Thorn Ogres of Hagwood

  Thorn Ogres of Hagwood

  The Hagwood Trilogy

  Book One

  Robin Jarvis

  Contents

  Characters

  Prologue

  1. Gamaliel Tumpin

  2. The Great Grand Wergle Master

  3. Hunting and Finding

  4. The Rules of Wergling

  5. The Trooping Ride

  6. The Wandering Smith

  7. Games and Stories

  8. The Lair of Frighty Aggie

  9. Stewing Roots

  10. Murder by Moonlight

  11. The Silent Grove

  12. The Death of Gofannon

  13. Trial of Finnen Lufkin

  14. Betrayal

  15. Jumbled

  16. The Battle of the Trees

  Epilogue

  A Biography of Robin Jarvis

  Characters

  GAMALIEL TUMPIN A young, clumsy werling beginning his first year of wergling school

  KERNELLA TUMPIN Gamaliel’s bossy older sister

  FIGGLE AND TIDUBELLE TUMPIN Gamaliel and Kernella’s parents

  TUMPIN YOORI MATTOCK A respected member of the presiding council of werlings

  MUFUS AND BUFUS DOOLAN Twin practical jokers; classmates of Gamaliel

  TERSER GIBBLE Great Grand Wergle; Master and tutor of wergling

  FINNEN LUFKIN Young werling and classmate of Kernella Tumpin; supremely talented at the art of wergling

  TOLLYCHOOK UMBELNAPPER AND LIFFIDA NEFYN Other classmates of Gamaliel

  RHIANNON High Lady; Queen of Hollow Hill

  THE SMITH The last of a race of dwarfs larger than werlings and smaller than humans

  BENEATH THE EARLY GLIMMERING stars, the ancient, sprawling forest of Hagwood was crowded with menace and black branching shadow.

  Within that smudging gloom, a vixen slipped swiftly. To the eaves of the wild forest she flitted, empty stomach snarling within her.

  When the outermost oaks of Hagwood were in sight, she halted—ears erect. With trembling nostrils she caught the tantalizing fragrance of the Lonely Mere and its remote, deep green water.

  Contemplating the fat, fleshy duck that would soon be hers, her jaws snapping about a feathery neck as she delivered a violent death, the vixen was seized with a delicious thrill. With an exhilarated bound, she shot from cover to gallop gladly across the track.

  An unearthly silence smothered the bleak desolation of the mere, and when the ground became soft and damp beneath her paws, the vixen slowed her pace and halted. Then, stealthily, she began to creep forward. The slightest of sounds caused her ears to flick in agitation, but she was too absorbed in her assassin’s labor to pay it any heed.

  Beneath her paws the soil had turned to mud, and black water seeped up into the prints she left behind. The edge of the dank mere was so close now; she must be silent like a shadow...

  Again her ears jerked to attention, but this time she hesitated. The faint noise unsettled her, and she quickly glanced over her sleek shoulders.

  Something was out here, close by—rustling through the grass behind her.

  Her eyes shining and vigilant, the vixen scanned the night while her nostrils sought for any telltale scent.

  Nothing.

  She strained her ears to catch any further sound, but all she heard was the creaking of thorny branches, and a vague unease began to churn in her empty stomach.

  Dread rapidly took the place of hunger. A sudden, awful fear seized her, and she tensed, preparing to leap forward and race back over the barren wilderness. Only then did she realize.

  The dark landscape of the heath had changed. Tangled shapes, blacker than the encompassing night, had moved. The thornbushes and knots of briar that she had so stealthily passed only minutes ago had shifted position, and were now grouped together to form a dense thicket barring her retreat.

  Bewildered, she stared at those impenetrable barbed branches, anxious to find a way through, but there was none. In that spiky wall there was not a single gap, and she cast her desperate gaze back to the mere. She would have to wade through the water, perhaps even swim, to reach another stretch of the shore.

  At once, there came the crackle of twigs, and the vixen whirled around to face the thorns again. Then she saw it: within that prickly barrier was a narrow breach, just large enough for her to dart through.

