War in Hagwood Read online

  “The Queen is dead. Her reign is ended. The days of evil are over!”

  At first, the words were uttered in hushed whispers but, as everyone realized there was nothing to fear any longer, the whispers rose to shouts. They could say what they liked without terror. There would be no more pitiless retributions, no capricious executions. The Hollow Hill was finally free. Stunned disbelief turned into joyous celebration. The trumpeters took up their instruments again and blew triumphant blasts whilst the dairymaids began to dance in the rain. Only the torturers were downcast as they wondered what would become of them and their cherished implements.

  Peg-tooth Meg strode forward and gazed down on her sister.

  “I never sought this, Morthanna,” she said. “You were my blood, and I loved you. That is why I gave the key to the Smith to take, those many years ago. I could never have killed you. That is where we differed: I have a heart.”

  Bowing with sorrow, she placed the golden casket next to Rhiannon’s body. The drummers had joined in the revels and the riotous jubilation was now so loud that no one heard the anguished voice still crying out from the box.

  Liffidia dug her fingernails into her palms. None of this seemed real. They had endured and suffered so much from the High Lady. It couldn’t be over, not this easily and quickly.

  “Something’s wrong,” she murmured and she forced herself to touch the dead woman’s hand. The flesh was already cold. “I don’t know what, but it’s just wrong; I can feel it. The way she just sat on her horse, staring, not saying anything.”

  Doodiggle was standing close by with his foolish mouth hanging open. Meg walked over to him and took the baby.

  “He will be in my care now,” she said.

  The goblin relinquished his charge without question but others who were nearby asked, “By what right does she take our lordling?”

  When the nobles of the court saw this, they rode their steeds closer and pointed their swords at Meg threateningly.

  “The precious infant is not yours, frogwitch!” they exclaimed. “He belongs to the Hollow Hill and shall be returned there.”

  Lord Limmersent threw up his hands. “Have you learned nothing?” he shouted. “This is Clarisant—her claim to the throne is now undisputed.”

  “I dispute it!” one of them cried.

  “As do I!” called another. “We do not believe this toad-skinned mud horror is the fair Clarisant, who disappeared into the night so many years ago.”

  “The line of Ragallach is ended!” they declared. “A new ruler must be chosen. Many here are descended from ancient princedoms; the best of us will be the new High King!”

  Arguments broke out and, all along that grassy promontory, throughout the High Lady’s great army, long-standing quarrels, grudges, and smoldering resentments came to the fore. Now that they were free of Rhiannon’s rule, there was nothing to stop them. Already armed for battle, they turned upon one another with fist and blade, mace and spear, axe and sword. Soon all was pandemonium.

  Lord Limmersent stared at the riot, aghast. That which he dreaded most was happening as he watched. The diverse, rival factions of the court, which the awe and terror of Rhiannon had long held in check, were igniting to ravaging flame. There would be strife and bloodshed. Civil war would rip the Hill apart.

  “You fools,” he murmured helplessly. “You ambitious, greedy fools. You will destroy us all for the sake of a golden crown. The one true heir is before you. This is the Princess Clarisant!”

  As the celebrations and violent arguments continued, Liffidia splashed through the ever-widening rain puddle in which Grimditch lay.

  “Poor thing,” she lamented. “Is this Gamaliel’s friend? The one who took the key?”

  Peg-tooth Meg crouched beside her and rested the baby on her creaking knees.

  “This must be he,” she said. “Was there ever a king of Elfdom or hero of great renown who performed such a deed as this lowly barn bogle?”

  She lifted the blanket from the infant’s head so that his blue eyes could see his devoted savior one final time.

  “There lies a king among barn bogles,” she whispered in his little ear. “And one more fit to rule than any of those who now contest for the throne. My blessing on him and all his impish breed.”

  Fly the fox cub stepped warily up to Grimditch and licked his cheek.

  To Liffidia and Meg’s surprise and delight, the barn bogle spluttered and coughed to life.

  “Madam!” he moaned in a groggy daze. “Not in front of the neighbors!”

