War in Hagwood Read online

  Kernella covered her eyes. A horrific explosion of blue and yellow flame engulfed both horse and rider, and they were hurled back into the woodland where their smoking bodies set light to the surrounding thistles.

  The owl chuckled ghoulishly.

  “The music of suffering is very beautiful to me,” Rhiannon purred. “I will fill the land with such a song as has never been heard before. But you do not look as though you relish it quite as much, sister. Have you had enough?”

  Crouched on the ground, Meg merely stared at her sister in disgust.

  Rhiannon gave a callous laugh. The lightning continued to blaze atop her staff. The smoldering air around it was charged with tingling static that lifted her hair and bristled the owl’s feathers. She was the undoubted High Queen of the world.

  Finally, she turned her caustic attention to the werlings.

  “And so, dear baby sister,” she said with finality in her voice, “it is time to dispatch your performing mice. I wonder how well they burn. Let us see, shall we?”

  She lowered her staff and was about to strike when Master Gibble leaped in front of the children, causing her to laugh all the more.

  “Cowards and traitors blaze just as well as would-be heroes,” she told him. “You are no protection.”

  The wergle master met her vicious glare without a twitch or jerk of his head. But a nudge in the back from Finnen caused him to glance past the High Lady, at the bare expanse of rock behind her. What he saw shocked and exhilarated him and he knew he had to keep Rhiannon’s attention, distract her from what was approaching.

  “Spare us!” he begged. “Spare me—and I will tell you every secret of my people.”

  Rhiannon snorted. “You squalid wer-rats have no secrets!” she cried. “And your life is not worth buying twice.”

  “Don’t be so sure!” Finnen yelled back, guessing what Master Gibble was up to. He knew they had to keep her distracted just long enough.

  “An’ you might think you be pretty,” Tollychook piped up, “but you be the ugliest hag in the whole of this forest!”

  “And far too skinny!” added Kernella honestly.

  The High Lady regarded them with contempt. Were they mad to insult her so? In a moment they would be screaming amid sizzling flames, yet Bufus was making obscene gestures at her and Gamaliel wasn’t even looking in her direction.

  Then, above the din of battle, she heard a curious slapping noise close by.

  Rhiannon spun around. Charging toward her, their broad, webbed feet splashing in the rain, were the remaining sluglungs—and at their head, looking more fierce than ever before in her young life, was Liffidia Nefyn, riding upon Fly.

  When Liffidia had fallen from Dewfrost, Fly had come tearing to her rescue. Now, catapult in hand, she fired a fir cone at the owl and it struck it smartly on the beak. The bird squawked and its eyes watered with the pain.

  The sluglungs came bounding along behind Liffidia, shouting, “Megboo—ussum come, ussum help!”

  “Shimmil dunge, boys!” Liffidia cried.

  The sluglungs whooped and ran smack into one another, forming one large glob of jelly with many arms that raced forward and, as Rhiannon brought her staff around to blast them into smoking cinders, their strong, clammy hands wrenched it from her grasp and flung it over the edge of the cliff. The staff continued to crackle with lightning as it tumbled into the darkness, illuminating the sharp craggy wall until the lodestones struck the water of the Crone’s Maw far below and the fiery bolt was extinguished.

  The sluglung mass gurgled with satisfaction and went bouncing over to Peg-tooth Meg, landing between her and her sister, prepared to defend their beloved Megboo.

  The werlings rejoiced to see Liffidia alive and well. The girl loosed another fir cone. It hit the owl on the side of its head, and she grinned at her friends. The bird shook itself then flew up to a high branch out of range. Perched there, it lifted its gaze and took comfort in the spectacle of the fighting on the lower slopes. Then its eyes opened wide with surprise and disbelief. Something was moving through the forest.

  Down on the ground, Rhiannon was stalking toward the werlings. “You only postpone your deaths,” she said. “My sisters will reach us soon. I will take up one of their staves and blast you into the night. No charred fragment of you will ever be found.”

  As she spoke, new sounds erupted from the approaching battle. The ghastly mirth of the troll witches was changing to shrieks of dismay and the hogs were squealing in fright.

