Whirligig

Chapter 2

2

Emily looked at the pixies’ thin clothing. “This way,” she shouted into the wind and led them off downhill. At least she could look determined, even if she hadn’t a clue what to do. Anyway, walking would warm them a little. Meanwhile, she hoped to think up a plan. The small folks followed her in a dejected column, their poor, half-starved bodies were defenceless against the spite-laden wind. Lar knew that they couldn’t last long like this, so he joined Emily up front.

“Mistress, the Hag intends to kill us with her spite, with this wind.” Lar raised his voice to make himself heard: “Besides, I think I told you, the troll’s lair lies this way.”

“Yes, Lar, I know—” Emily’s words were half-lost in the storm, “I have a plan; you must trust me!”

Whipping out of the sky, the snow began to settle thickly, making their progress very difficult. Since Adam was so much bigger than the pixies, Emily ordered him to make a pathway for them by dragging his feet. As she pointed out, he had shoes whereas she didn’t. At first, he grumbled about not taking orders from a girl, but the pixies looked so upset at his words that he agreed quickly and got on with it. He decided he’d sort out his arrogant sister later. Even though he was big and strong compared to the rest of the band, it was tiring work for him. At last, they came to their destination, where he and Emily were the only ones relieved by the sight of the troll’s cave lying at the foot of the hill.

“The lair of the troll,” Lar muttered darkly.

“Listen, Lar,” Emily said, “you and the others must work hard. You must each build a snowman as tall as Adam and I. We’ll help—”

“No, Mistress! Think of the danger!” Lar cried; his yellow eyes opened wide with fear. To the pixy, this was an invitation far worse than being snapped and crushed in the troll’s heavy jaws. But the Mistress seemed to know what she was doing.

“What’s dangerous about making snowmen?” Emily grumbled, “Come on, it’s an important part of my plan!”

Lar shrugged and looked as if he wanted to say much more, but he bit his lip and stared at the snow as if it were a deadly creature. After a short silence, he began to organise his followers. Emily took Adam aside and explained her plan. He resented her bossing him about, but Emily stamped a bare foot and hissed that it was hard enough to get the pixies to do anything and did he want to freeze to death out in the cold? So, he nodded his head and swallowed his pride. Reluctantly, muttering all the while, the pixies began to build snowmen. They worked so unwillingly that Emily had to threaten to leave them several times to make them hurry. At last, there was a snowman for each pixy and five each for the children, so it seemed that a silent army was standing before the troll’s cave.

“We’re ready, Adam!” Emily shouted. “Be brave, Lar, hide with your pixies behind that snowdrift.”

“Willingly!” Lar looked relieved. In an instant, all the pixies seemed to have melted into the snow.

Heart pounding, Adam strolled down to the troll’s cave, comforted that the pixies had told him he was taller than the troll. In his mind, trolls were enormous, massive giants that gobbled up children. That was in fairy tales and, after all, fairies were tiny—trolls were sure to be giants in their eyes. Half-persuaded, Adam stood in the cavemouth and shouted: “Oi! Where are you, Nabgrasp? Come out, horrid old troll!” His voice echoed in the cave although he tried to make it deep, it still sounded boyish. Adam took a step back into the snowstorm. A few frantic heartbeats later, heavy footsteps thumped deep inside the cave. A voice rumbled and echoed: “Rrrr, rrr, Old Grasper don’t smell pixies! He don’t smell spriggans! Who’s outside his Bone-Mill? Grrind to powderrr! Grrind to dust!”

In the gloom of the cavemouth, Adam could not make out the creature’s form. The stomping steps and deep voice scared him. It came closer. He could hear its breath rasping. The troll stopped suddenly a few paces from the boy. He was incredibly ugly and stank. The troll’s heavy cheeks, like a bloodhound’s, and his glum face, the whole topped by a shock of spiky hair, suggested stupidity. But above his warty nose, two small eyes full of malice and cunning warned Adam to take care. The troll was too sturdy for Adam’s taste, even if he wasn’t so tall. His knotted arms, too long for his short, hairy legs and body, drooping and swinging from a leather jerkin, looked capable of snapping the boy in half. Nabgrasp’s red rheumy eyes glared at the boy, but his jaw dropped. He’d never seen a human, a boy, before and he was puzzled and doubtful.