  Bewildered, he sat up and rubbed his bruised throat. “Me not deaded!” he said hoarsely. “More lives than a pusskin, that’s Grimditch!”

  His eyes were rolling independently in their sockets and only when they swiveled to a stop did he see Meg holding the mortal infant. With a jolt, his fears returned.

  “Cast your concern aside, Master Grimditch,” Meg assured him. “There are none here who will harm you or your ward now. You have done the impossible this night. You have rid the world of Rhiannon Rigantona. You delivered her death blow; all here are grateful, though they do not understand it.”

  Grimditch waggled his shaven head at her, hardly taking in her words.

  “There be some prime ugly women in this lousy forest,” he groaned. Then he noticed Liffidia and clapped his hands with recognition. “A skin swapper!” he cried. “Grimditch is their friend. They like Grimditch; he like them!”

  He looked around giddily. The rejoicing courtiers were singing and laughing, almost hysterically, while the rest were quarreling and dueling over long-remembered slights for eventual supremacy. It was a peculiar, discordant spectacle and he rubbed his eyes in confusion. Then he saw the High Lady lying on the ground. Some of the subjects who had suffered most under Rhiannon’s bloody tyranny were already creeping closer. Their hunger for revenge was hot within them. They wanted to trample her into the mud and cut her body to pieces.

  “No,” Grimditch burbled. “How can such a thing be? Foul witchy Queen cannot die.”

  “We do not know,” Meg answered. “Yet there She lies, dispatched by your poisoned arrow.”

  The barn bogle’s shaved eyebrows bunched together. “Don’t seem possibles,” he murmured. “Not at all, no, not no how.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Liffidia agreed. “It was far too simple; it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Well I be happy She’s gone,” Tollychook put in. “Easy or no, makes no difference in the end: She be nowt but worm food now.”

  “She weren’t made of mortal clay,” Grimditch protested, narrowing his eyes and sniffing the air suspiciously.

  “Gaze long on Her,” a bitter voice interrupted. “Gaze long so that thou shalt remember full well the infamous deed thou hast done!”

  Grimditch and the others looked up sharply. Perched upon Dewfrost’s saddle was the owl. Amid the wonder and amazement, it had been forgotten.

  “If you do not wish to join Her in death, begone!” Meg threatened him. “The sands of your life’s hourglass have nearly run out. Many here hate you as much as they feared my sister. You are without protection now, blood-drenched, guilt-sodden bird.”

  The owl’s head revolved slowly as it regarded the disorder and celebrations. “Not one of those vulgar ingrates mourns Her passing,” it observed coldly. “Not a single tear hath been shed. No crumb of fealty reveals itself. Now do I perceive the right and wisdom of Her great scheme. Why did I ever doubt it?”

  With a flurry of its wings it flew down to land upon its fallen mistress’s breast and stooped toward her neck.

  “One final kiss?” Meg remarked with disgust. “Woe-begotten, sin-soaked creature.”

  The owl nipped at a slender chain around the High Lady’s neck with its beak, then glared back at Meg.

  “Slow-witted, gullible crone!” he hooted with arch contempt. “Thou
hath fully earned the oblivion that is due unto thee! Yea—thou and the rest of yon treasonous, faithless mob. It is thy lives which are spent, not mine!”

  Gripping the silver fire devil that had hung about Rhiannon’s throat, it spread its wings and, with an exultant, crowing laugh, soared into the rumbling sky.

  “The new age of Her boundless dominion hath begun!” he proclaimed. “And death rides swift to thee on bristled backs! Long live the Deathless Majesty of Rhiannon Rigantona, Goddess of the World!”

  Meg and the others watched the owl disappear over the forest. With fear clutching at their trembling spirits, they stared back at the High Lady’s body and, sure enough, her shape was already dissolving. The enchantment of Fikil was dispelled and the true form of the figure lying dead on the ground was revealed. The slender outline shriveled and bulged, the velvet cloak dissolved in the rain, and the raven tresses shrank into a short crop of spiky white hair. The wrists of that dumpy, squat female were tied together with thick rope and a knitted shawl had been bound tightly about her face, gagging the warty mouth. From her expression, it was plain that Gabbity Malatrot had died an agonizing death from the arrow’s venom.

