Dragonslayers Return

Chapter 7 Into the Fire

 

  They charged in fiercely, every man carrying a sword, axe, or spear and a blazing torch. By Prince Geldion's assessment, the thick edge of Tir na n'Og was akin to a castle wall, and the assault on the elfish stronghold was on in full.

  Bows hummed in retaliation from every bough. A deadly rain of arrows cut deep into the Connacht ranks, leaving men sprawled and screaming. But many were Geldion's soldiers, and whether out of loyalty to the crown or simple fear of Geldion, their line would not waver. Their voices raised in a singular battle cry, they reached the forest's edge and hurled their torches, hundreds of torches, into the thick underbrush.

  Flames, the forest's bane, sprouted in a dozen places, two dozen, and through all the openings between the fires, the Connacht soldiers flowed into the wood, hacking at the trees themselves for lack of any apparent elfish targets.

  Kelsey, commanding the guard, looked down from his high perch in a tall elm and knew immediately that the perimeter had been overwhelmed. He heard a rumble of thunder overhead and took hope, for the elfish wizards had gone to work, using their magic to try to counteract the fires.

  "Down!" the elf-lord called to his ranks, a cry echoed from tree to tree. The elfs had miles of forest behind them and could easily escape the clumsy humans in the darkness. But Kelsey had no intention of running, not yet. If the Tylwyth Teg allowed Connacht any foothold into Tir na n'Og, their greatest advantage, the open fields surrounding the forest, would be lost.

  Kelsey verily ran down his tree, bow ready in his hands. He spotted the black silhouettes of three men in front of the nearest fire, and fired as he stepped lightly down to the ground, dropping one of the soldiers in his tracks. Out came Kelsey's magical sword, gleaming with elfish magic in the flickering light.

  He was hard-pressed almost immediately as the two trained soldiers rushed to meet him. One snapped off a series of cuts with his sword, and Kelsey parried each one, while the other jabbed ahead with a long spear, keeping the elf on his heels, preventing him from launching any counterattacks.

  Though the fires reflecting in the golden eyes truly revealed his inner rage, the elf suddenly wondered if he could win out - especially when he saw two more soldiers rushing in from the side.

  He heard a bow from somewhere behind him, once and then again, and both the newcomers skidded down, one dead, the other curled in a ball, clutching at his bleeding belly. Kelsey took heart in the unexpected help, while his attackers eased up cautiously, as if they expected the next shots to be aimed at them.

  The cat-and-mouse game went back and forth for several minutes. Kelsey working a defensive dance and every so often snapping off a thrust of his own. Always that long spear kept Kelsey's strikes measured, though, the tip of his marvelous sword whipping across short of its mark as the elf was continually forced back on his heels.

  And no more bows sounded from the trees. The fighting was all about them by then, the ring of steel on steel, graceful elfish blades smacking against the heavier and thicker weapons of the burly humans. Melodic elfish songs joined in the chorus of the Connacht battle cries, and Kelsey took heart again. This was his home, the elfish home, beautiful Tir na n'Og.

  A bolt of lightning split the dark sky, followed by a sudden downpour, rain pelting the fires of the invaders. "You cannot win!" Kelsey screamed at the two men he was fighting. "Not here!" His sword darted ahead, three times in rapid succession. He slashed it out to his right, knocking aside a halfhearted counter by the human swordsman, then brought it back hard and down to his left, catching the shaft of the thrusting spear, bringing its tip down to the ground and cutting right through its thick wood.

  The spearman cried out and threw his hands up in front of his face, thinking the elf's ensuing backhand aimed at him. But Kelsey's sword cut short of that mark, whipping back to his right to knock aside the swordsman's next thrust. Kelsey stepped ahead and jabbed, quicker than the swordsman could react, and the man grasped at his punctured breast and stumbled to the ground.

