Whispering Woods

CHAPTER 18

"Fall back!" shouted the woodcutter over barbarian screams. He caught Greensleeves's arm, plucked at Morven's, all while juggling his axe. "We need cover!"

"There ain't no cover!" Morven yelled. He turned the air blue shouting sailors' oaths at the oncoming barbarians.

Gull didn't argue. They couldn't fight an army. Dragging his companions on tiptoes, he backpedaled around the monolith till it rose like a wall on their left.

Near the altar, the bear-wolf fight sent fur pluming into the air. Five wolves tumbled and snapped at the grizzly bears, more snarling than fighting. The male grizzly batted a wolf, rushed and trampled over him, then whirled. Gull could have touched the bear's tail.

But at the barbarians' rush and shout, the dogfight split apart. Yelping wolves shot across the warriors' front line and vaulted through the thin brambles. The grizzlies bowled after them and bashed straight through stone spears and vines.

Nothing protected them now, thought Gull.

Threescore blue barbarians ran five abreast. They cheered, lusty and proud, some garbled the name of a war god, loudly enough to hurt ears. They laughed as if going to a holiday instead of slaughter. Gull and his companions would be mincemeat.

Dashing all the way into the pocket behind the monolith, a second's glance showed they were trapped.

The bramble-sword-wood wall was still a solid barrier, thirty feet thick here, that halted abruptly at the cliff's edge. Roots and branches stuck into space. Gull had vaguely hoped they might run around the monolith, since it didn't sit on the very lip of the bluff. But rocks higher than his reach were piled against the back of the dark cone, possibly to prop it, a jumbled line of them some twenty feet long. Given time, they could boost and climb over: but they had no time. Squinting into the setting sun, Gull found the cliff edge dropped sheer thirty feet to surf-swept boulders.

There was only twelve feet of space between the monolith and bramble wall, yet they had nothing to plug the gap, for Stiggur's clockwork beast was still fetched up in the brambles. The boy yanked at the controls. Levers clicked, pulleys raced, gears clashed, but the construct was mired in vines. Gull wasn't sure it would make a barrier anyway.

This pocket would prove the last stand for Gull, Greensleeves, and Morven. They would fight and then die. In dying, choose blades or a fall.

Gull shoved his sister behind him, against the rocks, and hefted his axe. Morven lifted his pathetic steel spike.

The barbarians struck.

The same people who had captured Gull and Greensleeves in that copse at the beach, the barbarians were normal humans except for tusks and white hair. Tattooed and berry-stained blue, they dressed in skins and war harness, carried painted rawhide shields, and either curved bronze swords or obsidian-headed clubs like small pickaxes. Gull noted the few women among them were equally tusked and tattooed. They rushed blindly forward, weapons raised, howling like demons.

Gull's vision filled blue, and he had no more time to think, or even call to his sister. This was the fight of his life.

A screaming barbarian swung his sword overhand. The woodcutter shoved his axe haft in the air so the blade gouged hickory. Wheeling, Gull slammed the butt end into the man's temple, dropping him.

A woman rushed, jabbed with her burnished sword for his groin. Gull dropped his axe handle to block, but her thrust was a feint. Quick as a snake's tongue, the sword flicked back, aimed for his belly. He flinched and ducked, caught the point in the ribs. It hurt like fury. Swearing, he batted the sword up, smashed the handle into the woman's jaw. Teeth broke, then her jaw. She collapsed, and Gull was glad. She was too dangerous to fight.

Gull cursed steadily as he swung and dodged. He hated to fight them. These people were as much slaves to Towser as Gull had been. But under the wizard's control, they'd kill him if they could.

And undoubtedly would. They were warriors bred to the sword, and Gull was a woodcutter. He'd been lucky so far, but it couldn't last. Someone would gut him before long.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Morven had gained a bronze sword and shield, flailed about as if threshing grain. He dinged heads and hands and kept a half dozen warriors at bay.