  Grimditch threw back his head and yowled. His anguished cry cut through the merriment and rioting that surrounded him and every voice fell silent when the Unseelie Court beheld what had happened.

  The High Lady was still alive.

  Frightened shouts broke out and panic enveloped the crowd.

  “Where is She?” they wailed. “What will She do to us? We are lost!”

  Beside themselves with fear of the terrible vengeance that she would inflict upon them, the members of the Court did not know what to do. How could they hide from Her? Every creature present quailed at the prospect. They had shown the true extent of their hatred for Her cruel regime; there could be no pardon from that. Hers was a realm devoid of forgiveness.

  “We have heated the coals of our own tormenting!” they wept. “Our lives are forfeit.”

  Still cradling the human infant, Peg-tooth Meg stood forward and Lord Limmersent knelt before her.

  “Command us, Highness,” he implored. “Your subjects need you.”

  The misshapen woman stared at the assembled army. They were leaderless and mortally afraid. Even the most courageous soldiers were despairing and the Redcaps were shaking with fright. The lesser folk were alarmed and distraught beyond measure. In their anguish, even the proudest elfin nobles turned to her for guidance and counsel.

  Meg’s crooked back clicked as she tried to straighten. Blinking the driving rain from her large eyes, she addressed the Unseelie Court with the authority that only the daughter of a king possessed.

  “My sister has betrayed you all,” she announced. “You are surplus to Her plans and no longer needed. The casket that contains Her heart is now locked forever and so She is finally free of death’s clutches that haunted Her throughout Her long reign. She has sent you here this night, not only to slaughter my people and myself, but to empty the Hollow Hill. That once-unassailable fortress is now open and undefended for Her infernal forces to seize.”

  “Her forces?” Lord Limmersent asked in astonishment. “What other force is Hers to command? The entire Hill is gathered here.”

  Meg looked into the dark forest. “Her foul lieutenant said this,” she told them. “‘Death rides swift to thee on bristled backs!’”

  “What can that mean?”

  “That my sister is in league with the unclean brood of the Cold Hills,” she said with horror in her voice. “The troll witches are coming, riding on their wild boars—and we are stranded out here.”

  * Chapter 16 *

  The Final Battle

  THUNDER BELLOWED AND LIGHTNING CRACKED. Every starkly illuminated face was agape with terror.

  The troll witches were the most cruel and malevolent scourge ever to have afflicted the realm. The wars against them had lasted many bloody years and were considered the grimmest battles in history. Under Black Howla, the head of that sinister sisterhood, the witches had rampaged throughout the land, destroying the lesser kingdoms to steal the magic of their rulers. Since Black Howla’s death, they had retreated to their caverns in the Cold Hills, but they were still the chief creatures of nightmare for the inhabitants of the Hollow Hill. Dread of them dogged every unquiet slumber.

  “Return to your halls!” Peg-tooth Meg commanded her frightened subjects. “Only there will you be safe … for a time.”

  “But the Hill is open!” one of the nobles cried. “We shall be defenseless there also.”

  “The Under Magic will hear Ragallach’s daughter!” she replied in so forceful and definite a voice that no one doubted her. “You cannot hope to fight the troll witches and win. They will have grown strong in these dormant ages, sucking power out of the earth. If you are caught out in the open, a battle will commence unlike any there has ever been. Make haste; gain the sanctuary of the Hill before Rhiannon.”

  The whole of the Unseelie Court who, only a short while ago, had refused to recognize her as Princess Clarisant, now accepted that fact without exception. She was their only hope.

  “Lead us out of this deadly night and we will pledge our swords to your service!” one of the nobles swore, and soon everyone was saluting her, promising undying allegiance to the disfigured daughter of King Ragallach.

  Meg bowed in gratitude, but she knew there was no time for this. They had to depart at once and she gave the order to leave. Lord Limmersent took the reins of Dewfrost and held them out to her.

