Elf Killers (25 page)

"Caith aon...caith dha...

Caith tri...ceithre...

Ursula aici buachaill...

duine i ndiaidh an duine eile..."

Cronney followed each toss up and down with cross-eyed concentration.

"Toss one...toss two...

Toss three...four

Ursula has a boyfriend...

One after the other..."

"I don't either," said Ursula, scooting over to pat the feathers on Cronney's neck. "I don't even have one, and I don't want one, either."

"Not even for babies?" said Nessie with a wise look, as she scattered out her stones for another go. 

"That's too much work. I want my very own stripe falcon, just like Cronney."

Cronney gently rattled her beak along a strand of Ursula's golden curls, as if to encourage her. Ursula gave her an adoring hug and sat running her fingers down the feathers of her back.

"Strike falcons are work, too, Ursula. Do you have any idea what you have to do to get one?"

"What did you have to do?"

"Well, you have to be big enough to go out and get one, for one thing. They're supposed to be eggs. Markus and I got ours out of a nest, and they were just hatched and the mother was a-coming, too, and Olloo was scared and everything. Everyone had to run. Doona and Oisin had to run, and Martyn and Donachan had to run, and even Queen Vorona had to run, but here she is." She gave Cronney a squeeze and a pat while Cronney discretely picked up and turned over various jackstones.

"So? I can do that..."

"Probably not. You're probably so little that you'd need more help than anyone would ever have the time to give you, even me."

"You really think so?"

Cronney quietly gobbled up three polished jackstones.

"Yea, you're definitely not big enough for your own strike falcon..."

"I am so!" cried Ursula, springing to her feet with brimming eyes and a quivering chin. "I'm getting a stripe falcon."

"Nay. You just have to grow up. Everybody knows you're 'way too little."

And with a sniffle, Ursula tramped away into the grass. 

Roseen handed her yearling strike falcon a long strip of raw auroch and watched him gulp and gobble it down as she picked out another strip from her bowl. "So when do you reckon Caggey will start getting his black and white feathers, Olloo?"

"Probably by the end of summer," he said, pausing at his scattering straw to lean on his fork. The meat-eating strike falcons had to be mucked and bedded much more carefully than any unicorn or sheep or the flies would immediately become a serious problem.

"You think he'll be as big as Baase by then?"

"Oh easily, I'd allow. He's a nice one."

"He's that all right, but his shoulders are already up to mine."

"So?"

"Well I feel silly. I must look like a child alongside him..."

"You don't strike me that way at all. Everyone looks at you because you're a gorgeous, petite...young miss," he said, faltering as he grew beet red.

"
Now I've embarrassed him,
"
she thought with a blush of her own as she quickly looked into her empty bowl.

Suddenly they were spared all this by hurried footsteps coming to the shed door. "Roseen," said Sorcha as she stepped in through the gate. "Is Ursula out here? Momma wants me to find her and she doesn't seem to be anywhere at all."

"She's someplace," said Roseen, setting down her bowl. "She probably saw you coming and hid so she could keep playing. She's been doing that, you know. Did you ask her friends?"

"Yea, real quick, but I didn't see much point..."

"Oh?"

"Well, I think that I might have been the last one to see her. You know how she's been worshiping after Nessie and her strike falcon, just lately. Nessie had her all in tears, a-telling her that she was 'way too young for strike falcons..."

"Little witch."

"Well, maybe that's what I am," said Sorcha, looking urgently wide-eyed. "She came yanking at my skirt, wanting me to help her find a strike falcon egg, and I wouldn't go. I told her that she really was too little and that I'd help her hunt some day, and when I turned around, she was nowhere to be seen. And right after that, Momma..."

A scald of fear shot through Roseen. "Olloo, could...?”

He already had her by the hand. "Caggey needs his jesses," he said. "I'll get Baase ready and dash out for a moment to find some other austringas and we'll go hunt for her."

"Thank you," she said, squeezing his hand. "Momma always gets so very upset over these things. If we're right quick, maybe she won't have to be."

