Stone Heart

Author Carol Phipps has hijacked my blogs on Saturdays for a quite a while, to tell you a little bit about herself, her work and her writing partner. So dress comfy, get a drink and stop on by every Saturday.

Today’s Feature...Stone Heart

A little bit about the story

A great evil awakens to shatter Niarg's peaceful world.

 In her remote island keep off the shores of Head, the fearsome sorceress Demonica at last learns from her unfaithful husband Yann-Ber the whereabouts of the long lost Staff of Power. He crawls before her to tell her that it has turned up in the hands of her granddaughter Spitemorta, the new queen of Goll, hoping to buy his release from her horrid curse of boils. She is ecstatic about the Staff, but will never forgive his faithlessness. He will be released, all right. He will get to die in one year, after the most excruciating boils yet to come.

 Demonica leaves for Goll at once. She arranges an accident for the nanny of Spitemorta's son, becomes the new nanny herself and offers to teach Spitemorta how to develop her considerable powers. Spitemorta accepts at once, thereby uniting the two most dangerous sorceresses of the age, determined to conquer the world. Their first step is to find the First Wizard's Stone Heart which would make the Staff the most powerful tool of all time.

A little bit from the story

          

Excerpt from Stone Heart

Chapter 1

 

            "They're in the trees, aren't they?" said Queen Spitemorta, straining to see aloft as she drew her raven-black unicorn to a stop. "Easy, Nightshade." She patted his withers and stroked his silver mane.

             "Yes, that's supposed to be their habit, all right," said the older woman, on a brindled grey unicorn in the deer path behind her. She lowered the hood of her cloak and looked about overhead before giving a shrug. "So?"

             "So I don't like them watching us. I still say we should've used a traveling spell to come here. We'd be spending our morning back in Goll instead of here in the Chokewoods being spied on by cannibals."

            "You're as skittish as Nightshade, there," said the elder with a calmness that Spitemorta found nettling. "I don't understand why you people up here waste your patience on cyflymder unicorns. Roudennegs like Gwenole, here, are as steady as the rock my keep is built on. I'm right glad you managed to find her for me. Now listen: I wouldn't worry so much if I were you. You look altogether like your mother did when she first arrived here, so I can't imagine the dorchadas being anything short of terrified by you. Besides, malicious parties can make good allies. You never know when they might be useful."

            "I am indeed out here in this place on the strength of what you've said, Demonica. But there are times when I can see that I'm being advised by my son's nanny. You seem to forget that I'm queen and that I have this..." she said, suddenly drawing forth the staff from across the tops of her panniers and shooting out a lavender flame from the end of it, sending a dorchadas plummeting to the ground in a ball of flame. The dorchadas kicked a time or two before the flame went out. 

             Spitemorta rode forward and prodded his crumbling cinder with the staff. "This is my forest! I am queen!" she called out, addressing the huts and the dangling skulls in the treetops. "Many of you must fancy yourselves brave. So if anyone amongst you wishes to contest this, come forth!"

            The forest canopy was quite silent as scores of obsidian eyes stared out from the late summer leaves with indigo-black cat faces bearing lemon-yellow manes. "Good!" cried Spitemorta. "Then you'll come to my service at my bidding, knowing that you will die if you refuse!" Joy surged through her. She could see their helplessness. She rode forward, head held high.

             They rode in silence along the deer path under the twisted boughs of the choke oaks until they seemed well beyond the outlying grounds of the dorchadas. "Well done, dear. Everyone was quite impressed," said Demonica at last, "but it was unwise for you to leave your back open to attack."

             "Oh come now, Grandmother," she said, wheeling 'round to ride alongside her. "Just as you said, those heathens were terrified. They thought Ugleeuh had risen right up out of the Pit and returned to reclaim her perverted realm."

            "No doubt. But the dog most likely to bite you from behind is the one who's too afraid to come at you head-on."

             "You forget that I've been queen of two realms for better than five years. I've had no problems. What have you done to learn to command others besides be a governess?"

