Wings (28 page)

Jak laughed as he slid his hands under her wings just below her shoulder blades. The wings felt warm against the back of his hands and almost as smooth as her skin. “Why would I be scared?” he said when Tamisin began to beat her wings. “We’re not going anywhere.” And then they were off the ground and flying over the pool. Jak looked down. Heights had never bothered him, but then, he’d never flown before. As the pool receded below them and the hole in the ceiling drew closer, he tightened his arms around Tamisin and took deep breaths, trying to slow the pounding of his heart.

The walls of the hole were as smooth as if someone had carved them. Although the opening was about twelve feet wide when they entered it, it soon began to narrow. Soon Tamisin was struggling; the higher she flew, the less room there was to beat her wings. The walls couldn’t have been more than nine feet apart when her wings began to brush the sides of the hole. Her flying became more erratic, and the effort it took was obvious in the perspiration beading her forehead and the near-frantic look in her eyes. Jak wasn’t sure they were going to make it when he looked up. Although they were only a few yards from the opening at the top, the hole was closing in so much that soon Tamisin wouldn’t be able to move her wings at all.

Jak looked up to check the width of the hole. A group of small objects blocked the light around the edges, making the hole seem narrower and more irregular than it
had from below. When the objects moved, Jak realized that cats were peering over the edge.

The walls were less than six feet apart when he said, “Now it’s my turn. I should be able to brace my body across the opening, and we can chimney-walk out of here.”

“What … are you … talking … about?” panted Tamisin, her muscles shaking with fatigue.

“It’s how I learned to climb up vertical shafts. You brace your back against one side and your hands and feet against the others. Then you work your way up the shaft by moving your back, then your feet. My friends and I had races at school, and I got pretty good at it.”

“I’ll try … anything.”

“When I give the word, you let go of me. Ready, set, now!”

When Tamisin took her arms from around him, Jak let her go as well and in the same movement flung himself against the wall. He slipped for a terrifying second before he braced himself. When he was comfortable with his position, Jak reached down to Tamisin, who was already losing height. He pulled her up beside him. “Close your wings!” he ordered and she did, snapping them shut and folding them away.

With Jak’s help, Tamisin climbed to the wall above him, bracing her body just as he told her to. Then, moving ever so carefully, they ascended the wall a few inches at a time. When Tamisin reached the top, she wasn’t sure what to do, so Jak situated himself so that she could use
him as leverage. Tamisin was soon up and over and a moment later so was Jak.

Weak with relief, they were rubbing their aching muscles and congratulating each other when Jak saw the sparkle of fairy lights among the trees. He was still watching when the lights flickered and turned into full-sized warriors.

“I think we have company,” said Tamisin.

“I know,” said Jak. “Your dance worked!” Excited, he glanced at her, then turned around to see where she was pointing. “Oh!” he said, spotting the fierce-looking goblins entering the clearing.

With fairies on one side and goblins on the other, Jak and Tamisin had come out of the hole in the middle of a battleground.

The first goblin spear flew so close to Jak’s cheek that he could feel the air move. “Watch out!” he shouted, reaching for Tamisin, but the goblins had already snatched her away and were dragging her back to their side.

Before Jak could go after her, a tiny fairy buzzed around his head, shouting, “Get down, you fool.” A thick vine hit him in the back of the legs, making him stagger and fall to his knees. He would have tumbled into the cave, but the vine clung to his ankles and hauled him toward the trees.

“Jak!” Tamisin screamed as the goblins pulled her farther behind the goblin lines.

The vine dragged Jak until he had passed the first of the fairy warriors. “Let me go!” he shouted, but none of the warriors answered. While tiny fairies flew overhead, the full-sized warrior fairies stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the goblins on the other side of the clearing. Raising hollow reeds to their lips, they blew small, golden
darts at the goblins. Jak wondered why the darts buzzed as they flew until one reed misfired and the dart fell to the ground and walked away. The darts weren’t darts at all, but golden bumblebees that stung the goblins they hit and chased the ones they didn’t.

