Dragonslayer's Return (Spearwielder's Tale #3) 7

Flames sprouted from every tree, lifting their hissing voices in defiance of the drenching rain. All the edge of the forest was in turmoil, men rushing about, fires leaping high, bowstrings humming, as King Kinnemore gave his answer to the call for peace.

Far from the brutal fighting, Prince Geldion sat despondently, his suspicions of his father's feelings for him apparently confirmed. Few prisoners sat in the field near the Prince, most of the soldiers having sworn fealty to the other side. Even now, many of Geldion's men were into the battle, fighting for the Tylwyth Teg, fighting against his father. It was, perhaps, the most bitter pill the troubled Prince had ever swallowed. And so the fighting that day was even more confusing, with elfs battling men, and men battling men.

Diane, too, was at the front, simply refusing to be left behind again. She rode a white mare beside Gary and Kelsey, the elf leading a wild rush along the length of the battlefield, shouting for men to desert their unlawful King and come to the call of the spearwielder, the new Donigar-ten. In his shining suit of mail, atop the great stallion, the mighty spear raised high above him, Gary Leger certainly looked the part. But he did not feel the part, did not feel like the reincarnation of that legendary hero. Far from it.

Gary had seen battles in Faerie before, had seen Geldion and a host of his knights battle a sea of goblins in Cowtangle. Indeed, Gary had been in battles, had killed the knight Redarm in single combat. And he had seen atrocities in his own world, on the increasingly graphic evening news, footage of war-torn countries and of the troubles in the cities of his own land. None of that prepared him for this vicious day in Tir na n'Og. The simple fury of the fight, the echoing cries of the dying, the ring of steel against steel, so commonplace that it sounded as one incessant and grating whine, assaulted his sensibilities. He gritted his teeth and rode on, determined to see it all through. This was not the time for weakness, he knew, though it truly revolted him that, in this time of battle, compassion and weakness were apparently one and the same.

Diane was similarly horrified. She had brought both her cameras along, thinking to chronicle the battle. She took only one shot with the Polaroid, though. After that, she used the Pentax, knowing that she would not have to view the result of her handiwork for a long time, not until she and Gary got out of Faerie, at least, where she might get the film developed. That camera became Diane's salvation that horrible morning. Truly a paradox, it made her feel as though she was making an important contribution, while at the same time the camera allowed her to distance herself from the horrible scene. Somehow, watching a man cut down through the eye of a lens was not the same as witnessing it without the transparent barrier.

The fighting went on all morning. With Kelsey leading, cutting a swath through enemy ranks, and with a growing group of Connacht turncoats swelling in the elfish ranks. Gary saw little personal fighting, Diane none at all. But they both were surely a part of that battle, as inevitably scarred as those who limped away from the action covered head to toe in blood - be it their own or the blood of slain enemies.

"We claim victory this day," Kelsey declared long after the bows had stopped humming and the swords were put away. The wails had not ended, though, cries of men and elfs grievously wounded, many still in the scarred area as Tylwyth Teg patrols cut their way through the destroyed tangle, using the screams to guide their steps.

"The enemy has been driven back to the fields, far from Tir na n'Og's borders," Kelsey went on determinedly, though it seemed to all who could hear that the elf-lord wept beneath his stern facade.

Gary nodded grimly, though Diane looked away. She had not learned to accept what must be in Faerie.

Geno, who had spent the day with Mickey as the sole guards over the prisoners, offered no response to the news of victory. The mountain dwarf was untrained in forest fighting, yet tough enough (and deadly enough with those flying hammers!) to keep the score of men on the field in line.

He had been up front for some time now, and had seen the field and heard the results. More than three hundred Connacht soldiers lay dead in the woods, another fifty had been taken prisoner, and three score more had come over to the elfish ranks. But the price had been high. Nearly a hundred Tylwyth Teg were dead or wounded so badly that they would see no more fighting, and the southern border of Tir na n'Og, beautiful even to the dwarf who lived among the great boulders of Dvergamal, would be decades in recovering from the deep scars.

By all accounts, the elfs had scored a victory by a margin of four to one, but Kinnemore could spare four hundred much easier than the Tylwyth Teg could spare one hundred. Kelsey claimed victory, yet his people had surely been decimated, their ranks nearly cut in half.