Donachan dropped his jaw and his spade at the same time and raced to his house for his bow. Martyn dashed for the mews. Doona dried her hands on her apron and ran to find Oisin. In surprisingly short order, Olloo was back at the shed, sharing nods with most of the austringas who had grown birds. "Let's spread out in pairs of bond mates," he declared.

In spite of this, he and Baase chose to go with Sorcha and Tashtey and Roseen and Caggey, since Caggey still seemed a long way from "settling in," as they were beginning to call the behavior of maturing birds.

"Did Ursula give any clues to where she might try to hunt for eggs?" said Olloo.

"No," said Sorcha. "I wasn't listening, even if she did, since I was trying to get her to drop the matter."

"Well, the nearest rookery of nests left around here lies a good mile east of Carraig Faire. I can't imagine her making it that far, but if we go that way, it might be the quickest way of making her safe. So shall we make for that?"

Both young ladies nodded and immediately set out to the east over the burnt off common, which they were now keeping cropped with sheep. Caggey pranced up alongside Baase with a hiss, thrust up his head and flicked up his brown crest feathers as he fluffed up all the feathers of his neck. Baase shot his head to the top of his fluffy snow white neck, fanned out his raven black crest and peered down at Caggey who slimmed down at once and dodged aside. Soon everyone was walking in silent determination, making straight for Carraig Faire. Across the breadth of the great open space came the bleats of sheep and the jingling of the only sheep bell in Baile Tuath. Far away over the tall grass beyond, a great auroch bull trumpeted and lowed. Larks tinkled overhead. If it were not for the urgent need to find Ursula, this would have been a glorious morning for a walk. As they approached the great red rock, Roseen and Sorcha began calling out into their own echoes, as though Ursula must somehow have been nearby. At last they went around the south end to call out at the other side before making for the distant strike falcon rookery.

A good two furlongs beyond Carraig Faire, Baase began hesitating and craning his neck for backward glances over the grass. Directly, Olloo got a very good picture in mind of the east side of the rock. "What is it with the rock, Baase?" he said, wheeling about to have a look at it for himself. Suddenly all three birds were straining to hear something coming from Carraig Faire. For a lulling moment in the gentle breeze, they thought they heard a shriek high and wee.

"Is that Ursula?" cried out Sorcha in a whisper.

No one replied. Everyone was running instead. "Stop!" cried Olloo. "Hush! Let's listen again!"

Everybody stopped for quite a spell, struggling to quiet their breathing, as a killdeer scolded and the wind stirred the grass. "There!" cried Roseen, springing to her feet. "It is!"

They ran as hard as they could, flinging grass from their faces, until at last they saw her clinging to the face of Carraig Faire, just out of reach of a leaping strike falcon. "My egg!" she screeched. "Go away! This one's mine, bad bird!"

"Come on Baase!" cried Olloo as he raced to the face of the rock with his bow. The moment the wild bird saw him coming, he loosed his arrow, spearing her keel, just as Baase and Tashtey sprang on her, ripping her to pieces. Caggey danced about just out of reach, ruffling his feathers and popping his beak. 

Olloo was astonished at how far up the face of the rock she had managed to go, when he went to get her down. He promised to be careful with her egg as he handed her over to her tearful sisters for a good scolding and a thorough hugging. The egg was still warm and in good shape. He watched Baase, Tashtey and Caggey yanking and tugging at the carcass. "Where's the nest, Ursula?" he said.

"Just yonder," she said, looking away from Roseen's collarbone as she pointed out over the grass. "You can see it from up where you got me down from."

"My word!" he said with an astounded chuckle, as he ran his hand through his hair. "That's kind of dangerous. I've been out scouting for nests every two or three days, and I had no idea there were any this close. I've been all through here. How did you get your egg?"

"She wasn't there, but she came running. She was going, 'Pop! Pop!' with her beak and she was really scary."

"Are there other eggs?"