  The spearman had turned to flee by the time Kelsey came back the other way, but he wasn't fast enough to get out of range of Kelsey's deadly sword. The thrust started for the man's back and would have easily slipped right through his meager armor and into his lung. But Kelsey thought of Mickey then, and their earlier encounter with the pitiful human. He remembered Gary Leger, his friend. Candella had given her life in retrieving Donigarten's armor and spear, for the sake of Gary Leger, and ultimately, for the sake of all of Faerie.

  The adventures of the last few weeks had taught haughty Kelsenellenelvial Gil-Ravadry many lessons; had, in many ways, allowed the elf to rise above his xenophobic kin. He was Tylwyth Teg, and certainly proud of that, but the world was a wide place, big enough to share with the other goodly races. His sword caught up to the fleeing human, but dipped low, taking the soldier in the back of the hamstring. The man fell to the ground, crying in agony, but very much alive.

  That was why the defenders of Tir na n'Og were better than their attackers, Kelsey told himself. That measure of mercy was why the goodly folk of Faerie would, in the end, win out over the evil that darkened Faerie's clear skies.

  On ran the elfish warrior, leaping burning brands, the fires already lower, and many of them sputtering from the drenching rain. Kelsey boldly rushed in wherever he saw battle, his ferocity and deft swordplay quickly turning the tide in the favor of his kinfolk. And then he ran on to the next battle, sweeping those elfs in his wake, spearheading an undeniable force. With every skirmish Kelsey joined, more elfs came into his fold and more of the Connacht army was turned away. Soon the whole line of elfish warriors was moving as a singular unit through the darkness, silent as death on the soaked leaves.

  By contrast, the Connacht assault was scattered, the small groups of soldiers wandering disoriented. They heard the cries of the wounded, and more and more of those cries were human and not elfish. Any of the soldiers who found the edge of the forest ran off across the fields, seeking to regroup with Geldion's rear lines halfway to Dilnamarra, or merely to flee altogether, wanting no part of Tir na n'Og and its staunch defenders. Other groups wandered aimlessly in the forest, lost without their fires to guide them, until Kelsey and his warriors fell upon them.

  Several of the Tylwyth Teg died that night, most in the first furious moments of battle. Many more humans died, and many more than that were taken captive. Kelsey took note of how readily many of the humans surrendered their weapons. It seemed to him as if their heart was not in this fight. In contrast, not a member of the Tylwyth Teg would surrender, no matter the odds, nor would their likely allies, the tough Buldrefolk of Dvergamal, Geno's folk. Kelsey had once seen Geno fighting wildly in the midst of a dozen huge trolls, outnumbered and with no chance of winning. But fighting on anyway, with no thought of surrender.

  This, too, was the strength of the outnumbered opposition to King Kinnemore. Their strength, and the Connacht army's weakness.

  "Ye should'no' have brought her," Mickey remarked, and his words were accentuated by the distant sounds of the raging battle. They were in Tir na n'Og, Gary knew, just by the smell of the place. He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. They were in a small empty gully edged by dirt and moss walls, and both sides capped by tangles of birch. The night sky weighed low with thick clouds, and the heavy rain sent rivulets of water streaming down the gully's side.

  "It's not a good time in Faerie, lad," the leprechaun remarked.

  "Unlike the other two times I've been here," Gary replied sarcastically. He skipped up to a high bluff and peered into the distant blackness, trying to catch a glimpse of the action. "Geldion?" he asked.

  "Who else?" Mickey replied.

  "Ceridwen is free, then," Gary reasoned.

  "Not yet," answered the leprechaun. "She's another couple o' weeks to go, but she's sent her calling card, first to Dilnamarra, and now to Tir na n'Og. "

  Gary paused to consider that for a moment, always
amazed at the different rates at which time passed between the worlds. He had been on two adventures in Faerie, each lasting weeks, and yet, on both occasions, he had awakened back in his own world barely hours later than when he had left. This time, years had passed in his own world, while only weeks had gone by in Faerie. Mickey had explained it as depending upon which way the sprites were turning in their dancing ring when they opened the portal between the worlds. Gary could only hope they had danced correctly again - else he and Diane might well miss the turn of the century!