Kelsey's enthusiasm at his proclamation could not withstand Geno's silent appraisal of the battle. The elf understood Geno's stake in the outcome of the fight for Tir na n'Og, and the dwarf's grim expression spoke volumes.

Kelsey nodded and departed. A new envoy from Kin-nemore was expected, now that the wicked King had made his statement with fire and sword. The elf took with him Diane's revealing photograph of their nemesis, and also took with him a grim determination. Kelsey had come to see the world as a larger place than Tir na n'Og. He believed in his heart that the Tylwyth Teg held responsibility for their neighbors' well-being.

But Kelsey realized the devastation of this day, understood that this continuing battle was taking a brutal toll on both sides, and on the forest that served as the battlefield. Kinnemore was losing many good warriors, and was losing precious time while the news of his march inevitably spread to the eastern lands. The longer the King remained bottled up at Tir na n'Og's border, the better prepared his future enemies would become. Even worse, Kinnemore was losing men to desertion, was breeding enemies among his own ranks. That he could not afford, any more than the Tylwyth Teg could afford a prolonged defense.

Kelsey knew what would soon happen, knew that Tir na n'Og would likely see no more fighting, but whatever relief he felt for his kin and his home could not diminish the pain in knowing what would likely befall Braemar and Drochit, and all the folk of the east.

The very next day, the elfish elders signed a truce with King Kinnemore, a pact that included the return of Prince Geldion and any other prisoners.

Kelsey had argued vehemently against the truce, had even revealed the photograph to the elders. They were more than a little suspicious of its origins, since the amazing reproduction was a magic they did not understand. But even conceding Kelsey's point that Kinnemore was not who he appeared to be, was more a creature of Ceridwen's control than they had believed, they would sign the trace and secure the borders of Tir na n'Og.

Let the war for Faerie be fought around their borders, so the elfish elders proclaimed, and if Kinnemore should win out, then so be it. The Tylwyth Teg would survive; Tir na n'Og would endure.

To Kelsenellenelvial Gil-Ravadry, elf-lord and he who reforged the legendary spear of Donigarten, friend of dwarf and gnome, of leprechaun and human, that did not seem enough.

It took a great effort by Kelsey and Gary, and more than one of Mickey's fine tricks, to keep Geno off Geldion's throat when Kelsey announced the truce. Diane remained at the Prince's side throughout the struggle, shielding him and talking with him.

"Is there so much hate in you?" Kelsey asked the dwarf, the elf's body stiff and straining and his heels digging deep ridges in the rain-drenched turf as the growling Geno bulled on.

"Have you forgotten the pains this miserable Prince has brought to us?" the dwarf replied. "Have you forgotten the fight on the field south of Braemar, where my kin were cut down by Geldion and his soldiers?" Kelsey had to nod in reply, but he noted something else in Geno's stern tone, something more calculating. The elf smacked the dwarf hard to temporarily break Geno's momentum, then hopped back, standing resolute in the dwarf's path.

"Is that it?" Kelsey said evenly, and the surprising question did more to slow Geno than the slap. "Is that what?" Geno demanded.

"Are you angry at Prince Geldion for what has occurred, or do you seek a solution now through murder?" "What are you babbling about, elf?" Geno huffed, but the dwarf, obviously caught off his guard, stood still, gnarly hands on hips. "Give him a weapon, then. I'll fight him fairly!"

"Of course," Gary agreed, recognizing Kelsey's logic. "You want to kill Geldion now to destroy the truce. If Geldion doesn't come out of Tir na n'Og, Kinnemore will renew the fighting, and the Tylwyth Teg will be forced back into the war."

Geno turned a seething glower upon Gary, but he had no answers to the charge. He looked to Kelsey, and saw sincere sympathy in the elf's golden eyes.

"Prince Geldion will be returned, as the elders of the Tylwyth Teg have agreed," the elf said solemnly.

Geno sent a stream of spittle splattering off Kelsey's soft leather boots. "I should have expected as much from a bunch of elfs," the surly dwarf grumbled, and he turned away.

Gary did not miss the clouds of pain that crossed over Kelsey's fair face.

"My people have suffered greatly," Kelsey said, aiming the remark Geno's way. The dwarf turned on him sharply, Geno's blue-gray eyes unblinking. The expression alone rebutted Kelsey's point, said clearly what the elf, in his heart, already knew: with the Tylwyth Teg out of the fighting, the suffering would be greater for those races still standing opposed to the merciless King of Connacht.