“‘Ere, what’rrre you then?” he growled, showing his dirty yellow teeth. He was used to terrifying pixies much smaller than himself, not a stranger standing straight and fearless in front of him. Adam was terrified, but he wasn’t going to let the troll know. If anything, he felt oddly inventive.

“You don’t know, do you, Nabgrasp? I am Lord of the Trolls. I’ve come to claim my tribute. I’ve travelled for days with my army—” He swept an arm towards the snowmen and watched Nabgrasp’s eyes widen. The snow, falling heavily now, made it hard to see the shapes clearly, convincing the slow-thinking troll of his danger. Adam’s voice grew bolder: “I am here to claim tribute and to make sure you aren’t being wicked.”

The troll scratched his spiky hair uneasily, puzzled. He peered anxiously through the thickening snow towards the ranked army at the stranger’s back. Trolls are not quick thinkers. Entire seconds passed in which there was no sign of movement. Finally, Nabgrasp’s small eyes narrowed to slits, and his huge hands clenched into fists and slowly unclenched again. He took a step forward and, baring his yellow teeth, growled: “Old Grasper knows no Lord and Master!”

Adam’s stomach, already knotted tight, heaved as the troll’s breath hit him. It stank of rotten fish. He felt weak and frightened. He wanted to run away as the troll stepped forward, but he couldn’t abandon the pixies to this monster. He straightened up to his full height and drew on unexpected reserves of courage. Fixing the troll with a menacing stare, he pointed into the distance and cried: “Nabgrasp, leave now or it’ll be the worse for you!” He held his breath, hoping that his bluff would work. Nabgrasp hesitated. Confusion, fear and hatred battled in his red eyes, but like all trolls, he was stubborn. The loss of his cave and treasure was too much to bear. He stood his ground and swung his long arms like a wrestler about to fight. Adam’s heart sank. Their plan wasn’t going to work. Well, he decided, he’d better carry the bluff through to the end. “Right men,” he called, “forward, attack! Drive the troll away!”

Adam didn’t bother to turn; there was no point. He was just hoping that the troll’s nerve would break first and that Nabgrasp would panic and run off. The troll’s face turned dirty white, and he did take off! Adam watched in disbelief as he ran down the path, downhill, as fast as his stumpy legs could carry him. Adam’s eyes opened wider still, as the first snowman rushed past him. The rest followed, brushing him aside. The snowmen only had two holes for eyes, where the pixies had poked their long fingers, but they all chased after Nabgrasp as if they could see. “Alive…?” Adam gasped. He stared at the snow where they left no trail behind them. Adam watched them disappear at high speed, close on the troll’s heels, over the hill and into the next valley. He closed his mouth and not for the first time that day, rubbed his eyes. He had to be dreaming! What kind of place was this Other World? Pixies! Trolls! Animated snowmen!

“Hooray! Come on!” Emily called to the excited pixies to come out from behind the snowdrift.

Completely confused, Adam led the way into the troll’s cave.

The place stank of troll. Firelight reflected from the dripping walls and glowed deep inside the cave, where smoke was swirling up and away through a natural rock chimney. Behind the fire, at the back of the cave, a small pile of gold and jewellery sparkled and along with them were scattered many more small coins of base metal. “Pixy wages,” Lar muttered, “stolen along with the rest.”

Most of the pixies huddled around the fire, grateful for warmth at last. Others raided the troll’s larder, which was stuffed with hams and cheeses, along with other, more revolting meat, which everyone avoided. The pixies ate as if they hadn’t eaten for a lifetime and, soon, tinkling laughter echoed in the high cave.

Adam, brooding, suddenly said, “What I don’t understand is how the snowmen came to life—”

“Me neither,” Emily admitted between mouthfuls of ham. There was a sudden silence as the laughter died away.

“Was that not your plan?” Lar asked, accusation in his voice. “A wild and dangerous plan, to be sure, but one upon which you gambled successfully? The snow was Hagspite and therefore enchanted. You made effigies out of it and commanded them with spite, and because the troll is evil and wealthy, they obeyed you and went after him.”