  With that thought tucked behind him, Gary considered the leprechaun's words. "First to Dilnamarra," Mickey had said, but what did that bode for Gary's friends in the muddy hamlet?

  "Baron Pwyll . . . " he started to inquire, but he stopped when he turned to look upon Mickey, the leprechaun slowly shaking his head, his cherubic features more grim than Gary had ever seen them.

  "No," Gary breathed in denial.

  "He died a hero, lad," was the best that Mickey could offer. "He could've saved his skin by giving praise to King Kinnemore, but he knew what that praise - and Dilnamar-ra's unintentional alliance with the Connacht army - might mean for the folk o' the other towns. "

  "Where's Geno?" Gary asked immediately, fearing that he had lost more than one friend in his absence. "And Gerbil?"

  "The dwarf's halfway to Braemar by now, would be me guess," Mickey answered easily, glad that he could deliver some good news, as well. "And there, the gnome's waiting for him, so he said. "

  Gary breathed easier. Down in the gully, Diane groaned and shifted, wakened by the stream of chilly water rushing past her prone form.

  "I'll be expecting a proper introduction," Mickey announced.

  Gary nodded. He had every intention of letting Diane get well acquainted with Mickey. By the sound of that battle, the war was not so far away, and Gary couldn't afford to have Diane wandering about in a state of denial. She would have to be "convinced" that Faerie was very real in a short time. An agonized cry split the night. Gary looked down upon Diane and wondered if he had been wise to bring her to this place.

  Despite Mickey's claims to the contrary, Geno Hammer-thrower was far from all right, and a lot farther from Braemar than the leprechaun believed. The dwarf had camped in Cowtangle Wood, a small forest along the eastern road, two days before, after making fine progress out from Dilnamarra.

  A short nap was all the sturdy dwarf allowed himself, rising long before the dawn and running off. More than once, Geno slammed face-first into trees in the dark wood, but the impact hurt the trees more than the dwarf. He cleared the eastern edge of Cowtangle with the breaking dawn, but skidded to a quick stop after climbing over the first rise in the rolling fields.

  There sat Connacht soldiers, twenty at least, their spear-tips gleaming in the morning light, their horses blowing steam into the brisk air with every snort.

  Geno paused for a split second, trying to decide whether he should turn back, or walk on calmly, feigning ignorance of the events in Dilnamarra. He had just dismissed the latter course, and was turning back to the wood, when one of the soldiers spotted him and cried out.

  "Stonebubbles!" the dwarf grumbled, perhaps the very worst of dwarfish curses. The thunder of hooves sounded behind him, one soldier called out for him to halt, and Geno suspected that this was no chance encounter.

  He figured that he had a chance if he could get within the protective thick boughs of Cowtangle. If he could keep the soldiers scattered, their horses moving slowly through the heavy underbrush, he could outmaneuver them and hit at them individually.

  That plan was lost almost immediately, though, when the dwarf saw riders flanking him, outdistancing him back to the tree line. Geno veered for a hillock instead, and got to the high ground at the same time as a rider, coming up the back side.

  The soldier lowered his speartip as he closed on the dwarf, but a second later, he was rolling over backwards in his saddle, knocked unconscious by a spinning hammer. He tumbled heavily to the ground, and Geno tried to catch hold of his horse. But the beast was too tall for the dwarf, and for all his frantic efforts to leap onto the nervous beast, all Geno got was a horseshoe-shaped bruise on the side of his chest.

  "Stonebubbles!" the dwarf growled again, planting himself firmly in the center of the high ground, looking around at the tightening ring of soldiers.

  "You cannot escape, Geno Hammerthrower," one man asserted, and the dwarf growled again at the sound of his name, at the confirmation that he had been expected all along. He cursed Kelsey and Mickey for convincing him to follow them back to Dilnamarra before turning east; cursed Kinnemore and Geldion, those two upstart pretenders who knew nothing about ruling and nothing about the land; cursed Ceridwen, and Gary Leger for ever letting the witch out of her hole; cursed Robert for forcing all of this; cursed Gerbil for not going along on the scouting mission to the fields near Connacht; cursed everything and everyone, except for his Buldrefolk kin and the stones they lived among.