  “Mount your sister’s horse,” he urged. “Ride at the head of your people and guide us safely home.”

  Meg passed the infant to Grimditch, who received him solemnly. Then she clambered clumsily into the saddle.

  “The little shobblers will ride with me,” Meg said, and Liffidia and Tollychook were lifted to sit in front of her.

  “What about the injured birds in the infirmary?” the girl implored. “We can’t abandon them—they were the Lubber’s children.”

  Meg looked up at the huge outline of the ruined watchtower that danced in and out of the lightning.

  “We must,” she said unhappily. “There is no time to collect them. We must hasten to the Hill without delay. I pray the spirit of my blind love will watch over his darlings this night.”

  She turned the horse toward the forest and rode through the moving masses. Her subjects bowed as she passed but stared curiously at the sluglungs marching proudly in her wake. Keeping his adoring eyes upon Liffidia, Fly trotted alongside Dewfrost, carefully avoiding the clopping hooves.

  “Look to the lesser folk!” Meg instructed. “Leave no one behind and give aid to the stragglers. Foot soldiers and knights, join me at the front. I fear the way to the Hill may be barred against us.”

  The Unseelie Court streamed into the trees, desperate to return home. Precedence and rank were abandoned as all they craved was to be secure within the refuge of the Hollow Hill. As they poured into the forest, Grimditch lingered by the body of the goblin nursemaid.

  “Me must get goin’, missus,” he said forlornly. “Me doesn’t want to leave you here in the cold and wetness, but the little lordling needs his bed. You understand. Forgive Grimditch. Him so sorry.”

  Crouching ungainly in the saddle, Peg-tooth Meg rode to the front of her new army, flanked by Lord Limmersent and his fellow conspirators. The goblin knights and pike-wielding infantry followed.

  Holding tight to Dewfrost’s mane, the two werlings stared ahead at the midnight forest. The silver-green light that spilled from the raised hill in the distance hardly penetrated the dense tangle of leaves overhead and, with the lamp bearers trailing behind them, the path was invisible in the dark. Only the momentary flashes of lightning illuminated the way.

  Tollychook gripped the horse’s mane tenaciously. He expected every new flash to reveal a horde of invadi
ng troll witches. Liffidia was also afraid. Her childhood had been fueled by stories of troll witches: bestial hags who spent their days drawing strength and power from the earth currents and storing it in stones.

  The forest rolled by painfully slowly. If only everyone had been on horseback, then they could gallop to the Hill and be there in hardly any time. This plodding march was excruciating. She could feel her nerves being whittled away and her heart was thumping in her chest. In the jumbled ranks behind, the nervous talk gave way to an anxious silence broken only by thunderclaps as every eye was trained on the raven black shadows beyond the trees.

  Rain was pelting the ground and not even the leaf canopy afforded any protection. Meg and her sluglungs were oblivious to the cold and wet, but the rest of the frightened host was soaked to the skin and shivering, growing more and more despondent with each passing moment.

  Gradually, they became aware of faint voices mingled with the noise of the storm. At first they were vague and indistinct, but soon everyone could hear the ugly shrieks and harrowing screams amid the thunder.

  The Unseelie Court uttered dismal cries and gathered close together.

  “They’re here,” Liffidia whispered fearfully.

  “Secure the path!” Meg shouted. “The way to the Hill must be kept open! Every rider follow me! Infantry, remain with the rest, defend them and take them safely home!”

  She spurred her horse and charged deeper into the forest. The sluglungs yelled and bounded after her. One of them stretched his arms up to the overhanging branches and began swinging recklessly through the trees, moving at such a speed that the others copied him. Lord Limmersent and the other nobles galloped in pursuit with the goblin knights racing behind.

  Dewfrost practically flew along the path. She went at such a pace that the werlings were nearly flung from their seats and Liffidia regretted her earlier wish for haste. The pounding of countless hooves filled her ears, but she could still hear her fox cub barking in the distance—he had been left far behind. Beside her, Tollychook buried his face into the horse’s mane and clung on for dear life.