“Of course,” said Dar. His ears twitched, and he licked his lips as he stared at Kale. “His spells are evil.” The little doneel’s eyebrows came together in a fierce frown. “If he needs the power of a meech egg to get it done, there’s no telling what contemptible transgression he’s plotting.”
“You mean you don’t know what evil spell he’s going to cast? How can you be so sure it’s dangerous?”
Dar bounced to his feet, flinging his arms wide. “Because it’s Risto. He doesn’t do good things. He has all the evil traits that taint the seven high races. Pride, greed, deceit, faithlessness.” Dar sputtered in his outrage. “He’s cruel, power-mad, cunning—”
“He’s evil,” Leetu interrupted. “In the use of power from the unhatched egg, Risto will destroy the life within.”
“You see,” said Dar, stamping his foot for emphasis. “Evil! No respect for Wulder’s handiwork. Risto must be stopped, and Paladin sends us to do it.”
“With Fenworth,” Leetu reminded the doneel.
Dar screwed his face into a grimace of disgust. “Having that wizard along will lead to disaster.”
“Why?” asked Kale.
Leetu sent Dar a warning look before answering. “It’s best you wait and see, Kale.”
6
A DOZEN DELAYS
“Merlander can’t carry three passengers,” explained Leetu. “She’s too small.”
Kale watched as Dar and the emerlindian woman untied bundles from the dragon’s back.
“Dar,” asked Leetu with a frown on her face and a quick shake of her head, “did you bring your entire wardrobe?” She gestured to the piles of parcels at his feet. “We have miles to walk. You can’t carry all that, and neither I nor Kale will carry it for you. These things aren’t necessary.”
Dar bristled and muttered beneath his bushy mustache. “A person needs to look sharp, well groomed. We represent Paladin. Who knows who we’ll run into on an important quest? We may be called upon to negotiate with rulers of distant realms.”
“We’re going through forest and swamp. You don’t need fine clothes in brilliant colors fit for a ball. Pick out sensible clothes in greens and browns, if you have any.”
Leetu left the last canvas bag she’d removed from Merlander’s back and came to stand before the grumbling doneel. With her hands on her hips, she looked over his collection. “Two bags, that’s it. Two bags light enough for you to carry on your own.”
“We could stop at the next village and acquire a donkey,” suggested Dar.
“Two bags,” said Leetu.
Dar turned large, pleading brown eyes toward Kale. “Kale would carry a bag for me,” he said.
“Kale will have enough to carry. Quit this, Dar. Send the extra clothing back to The Hall with Merlander.”
With what sounded very much like a growl, the doneel conceded.
Now that Leetu had won her point, she sat down against a tree and exhibited an amazing amount of patience. She pulled out a book from her pocket and thumbed through the pages until she found a place to begin reading.
Dar fiercely sorted through his belongings, working to pack as much into two bags as he could. He fussed over the bits and pieces of clothing, even trying on a rich, green velvet coat, a silk shirt patterned in blue, and a crimson vest.
“Too bright,” said Leetu, barely glancing up from her book.
Dar sighed as he packed away the vest. He added a matching scarlet jacket, another vest, this one purple, and a green and gold pair of knickers. He muttered about people who did not appreciate the value of being properly attired and not having a mirror to help make important decisions.
Kale watched with amusement for a time. She had to admit the bright colors and fine fabrics attracted her, too. For a moment she allowed herself to hope, envisioning herself walking the marble corridors of The Hall, wearing flowing garments of brightly colored silks.
Eventually, she turned her mind to remembering the geography of Amara. The only map available in River Away belonged to Dame Blezig, the schoolmistress. It had been several years since Kale studied the yellowed parchment, but she recalled the two mountain ranges running north and south, islands off the coast, volcanoes in the southeast, and massive forests in the northeast and southwest. A place called The Bogs covered a large area in the southwest.
Her eyebrows shot up as she realized the only place where they could walk through both forests and swamps was in the southwest, nearly a thousand miles away.
We’re going to walk to The Bogs?
Leetu’s head jerked as she looked up from her book and stared at Kale.
