Thorn Ogres of Hagwood Page 9

  The girl eyed him somberly. “It didn’t stop your grandmother telling it to you,” she replied. “Both your parents are dead, aren’t they?”

  Finnen hung his head and said no more.

  “Woooo—Frighty Aggie!” Mufus Doolan wailed, breaking the sudden tension. “I liked that. I’d love to see that lair of hers.”

  Bufus jumped to his feet. “Dare you to go to the holly fence!” he cried.

  “Do you think we’d spot her from there?” his brother asked.

  “Bet we could—and I bet she stinks!”

  Finnen raised his eyes and regarded them in annoyance. The story had inspired the Doolans far more than he had anticipated.

  “Nobody’s going anywhere,” he stated firmly. “Especially not to the holly fence. You must never, ever go that way—do you understand?”

  The brothers sneered. “S’only a barmy old story, anyway,” Mufus moaned. “She’d be long dead by now, even if it was true.”

  “Oh, it’s true all right,” Finnen snapped, and the bitterness in his voice startled everyone.

  At that moment Tollychook leaped up and frantically pointed over their heads into the wood.

  “Look! Look!” he squealed.

  A hideous fear gripped the others, and they whirled about. “Sting not me!” Bufus pleaded as he fell on his face.

  “What is it?” Finnen hissed, unable to see anything monstrous lurking in the shadowy dark.

  Tollychook stared at their frightened faces and in a small, abashed voice muttered, “There’s a hedgehog over there.”

  And so the strained mood was dispelled, and laughing, the werlings ran from the roots of the ash to where a small prickly shape was ambling through the dead leaves.

  Hearing them approach, the urchin rolled into a tight ball and would not budge until Finnen called to it softly and gained its trust. Presently the creature uncurled, and its beady eyes inspected the others before waddling on its way once more.

  Deeper into the wood the werlings traveled with their new companion, carefully observing its movements—at times falling on all fours to copy its shambling gait.

  The night wore on, and often the hedgehog would pause to snout and sift the leaves with its glistening nose, searching for grubs and beetles. Once it found a large slug, which it chewed happily and stickily for several minutes.

  Tollychook had been contemplating a further foray into his provisions, but the sight of the gluey, tarry meal chased that clean from his thoughts.

  “Ack!” he exclaimed. “That’s disgusting, that be.”

  Finnen chuckled. “Don’t speak too soon,” he said, lifting the lantern so that the light fell full upon the last unpleasant morsel. “Sometimes when you’ve wergled into a shape and stay that way for a while you get the funniest cravings. I’ve eaten lots of bluebottles.”

  The children shrieked in revulsion, but the laughter died on Finnen’s lips and his face fell.

  “Where are they?” he cried, staring this way and that. “How long have they been gone?”

  Only then did the others realize that two of their number were missing, but no one had seen them slip away. Mufus and Bufus Doolan were nowhere to be found.

  Holding the lantern aloft, Finnen darted into the surrounding dark, calling the brothers’ names, but no voices answered.

  “When was the last time anyone saw them?” he cried desperately. “Can you remember?”

  The others shook their heads. “I heard one of them whisper something two beetles ago,” Liffidia said. “I couldn’t hear what it was, but didn’t think anything of that. They’re always muttering to one another.”

  Finnen rubbed his forehead and tried not to panic. “That can’t have been more than an hour since,” he calculated. “Maybe less. If we set off right away we might be able to catch up with them.”

  “What did they run off for?” Tollychook groaned, failing to see the significance of the brothers’ disappearance. “The prickly slug chewer’s getting away. Spoil everything, them two do.”

  Gamaliel and Liffidia said nothing; the horrible suspicion that had flared in Finnen’s mind had also dawned on them.

  “They can’t have,” Liffidia gasped.

  “Yes, they would!” Gamaliel whimpered. “You know what they’re like.”

  Dragging his fingers through his hair, Finnen gave a yell of anger. “Idiots!” he shouted. “What got into them? Are they mad?”

  Tollychook fidgeted awkwardly. “Where you think they’ve gone then?” he mumbled.

