Lore of the Underlings: Episode 8 ~ The Trial (2 page)

There was a murmur among the elders. Madam
Pum nodded while Minyon prayed.

Homeboy of the Bailey went on. “By order of
He Who Must Be Obeyed, charges are the following:

“One count of premeditated leaving.

“Two counts of stepping beyond the Keep.

“Three counts of flight without a
license.

“Four counts of fording every stream…”

Treygyn’s mother, Hoona Yin, moaned from the
row of standing room.

“Resisting the Finder’s arrest is worth
six.

“Evading his henchmen, another dozen.”

Treygyn hung his head in shame.

And yet Ho-man wasn’t done.

“Not to mention a trio of crimes among the
gravest of infractions — law mocking, jay walking, breaking and
exiting.”

“Awk! That’s a rap sheet!” Freebird
cracked.

The mockatoo pecked at the clerk’s flameworm
earrings. Ho-man slapped his beak away.

A sudden uncomfortable silence fell while
Fyryx deliberately stepped out from the seating stones and into the
ring. He crossed the floor at a torturous pace. His hard eyes were
fixed on the shackled teen.

At last at arm’s length from the boy, he
stopped and slowly examined him. The judge stroked his red beard
once and squinted, exhaling a long loud breath of air.

“There’s no point asking how he pleads… No.
The game has grown tiresome. A traitor’s denials are always lies —
yes, even from a delinquent like this. Don’t let the juvenile
deceive you…”

He seemed to be talking to himself.

Treygyn had been listening and opened his
mouth as if to speak. Fyryx just scowled and turned away.

“But before this runaway meets his fate,”
justice Hurx cautioned the room at large, “an inquisition is in
order. A plumbing to get to the root of this plot and flush out his
co-conspirators. All of them.”

Bylo, who was upright again, couldn’t help
grunting in delight. His snorts drew the brother Treasuror’s
notice.

“We’ll begin with the bounty hunters. Finder
Hamyx — your report!”

Bylo’s grunt turned into a grumble. “Thought
there’d be some breakfast first.”

“You missed it.”

“Grrreat. The thanks I get…”

“You’ll live.”

“Have it your way. Watch me starve.”

Then the Finder mumbled to himself, “That’s
two days running of grub denied. I’ll take it from somebody’s hide,
I swear…”

“The leaver’s tale — let’s have it.”

“Of course!”

Bylo laughed like a sly hyena and snapped his
sticky fingers twice. Somehow his crew knew what he was
thinking.

One of them brought forth a tall shepherd’s
crook pike and planted it deep in the hallowed soil. Another then
hoisted the kid by his collar, leaving him hanging from its
hook.

“That’s more like it,” the seeker smirked.
“Now to your storytime dear, dear Fyryx…”

He wiped the mucus from his lips.

“Early this very morn it was, on the first
full day downhill from Mid Summer’s peak, and just hours after the
strangers’ arrival. Our snoop dogs were quick to pick up the scent
of something loose in the Westie Woods. They sniffed and barked and
licked their chops. They howled like wolves at the setting moon. My
own sweet sweat hogs smelled it too — the unmistakable odor of folk
blood fouling the night air of No Folks Land. Some fool was afoot
at the Keep’s outer limits, aiming to enter the twilight zone…”

Fyryx fidgeted as he listened. He started to
pace around the court.

“And so I dispatched a score of my savagest
plainsmen to track the culprit down. They tore out straight as the
eastern wind, riding low on a line of chevets crossbred of chevox
and vell for the hunt, fixing to take their prey by surprise. Yet
this leaver proved elusive… not your old-school sort of deserter.
No, this one was slippery. Wily. A foxy snake of a little
weasel.

“The chase went on from starfall to dawn and
westbound, each step into wilder terrain. Down through the Dim
Dale, over the Mole Hills, crossing the haunted Fallow Fields. Then
into the dammed Mallow Marshes he led them, right to the edge of
the Siren’s Mire — Syland’s cesspool and mother of swamps. That’s
where they cornered him in the muck. A dead duck stuck in it up to
the neck.”

“Odd duck to have flown alone,” mocked Fyryx
turning on the witness. “Yet… you claim your men saw no sign of a
flock?”

Bylo’s hairy nostrils flared. “Think that I’m
a quack? A liar?! How quick to forget our dirty work — the legions
of leavers we’ve delivered, no questions asked, for ten long
years…”

“Even so Finder,” Fyryx shrugged, “I do not
believe in your ‘lone leaver’ theory. Never have and never will.
But don’t take my word. Let history judge. There are always
accomplices, comrade.”

