Dark Waters of Hagwood Page 18

  “Ain’t you grunted and snorted enough of this night away already?” his captain cried. “’Tis our duty to sniff out these ’ere assassins and protect our mighty Queen.”

  “What you plannin’ on us doin’ then?” asked Bogrinkle.

  Captain Grittle peered into the forest. “We carry on huntin’,” he replied. “And we doesn’t stop till we finds them assassins an’ brings ’em to our High Ladyship.”

  “But you said they was well gone!” protested Wumpit. “Us won’t find ’er now. She and that rattly cart could be anywheres.”

  His captain stamped his foot and smacked the spriggan’s bulbous nose.

  “Did I say we’d find ’er?” he demanded. “Did I?”

  “No,” Wumpit grumbled, gingerly patting his nose.

  “This ’ere forest is chock-full of them what don’t like our dead King’s daughter,” Captain Grittle snarled. “I reckons we’ll be a-trippin’ over dirty killers all night long, and them we don’t skewer we bring back to Her for judgment. Now, what says you?”

  His soldiers brandished their knives and yelled horrible cheers.

  “But first,” their captain announced with a smack of his lips, “pass me that there jar o’ worms. Assassins can’t never be caught on an empty stomach.”

  A short while later, still slurping and chewing, the three spriggans went charging into the forest.

  Throughout the rest of the night they rampaged, ramming their knives into hollow tree stumps and yelling down badger sets. They were not headed for anywhere in particular, but gradually they pressed farther southward, getting ever nearer to the Witch’s Leap where the seven towering pines overlooked the forest, high above the waterfall known as the Crone’s Maw.

  When the night began to lift and the stars above them faded, they thrust their daggers into their belts and sucked their teeth.

  “We done found none of them dirty killers,” Wumpit declared, rather unnecessarily. “Alls I got was a stoat down a hole an’ a couple o’ manky hedghogs.”

  “More’n I did,” complained Bogrinkle. “I’ve not had a good old stab at nuthin’ for way too long.”

  Captain Grittle was irritable and cross. He had held such high hopes for the night, but all they had really done was be duped by a gypsy.

  “If I ever clap my gogglers on that harridan again,” he seethed, “I’ll introduce ’er to every one of these ’ere daggers and I’ll peel off each and every wrinkle for ’er.”

  The remote possibility of such an encounter caused him to gnash his teeth and stomp up and down, brandishing his knives in the most aggressive manner possible.

  “’Ere!” Wumpit cried abruptly. “Look up there!”

  He pointed to the brightening sky, and the others raised their faces.

  Innumerable birds were racing through the heavens, sweeping over the forest in huge flocks.

  “That’s not right,” Captain Grittle declared after viewing them with his sharp little eyes. “There’s summat afoot somewhere. Thems all different sorts: finches an’ sparrows, crows an’ starlings. Thems don’t take wing together.”

  “I doesn’t like it,” Bogrinkle uttered. “’Tain’t normal!”

  With gawping mouths they watched the birds soar overhead.

  “Not a chirp nor a squawk from any of ’em,” the captain said. “What’s ’appenin’ there?”

  “I hate’s being out in the day,” Wumpit whined. “I should be in our hill right now, with me feet up and warmin’ me toes.”

  “Well, you isn’t,” Captain Grittle told him. “An’ you won’t be going back till I tells yer to. There’s a puzzle ’ere, lads. What was them fowl after? They was looking fer summat—of that I’m double certain. But who sent ’em, an’ why?”

  They were still pondering that when each of them became aware of a trembling vibration in the air, and, as one, the spriggans turned their heads northward. The vibration swiftly grew into a sound: the unmistakable galloping of a mighty horse thundering through the forest.

  Dropping to his knees, Captain Grittle pressed a large ear to the ground.

  “Headed straight for that crag yonder,” he said, pointing at the immense rock face that rose above the treetops.

  “Who goes ridin’ through our wood?” Wumpit exclaimed indignantly.

  His captain glowered back at him. “Doesn’t you recognize the hoof falls of one of our own ’orses?” he snapped. “That were one of our finest, that were. Only a great lord or a goblin knight could ride one of them. I reckon we found our chief assassin, lads. Ain’t no one got no business bein’ outside at daybreak.”

