The Queen screamed as she was thrown out of Fairyland, her wings torn from her body, her blood staining her shoulders. A scream with a life of its own, which ended in a dew pond on the Chalk, surprising a stoat on the prowl.
And Tiffany Aching woke up.
Her heart was thumping, a sudden chill making her shiver in the dark of the night. She looked over at the window. What had made her wake? Where was she needed?
She sat up and reached wearily for her clothes . . .
Up on the downs, the Feegle mound was still its usual hive of activity and song, a Feegle mound being very like a beehive but without the honey, and to be sure a Feegle could sting much worse than a bee. But when something was being celebrated – and they didn’t need much to pick a reason for a celebration – the Nac Mac Feegles always made sure that it went on happily for a long time.
A short time past midnight, however, the revels that night were interrupted by Big Yan, the Feegle nightwatchman, as he ran in from the storm raging outside.fn1
He kicked the helmet of his chief, the Big Man of the clan, and shouted, ‘There’s elves here! I can smell it, ye ken!’
And from every hole in turn, the clan of the Nac Mac Feegle poured out in their hundreds to deal with the ancient enemy, waving claymores and swords, yodelling their war cries:
‘Ach, stickit yer trakkans!’
‘Nac Mac Feegle wha hae!’
‘Gae awa’ wi’ ye, yer bogle!’
‘Gi’e you sich a guid kickin’!’
‘Nae king! Nae quin! We willnae be fooled agin!’
There is a concept known as a hustle and bustle, and the Feegles were very good at it, cheerfully getting in one another’s way in the drive to be the first into battle, and it seemed as if each small warrior had a battle cry of his own – and he was very ready to fight anyone who tried to take it away from him.
‘How many elves?’ asked Rob Anybody, trying to adjust his spog.
There was a pause.
‘One,’ said Big Yan sheepishly.
‘Are ye sure?’ said Rob Anybody, as his sons and brothers flowed around him and hurried past to the mouth of the mound. Ach, the embarrassment. The whole Feegle colony bristling with weaponry, full of alcohol and bravado and apparently nothing to do with it. Of course, they were always itching for a fight but most Feegles itched all the time, especially in the spog.
They rushed about on the sodden hilltop looking for the enemy, while Big Yan led Rob to the dew pond on the top of the hill. The storm had passed and the water gleamed under the stars. There, half in, half out of the pond, the battered body of an elf lay groaning.
And indeed it was, apparently, a solitary elf. You could almost hear the Feegles thinking: One elf? Feegles loved a spat with the elves, but . . . just one? How did that happen?
‘Ach crivens, it’s a long time since we had a reely good fight.’ Rob sighed, and for a moment he was, for a Feegle, quite sombre.
‘Aye, but where there’s the one, there’s sure to be a plague o’ them,’ Big Yan muttered.
Rob sniffed at the air. The elf just lay there and it was doing nothing. ‘There are nae ither elves aboot. We’d smell them if they were,’ he pronounced. He reached a decision. ‘Big Yan, ye and Wee Dangerous Spike, grab a-hold of that scunner. Ye know what to dae if it gets feisty. Awf’ly Wee Billy Bigchin’ – he looked for the clan gonnagle, who was the least likely to mangle the facts – ‘hie ye awa’ tae the kelda and tell her what’s abroad. What we are bringin’ back to the mound.’ Then he shouted so that the rest of the clan could hear him, ‘This elf is oor prisoner. A hostage, ye ken. That means ye are nae tae kill it until ye are told.’ He ignored the grumbles from the clan. ‘As tae the rest o’ ye, tak guard around yon stones. And if they come in force show them what the Feegles can dae!’
Daft Wullie said, ‘I can play the harmonica.’
Rob Anybody sighed, ‘Aye, weel, I suppose that puts the willies up me, so wud likely keep them awa’.’
Back at the mound – outside, mind, for no elf would find itself a place for long inside a Nac Mac Feegle mound – the kelda looked at the stricken elf and then back at Rob Anybody.
‘Just one?’ she asked. ‘Weel, one elf alone is nae challenge tae a young Feegle even. And this elf has been beaten, aye, its wings torn from its back. Did oor boys dae that?’
‘No’ us, Jeannie,’ said Rob. ‘Big Yan said it drappit oot o’ the sky intae the auld dew pond up by the stones, ye ken. It were battered like that afore it got there.’ He looked anxiously at his wife, who had a frown on her face. ‘We be warriors, no’ butchers, Jeannie. The lads are raring tae gae, o’ course, and if yon elf was facin’ me in a fight, my claymore would ring aloud, but whin it looks like a wee slunkit mowpie there’s nae honour in killin’ it.’
‘Brawly spoken, Rob,’ said the kelda as she considered the unconscious creature. ‘But why just one? Are ye sure?’
There was a groan from the elf and it stirred. Rob’s claymore leaped into his hand but the kelda gently held him back. The bedraggled elf groaned again and whispered something, its voice weak and faltering. The kelda pricked up her ears and listened carefully before turning to her husband with some surprise.