3 Dead Princes: An Anarchist Fairy Tale (14 page)

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Authors: Danbert Nobacon

BOOK: 3 Dead Princes: An Anarchist Fairy Tale
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The Gricklegrack stared at the scene impassively. Impossible to read the great Bird’s thoughts.
 
“The tracks are all wrong,” The Fool said rapidly, forgetting his airsickness in his heartsickness at the scene before him. “Two sets, and another human. They’re not birdprints, but whatever they are, they could have only come by air.”
 
Emmeur looked slowly from side to side. “Aaagghh,” he murmured, “we are so far from anywhere. Only something with wings and an extraordinary sense of smell could have found this place.”
 
“What do you think they were?” said The Fool.
 
“The only creatures I think it could be,” the Bird said slowly, “are Drocabodaws.”
 
The Fool, shivering, took a deep breath.
 
“Droca what?” said Stormy, shivering now as well. She was glad of the thick coats that The Witch and Glamour had insisted they wear.
 
“Drocabodaw,” repeated The Fool. “The flying lizard. Well part lizard, part bird.”
 
“But they’re not real! They’re just a story…I…” Stormy stopped. She remembered how many stories she had found turned out to be real.
 
“Braggardio!” muttered The Fool, pulling off his three-peaked hat and tearing at his thinning hair in his distraction. “It begins to fall into place.”
 
“What are you talking about?” said Stormy frantically. “Where’s my dad?”
 
“But why point a finger at the Prince, Fool?” quizzed the Bird.
 
“I spent some moons in Oosaria in summers gone by. It wasn’t commonknowledge though such knowledge has a habit of becoming common to me but in his youth, Prince Braggardio had a certain proclivity for cruelty toward creatures. It would not surprise me if he had found a way of ensluicing the Drocabodaw.”
 
“If it is true, the picture looks grim,” said The Gricklegrack.
 
“Aye,” agreed The Fool. “And I’ll bet my big toe Braggardio and Prince Toromos will be at the helm of one of the warships making up the Lumbiana River.”
 
“Well, the knowledge of their rough position will aid us somewhat in our journey to find your father. It is a fair guess they hold him captive on board one of those vessels.”
 
“I’ll kill him. I’ll kill both of them,” said Stormy, meaning Braggardio and Toromos. Seeing her determined face, The Fool was inclined to take her seriously. She showed no hysteria, only calm determination. “But how did they even know my dad was up north?” she said, intent.
 
She answered her own question.
 
“A spy,” she said flatly. She remembered Sonia, picking up Waltherbald’s message and putting it safely away, in the kitchen at Bald Mountain Castle, that day which seemed so long ago. It was a horrible thought. But Stormy had begun to grow up, and when you grow up, horrible thoughts cannot so easily be pushed away.
 
“Get back in the harness,” the Black Bird said quietly.
 
“Wait!” Stormy walked a few paces towards something glittering in the snow that the other two had missed. She pulled at the silver thing.
 
“The wonderlook,” said The Fool.
 
“Bring it,” said the Bird. “We must head south. No time to rest. Except …” He smiled, showing his great teeth as Stormy climbed up his feathered side. “Except rest your mind. And remember Stormy, your father is too precious to the Oosarians as a bargaining tool for them to do him any real harm yet. I will tell you more later, for there is much more to tell. I will tell you things about your mother. I know you have been wanting to ask. But now I must rest my tongue and focus my eyes. We will be passing over northern villages forthwith, and I want no one to see us as we go.”
 
Once more, Emmeur took off into the sky, shooting up from the ice ledge outside the cavern. As he soared upward, Stormy pressed her head against his warm, feathered sides and tried to rest her mind. But all she could think was they were going to war. For there is war even in sort-of fairy tales. This would be her first. But not, alas, her last.
 
Chapter 16
 
THE BELLS OF WAR
 
B
ack at Bald Mountain Castle, things were more frenzied with each new message bird from Rockport. In the last two days, as the Oosarian longship army progressed northwards up the western sea, the message birds came from closer and frantically closer to home.
 
After the departure of Nukeander and the Oosarians, and more updates from King Jude, Geraldo had put the Morainian defense program on full alert. Based on the reasonable premise that the defense of Morainia against outside aggressors was spies and traitors excepted in the interests of all Morainians, it was an organized program of mutual aid.
 
All who could help did. All who were willing, which meant almost everyone, and all who were able, which really meant everyone over the age of nine to even the oldest grandparents, were being mobilized. It was how Morainia pretty much functioned under the normal circumstances of daily living, and this was all the more heightened by the Oosarian threat.
 
Morainians were a peace loving people. But they didn’t like being pushed around.
 
