Dark Waters of Hagwood Page 19

  As soon as the spriggans charged into them there was a rush and a rustle like a thousand birds taking wing, and the leaves fluttered up into the air, but instead of falling down again, they zoomed about the soldiers’ heads. The whole dark mass that covered the ground lifted to form a dense and angry cloud. Even the sooty bark that covered the trees fell away to join the thick, choking swarm.

  Gamaliel stared at the scene in fear. They were not leaves at all but gigantic moths, as big as bats, and, straightaway, they began dive-bombing the spriggans.

  Attracted by the bright mail and the light of their knives, the huge moths swooped and enveloped them, and the spriggans were hidden from sight.

  Captain Grittle bellowed in alarm and fury, then coughed and spluttered as the winged insects flooded his mouth. They were everywhere: in his ears and crawling into his large nostrils. Clamping his eyes shut to stop their searching antennae scratching his pupils, he ran around blindly.

  Wumpit and Bogrinkle were also covered, and their daggers flashed out of that teeming darkness like jags of lightning in a thundercloud.

  Then the moths began to bite, and the spriggans shrieked in torment.

  Gamaliel shuddered and backed away. The dell was seething and buzzing, as though the night had returned to fill that place with crackling darkness.

  He heard the spriggans’ frantic cries, and he looked away, shaken and afraid.

  But where was Grimditch?

  “Hoo hoo!” a delighted voice chuckled above him. “Not so bossy bullymaking now! Oh no no no no! Not now!”

  Gamaliel glanced upward. There, sitting high in a tree was the barn bogle. He was clutching his sides and giggling at his own cleverness.

  “Silly spriggans to try wading through blood moths!” he tittered. “Grimditch, him not so daft, he knowed to flee from them. Blood moths always thirsty, always want to suck veins dry. Dear flappy blood moths. Drink deep, drink well, be drunk on spriggan juice—hoo hoo.”

  Tearing his enraptured gaze from that gruesome spectacle, he grinned at the werling below, then clambered nimbly down the tree.

  “Grimditch too spry for they,” he declared proudly. “Not see him swing up into branches, they didn’t.”

  “What will happen to them?” Gamaliel asked with a shiver.

  The barn bogle picked his nose and shrugged. “Blood moths will feast and chew down to bones,” he said, licking his salty finger, “then crawl in to suck out marrows. Very clean nibblers are blood moths; them not waste much.”

  “That’s awful,” the boy said.

  Grimditch began giggling again. “If spriggans run into sunlight, they’ll be safe, but not easy with eyes squeezed shut an’ skin on fire with ten thousand teeny-tiny mouths a-biting.”

  Gamaliel felt ill, and he made his way back to the path where the morning sun was dazzling.

  “Can I have my wergle pouch back?” he asked.

  The bogle held out the small velvet bag and dropped it into his waiting hand.

  “Furry tokens important to skin swappers,” Grimditch said with a solemn nod. “Me know that.”

  Gamaliel rooted inside the pouch and breathed a sigh of relief when his fingers touched the hard shape of the golden key it contained.

  “Yes,” he said, tying it around his neck once more. “I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d lost this. Thank you, Grimditch.”

  The bogle performed a somersault then danced a merry jig, but Gamaliel was already walking up the path, toward the Crone’s Maw.

  As the dell was left behind, the stifled cries of the spriggans faded and were then drowned completely by the noise of the waterfall.

  Toward the pool at the base of the cliff the two companions hurried. It was a beautiful place, brimming with sunlight that danced over the gently foaming waters and bounced rainbows about the surrounding rocks. The water that tumbled leisurely from above was like a wide ribbon of molten glass, and when the sun rejoiced over its fluid surface, countless diamonds flared and scintillated in the air.

  Dotted across the bright, glistering pool, large flat stones formed a meandering path from one side to the other. Viewing this perfect, enchanting spot, Gamaliel reflected that had he discovered it a week ago he would have been captivated by its beauty and eagerly fetched his friends to come and play there. Now its shimmering splendor held no fascination for him.

  Through the ripples of reflected light that trembled and shook over the path he hastened, jumping onto the lowest of the rocks that formed the natural stair up into the Crone’s Maw.