  “We’re outside,” Bogrinkle put in.

  “We is on official bodyguardin’ duties,” Grittle said sternly. “If we can catch that there traitor, whoever he is, an’ drag ’im back, then She’ll reward us ’andsome.”

  And so they went berserking through the undergrowth, racing toward the Crone’s Maw, not realizing that the one they were pursuing was the High Lady herself.

  Captain Grittle was so exhilarated at the prospect of apprehending a grand traitor that he had to bite his tongue to keep from singing a triumphal song.

  Headlong they plunged, until the massive bulk of the cliff obliterated all else before them. Then, fearing their rampaging would be overheard and give warning to the conspirators, the captain slowed his pace to a stealthy crawl and waved at the others to do the same.

  The gush and tumble of falling water filled the air. They were extremely close. Captain Grittle crept forward, his lynxlike eyes sliding left and right, searching for enemies.

  And then his nose began to twitch.

  Something peculiar and yet familiar tweaked his nostrils. Where had he sniffed that strange scent before?

  “A soapy weasel … ?” he murmured uncertainly.

  Then he remembered.

  “It’s what was in ’er cart!” he hissed at the others. “That old beldame what drowsed us last night. She’s about ’ere someplace. Can’t you snout that choky sweet pong, lads?”

  Wumpit and Bogrinkle agreed, but there was also something else on the air, something filthy and disagreeable—like a bundle of verminous straw that jumped with fleas.

  “What do you reckon that is then?” Bogrinkle whispered. “Summat from a menagerie? Think she keeps it locked in her wagon? It might be fierce with big teeth. Some vicious bear, or even an ape!”

  His captain silenced him with a look. “There weren’t nowt like that when I popped my ’ead in her cart,” he said. “Now, let’s hush. Whatever it is, it’s comin’ this way. Get yer knives ready, boys—my tingly ears tell me there’s goin’ to be blood a-plenty … any moment now.”

  CHAPTER 13 *

  BLOOD IN THE WATER

  GAMALIEL AND GRIMDITCH HAD ALMOST reached their goal. The immense shape of the cliff rose ahead of them, and to the werling boy it was impossibly enormous. It cast a deep smothering shadow over that part of the forest through which they journeyed. Not until the sun rose above the seven pines, just before noon, would daylight shine through the branches. Till then a gray dusk covered all.

  “How long will it take us to find the candle sprite’s cave?” Gamaliel asked.

  His guide scratched his hairy head and flapped his hands as he considered.

  “Straightways down,” he said. “Then along, then twisty tunnel, then slide down slope, then jump over grotto river, then crawl through passage, then another steep way … Oh, wait, that was a different place! Not here at all!”

  “How many underground caverns have you been to?” Gamaliel asked in surprise.

  “Ooh, lots,” the barn bogle answered proudly. “Me liked them plenty when me was a youngun. Always sticking my noggin down holes me was.”

  Halting, he gazed up at the gigantic cliff face and shuddered. “Was yonder pit what scared Grimditch from ever exploring caveys again,” he said. “Remember, skin swapper, don’t drink the dark waters!”

  “You’ve said that before,” Gamaliel said. “What does it m
ean?”

  Grimditch shook his shaggy head. “Me hope you not find out,” was all he would say.

  “So how long will it take us to reach the candle sprite’s cave?” Gamaliel repeated.

  The barn bogle shrugged and skipped a foolish dance. “Me have no idea!” he chuckled. “Me forgot!”

  The werling groaned. Grimditch’s impish nature could be very annoying at times.

  Tutting to himself, he began plodding down a grassy bank into a deep, wooded dell. Beyond the far rise and the skirting trees, he could see the sparkle of the waterfall that cascaded down the cliff. They were almost there.

  The dell was unusually dismal. Last autumn’s fallen leaves lay thick and black in the wide basin, and when he looked at the trees that grew there, the bark looked sooty and strangely textured.

  He was about to kick his way through those dark leaves when Grimditch’s strong hands seized him and yanked the boy backward.

  “Not that way,” the barn bogle whispered firmly. “Us go ’round.” And he led him back up the bank.

  Gamaliel trusted the bogle, but he did not understand.

  “Not nice down there,” Grimditch said with a swivel of his eyes. “This way not much longer.”