  Wasting no more time, she flung herself forward. Then it happened. Before she could tear through the gap, two pale points of light snapped open in the dim dark ahead, and a thin, rasping voice began to hiss with cruel laughter.

  At once, the heavy shadows all around glittered with countless pairs of luminous eyes.

  A terrified yowl issued from the vixen’s throat as she lunged hopelessly for the gap; one more bound and she would be free. But just as she lowered her head to bolt beneath the thorns, there came a clattering of branches and the break in the hedge was no longer there. Briar and twigs now blocked the way, and unable to stop herself in time, the vixen went skidding and sliding right into the thicket’s prickly heart.

  Her pain-filled yelps pierced the night as a score of bitter spikes needled into her flesh. Vainly she wriggled to escape from the thorny darts that hooked into her skin, but the more she struggled, the closer and fiercer the capturing barbs gripped her.

  Then the laughter began again.

  It was louder now and composed of many hideous voices that crowed and cackled from every direction.

  She wrenched her head aside to look on her captors, and the squeezing thorns ripped her cheek as she squirmed. At last the vixen beheld them, and her beautiful eyes grew dim with fear.

  All around her the dense hedge was moving, rearing from the stubbly grass upon many stumpy legs. The twisted boughs that crested their grotesque heads rattled together as they closed ever tighter about the stricken fox.

  Pinned upon the deadly branches of the one that had captured her, she saw the other nightmares advance, and knew that her fight was over. From the swathing darkness misshapen limbs raked out, but she closed her eyes before the first brutal blow fell.

  As the frenzied claws ripped and tore at her wilting body and her dying scream echoed through the ancient trees, the vixen’s very last thought was for her cubs—who would feed them now?

  CHAPTER 1

  Gamaliel Tumpin

  A GOLDEN DAWN EDGED up over the rim of Hagwood. The new leaves of March made the forest roof glow a glorious green, and the morning resounded with joyous birdsong.

  In the western corner of that vast woodland, other inhabitants were stirring, putting their heads out of their holes and hollows to welcome the waking day and call to one another in excited greeting.

  The venerable oaks that grew between the Hagburn and the cinder track were home to many creatures, but none so singularly strange as the forgotten race of the little werling folk.

  How long they had dwelt there, high in the trees, no one knew—for they were accounted small and insignificant and had always been overlooked. Within the richly decorated pages of gold-bound bestiaries, locked deep inside the Hollow Hill, there was no record of their existence. The simple people who practiced the art of wergling were not considered worthy of attention and so had no part in the long, grim histories of that secluded realm. But all that was about to change—the hour of the werlings was fast approaching. Soon even the Most High Lady would be aware of them. This is their tale, and it began upon that bright March morning in a snug chamber within the trunk of a great oak tree.

  Grunting softly in his sleep, Gamaliel Tumpin lay on his stomach, face buried in the soft, dry moss of the bed. His gentle snores were the pleasant “hums” and “nemyims” of complete contentment, but when his sister barged into that small
chamber, shock and annoyance crinkled her face immediately.

  “No you don’t!” she gasped in outrage. “I won’t let you!” And with that she jumped heavily upon the mossy bed. “Idlebones!” she bawled, grabbing her brother’s shoulders and shaking him roughly. “Don’t you be late this first morning. I doesn’t want you making a show of me! Father’s bad enough!”

  Jolted from sleep, Gamaliel gave a startled cry and was promptly flipped over by his sister’s podgy hands.

  “How could you doze in today?” she demanded, grabbing a fistful of moss and rubbing it into his unsuspecting face.

  Spluttering, Gamaliel pushed her away, but the girl would not be thwarted and, snatching hold of his grubby ankles, hauled him from the bed.

  “Kernella!” he squealed. “Let go, let go! I’m awake, I’m awake!”

  Casting his struggling feet aside, Kernella Tumpin glowered down at her brother, stern disapproval etched into every freckled furrow of her forehead.

  On the floor, spitting out shreds of his nestlike bed, Gamaliel glared back at her.