"I don't know how many. Stripe falcons don't give you time to count, you know."

"Would you show me just where? We've got a whole list of folks waiting."

"Can I have mine back?" 

Olloo nodded his head.

"To raise? For my very, very own?" She squirmed down the front of Roseen.

"I'd think so. It takes a pretty grown up young lass to take an egg away from a wild strike falcon this time o' day."

"Oh thank you!" she cried, throwing her arms around him. "You're the bestest, best Olloo ever was."

Soon they were rounding the end of Carraig Faire, carrying an egg apiece.

"This is going to be a lot for Momma," said Sorcha. "I don't think anyone told her."

"You think Caggey's going to do all right as a protector?" said Roseen as she walked beside Olloo.

"Sure. He's still kind of an eyas. He'll get fiercer when his feathers change."

"Ursula's right," she said, slipping her arm about his waist and giving him a squeeze. "You are indeed the bestest, best Olloo ever was." 

Chapter 18

Bellbirds called in the woods far below the caves of the Great Rock Wall, sounding like carpenters striking great timbers with mallets, taking over for the trolls who had long ceased to pound on tree trunks, now that the dancing had stopped and the debt-baby had been eaten. The late morning sun was bright and hot. Fnana-fnyr hobbled into the Hooter Cave to find Dyr-jiny busily cutting out strips of meat from Dyr and Ninar-dern's carcasses and stuffing their skins with a mixture of clay and maidenhair leaves. "Ah-doo, ah-doo, ah-doo, ah-doo, ah-doo..." he quietly droned as he closed up an arm with a bone needle. He looked up suddenly. "Hey. Where-be you stumble-walk?" He parked his needle in a daub of clay beside his flint knives as he closed one eye and fixed his other one on Fnana-fnyr.

"Clamp shut, buttock!" snapped Fnana-fnyr, grabbing up his club as he steadied himself with his spear like a crutch.

"Dyrney need you, Thunder-man. Arrdsey-phnyr-phey-fne looky-watches..."

"Yea? You said that right-after Fnanar hump-scrambled, so I stayed and juicy-champed debt-baby, and now where-be he? I be hoo-hoo-Thunder-man and he be hee-hee-sneak." He gave a little hop to keep from toppling.

"Fnanar got you good," said Dyr-jiny with a nod at his dangling foot. "You jump-grab him now and he'll head-smash you same-way.”

"Fnanar head-smashed Da and New-fmoo," he said, hobbling as he turned away to leave. "He needs squeaker-yelp big-slow head-smash." 

"Aoo-fn," said Dyr-jiny, rising at once to shuffle alongside. "I big-head-nod, big-head-nod your ooot-ooot-say, but you must not diggy-finger your nose at your da and your new-fmoo and you must-must licky-foot fall-down the crossy-arm head-nod of Arrdsey-phnyr-phey-fne for all true-Dyrney." 

Fnana-fnyr stopped short. "Then go on flabber-talk," he growled, "but Fnanar be hee-hee-sneaking."

"Aoo-fn, aoo-fn," said Dyr-jiny, smoothly stepping in front of him. "And he do, do need head-smash, but at the tumble-down of all Dyrney?"

"You speak like buttock. I no stand here for poop-talk."

The faintest flicker of anger came and went in Dyr-jiny's eyes. "Arrdsey-phnyr-phey-fne will give us all the grab-up-squeakers for the debt-baby," he said with a careful smile as he raised his brows to study the features of Fnana-fnyr's face, "but only if we see your da and your new-fmoo to the Land of the Dead. Do this crossy-arm big-nod, and you'll be big, big, big-thunder Thunder-man. Arrdsey-phnyr-phey-fne make Fnanar easy, easy head-smash. Or, you could huffy-back-walk out-of- here now and Fnanar head-smash you. Arrdsey-phnyr-phey-fne watches you. I watch you. I looky-watched Thunder-man, Thunder-man, Thunder-man, Thunder-man each-one almost please Arrdsey-phnyr-phey-fne."