Red-faced, Emily coughed uncomfortably, then asked: “What will happen to Nabgrasp now?”

“He will be chased back to the Hag. Then she will learn from the troll who it was that set her spite onto him. Therefore, we must leave soon before she turns her face towards this place.”

“That’s good,” Adam laughed, “she’ll hear some garbled tale about the Lord of the Trolls.”

“Well, at least, let’s take some of this treasure,” Emily said, fingering a sapphire which flashed entrancingly in the firelight.

Lar shook his head. “Far better to travel without wealth in this Land, for in the Land of Poverty, all wealth is ill-gained and can only bring misfortune.”

“What about this, Lar?” Adam asked suddenly, picking up a silver sphere from among the coins. Lar joined the boy. His dull yellow eyes shone for the first time. “This is an elven orb, Master, sealed with a binding spell. I cannot imagine how the troll was able to lay his filthy hands on it.”

“A binding spell?”

“Ay, can you not read the runes?”

“Runes…?”

“Here.” Lar’s long forefinger traced the lines carved into its surface. “See, its name is Cari, which in Elfish means ‘Charity’. The spell binds the orb to serve only one who fights evil with a pure heart. This elven orb certainly could have been of no service to the wicked Grasper.”

“I’ll put Cari in my pocket,” Adam said. “It might come in useful.”

“Beware,” Lar warned, “that orb could be of great harm if the bearer be unworthy.”

“Don’t worry,” Adam said softly, “it’ll be all right with me until someone worthier comes along.” Indeed, Cari seemed to shine even more in his hand.

Leaving the gems with reluctance, Emily ordered the pixies to gather as much food as they could carry for their journey. She didn’t want to leave the warmth of the cave, but she knew that Lar was right. It would be dangerous for them to remain any longer in a place where they could be so easily trapped.

They hurried through the passage back to the cave mouth. To their amazement, the land outside was clear of snow and, though not warm, at least free of mist and rain.

“That’s better!” Adam said.

“Nay!” Lar shook his head.

“Why not?”

“The Hag has not cleared the snow for our benefit. It can only mean one thing—she has sent her spriggans after us. We must flee!”

At the word spriggan, the pixies scattered in all directions. Most of them were used to roaming the wilderness singly.

“Wait!” Emily shouted. “Nobody will escape the Hag unless we stick together. You can’t give up for fear of spriggans. We’ll think of another plan!” Emily was very determined. Since she had been chosen to lead the pixies to freedom, that was exactly what she intended to do. Emily hadn’t seen the Hag, but she could sense her wickedness everywhere around her. She felt it was her duty to defeat the witch. Emily liked the pixies, and it made her angry to see them looking like whipped dogs.

The pixies made their way back and gathered around her, watching her from under lowered eyes.

“Are spriggans as big as trolls?” Adam asked.

Several pixies tried to answer at the same time, each shouting louder in their high voices and each making spriggans sound worse than the other. Lar calmed them with difficulty and took over the explanation: “Spriggans are no bigger than us, but are given by nature to malice and harm.” He looked hard at Adam from under bushy eyebrows: “The wildcat never spares the sparrow, is it not so, Master?”

“Ay,” Adam laughed.

Lar stared even harder at Adam, and his squint became even more noticeable. “Have I amused you, Master?”

“Er…no, it’s just a thought I had, Lar,” Adam said quickly, not wishing to offend.

“We must make haste,” Lar urged Emily. “Many of them will be coming this way even as we talk. The spriggans carry slings and their stones, when they strike, burn like fire coals. Above all, the spriggans are savages and they pinch, scratch and bite and pull hair out by the roots. Look!” Lar took off his brown hat and pointed to a patch of scalp without hair. “They are wiry and slippery, and we have no weapons against them,” Lar ended lamely.

Emily looked thoughtful and said, “Well, if we haven’t got weapons, we’ll have to use trickery. Lar, I remember reading that folks can be pixy-led, isn’t that some kind of trick?”

“Ay!” Lar curled his lip, “I should say so!”

“Well, then, we mustn’t go so far from here,” Emily ordered. “The spriggans will come here first. They’re going to find us!”