Haven Magic (60 page)

“Impudent spratling!” shouted Old Hob.

Brand ignored him. “Oberon!” he called, looking past Old Hob’s leering bulk. “I must go, but when we meet again, we will wager once more!”

Oberon merely nodded to him.

Brand retreated down the slope. Behind him, he could hear Old Hob’s continuous, bitter complaints.

* * *

After Brand left them, Myrrdin could barely meet the eyes of Oberon or Old Hob. He’d promised the boy would be reasonable, but he’d
changed
. Perhaps it was the influence of that accursed axe. Whatever the cause, it was unforeseen and unfortunate.

“You’d better get the leash back on that barking dog of yours, Myrrdin,” said Old Hob.

Myrrdin glared at him, but did not respond.

“Stuff and nonsense!” Old Hob proclaimed. He shuffled away, still shouting to the others over his shoulder. “I’ve better things to do than whisper on this mound. One way or another, things are in flux. Mark my words! Goblins will have their due yet!”

Myrrdin watched the misshapen figure retreat downslope. Oberon, Myrrdin’s sire, sat upon the grasses at the very crest of the enchanted hill and took out his pipes. He did not play them, however.

Myrrdin wondered what his father was thinking. He thought perhaps he knew. “You believe this to be a grand error in judgment? Is that it?”

Oberon smiled and shrugged. “What is done is done. The question is: can matters be repaired?”

“That’s what I want!” Myrrdin exclaimed. “We’ve had two centuries of easy times since we’ve last faced one another in battle. What good can come of returning to armed conflict now? Have we not learned the benefits of peace?”

“The goblins certainly have not,” Oberon laughed.

His father’s laugh did not fool Myrrdin. He was not piping or dancing. He was displeased, despite his easy manner.

“This all started with the Wee Folk, of all creatures to launch a war!” Myrrdin said in frustration. “They have played their grandest trick of all this time! They broken the world around them wide open, and now the blood will be flowing on all sides.”

“Don’t forget the Kindred,” said Oberon. “They were not innocent. They recklessly released the axe into the hands of the River Folk. They have irresponsibly unbalanced the natural order of both worlds.”

“But it all goes back to the Wee Folk stealing Lavatis,” said Myrrdin. “The Kindred knew the Pact would fail when you had no power to control the Fae. They moved to aid the River Folk and forge a new alliance. The Wild Hunt saw their chance and moved in to scoop up more Jewels. It’s a disaster all the way around.”

Oberon looked at Myrrdin’s staff speculatively. “Where shall thy Jewel stand on the fateful day?”

Myrrdin sputtered. “With the River Folk, as I have pledged,” he cried, scandalized at what his father subtly suggested.

“Even if the River Folk become the central cause of this bloodshed?”

“It is a maelstrom. No one party is to blame. I can’t say Brand is wrong to demand new terms for peace—no more than I can blame you for letting the Blue slip from your fingers.”

Oberon gave him a dark look. He stood and put away his pipes. He touched his forehead with a single long finger of salute. He did not embrace his son before he vanished from the hilltop. Myrrdin did not expect it. They had been no more than civil to each other for years.

Chapter Fourteen

The Keep

Telyn had never been one to sit still for long. The siege of the crumbling castle wore on her nerves. In the night, as the enemy arranged their catapults and formed ranks, she slipped between walls of the stronghold and glided away into the darkness.

She’d seen something out in the fields southward. Something that reflected moonlight. It was small, but did not resemble a goblin. When the small figure took a great leap from a tumbled pile of boulders and sailed over a briar patch, she knew what it must be.

Telyn was fast, but few were as fast as one of the Wee Folk. She was forced to call out to the other to hold and let her catch up. The figure vanished when she called to it. She knew it had gone to ground. She accounted this as a good thing. If the manling had sprung away and run off at full speed, she would never have caught up.

She trotted forward to where she’d seen the other disappear. She crouched in the grasses, breathing hard. “Tomkin?” she hissed.

