“How strange to see toadstools among flowers,” Cordelia marveled, “and such large ones, too!”
“They seem almost jolly, almost festive,” Allouette agreed.
“I wonder if they are good to eat?” Quicksilver pressed a hand over her rumbling stomach.
As if in answer, one of the toadstools rose upward. The three women gasped as they saw beneath it a gnarled and wrinkled face with a long red nose. Then the toadstool began to walk toward them.
CHAPTER 13
The “toadstool” proved to be no fungus but a man two feet tall and a foot wide, seeming to be mostly torso; his legs and arms were far shorter than most people’s. His hands, though, held a platter of steaming roast beef with carrots and onions around it. “Are you a-hungered, then?” he asked in a rasping, guttural voice. “Nay, come into our coppice and dine!”
Cordelia inhaled the aroma with a sigh of longing and Allouette’s mouth watered. “How very good of you!” she told the little man.
“Aye, of all of you.” Quicksilver looked out over the coppice.
“All? What do you mean?” Allouette asked.
“Discuss it while we dine!” Cordelia moved her horse forward.
“Be not so quick.” Quicksilver put out a hand to stop her. “Have you never heard that ‘Fairie folks are in old oaks’?”
“Aye, but what has that to do with food?” Cordelia looked up at the leaves. “Truly, these trees are oaks, but what meaning is there in that?”
“It means that each of those ‘toadstools’ is truly the cap of one of the Wee Folk who haunt this grove,” Quicksilver told her, “of one of the Oakmen.”
Somehow the name sent a chill of apprehension through Cordelia and Allouette. “Is there truth in this?” Cordelia asked the little man.
He grinned, but it looked forced. “Even so! Meet all of your hosts!”
The red toadstools rose, and sure enough, each was the hat of a gnome with a long red nose, blue tunic, and tawny leggins. “Come in and dine!” they all cried in chorus.
“They have a most remarkable unity of opinion.” Allouette’s apprehension deepened.
“They also have food! Would you insult their hospitality?”
“Do not, we pray,” said the Oakman. “See what other dishes we offer!”
Each of the Oakmen raised his arms, holding out a platter. Some had roast chicken with dressing, others a medley of steaming vegetables, others bowls of fresh fruit, some even candied sweets.
“Do not soldiers always dine when they can, for fear their next meal may be long in coming?” Cordelia asked Quicksilver.
“Only when they can trust the food,” the warrior answered.
That gave Cordelia pause. “Oh . . . the tales I have heard of faerie food . . .”
Allouette’s head snapped up, staring; everyone knew that if you ate the food of faerie folk, you placed yourself in their power. She had never realized how strongly those dishes might tempt a person to forget that.
“Slander, surely!” said the little man. “We are generous, that is all!”
“And very careful to guard your forest, from all I’ve heard.” Quicksilver turned to her companions. “As I grew up, I was constantly in the greenwood exploring and gathering, damsels.”
“And hunting,” the Oakman snapped.
“And hunting,” Quicksilver admitted with a frown at him, then turned back to her friends. “Moreover, I lived in the forest four years while I was outlawed. I have learned something of the lore of the woodlands, and of the spirits who dwell there.”
“What have you heard of us?” the Oakman demanded. “Nothing ill, I trust!”
“They who speak well of you, say that you guard the animals of the forest—nay, even the trees—with great zeal,” Quicksilver told him. “Those who speak ill tell of the manner in which you punish those who hunt your beasts or fell your trees.”
The Oakman’s eyes sparked with anger, but he said, “What has that to do with the food we offer?”
“Aye.” Cordelia edged her horse closer to the little man and his steaming platter. “What bother?”
“Why, look at their caps,” Quicksilver said, “how they resemble toadstools—not mushrooms, but toadstools, poisonous fungi!”
Cordelia stared at the red caps, then darted a look of horror at the platter of roast beef. “You do not mean . . .”
“That their food is made of toadstools disguised by faerie magic? I do!”
“You would not poison us!” Allouette demanded, ashen-faced.
The Oakman stiffened with offended dignity. “Our food would certainly not kill you!”
“Not kill us, no,” Cordelia said slowly, “but now that Quicksilver has opened my eyes to look at this coppice more clearly, I do notice something strange.”
“What?” Allouette scanned the coppice closely. “I see naught.”
“Look again—at the trees that do not grow from chopped stumps.”
Allouette looked—and gasped. “I suppose . . . you might say they look . . .”
“Like people,” Quicksilver finished for her. “Behold! That one holds up two branches, like arms showing empty hands—see how the twigs are five in number? And the knots in the trunk—how like a face!”
“A face caught in horror,” Quicksilver said, her voice hardening.
“And the fold in the trunk—like the legs of trousers! With roots shaped much like shoes!”
“But that one.” Cordelia pointed. “Its fingers are hooked in threat, its face angry.”
“Changed that one just in time, did you?” Quicksilver demanded.
“Mere daydreams!” The Oakman held up his platter. “Dine ere it chills!”
“Thank you, no.” Cordelia moved her horse back a little. “I think it is time we rode onward.”
“Nay, it is not!” The Oakman dropped his platter and whipped a bow from among the bluebells. He straightened, whipping an arrow from a quiver on his back and nocking it to the bowstring.
The other Oakmen scurried into the road with a sound like dry leaves blown by the wind. Turning, the three women saw they barred the trail quite effectively, with archers to either side, even high in the trees—and each held a bent bow or cocked crossbow aimed at them.
“Stand still,” the Oakman advised. “You have heard of the perils of elf-shot, have you not?”
The three women froze, for they had indeed heard. A person struck with elf-shot fell down in convulsions. When he rose, he might be liable to have seizures for the rest of his life—or have one side of his face and body paralyzed.
“You heard rightly of our mission,” the lead Oakman said, “that we protect the beasts of the forest, and the trees too, from the greed of mortal folk!”
“I hunt only when I hunger.” Out of the corner of her eye, Quicksilver saw the abstracted looks that came over the faces of her companions. “As to wood, I take only fallen branches, or cut down trees that have already died.”
“So you say,” the little man challenged. “What proof can you offer?”
“Does it matter?” Quicksilver did her best to sound bored as she rested her hand on the hilt of her sword. “We have not come to this wood to dwell here, after all. We are only passing through it, on our way to search for monsters such as ogres, who break down living trees simply because they are in their way—or afancs, who gnaw them down to make dams in your rivers!”
The little folk shuddered. “Spare the trees from so slow a death!” one groaned.
“Are there truly such spirits abroad?” the leader asked, his visage darkening.
“There are indeed,” Quicksilver told them. “We have met others like them. Some sorcerer has loosed them upon us, and we go to seek and fight them.”
A crafty look came over the Oakman’s face. “Three gentle damsels such as yourselves? How could you stand against creatures of terror and ferocity?”