The Luck Uglies (16 page)

Rye looked toward the stage. The dancers clattered furiously as the musicians picked up their tempo. Villagers clapped along to the festive beat. She glanced through the cage and could just make out Folly's head of white-blond hair in the crowd on the other side. Folly's job was to watch for the Constable and to send Rye a signal if he was near.

Rye still had her hand in her cloak and her fingers around the bag. If nothing else, maybe the return of his pouch might bring Leatherleaf some comfort. She could probably just drop it into his cage and get out of there. It's not like she was expecting a thank-you. She took a step forward.

There was a blood-curdling scream from the stage.

“Bog Nooobliiiin!” a dancer yelled, as if her life depended on it.

The music stopped and an unsettling silence fell over the crowd. No one moved. Then a wave of hysterical cries and flailing limbs spread across Grim Green like a summer fire.

Leatherleaf jolted around to face the villagers. Rye first assumed the screams were in response to Leatherleaf himself, but that wouldn't make any sense. He was still secured inside his mobile prison. She pressed the pouch back into her pocket and ran to the side of the cage where she could get a better view. Villagers were fleeing in all directions, clearing a path for the creature rapidly approaching the stage and the banquet table. The creature bore a resemblance to Leatherleaf, but it was immediately and terribly clear to Rye what Harmless had meant when he said Leatherleaf was small and weak.

This Bog Noblin was two feet taller than Leatherleaf. Where Leatherleaf's arms and legs were long and sinewy, this creature's limbs looked as powerful and dense as tree trunks. Its lower teeth had grown so long that they extended past its mouth and over its upper lips like the tusks of a boar. Its nose had been smashed flat and its face was pierced full of metal nails and bolts, like iron warts. Its filthy orange hair was matted into long, flattened coils and strung with bones. Instead of Leatherleaf's bulging, twitching eyes, this monster's eyes were focused black coals of pure malice.

At the Earl's table, maidens hitched up their dresses and screamed off in a variety of directions. Soldiers who had patrolled the Green rushed back to reinforce the perimeter in front of the stage.

The Bog Noblin that Rye would later come to know as Iron Wart purposefully made its way to the front of Grim Green, dragging its huge, clawed hands behind as it walked. It only stopped when the small army of soldiers raised their swords and shields, barricading the front of the stage. Archers assumed positions around the Green and took aim at the creature's head. It examined the soldiers with little concern, then glanced toward the shadows of the western woods more warily. Satisfied for the moment, it looked up at the banquet table, where Longchance sat with the few members of his dinner party who had not already disappeared. The dancers had frozen in mid-step. Rye glanced around the Green and beyond. Harmless must be out there somewhere. She wondered if the creature sensed it too.

Iron Wart opened its terrible mouth and gurgled something that sounded like an old man choking on a chicken bone.

Longchance stared back, dumbfounded.

Iron Wart roared. It sounded like a cave bear being torn apart by a pack of wolves.

“Well, this is unexpected,” Longchance said aloud to himself. He shifted in his chair uneasily. “Boil, come here.”

Constable Boil stumbled over the fallen chairs without taking his eyes off the beast.

“Yes, my Lord?”

“Boil,” Longchance said, “you speak Noblin, don't you?”

“Well, uh, just a few words.” Boil rubbed his face nervously. “I mean, it's been many years. I wouldn't say I'm fluent.”

“What's he saying?”

“I'm, uh, not familiar with the exact dialect . . . ,” Boil stammered.

“Boil!” Longchance screamed, and grabbed him by the scruff of his collar. “What is the beast saying?”

“Well, he's demanding that we send down a . . . translator.” Boil swallowed hard. “Someone who speaks Noblin.”

“Well get on with it, then,” Longchance said, giving him a shove.

“But, my Lord—”

“NOW!” Longchance commanded.

Boil limped down the stairs at the front of the stage, taking even more time than his injured foot would require. Everyone on the Green seemed to hold their breath. Leatherleaf took no further interest in Rye. He huddled in a corner of the great cage, panting.

The villagers watched as Boil shuffled up to the protective barrier of soldiers and stopped. Iron Wart extended a clawed finger and waggled it, beckoning him closer. Boil glanced up at Longchance, who was perched on the edge of his chair, ready to make a run for it at any moment. Longchance gestured him forward with two hands as if shooing a child. Malydia sat next to her father, her brow furrowed and her goblet frozen in both hands.