When the vine finally went limp, Jak jumped to his feet and shouted, “Why did you do that?” at the warrior who seemed to be in charge. “You let them take Tamisin!”

“No, we didn’t,” said the fairy, a tall slender man with hair the same shade of silver as his eyes. “You did. The vine would have brought her to us if you hadn’t been in the way.”

A blue-haired warrior who had been listening to a swarm of fairies no bigger than the bumblebees nodded, then turned to the silver-haired fairy and announced, “Colonel Silverthorn, Fifth Platoon reports that the goblins are retreating!”

“Mugwort, Crabgrass, Sumac, have your platoons follow them in air formation with dust ready for deployment at your discretion. The rest of you, reload your reeds and arm yourselves with wands. We’re going after the princess before they can take her underground. And remember, today the only good goblin is a sleeping goblin!”

“What about me?” asked Jak.

Colonel Silverthorn looked annoyed at the interruption. “You don’t count. You’re half human.”

“I mean, where do you want me to go?” said Jak. “I want to help get the princess back.”

“Just stay out of the way, halfling,” the colonel said. “This is a job for fairies.”

As far as Jak could tell, all the fairies had done so far was let Tamisin fall into the hands of the goblins. Even so, he would help the fairies if it meant he could keep her safe. He didn’t care why else the fairies and the goblins were fighting; all he was concerned about was Tamisin. “I’ll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine,” he said. “And my name isn’t Halfling. It’s Jak!”

While some of the fairies made themselves tiny and flew with their platoons after the fleeing goblins, the rest re-armed themselves even as they ran. The fairies were fast, but Jak was faster and reached the bottom of the hill before any of the full-sized warriors. At first he thought that no one was there. The shrubs at the base of the hill weren’t thick enough to hide anyone, and the trees were too spindly for anyone to have climbed. But then he began to hear voices so close by that he could have sworn they were all around him.

“Uh, oh! There are the fairies! Quick, we have to hide!”

“They’re going to get us if we’re not careful.”

“I’m afraid! What do you think they’ll do to us?”

Then the fairies were there searching the area and looking puzzled when they couldn’t find anyone. “I can hear them, but I don’t see them,” said the colonel. “They must have found a way to make themselves invisible.”

“No, they haven’t,” said Jak. “It’s a trap. They aren’t here at all. They’re throwing their voices to make us think they’re here, only I’m not sure why.”

“No one is this good at voice projection,” said Colonel Silverthorn. “They have to be somewhere close by.”

“I tell you, they’re not here. We have to leave,” said Jak. “Don’t you hear that?”

“It sounds like thunder,” said one of Silverthorn’s lieutenants.

Jak shook his head. “Look!” A dark shape was approaching from the far side of a neighboring hill. Jak couldn’t tell what it was until he saw the tossing heads and the shape resolved into individual beasts. “They’re driving the hipporines this way!”

“Hippowhats?” asked Colonel Silverthorn. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. If you were sent here to mislead us, I’ll deal with you myself, you …”

“There,” said Jak, pointing at the beasts. A hipporine screamed. While Colonel Silverthorn watched the animals with disbelief, Jak dashed to the nearest hillside and climbed until he was higher than the hipporines could reach. Rearing and bucking, the hipporines charged at the fairies.

“Run!” Jak shouted to the colonel, who was still watching, dumbstruck. The first of the hipporines was almost on the colonel when he made himself small. The tiny fairy darted out from under the rearing hipporine. A moment later the colonel was standing beside Jak, full-sized once again. The few fairies who’d been slow to change were nearly overrun and came away from the encounter dazed. One fairy was struck with a hoof and flew erratically when he finally made himself smaller.

“I’ve never seen anything like them before,” said Colonel Silverthorn.

“The goblins were probably counting on that,” said Jak. “My uncle has been keeping them hidden for years.”

