The Woods Out Back

Chapter 24 Crows

Twoscore lava newt escorts walked in tight formation right behind the companions, their leveled spears guiding wounded Kelsey and his friends out of the lower tunnels. The dragon had warned them not to go anywhere near the castle on their way out.
"Or ever again!" Robert had roared, and it had seemed to Gary that he directed his warning particularly at Mickey McMickey. Had Robert guessed the trick? Gary wondered, but he dismissed the notion, thinking that the beast would never have let them out if it had.
Truly Gary was glad now to be out of sight of the awesome dragon, and had no intentions of ever coming anywhere near Robert's castle again. He hadn't yet shaken off his fears, though. Fully supporting Kelsey now, he kept looking back over his shoulder, fearing an imminent attack from the lava newt guards.
"Don't ye worry, lad," Mickey told him, noticing his uneasiness. "Robert would not dare to break his oath."
"Never trust a dragon," Geno added. "Unless you have beaten him in a challenge. Even wyrms have some sense of honor."
That's what it always seemed to come down to in this strange and magical world, Gary noted. Honor.
"He's no choice but to let us go," Mickey finished smugly. The leprechaun's gray eyes turned up in a profound smile of victory as he drew another long drag of his pipe.
Gary was glad to hear it, but his face, unlike the leprechaun's, reflected no hint of elation. Kelsey winced in agony with every passing step, and Gary thought the elf would surely faint away. One of Kelsey's arms was badly twisted and possibly broken - and a great tear ran along Kelsey's side, where dragon claws had ripped through armor and skin alike. Blood matted the elf's golden hair and caked on his delicate face, and only the luster in Kelsey's golden eyes, a profound look of satisfaction, showed that he was even conscious of what was happening around him.
Then they were outside - the new day had dawned - on the lower trails of the mountain's east side, far below the barracks of Robert's lava newt garrison. Half of their escorts remained to block the tunnel behind them; the other half took up defensive positions on the sloping road above.
"As if they fear we're heading back that way," Mickey scoffed, seeing the blocking line.
The leprechaun's words and tone struck Gary profoundly. They were free - even Gary realized it fully then. They were free of Robert, and Gary was free of Faerie, for he held the reforged spear. The terms of indenture had been met; Gary could soon go home.
Home.
The word sounded strange to Gary, walking along a towering mountain in a land so unlike his own. It seemed like many years since he had been in Lancashire, seemed almost as if that other world had been just a long dream, as if this land of Faerie was somehow more real.
More real than the plastics factory. More real than the tedium of standing beside the humming grinder, dropping in chunks of scrap plastic and dreaming of absurd adventures.
Gary bit back a chuckle at that notion. Absurd adventures? They didn't seem so absurd to Gary Leger anymore, especially not with an elf leaning heavily on his shoulder, with a leprechaun and a dwarf trotting along beside him.
Gary couldn't bite back his chuckle, despite Kelsey's wounds. He looked back up the mountain path, to the red-scaled lava newts standing solemn guard across the road.
"So tell me how," he bade Mickey as they put even more distance between themselves and the lava newts.
Mickey looked up at him to consider the vague question, staring as if he had no idea of what Gary was talking about.
"You said that illusions were of no use against dragons," Gary clarified, though he guessed correctly that Mickey already knew what was on his mind.
"I said that they weren't about to work well on the dragon," Mickey corrected. "As it is with dwarfs, lad. Not so good." He gave Gary a wink. "But I can always find a bit of use for them."
"It worked perfectly," Gary remarked, both his tone and his subsequent expression revealing clear suspicion. "Too perfectly."
"It was a fight," Mickey reminded him. "Suren Robert would have seen right through me tricks if he had the time to think on them!
"But he had a mighty foe before him, and he knew it," Mickey asserted. "Besides, me magic was at its strongest in there." Mickey stopped abruptly and turned his eyes back to the trail before them, as if he hadn't wanted to make that statement.