            "Not much. I've only been the most powerful sorceress in the world for something just short of three centuries..."

             "Well, as I said before,'' said Spitemorta, interrupting to hide her faltering aplomb, "a traveling spell would have saved us from all this...this inconvenience."

            "You chose to ride the high-strung cyflymder, dear. As for traveling spells, those are another problem altogether. It seems that when my daughter gave you the staff, she must have led you to believe that they are appropriate for any sort of traveling."

            "She didn't give me the staff..."

            "How'd you come by it?"

            "...I took it."

            "Well. That's my granddaughter," said Demonica, stopping Gwenole in the path and leaning aside to look squarely into Spitemorta's face. "By that, I gather that she showed you nothing at all about traveling spells, aye?"

             "Yes she did. How else would I know how to cast them? Ugleeuh showed me weeks before I ever got my hands on the staff."

         Demonica's eyes shot open at this. "So, she was obviously with you when you first used a spell..."

             "Well, sure..."

            "And that, of course, was the only time you traveled before you got your hands on the staff..."

            "Oh, no. I used a spell to go from Castle Goll to find her at her candied cottage, here in the Chokewoods. She wasn't there, so I used another spell to travel from the cottage to where she was on the beach with Gastro."

            Demonica dropped a rein. An apoplectic look came and went on her face. The unicorns sauntered on, side by side, erratically trading turns walking in the narrow path.

            "Well?" said Spitemorta. "Weren't you asking me something?"

             "I was about to say," said Demonica, snapping to as if jostled out of a dream, "that even the most powerful and experienced use that mode of transportation only with the

greatest care and restraint."

            "Pooh, Demonica. I've been using dear Mother's traveling spells for the past five years and have never had a problem. Perhaps you're not quite the sorceress you claim to be if you've had problems."

             Suddenly, Spitemorta found herself trapped in the hollow trunk of an enormous choke oak. She could not move her arms or her legs. She could move her head around easily and she could see out through a hole in the trunk well enough to peer down the 

outside of the tree to see one of her legs sticking out through another hole below. 

 

        Demonica and the two unicorns were nowhere to be seen. She drew a breath to cry out to her grandmother only to give a wail of terror at the sight of the ground below as it became

a swarming vermilion carpet of hundreds upon hundreds of smallies, surging forth to close around her tree. Now she could see their indigo eyes full of hunger. Hair rose on her neck and forearms. "They really do look like wee devils," she gasped. "But how can they have mouths so very full of teeth? No wonder they eat their pray alive in moments." Her heart hammered in her ears and pounded in her chest as the nearest smallie ran up to her deerskin riding boot. "Where are you, Demonica?" she screamed. "Demonica! I'm sorry!"

You can find (Carol Marrs Phipps) at:

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The Burgeoning

Author Carol Phipps has hijacked my blogs on Saturdays for a quite a while, to tell you a little bit about herself, her work and her writing partner. So dress comfy, get a drink and stop on by every Saturday.

Today’s Feature The Burgeoning

A little bit about the story

      

With both the Great Staff of Power and the Stone Heart in their hands at last, it seems that nothing can stop Demonica and Queen Spitemorta from crushing Niarg and conquering the entire world. King Hebraun of Niarg is dead and not a single Elf is left alive in the Jutwoods.

Spitemorta's husband, King James, tries to ride out of Castle Goll with her Great Staff of Power, but is tortured by Demonica and her and locked away to die in the fleas and fetid straw of the dungeon. He manages to escape across the Great Barrier Mountains, just as the army and people of Niarg are sent out into the countryside by Queen Minuet and Wizard Razzmorten, who flee to the Pitmaster's Kettles in time for Spitemorta and Demonica to effortlessly destroy Castle Niarg. Is this the end of everything?