Bylo struggled to hold back a growl.
“Whatever you say your honorrr, sirrr… But you can chew on my
deposition — I arrived on scene in time to fish for this pretty
young swamp thing myself, our creature from the black lagoon. And
he was the only show around. No sign of a double or triple
feature.”

“Where’s your evidence? Show me the
muddy…”

“Urrrrrrp!” The reaper interrupted with a
belch to wake the dead, a language his henchmen understood. They
brought Bylo a couple of objects.

First came a sack on a citizen’s cane.
Second, a single moccasin.

But Ho-man intercepted them, book tucked into
the back of his pants. “I’ll take those exhibits, plainsmen. Due
process you know. Court etiquette. Thanks.”

The riding hoods eyed him hard but
complied.

The clerk took hold of Exhibit A, the cane,
and stuck it in the floor, not far from where Treygyn was hung out
to dry. A droopy sack was attached at the top. He poked it. He
peered inside.

“It’s empty.”

Bylo was beside himself. “Impossible!” the
big boor blubbered. “My men found that bag by the quagmire, on the
fen way to Blue Bayou. Hidden in the reeds and milkweed. It was
full of sandwiches — tree nut butter and syberries.”

“Ah, but the syberries,” Freebird teased,
with a razz from his crow’s nest on Ho-man’s head. “Awk! It tastes
like mutiny to me.”

The Finder wheeled to confront his crew.

“Sorry Bylo.”

“We was hungry.”

“And them sammies was delishes.”

All their excuses fell on deaf ears, in fact
steam rose from both of Bylo’s.

But judge Fyryx had heard enough. “You can
conduct your court martial later. Exhibit B is what interests
me…”

Ho-man threw him the moccasin, a brown shoe
of pigskin with touches of down. Fyryx fielded the footwear in
stride. He studied its stitches, its art and sole.

“I recognize the handiwork. This bootie is
surely of our Keep.”

He turned it lengthwise, sizing it up. “The
only question is… the foot.

“Finder — where did you get this and
when?”

Bylo was still in a bad mood but
answered.

“A boy scouting party recovered it after, a
full hour east of the leaver’s arrest in sight of Desperation
Pass.”

“Oh?” noted Fyryx, perking up. “And how was
he shod when your foot soldiers caught him?”

“Barefoot and empty-handed, justice, just as
the tar heel hangs here now. The clammy tadpole. The slimy eel.
Despite being snagged in our dragnet did this fishy one squirm to
get away. Reckon that that’s when the other shoe dropped — but into
the quicksand and presumed lost.”

Treygyn rattled his manacles. He wanted to
say something. None paid attention.

“That’s all I needed to know,” muttered
Fyryx. “Hamyx! Your plainsmen are dismissed.”

Bylo looked lost himself, perplexed. He stuck
a hangnail in each ear and plucked out gobs of thick, sticky wax.
He flicked them at Treygyn.

“Come again?”

“You heard me the first time. Get them
gone.”

Bylo pulled something brown from his
backside, a long bill scrawled on a rawhide scrap. “Not before
we’re paid in full. Kegs, sticks, livestock. You know the
contract.”

“Oh, you’ll get your just desserts,” hissed
Fyryx, “but not until justice is said and done.”

He raised his shoeless hand. “Pikesmen! The
Finder may stay. The rest, move along.”

The Guard stood up in unison, seething, even
the unarmed Syar-ull. “Judge and Treasuror! Sir my sir!”

The plainsmen were ready but Bylo knew
better. He turned to his crew. “Stand down. Head out.”

He spat twelve spits on the floor as each one
marched through the door where they’d come in.

“Well played, brother of Ayryx, you win…” The
Finder slouched toward the sidelines. “This time.” He lurched like
a wounded beast. A hunchback.

Something sounding like a snicker stopped him
as he reached the seats. He spun and set his sights on Fyryx.

“Mark my words, son of Hurx. Hear this vow.
Someday shall I have what is rightfully mine, all that I’ve been
denied — the spoils of lore. Bounty, booty, sandwiches…
everything!”

Fyryx just stared at him. “Sit down
Bylo.”

Gulp!

The mockatoo swallowed something.

Ho-man noticed a flameworm gone. “Freebird!”
he scolded in a whisper.

“Awk! That beats a cracker, boys!”

John Cap, a few feet away, sniffed the air.
“Ooo that smell… Is something burning?”