Unexpectedly, another of the Wee Folk popped up to greet her. “Madam,” he said with a sweeping bow. He removed his hat as he bowed and then returned it with a flourish, tossing it into the air so that it landed at a perfect cant upon his pate. He smiled at her, and his teeth seemed overlong.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“The name’s Piskin, pretty maid!” he said. He ran his eyes over her in a somewhat predatory fashion. “Might you not have strapping a baby at home? You do appear to be of age….”

“Ah, no,” said Telyn, taken aback by the odd question. “I am not married.”

“A pity. Well, soon enough that will change, I’m sure. Don’t say no when your young man comes knocking, now! We would not want your best breeding years to pass you by, would we?”

Telyn blinked at him. She was on the verge of becoming angry, but decided to mark down the matter as one more odd interaction with the Fae. “On another matter, Piskin: have you seen Tomkin?”

Piskin cleared his throat. “Indeed,” he said. “He’s not the most gentile of my folk is he?”

“I suppose not,” she said. “Would you happen to know where he is?”

“Chasing a rabbit down its hole I suppose, to eat its kits raw.”

“Oh, I should hope not. That sounds vile.”

Piskin hopped two steps closer to her, and leered upward into her face. She recoiled from him slightly. She hoped her reaction was not obvious and rude. Piskin seemed to take no notice of her retreat.

“I will confide in you, and you alone, milady,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “He is a vile one, that Tomkin.
Bumpkin
, that should be his name, I say!”

Telyn blinked at him and laughed. “I have to admit, he is ill-mannered at times. But his heart is in the right place.”

Piskin harrumphed and tsked. “As to that, I cannot say. He is not here, however, and I would urge you to avoid him. But something else comes to mind: I had thought he would be hiding with soiled trousers behind your ramshackle walls. Your inquiry, however, indicates he has been absent for quite some time, am I correct?”

Telyn blinked in annoyance. Moment by moment, she continually found herself liking Piskin less. “Yes,” she said, wondering if she should offer this ill-mannered manling any information at all. “I don’t know where he is, but he’s not behind our walls.”

Nodding, Piskin tipped his hat to her. “Good luck with your hunt then, milady. I must be off. Remember what I said when this is all over: don’t let yourself become barren and old! It would be a grand injustice for all!”

“Um, right,” she said, and watched him bounce away. She frowned after him, marveling at his rudeness and single-mindedness. What business was it of his when she wedded and had children?

She returned to the stronghold certain of only one new thing: she did
not
like Piskin.

* * *

As Brand and Corbin rounded the mound for the last time and returned to their version of the world, they realized that much time had indeed passed. The sky was not yet pink, but neither was it black. The bluish twilight heralded the coming of dawn. They walked away from the mound and toward the camp, which was nothing but smoldering embers now.

“There!” hissed Brand, grabbing Corbin’s arm and pointing with the axe into a nearby thicket. “Rhinogs are inside the perimeter and inching closer to the camp.”

“I don’t see them, but I no longer doubt your night vision,” replied Corbin in his ear. “They must not be affected by the charmed walls.”

“Either that, or the charm has lost its potency. Myrrdin said it was only a matter of time.”

The two hurried toward the camp. Brand found there was no point in trying to be discreet while wearing metal armor. He strode proudly, almost wanting the rhinogs to attack. It would feel good to cut some of them down. Very good. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew that what he felt was the bloodlust of the axe, but that didn’t seem to matter. He saw no way to avoid killing this day.

As they neared the burnt camp, he saw that it had been all but abandoned. Burnt corpses marked where some of the Haven troops had met with grim ends, immolated by burning tar.

“Here, look!” said Brand. A sick feeling ran through him. “This is the body of Pompolo! The hetman of North End! There will be no more good ale left in his town after this.”

“Pompolo? No! Could it be someone else?” Corbin asked as he came to gaze upon the corpse for a moment. A dozen days ago they had supped at Pompolo’s table. His hook, which he had ever claimed helped him take up even more empty ale jacks, made his corpse unmistakable.

