Briar Blackwood's Grimmest of Fairytales Read online

  A wolf in the lead of the pack spoke. “Baba Yaga?” he asked. Briar was taken aback by the clarity of his speech. The other wolves she had seen before could barely form words in their muzzles.

  The old woman was droopy eyed and toothless. “Who wants to know?” she asked. She downed another gulp from her tankard.

  The wolfguard all raised their spears and pointed them at her in unison. The lead guard unrolled a scroll of yellowing parchment. “You are hereby charged by Scarlocke, with the act of talebreaking.”

  Baba Yaga spoke with a carnival fortuneteller’s accent. “Now, what you going on about?” she asked. She turned her body only partially toward her accusers. Briar could see her crepe-lidded eyes that seemed to be holding a secret. She nervously touched a gold ring that dangled from her nostrils with her stubby, gnarled fingers. “I never broken Tale in my life,” she insisted. “Live by the Book, I do, just as Great Lady tells us. Live by Grand Design.”

  The guard read from a scroll. “On or about the full moons, you were seen foraging in Dankally Woods near known portals.”

  “I don’t know nothing about por-tals. I swear.” The woman turned to face her accusers fully now. “I swear. I am grandmother.” Her body was at least three or four times the mass of any soldier and grotesquely misshapen. Briar could see fear and pleading in her eyes, beyond the hairy facial tumors and lopsided lumps.

  “You are hereby the property of Scarlocke.”

  “Property! What you saying? I told you: I don’t know nothing. You make mistake. I am old woman. Grandmother—” The hag stood from her stool and towered above the wolves. She gave a benevolent smile and reached to pat the head soldier’s paw.

  He gave a short howl. In unison, the others jabbed their sliver-tipped spears through Baba Yaga. Her eyes blinked and her mouth opened as though she wanted to gasp. But she did not breathe. Instead, she staggered back a step, blood surging from the many spears that filled her. Then she leaned on the bar, looking at her pierced body. “I don’t know…nothing,” she tried to say. But blood filled her throat clogging the words. She opened her mouth and heaved like a fish pulled from a stream, gasping for air. Glancing up at Sherman, she slumped to the floor.

  The bear at the bar roused from his stupor for a minute. “Huh?” he asked. Then he sank back into unconsciousness.

  The lead soldier motioned to a comrade and through the door several of them rolled a short wooden barrel that was bound together with black-stained ropes. The contents seeped black and red through the decaying planks and stank of putrid bodies. Soldiers then uncorked animal skin flasks they had fitted to their belts, and held them to Baba Yaga’s wounds, collecting her blood. When a guard filled his flask he emptied it into the barrel opening. They rolled her on the floor, stomping on her limbs and her stomach with their boots, trying to juice every drop they could.

  The head soldier looked up at Sherman, Briar and Dax. He sniffed the air. “Well, what’s this, then,” he said. He stood well above Briar, his wolf-body was massive, larger than any that Briar had seen before. He pawed at her hair and sniffed it. She couldn’t see his entire face, but his gray muzzle jutted out from beneath the helmet. She almost choked on the stench of decomposing flesh from his mouth. “I’ve never seen you here before,” he said.

  Briar felt a trembling at her core. But she knew she must speak, sounding unafraid. “Really? I’ve never seen you either.”

  The soldier laughed to his buddies. “This one’s got a bit of sauce.” Then he sniffed at her neck.

  A soldier with a high, rasping voice, not as well developed as the lead soldier came from behind. “Sir—a word with you.”

  “What? Do you know this creature?”

  “Sir—please, a word with you—” The wolf sounded breathy and anxious, like someone pumped with adrenaline.

  Briar recognized the voice. It was the wolf she saw in the spinning wheel chamber. The two soldiers whispered and Briar felt her tongue stick in the back of her throat. She touched the pocket with the stone Ash had given her, and she willed it to protect them, if that was even possible.

  The head soldier laughed with a whining bark. “The Lady Orpion?! Here?” he asked. Then he paused and sniffed the air near Briar again. His laughter became snarl. “Or someone who says she’s Orpion…a talebreaker.”

  Briar backed up against Dax. They joined hands and made a break for the door.