A little bit from the story

The full moon, hard and white, lit the stark countryside of Gollmoor from within its icy ring high in the south, as the silhouettes of two hags astride a stick sank behind the naked twigs of a spreading burr oak. The frozen grass crushed flat under their feet as they stepped off their staff, breathing out frosty plumes of moonlit breath as they stiffly found their balance. Screech owls hither and yon shivered and wailed. Far away, dogs barked.
            "Well there's Castle Goll, yonder."

            "Yea. A right good piece to walk, Grandmother. It's frigid out. And we should've been here a month ago."

            "You know good and well that had you not overseen the trolls mourning as Great Goddess Fnadi-yaphn, we'd 'ave had an uprising on our hands, Spitemorta, particularly since they died following you. Good thing I only let you have two hundred of 'em..."
            "Yea? Well, it still wasted nearly a month," she said as she glanced up at the moon with a shudder from between her clouds of breath. "I miss Abaddon..."

            "You're quite something," said Demonica as she gathered her shawl under her chin with her gnarled hand and looked all about her, "I've been going to great lengths to cooperate with your whims, dear. You wanted to fly the Staff to avoid being bounced
around in your condition, and that meant not being recognized, so we landed out here, and I haven't seen a soul, have you?"

            "No, but it's a long way to walk in the freezing cold, crippled up with your glamouries," said Spitemorta as she steadied herself with the Staff. "We not only look like dried up old hags, we move like them. You expect me to stumble along as a hunchback for a good half mile, keeping my balance with this belly? Look, we're off the Staff now, so why can't we change back? Who has ever seen a pregnant dowager?

           Wouldn't that attract unwanted attention?" Demonica threw back her head with a volley of laughter, puffing out clouds of breath like a tea kettle as she braced herself on her knees. "Very well," she said as she rubbed her eyes and sobered, "I'll change you back as soon as we cut across that frozen pond, yonder..."

            "You're wanting to see me fall."

            "Hey, that would be fun! It's not like you don't deserve it, or anything," she said, erupting with laughter all over again. Her laughter stopped at once as she turned without warning and put her hands on Spitemorta's belly. "There ye be. You're back. All lovely,
except for that oversized belly you're haulin' around. Are you sure you want that handsome man of yours to see you so out of shape?"

            "I'm not out of shape. I'm pregnant."

            "Yeap. And twins will stretch you out of shape, right smart, Rouanez Pouezus," said Demonica as her shawl slid back to reveal her resumed beauty.

            "What?"

            "You mean you need me to tell you? Why else would you be this huge this soon?

             Just be happy it's not from overindulging."

            "Of course I've not been overindulging, Grandmother. Now, do you mind if we just go? It's the middle of the night, and I could be enjoying a wonderfully warm bath by now."

            "Can you handle the pond, dear? It would be far quicker," said Demonica as she stepped through the cattails, holding out her arms to keep her balance as she lunged forth into a tentative slide across the ice.

            Well across the pond, the outer curtain of Castle Goll rose up before them, just beyond the frozen moat. "Hey, cwn hithau!" hollered out the guard from above the portcullis as he stifled a yawn. "Know what time it is? It's time to get out o' here and come back in the morning!"

            "No!" barked Spitemorta as her voice rang out in echoes along the wall. "It's time for you to recognize your queen and let her in while she still allows you to live, fool!"

            The guard immediately leant out from the embrasure and began wailing out a frantic apology.

            "What kind of death are you begging for?" she shouted. "I want in now!"

           He wheeled aside at once and called out in a squeaking falsetto for the raising of the portcullis.
You can find (Carol Marrs Phipps) at:

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One Lucky Commenter will win a Kindle copy of The Burgeoning.

Interview with Carol Phipps

Interview between Keira Kroft and Carol Marrs Phipps

Welcome to Keira’s Corner, where there is always chocolate, and lots and lots of coffee.

Keira: You have a series just out entitled Heart of the Staff. What is that about?

The Heart of the Staff series is an epic fantasy saga which spans four generations of a wizarding family. Life in the pastoral world of niarg becomes a desperate struggle with evil as liberty, privacy and fundamental human dignity become forbidden.