  “It’s obvious,” Finnen answered. “The fools have gone to the holly fence—to find Frighty Aggie.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The Lair of Frighty Aggie

  THROUGH THE NIGHT-WRAPPED WOOD the werlings raced, their hearts pounding with fear and dread.

  Haring before the others, Finnen wished there had been time to take his charges back to their homes and fetch help, but such a delay might prove fatal for Mufus and Bufus. Yet still he regretted bringing them.

  Liffidia could run almost as fast as Finnen, but Tollychook was not swift and Gamaliel was only slightly quicker. Vital minutes were constantly squandered while Finnen waited for them to catch up.

  Deep into the trees he led them, pressing further than they had ever been, until at last they heard the rushing of water and one by one they came to the Hagburn.

  Soon they were all standing upon the steep brink.

  Staring down at the stream as he struggled to catch his breath, Gamaliel felt awfully afraid. The reflected light of the lantern sparkled like liquid fire down there, but when he lifted his gaze to the far bank, all was darkness and strangling shadow.

  “Do we have to go across?” he murmured.

  Tollychook yelped at the very thought of venturing into that untame forest, but they all knew that it was the only way.

  “There are plenty of leaning boughs to use as bridges,” Finnen said, shining the lantern further downstream. “We must hurry.”

  Along the mossy edge of the high bank the werlings ran, to where the first of many branches stretched from the far side to their own. It was almost as if the ugly, twisted trees of the forest had been trying to creep stealthily across, and Gamaliel shuddered at the unwelcome notion. Yet into that fearsome realm they were bound to go.

  Choosing the widest branch, Finnen scooted to the eastern side and the others followed.

  They had left the comfortable land of the werlings behind them and were now standing upon a hostile shore. The difference was remarkable and disquieting.

  Peering around him, Gamaliel looked at the unfamiliar trees. There was nothing beautiful in any of them. They were grasping, distorted giants that vied against and throttled their neighbors in what was evidently a daily struggle for light. Beneath the contorted boughs the air was stuffy and oppressive, oozing and rolling between the grotesquely proportioned trunks as a turgid black vapor.

  “From here on we have to go in the dark.” Finnen’s voice cut through Gamaliel’s thoughts. “I daren’t risk a light. There are too many eyes this side of the stream. Keep your sticks handy, but let’s hope we won’t need them.”

  Lifting the lantern, he closed its small door. At once the imprisoning bars of night snapped in around them, stifling their senses.

  “We mustn’t even call out the Doolans’ names,” Finnen warned. “It’s too dangerous for that here.”

  “But how will we find them?” Liffidia asked.

  “Safe and well, hopefully,” came the unsettling reply.

  Straining their eyes, they picked their way through the tangled forest, tripping over unseen roots and bruising their shins when they fell.

  It was a distressing, floundering journey that seemed to take forever in the engulfing murk. Southward they pressed, drawing no ease from the foreign noises of the forest, which all sounded bleak and menacing.

  “Surely we should have found them by now?” Liffidia breathed. “I’m starting to doubt if Mufus and Bufus came this way at all. I think the
y simply got bored and went home.”

  “Too late to turn back.” Finnen spoke in a soft whisper. “We’re here.”

  Rising before them was a wall of solid darkness that towered far above the highest branches and curved deep into the forest, further than their aching eyes could see.

  “The holly fence,” Gamaliel murmured. “I never dreamed I’d ever look on it, and never wanted to neither.”

  That dense hedge of holly was a daunting barrier. A fortress built from spiky, leathery leaves and choking, knotted growth, it was a bastion of despair. The sight of it crushed the werlings’ spirits utterly.

  “Us’ll never get through there,” Tollychook warbled, glancing up to where the ragged battlements vanished into cavernous shadow.

  “Do you really believe Frighty Aggie is still alive?” Gamaliel whispered nervously.

  Taking a step closer to the glossy, prickling leaves, Finnen took a few moments to answer. “If she is, then she’s right behind this,” he said grimly.

  “But Mufus and Bufus aren’t,” Liffidia insisted. “Even if they came this far, they would have turned back. This is an evil place; my skin’s crawling. I feel as though a hundred eyes were watching me.”