  Grimditch followed, but they had not gone far when a cracked voice suddenly called, “A fond and merry morning to you, my fine dainty folk!”

  Gamaliel and the barn bogle paused and glanced across the pool to the other bank. A curious purple-and-crimson-clad figure was leading a tired-looking donkey through the grass—Nanna Zingara had arrived.

  “Who is it?” the werling breathed, staring at the dwarf’s outlandish form with the gravest suspicion.

  Grimditch blinked, and his large hairy head twisted on his shoulders as he scrutinized the old gypsy, first with one bulging eye and then the other.

  “Not know,” he replied. “Stunted big folk not wander so deep in forest.”

  “Best to ignore her and carry on,” Gamaliel said. “It’s not much farther.”

  As they resumed the climb, Nanna Zingara led the donkey to the pool’s edge, and the weary beast bent its head to drink.

  “Stay, wee folk!” the gypsy called. “No need to be afraid. Nanna will not hurt you, la la liddle tri la la. She brings news. She has spoken with your wise elders. She is friend—she knows you and your plight.”

  Gamaliel hesitated, and he remembered what had brought his sister to see Yoori the previous day. She had come to report seeing “a midget witch” on the trackway, and that description certainly fitted this bizarre person. But Yoori had warned them to stay away from her.

  “I bring greetings from your friends,” the dwarf continued with a friendly wave. “The sweet Liffidia and hungry Tollychook. They are worried about you.”

  “’Tis a trick,” Grimditch muttered.

  The werling was not so sure.

  “She knows their names,” he said. “She must have spoken with them.”

  Leaving her donkey to continue drinking, Nanna Zingara hitched up her plum-colored skirt and began crossing the pool using the stepping-stones.

  “Oh, yes,” she croaked. “Pom pom tiddley tom, Nanna had long speech with all the frightened werlings. She knows what the Wandering Smith told to you, she knows what your hope is and who you fear. Your good folk have sent me to find you.”

  Her dark eyes flashed up at them. The mirrored sunlight was sparkling over her crabbed face, and she gave them her most winning smile.

  Grimditch growled under his breath. “Not right, not right,” he murmured. “Me not like, me smell rats.”

  “You’ve got rats on the brain,” Gamaliel told him. “Don’t you recall what those spriggans said? They asked me about a beggar hag. There can’t be two of them in Hagwood, and from the sound of it she was definitely no friend of theirs. Any enemy of those brutes surely can’t mean us harm.”

  “Throughout the long night I search for you,” the gypsy went on. “And now here you are. Nanna so pleased—she feared the horrors of this forest would claim you.”

  Watching her hunched, comical figure hop across the stones like a withered frog, Gamaliel decided she couldn’t possibly be a threat to them.

  With a skip, she reached their side of the pool and began waddling toward the rocks of the cliff face.

  “Come down,” Nanna Zingara invited. “There is much to tell, much you must learn. And who is this with you? They did not tell Nanna you journeyed with a bogle. What a keen thrill to meet such a seldom-spied fellow. Where are you bound?”

  Gamaliel prepared to clamber down again. “We’re going into the caves!” he began. “I have to save my sister and—”

  Grimditch ogled the dw
arf doubtfully.

  “Her words are empty,” he interrupted the werling. “Like a pie with no filling. All pretty show and tempty but nowt within. Don’t go down.”

  But the boy was anxious to hear news of his home and had already started climbing down the rocks.

  Nanna Zingara continued to beam and chuckle as he descended.

  “And who are you meeting in those caves?” she enquired warmly. “Some brave knight or kindly lord who is sympathetic to our cause? What aid will he give us against the great tyrant?”

  “I’m not meeting anyone. At least, no one who will help us.”

  Hearing that, her smile grew even wider.

  “Well, Nanna is here now,” she said. “She will help you.”

  He was almost within reach of her stubby, ringed fingers when she added, “Oh, yes, tra la tiddly ti doh, your folk were most worried about their beloved Finnen Lufkin.”

  Gamaliel halted. He looked down at her in surprise. “Oh, but I’m not—”

  His words were left unfinished, for at that moment a knife came singing through the air and struck the rocks close to the gypsy’s head with a resounding clatter.