Keira: What do you wear, to write?

The most comfortable things I can find at the time.

Keira: Is writing your only talent?

No, but writing is what I love.

Keira: Where in the Hell did you find time to write?

It isn’t easy and sometimes it comes at the expense of other (far less interesting and imaginative) things.

Keira: Why are you a writer?

I write because I have all these ‘people’ and stories running around in my head screaming to get out…

Keira: If you could choose anyone, who would you pick as your mentor?

Tolkein

Keira: How many hours a day do you dedicate to writing? 

I’ve no ‘set’ amount, but I certainly spend more hours writing and promoting than I spend doing anything else most days.

Keira: Do you use a particular writing method?

No

Keira: What time of day, do you write best?

The best times for me to write are mornings and evenings, when things are quiet.

Keira: Do you use one or more pen names?

My pen name is simply made by combining my maiden name and married name so I become Carol Marrs Phipps, rather than Carol Ann Phipps when I write.

Keira: Please share a particular detail about one of characters.

The sorceress Demonica is a very strong and thoroughly evil character who has a driving need for power and control. However, she prefers to orchestrate from the shadows and does so with great deal of finesse and expertise

Keira: What advice would you give to an unpublished writer?

If you want to become a published author then write, write, write, and never give up.

Let’s get personal…

Keira: What is your favorite food?

(Real) mashed potatoes with (Real) county gravy

Keira: What is your guilty Pleasure?

Cheesecake

Keira: What is your favorite Smell?

Coffee

Keira: If you could change one your physical feature? Would you? What would it be?   

Yes, I’d be taller

Keira: What is your favorite color?

Red

Keira: What is your favorite day of the week?

Saturday

Keira: What is your favorite favorite animal?

Cat

Keira: Can you tell us a secret?

I am and always shall be a ‘Trekkie’…

 

Keira: Do you have pets?

Yes, I have four cats, an Amazon parrot, two cockatiels and a raven.

Keira: What do you consider a household staple?

Flour…I bake a lot.

Keira: What are you reading?

In Her name: Empire by Michael R. Hicks

Keira: Can you share your blurb with us?

Yes

Good Sister, Bad Sister

 

Minuet Dewin, eldest daughter of the wizard Razzmorten, practically raised her half sister Leeuh, who was abandoned by her mother. For many years, Minuet is Leeuh's passionate champion. As time passes, Leeuh becomes increasingly hard to defend as she grows determined to be awful at every turn. Whilst undoing her dangerous pranks, Minuet finds herself the target of her hatred and jealousy. And when they fall for the same prince, it looks like war.

Suddenly Leeuh vanishes. She returns years later, compliant and sweet as she always should have been. Minuet is stunned. Should she trust her, or will it be the very death of her?  

The Collector Witch

 

Rose's parents couldn't be telling her everything. Frantic to find out if she really is the daughter of an evil sorceress, she makes a rash departure on a quest to the Chokewoods, a forest of horrors which no one in her kingdom dares to enter.

Her journey is beset with challenges. Her brother Lukus accosts her in the stables and blackmails her into traveling with him. Together they evade royal authorities, survive a cyclone, escape from the castle of her betrothed, and discover that trolls, Elves and cyclopses really do exist as do the perilous visions which they struggle with in the Valley of Illusions.

In the Chokewoods, they narrowly survive a horde of flesh eating devils, the fruit of the choke oak and a village of beasts who take them captive. As the beasts prepare to make a feast of them, a hag crashes through the treetops and rescues them, leading them away into a mad forest of her own where she turns them into thralls and taunts them with threats, telling them that they owe her.

Rose and Lukus soon find that life everywhere has become a desperate struggle with an evil seeking to conquer the world as liberty, privacy and fundamental human dignity become forbidden.

 

Stone Heart

 

A great evil awakens to shatter Niarg's peaceful world.