Boil eased past the soldiers and took small steps forward until he stood in the shadow of the monster, averting his eyes. The bent, crooked Constable only served to accentuate the enormous proportions of the Bog Noblin. Rye, like the rest of the villagers, couldn't look away.

Longchance stood at the table.

“Boil,” Longchance called in a cracked voice. He cleared his throat and tried for something more authoritative. “Tell this beast to be gone or he shall suffer the same fate—”

Iron Wart hissed the sound a schoolmaster would make to shush a small boy, that is, if the schoolmaster was a toothy, drooling menace and wore a necklace of human feet.

Boil translated. “He says shush.”

Iron Wart cocked his head and listened. Grim Green had fallen eerily silent. He looked toward the trees again. The villagers craned their necks to look. There was nothing there—the shadows remained still. Suddenly Iron Wart grabbed Boil by the throat and lifted him to his toothy mouth. Boil's spindly legs kicked in the air. Iron Wart grumbled, then loosened his grip enough for Boil to speak.

Boil's words came between gasps. “He says—and forgive me, my Lord, for he insists that I translate this literally—he says, ‘Little princeling, do not think that I'm here to engage you in conversation. I am not. I care not what you have to say. I care only what you will do and expect that you will do it soon.'”

Iron Wart spit forth more terrible sounds. Boil translated them expertly.

“‘You hold in that cage something that belongs to me. As worthless and weak as it may be, you are not permitted to keep it. Only the Clugburrow can make slaves of our own kind.'”

Boil's face grew red from the strain of hanging in the air by his neck. He struggled on.

“‘You will return the young one to us sooner or later. But we know, from experience, that humans are slow learners. You will come up with many reasons to refuse to do what I demand. We have come far and are weary, but we'll indulge your stubborn behavior for only so long.'”

Lady Malydia leaned toward her father in alarm.

“Not now,” he spat.

“Father,” she said, tugging his sleeve. “He said ‘we.'”

Longchance shook his arm from her grip with a dismissive wave.

Iron Wart's upturned nose sniffed the top of Boil's balding head as if it were a bouquet of wildflowers. A few gray wisps of hair danced atop Boil's skull. He craned his eyes up, voice cracking as he proceeded.

“‘You have two moons to release the young one we call Leatherleaf. Set him free at the edge of the forest, where we will wait to collect him. If you do not, should you doubt our convictions, we will return to this spot in two nights' time.'”

Rye was still hiding behind the cage. She studied the shadows herself now.
Where in the Shale is Harmless?
she wondered.
Isn't this exactly why he came back? To save the village?

Iron Wart stuck out the tip of his black tongue and touched Boil's ear. It reminded Rye of a giant snail exploring a rock. Boil shuddered and closed his eyes. Iron Wart seemed to catch himself mid-taste, as if sampling a forbidden treat. He coiled his tongue back into his mouth and narrowed his eyes into cold slivers.

Boil forced himself to continue his translation after Iron Wart refocused and uttered more terrible words.

“‘First,'” he said, “‘we level the walls. Second, we sack the village. Then, we take the Keep'”—Boil gulped hard as he spoke—“‘and your feet.'”

Iron Wart fingered his necklace as Boil translated the last of his words, showing Longchance the chain of decomposed human feet strung around his neck.

“That's quite enough,” Longchance yelled, although his voice was far from commanding. “As loathsome as you may be, you are but one beast—”

Iron Wart raised a clawed hand and for the first time gurgled in heavily accented, but understandable, human language.

“These are your lips,” Iron Wart said, waving dismissively at the soldiers. “Where are your
teeth
?”

“What?” said the Earl, bewildered.

“I'll show you mine . . . ,” Iron Wart taunted.

“Wait a minute, what?” Boil asked, wide-eyed.

And with that, Iron Wart bit off Constable Boil's arm from the elbow down, and dropped the rest of him onto Grim Green.

The crowd on Grim Green broke into hysteria. Fleeing and screaming, the villagers knocked one another to the ground in their desperation to escape as the Earl's archers launched a barrage of arrows at Iron Wart. Most of the projectiles landed among the scattering mob with unfortunate results.