Gary didn't fully appreciate the leprechaun's slip of the tongue, though, too involved with his own recollections of the battle. "Then we cheated," he said at length. "Robert really won and was under no obligation to forge the spear or to even let us out of there."
Geno kicked him hard on the shin, a blow that nearly sent both Gary and Kelsey tumbling to the ground.
"Give me the elf, then!" the dwarf snorted at Gary. "And you walk back up there and surrender yourself to the dragon! Let your conscience be appeased while your body is being devoured."
Gary never took his glowering eyes off the dwarf as he reached down and rubbed his bruised shin.
"Ye're reasoning is right, lad," Mickey put in. "But so's the dwarf. Ye cannot play fair with a beast like Robert - it's not a fair fight to begin with, ye know."
"The end justifies the means?" Gary replied.
Mickey thought over the strange phrase for a few moments, then nodded. "When playing with a dragon," he agreed. "Besides, lad, the real Kelsey had Robert beaten before he ever turned into the dragon. It was Robert who chose the swords for the challenge, and in that fight, Kelsey truly won."
Gary let it drop at that, glad for the reminder and glad that he could agree with Mickey's reasoning. For some reason, he had to feel that honor had been upheld in the challenge. Kelsey patted him on the shoulder then, a minor movement, but one that struck Gary profoundly. He turned to regard the wounded elf, and found, to his surprise, sincere approval in Kelsey's golden eyes.
They continued on down the mountain at as great a pace as they could set with Gary half carrying Kelsey. The castle was soon far behind them, to Gary's relief, but he couldn't help noticing that Mickey kept glancing back that way. It wasn't as though the leprechaun feared any imminent attack (again, to Gary's relief), but rather, Mickey's gaze reflected a longing, a heartache, as a young mother might glance over her shoulder after dropping her child off for the first day of school.
Gary tried to put it all together in private, knowing that Mickey would offer no explanations. He recalled the leprechaun's meeting with the pixie on their first night out of Dvergamal, and only then did he make note of Mickey's remark that his magic was at its strongest in Robert's lair. Truly it had been the finest illusion Gary had witnessed yet - the image of the fighting elf resembled Kelsey in every detail and moved perfectly to compensate for the give-and-take maneuvers of the battle.
But that did not explain to Gary why Robert had been so fooled. The only reason Mickey's illusions had once been able to trick Geno, back in the dwarf's cave when it appeared as though Kelsey had walked into the wall trap, was that Mickey had shown Geno what the dwarf had expected to see. Not so in Kelsey's fight against Robert. Most likely the dragon would have expected what had really happened, would have expected to see a broken Kelsey go flying away after the first claw strike. If Robert was truly an ancient and wise wyrm, a beast befitting the common and apparently accurate legends of dragonkind, he should have seen through the illusion, if not at first, then at least later on, in the lull before he had led Gary and Geno into the side chamber to reforge the spear.
Then why was Robert fooled? And why did Mickey keep looking back up at the castle?
No matter how hard Gary tried, the pieces of the puzzle would not add up.
The trail split in several directions as they neared the bottom of the obelisk-shaped mountain. Mickey took up the lead and headed north. "This way will get us back quicker to the crevice and the giant," the leprechaun explained.
"And to the Crahgs?" Geno asked dryly.
Mickey shook his head. "No need to go back that way," the sprite replied firmly, and his face and the dwarf's lit up at that welcomed declaration. Mickey hopped up into the air and kicked his curly-toed shoes together. "The quest is done, don't ye know?" he said, overly exuberant and looking mostly at Kelsey. "We can take our time in walking now and enjoy the fine weather!"
Even as Mickey landed, his joyous façade slipped and he cast a concerned look back up the trail. Gary understood then why the leprechaun had suddenly acted so full of cheer - for Kelsey's sake. And looking at the pained elf, Gary gave an approving nod to Mickey. Gary held the spear out before him, so that Kelsey might see it in all its reforged splendor. Kelsey's face did indeed brighten, and it seemed to Gary as if his elvish load lessened somewhat, as if some of the spring suddenly returned to Kelsey's step.