There were jobs for all abilities. Feeding those in frontline positions, cleaning and sharpening weapons, relieving troops and scouts on a shift basis. Most people over the age of fifteen had some experience of active patrol service, occasionally repelling spies in the foothills where the Bald River Falls cascaded into the Lumbiana.
 
On rare occasions there had been skirmishes along these frontlines. The few older men and women still living, who had been young when Jakerbald became King and Walterbald was a boy, remembered the last full-scale defense of the kingdom.
 
Gwynmerelda had trained in Morainian defense exercises, but never the real thing. She retrieved her armor from the storehouse the very morning that Stormy and The Fool had taken to the air with The Gricklegrack.
 
The armor lay on the bed now as she wiggled herself into deer hide breeches, which she would normally not be seen dead in. She pulled the hip straps tight, and picked up the breastplate. As she stood adjusting the straps there was a knock at the door.
 
“Enter.”
 
“It’s only me,” said Geraldo. He came in, a smile chasing the wearylines across his faithful-comrade face. “You look—“
 
“I look like shit,” the Queen groaned. She pulled her hair back and tied it behind her head. That made her look even less the glamorous Queen that Morainians knew her as. She did, however, look imposing.
 
Geraldo bowed. “I bring you something for the battle.” From behind his back he presented a hatchet.
 
Gwynmerelda studied it. “It was hers, wasn’t it?”
 
Geraldo nodded.
 
It was a light, sleek, hatchet, specifically designed to be wielded by a woman. There was no jewel-encrusted hilt, but the metalwork was of exceptional quality, and there was an inscription on the handle:
To Ursula, with all my heart. Walterbald. xx
 
 
 
“But this belongs to Stormy,” protested Gwynmerelda.
 
“Stormy is with the Bird by now. There is no greater weapon than The Gricklegrack to protect the Princess. This hatchet is a queen’s hatchet and you are the Queen.”
 
Gwynmerelda fought back a tear and held still. And then the muscles in her cheeks quivered, as she relented and the tears came.
 
Geraldo half moved towards her, she towards him. It was awkward. She still had the hatchet in her hand. He was tentative, but they managed a hug of sorts. Geraldo felt the mountains of the breastplate digging uncomfortably into his chest, but the Queen hung on with all her might.
 
“Morainia has never given up before, dear Queen, and there is no reason that we should do so now.”
 
“But some of us will die?”
 
“Probably. But we have no choice.”
 
“I know,” she winced. “I just can’t bear the thought of it all.”
 
Geraldo kissed Gwynmerelda on the forehead.
 
“You are a true queen,” he said.
 
Before the Queen could reply there was a new knock on the door. Jakerbald and Gigi burst into the room.
 
“Bad news,” said the former King, “from The Witch in the Ditch. And this .” He gave some small pieces of paper to Geraldo.
 
“It’s Walterbald,” said Gigi. “He’s been kingnapped from the northlands.”
 
Gwynmerelda said nothing. She gave a faint shudder and pulled herself up to her full height, as if to meet whatever came.
 
“It seems that the Oosarians have some flying creatures in their employ. They took Walterbald this morning,” said Jakerbald.
 
“And that’s not the worst of it,” said Geraldo, looking up momentarily from the paper he held in his hand. “This is the Oosarian ransom note.”
 
We, the Oosarian fleet, will be anchored by Bald River Falls before dawn tomorrow. You are probably aware by now we hold your King Walterbald prisoner, and will not release him until the battle force of the Oosarian guard have been granted safe passage up the Falls Road. Any sign of aggression will seal Walterbald’s death.
 
 
 
signed, Your humble conqueror, Prince Toromos, servant of Queen Nukeander of Oosaria. Lion of the South.
 
“They’re bluffing,” assured Jakerbald.
 
“Maybe,” said Geraldo.
 
“Anything else?” asked the Queen, straightening her back and chasing the worrylines away with a look of determination.
 
“Yes,” said Jakerbald. “Rogerley Bishop and his clique are gone. The kitchen girl Sonia betrayed us. They plotted Walterbald’s kingnapping, and the Oosarian battle fleet sailed north as we were sitting down to dinner with Nukeander.”
 
“To Eagle Cave then, comrades,” said Gwynmerelda, standing up, clutching the axe she still held. “And we’ll see what schemagems we can make to throw at
them.
”
 
Chapter 17
 
TRANSKINKERY AND THE CHICKEN MAGICIAN
 
B
y early evening The Gricklegrack and his passengers were nearing the northwestern fringes of the wider Morainian kingdom. As the Bird had suggested, they came back to earth for shelter and sustenance in the forest before nightfall.

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