War in Hagwood Page 11

  “Whence and for what purpose?” demanded Lord Limmersent.

  Ambert shook his head, and the spectacles on his nose clattered together. “I know not,” he said. “Nor what She placed within.”

  “No one does,” said Lord Fanderyn. “But I, too, have my spies and this I know: Amid the confusion and shock that followed the King’s murder, Gofannon, the Smith, stole that box. He was not slain with his eight brethren, but fled out into the forest carrying that thing with him—and the High Lady has been searching for it ever since.”

  “When She ordered us to plunder the ancient mounds,” Sir Hobflax declared, “it was that box She was seeking? Not gold coin and treasure?”

  “What need does the High Lady have for moldering jewels torn from brittle bones?” asked Lord Fanderyn. “No—She was anxious to find that casket, to discover the place where the Smith had hidden it.”

  Waggarinzil scratched his large, bristled ears and nodded. “Many’s the time She stole out at night, alone,” he said. “From the gates, I watched Her slink into the gloom, sometimes in guise, sometimes not. By my gristly joints, how many holes and dens did She pry into?”

  “But She never found it,” remarked Earl Tobevere. “Else I am sure we would know. Have we not observed the doubt which dances in Her eyes in unguarded moments? Do you recall when Lady Visset boasted of a treasure box given her by her husband? Remember the fear and the fury on Rhiannon’s face? She had the entire household arrested and put to torture. The Lady’s face was peeled like a pear and when Rhiannon found the box to be naught but a small wooden chest containing baubles and trinkets, did you mark Her relief and hear Her shrill laughter?”

  “Aye,” said Lord Fanderyn. “And then a dread seemed to clutch at Her and She flung the box away.”

  Marquess Gurvynn held up his hand. “I was nigh Her that very moment and I heard Her words when She stormed by. I did not understand them at the time. Now I begin to have the sense of it.”

  “What did She say?” Lord Fanderyn asked urgently.

  “‘Not the one, it was not the one—and so my fear remains. When will I be free of that final fetter?’”

  “By my wormy liver,” Waggarinzil snorted. “Why is She so scared of a box?”

  “Not the box itself,” Lord Fanderyn corrected him. “But whatever it contains.”

  He stared at those gathered around him, but none of them could begin to guess what that mystery may be. It was incredible to think that Rhiannon was afraid of anything.

  Presently, the Lady Mauvette broke the thoughtful silence.

  “A final fetter,” she repeated in a horrified breath. “How much more of a tyrant would She be if She was freed from whatever that may be and naught was left to brook Her cruel ambitions? What further cruelties would She commit?”

  Lord Limmersent’s eyes narrowed. “And it is your belief this golden box, containing Her only fear, has been found at last?” he asked Lord Fanderyn. “Out there, in the forest, and She is battling to win it back?”

  “I do not believe it has been found,” came the noble’s confident reply. “I know it.”

  The others looked at him in amazement.

  “How do you know this?” the Marquess snorted. “Tell us at once!”

  “I shall do more than tell you,” Lord Fanderyn answered. “I shall show you.”

  Reaching for the lantern, he uncovered it fully. Then he stepped around the large tomb and gestured to something hidden behind it.

  “Now is the time,” he said. “Come, show yourself.”

  The others started in surprise.

  “You lied!” Lord Limmersent cried. “There is a spying presence here, maybe more than one!”

  “Peace,” Lord Fanderyn told him. “Have no fear of this, the newest recruit to we conspirators. She is risking her life just as much as the rest of us.”

  “She?” the goblin knights asked in unison.

  The noble nodded and held out his hand. “Come,” he instructed. “Show them.”

  There was a brief hesitation. Then they heard a shuffling noise and something stirred behind the tomb. A squat shape moved in the darkness and finally shambled shyly into the lantern’s light, her dirty skirts brushing along the dusty floor and the steeple of white hair teetering from side to side.

  It was Gabbity.

  “The nursemaid!” Lord Limmersent exclaimed in astonishment. “What crooked jest is this?”

