LITMIR.BIZ

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Chad, who was very single-minded. `We've not eaten nor drunk for days.'

      Again the guardians went into a huddle that ended with Emma Crowsclaw saying she and Bethy Bee would bring food, while three of the men fetched some bedding.

      As the five were leaving the hall Lyla, without thinking, asked if it was possible for them to sleep in Queen Hail's nursery?

      The six men and two women froze and the hall became so quiet that Swift could hear the scratching of mice nesting in the five thrones.

      At last Emma Crowsclaw answered, `That part of the palace be long destroyed. But how would you, a stranger to M'dgassy, know anything of Queen Hail's nursery?'

      Cursing herself for being so stupid Lyla searched for a believable explanation. `I saw it in a dream.'

      `You be a dream-rider then,' said one of the bat men. `Dream-riders are thought of as witches in these parts and witches be burned.'

      A second man nodded. `Aye. Best you not be a dream-rider, boy. Now come along Horris Beck, help me bring back the bedding. I've had enough of this dreary place and my own supper be beckoning.'

      While the men fetched the bedding and the women went for food, Lem asked the other three where they all lived and how they managed to find enough to eat. The men were not forthcoming, mumbling about living here and there, fishing here and there, having a small garden somewhere and a milk cow somewhere else. `Barely enough to keep skin and bones alive,' said a younger, ginger-haired man.

      `What about the Royals and their servants?'

      This time the men were silent for so long that it seemed as if they would never answer, then the ginger-haired one spoke up in a bitter voice. `The Royals disappeared a decade ago, all of them, adults, children and babies. They left us to the so-called mercy of the High Enchanter - Sender of Storms if you prefer that title - and his sadistic General Tulga.'

      `Now, now, Migan Crowbeak,' chided the ginger-haired man. `Truth be, General Tulga's Raiders were attacking the Ifraa Peninsula long before our Royals disappeared.'

      He turned to the children as he tried to explain. `Everywhere the Raiders went they burnt, looted and stole. Be that not so, Malcolm Leftfoot?

      Malcolm Leftfoot nodded. `Aye. I lost a good wife of forty summers. Carried off with the riches of the palace she was.'

      Lyla blinked at a memory from her dream palace as she recalled rows of guards lining this hall, and all the other corridors. She frowned. `Why didn't the palace guards stop them?'

      `All murdered!' said Malcolm Leftfoot. `No one could stop the Raiders. No one knew from one day to the next what sort of monsters they be riding, what hairy beasts would come flying out of the sky, or what unearthly weapons they'd be carrying.'

      He pointed to the hole in the throne room's roof. `That be made by General Tulga's Raiders throwing burning balls the size of my cart. Now I ask you, how could my pike and shovel combat that?'

      `No one's could,' agreed Migan Crowbeak. `But it not be a fireball that shattered my farm. It be those no-eyed stinking Goch and their misshapen Gochmasters. What say you young Bertrum?'

      `The Goch took my family and the girl I were about to wed,' answered the man called Bertrum. `And no oracle, fairy spinner or sand reader could tell me what happened to her. Not even old Edith, though I paid her with my last goat.'

      `Did I hear someone mention Edith the oracle?' demanded Emma, placing a tray containing five bowls of spicy stew, at the children's feet. `I heard lately she still be living in Wartstoe Village. And that be a miracle as I thought her long burned.'

      The children were so hungry that the stew was almost finished by the time the men returned with the bedding and the younger woman returned with a bowl of hot water. And they were more than half asleep by the time she'd bathed and bandaged Swift's foot and told him that it would be fine by morning.

      Bidding them `fine sleeping' she and all the guardians of the palace, except Malcolm Leftfoot and his dog, departed.

      Lem waited a few moments before leaning over to whisper to Celeste and Lyla. `Do you think one of us should stay awake?'

      `There'll be no need for that,' said Malcolm Leftfoot, whose hearing was extraordinarily good for someone so old. `I'll be sitting up all night. It be my job.'

      `In that case,' Lyla pulled her hood over her head and snuggled further under her blanket. `I bid you good watching, Master Leftfoot.'

      Five minutes later she rolled over to Celeste and breathed into her ear. `I'll pretend to sleep for the first two hours, then it is your turn, then Lem's.'

      4

      Abel Penny the Toll Master

      They woke next morning to Malcolm Leftfoots's dog barking just as Emma arrived with six bowls of porridge.

      `Don't worry about Duffy,' Malcolm apologised, taking a bowl of porridge, `He be old and irritable like me.'

      Lem rubbed the old dog's side. `It's because his bones ache from when he fell off the cliff.'

      Malcolm stared bug-eyed at him. `Now how would you know about that?'

      Lem was trying to think of something to say other than he understood dog talk, when Lyla answered for him. `I dreamt it and told him.'

      Malcolm slurped at his porridge then growled at her. `Did I not warn you about being a dream-rider, boy?'

      Lyla nodded and threw Lem a warning look.

      They were almost through their second bowls of porridge when Malcolm asked Lyla what her name was.

      She couldn't very well say Lyla, it not being a boy's name, so she named herself after the thing she'd just been looking at. `Spear. My name is Spear.'

      Malcolm then pointed at Celeste. `And this one with the yellow hair in 100 braids.'

      Catching sight of Splash wound around Celeste's wrist, Lyla told him Celeste's name was `Splash.'

      He pointed at the boys. `And them three?'

      Lyla was thinking about what to call them when Lem answered for her. `My name is Wolf. The one with the four brown braids is named Tree. And the one with the white curls is...'

      `Arrow,' said Swift. `Because I'm good with the bow.'

      Malcolm eyed each of them one at a time. `Strange names and strange clothing.' Then, nodding at Lyla, he added, `And your face be familiar. I must have seen you before.'

      Lyla put down her empty porridge bowl. `I doubt it, Master Leftfoot, as we live far from here.'

      `And where be that?'

      `It's called the Forest.' Before he could ask any more questions, she asked him how they could reach Wartstoe Village and how long it would take.

      `If you have a brain between you, you'll not be goin' there,' he grunted.

      Lem leant closer to Duffy and let the old dog lick the last of his porridge from his finger. `Has Duffy been to Wartstoe Village?'

      `Aye. When we went to see Edith to ask where the Raiders had taken my wife. And fair scared out of our wits we both were.'

      Celeste put down her bowl. `Did she tell you where to find your wife?'

      `All the old fraud said was that my Elsie could sing like a bird and lay an egg if she had a mind to. What rubbish be that? Still, I paid her a brace of rabbits. I wanted no curses put on me, nor old Duffy eaten alive by her snarling curs or her spirit dogs.'

      Celeste stroked Splash gently, a thing she did when she was nervous. Who wouldn't be nervous about someone who owned spirit dogs? `Are there no other oracles we could visit?'

      The old man shook his shaggy head. `None. They be all burned as witches.'

      Lem shrugged. `Then we'll have to go to Wartstoe Village.'

      `That be so,' said Malcolm, clicking

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