  Around the wide hollow they hurried, until they were clear of the trees and the full majesty of the cliff was finally revealed.

  Into the sky it soared, like a shoulder of the world. It hurt Gamaliel’s neck to stare up at its supreme height, but it was not the Witch’s Leap that interested him.

  From a wide ragged cleft near the base of that towering precipice a waterfall came rushing, and the name of that jagged crack was the Crone’s Maw.

  “The entrance to the caverns,” he breathed.

  Grimditch nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Behind wet curtain the tunnels begin.”

  The rocks at the base of the cliff formed an almost perfect stairway, and Gamaliel was anxious to climb them. But, before he could run ahead, the barn bogle’s hand shot out and caught his arm.

  “Stop,” Grimditch murmured. “Us not alone.”

  Gamaliel turned slowly, and he felt his heart leap in fear. There, rising from the long grass by the bank of the stream that flowed from the falls, were three spriggans—clad in mail and bristling with knives and daggers.

  “Well, what’s all this?” Captain Grittle demanded, sliding a blade from his belt and pointing it at the two unlikely companions. “Who does we ’ave ’ere?”

  “A dirty bogle in sore need of a scrub and a comb,” jeered Bogrinkle. “But what’s that ratty thing he’s got by him?”

  “Ain’t never seed one of them afore,” Wumpit declared. “I’m gonna jab it and make it squeak.”

  “I’ll do the jabbing ’round here,” his captain told him. “But they’ll both be squeakin’ a pretty chorus if they know what’s good fer ’em.”

  Gamaliel stared at the spriggans in dismay. Had he come this far and at such dreadful cost to be captured now?

  Grimditch was already cowering and averting his eyes from the bright blade that Captain Grittle wielded.

  The spriggan swaggered forward and leered at the pair of them.

  “First things first,” he grinned. “State yer names and yer business.”

  Grimditch gave a pathetic whimper, and the captain spat on the ground in contempt. Bogles were unimportant, cowardly creatures. He despised the blue-faced esquires of the Unseelie Court, but these lesser, solitary half-breeds were the worst specimens.

  “We … we’re not doing any harm,” Gamaliel spoke up. “I promise!”

  “Oh, you does, does yer?” Grittle snapped. “I’ll be decidin’ what ’arm you’re doing, you ’orrible shaved rat. What’s yer name and what is you?”

  He poked his knife forward, and Gamaliel shrank back in fear.

  “Tumpin!” he cried. “My name’s Gamaliel Tumpin. I’m a werling!”

  “A what?” Wumpit snorted.

  “What are you a-whirlin’?” Bogrinkle asked. “I can’t see nowt.”

  Captain Grittle told them to be quiet—they were only confusing matters.

  “Whatever you is,” he growled, “you can’t go swanning about our Lady’s forest willy-nilly whenever you please. You look like spies to me.”

  The boy shook his head. “We’re not spies!” he protested. “I swear!”

  “Now ain’t that the very thing a spy would say? See, I knewed you was a stinkin’ plottin’ assassin. Where’s that old peddlin’ tramp of a beggar hag then? She must be ’round ’ere someplace.”

  “I don’t know who you mean,” Gamaliel answered. “It’s just us, no one else.”

  Captain Grittle’s squinting eyes narrowed even more.

  “Who is it yer meetin’?” he demanded. “Which of the nobles of the Court is it? Lord Fanderyn? Sir Begwort? That pig-eared goblin, Waggarinzil?”

  The sunlight glinted off the blade he waved in front of the werling’s face, but impatience and anger were replacing Gamaliel’s fear.

  “I’ve never heard of any of them!” he answered.

  “Oh, I can see I’ll ’ave great fun spiking the truth out of you,” the captain cackled. “Back in the Hollow Hill you’ll be a-wishing you ’ad more to tell me than you do.”

  “You can’t take me there!” Gamaliel objected. “I don’t have time!”

  Hearing this, the spriggans burst out laughing.

  “’Ark at him!” Wumpit guffawed. “Lickle pink ratty don’t want to come with us.”

  “I can’t and I won’t,” the boy retorted. “There are lives depending on me!”

  “Oh, that’s true henough,” Captain Grittle snarled, his voice charged with menace. “Your own.”