  “My Lady!” the owl called overhead, “My Lady! Behold the valley!”

  The High Lady looked up quickly and drew a sharp breath.

  Through the trees, she could see a mob of horrendous shapes rushing from the forest and onto the wooded slopes. They were unspeakable monstrosities, unlike any creature anyone had ever seen: great fiendish nightmares sporting brutal-looking horns, with enormous fangs in snapping mouths and tails that lashed behind their powerful bodies and cracked the trees. Some ran on four legs and others on two. Some were covered in scales, others in coarse shaggy fur or long spines and bristles. They bellowed in voices deep as the thunder and their ferocious roars caused the swine bearing the troll witches to flee in panic.

  The remnants of the Unseelie Court cried out at this new, unexpected foe and their horses neighed in alarm—but the unnatural terrors were not interested in them. The strange, frightful horde swept right past, chasing the troll witches higher up the ridge.

  “What are they?” Rhiannon breathed incredulously. “What deep pit has belched them forth?” She rounded on her sister and stared at her with new respect. “So, in your damp caves you bred more than frogspawn. What foul arts did you use to conjure these malignant demons?”

  Meg stared at the monsters and shook her head in denial. “I do not know those abominations,” she uttered in fearful wonder. “Can there be a power in Hagwood greater even than yours? Even your foul sisterhood is afraid. Hear how they squeal louder than their mounts.”

  The conglomeration of sluglungs gibbered unhappily at the fearful sight and the werlings held on to one another as the horrors came storming farther up the slope.

  The troll witches were yowling in dismay. They had never encountered anything like these harrowing devils before. Never in their darkest dreams during the long exile in the Cold Hills had they envisioned such ferocious, repellent creatures. Where and how had they been hiding? What momentous, sinister force could have created and nourished them? What unearthly powers did they possess?

  Their wild hogs would not stop. The same blind impulse to run that had possessed Dewfrost now seized every one of them as they tore up the ridge toward the Witch’s Leap. The lightning continued to streak down into the hags’ staves and cudgels, but the terrified troll witches were unable to discharge it into the enemy’s repulsive fang-filled faces because the panicked swine would not turn about.

  The thorny imps that rode with the hags scuttled down the boars’ snouts and wrenched on their tusks or tore at their nostrils but nothing would halt them. Neither threat nor violence could compel them to stop.

  They ran, swift and reckless, out of the wooded slope and over the rocky expanse.

  “No,” Rhiannon yelled. “Sisters! Sisters!” She dashed forward and threw out her arms but the demented wild boars stampeded past her. Even Ironback joined them in their terror and the helpless troll witches screeched and swore. A mesh of lightning blazed fiercely in their wake as they were swept to the cliff edge. The great hogs squealed and grunted their last but did not slow and, in their madness, they threw themselves off. The hags toppled with them. Their echoing screams split the night and the lightning chased them down. High above, the voice of Black Howla shrieked but was lost when a tremendous clap of thunder boomed throughout the tortured sky.

  Gamaliel shivered. Under his breath he muttered a line from Gwyddion’s poem, “whence swine and
witches fly.”

  The lightning ceased abruptly as the last of the troll witches perished on the rocks below. The crag was dark once more—but the battle was not yet over. Those fearsome new creatures were still advancing up the slope. They were terrible to look at, being horrendous fusions of savage and fanciful beasts. The fangs were slavering, the horns were sharp and twisted, the claws were razorlike and barbed. Knots of bulging muscle swelled scaled, spiny or fur-covered shoulders and the limbs were long and strong. They truly were a blood-freezing sight—although one of them appeared to possess an enormous squirrel’s tail, which swished and flicked behind it.

  With snarling jaws, they prowled before the High Lady, snapping and biting.

  Rhiannon Rigantona returned their hostile stares, undaunted. Hate and malice marred her lovely face.

  “Whatever you demons may be,” she spat and her words echoed across the crag with such force that the stones trembled and leaves shook, “you hold no terror for the Goddess of the World—I am deathless and cannot be harmed.”