  Chapter 16

  Briar and Dax ran from the tavern. Without looking, without thinking, they stumbled out onto narrow, rain-slickened cobble-stone lane. To the left, the street inclined toward a stark blocky mountain; to the right, it snaked down to a misty oak forest. The lane wound in lazy curves for long distances in either direction, with rickety buildings of wood and stone cobbled together, lined up for patronage. Market signage above somber black doors boasted the likes of butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. The air was thick with the smell of onions, frying fat, and excrement.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Sherman shouted. He trotted in a crouched position, looking anxiously behind.

  The head soldier followed slamming through the tavern door, breaking it off its upper hinges so that it hung at a sad angle. With his fangs bared, the wolfguard poised his spear at the fugitives. The bartender appeared in the doorway shaking his many fists. He shouted, “Didn’t pay her tally neither. That one’s a talebreaker and a moocher.”

  The spear flew and missed Briar by a hair, lancing the door behind her. Then she heard someone bolt it from the other side. She grabbed Dax’s hand and together they took off down the road, splashing through the cobblestone puddles with their furious feet. Sherman scrambled at top speed behind them, and eventually passed them in his panic.

  Briar heard the wolfguard, all of the soldiers pursuing, a stampede of heavy boots and gear sounding with wrath down the lane. But before long, she felt her limbs getting heavy and her lungs burning. She wished she hadn’t cut gym class quite so often now. Dax was huffing too and he finally gave up, put his hands on his knees, and tried to catch a breath. Briar stopped with him, her lungs searing, gulping down air.

  She looked up and saw villagers peering out from behind shutters—some of them cautiously curious, others pale and shaken, wishing they hadn’t seen anything. Any who saw or heard barred their shutters and doors. Briar just couldn’t run further; her legs quaked, they felt loose and rubbery. If the wolfguard took her, then that was what had to happen because there was just no going forward.

  The wolves indeed came upon them, fiercely baying and yowling, hungry for their blood. The head soldier was himself winded, but the fury in his face was unmatched. This was it, Briar realized. She shut her eyes expecting to feel the sharp point of a spear, when a great storm of thundering hooves came from around the bend. Briar opened her eyes and scarcely had time to act before the horses, and the carriage they towed, beat past her.

  Dax stood staring, so Briar pushed him out of harm’s way and dove, face down, after him. They both splatted, face first, into a mucky puddle formed where a large section of cobblestones had come loose from the road. Briar spit some of the sludge from her mouth and wiped her face with her sleeve, hoping whatever foulness she was tasting was just mud. Sherman skidded beside them, clutching to the rain-soaked stone with his claws. All three looked down the road where two black horses drew to a stop so suddenly that they almost overturned the dark, glossy carriage.

  Briar saw what had happened: the wolfguard, who did not react as quickly as did Briar and Dax, inadvertently hurled his spear at the side of the carriage. The spear pierced a gold crest that was emblazoned upon the side panel.

  Some of his soldiers were not quick enough to avert the carriage. Several were crushed by the wheels, their spines pulverized, or their skulls smashed apart. Luckier soldiers avoided the careening horses and packed together beneath a cobbler’s sign, yapping in a wild, high-pitched chorus.

  The driver, dressed in black cape and top hat as tall as a man’s arm was long, struggled to con
trol the reins. The horses whinnied and bucked but then came to a standstill. A small hand pulled back the swags of burgundy and gold fringe that curtained the inside carriage windows.

  Two more top-hatted men in black capes, positioned outside at the rear of the carriage, stepped off and scrambled to open the elaborately ornamented door. One of them placed a cushioned stool upon the street, while the other clamped down on a gold handle and opened it. They both bowed.

  Out from the shadows of the carriage stepped an enormous walking egg. His burgundy velvet breeches were contrasted by the blanched white of his distended shell. He had a crown like small golden flames with red jewels atop his smooth head.

  Behind him trotted out a tiny figure, something akin to a man, but no bigger than a hand. Its skin was sagging, but shimmered like gold. Briar inhaled with the sharpness of a knife, remembering the little creature from the vision in the armoire mirror. Just as he appeared before, he wore a red and gold cap with trails of fringe and feathers. Around his neck was a leather collar cinched tightly, and from it led a strap that the egg held in his free hand.