  Lord Fanderyn stepped aside and Gabbity ambled forward with a timid, gummy grin on her warty face.

  “Well met, m’lords,” she addressed them shyly.

  “This is your proof?” Lord Limmersent cried. “This filthy drab is as close to the High Lady as Her accursed owl!”

  The goblin nursemaid jabbed a finger at him. “Not no more I ain’t!” she retorted. “Gabbity’s done with Her. If it weren’t for my little lordling, I’d have mixed up my strongest poison and quaffed it clean down long ago. Hate Her I does. No one knows how much. She were always a bad, broody child. I had no liking for Her then—proper sour I reckoned when I first glimpsed Her and I was proved right. No, m’lords—I want Her gone more than most. That’s why I done found Lord Fanderyn as soon as I could this day.”

  “And why I summoned all of you here,” Lord Fanderyn told them. “A most extraordinary fortune has brought to us our deliverance.”

  He bowed slightly and signaled that the time had come.

  Gabbity reached into her pocket and slowly drew out the golden key. It flashed and shone under the lantern light and sparkled in every staring eye.

  “Soon as I peeped it I knewed it were important,” she boasted, twirling it in her thumb and forefinger, casting glittering reflections up into their wondering faces.

  Lord Limmersent was the first to master his surprise.

  “It is the very key?” he asked.

  “How can you doubt it?” Lord Fanderyn said. “Have you ever seen work more delicate, more proclaiming of its makers?”

  “Never,” he murmured almost reverently. “But … what use is it without the box? Where is that? How do we know it has even been found? The key alone will avail us naught.”

  “Beggin’ your lordship’s posh pardon,” Gabbity interrupted. “My waxy lug holes can’t help but flap at times and they do catch the rarest talks twixt M’Lady and Her owl. I know as how that very Smith was in the forest just a few days back and not a moment’s peace has M’Lady had since. Now you tell me, if he hadn’t brought back some great thing She’s in high terror of, why has She been like a cat on the fire?”

  “The Smith?” Lord Limmersent cried. “The Last of the Puccas has returned to Hagwood? We must seek him out!”

  Gabbity smacked her empty gums. “Oh, you can’t be doing that,” she said. “M’Lady made sure he can’t help no one no more.”

  “The Smith is dead? Then tell us, crabbed crone, how did you chance upon this key?”

  Gabbity gave a gummy grin. “Was brought in by a dirty barn bogle,” she said. “Dirtiest, stinkiest, hairiest, scratchingest spit of vermin you ever did see.”

  “How came such a lowly creature by this treasure?”

  “He filched it. Stole it from some mighty personages out there in the forest, from what I gathered by his bogly chatter. You know what thieves barn bogles are. Fingers like glue they’ve got.”

  “Personages?”

  “Two skin swappers, he said, but what that may mean, the serpents alone know. Great magicians or warriors I’ll be bound. Who else would the Smith have given the box to?”

  “Warriors … aye. That must be the truth of it if Redcaps and spriggans were required to deal with them.” Sir Begwort grunted. “Surely doughty heroes from a far-off kingdom that the Smith met upon his travels.”

  Lord Limmersent stroked his chin as he considered all he had heard. “That would make sense. The Smith would not
have entrusted so mighty a thing to anyone less.”

  “And whatever that box contains,” Lord Fanderyn said, “it has the power to destroy our deathless Queen. That is why She is out in the forest now, endeavoring to win it back.”

  Excitement and hope thrilled the air and they stared at Lord Fanderyn with scared yet exhilarated faces.

  “We must acquire that box before She does!” he urged them. “Therein lies our only hope. Go rouse the trusted of your folk, take your horses from the stables, ride into the forest, and if we cannot bargain with whoever possesses it, we must wrest it from them. We cannot fail in this—we cannot!”

  Jubilant beyond measure, buoyed with the dream that the impossible was now almost attainable, they hurried out to return to their halls and commence this bold scheme.

  Lord Limmersent took Lord Fanderyn by the shoulders and clasped him close. “By nightfall we may be regicides!” he laughed deliriously. “Was there ever such a happy prospect?”

