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Chapter Nineteen

It wasn’t one of mine. It had deep purple wings and light lavender torso. But it looked far more bloated than even the growing number of ones who had been hanging around the pub.

And it didn’t look like it was breathing.

I reached down and was about to grab it, when Alric pulled my hand back. “Don’t.” With a pained look on his face, he reached out with his gloved hand and turned the tiny body over. A shiny black barb stuck her through the chest. From this angle I could see she was still breathing, but only barely.

“We have to help her.” I swallowed the bile raising in my throat—the barb looked suspiciously shard-like.

Alric looked over his shoulder at Covey. “We need those scrolls now.” He turned back to me. “Is there someplace in your house we can take her, someplace your faeries don’t go?”

I didn’t know which was worse, the sad little body he was holding or the look on Alric’s face.

“There’s the laundry shed in the back. The girls hate cleaning so they never go there.” I backed up to let him out. “But she looks like she got stabbed with a shard, not something contagious.”

Alric shook his head and pulled his hood up. It was doubtful anyone would see him walking around to the tiny back yard, but better not to take that chance.

“A strike through her chest shouldn’t have been able to do this much damage, it missed her heart.”

He pushed his way into the laundry shed and I heard him lock the door. I was walking back to the front when I ran into Harlan.

“Covey left to get the scrolls. Was that really an injured faery?”

I nodded. “Yes. I know they think they are indestructible, but it looks like it’s dying.” And if Crusty Bucket had been right, they were pretty close. Her claim of them having lived for forever made them the toughest and longest-lived creatures I knew. I started down the path to my front gate, then turned. “When the girls come back, don’t tell them about this, at least not until Alric comes back and says it’s okay. And don’t let them go back out.”

I headed toward the Shimmering Dewdrop but the happiness I’d felt about going there a few moments ago was gone. One of the reasons I never worried too much about the girls was that I figured they could survive most anything. Seeing one of their species barely alive was a sobering thing. I knew Alric would try to save her, and if he’d had his magic maybe he could.

It was an odd time for the pub, just around three o’clock, and not too many folks usually about. I was surprised to see more than a few people in there just finishing up their very late lunches. Nice big ones from the looks of it.    

My stomach rumbled to remind me that aside from some muffins, I really hadn’t really eaten much today.

I hadn’t seen Foxy when I first came in—the darkness of the inside meant it took a few moments to get my eyes to adapt—but he saw me.

“Taryn! Just in time, Amara still has some of today’s lunch left. Only being so as we had a second late lunch rush ye know—she had to be making more.” Foxy had been standing by a table of dregs along with a mountain of food. He waved me toward an empty table.

His face drooped a bit as he came closer. “Ach, but I should tell ya the girls are here and they are working very hard on passing out. They were upset about losing something. Kept chattering about losing meows? A few of our regulars been complaining about their pet cats going off missing—did the girls lose a pet?”

I knew they didn’t have any pets, certainly not a cat, but who knew what they actually meant. I looked around. As usual there were plenty of faeries in the pub, the number seemed to be growing daily, but I didn’t see my own little maniacs. “Where are they?” I couldn’t get the image of that injured faery out of my head.

“Don’t get mad, they was upset, so I bought them an ale or two—”

I cut him off. “I just need to see them.” I started to walk toward the main group of tables, but Foxy gave a cough to bring my attention back to the bar.

Sure enough, three little nearly-passed-out faeries in denim overalls and skewed flower pedal caps were lying there, leaning up against a nearly empty bottle. Garbage Blossom and Leaf Grub were conscious, but not really focusing on anything. Crusty Bucket was looking longingly at the last inch of ale in their bottle. That she didn’t have the ability to fly up into the bottle was clear on her face.

“Oh, Crusty!” I picked up my ale-sodden little faery and held her close, then grabbed the other two and held them all until they passed out.

I tucked all three into my inner jacket pocket and went back to my seat. Foxy followed and set down a huge steak and a cider in front of me.

Satisfied that I knew where my own little drunkards were, I pushed the thought of the injured one out of my head and returned to the task at hand. “Any more news on our dead friend or the person who put him up to it?” I kept my voice low. I hadn’t heard any rumors flying about concerning the happenings of two nights ago, but I didn’t want to encourage any.

Foxy felt the same by the way he surveyed the bar, then dropped in closer to me. “Not a peep. The guards never came by asking about it. Still just on their mad hunt for an elven lord.” His chuckle at that thought could have rustled the dead from their graves. Quiet, Foxy was not.

At some point I was probably going to have to let Foxy in on Alric’s little secret. Well, both of them. But it wasn’t needed now, and even though I was loving her food, I still wasn’t sure how much I trusted Amara.

“So no other threats? Has she told you more about her former master?”

Foxy started polishing one of his favorite glasses. At least I assumed it was a favorite as he always seemed to have it handy to polish. “No other threats, except the Lucky Café down the road. The chef there is furious about him losing customers to us.” Another bar-rattling chuckle came from behind those fearsome tusks. “But she hasn’t opened up about her life before here. She will in time.” He leaned forward again. “I’m aiming to ask her to marry me.”

It was a damn good thing that I’d just swallowed my bite of steak, otherwise he would have been wearing it.

“What? You just met her. Foxy, you can’t—”

“Be thinking of giving her a raise? Why yes, I can. I think that’s a great idea, Taryn.” He reached around and topped off my cider. I had to admit the lighter beverage was refreshing.

Amara appeared in the corner of my vision a second later. “How is the food?” She wrung her hands in her apron, but I was beginning to think she knew full well the effect of her cooking. People often said cooking was the way to a man’s stomach and then his heart. I was thinking she was viewing it as cooking being a way into a community’s heart. Pretty smart on her side. If this nasty former benefactor of hers ever came looking for her, she’d have a quarter of Beccia ready to defend her.