  The others agreed. The atmosphere was charged with malice, and from the holly fence there floated a faint reek of death and corruption.

  “You’re right,” Finnen decided. “Let’s go back, and quickly. When I catch hold of those two truants...”

  Before he could finish, a faint, pitiful cry came echoing from beyond the vast hedge, and the werlings stared at one another in horror.

  “They are in there!” Finnen hissed.

  Tollychook backed away in terror. “Crickle crackle, wergle thee, stray not from the cobweb tree,” he wailed. “She’s eatin’ them!”

  Finnen rushed forward and frantically sought for a way through the evergreen bulwark. Dropping to his knees, he groped at the tangled stems, battering the sharp leaves aside with his stick.

  “I can get in here,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Wait!” Liffidia urged. “There’s nothing you can do against her!”

  The anguished cry was sent up once more. It was a ghastly, blood-freezing scream—filled with horror and pain. Wasting no more time, Finnen dived into the gap he had made, and the holly fence swallowed him.

  Crouched by the opening, Liffidia knew she could not let him go alone. With her heart in her mouth, she hurried after.

  Still singing the childhood rhyme to ward the nightmare of Frighty Aggie away, Tollychook sobbed and Gamaliel felt helpless.

  “I can’t just stand here waiting!” Gamaliel finally blurted as the seconds dragged by. “Anything might be happening in there.”

  “Don’t you go!” Tollychook begged. “Don’t leave me all by meself. That’s worse than owt else.”

  But Gamaliel was already squeezing into the gap, and blubbering dismally, Tollychook followed.

  Through the narrow, scratching tunnel of holly they pushed, the shiny leaves jabbing into their faces and snagging their clothes. For many unchecked years the fence had stood, and the breadth of its tangled ramparts had grown very deep.

  Barging his way ahead, Finnen was filled with doubt as he steeled himself for the monstrous horror he was about to encounter.

  The repulsive stench became stronger, and he nearly yelled when his fingers met a clinging, sticky spider’s thread.

  He was getting close to the other side. A sickly gray radiance glimmered between the dense leaves in front, and bracing himself for the hideous unknown, he plunged straight through them.

  Finnen Lufkin stumbled to a standstill.

  A loathsome, eerie scene was unveiled before him. Beyond the mighty barricade of holly stretched a wide clearing. Toward one remote corner the ground rose steadily, and there, thrusting up from that parched mound, was the lair of Frighty Aggie.

  It was a huge, black, tortured shape: a massive dead tree whose bark was blighted by disease and blasted by lightning. The crippled boughs corkscrewed their way from one side of the curving hedge to the other, forming the rafters of a misshapen roof, and beneath them the malformed trunk was punctured with dozens of dark and gaping holes.

  Cold with fear, Finnen eyed those ominous entrances and swallowed hard. It was a vile, pestiferous place, and death hung heavily about it.

  Suddenly Liffidia emerged from the leaves behind him but instantly recoiled.

  All around the clearing, looking like macabre and spectral bunting, were swathes of old and filthy webs. Gray, dirt-clogged cords clung to every twisting branch, and the moonlight that filtered through that unclean mesh appeared squalid and foul. Even the sharp stones that surrounded the repulsive tree and its radiating, serpentine roots were smothered by dusty strands. But not all the threads were old and coated with grime; in that ghostly light many were fresh and glistening.

  Liffidia cast her gaze higher, and at that moment Gamaliel and Tollychook joined them.

  When their eyes adjusted to the ghastly glare, they saw that hanging from the branches were countless cocooned bundles.

  None of them had ever felt so afraid. “It’s her larder,” Gamaliel breathed, feeling sick and faint.

  Suspended from slender ropes and bound in suffocating webs were the festering remains of Frighty Aggie’s victims. Peering up at the carcasses of her bygone feasts, the werlings could just make out what manner of creatures those bones had once belonged to.

  The shriveled bodies of mice and voles formed the most numerous part of the grisly hoard, but here and there they recognized a sparrow’s beak or weasel’s foot sticking from a slightly larger parcel, and the dried corpse of a frog could easily be discerned. All the captured prey of Frighty Aggie was here. She kept it dangling from the branches until her insect mind deemed it ripe and ready for her awful jaws.