  Kernella was two years older than her brother and took every opportunity to boss and scold him. A plain, plump werling child with short reddish hair that would never hold a curl no matter how hard she tried, she scrutinized the room and voiced her disdain.

  “Messier than a rat hole in here.” She sniffed, folding her arms in the manner so familiar and annoying to Gamaliel. “You’ll not last long if’n you doesn’t spruce your ideas up. Master Gibble won’t stand for any of your sluggy tats and clutters. Squawk and skreek at you he will, and a good thing it’d be, too, I reckons.”

  Gamaliel pulled fragments of straw and moss from his gingery hair and waited wearily for his sister to finish.

  The arms were still folded and her face set in that belligerent expression that meant she would put up with no nonsense and he had to do precisely as she instructed. It was pointless to argue when she looked like that, even if her two prominent peg-shaped teeth did stick out and make her resemble a vexed rabbit.

  “You don’t have to stand there,” Gamaliel said grumpily. “I can dress myself, you know.”

  Kernella snorted and eyed the bundles of clothing strewn untidily across the floor. “I’ll be shamed to be seen with you,” she said, turning on her heel and stomping up the rising passage that led from the chamber. “Don’t you go ’specting me to sit next to you neither, for I won’t.”

  “Well that’s something, I s’pose.” Her brother sighed before making the rudest face he could manage at that early hour.

  When she had disappeared from view, he picked himself up from the floor and cast about for his clothes.

  Kernella was right: His little room was a mess. The trouble was that Gamaliel could never bear to throw anything away and was always collecting objects he found interesting. His cozy chamber was stuffed with all kinds of bric-a-brac. The niches carved into the curved walls were crammed with these treasures, and the very idea of being parted from any of them made him feel wretched and miserable.

  His collection of colorful stones and pebbles had grown so large that they were now heaped all around the room, while his trove of shiny beetles’ wings, seeds, and knobbly twigs was beginning to spill out into the passageway. Scattered around the bedside lantern were the fruits of his latest obsession. His father had given him a small knife and Gamaliel had taken up the art of whittling. He had intended to create something so wonderful that it would wipe the superior smirk from his sister’s face, but so far he had succeeded in making only an awful lot of wood shavings.

  From the ceiling dangled an array of feathers, discovered on his scramblings among the uppermost branches of the oak that the Tumpins shared with two other werling families. Staring up at this dusty hoard, Gamaliel groaned inwardly. When would he have time to go searching for feathers now? Nothing would be the same again.

  In dejected silence the young werling hunted through the wreckage of his bed and fished out his jerkin and breeches.

  Although he was not as well padded as his sister, Gamaliel Tumpin was of the same plump stature. His face was round and ruddy, and they both possessed bulbous noses. But there the similarities ended. Whereas Kernella was confident and certain of her own skills, Gamaliel was not, and his thoughts were troubled.

  Slowly he clambered into his clothes, fastened the belt about his middle, and pulled the warm woolen snookulhood over his head.

  He had been dreading this morning for some time now.

  Elsewhere in that quiet region at the edge of Hagwood, the other children his age would be thrilled and excited at the prospect of their very first lesson, but not Gamaliel.

  He was certain that he would make a mess of things and do something idiotic. He had never been good at anything, and the recent whittling disappointments were merely the latest in an embarrassing list of failed ventures. Gamaliel was also a clumsy youngster, a fact of which he was painfully aware. When he became flustered or particularly nervous, his awkwardness increased.

  “Stop dawdling down there!” his sister suddenly yelled.

  Searching for one of his soft leather shoes, Gamaliel stubbed a toe against a favorite pebble and wryly reflected that Kernella was extremely proficient at flustering him.

  When the missing shoe was eventually discovered, he hastily slipped it on, cast a final glance back at the bed, and trudged despondently from the chamber.

  Through the gently climbing passage that wound up inside the oak he went, hurrying only when he passed the opening to his sisters lair. At last he came to the main room, where she and their parents were waiting.