  Gamaliel attempted to continue on his way. “Now let me and my friend pass by,” he said.

  The spriggan’s hand flashed out and pushed him roughly to the ground.

  “Don’t you get uppity with me!” he barked.

  “Oo, you doesn’t want to do that!” Wumpit cackled. “He doesn’t like ’em gettin’ uppity.”

  “I just want to be about my business,” Gamaliel fumed.

  “Ah, but you ain’t explained what that is yet,” Captain Grittle answered. The spriggan peered at the little bags attached to the werling’s belt, then his eyes settled on the wergle pouch about his neck.

  “What’s in there?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Looks like an awful lot of nothing. Can’t ’ave fat shaved ratties carrying bags bulging with nothing in the forest. Don’t seem right that don’t—downright dangerous if you ask me. If I didn’t know you were a plottin’ spy already, I’d be taking you in fer questions anyways. Can’t wait fer you to see our dungeons—mighty proud of them we is. Some clever contraptions we got to tear the truth from nasty plotters like you.”

  He leaned over, and his large ugly fingers reached to snatch the wergle pouch.

  “You can’t have that!” Gamaliel shouted. “Let me go!”

  Captain Grittle bared his teeth and growled. His great fist closed around the small bag, and, with a cruel tug, he tore it from the boy’s neck.

  Gamaliel cried out, and the other spriggans snickered.

  “Give it back!” the werling yelled.

  Captain Grittle opened his hand and squinted at the wergle pouch. “What’s in this then?” he muttered, giving it a wary sniff. “Pongs like old mice an’ dead sparrows.”

  Gamaliel’s spirits quailed. The High Lady’s soldiers would find the golden key, and any hope of ending her tyranny and saving his people from her vengeance would be gone forever. And what of Kernella and Finnen? If he were taken to the Hollow Hill, then the slender chance of saving them would be lost. That one bright dream had sustained him and kept him going after the death of Yoori Mattock, and now it was utterly broken.

  “Please don’t take it,” he implored.

  Captain Grittle prodded the wergle pouch and opened it cautiously.

  Suddenly Grimditch’s hairy hand darted across and whip
ped the bag from his palm. Then, to add insult to robbery, the bogle grabbed hold of the captain’s bulbous nose and gave it a severe twist and a squeeze.

  “No no no no no!” Grimditch shrieked, and he leaped away, back down the path.

  “Hobbling dawdlers never catch me!” he squealed. “No no, not never!”

  For a bewildered instant, the spriggans were too astonished to say or do anything. Then Captain Grittle let out a bloodthirsty roar and, slashing his knife through the air, went charging after Grimditch, vowing to slay him.

  “You filthy flea farm!” he raged. “By the dead King’s beard, I’ll ’ave you! I’ll shred your hairy hide an’ get me a bogle cloak knitted! I’ll string yer guts up in a tree like a filthy cobweb! Come back ’ere, you foul an’ scabby crawlin’ beast!”

  Wumpit and Bogrinkle went tearing after him, and Gamaliel was left sitting alone in the grass.

  The boy rose and rubbed the back of his neck where the cord of the wergle pouch had cut into the skin when it had been ripped from him.

  Grimditch’s rash and reckless action had taken him by surprise as well, and he wondered what had got into the barn bogle. He didn’t stand a chance against those fearsome creatures.

  The werling ran a little way down the path then halted. Grimditch had given him this chance to escape, to go to the Crone’s Maw and find the lair of the candle sprite. He should race there without delay, but the thought of abandoning the poor bogle to a grisly fate was unbearable.

  Gamaliel hurried on. Ahead of him he could see the spriggans jumping off the path and rushing down the bank into the gloomy dell that Grimditch had dragged him from earlier.

  Quickly he raced to the brink of that slope and saw the soldiers go blustering into the leafy basin. But there was no sign of the barn bogle.

  “Where is it?” Wumpit barked.

  “Cringin’ behind one of them there trees, I’ll wager!” Captain Grittle called. “As well it might! But that nasty, offal-chewing cur can’t stash ’imself out of sight of me!”

  And into the center of the dell they plunged, plowing through the black leaves that lay thick upon the ground.

  Standing upon the bank’s rim, Gamaliel drew a startled breath. The leaves were moving!