  “Sucked the goodness clean out of ’em all,” Tollychook wept.

  But there were bigger creatures caught in Aggie’s nets. Gamaliel saw the mask of a badger grinning down at him, and he tried not to think what had become of the rest of the hapless beast.

  Wrenching his gaze away, Finnen searched for any sign of Mufus and Bufus, but the brothers were nowhere to be seen in that disgusting domain. Anxiously he wondered if they had been dragged into one of those holes in the tree and were even now being devoured in the dark.

  A mournful shriek suddenly threw his sinister suspicions aside, and finally they all saw where those cries originated.

  Across the clearing, partly concealed by festooning webs, was a fox cub. Trussed tightly, it was hanging upside down, its eyes rolling in terror.

  Another mewling call escaped its jaws when it beheld once more the frightful thing suspended nearby, and realizing what it was, Tollychook retched and looked away.

  Swinging slowly upon a silvery string, like some grisly pendulum, was a second cub, but it was dead and half eaten. The constricting bonds were splashed with blood, and the ground beneath was stained and spattered.

  Finnen pushed the others back against the holly fence.

  “The Doolans were never here,” he muttered. “We have to go.”

  Liffidia shook her head. “But that poor fox is still alive,” she declared. “I’m not abandoning it here to be eaten.” And before anyone could stop her she darted forward.

  “Come back!” Finnen gasped. “This is madness!”

  But Liffidia was determined. Leaping over the thick, ropelike roots that broke the surface of that stony ground, she ran to the other side of the clearing—to where the fox cub was twirling woefully.

  Imprisoned in Aggie’s snares, the animal gave a feeble twitch when it saw her approach, and its amber, fear-filled eyes fixed beseechingly upon her.

  “Be calm now,” she called softly, avoiding the red stains on the ground. “I’ll rescue you.”

  Finnen could not believe what she was doing. So far they had been incredibly lucky and had seen nothing of Frighty Aggie, but he did not expect their miraculous g
ood fortune to last.

  “We don’t have time for this,” he mumbled. So, leaving Tollychook and Gamaliel behind, he ran to fetch her back.

  Gamaliel turned to look at the deformed tree with its many dark holes, and he trembled, fumbling with the absurdly inadequate stick in his hands.

  Standing beneath the trapped cub, Liffidia wondered how to release it. The creature was not dangling high off the ground. Its furry, web-wrapped face was almost level with her own, and she held out her hand in a gesture of friendship and trust.

  The fox cub licked her palm then gave a forsaken whine that pierced her heart. Liffidia looked up at the suspending thread. It did not appear to be very strong; perhaps if she wrenched at it...

  Leaping up, the werling girl caught hold of the binding cords to yank the animal free, but Aggie’s silks were stronger than they appeared and did not yield. Then, to her dismay, Liffidia discovered that her hands were held fast to the cocoon. She, too, was captured.

  “I’m stuck!” she cried as Finnen came running. “The webs are like glue! I can’t get my hands loose!”

  Grasping her wrists, Finnen pulled fiercely, but it made no difference. The petrified fox let out a grievous yowl.

  “Keep it quiet!” Finnen begged her. “I don’t like this; she should have shown herself by now.”

  “What am I to do?” Liffidia cried, panicking.

  With a wary glance at the monster’s hideous abode, Finnen let go of the girl’s wrists and stepped away from her. Then, throwing off his coat, he raised his arms and at once wergled into a woodpecker.

  Up the bird flew, up to where the tip of the cub’s tail poked from the sticky bindings and the suspending strand stretched into the overhanging branches.

  In one swift, scissoring movement, the woodpecker’s beak attacked the cord and snipped it in two.

  Liffidia fell backward and the fox cub tumbled on top of her.

  Down Finnen swooped, wergling into a stoat whose sharp claws set to work immediately.

  From the fox’s body the tight, ensnaring webs were torn. Too frail to bark with joy, the young animal could only wheeze its gratitude while Liffidia wiped the filthy stuff from her hands.