A pair of barbarians, male and female, sized Gull up and attacked from two directions. From the right, the man swung his war club, and Gull shifted. But that was the plan. The woman stabbed from his left, chipped his elbow so blood spattered his side. Gull could see the advantage of fighting with a shield. One-handed, the woodcutter slapped his axe at the man, but he'd jumped back. The duo called to each other, closed to set up the same attack.

It had worked once, it would work again. Gull would be nibbled to death.

Then sounded a crashing of breaking wood and stone spears.

With a snapping of vines and clumping of great wood-and-iron feet, Stiggur broke the clockwork beast free of the bramble wall.

The beast's articulated-cone eyes trained on the woodcutter. Atop, like a child on its father's shoulders, the boy looked frantically at the barbarians about to engulf his hero. Hanging on to the lurching beast's neck, hauling levers, the boy steered for the wave of barbarians, trailing vines by the bushelful. Threatened by the fearsome feet and legs, the blue men and women backed from Gull's pitiful line, retreated around the beast toward the clearing by the altar. One barbarian, ducking the wrong way, was pinned between a back leg and the monolith, crushed so blood spurted from his mouth.

As the beast loomed overhead, Gull fell back against Greensleeves to keep from being crushed himself. Stiggur brought the monster to a thunderous halt on the very lip of the bluff.

Morven and Stiggur shouted hoorays, but Gull shushed them. "They'll regroup and come at us again! They must, the geas compels them! Stiggur, get the beast to lie down! We need a barricade!"

Leaning out and down, biting his lip, the boy frowned, ready to cry. "But, Gull, it can't lie down! There ain't no lever for that!"

"What?" The woodcutter cursed. Of course there wasn't. The beast remained upright like a sleeping horse. Liko and levers had shoved it over. So what to do? "Well… blast! Turn it, then!"

Gears whirring and protesting, Stiggur inched the monster in a tight circle, all the while Gull feared it would sunder the cliff and pitch them all to the rocks below. They ended with their gap shrunk to nine feet or so, the width of the beast's underbelly. The stout legs, thick as wharf pilings, offered shelter like four tree trunks.

But barbarians hooted, chanted to taunt their enemies and egg each other on. They elbowed and shoved and argued, shuffling into rough ranks for the next attack. Gull guessed they used some hierarchy for who attacked first and who second, a function of caste or family or past deeds. It made for much arguing.

In the momentary lull, Gull tried to think what to do. Could they survive a drop to the rocks below? Not without breaking limbs. Was it worthwhile to scale this rock jumble? What lay on the other side? He clutched his bleeding elbow, rubbed slashed ribs, and despaired. They'd all die here, and soon. Could he put Greensleeves up with Stiggur, have him bash through the brambles and get away…?

Greensleeves grabbed his arm, pointing up.

Taking advantage of the pause, the mountain lion gathered its haunches and leaped from the peak of the monolith to the heaped rocks. Though it dropped twenty feet or more, the big cat landed without a sound. Hissing at them, it bounded over the rocks and out of sight. Yet a great snapping and snarling welled up, another scrap, and Gull recognized the snattering of an angry badger. So that was where the giant badger had gone.

"We get more catfights," muttered Morven. He plucked and yanked at a boulder, trying to free it, roll it down for protection, but it stayed put. "Handy. Why not fire-spitting dragons?"

Gull rubbed his brow, pressed his bleeding ribs. He could have screamed in frustration. If only Greensleeves could control the damned animals, turn them against the barbarians, compel them to fight. Or conjure something that could think…

He barked so suddenly his sister jumped. "The giant, Liko! Remember him, Greenie? Call him! And the centaurs! No, wait…" She'd already conjured them, but they'd galloped off, cut off by the blue army. He searched a mental list as jumbled as the rocks. "What about Tomas, the red soldiers-" No, Greensleeves never met them. Who else? The paladin? No. The ant soldiers? No good either. "Get the goblins, even! Remember that little thief, Egg Sucker?"

From atop the clockwork beast, Stiggur called, "They're getting ready to charge, Gull!"

"I want to know, where's Towser?" said the sailor. "I don't like him running loose, thinking up more things to hurl at us!"