Those who fled west for the woods were stopped in their tracks by a second Bog Noblin as fearsome as Iron Wart. The brute had knotted horns like a ram and a coarse orange beard so long that it was tied around his waist like a sash. It appeared from behind a wall of dense brush and gleefully grabbed armfuls of villagers unfortunate enough to be leading the pack.

Those who fled east for the village were surprised by a third Bog Noblin that scrambled from a canal on its webbed hands and feet, steam rising off its damp, hairless skin in the cool night air.

On the stage, Longchance grabbed Malydia and shouted for all the soldiers to gather and escort them back to the Keep. Once again, it seemed clear that the townspeople would have to fend for themselves.

From behind Leatherleaf's cage, Rye spotted Folly. She frantically waved for Folly to run. Folly just stood in place, peering through the panicked crowd. Rye realized that Folly was looking for her. Rye pulled off her hood and loosened her cloak. She tore the mask from her face. Pushing all fear of Leatherleaf aside, she jumped and climbed up the rungs of the cage so that she was high off the ground. She dangled from the side and waved her free arm.

“Folly!” she yelled. “Over here!”

Folly turned her head and spotted Rye. She waved back.

“Run, Folly!” Rye yelled. “I'm fine. Meet me at our spot.”

At precisely that moment, Iron Wart, who was surveying the mess with great delight, caught sight of Rye too. More particularly, he seemed to focus on the cage. He moved toward them now with haste, and Rye feared that Iron Wart had decided to take Leatherleaf without further delay.

The beating of drums overhead stopped everyone in their tracks, including the Bog Noblins.

Rye looked up. The sky's twilight glow went dark behind a rapidly moving storm cloud. The black cloud descended in a funnel and the noise grew louder still. It wasn't drums. It was the beating of thousands of wings. Blackbirds. Rooks. More than Rye had ever seen. If you believed the old wives' tales, this must be at least fifty years of bad luck. They hurtled low across Grim Green en masse. Leatherleaf hurried to a corner of the cage and wrapped his arms around his head, crying out in his terrible beast-baby wail.

Iron Wart crouched low to the ground, his fearsome face contorted in alarm. The cloud of birds seemed to consume him before rising. The flocks broke ranks only to regroup and dive again. Iron Wart roared and thrashed as they circled him like a cyclone.

“Two moons,” he growled at Longchance again in garbled language, shielding his eyes from the storm of gray beaks and claws.

He pulled a staked torch from the ground and hurled it at the stage before heading off for the tree line at an urgent pace. The spilled alcohol caught fire and the stage burst into flames.

The spooked draft horses tethered to Leatherleaf's cage lurched and began galloping away in terror.

The cage jolted so sharply that Rye lost her grip and fell backward, hitting the ground with her full weight. The impact knocked the wind from her lungs, but she threw her arms over her head as the cage wheels rumbled past her ears. The cage skittered off behind the horses, up the rocky path to Longchance Keep, the only safe place the animals knew. Leatherleaf let out another bone-chilling wail as he, the horses, and the cage disappeared.

Rye opened her eyes. She lay in the clearing of matted grass where the cage had sat. By a stroke of luck, each of its four heavy wheels had missed her. Through the smoke and storm of wings she could see soldiers leading Longchance and Lady Malydia off the burning stage, hurrying them to the steps on the side nearest Rye. As they did, Malydia looked down, directly at her.

Rye fumbled through the grass, searching for her mask without success. Without her hood and with her cloak hanging off her shoulders, her choker blazed blue like a beacon.

Rye watched helplessly as Malydia grabbed her father's arm and pointed. Longchance paused and blinked his eyes. He gestured and two soldiers jumped from the stage and ran toward Rye.

 

At the tree line by the western woods, Folly and her brothers gathered. They were joined by Quinn, who hadn't needed to run back to the village after all. They all sat in a circle, examining something in the grass. It was the pieces of Rye's mask Folly had found on the Green, now carefully reassembled into a broken face.

Grim Green was burning. Tents were collapsed. The stage was in cinders. After terrorizing the villagers, the three adult Bog Noblins had disappeared into the night as suddenly as they'd arrived. The big, black rooks covered the field now, picking through the broken farmers' carts and smoldering food stands with opportunistic beaks.