  Nanna Zingara cried out and spun around. Gamaliel gasped in fear, and Grimditch let out a yowl.

  Lumbering along the path toward them, his face, arms, and legs running scarlet from innumerable cuts and bites, was Captain Grittle.

  The black wings and squashed bodies of dead moths were stuck to his hauberk, and many more were still splattered on his forehead.

  He had finally managed to stagger from the dell, and the blood moths that were devouring him scattered as soon as he had flung himself into the sunlight. Now, consumed with wrath and hatred, through a gore-colored mist he saw the gypsy who had tricked him the previous night and in his fury had hurled a knife at her.

  “You dirty witch!” he yelled, drawing a second blade from his belt. “I’ll teach you to make a dozy fool out of me!”

  He threw the knife, and it went whizzing toward her.

  The dwarf leaped aside, her face contorted in a rage far greater than his own.

  “How dare you!” she snapped when the weapon struck the stone close to her face and chips of flying granite stung her cheek.

  “Oh, I dares more than that, you devious drab!” he promised, wiping the blood from his eyes in order to improve his aim.

  Nanna Zingara glowered at him. If the spriggan’s wits had not been overthrown by his boiling vengeance, he would have stumbled before the supreme hostile force that beat from her eyes and fallen to his knees, stricken with terror.

  Above them, standing on the rocks, Gamaliel did not know what to do.

  “Up here!” he called to what he still believed to be a small, defenseless gypsy. “It’s your only chance of escape!”

  Grimditch, however, had trembled when he heard the power and stern authority in Nanna Zingara’s voice and tried to shush him.

  “No no no no no!” he spluttered. “Me was wrong, the pie not empty—’tis bursting with poison.”

  The werling did not understand him and thought it was merely cowardly impish chatter.

  Below them Captain Grittle advanced on the dwarf, and behind him Bogrinkle and Wumpit came blundering onto the path, tearing a frenzied host of bloodthirsty moths from their faces.

  The captain took a dagger in each hand and gripped them fiercely as he prowled a little closer.

  “Keep away from me,” Nanna Zingara warned in a chill voice that should have turned his knees to water.

  “First, I’ll lop off your shriveled apple of a head,” he taunted, “then I’ll impale your rancid ratty pal, an’ that devious, craven bogle will be oh so sorry he led us into that trap.”

  And, with a savage yell, he sprang forward. The daggers glittered cruelly in the sun as they sliced toward her.

  The gypsy stood her ground. In a blur her hands flew out, and she caught hold of the spriggan’s wrists.

  Captain Grittle bawled in surprise, which quickly turned to a whimper of pain as she clenched her fists and squeezed with unnatural strength.

  The weapons dropped from his grasp, and before he could cry out again, she lifted him from the ground and hurled him away. The spriggan went spinning helplessly through the air, landing in the grass some distance away with a clang and a crunch and a jangle.

  Watching from above, Gamaliel could not believe his eyes.

  “How … how did you do that?” he exclaimed.

  Nanna Zingara turned slowly and raised her wrinkled face to him.

  “Nanna called on her small magic to save herself,” she explained, pretending to look nervous and fearful. “But I am too spent to summon it a second time. I must go with you into the caves. Give me your hand, Master Lufkin. I will follow you into the dark.”

  Gamaliel reached out, and her fingers came grasping for him. Suddenly Grimditch dragged the boy back and hoisted him up the rocky stairway.

  “No no no!” he yammered. “Not safe. Not safe!”

  Gamaliel scowled, but the bogle would not let him go.

  Beneath them the dwarf let out a dismayed tut. “No need to fear Nanna,” she said. “Here, she will come up unaided, if her aged bones permit it.”

  And with a gleam in her dark eyes she began to ascend.

  Captain Grittle lay in the grass, nursing his bruised wrists. His fright was ebbing, and the anger came flooding back. Glancing down the path, he saw Wumpit and Bogrinkle hurrying toward him. That harridan might be stronger than she looked, but she would not be able to fend off all three of them.

  Leaping to his feet, he cried, “Get her, lads!”