In her remote island keep off the shores of Head, the fearsome sorceress Demonica at last learns from her unfaithful husband Yann-Ber the whereabouts of the long lost Staff of Power. He crawls before her to tell her that it has turned up in the hands of her granddaughter Spitemorta, the new queen of Goll, hoping to buy his release from her horrid curse of boils. She is ecstatic about the Staff, but will never forgive his faithlessness. He will be released, all right. He will get to die in one year, after the most excruciating boils yet to come.

Demonica leaves for Goll at once. She arranges an accident for the nanny of Spitemorta's son, becomes the new nanny herself and offers to teach Spitemorta how to develop her considerable powers. Spitemorta accepts at once, thereby uniting the two most dangerous sorceresses of the age, determined to conquer the world. Their first step is to find the First Wizard's Stone Heart which would make the Staff the most powerful tool of all time.

The Burgeoning

With both the Great Staff of Power and the Stone Heart in their hands at last, it seems that nothing can stop Demonica and Queen Spitemorta from crushing Niarg and conquering the entire world. King Hebraun of Niarg is dead and not a single Elf is left alive in the Jutwoods.

Spitemorta's husband, King James, tries to ride out of Castle Goll with her Great Staff of Power, but is tortured by Demonica and her and locked away to die in the fleas and fetid straw of the dungeon. He manages to escape across the Great Barrier Mountains, just as the army and people of Niarg are sent out into the countryside by Queen Minuet and Wizard Razzmorten, who flee to the Pitmaster's Kettles in time for Spitemorta and Demonica to effortlessly destroy Castle Niarg. Is this the end of everything?

You can find the first four books of the (Heart of the Staff series) at:

Amazon
Amazon UK

You can find (Carol Marrs Phipps) at:
Website

Blog
Facebook
Fanpage
Smashwords
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Elf Killers

Author Carol Phipps has hijacked my blogs on Saturdays for a quite a while, to tell you a little bit about herself, her work and her writing partner. So dress comfy, get a drink and stop on by every Saturday.

Today’s Feature, Elf Killers

 

A little bit about Elf Killers

It is the very worst time to be in the woods.

Oisin’s plan is to come with his bow to help Aedan and Doona lead a party of children into the forest to gather the maidenhair seedlings his people would take across the sea as they flee the trolls who hunt them as prey. Maybe he can be back in time for supper. And if he only dares to dream, he might also be back in time to speak with

 

Dyr's plan is an early evening head smash for the foolish Elves who think they can steal away to the sands of the endless eye sting water and build their strange float huts. They will make a glorious feast.

But on the way, Dyr's brutes stumble across Oisin's gathering party and attack, leaving Aedan mortally wounded and scattering Doona and the children to flee in terror into the dark mountain woods, only to be run down and captured by the bloodthirsty trolls.

Can Oisin find the bonfires of the trolls and rescue them before it’s too late? And what then? Will any of them live long enough to reach safety?

A little bit about the story

  

"Isbal! Reina! Strangers!" bellowed the troll as he wheeled and vanished into the adjoining room.

"It talks!" cried Kieran, springing after to let fly an arrow which glanced off a long polished table top and stuck in the far wall.

"Stop!" shrieked a woman, suddenly appearing from the hallway.

"Aunt Isbal!" cried Oisin, letting down his bow. "You're alive!"

"Yes I am. Now don't shoot our troll...!"

"'Our' troll? Who else made it through the massacre? And how would you ever have a troll?"

"Your aunt Reina is who else. Now you heard me about not shooting him, right?"

"How does one not shoot a troll?" said Kieran.

"By being polite enough not to, Kieran!" said Isbal.

"I'm sorry, Isbal. I just saw them kill..."

"Yes. So did I. But this one won't. Come on out Darragh. Come on now."

After a pause, a chair scooted away from the long polished table with a screech on the stone floor as Darragh lumbered out from under it and slowly stood up.

"Now this is Darragh, and I swear he'll not harm a single hair on your head..."

"What's the matter with it?" said Olloo. "I've never seen one with snow white hair before. And what's wrong with the thing's eyes?"