  Such was the force of her voice and the virulent power that burned in her eyes, the unnatural beasts were cowed and they drew back uncertainly.

  “You have wrought the destruction of the sisterhood,” she continued angrily, “and you will feel the full might of my vengeance. I will rip the earth open and return you to the abyss from whence you came.”

  The monsters began snuffling and one of them whimpered. Meg and the werlings looked at them in surprise.

  “They did it!” Finnen hissed to the others, almost bursting with joy. “Those fabulous, daft old werglers did it! Oh, dab crack—bless each and every one of them!”

  The werlings gazed at him in confusion. Even Master Gibble did not comprehend what the boy was babbling about.

  But Finnen’s rejoicing was short lived. The enchanted smoke of the Silent Grove had done its work and the monstrous forms shimmered and shrank. Scales disappeared and the mighty limbs dwindled. Fangs and claws retreated and savage snouts returned to blobby noses and dimpled chins. The horde of terrifying demons that had sent the troll witches racing off the cliff melted down into their true forms: the little werlings of the western border of Hagwood.

  The children gasped and shook their heads in disbelief. Terser Gibble could not believe his eyes; such enormous transformations were not possible.

  Still wearing his squirrel tail—but now of squirrel size—Figgle Tumpin rushed forward to embrace his children, Tidubelle right beside him.

  “Mam! Dad!” Tollychook blurted, dashing over to the Umbelnappers to bury his sobbing face in their arms.

  Bufus Doolan was soon being squeezed by his own father and, instead of pulling a face and squirming as was usual, Bufus never wanted to be let go.

  “Well done, everyone,” Diffi Maffin applauded the rest of the werlings. “Most successful—I feel twenty years younger.”

  Rhiannon Rigantona watched in stunned silence until the sound of gentle laughter made her turn toward Peg-tooth Meg.

  “And that, my dear sister,” Meg told her, “is why I delight in the company of these vermin that scurry about my ankles. Are they not remarkable? They are so small and insignificant, yet they have bested Black Howla’s unclean crew and are braver than any of the old knights in our father’s time. The menace of the Cold Hills has been vanquished at last, and all it took were these silly creatures with hearts bigger than the shapes they assume.”

  The High Lady glowered at her then glanced down the slope. The survivors of the Hollow Hill had regrouped and were hastening toward them.

  “The sisterhood may be broken on the rocks below,” she snapped. “But I am not beaten. I will fly down the cliff and fetch just one stave from a dead hand. That is all I shall need to destroy everything upon this accursed crag. But you, Clarisant, will die now!”

  She reached beneath her wolf-skin cloak and pulled out a long curved knife. Before the sluglungs could stop her, she lunged forward.

  Yet the blade never reached Meg. A glistening strand of silk whipped around the weapon and yanked violently. Rhiannon shrieked in rage as the knife was ripped from her hand and she staggered backward.

  High above, Frighty Aggie creaked and clicked her jaws in mockery and drummed her legs upon the trunk of the pine tree.

  “Oh, Agnilla.” Finnen grinned. “You old beauty!”

  By now, the knights and nobles of the Unseelie Court had reined their steeds to a stop behind the crowd of werlings, and behind them hurried the foot soldiers, esquires and pages, the kluries and the milkmaids. A band of Redcaps came scooting between the horses and, with vicious yells, sent a flight of arrows into the air. They plunged into the High Lady’s breast and lodged deep between her ribs.

  Rhiannon glanced down dismissively, no more concerned with the arrows piercing her flesh than if a flying ant had blundered into her. She took hold of the quivering shafts and, with a casual twist of the wrist, ripped them from her skin and tossed the poisoned arrows on the floor. The wounds healed immediately.

  “You cannot assail me,” she addressed the growing crowd, with a half-smile on her sneering lips. “If I wished, I could walk amongst you, unhindered, and whisper words of death in your ears that would cause you to wither and retch your lives away, or make you slay those dearest to you. But this little war has dawdled overlong already and it is time to make a swift end of it. When I have made this entire forest a desert of ash, I shall depart to be worshipped as the Goddess I am, across the whole of the world.”