“Can you smell that smell?” asked the
clerk.

Freebird coughed up a bright red
fireball.

“That’s a spicy nematode. Awwwk!”

“Better lay off the earworms, birdbrain,”
Ho-man gently chided him. “I’ve heard they can be addictive.”

“Now you tell me — rrrawk!” he hawked.

Fyryx tossed the shoe back to Ho-man. “Try
this on the defendant, clerk.”

Ho-man knelt at the crooked pike and reached
for a dangling leg — the left one — muddy, bloody, and smelly as
hell. He took ahold of Treygyn’s foot.

“You’ve really stepped in it, young Mr.
Yin.”

“I’m starting to get that sense, Mr.
Havvum.”

Ho-man slipped the moccasin on him. It was
too big and fell right off.

Madam Pum held up her eagle eye glasses and
unicorn ear horn. She leaned in closer. Elderman Myne at her side
looked concerned.

Ho-man tried it on the right. That was no
tighter. It hit the floor.

“Show him something in a sneaker!” heckled
the stout Guard Oodor-ull. “Running shoes might be more fitting. Or
slippers.”

Fyryx cleared his throat. “Ahem… This is no
joke, honored Guard,” he grinned, “but just the clue I’ve been
looking for. Good as fingerprints at the crime scene. Footprints
fresh from the getaway.”

The afternoon sun had enlightened his
dark-age eyes. Or so it seemed. He beamed.

“If the shoe doesn’t fit, there’s more than
one culprit…”

He paused, standing taller, straight as a
rod, and cast his gaze across the courtyard.

“No one escapes this magistrate. By hook or
by crook I’ll catch each one. It’s time for a fishing
expedition.”

Ho-man reeled in the shoddy exhibit and stood
up. He took it and stepped aside.

Treygyn looked on, craning his neck, to see
what this sole searching was about. “Holy mackerel!” he gawked. It
was large as a barge, an oafish loafer, and more of a toe boat than
moccasin. Worn weathered leather. Frayed broken laces. Nothing that
he’d be caught dead in. He eyed it like a foreign object.

Then he did a double take. “Slymie…” He
cussed something under his breath.

Fyryx charged him like a lone shark. The
predator brother smelled blood in the water.

“What was that, small fry?”

The shrimp clammed up.

Leader and leaver were eye to eye now and
face to face facing each other down. Yet silence seethed like a sea
between them till the angry angler spoke.

“I’m not sure that you appreciate, boy, the
dire straits you’re in.”

“Oh!” said an innocent-looking Treygyn. “No,
mister lord judge Treasuror sir — but that explains this sinking
feeling.”

Fyryx weighed his words and glared. “What?!
Are you wisecracking me, smart aleck?”

“Who me, sire?” The kid shook his head. “It’s
a case of mistaken identity. God’s honest truth, chief justice, I
swear. No one I know calls me smart or Alec. In fact, my school
mates just voted me class clown and most likely to play dumb.”

“Go figure. I can’t see why,” sneered
Fyryx.

“Double-dare me,” Treygyn pleaded. “Cross my
heart and hope to die!”

“Tempted as I am, double-crosser, I have
confessions to get from you first. To start, the reason for your
treason…”

“Huh?”

“Why you turned runaway, runt.”

Treygyn Yin looked to be thinking — and
quick.

“Um, well, you know, it’s like…”

“Spit it out, turncoat. It’s not a mute
court.”

“But…”

“Do you deny turning tail on your people and
betraying our treasured Keep?”

“Uh…”

Treygyn seemed hard-pressed to respond. Then
his face lit up, as if from a brainstorm.

“Honestly, master and commander, you and your
Guard were my sole inspiration.”

Fyryx was now the tongue-tied one.

“See, I was just following in the footsteps
of your recent scouting mission… yeah… only in a different
direction.”

The red son of Hurx was about to explode. A
matter of time till he’d go supernova.

“No better role model than you, ruler. Not to
mention your merry pikesmen…”

Tempers flared as the sun went crimson. A
record heat wave had set in.

“Do you expect me to buy such lies? Slander.
Blasphemy. Contempt. Your insolence knows no bounds!” snarled
Fyryx.

“And I’m to assume, worm, that shoe is yours
too?”

“You took the words right out of my mouth
sheriff. Didn’t know you were a prophet as well. Swell!”

“Oh I foresee something alright traitor —
your fellow travelers all laid low. Each felonious punk de-feeted.
Lost in limbo. Down by law. They might as well suffer the same fate
as you.