"Shake their hands, Darragh," she said as she gently took him by the wrist and held his hand toward Kieran.

Kieran stepped back as Oisin came forth in his place and took Darragh by the hand.

"How do you?" rumbled Darragh with a beetle browed nod as he pumped out a couple of giant handshakes.

"Carefully, sport," said Oisin with a wary look as he stepped back.

"Meanie. And he meanie, too," said Darragh, wrinkling his nose with a sneer and pointing at Kieran and Olloo.

"Well shake his hand, Kieran," said Olloo.

"No!" said Darragh, shaking his head from shoulder to shoulder. "He big big meanie. He dirtybutt stinkerman."

"Well," said Olloo, "there've been moments on the way here when we've thought so ourselves, Darragh."

Kieran bit his lip and kicked Olloo in the ankle.

"See?" said Darragh. "Meanie!"

"So how did you come by him?" said Oisin. "And where's Aunt Reina?"

"Back through the house," said Isbal. "I can see that this will require some refreshments. Let me take you to the sitting room. Come along, Darragh."

Soon they had exchanged greetings with Reina and were all seated comfortably around a tea table in a small parlour. Isbal and Reina disappeared into the kitchen and returned shortly with hot blackberry tarts and tea. "We harvested the blue maidenhair you're about to drink last year right after the massacre," said Reina as she set down the tray with the steaming pot.

"Why do you have it so dark in here?" said Oisin.

"The light hurts Darragh's eyes," said Isbal. "If we don't keep it dark, he'll sleep all day and keep us awake all night..."

"Drum and hoot-hoot, Isbal?" said Darragh as he tumbled onto the floor in front of her and pressed his cheek to her foot. "Please hoot-hoot?"

"That's probably a good idea. Go get the instruments," she said as he sprang to his feet and raced out.

He was back in short order with a field drum and two clay jugs. He set the drum on its side with a bang and reverently nestled the smaller jug in Isbal's lap before plumping down cross legged on the floor with the larger jug. He scooted the drum about until he could touch its head with the ball of one foot. Like a conductor tapping his baton, he shifted about for a moment and got still. Presently he began a brisk tapping of the drum with his foot: pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum...

Isbal joined him in time with her jug: foof...foof...foof...foof...

Darragh in turn added a commanding: toofa...toofa...toofa...toofa... so that together they went: foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa, foof toofa... for a very long time. After a spell, it became quite mesmerizing indeed. Suddenly he stopped his jug with a loud thump of his drum: bam!

Isbal continued: foof...foof...foof...foof... until Darragh went: wham! on his drum, sprang to his feet and gave a dignified bow. For a moment, there was not a sound in the room.

At last, Oisin set down his teacup with a clink. "Why, I've never heard the like," he said. "That was quite impressive, Darragh."

Darragh grinned hugely and bowed again and again.

"Darragh," said Isbal, holding out her jug, "why don't you go out and play for a while? I promise that as soon as Reina has the next pies out of the oven, we'll call you in."

"Oh good, good!" he said with a bounce as he gave her a squeeze and took her jug. He scurried out at once with the jugs. He was back immediately for the drum, pausing to stick out his tongue at Kieran. "Bad meanie stinky privy seat!" he rumbled. He gave his chest two good thumps with his fists and tramped out.

"Just what does he have against me?" said Kieran.

"I expect he takes exception to being shot at," said Isbal.

"Nay. He's just a good judge of character, is all..." said Olloo.

Kieran leant aside with a frown and gave Olloo a smack on the back of the head.  

"Do you ever play your lyra with him, Aunt Reina?" said Oisin.

"I tried once, but the moment I drew the bow across the strings he covered his ears and howled. He won't have anything to do with it. I don't play much anymore, but the instant I pick it up he runs outside. But so much for that. Tell me, how are your mother and father?"

"They're quite well, or at least they were the last I saw of them..."

"Now just what does that mean? They did make it through the attack, didn't they?"