  Whooping, they rushed at the cliff face, and just as Nanna Zingara was drawing level with Gamaliel and reaching out her hands to him for the second and final time, the spriggans seized her legs and tore her from the rocks. Down she toppled, and, screaming death cries, the soldiers fell upon her.

  “Now!” Grimditch gibbered, taking hold of Gamaliel’s sleeve and pulling him farther up, toward the corner of the great opening in the rock.

  The werling struggled and kicked, but Grimditch was insistent. Gamaliel was hauled up to the Crone’s Maw, where the waterfall came rushing from the roof of the cave beyond.

  “What about her?” the boy protested. “We can’t just leave her.”

  “Yes yes yes yes yes,” Grimditch assured him. “She not what she seem, oh no no no no no!”

  Gamaliel took one last look downward, and his heart thumped in his chest at what he saw.

  The spriggans were falling back. They were wailing, aghast and terrified. They threw their knives and daggers away as if they burned their hands, and groveled on the ground, hiding their fearful faces.

  “Spare us!” they pleaded. “Spare us! We did not know!”

  Before them Nanna Zingara rose. Her fingers were touching a silver talisman at her throat, and, as she stood, her squat, aged body stretched. The bright reds and purples of her attire dripped into the grass. Taller she grew, and her grizzled hair became a mass of raven curls as her windburned skin became smooth and whiter than milk.

  “The … the High Lady!” Gamaliel stammered, and Grimditch squealed behind him.

  With her dark eyes glittering, the Lady Rhiannon lifted her beautiful face, and the two small figures on the rocks trembled.

  “Come down,” she commanded.

  Gamaliel looked into the frozen depths of those eyes, and his will drained away. He had to go to her; that wintry voice was law. He did not question it.

  Very slowly he began the climb down.

  But solitary bogles are not so easily influenced. They can be bullied and cajoled, tempted and compelled, but their infuriating impish nature defies control.

  Gawking down at the High Lady of the Hollow Hill, Grimditch stuck out his tongue and made the loudest raspberry his lips could trumpet.

  “No no no no no no!” he warbled, and, spitting a great green glob at her, he wrenched Gamaliel back.

  “Bring them to me!” the
Lady Rhiannon demanded, and the spriggans jumped to attention, desperate to make amends and appease her.

  Up the rocks they raced.

  “It’s the wer-rat I want,” her cold voice rang out. “Do what you like with that base bogle.”

  Grimditch let out a screech and pulled Gamaliel in front of him, spinning him around till he faced the waterfall that poured from the Crone’s Maw.

  “To the cave!” he urged the stupefied boy. “Get in, get in! We be safe from spriggans there. They no like wetness.”

  And he thrust the werling through the curtain of cold, clear water. Thoroughly drenched, Gamaliel went sprawling into the dappled gloom beyond. Splashing on to the wet stone floor, he shook his sopping head and shivered. The High Lady’s influence over him was extinguished, and his wits returned in an instant.

  Turning, he saw Grimditch’s shape silhouetted behind the streaking colors of the cascading water and called to him to hurry up and follow.

  Standing on the rocks outside, the barn bogle took one last look at the spriggans who were perilously close and leaped through the waterfall.

  “Fetch them!” Rhiannon ordered. “If they flee into that labyrinth of tunnels, they will never be found.”

  Captain Grittle and the others stared at the gushing water in misery. Spriggans loathed water. It made their flesh cringe, set their teeth chattering, and made their heads pound. They could go no farther.

  It was maddening to see the barn bogle disappear into the cave, but what could they do? Captain Grittle ground his teeth together, and a vicious sneer darkened his moth-bitten face.

  Inside the Crone’s Maw, Gamaliel rushed over to Grimditch and hugged him tightly.

  “You saved me—again!” he cried. “I’ll never be able to thank you properly.”

  The barn bogle grinned. With his hair all wet, he looked a sorry sight.

  “Must be quick,” he said, wringing out his beard and nodding to the rear of the cave. “To the grots we go.”

  Gamaliel pattered away from the light and into the deepening gloom.

  “The floor slopes down back here,” he announced. “Come on, hurry.”

  He glanced back at Grimditch, but the bogle merely grunted in reply. Then his eyes rolled, and he swayed unsteadily.