"And you'll go down in the legends," Gary remarked to Geno, trying to get the dwarf to join in the celebration, "as the dwarf who reforged the legendary spear."
He felt Geno's spittle splatter against the back of his leg and said no more. He thought again of the prospects of returning home, wondered if he would wake up in some white room with padded walls, or in his own bed, maybe, to learn that it had all been no more than a wistful dream.
His mind played the adventure, from Tir na n'Og to the Giant's Thumb, trying to hold on to the many sights he had seen, the wondrous smells, the fears and excitement. He should have reminded himself that he was a long way from home, a long way from Tir na n'Og even, and that the adventure had not yet ended.
Kelsey cried out in pain. Gary looked around the elf's slumping form to see a small hunk of moving rock, vaguely humanoid in shape, though less than half Gary's height, grabbing tightly at Kelsey's leg. Instinctively Gary released his hold on the elf, trying to use his leg to cushion Kelsey's inevitable fall, but more intent on readying his spear.
"Dwarf magic?" Gary cried out in disbelief. He jabbed the spear against the stone, wincing as it struck, for he feared that the rock might break it once again. Sparks flew as the metal tip connected, and Cedric's spear slashed right through the stone, its magic blasting the curious little creature to a pile of rolling rubble.
"Dwarf magic?" Gary cried again, but when he looked to Geno, he knew how ridiculous his question, his accusation, must have sounded.
Several rock men surrounded the dwarf, clubbing and grabbing at his arms and legs. Geno's hammers smashed away, each swing sending large chips of his enemies flying.
"My sword!" Kelsey called weakly as more rocks suddenly animated along the sides of the trail and rushed in. Gary held the spear in both hands as he straddled the prone elf, knowing that Kelsey could not begin to defend himself.
"Mickey!" Gary yelled. He slashed and jabbed repeatedly and the air all around him became a shower of multicolored sparks.
"I cannot do a thing against them!" Mickey called back. Gary noticed the leprechaun, floating up in the air beneath his opened umbrella, bending his curly-toed shoes under him to avoid the reaching grasp of still more of the creatures.
Metal rang on stone repeatedly, sparks filled the air, but the fearless creatures came on relentlessly, too many to beat back.
"Mickey!" Gary yelled again, fearing that Kelsey would soon be crunched.
A rock man slipped inside the wide swing of Gary's spear and bore down on the man and the elf. Gary had nowhere to run, nowhere to even back up enough to bring his spear to bear.
A single hammer stoke shattered the rock man into a hundred pieces.
Gary looked up from the pile of blasted stones to see Geno, wearing that wide one-tooth-missing, mischievous smile, wading through a sea of broken stones. Rock men closed in on the dwarf from both sides, and, "Bang! Bang!" the path around him was clear once more.
"They are just stones," Geno muttered, and to further display his superiority, he grabbed the limb of the closest creature and bit off its stubby rock fingers.
"What'd I tell ye about that one's meals, lad?" came Mickey's call from above, a sense of relief evident in the leprechaun's tone.
A hammer flew past Gary, connecting on a creature that had closed behind him.
"Keep them away from you," Geno instructed. "Play defensive and protect the elf." Geno smiled as another rock man came into range. He casually reached out and bashed it apart. "Just keep them back," he said to Gary again, "and let the dwarf do what a dwarf was born to do!"
Gary whipped his spear across in a wide arc, back and forth, slashing any of the rock men that strayed too near. Geno, true to his boastful promise, marched all about the perimeter of that area of sanctuary, seeming impervious to the creatures' stone-handed attacks and shattering every opponent with a single stroke. "You have to know where to hit them!" he said to Gary on one pass, tossing a playful wink. As if to accentuate his point, the dwarf absently launched a backhanded stroke that seemed to just nick another of the creatures.