But a shout from Stiggur made him pause. The boy behind them.

Burned gold by the setting sun, a lone man stood atop the stone pile. In black leather and plain helmet, he carried a short sword and shield, was scarred down one side of his face.

"Kem!"

The bodyguard scuffed across the rocks, hopped and thumped down alongside Gull.

The woodcutter griped, "What do you want? Come to beg our surrender for Towser?"

Puckered skin sneered high on one side. "I knew it'd be a mistake helping you."

The two men argued calmly as if standing before an ale bar in town, rather than awaiting slaughter. Gull said, "We don't need your help."

"Well, you got it, like it or not."

"Don't expect any thanks."

"I'll thank you!" Morven called, still yanking at rocks. "Thank you! Now kiss and make up and fight the enemy, you codfish peckers!"

Gull gripped his aching elbow. Blood trickled down his forearm and made his axe handle slick. "Sister, can you think of anything to help us?"

But Greensleeves listened to silent sound. One hand against the monolith, she curled the other, raised it…

"Here we go!" shouted Kem. He pushed to Gull's left, his wounded side, and lifted his sword. Gull wiped blood on his tunic, hefted his axe. Morven clanged his stolen sword against his shield, sang a snatch of some sailor's ditty.

The barbarians finally had managed ranks of six. Chanting together, banging weapons, they advanced in step.

This charge was different. After a dozen paces, the main body halted and kept chanting, while the front six launched themselves at the line. Gull guessed they were either a suicide squad, or else young warriors out for their first kill. Or else the barbarians pitied Gull's small force and only sent in their clumsiest warriors.

These proved unblooded warriors, for the defenders killed them outright.

Restricted on either side by Morven and Kem, restricted by the low ceiling of the beast's belly, Gull hoisted his axe, cocked his arms tight, and struck. It was a woman before him, young under her tattoos and berry stain, even pretty despite the tusks. Gull hated to kill her.

But he must. He swung the huge axe at an angle, smashed through her leather shield, and cleaved her shoulder. Blood spurted and she toppled leaking at his feet. Wrenching the axe free, he found the shield tangled around the handle. He lost precious seconds sliding it off -A barbarian whipped in close, stabbed with his sword -and died on Kem's blade.

Having dispatched his two assailants, the trained fighter had spare time to kill Gull's.

"Don't thank me!" grunted Kem. "Again!"

"I won't!" Gull panted. "But we're drawing even!"

"Even? Ha! You owe me-"

Another shout welled from the barbarians. The first line dead, the second peeled off to rush them.

Hopeless, Gull thought. It was hopeless.

Then a green-brown blur rippled in the sunset red air, and another monolith reared into the sky.

Backed against the black monolith, Liko scratched one head with his one arm, tried to fathom the scene around his knees. Fortunately, Gull saw, he'd brought his newly carved club. Slowly, the giant pieced together the picture.

"Hit someone blue, Liko!" shouted the woodcutter.

"Ahhhh…" Both heads nodded.

The giant stumped forward, tangled his feet in the twisted briars strewn by the clockwork beast, and toppled full length.

His crash shook the ground, stunning everyone. Yet he shot out his only hand and caught a barbarian by the leg, as a child might catch a frog. The blue man stabbed his fingers and the giant let go.

The second wave of barbarians struck the line, paired this time. A chunky blue woman pinked Gull's knee. Her partner, probably mate, flicked at Gull's opposite side, flashed a tusked grin to frighten. The woodcutter couldn't slash either with his axe without driving his guts onto a sword. Crowding, hiding behind their swords and shields, they'd crowd and drop and dress him like a deer.

But the barbarians stalled their attack, withdrew from striking range, as more earth colors rippled just behind them, cutting them off from their comrades. From the size of the shimmers, Gull hoped for something formidable, some potent force, though he thought Greensleeves's cupboard empty.

Squalling, a handful of goblins burst into being.

Only three of the gray-green goomers carried their char-hardened spears. The rest came empty-handed, except for one with a drumstick fresh from the cooking spit.