  With a wave of his hand, he saluted then hastened from the sepulchre. Only Gabbity and Waggarinzil remained behind.

  “Long may your name be sang evermore in the ballads, Gabbity Malatrot,” Lord Fanderyn praised her.

  The goblin nursemaid performed a clumsy curtsy then handed him the golden key. “Use it well, m’lord,” she said, furling his fingers around it and patting his closed fist. “Now I must be back; I’ve a barn bogle to clothe and the little lordling will be missing his faithful Gabbity.”

  With a cackle and a waggle of her warty jaw, she scurried off, humming to herself and wondering what might rhyme best with Malatrot.

  The enchanted key safe in his possession, Lord Fanderyn leaned against the tomb of the late king and let out a long sigh of relief and gladness.

  “So it begins,” he said with an exhale, bowing his head. “Triumph is nearly ours. Ha—I can almost taste it.”

  “That’s burnt hair, m’lord,” Waggarinzil reminded him.

  The noble laughed and threw back his head. It had been a long time since genuine laughter had been heard in the Hollow Hill.

  Waggarinzil blinked at him. The silver lantern light shone starkly against that aristocratic profile, delineating each strong, proud feature. He almost looked like he too was carved from stone and the goblin commander could easily imagine a golden crown resting upon that dignified brow.

  The goblin wondered what manner of king Briffold Fanderyn would make. Would he be fair and just? Would he heal the divisions at court? Would there be no more fear thronging the hallways, no more murders, no more spies tattling malicious tales? Perhaps his reign would be as glorious as Ragallach’s had been and the Hollow Hill would ring with music and song once more.

  Waggarinzil scratched his piglike snout and sucked his fangs thoughtfully. Even if Lord Fanderyn was a rotten king, he wouldn’t ever be as tyrannical as Rhiannon.

  “There is much to be done!” Lord Fanderyn declared, clapping him on the back. “Let us make this day one to remember!”

  “A moment, m’lord!” the goblin called.

  “What is it?” Lord Fanderyn asked, his eyes bright and eager to be gone.

  “Just this,” Waggarinzil said, with an apologetic tilt of his great ugly head that rattled the mail of his coif as he rammed his sword home.

  The noble gaped at him, his eyes round and startled. He snatched several breaths, then crumpled and his body slid off the blade to the floor.

  “Why …?” he asked, gasping, as his life leaked out.

  Waggarinzil shrugged diffidently and stooped to prize the golden key from the lord’s hand.

  “There’s no advancement for a lowly door warden in such a world as you might rule,” he uttered in a matter-of-fact tone. “Besides, you ought not to have trusted me with your grand plots. You said as how the High Lady had eyes and ears everywhere. You was right. Very rash of you—thought you was smarter than that. Just goes to show, don’t it.” He held the key aloft and smiled broadly. “Imagine the reward She’ll bestow on me for giving Her this, and informing on the lot of you? By my horny toenails, I might even move into your grand hall, Fanders old chap, and take your fair daughter to wife. Shame you won’t be around to dandle your grandchildren on your knee. I wonders what they’ll look like?” And he let loose a filthy laugh.

  Lord Fanderyn made no answer. His eyes were already dim and the hope of the Unseelie Court and the whole of Hagwood expired with him.

  The goblin commander stepped over his body and rubbed his gauntleted fists together.

  “A most memorable day indeed,” he chuckled.

  * Chapter 8 *

  Myth and Sacrifice

  THE UPTURNED SHIELD HAD RACED through the darkness at terrifying speed. Bufus Doolan’s torch was extinguished by the rushing air almost immediately and so the three young werlings were blind as they juddered and bounced down the perilously steep chute-like chasm.

  Kernella had not stopped screaming since the first moment they had plunged down the hole at the start of this wild journey, but she had long since grown hoarse and her terrified yell had dwindled to a perpetual croak.

  It was a horrible, jarring plunge. The shield slid and skimmed and spun around as it flew ever downward. Sometimes it banked against the sides of the sheer tunnel wall; sometimes it threatened to flip right over and they had to lean as far back the other way as they dared in order to try and keep from capsizing.