  “There you are!” Tidubelle Tumpin exclaimed, tapping the table that dominated the family’s living space. “Sit you down and have a bite to eat. Got a big day ahead of you. Can’t start all that learnin’ if you’re empty now, can you?”

  When she had first married their father, Gamaliel and Kernella’s mother had been quite slim, but now she was the correct, round shape for a Tumpin.

  Standing at her side, his whiskery face aglow with pride, her husband, Figgle, rocked on his heels and eyed his son affectionately.

  “Tendin’ Master Gibble’s instruction for the first time,” he declared. “How well I recall the day I started. His nose weren’t as long in them days, but he were still as tetchy. How he worked us. I remember—”

  Figgle’s wife interrupted him before he could launch into one of his stories. “Tell us later, Tumpin,” she said. “I got to give our Gamaliel his present. Go fetch it for us.”

  “Present!” Figgle repeated in agreement. “Can’t do nothin’ this day without that.” And he hurried over to a corner of the room where a patterned cloth concealed his wife’s work baskets.

  Already seated at the table and finishing her last nutty mouthful of breakfast, Kernella eyed her father and crossly pushed away her empty bowl.

  “Is he never going to get rid of that?” she demanded of her mother. “I know he only keeps it to embarrass me!”

  With his head ducked under the cloth, Figgle waggled his bottom from side to side. The bushy red squirrel tail that stuck out incongruously from the seat of his breeches—and so scandalized his daughter—gave a mischievous wave.

  “Mother!” Kernella objected. “It’s awful. Everyone’s laughing at him, and Master Gibble says Father’s making a mockery of his teaching.”

  Withdrawing his head from the cloth, a basket in one hand, Figgle Tumpin gave his tail a consoling pat with the other.

  “Nuts and pips!” he told his daughter. “I can grow a tail if I want to. Kept me lovely and warm this winter it has; ever so comfy it is.”

  Returning to his wife’s side, Figgle performed a little jig, and the controversial addition to his posterior traced wide circles in the air behind him.

  “ ’Tis a big help with the dusting,” Tidubelle admitted.

  “Time for presenting,” Figgle announced. He clapped his hands, and the fluffy tail curled almost lovingly about his arm.

&n
bsp; Kernella gave it her most withering glare.

  Reaching into the basket, Mrs. Tumpin brought out a small black pouch fastened at the neck by two cords, and, with the utmost ceremony, held it out to her son.

  “Here, Gamaliel,” she said tenderly. “Your special day has finally arrived. At last you will learn the secrets of shape and change—the ancient knowledge that keeps our kind safe and hidden.”

  Wiping his palms on his jerkin, Gamaliel hesitated before taking the bag from her.

  “Your very own wergle pouch,” she told him encouragingly. “Made it myself out of the finest mole’s skin.”

  “I caught the mole,” Figgle reminded her.

  Lifting his gaze from the bag, Gamaliel looked up at his mother and saw the love in her face.

  In later years, when he thought about her, it was his mother’s smile that first returned to Gamaliel’s mind.

  Tidubelle had a grin for every occasion. The happiest times were marked with wide displays of teeth—her eyes submerging behind rising cheeks. Lopsided twists of the mouth were reserved for listening to one of their fathers many meandering stories; tight-lipped curves were for use at times of reproof; and the rare, soft, shadowy smiles, for moments of sadness. For everyday use she had an all-purpose smile, which suited her the best, and her family never tired of seeing her wear it.

  That morning’s smile stayed with Gamaliel till the end of his days.

  “Thank you,” he said as he received the velvety wergle pouch and a kiss on the forehead.

  Wiping his nose with the end of his tail, Figgle cleared his throat. “Wear it well, son,” he told him. “Never go anywhere without it. Save your life, that will. I know mine has. Before I wed your mother there was this time—”

  “I bet he loses it,” Kernella said sourly.

  Gamaliel scowled at her and secured the pouch to his belt. “Won’t,” he muttered.

  His sister affected a scoffing laugh and fingered her own wergle pouch, which was hung about her neck. Hers was exactly the same as Gamaliel’s, except that two red patches had been sewn on to show the levels she had achieved in her training.