The goblins blinked around dazedly. Then all screamed together as they spotted the barbarians.

Three spears flew in the air like jackstraws. Goblins ran every which way, welcome as a porcupine in a hammock.

A warrior knocked a goblin aside, only to trip over him as he clutched the man's ankle. Another jumped into a barbarian's arms, latching onto the woman's head so she couldn't see. A goblin scrambled past Kem, scampered over the rocks and, by the noise, plunged straight into the cougar-badger fight. Another ran smack into the monolith, stunning himself; then on fingernails alone, scaled halfway up the monolith. Watching over its shoulder, a fool ran clear off the cliff edge, still milling his legs. Gull saw a black-streaked goblin, Egg Sucker the thief, flit by and slither under Greensleeves's skirt to hide.

The woodcutter booted another goblin into the legs of the male barbarian, so both went tumbling. The woman erred in watching her lover fall, and Gull swatted her alongside the head. As the male reared, rising and stabbing, Gull split his skull as if chopping wood.

"Damn you!" he shouted, so angry he was almost hysterical. "Stay down!"

Beside him, Kem used the woman's white hair to swipe blood from his blade. "You should stick to tending horses, woodchopper! This is man's work!"

Morven snorted, "You boys'll never grow to be men!"

Gull clawed sweat off his face. A short distance away, Liko had found his feet, but a half dozen barbarians menaced him with swords and he shuffled backward, awkward still with his single heavy arm. Faintly, Gull heard a halloo from the centaurs. Damn it, they were needed here! Beside him, Greensleeves cooed. What was she gabbling up? More useless goblins? Couldn't she conjure any fighters?

Then he had no time to think, for the third wave of barbarians began their charge. How many had they killed or felled? A dozen? Leaving what? More than twoscore? Gull huffed as he hoisted his axe once more, waited for the rush to overtake him. And perhaps drown him.

Yet a tall male barbarian, charging, grunted as an arrow struck his chest. He crashed on his face and the black shaft split his back. A woman warrior raised her shield, but an arrow punched through it like paper and lodged in her heart. Another barbarian died from an arrow in his throat. Then the rear ranks, the chanters, began to fall under the black rain.

The woodcutter risked a glance backward for the source of the arrows. What people did Greensleeves know that shot deadly black arrows?

He got his answer.

Not people.

Lining the rock heap, from teetery cliff edge to monolith, were two ranks of folk Gull had only imagined existed.

Male and female, they were five and a half feet high, slim and knotty-muscled, pale as corpses. Black hair rippled and twisted in the breeze. They wore only short green tunics like snakeskin for clothing, but were decorated with red arcane tattoos, feathers, foxtails, woven arm bracers. One and all, they carried carved and twisted bows taller than themselves, and quivers of long black-fletched arrows.

"Elves," breathed the woodcutter. "Real… live… elves…"

The elves perched easily on the rocks with sandaled feet, easy as eagles, and nocked more arrows. Just above Kem's head, a woman with a red-plumed helmet and embroidered eye patch barked a command, and the nocked bows raised as one. The archers needed to aim around and past the clockwork beast, but that did not hamper them.

Another bark, and arrows flew like a flock of birds taking wing.

Why would they help us? Gull wondered. Humans are enemies to elves-yet Greensleeves must have met them in the past.

His sister was an elf-friend? Elves lived in the depths of the Whispering Woods?

The flight of arrows struck blue skin. Ranks decimated, the tusked barbarians took flight themselves, dashing around the monolith for cover. Their attack was over.

Morven whooped, Kem looked disappointed, and Gull only sighed, glad to rest.

Then goblins died.

Greensleeves didn't control the elves. For the sake of friendship, Gull guessed, they had driven the barbarians away from her and her party. But that accomplished, they followed natural instincts.

Goblins were cousins to orcs, someone had said, the deadliest enemies of elves. So the elves killed goblins as a farmer would kill rats in a grain bin.

Black arrows sought Egg Sucker's companions. A goblin pinned by brambles was lanced three times. One clinging to the face of the monolith was swatted off like a fly. Screams issuing from behind the rock jumble told another died.