“It seems worse somehow,” said Brand, “to look upon the body of a friend. It makes me think that everyone of these dead men had loved ones, people who would be shattered and weeping to see this.”

“So many of us have been killed already,” agreed Corbin. “But I fear that many more will fall before the battle is done.”

“This body has been beheaded!” said Brand moving on across the battlefield. “Could we be too late? Has the battle already been waged and lost?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Corbin, eyeing the corpse he indicated. “The head is nowhere near. The bodies are all soaked in the muck of the swamp as well, as if dragged through it.”

“But no fire has touched it,” protested Brand. “If the rhinogs haven’t yet attacked, how did it get hacked apart?”

“Over there is another, and it is more completely dismembered,” said Corbin. “I see no signs of rhinog dead, however. I must admit I’m at a loss.”

“Let’s move on to the dome,” said Brand. “I’m wondering how it has fared through this fiery night.”

As they approached the entrance, they were halted and challenged. Brand lifted the axe and let it wink its golden eye once, to identify himself. A ragged cheer went up from the men in the gatehouse when they entered.

“Where is Tylag?” demanded Brand.

The men at the gate ushered him through and into the gatehouse. There he met Modi.

“Tylag has left me in command here. He has taken most of the militia to the keep. They have concealed themselves in the crumbling walls and the thick brush there. The rhinogs have been dropping flaming pitch on the camp all night, although we left it hours ago.”

“Is Telyn still here?”

“The girl? No.”

“Have the rhinogs attacked yet?” asked Corbin anxiously.

“No,” replied Modi. “Not in strength. Just fireballs and raven-fletched crossbow bolts. They will attack soon though, just as Myrrdin said. They have waited the night to harass us and keep us from sleeping. At our lowest ebb, they will attack. Their ways redefine cowardice.”

“But what of the bodies outside?” asked Brand. He explained about the dismembered corpses that littered the area.

“They are from the river, from the battle with the merlings. Every tenth volley or so from the catapults launch bodies, rather than fireballs,” said Modi. “The fighting has slowed of late. I think they prepare for a new stage of battle.”

Brand eyed the smoldering keep grimly. He felt the axe urging him to charge, to take matters to the enemy, but he fought to think clearly. Perhaps his companions were right. Brand looked down at the axe. The haft of it was still in his grasp, despite the fact that the last attack had long since been beaten off. With a concentrated effort he placed the axe back in his backpack. A wave of fatigue swept over him and threatened to turn the world black.

“I think I must take this pause in the fighting to rest,” he said. For a time, he knew no more.

* * *

Telyn sought Tomkin in the ruined castle. Moving about in the fortress was difficult. The stone was old and had been weakened in unknown battles centuries earlier. A granite bridge between battlements might be as solid as bedrock or as treacherous as a muddy cliff in a storm. Often, as she climbed between broken towers and crumbling parapets, she was forced to take leaps to cross yawning expanses and thus avoid a fall. All the while the slow, steady bombardment continued. Stone balls, the heads of slain River Folk and occasional clumps of burning pitch flew and crashed all around.

She found Tomkin at last in a dark chamber in the back of the castle. It was a protected area at least, and the bombarding stones had not yet managed to penetrate the old walls this deeply. Tomkin was alone in the chamber and stood at the rearmost window, gazing out toward the Black Mountains.

Sensing something odd about his manner, and the manner of those who stood guard outside, Telyn approached him quietly. Her padding feet made little sound on the rough flagstone floor. Each flagstone, mortared together in a perfect mosaic a thousand years earlier, was emblazoned with a painted symbol. Glancing down at the faded paint she thought she recognized the symbol. The writing was ancient in style, and the script was hard to read, but it had to be the cursive form of the letter “R”.

“Yes,” Tomkin said. “They painted each stone the same. Clan Rabing always was a prideful bunch.”