“Your uncle?” the colonel asked, eyeing Jak with suspicion.

“Targin, my mother’s brother.”

When the hipporines discovered that the fairies had taken refuge on higher ground, some of the animals screamed in rage as they scrabbled up the hillside, stopping only when it became too steep. The rest paced back and forth just below the fairies, waiting for them to come down.

“We’ll have to neutralize those beasts somehow,” said Colonel Silverthorn. “We can’t have them running loose like this.”

“Don’t hurt them!” Jak said. “We can take them away from here—to somewhere they won’t hurt anyone.”

“On my way here I saw a valley that might work,” said one of the lieutenants. “It was a dead end, so if we could get the beasts to go in …”

“You could close off the other end. That’s a great idea,” said Jak. “I think I know the valley you mean.”

“And how do you suggest we herd these animals?” Colonel Silverthorn asked.

“Leave that to me,” said Jak. “If I can get the head stallion to go, the rest will follow him. Just make sure you close them in once I get them in the valley.”

Putterby, the stallion, and half a dozen other hipporines were still raging at the fairies when Jak started
down the hill. They lunged at him, rearing up and pawing the air while he tried to soothe them with his voice.

“Look at those monsters,” said the colonel as the hipporines pawed the ground, tearing up great clods of dirt. “That boy will never be able to control them.”

Jak slipped among the hipporines, deftly avoiding their teeth and hooves until he reached the stallion, who turned an intelligent eye to his old friend and stood, sides quivering, nostrils flaring. Putterby snorted as Jak ran his hand down the stallion’s neck. Then in one smooth movement the boy leaped onto the hipporine’s back and squeezed the animal’s heaving sides with his legs. The hipporine turned his head and tried to bite Jak’s foot, but his neck was too short to reach. Slipping his hand into the beast’s coarse mane, Jak got a good grip and held on. Furious, the beast tried to buck him off. The other hipporines scattered as Putterby gyrated from hillside to path and back again, but Jak’s legs were too strong and his hold was too tight.

With one last toss of his head, Putterby started to run. Although he protested every time Jak kicked his side, the stallion turned where Jak wanted him to go. From the thunder of hooves behind them, Jak didn’t have to turn around to know that the other hipporines were following, but he was relieved to see the twinkle of lights as two platoons of fairies kept pace on either side.

The goblins had made it plain right away that they wouldn’t hesitate to hurt Tamisin if she didn’t do what
they wanted. That hadn’t been a surprise, considering who had grabbed her. Nihlo had been sent with the patrol to watch for approaching fairies. Having captured the princess, he’d been given the job of watching over her, which seemed to make him angry. Tamisin’s jaw ached where Nihlo had hit her when she tried to talk to him as he dragged her down the hill to Targin’s den. The grizzled cat goblin who stood at the door sent them to join other goblins in an already crowded room. At first Tamisin thought that a goblin named Wulfrin was in charge. Lean-bodied and with flowing gray hair, he had the air of a predator about him. Then Targin arrived to look out the hidden opening in the side of the hill and everyone’s attention switched to him. Tamisin didn’t know what happened, but whatever Targin saw made him angry, and he left in a hurry after snarling at the goblins to await further orders.

“I can’t see the hipporines any more,” said a baboon-faced goblin, his nose pressed against the wavery glass.

“How many fairies do you see?” Wulfrin asked.

The baboon goblin scratched his backside and shook his head. “Don’t know. They move around too much to count.”

“He probably can’t count that high,” snickered another goblin.

“Shut up!” snapped the baboon goblin.

“Stop your squabbling and tell me what the fairies are doing now,” Wulfrin said.

Trying to see out, the smaller goblin rubbed his face
along the glass, leaving a dirty smear. “Can’t see ’em from here. Maybe they left, too.”

Suddenly the door slammed open and one of the cat goblins stuck his head in the room. “Targin is outside,” he told Nihlo. “He wants you to bring the fairy girl to him.”