Oisin shared a look with Olloo and Kieran. "Well you see, they and most of the rest of Baile Gairdin have set sail across the sea to Deatalamh with King Faragher to make a new start."

Isbal and Reina set their cups in their laps with wide eyes.

"Well then," said Isbal, picking up the teapot, "we don't have to feel guilty any more. This nice sitting room and the rest of the house are indeed ours. I'm glad they're alive. We'd feared the worst."

"Your buoyancy sounds awful, Isbal," said Reina. "Here I was all set, the moment I laid eyes on them, to have everyone follow them home and bring Baile Gairdin back to life."

"So was I. I expect it'll never be."

"Well then," said Reina, turning to give Oisin careful study, "are you three alone, just as we are, or are others on their way? Where have you all come back here from?"

"The Strah..."

"Out with the shawkyn spooghey?" she said with a gasp as she and Isbal set down their cups again and gaped at each other.

"We're safe enough, and we're clean away from the trolls..."

"Does anyone live out there with you? And how on earth did you ever end up out there instead of across the sea with Faragher?"

Oisin began the briefest account he could manage of the death of Aedan and the flight of the Elf children from the trolls up the lava tubes of Mount Sliabh and out into the Great Strah to Carraig Faire, and of Vorona and the others finding their way to Carraig Faire to join them. When at last he told of the coronation of Queen Vorona, Isbal broke into laughter.

"You don't approve of her as Queen?" said Oisin.

"No, no! You misunderstand. I'm utterly delighted. Vorona may be a commoner, but she is the eldest of the Elves and possibly the wisest. And Faragher showed his fitness to rule by consulting with her."

"She won't wear a crown," said Olloo.

"I'm not surprised in the least," said Isbal, as she poured the last drop of tea and held out the pot to Reina. "And if I know her, she'll die defending the lot of you as equals."

"Well, speaking of fighting and dying, if you know what I mean, how ever did you come by Darragh?" said Oisin. "Do you really trust him?"

"So the dear child scares you, does he?"

"Not as much as on first sight. Child? I can see that he sort of acts like one, but he's a good head taller than me and might weigh as much as all three of us." 

"He's not an Elf Killer," said Isbal, looking up as Reina returned with another pot, "Well troll he be, but he is indeed innocent."

"How can you call any sort of troll a 'dear child,'" said Kieran, "or innocent?"

"Because that's what he is, Kieran," said Isbal. "Darragh wouldn't harm so much as an insect unless it bit him first.

"You say he's actually a child?" said Olloo.

"Aye," said Reina as she poured tea all 'round. "We reckon that trolls are grown enough to start pestering sows at about eleven. You'd have to bathe him, but you'd see he's not near there yet.

"Eleven!"

"They're pretty short lived. When did you first get giddy over girls, two hundred and ten or two hundred and twenty, perhaps?"

"But trolls are monsters, Reina," said Kieran.

Reina sighed and carefully set the teapot on the marble tea table. "Monsters they be, Kieran," she said. "We were captured, don't you know, along with who knows how many others." She turned a haunted look to Isbal and licked her lips. Isbal took up her hand and squeezed it, but neither of them smiled.

Everyone sat for a moment, stunned by this. "How did you ever...?" said Oisin.

"Oh, as far as we know, we were the only ones to escape their horrible fires. They had so many captives, and were all gone wild with their hellish carousal that they seemed to have no interest in a couple of dried up old gammers. They never even bothered tying us up. They just threw us down in the dirt outside where everyone could see us. We were so terrified that we just stayed right where they put us, doing everything we could not to watch what was going on. We still wake up in the night with horrible dreams..."

"Then a scrap broke out right in front of us," said Isbal. "The big old trollbrutes tore Darragh away from his mother. The moment they took out their sharp flints, fixing to cut him open, she stopped kicking at them and began licking their feet..."

"With her tongue?" said Olloo.