“It’s wonderful. Thank you.” I briefly thought about toying with her and making it sound like this wasn’t one of the best meals I’d ever eaten to see if there was something else underlying. But I wasn’t that good of a liar, and I couldn’t do that to Foxy. His eyes went into full goo-goo mode as soon as she came into view.

I couldn’t keep asking him about threats to his beloved, not when said beloved was near him and sucking out all of his brain cells.

“So, you all have gone into the food business big time, that’s great. Where did you learn your culinary skills? They’re quite impressive.” I was simply trying to make small talk and try and get to know the woman my friend was going to marry, but the look on her face was as if I’d said she was putting babies in her stew.

“Oh! I never would have thought—” She looked at me in horror, held her knuckle to her mouth, and ran back into the kitchen.

“I swear, Foxy, it was a simple question. The food is great, why did she freak out at me?”

I’d expected him to be upset at me for terrifying his beloved, then I realized he was looking over my shoulder—exactly where Amara had actually been looking.

All of the people in the pub had grown silent, something they almost never did even when threatened with bodily harm if they failed to do so. That, combined with Foxy’s wide-eyed stare, did not make me want to turn around.

But of course I had to.

It was the damn mountain troll. The very dead mountain troll, complete with a big hole where the crossbow bolt had slammed into his skull. I had to admit being dead for a few days had not done him any favors.

As far as I knew, zombies were impossible to control so no one tried to raise the dead. The spells needed to raise them were also so vile that only the blackest of the necromancers would use them. And all of them had been run out of Beccia before I even moved here.

Or so we thought.

The dead, or undead, troll had been standing in the doorway for a good two minutes now, and while the pub had gone quiet, no one was running for the back door or even a window. The smart part of my brain had been screaming to do that very thing for the last two minutes, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t so much that I was frozen in place, but that something or rather someone was making it so that I just really didn’t want to move.

So not only had someone raised a very pissed-off dead mountain troll, they had also cast a pretty damn strong spell on an entire pub full of people. And one strong enough to affect me. Granted, it was a weird time of day, so there were only about twelve people or so in here, but still.

My brain felt sluggish, like my unmoving body, but part of it caught up to the fact that Amara had seen the zombie, gotten upset but not hysterical, and been able to walk out of the room. When no one else around me seemed to be able to do any such thing. It wasn’t much, but I had to try it.

“Amara, can you come out here?” It had taken way more energy than it should have to force the words out of my throat. Even my vocal chords didn’t want to work. I felt like I was shouting in slow motion. No one from the pub even looked my way as all eyes were fixed on the door and I didn’t think they could move any better than I could.

Luckily, the zombie troll was moving slowly, too. He’d taken one shambling step forward, just enough to let the door swung shut behind him. There went any chance that someone would see him and come help us. Although he’d been shambling about in broad daylight, obviously no one had seen him.

Amara came out at what seemed like a shocking pace, then I realized it was just that she was moving normally. One of the other barmaids, I was pretty sure this one was Lehua, came lumbering out with her.

“What? Oh no, why am I seeing it again? Please just stop!” She yelled at the zombie troll, but it wasn’t out of fear, it was more out of pain. “Can’t any of you see him? It follows me everywhere.”

That was not a reaction I’d expected. Then my brain caught up with the second line. She’d been seeing him? Maybe we were all sharing her hallucination and he wasn’t real. Just as my brain processed that thought, the zombie troll reached forward and grabbed the patron closest to the door. Then it picked him up and flung him across the room like he was made of sticks.

So much for my shared hallucination theory. Unfortunately, Amara also realized that this wasn’t her hallucination and started screaming at a pitch I really didn’t think any living being could make. I slammed my hands over my ears and the others did the same.

We were able to move.

Then Amara stopped screaming and suddenly I no longer wanted to move again. “Keep screaming, you must keep screaming!” I forced the words out before my voice decided it would be easier to do nothing.

Amara looked at me, and the immobile tableau before her, including her beloved Foxy, frozen in the act of setting down a glass. Then she screamed again.

The barmaid behind her immediately took action, picking up Amara and placing her— still screaming—atop the bar. Then she charged the zombie troll.

Lehua the barmaid was a half-giant, so she wasn’t by any means small. But the troll was much bigger. It was akin to a horse slamming into a mastodon. The troll staggered a little under the hit, but didn’t even stop moving forward. Lehua was down for the count.

He was still going for Amara and she was still screaming. People around the troll could move again although Amara’s screaming was making everyone’s eyes water. The ones closest to the door ran out. The rest ran toward the bar.

Foxy came out from behind the bar and stood in the troll’s path.

Amara’s screaming was growing weaker. It said a lot of dryad lungs that she’d been able to keep it up this long and I wasn’t sure how much longer she could do it.

Foxy moved toward the troll, but I wasn’t sure what he could do. We hadn’t been able to stop the thing when he had been alive, how in the hell could we stop it when it was dead?

I’d noticed the troll was having trouble moving forward, as if Amara’s screaming wasn’t only interfering with the sluggish spell but the one animating him as well. Then I recognized the pitch she’d hit.

I reached into my pocket and grabbed my three passed-out faeries. “Girls?” I shook them around a bit. “Girls, I need you awake.” A little more shaking and I got some eye fluttering and mouth movement in response. But Amara was going hoarse and the troll was moving faster. “Girls, I need you to sing.” That got their attention. All three sets of eyes sprung open and they looked at me to make sure I wasn’t tricking them. “Seriously. I need you three to sing as loud and high as you can.”