It exploded and lay in a hundred pieces.
More of the area's rocks animated and fearlessly came in at the companions, but with Mickey up high guiding Geno's positioning, the creatures had no chance.
But then Gary felt the ground buck under his feet, as if the whole side of the mountain had shifted. He looked to Geno curiously for some answer, but the dwarf only shrugged his broad shoulders, having no more of an explanation than did Gary.
"Uh-oh," they heard Mickey mumble from above. The leprechaun stared numbly and pointed back along the trail. Gary and Geno, too, dropped open their mouths when they looked back, looked back at the huge slab of humanoid-shaped stone rising up, fifty feet away but still towering over the companions.
"Lead on!" Gary cried to Geno. He grabbed Kelsey roughly and slung the elf right over his shoulder as Geno rushed by, the dwarf, obviously as frightened as Gary, frantically clearing the path ahead of the smaller rock men.
The ground shook with the thunder of a gigantic footstep; Gary didn't have to look over his shoulder to know that the stone behemoth was close behind.
"Do you know where to hit that one?" Gary cried to Geno.
"Even if I did, I could never reach the spot!" the dwarf roared back.
Another small rock man appeared in the path ahead of Geno's frantic rush; another rock man disappeared into a pile of broken stones.
"Only one thing stupider than blocking a dwarf's charge," Mickey explained to Gary, floating down near to Gary's shoulder.
"What's that?" Gary had to ask, realizing that Mickey would wait all day for the correct prompt. Another rock man rose before Geno, lifting its arms threateningly for the split second it took the dwarf to reduce it to a pile of rubble.
"Blocking a dwarf's retreat," Mickey answered dryly. Gary shook his head and looked over Kelsey's form to regard the leprechaun. He appreciated Mickey's humor at that dark time, but he noticed that Mickey, glancing back at the pursuing behemoth, did not wear a smile.
Geno continued to keep the path clear before them, cutting a wide swath along the trail, even smashing apart some boulders that showed no signs of animating. But even on a smooth and clear path, Gary, burdened by Kelsey, could not hope to outrun the stone giant.
"Thou must not throw me!"came an emphatic cry from the sentient spear, sensing Gary's intent.
Gary didn't bother to answer. When he came to a small climb in the trail - not too great an obstacle, but certainly one that would slow him more than it would slow the pursuing giant - he turned about and lifted the mighty spear in one hand.
"I am the cause!"Cedric's spear protested."I must be protected!"
"You've got that backwards," Gary muttered. He aimed for the approaching giant's chest, then realized that the minuscule weapon, powerful though it was, would probably not even penetrate that thick slab deeply enough to affect the monster. Gary lowered the angle and heaved. The balanced spear's flight was true and the magical tip buried deep in the stone giant's knee. Great cracks appeared around the vibrating shaft, encircling the whole of the giant's leg. The monster stopped its advance and swayed dangerously.
Gary turned and fled.
"You cannot... leave... the spear," Kelsey, on the verge of unconsciousness, implored him.
"You want to go and get it?" was Gary's immediate reply. He trotted more easily now, trying to keep Kelsey's ride less bumpy and thinking the giant left behind. But then there came a tremendous crash, followed a moment later by another. Gary looked back to see the giant once again in pursuit, hopping across great distances on its one good leg.
"Damn!" Gary spat, and he put his head down and ran on.
"I warned thee,"came a distant call in his mind, a reminder that now he had no weapon at all.
Gary was still looking more behind him than in front when he heard Geno cry out in surprise. He glanced ahead to see another gigantic form rushing over to them. At first Gary thought them doomed, thought that another animated stone giant had cut off their retreat. This second form moved right past the companions, though, lowering its broad shoulders and charging headlong into the pursuing giant.
"Tommy!"
Tommy was not nearly as large as the stone giant, and, of course, just a fraction of the animated monster's weight. But the bigger giant was unbalanced with its wounded leg and did not react quickly enough to brace itself against Tommy's powerful shoulder tackle.