“You very nearly shouted that at me,” she said and closed her book. “Seems I’d better pay more attention to you. You’ll need to be able to contain your thoughts before we enter Bedderman’s Bog.”
“Why? What’s in Bedderman’s Bog?”
“It’s best you wait and see, Kale.”
Kale didn’t like the vague answer this time any more than she had the last. What about the promise to answer all her questions? She would try once more to get a straight answer.
“Are we going to walk to The Bogs?” she asked, looking toward the doneel, hoping he would blurt out his thoughts. He seemed more willing to impart usable bits of information than Leetu.
Dar, fretting over his bundles, didn’t interject an answer.
“Yes, we’ll walk,” said Leetu. “But we’ll go through a gateway.”
Kale’s mouth dropped open. Gateways were part of fairy tales. Heroes escaped through gateways or sprang upon unsuspecting foes from gateways. Gateways went hand in hand with talking animals and magic amulets.
Gateways are real?
Kale closed her mouth and slowly shook her head from side to side. Councilman Meiger was right. She didn’t know anything.
“I’m ready,” announced Dar. He gave Merlander a pat on her neck, and the dragon rose to her feet. The doneel stepped back to avoid being struck by her wings. She lifted into the air with his extra packs lashed firmly to her saddle. Dar watched her climb high into the cloudless blue sky and set off toward Vendela. He turned a grumpy face to Leetu Bends and Kale.
The emerlindian sprang to her feet and hoisted a pack into the air. She pitched it to Kale, who caught it with a grunt. Without a word, Leetu grabbed two more bundles and swung them over her shoulder. She started down a path beside the stream. Kale scrambled to her feet just in time to follow Dar as he plodded down the trail.
They trekked on, the sun warming their backs, birds singing in the towering trees, and the brook babbling among the round rocks. Occasionally, the knotted roots of giant evergreens extended into the stream. Here the water frothed and churned through the bare, brown footing of the mighty trees.
Soon Dar began to hum and then sing softly under his breath. He’d regained his good humor. He sang louder, and his songs grew livelier as they marched along. Kale’s spirits responded to the happy tunes of the legendary heroes among the seven high races. Dar also sang of farmers and other ordinary folk caught in funny circumstances. She laughed and gasped at all the trials that could befall a traveler.
They rambled down the mountain, then across a valley, and started climbing again. Dar ran out of breath as the path grew steeper. They could no longer step lively to his cheerful beat. Kale, though used to working hard, was not accustomed to long treks. Her legs protested. She very much wanted to rest.
Dar stopped suddenly, and for a moment Kale thought she’d get her wish. But the doneel lifted his nose to the breeze and closed his eyes. Leetu stopped and turned.
“Grawligs,” she said, obviously reading his mind. “How far do you think?” She looked at Dar.
“Half a mile.”
“Which direction?”
Dar puzzled over that a moment, sniffing the air. “We’re surrounded.”
Kale thought she’d been too tired to go much farther, but now a shiver of fear energized her muscles. She was ready to run as soon as Leetu gave the order.
> The emerlindian examined the trees and bushes surrounding the small clearing.
“We’ll make our stand here.”
Surely they should run. Kale opened her mouth to protest. Nothing but a croak came out.
Impatient, Leetu beckoned with a brusque gesture, and Kale hurried to the emerlindian’s side. Leetu threw her own burden into the bushes, then snatched Kale’s bundle from her back and hurled it into the undergrowth as well.
“Dar, you take the center of the clearing,” Leetu ordered. “Kale, climb this tree.”
Kale looked at the thick trunk of a towering evergreen. She’d seen several of these imposing trees on the trail she’d taken through mountain passes. None like it grew around River Away.
“This is a rock pine,” explained Leetu, again demonstrating she knew Kale’s thoughts. “Its name doesn’t come from growing in rocks. Those prickly pine cones are as heavy as stones. Climb as high as you can. Take off your tunic and wrap it around your throwing hand. When the grawligs attack, start pelting them with the rock cones. Hit anything you can, but aim for the grawligs’ ears. They’re tender.”
