I possessed the courage all along. Was it indeed necessary to weave sorceries about my heart and remove it, still beating, from my breast? Was there really any doubt or hesitation in my mind? I wonder.”

  “Yet remove it thou didst,” the owl said chewily. “And into the golden box it was placed. These many years it hath remained there, pulsing and thumping, and th
ou hast been untouched by guilt or remorse. Deathless and merciless art thou, O Queen.”

  “Deathless only until the casket is opened and a knife plunged into my heart.”

  The owl shook its head. “May that moment ne’er come to pass,” it said woefully.

  “I am certain,” Rhiannon said, “that, ’ere he perished, the accursed Smith told this most precious of secrets to one of those puny creatures who call themselves werlings. He would not surrender his life till that knowledge had been passed on. Did you not capture one of their kind—a long-nosed twig of a thing? What was the name he bought his life with?”

  The owl puffed out its chest. “Lufkin,” it replied. “Finnen Lufkin. If the Smith disclosed his hiding place to any, then he is the one. O Enchantress of the Midnight Forest, why do we not send a company of Redcaps to capture all werlings? Put each to the torture and feed them to the spriggans. They deserve death for daring to rebel against Rhiannon of the Hollow Hill!”

  “No, my love,” the High Lady answered. “My subjects are not to be trusted. They must not discover what that casket contains; there are too many nobles in my court who would eagerly strip the woodland bare to bring about my ruin. Though I said otherwise to Captain Grittle, treachery and ambition flow through my halls as surely as the Hagburn trickles through the forest.”

  Leaning back in the chair, she considered what she must do, and slowly a cruel smile stole onto her lips.

  “I have decided,” she announced. “My army of thorn ogres failed, so where force has floundered, I shall employ stealth and guile.”

  Hopping from foot to foot and unfurling its great wings, the owl climbed on to her wrist. “And what may I do to aid thee?” it entreated.

  Lifting her hand, Rhiannon brought the bird’s flat face close to her own and stared at her most loyal and faithful of servants.

  “You alone I can trust,” she said with as much tenderness as her empty breast could provide. “Before I act, I must first garner such knowledge as I can. Hear me, my provost. Let all the eyes of the wilderness that are in my service keep a watch upon the western edge of the forest. Marshal them and report to me everything that passes in that land. Neglect nothing, however small—from the nibblings of mice to the riotous play of squirrels. The shape-shifting skill of the wer-rats must not be forgotten.”