  Geno was not in a good mood, as the next soldier who tried to scale the hill found out. The rider came up slowly, talking calmly, explaining to the dwarf that it would be better for all if he simply surrendered and went along with them back to Dilnamarra, "where all would be explained. "

  Geno's first hammer spun between the ears of the ducking horse, and caught the man full on the chest. Before he could even try to draw his breath again, Geno's next shot nailed him square in the faceplate of his great helm, bending the metal against the man's nose and crossing his eyes. If he had been a wise man, the soldier would have fallen over, but he grasped the bridle tightly and stubbornly held his seat.

  Geno's third hammer got him in the head again, and all the world was suddenly spinning.

  Geno cursed himself for being so foolish as to throw three hammers at one target. With four on the ground, he only had six remaining. Six for twenty enemies.

  The dwarf just sighed as the charge came on. He spun a complete circuit, launching hammers at equal intervals so that all sides of the hillock got one. Three of four shots took down riders; the fourth knocked a horse so silly that it began turning tight circles, hopping up and down, despite its frantic rider's tugs and cries. The ring closed about Geno, but only a few riders could get up the hillock at one time. Holding his last remaining hammers, one in each hand, the dwarf looked for the area of most confusion and boldly charged, his muscled arms pumping away at rider and horse alike. He couldn't reach up high enough to strike at any vital areas, but found that a hammer smash on a kneecap more often than not drained an enemy's desire for the fight. One horse, confused as its rider lurched in agony, turned sideways to the dwarf, banging into him. Geno growled and grabbed, and heaved with all his strength, turning the beast right over on the uneven ground.

  Geno saw his break and meant to charge ahead, meant to leap right over the fallen man and beast and plunge through the surprised second ranks, using their confusion to give him a head start back towards the wood. He couldn't ignore the speartip jabbing through the back of his shoulder as a soldier caught him from the other side.

  Geno spun wildly, hammers chopping. One got hooked under the tip of the bloody, waving spear, the other slapped against the shaft.

  "Hah!" Geno roared in victory. "No dwarf made that child's weapon!" In Geno leaped, smacking the broken shaft free of the man's grasp. The soldier threw his arm out to block, and Geno's hammers snapped upon the outstretched hand, one on either side.

  How the soldier howled!

  Geno crashed into the side of the horse, but bounced away, hearing another enemy approaching from behind. He turned his shoulders down as he hit the ground, falling into a roll at the approaching horse's feet. The horse kicked and skipped, but Geno had the leverage. Ignoring the punishing hooves, the dwarf pressed onward, barreling under the steed, bringing it to a halt so abruptly that the rider pitched over the horse's head, crashing face down to the ground.

  Up came Geno, spitting dirt and laughi
ng wildly. A rider dove upon him and wrapped him in a bear hug, but Geno grabbed the man's thumbs, turned them outward, and simply fell to his knees, using his tremendous weight (it was said in Faerie that a dwarf weighed as much as an equal volume of lead) as a weapon. The man's hand bones broke apart and Geno was free, scooping up his hammers once more and darting back the other way, again into the area of most confusion.

  A spear prodded towards him; he snapped off a hammer throw, caught the spear just below its tip and tugged, bringing the rider forward, bringing the man's face right in line with the spinning hammer.

  Geno caught the hammer on the rebound, and paused, staring curiously for a moment, for the man's helmet had turned right about on his shoulders and Geno wondered if his head had turned with it. With a shrug, the dwarf hopped about.

  And caught a flying spear right in the belly.

  "Now that hurt," Geno admitted. One hammer fell from the dwarf's hand, and he clutched at the spear's shaft. Using that moment of distraction, the nearest rider charged right for Geno, trampling the dwarf under his mount's pounding hooves.