Leetu made a boosting step with interlaced fingers. Kale put her foot into Leetu’s hands and felt herself thrust into the air. She grabbed the lowest branch and clambered up the tree. The grunts and coarse mutterings of the approaching grawligs inspired extra speed.
Once perched on a high branch, she could see dark forms advancing from all sides, completely encircling them.
“How many?” asked Leetu from below.
Kale scanned the area. “Twelve.”
“That shouldn’t delay us too long,” said Dar.
Branches in a tree next to Kale swayed. She made out the slender form of Leetu as she climbed to a branch thirty feet above the ground. Below, Dar stood in the center of the clearing with his ears perked, listening to the approach of the marauding mountain ogres. Kale wanted to shout, “Climb a tree!”
“He’ll be all right.” Leetu’s calm voice reassured her. “Just watch. He’ll throw up a magic shell and fight from beneath.”
At that moment four grawligs crashed through a line of brushwood and entered the clearing.
Dar hunched over, and a shimmering shell appeared over his body. It hovered above him like an inverted glass bowl. Kale could see the doneel’s movements within. Two daggers flashed in his hands.
The grawligs gave a roar and charged. They beat on the shell and tried to pry it up. Dar’s hands whipped out from the lower rim. His daggers slashed and poked at the grawligs’ toes as well as their fingers when they gripped the edge of his protective armor. The grawligs hopped around amid yips and howls but didn’t give up. As one fell back to suck on his injured fingers, another took his place.
“Now!” cried Leetu’s voice in Kale’s mind, startling her so that she almost lost her grip on the branch. More of the mountain ogres poured into the clearing. Their massive legs tore through the thick underbrush. They bellowed a war cry, and Kale clutched the tree trunk, thinking the horrendous shouting would shake her out of the tree.
Dar disappeared in the middle of a dozen raving grawligs. Arrows from the emerlindian’s bow rained down upon the ogres’ heads.
I can’t just sit here. I’m supposed to help.
Kale wiggled out of her tunic and wrapped it hastily around her right hand. She grabbed a pine cone and had to twist at the woody, seed-bearing orb to make it come loose. Even with her hand protected, she felt the pricks of the barbs. She hurled the rock-heavy cone down wildly and managed to hit one of the grawligs on his hairy back. The cone clung to the matted hair.
Over the next few minutes, her aim improved as did her ability to twist the cones in just the right way to pull them off the bushy, needle-laden branches. She climbed to different limbs several times in order to reach more clusters of the spiny weapons.
Kale began to see the advantage of Leetu’s strategy. While Dar, in the relative safety of his shell, inflicted grievous wounds on the ogres, Leetu peppered them from above with arrow after arrow.
The rock-hard pine cones Kale threw bruised the ogres but did not impede their attack. Nonetheless, the cones stuck, and Kale saw that was a good thing. Most of the hairy grawligs carried the extra weight of ten to twenty rock cones. She thought the beasts were incredibly stupid. Their focus remained riveted on the doneel they thought they had trapped on the ground.
Eventually, the assault from above bothered some of the grawligs enough that they stopped to gawk at the trees. Leetu took advantage of the upturned faces. Her skillful aim sent several grawligs howling into the woods, pulling at arrows embedded in their flesh.
Kale marveled over each direct hit on a grawlig’s ear. They reacted with shrieks of anger and pain. Often the wounded ogre left the foray with a massive hand covering the side of its head. All the grawligs were limping painfully from the wounds inflicted to their feet by the doneel.
She redoubled her efforts to make a bull’s-eye, then laughed to herself and corrected the phrase. She wanted to hit a grawlig’s ear, not a bull’s eye.
The skirmish was soon over.
Dar was right. They’re leaving! And none too soon. My arm aches from throwing all those heavy cones. I must have thrown a couple hundred. And my hands feel like I’ve been squeezing pincushions.
She reached inside her shirt and pulled out the red pouch to cradle between her palms.