"Did ye show 'em the lass's picture?" Mickey asked, more to break the tension than in any hopes of a resolution.

Never taking his eyes from Geno, Kelsey nodded. "They did not know what to believe," he explained, and he recounted all the doubts of the elfish elders.

"But ye're believing," Mickey reasoned.

Again without taking his stare from Geno, the elf nodded. "And though my people are out of the war, Kelsenellen-elvial is not."

That proclamation did much to soften the surly dwarf's glare.

'Then where do we go from here?" Gary asked, a perfectly reasonable question. "To Braemar, to wait for the new battles? Or back into Dilnamarra, where we try to kill Kinnemore?"

"Not an easy task, if Diane's picture tells the truth," Mickey reasoned.

Kelsey was in full agreement. He remembered the arrow he had put into Kinnemore, a shot that would have killed many men, or at least taken them out of the fighting. Kinnemore, Kelsey recalled, had been more angry than hurt - if hurt at all.

"To the Crahgs," Diane answered unexpectedly, coming over to join the group. All eyes, even Geno's, turned to regard her. "Did I pronounce that right?" she asked.

"It makes sense, doesn't it?" she reasoned against the silent stares. "If King Kinnemore is the haggis, then the haggis must be King Kinnemore."

"Unless Ceridwen merely used the haggis as a model for a transformation of the King," Kelsey reasoned, but Mickey was backing Diane's logic on this one.

'The haggis is older than Ceridwen, by all accounts," the leprechaun put in. "And ever filled with mischief. Me own guess is that Ceridwen would have found an easier time in switching the two than in trying to copy that fiend."

"Exactly," Diane agreed. "And if we go and get the haggis - King Kinnemore - we might be able to do something about it."

The others had been to the Crahgs and had heard the shriek of the wild hairy haggis, and not one of them, even Mickey who agreed with the reasoning, seemed excited about the prospect of hunting the thing.

"It won't be as bad as you think," Diane assured them, her smug tones telling Gary, who knew her best, that she had a secret. "If the haggis is Kinnemore, the real Kinnemore, he won't be anxious to attack his own son." Kelsey nodded and even smiled at the reasoning, happy to grab at the offered chance, until he understood the implications of what Diane was saying. His own son, she had said. Did this foolish and ignorant woman expect Prince Geldion to travel along beside them?

"Prince Geldion has already agreed to go along," Diane announced, as though she had expected Kelsey's unspoken doubts all along.

She winced as Geno's spit splashed off her shoe.

"I have agreed," Geldion called from his seat in the clover a short distance away.

"Ye're to go back to Dilnamarra," Mickey said. "As is decided in the truce. If ye do not, then Tir na n'Og'll be full o' fighting again on the morrow."

"And so I will go back," Geldion replied evenly. "I will go back and see this monster that has stolen my father's throne. And then I will leave, explaining that I must scout the eastern road before the army moves on. We will meet in Cowtangle Wood three days hence."

The friends exchanged doubting expressions. They had all dealt with Geldion in that very same forest - Gary, Kelsey, and Mickey had been chased through Cowtangle on two separate occasions by Geldion and his men. They seemed to come to a silent agreement, looking at each other, inevitably shaking their heads.

"He has nothing to lose!" Diane interjected, understanding where the tide was flowing. "Nothing to lose and everything to gain." She looked back to the seated Prince and nodded, and he nodded back to her. "He will be there," Diane asserted, mostly to her husband. "Alone."

Gary paused a moment to consider the claim, to consider all their options. "Cowtangle Wood," he finally agreed, ignoring the skeptical stares of Kelsey and Geno. "In three days."

"Two days," Mickey corrected. "We've got little time before Ceridwen comes free o' Ynis Gwydrin."

Again Geldion nodded. "Then get me back to Dilnamarra quickly, elf-lord," he bade Kelsey. "My King" - his voice was full of biting sarcasm - "will demand a full report, and Cowtangle is a hard ride."

Kelsey looked to Geno, apparently the only one left supporting his doubts. But the dwarf only shrugged as if to say, "What else can we do?"

Kelsey and Geldion soon departed, and Diane rubbed her hands together eagerly, thinking she had solved the puzzle. Mickey and Gary did not doubt her reasoning, but did not seem so elated.

They had been to the Crahgs, the home of the haggis, before.