Gull sucked wind, tried to sort the madness and think, but a shrill howling split the air. Prodded by the spears of Towser's three loyal bodyguards, more goblins attacked down the body-littered alley between monolith and bramble wall. They were the balloonists, either crashed or landed, forced to attack by Towser's compulsion and three swords.

But their attack balked when they spied the elves and the dead. Then they died. Arrows whistled amongst them, spitting screaming mouths, splitting guts, lancing two at once so they died thrashing together. The balloonists turned and ran, around and over the bodyguards. The elves called to one another in fluting song, and Gull believed they made bets on striking fleeing targets. They were beautiful to look at, Gull thought, but cold as snakes and murderous to suffer.

There were no living enemies in sight.

Stiggur whooped atop the clockwork beast, which had not stirred even as war raged around its feet. Liko peered over the bramble wall at something below. The elves warbled to one another, and the red-plumed captain sang at Greensleeves. Morven squeezed a bleeding thumb, Kem nursed a chipped knee.

Gull noted Greensleeves still carried a bulge under her skirts.

Shifting his bloody axe, he snagged Egg Sucker by one skinny leg. Dangling, the goblin thief squawked, beat bony fists on Gull's shin. A mistake. Elven ears pricked, fingers flew to bowstrings. Seeing his danger, Egg Sucker whimpered.

Then, before the goblin was shot full of feathers, Gull flipped him over the cliff. He was tough: he'd probably survive the tumble. Better than being spitted like a turkey.

"Lord of Atlantis!" muttered Morven. "I'm dry! Wish I had some of that coconut beer we was brewing!" Kem hawked and spit, but he was dry too. A professional, he pulled a whetstone and honed his sword.

Gull nodded abstractedly. He felt he could sleep standing up. He struggled to assess their position. What now?

Towser was still out there, the real danger. What else might he throw at them? The blue djinn? The rock hydra again? Gull had seen so many wonders and horrors since that fateful day in White Ridge, he couldn't recall them all, or who'd conjured what. Anything might pop up.

Should they continue to battle here? Or take the fight to the wizard? Or retreat over country? The forest he'd seen earlier was no more than a half mile inland. Could they count on the elves? Were Helki and Holleb all right? What was happening he didn't know about…?

As if in answer, the bright ocean sunset was eclipsed. A rumble stirred the air. Clouds coalesced from inland, thickening faster than clouds should.

Then he recalled one conjuring from White Ridge as a pattering sounded around him.

Raindrops stung his face, cold and hard. In seconds he was plastered head to toe, leather tunic and kilt glued flat like a second skin. Morven's salt-and-pepper curls lay flat on his head. Kem flicked water from his helmet rim. Elves glanced upward, fluted to one another, and minded their arrow fletching. The elvish captain sang at Greensleeves, the only one ignoring the rain. The girl only shook her head. As a simpleton, she'd established some rapport with the elves; now she couldn't communicate with them.

With the onslaught of rain and failing light, Gull couldn't see beyond thirty feet. The rain roared as it spattered and pattered off the monolith, but aside from that it was quiet.

Had Towser conjured the rain? Maybe to cover a retreat? Leaving them victors on the field of honor, as the old legends said? Gull could have laughed. How he'd loved the glorious stories of honor and valor, yet now that his day had come, he was hungry and tired and cold, with icy rain running from his hair down his back.

His thoughts-wandering, he knew-were interrupted. Liko suddenly roared a double battle cry and hefted his club. Through a curtain of rain, a gray dragon's head reared past a bramble wall, then another, and another.

Towser's six-headed rock hydra, finally conjured in whole. The beast that had chewed off Liko's arm.

So Towser wasn't quitting yet.

Morven whapped his shoulder, pointed up.

Rain spattering his eyes, Gull squinted. In semi-darkness, a striped form flitted across the sky.

Towser could fly?

If so, then he must be the one who'd A flash blinded Gull. Forked lightning split the stormy sky and shattered against the monolith.