  Her eyes glinted and the malevolence that beat out of her caused each of them to catch his breath. In her face, they saw their deaths and knew they were inescapable.

  Reaching for the silver talisman at her throat, Rhiannon ran to the edge of the precipice. Her cloak dripped to the ground, her crown of antlers dissolved, black feathers shot from her fingers and her arms became great dark wings.

  Kernella blinked—in place of the High Lady’s elegant form was a large black owl.

  “Lumme,” murmured Tollychook.

  Fikil the fire devil glittered around the owl’s neck as, with one last glare at the ragged gathering of her enemies, Rhiannon flew into the rainy night.

  “She will return—and swiftly, with a troll witch’s stave,” Meg declared. “This time there will be no respite from her vengeance. Let us take these snatched moments to remember those who have fallen in battle and count ourselves fortunate to have fought alongside them. We must take comfort in the knowledge that we did everything in our power to stem my sister’s evil, even for a brief while. Be quick and say your farewells. Kiss your loved ones and hold them tight.”

  The assembled werlings obeyed and waited for the end. These final, dread-filled moments were worse than everything they had endured so far. Knights removed their helms and the nobles dismounted as the rest of the Unseelie Court knelt before Meg for the first and final time. The mass of sluglungs separated and hugged their Megboo sorrowfully.

  Gamaliel’s upturned face caught sight of the milk-white barn owl leaving its lofty perch in the pine tree to go spiraling down after its mistress. The boy lowered his gaze. All around him, everyone was preparing for the end. His own kind were huddled in groups, clinging sadly to one another. Liffidia had buried her face into Fly’s wet fur and Master Gibble laid his hand upon Finnen’s shoulder. The boy’s grandmother had remained behind on the Barren Heath with the rest of the elderly and very young and Finnen wished he could hug her one last time.

  The Unseelie Court was wrapped in contemplative silence, recalling the friends and rivals who had perished in the battle, and repenting their old quarrels. Some were murmuring the lineage of their fathers, others were praying to half-forgotten forest gods, and the rest simply stared at Peg-tooth Meg’s hunched figure and drew strength from the steadfastness of her gaze. They wished she could have ruled over them; what a beautiful place the Hollow Hill would have been.
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  Meg’s arms were around her sluglungs. Only seven of them had survived. They sighed and muttered in doleful voices, their hands fusing together as they looked up at her. And the rain continued to pour.

  As Gamaliel’s eyes drifted over the dripping assembly, he saw a solitary figure picking its way carefully through the kneeling courtiers. Although the figure was now shorn of hair and clothed in rich apparel, Gamaliel recognized his waddling gait immediately.

  “Grimditch!” he shouted. “Grimditch!”

  Still carrying the human infant, shielding it from the rain as best he could, the barn bogle had followed the battle in his stocking feet. It had been a grisly road. Trudging through the ruinous desolation of blackened corpses and burning trees, he had been appalled by the death and devastation around him and mourned the loss of so many warriors and hillfolk who had fought bravely.

  The sights he saw on that macabre march tempered his mischievous nature and he knew that, if he somehow survived that awful night, they would stay with him for the rest of his life. In a low voice, he sang to the infant in his arms to keep it sleeping, and spare its innocent eyes.

  Trumpeters were mangled within their battered instruments. The aged Earl Tobevere lay dead beneath the wild boar that had killed him, which, in turn, had been shot by Redcap arrows. Close by, the Lady Mauvette was facedown on the trampled ground and the klurie that had rushed to her aid was only a smoking husk.

  Once he passed a goblin milkmaid dangling upside down from the branch where a thunderbolt had blasted her. Even in death, Squinting Wheyleen’s eyes were askew and her two long plaits were still swinging beneath her. With a whispered blessing, Grimditch gently closed her eyelids and pressed on.

  And now, finally, he had caught up with the survivors stoically waiting for death to come and claim them. There was nowhere safe in the entire kingdom, or beyond, for him and the baby. Perhaps he too should take his place among the defeated.

  Then he heard Gamaliel’s familiar voice calling to him.

  “My little skin swapper!” he bawled. “You is safe! Grimditch glad—me missed you!”