  Another man dismounted and cautiously approached. "He's out," the soldier announced, reaching down to see if the battered dwarf was still alive.

  Geno bit that reaching hand, bit it and held on like a bulldog, growling and crunching even after a handful of soldiers fell over him, punching and kicking, battering him with their spearshafts and shields.

  The beating went on for many minutes, and finally Geno fell limp. But even then, it took the Connacht soldiers a long time to extract their comrade's hand from the vise-grip that was the dwarf's mouth.

  Diane yawned deeply and stretched, her eyes still closed and the thick slumber of sprite's poison still dulling the edge of her consciousness. She groaned and rolled over onto her belly, and finally managed to crack open one eye.

  It took some time for the image to solidify in her thoughts, for her to appreciate that she was staring at the strangest, curly-toed little pair of shoes she had ever seen. She rubbed both her eyes and forced them open, then locked her gaze on those shoes and scanned upward.

  "Mickey?" she asked, her voice cracking with the effort. This was a leprechaun in front of her - this had to be a leprechaun in front of her! - and she was no longer in Duntulme.

  "Ah, good lad," Mickey replied, looking up the side of the muddy gully to Gary. "I see that ye've telled her about me. "

  Diane shrieked and rolled away. She scrambled up to her knees, would have risen altogether and run off, had not Gary caught up to her and stopped her with an embrace.

  "So good to know ye're speaking highly o' me," Mickey remarked dryly.

  "She's just scared," Gary tried to explain, and he leaned his weight onto Diane, trying to hold the trembling woman steady. "This is all so different to her, so . . . "

  "I'm knowing that better than yerself, lad," Mickey assured him. "I've seen more than a few of ye first awaken in Faerie. And, by yer stories, it seems she's already knowing it's no dream. "

  Diane pulled away, but the effort cost her her balance and she fell on her rump against the soft banking, skidding down in the loose mud and winding up seated squarely before Mickey. "This can't be happening," she whispered.

  "Did you think that I was lying?" Gary asked her sharply.

  Diane looked to regard him, was embarrassed that her reactions had wounded him. "I thought . . . " She searched for a way to complete the answer. "I believed that you believed," she stammered, "but that didn't mean that I believed!"

  Gary's jaw dropped open as he tried to decipher that one.

  "She'd be one to talk a gnome into a corner," Mickey put in, and he tossed a wink Diane's way, thinking that she needed a friend at that moment.

  "I mean, this can't happen," Diane blubbered on. "Those stories . . . your adventures . . . they couldn't have been real. I mean . . . oh, hell, I don't know what I mean. " She put her head in her hands, staring down at the ground.

  "I know what ye mean," Mickey said reassuringly.

  "Oh, shut up," Gary said to the leprechaun.

  "And let yerself take care of it?" Mickey was quick to respond. "Rest yerself easy, lad, but it's not seeming to me that ye're taking much care of it. "

  Gary started to retort, but stopped, mouth open and one finger pointing accusingly Mickey's way. In thinking about it for that instant, though, Gary realized he had nothing to accuse Mickey of.

  "Is it so bad that the lad's stories were true?" Mickey asked Diane in all seriousness. The leprechaun waved his hand and a rainbow-colored flower, each of its soft petals a different hue, appeared in Diane's hand. She looked at it incredulously, sniffed its delicate aroma, then turned a questioning gaze upon Mickey.

  "Is it?" Mickey asked again. "Wasn't there just a bit o' ye that wanted to go where the lad said he'd gone?" "More than just a bit," Diane admitted. "But that . . . "

  "But that's all ye need," Mickey interrupted. "And so ye've found yer way. Be happy with that, and happy with this. Tir na n'Og's a beautiful place, I tell ye, though ye could've picked a better time to come. " Diane sat staring, from Gary to Mickey, and back to Gary again. She looked to her cameras, the Pentax in its case at her side and the Polaroid bouncing in front of her, and then turned her gaze back to Mickey again. "Here then, what'd ye bring?" the observant Mickey asked.