The two behemoths tumbled down in an avalanche of flesh and stone, breaking apart the rocks all about them.
"Keep running!" came Geno's cry from in front, but Gary ignored the call. He gently laid Kelsey to the ground and headed back the other way.
"No, lad," Mickey called behind him.
"Oh, begorra," the leprechaun added as Geno, too, rushed by, going to the aid of his friends and spitting curses with every step.
The instant Gary got his hands around the shaft of Cedric's spear, he wondered how smart he had been in returning. The movements of the wrestling giants whipped the shaft every which way - Gary got it in the face once, and only his helmet prevented the blow from splitting his skull. To his own amazement, he did manage to pull the spear free, and he stumbled back a few steps, looking for a vital target.
Geno was already hard at work on the stone giant's shoulder, cracking apart one of the arms squeezing Tommy. Fortunately Tommy was on top of the larger giant; Tommy would have no doubt been crushed if the stone monstrosity had come down on top of him. Still, the giant's constricting arms worked hard on poor Tommy, who could not hope to draw breath under that brutal assault.
Gary danced and dodged, keeping clear of the flailing feet. He poked the spear in whenever he could, but knew that his halfhearted attacks were doing little damage.
Down the path, Mickey cried out, and Gary heard the twang of a bowstring. He looked up to see the leprechaun and the elf huddled under a virtual rain of black-winged crows. Kelsey lay on his back, swiping across with his longbow to keep the birds away and trying to notch another arrow amidst the chaos. Mickey crouched low next to the elf, his umbrella an impromptu shield above him.
"Run on!" the dwarf instructed Gary when the stone giant's arm finally broke free.
Gary rushed off, pausing to jab his spear once into the stone giant's other knee. A hammer spun past him as he bore down on the flock, taking down two birds in its flight.
By the time Gary got close enough to skewer one squawking bird, three more of Geno's hammers had crashed through, showering the area in black feathers.
Free from the immediate assault, Kelsey managed to fire off a few effective bow shots.
But the crows were not alone; more rocks animated and moved in on the group.
"Robert's word isn't so good," Gary grumbled.
Mickey started to reply, to correct Gary, then changed his mind. The leprechaun knew that only the dwarfs of Faerie and one other person, a certain witch, could animate stones so effectively, and Mickey understood the significance of crows flying near to Robert's mountain.
Gary grabbed Kelsey by the arm and got him to his feet as Geno intercepted the approaching stone men.
"Take the helmet," Gary offered, and before Kelsey could begin to protest, he plopped it over the elfs head and moved Kelsey along.
The chase was on once more, even more miserable now with crows pecking and scratching at Gary's face and eyes every step of the way. Mickey found a perch below Gary's shoulder, sheltered by Kelsey's leaning form.
How convenient for him, Gary thought, brushing away a nagging crow.
Something smaller and much swifter than a crow zipped past Gary's head. He looked around to see a falcon tear through the crow pack, emerging with one blackbird in its deadly clutches.
Another bird of prey rushed by, and then another.
"Falcons?" Gary whispered. It didn't make any sense. And when something didn't make any sense, Gary could be relatively certain that Mickey was involved.
"I've always been partial to hunting birds," the leprechaun remarked. His illusion proved quite effective in driving off the flock, and Geno soon had the situation of new rock men fully under control, his crunching hammers battering them to littler and littler pieces.
Even more good news came a moment later as Tommy lumbered down the path, finally free of the stone giant's stubborn grasp, and with no pursuit evident behind him. Limping, the giant still had no trouble catching up with the companions. He came up beside Gary and gently hoisted Kelsey into his great arms, cradling the wounded elf before him.
Gary clenched a fist in victory; all about them the enemy ranks dissipated and fell away altogether.
Mickey was not so exuberant. Nor was the leprechaun overly surprised when they turned a bend in the mountain trail and came face-to-face with a fuming Ceridwen.