"Yes indeed, all over the tops of them and between their toes, and it stopped the curses from cutting him open. They yanked him up onto his feet by his hair and shoved him at his poor mother..."

"And the instant they did that," said Reina, "I grabbed Isbal and we ran for the brush as hard as we could go. Just after we'd got well out of sight of the fires, the mother grabbed us by the hair and yanked us onto our backs. As we were a-struggling to get up, she shoved Darragh at us and got on her hands and knees and went to whimpering and licking at our feet. Poor Darragh was crying and carrying on too, and she bit him good a couple of times and made him go with us.

"We ran for what seemed like hours, and Darragh stayed right with us, hanging onto us for dear life. When we got back here, we found no one alive and we spent the next several days, burying bodies. We just kept running into them. Darragh kept trying to help us, so long as we didn't go out in the bright sun. He also started in right away, trying to use our words. He won't use trollish..."

"How can you be sure he won't turn on you sometime?" said Kieran.

Reina heaved a sigh. "Well he's not about to," she said. "A few weeks ago, maybe fifty trollbrutes came back here late in the evening and nosed around through building after building for long enough, we thought they'd never leave. Darragh hid us in a passage in the palace that he'd found. He was playing outside when they showed up and the very sight of them terrified him. He was trembling all over and he kept calling them 'monsters,' and we couldn't begin to coax him out of the passage until long after they were gone. He won't ever talk about living with the other trolls, but over time we have managed to piece together that he was tormented by them day and night, and that they were continually threatening to eat him." She clapped her knees with sudden resolution and stood up. "I think the pies must be ready by now."

"Yea," said Isbal. "It might do you some good, Kieran, if you went out and got Darragh. My guess is that he's out in the stable. He won't be far. He's crazy about blackberry tarts..."

"Me?"

"Just go out through the kitchen."

Seeing that no one was about to come to his aid, Kieran sheepishly rose and followed Reina. Beyond a long roofed breezeway, he stepped into an enormous barn like a rough hewed cathedral. "Darragh?" he called. There was no answer. He went from stall to stall along both walls, standing empty in the cobwebs. "Darragh?" Not finding him, he climbed into the mow. Pigeons cooed and strutted along a great timber, high up the far wall. "Darragh? Darragh! Come on! They've got pie!"

"No!" cried Darragh, standing up in the hay. "You dirtybutt meanie!"

"Come on, Darragh! I came out to get you for pie!"

Darragh shook his head from shoulder to shoulder. Without warning, he threw a fist sized rock, taking off Kieran's hat, making him see stars and setting him down hard upon the mow floor. Darragh was standing over him at once. "We even, Dirtybutt!" he cried as he gave his chest a good drumming with his fists. He held out his hand. "Now maybe you no more be meanie."

Kieran took his hand and stood up.

"Now. Any more meanie?"

"No. I came out here to get you for pie."

"Good, good! I like pie."

"Even better than what you ate when you lived with the Marfora Siofra?"

"Boof! Dyrney no eat good things. Dyrney say they'll eat me and say they'll eat me and say they'll eat me. Dyrney even want Fmoo to eat me."

"Are Dyrney the Marfora Siofra? Who's Fmoo?"

Darragh clenched his teeth and his fists and gave an angry shudder as he nodded and hissed through his nose. "'Dyrney' be troll talk for 'people,' but Dyrney no be people. Dyrney be awful, awful, awful, awful monsters."

"Who's Fmoo?"

"Fmoo be my real momma. But 'fmoo' and 'Dyrney' be troll words. I hate troll words. Just Elf words, please? I be Elf now."

"You've got a deal, Darragh."

"Good, good!" cried Darragh, with a thundering leap on the mow floor. "We eat pie." 

The heady aroma of blackberry tarts met them as they returned to the parlour beyond the kitchen. "Kieran no more be dirty butt meanie," said Darragh as he scurried up to sit on the floor before the tea table.

"Why, that's remarkable," said Olloo, earning another smack on the back of the head as Kieran took his seat. "We never quite managed."

 

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