  The creature hopped up, defying gravity, from the carriage to the king’s crown. He sat within it, holding the edges and peeking out with tiny, dull black eyes.

  Meanwhile, on the far side of the carriage, Briar felt a tingling in her hands, and she raised one of them from the mud puddle. The worrisome blue flames had returned, cutting through the brown sludge and shimmering brightly. She stared at her hand, not knowing what to do.

  The egg-king tottered through the street in his curl-toed shoes. The wolf who had thrown the spear stood opening his muzzle as though trying to find something to say, but he remained silent. Then, in deference, he removed his helmet and folded in half. “Your Majesty,” he growled.

  His helmet removed, Briar could see the wolf’s whole face and she felt a twinge of sickness in seeing it. The creature had apparently been scarred in battle. The fur that once covered a side of his face was missing. She guessed it was likely singed away as the skin that remained was fire-pocked, blistered, and illmended. One of his amber eyes was scarred and glazed white; puckered black skin surrounded the blind eye.

  The king was busy staring at the tangled carnage of the wolfguard that had been trampled by his carriage. He regarded the scattered carcasses like a disgruntled driver who unhappily discovered a flat tire. He spoke in a beefy boom. “What jurisdiction do you have in the kingdom of Murbra Faire?”

  “Your Majesty, behind you is an imposter and a talebreaker,” the head wolf said. Briar noticed that he never raised his solitary good eye to meet the king’s.

  The king chuckled heartily, slapping the back of one of his top-hatted coachmen. The coachman lurched forward from the blow and caught his hat before it tumbled to the street. “There are no talebreakers in this kingdom, good sir. But there do appear to be javelinists, to say the least.” He tsked as one of his men worked the spear until it released from the side of his carriage with a horrible scraping grind.

  The bartender was apparently still perturbed by the loss of Forge to his till. He had followed the soldiers and from behind the crowd he shouted, “She’s also a moocher, don’t forget that.” And he made what appeared to be a rude gesture with his four scaly fists.

  “Goodness,” the king said. There was a tickle in his tone. “A talebreaker. An imposter. And a moocher. Who is this dangerous person?” The tiny golden creature in the king’s crown covered its mouth in a pantomime of fear.

  Sherman tried to stand on tired, shaking limbs when he suddenly caught sight of Briar’s hands, which were completely engulfed in blue flames. Briar was just staring at them as though hypnotized, oblivious to anyone else who might be watching.

  Briar hadn’t noticed, but the king toddled around to the opposite side of the carriage. Sherman jumped on Briar’s hands, forcing her to dunk them deeply into the cover of mud. The pitiful sight of Briar and Dax face down in the thick gunk caused the king to wheeze with laughter.

  Sherman stood on Briar’s hands still and tried to act as though nothing unusual was happening. “Good day, Your Majesty.” He bowed low and flicked his tail in Briar’s face.

  “Here’s a tip,” she said. “Try cleaning with a couple of moist towelettes before you bend over in someone’s face.”

  Sherman continued as though she was not there. “These claims cannot be substantiated. These two young persons are within the domain of my charge and they have made no errors, save ignorance of our ways. Allow me to take them from this place and keep them as my wards, lest they be charged falsely again.”

  “Now who else would speak like that, save my old friend Sherman?” the king said. He kept clucking with amusement.

  “Cole?” Sherman asked. Then he blinked. “Is it you?”

  “Perhaps a bit rounder, but yes,” the king said slapping his thin pointy knee and guffawing. “What the devils are you doing here, Sherman, with the likes of these vermin?” The king tilted his head in the direction of the bartender and the wolf, who abruptly stood upright with a snarl. The king seemed to be amused by his irritation.

  By now, Briar no longer felt the tingling and she lifted a hand while no one was watching to see if the blue flames were gone. And they had. This was becoming increasingly alarming as they seemed to come and go of their own will. She realized that they might appear again at some more unfortunate moment, perhaps endangering them all. She decided then that she should keep track of any patterns in their coming or going.

  “As you know, Your Majesty, I must from time to time educate a newling in our ways,” Sherman said. He nodded toward Briar.

