Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Songs From The Seashell Archives

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"What consequences?" Maggie asked, not really paying attention for now Colin's eyelids were moving and his chest rose and fell with a motion quite separate from the lapping wavelets. "Oh, I suppose the bandits will be imprisoned or hanged, eventually, but everyone else ..."
"I wasn't referring to them, actually," the man said. "It's the consequences for the unicorns which concern me. Once these people leave here and the news is heralded throughout the land that unicorns possess this sort of power, they'll never be free
beasts again. Anyone of any means at all will try to round them up and breed them like cattle or pigs, for the profit to be gained from selling their healing magic."
"That would never work," Maggie said. "I don't think unicorns could live in captivity that long. Snowshadow and Eagledown would surely have died if it hadn't been for the princess."
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"Yes? Was someone addressing me?" Pegeen tried to sit erect and succeeded instead in dunking both herself and the gentleman. He surfaced, dog-paddling, and guided the sputtering Princess to the surface.
"Your pardon, madam," he said. "Sir Cyril Perchingbird, Royal Archivist, at your service. Allow me to escort your Highness back to shore."
Colin wandered the former battlefield, Filled with a disturbing sense of unreality. He knew very little about battles. Only what he'd learned in songs and stories, and that didn't go into the emotional side of things much, aside from swellings of patriotism and bloodlust and so forth. But he was almost certain it couldn't be usual that everyone would look so refreshed afterwards as the people around him did.
The newly cleaned and revitalized bandits had cooperatively, almost cheerfully, allowed themselves to be bound with strips of their own clothing. The King roared happily about, barking orders, while Princess Pegeen and Cyril Perchingbird tried futilely to catch up with him. Wizard Raspberry and the dragon were fishing upstream, catching the evening meal which would feed this horde. He was aided by his daughter Rusty, whose piratical companion hunkered down with Neddy Pinchpurse and his mates, reminiscing, apparently, about the high seas.
Maggie presided over a large fire and a boiling crock from which she ladled cups of herb tea for all and sundry. The tea was more than mere refreshment-into it she had poured a quantity of salt from her medicine pouch sufficient to counter her uncle's magic. Sally Forth sat against the house which had been the major scene of battle, and the wolf lay at her feet. She appeared to be chatting with the river, which continued to speak quietly and rationally. Only the unicorns seemed ill at ease, and clustered together, stamping and shaking their manes.
Weird was what it was. Surely there had never been a less bloody aftermath? No one even appeared to harbor any hostile feelings toward his co-belligerants of the previous hours.
Colin was almost relieved to see Griffin Hillman and his friends herding a group of sweating, bloodied escaped brigands and carrying a thrashing, moany, brown-garbed figure among them. i
Pegeen's cheeks lost their new bloom. "Fearchar!" she said.
"My goodness, sir," said a bandit who was standing near the newcomers to Hillman, "Whatever 'as become of our Dark Pilgrim? 'E looks the worse for wear, sommat, 'e does."
The rowdy brigand who had seemed, when Maggie was first captured, so much less subdued by Sally's magic than the others was among Hillman's prisoners and it was he who snarled back. "'E'd be worse off yet if King's man 'ere hadn't saved 'em. There we was sweatin' like swine, bleedin* and dyin' and we sees 'im sneakin' off into that fancy swan car of 'is. All of a sudden I swallowed me own sweat and blood once too often, and I says to the boys, 'Get 'im.' All that fancy talk about savin' our skins with the beasts' magic was a lot of rot! 'E was gonter fly off V leave us to 'ang alone. So we was givin' 'im a personal demonstration of what it felt like to be real broken up."
"Both arms and legs are broke, Majesty," Hillman said. "And several ribs as well, I think." The farmer-soldiers unceremoniously dumped their cargo into a howling heap at the King's feet.
Wizard Raspberry and his daughter heard the noise and came running. The dragon flew off, dangling a writhing silvery bundle from one claw.
The King drew his sword. "Now, knave, my inclination is t'cut ye into wee little pieces t' feed tae the birdies. But free my child from your wicked spell and I'll make it quick, and easier than you deserve." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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