  Diane's green eyes narrowed.

  "Not now," Gary said to her. She turned to him, her expression revealing her surprise.

  "Not now," Gary said again. "You'll have plenty of time for your pictures later. "

  "Pitchers?" Mickey asked, not understanding.

  "Pic-tures," Gary clarified. "A bit of magic from our world. "

  "Oh, that I'd dearly love to see," said Mickey, to which Diane snickered and Gary emphatically reiterated, "Not now!"

  Both Diane and Mickey turned a sour look upon Gary.

  The man snapped his fingers. "But I did bring you these," he explained, pulling off his small book bag and fumbling with the tie. He produced a boxed set of four books, The Hobbit (but not the copy that Mickey had changed) and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

  "The rest of the story," Gary explained to the beaming leprechaun. "For you to keep. "

  Mickey waved his little hand, and the boxed set rose into the air from Gary's hand and floated gently across the empty space to Mickey's waiting fingers. Obviously thrilled, Mickey waggled those fingers and the boxed set seemed smaller suddenly, then smaller still, then no more than the size of a postage stamp.

  "I'll be keepin' this safe," Mickey remarked, tossing another wink Diane's way, and he tucked the shrunken treasure into one of his gray waistcoat's many pockets.

  Diane found that she was laboring to find her breath again. It wasn't only the leprechaun's telekinesis that astounded her, but the way Mickey had accepted the books. Diane remembered keenly that time Gary had shown her his special copy of The Hobbit, the book that he claimed had been altered by a leprechaun's magic. According to Gary, Mickey McMickey had cast a spell over the book so that its type had transformed into the flowing Gaelic-looking script that now adorned its pages. It was the most solid evidence that Gary had ever shown to Diane concerning his journeys to this magical land, and the one piece that she had always found difficult to rationalize in her logical doubting of Gary's tales.

  Now that book, and the others in the series, seemed a link to reality for the young woman. Everything fit together too perfectly to be denied. She was in Faerie, in this land that Gary had told her about for all these years. She was sitting before a leprechaun!

  She broke out in laughter, wild laughter, and both Gary and Mickey looked at her with more than a little concern, fearing that the shock of it all had driven her to hysteria.

  Diane was flustered, overwhelmed, but she was not hysterical, and she gulped down her laughter, sobered in the blink of an eye, when a beautiful, golden-haired and golden-eyed creature, too delicate to be a man, walked into the sandy g
ully from the trees behind Gary.

  Gary turned, and a smile widened on his face to see Kelsey once again.

  "Well met, Gary Leger," the elf greeted, walking over to clasp arms with the man. "You are needed now, perhaps more than ever before. "

  Gary nodded, and Kelsey's remark took on a suddenly greater significance when the man noticed the blood staining the elf's boots, as though Kelsey had been standing in a deep puddle of the crimson liquid. Diane came up to Gary's side, staring blankly as she studied the elf from head to toe. "This is Kelsey," Gary explained.

  "Kelsenellenelvial Gil-Ravadry," Diane quickly corrected, remembering the proper name Gary had given to his elfish companion.

  Kelsey did not blink at the surprise correction, but gave a slight approving nod - Diane could not have said anything else to make a better first impression.

  Watching the three, hearing Kelsey's greeting, Mickey was beginning to believe that maybe the elf had been right in insisting that Gary be brought back to Faerie. After Pwyll's startling defiance, and subsequent demise, the people of the land might be looking for a hero - a living hero - to lead the struggle, and it just so happened that this would-be hero fit perfectly into the armor of the legendary Cedric Donigarten. Mickey didn't know where Diane might fit in, but considering the way she had just handled (indeed, the way she had charmed) the stern elf, she seemed resourceful enough.

  "Oh, begorra," the leprechaun muttered, and a snap of his fingers brought his long-stemmed pipe floating from a pocket to his mouth, lighting as it went.