  She stood up, shaking off water and road-slime from her Victorian getup. Dax hadn’t fared much better. The front of his shirt and jeans were soaked in brown muck. The sludge matted his hair and trickled down his cheeks.

  The small golden creature jumped out of the king’s crown and landed next to Briar weightlessly, sticking to the ground as though it had disembarked into glue. It was then Briar noticed that his tiny dull eyes were, in fact, empty eye sockets. Nonetheless, the vile thing seemed to know how to flick a glob of mud at Briar and Dax with accuracy. Then it hissed with laughter through a sharp-toothed grin.

  “Tarfeather!” the king growled. “Be still!” The small jester slapped a second handful of mud he had collected onto the ground with a regretful pout.

  “Tell me, Sherman, which of these filthy piglets is dillywig in your tutelage?” The king couldn’t help his glee and he gave another small giggle. “Ooh, that reminds me. I’m famished,” he said. He turned to one of his men. “Suckling pig! And speed it!” he shouted.

  Tarfeather, mimicking the king, shook a sharp scolding finger at the footmen.

  One of the cloaked men climbed up the back of the carriage. He opened a leather-bound trunk strapped to the back and proceeded to step down inside of it, disappearing completely. From the street, Briar and the others heard the sounds of pots and pans clanking around.

  “It is the smaller of the two, with long black hair,” Sherman said, to address the king’s question.

  “Ah,” said the king, “Well she certainly looks a bit bruised up, now doesn’t she? Her eyes look like a couple of ripe plums. And what are those pieces of metal suck through her skin? Who would commit such a crime on such a young beauty?”

  Sherman coughed. “Yes, uh hum. Well, we’re still trying to find that out.”

  The king’s miniscule attention span was strained again and he interrupted Sherman. “It has been far too long, my friend. Come, stay with me and celebrate my son’s engagement this night.” He gestured at them to all enter the carriage.

  “Your majesty, I couldn’t,” Sherman said. “We are here with specific instructions.”

  The tiny jester put his gristly golden hands on his hips and looked askance. “Nonsense! I’ll not hear another word.” The king kept laughing—at what Briar could not tell. Then he spoke to his servants. “Take this fox and his feculent young charges. Put o
ld leather down to save the seats from their mud.” Then he doubled over with choking laughter, as though he had told a great joke.

  The king’s attendants helped Briar, Dax, and Sherman into the magnificent carriage. The wolf, now dismissed and scorned before his comrades, once again bowed slightly. “Your Majesty, we have orders from Scarlocke to watch for a dillywig child of nearly sixteen years. I am afraid I must take these three into custody.”

  The king had already turned to step up into the carriage when the guard spoke. Annoyed, he turned to address the creature. “Your authority here is in question, sir—er, or dog. I’m not sure which. In any event, I suggest you take your troops back to your own Scarlocke where you may spear anything of the Lady Orpion’s you like.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” the wolf mumbled. He bowed again, but Briar noticed his barely contained snarl.

  The king then tossed a small black velvet purse that clinked in the bartender’s grasp. “I believe this will more than pay for a moocher’s debt.” This, of course, resulted in another small explosion of kingly laughter.

  “And my soldiers?” the wolfguard asked. He turned his amber eyes to those fallen, pulverized into the cobblestone crevices.

  “I should expect the others of his troop will learn to stay out of a busy street at rush hour.”

  The wolfguard said no more, but regarded the carriage with a look that told Briar he wasn’t through with them yet.

  Then, with nothing else to say, several footmen heaved the rotund king into the carriage. Tarfeather was happy to see that he could once again make use of that scoop of mud by flinging it at the wolf. Then he hopped into the coach.

  With a crack of the whip they rumbled away with the clack of hoof beats on stone. Upward, upward they rose along the village streets, speeding toward the palace of Murbra Faire.

  Chapter 17

  After several tankards of some ale with a pungent under-arm stink, and a lunch of whole suckling pig, King Cole dozed and finally began to snore. With each turn of the carriage, the wobbly egg-king rolled left and right, back and forth. Dax, who sat beside him, had to press against him to keep him from shattering all over the floor. As the king never bothered to clean his shell after the oily meal, Dax found this to be a revolting task.