  The shield’s leather strap was the only thing they could grasp hold of, but it was ancient and crumbling in their hands and would not last much longer.

  A violent pounding pursued them. Stones from the collapsed ceiling had tumbled down the hole and were thumping close behind, hurtling in a wild, rumbling chase. At one point, a hot coal from the Tower Lubber’s fire glowed ruddily as it rattled along until a boulder crushed it in a burst of fizzing ruby cinders.

  Gamaliel wondered when their luck would run out. If they did not overturn, then one of those enormous stones would smash into them—sooner rather than later. Even if they managed to survive this breakneck plunge, what would they find at the bottom? Freezing cold water in the pitch dark of the deep? A maze of passages where they would blunder around till they perished? Or maybe just an abrupt, bone-smashing end, before being buried beneath stones.

  Bufus felt as though every bone in his body had been shaken loose. His joints were aching, his teeth were clattering in his head, and he had bitten his tongue twice. And yet, in spite of the danger and the terror and the sore tongue, he found the ride exhilarating and breathtaking. So what if they were careening to their deaths? Death held little fear for him now. It was the most fantastic, intoxicating thrill he had ever known. If Mufus, his twin, had been there, he would have relished it too. Thinking of his dead brother, Bufus giggled at the thought that he might be joining him soon and began laughing uncontrollably.

  Sitting beside him, bumping and thudding along, Kernella heard him laugh and stopped screaming.

  “He’s gone crackers!” she cried croakily. “Let me off—let me off!”

  Gamaliel wished he could close his ears. The situation was dreadful enough without listening to them shouting and laughing as the stones thundered closer behind.

  The shield shot deeper into the earth, rocketing around twisting bends, going faster and faster until suddenly the tunnel fell away and it went soaring through empty air. With a tremendous, walloping smack, it hit the ground and whizzed ferociously around like a spinning top. The leather strap finally disintegrated and the werlings were flung clear—just as the pursuing rocks and boulders came storming behind.

  There was a crunch of metal. The shield was flattened and crushed, mangled into misshapen fragments as the avalanche surged down.

  The noise was unbearable. Gamaliel shouted for his sister but his voice was drowned in the tumult.

  The larger stones toppled on their sides and silence descended. />
  Gamaliel spluttered, his face covered in dirt. He lay scrunched in a corner against a rocky wall, where he had rolled when the shield had thrown him clear. Cautiously, he wiggled his fingers and toes. Nothing seemed to be broken. He could feel a few cuts and grazes on his hands and knew his back was smothered with bruises, but he was otherwise unharmed.

  Unable to see anything in that impenetrable darkness, he sat up and listened. Where were the others?

  “Kernella?” he called. “Where are you?”

  A strange muffled noise answered him. His sister had landed on her head and was wedged in the gap between two boulders. Although she was not injured, she did not like being upside down and it took several undignified grunting efforts to pull herself free.

  “You and your barmy ideas!” she scolded in the direction of her brother, unable to see him in the inky black.

  Still tittering, Bufus Doolan was clutching his aching sides and in a great happy voice, shouted, “Let’s do that again!”

  “You’re both loopy,” Kernella rasped. “How are we supposed to find our way out of this? We dropped for ages and ages. This is a lot deeper than Meg’s caves. I can’t see the hand in front of my face. It’s blacker than a mole’s armpit down here. We’re trapped!”

  Gamaliel groaned. Compared to listening to his sister’s vexed carping, being crushed to death suddenly didn’t seem so bad after all.

  “I can’t see a thing!” she repeated. “We’re done for and it’s all your fault!”

  “If you’d studied harder at wergling and mastered bats,” Gamaliel countered, “we wouldn’t be blind down here and you could lead us out.”

  “You know I don’t like bats!” she retorted. “I did sparrows instead.”

  “And what a mess you made of that!” joined in Bufus. “Lumpiest bird I ever saw. ‘That’ll never fly,’ Mufus said to me.”