For a moment Dar, Leetu, and Kale remained still, listening to the grawligs scrambling through the forest, howling and snarling and making just as much noise in their departure as they had in the attack. As the sounds faded, Dar released the protective shell. It vanished. He stood and sniffed the air.
“They’re gone,” he announced. He cleaned his bloody daggers, wiping them on the trampled grass. They disappeared into his sleeves, and the fussy doneel inspected his spattered knickers.
Leetu slithered from branch to branch and landed lightly on the ground.
“Messy work,” she commented and began to pick up arrows that had bounced off the grawligs’ hard heads or been pulled out and thrown down by the angry beasts.
Kale came down from her tree more slowly. She’d been in a battle! If she wanted to believe it a dream, she couldn’t. Splashes of grawlig blood spotted the little clearing. She crept to the far edge to sit apart from her companions. Her stomach felt queasy, and she didn’t want to talk to anyone.
Dar had already pulled off his boots and socks and had one of his bags open, looking for clean clothes.
“It’s all right.” Kale heard Leetu’s calm voice in her mind but could not bring herself to look up at the emerlindian’s serene features. Instead she studied the twigs, dirt, and pebbles between her feet. An insect crawled across an open space and then disappeared underneath a trang-a-nog leaf.
Kale deliberately answered Leetu with her thoughts. One of the fighting mariones from River Away had been to the borderlands and fought blimmets. He said killing blimmets was no more bothersome than swatting flies. His stomach didn’t turn at the sight of blood. If Paladin expects me to fight in battles, maybe he picked the wrong o’rant.
Leetu’s voice penetrated her mind. “Don’t feel bad about being sick over this sort of thing. Don’t ever get used to killing. If you do, then no matter how high you were born in the seven races, you’ll slip down to the level of those born of Pretender’s evil mind.”
Paladin approves of killing? asked Kale.
A long pause followed.
“Paladin believes in protecting his people.”
What does that mean?
“It’s better you wait and see.”
Kale growled under her breath and heard Leetu’s answering chuckle in her mind as well as in her ears.
7
GRANNY NOON
After Dar changed his clothes, they resumed their journey, Leetu in the lead, Kale trailing behind. The forest grew thicker, darker, mustier, quieter, colder. The footfalls of the three travelers made a shushing sound on the thick carpe
t of old leaves.
Kale’s gloomy thoughts blocked out her surroundings. She mulled over every aspect of her pilgrimage from River Away to where she had left Farmer Brigg on the road to Vendela.
If I’d stayed with him, I’d be safely inside the walls of The Hall by now. It’s my own fault. I didn’t follow the elders’ instructions, and now look where I am.
She bumped into Dar before she realized the doneel had stopped in his tracks. “Sorry,” she murmured.
He did not respond but peered into the thick vegetation before them. Leetu had disappeared. Kale noticed the chill in the air and shivered. She wrapped her arms around her middle, tucking her hands between the rough cloth of her sleeves and her tunic. She started to ask if something was wrong, but the furry little man held up a hand and whispered, “Shh!”
Kale’s throat closed, her muscles tensed, her heart beat like a drummerbug. She clenched her fists, not knowing whether she should be ready to fight or run. She preferred running. She forced herself to scan the area around them with just her eyes, keeping her head perfectly still.
There’s not two inches between those tree trunks. How did we get this far? Were we following a path? Where’s Leetu? What’s Dar staring at? Will something spring out of that wall of leaves? Why are we standing here?
She heard the rustle of leaves first and then saw the wall before them quiver. The branches shimmered, turned silver, and began to glow. Gradually, the light intensified. Kale squinted and covered her eyes with one arm. The air warmed, the brilliance faded, and Kale smelled the pungent aroma of freshly plowed dirt after a rain. She lowered the shielding arm and opened her eyes.
Leetu stood in an open archway of flowering vines where the solid wall of leaves had been. Beside her another emerlindian, wrinkled and darkened with age, nodded a greeting. Her rich brown hair hung nearly to the ground. Dark eyes flashed a welcoming smile.
Kale took in a shaky breath. “A granny,” she whispered as she exhaled.
“Yes, dear. I’m Granny Noon. Welcome to my home.”