Rynna wrinkled her nose and looked at Tipperton. 'A small jest,' said Tip.
'A very small jest,' she replied, as they took up the journey again.
Tip, Rynna, and Beau rode without speaking for a while, lost together in thought, though Lark, hanging onto the side of her basket, jiggled about and babbled and pointed at birds and scurrying voles and other woodland creatures disturbed by the passage of the ponies, while Melli called out their names.
Finally Tip said, 'I'd like to see Caer Lindor for myself.'
'Though its battlements and halls are nought but rubble, I will take you there,' said Rynna, and onward they fared.
'Oh my,' said Beau, his eyes glittering in the light of the campfire as he peered through the darkness and into the forest beyond and fumbled for his sling.
'What is it?' asked Tip, setting aside his lute and taking up his bow and standing and turning to face the direction where Beau stared.
'Something out there. Moving. I swear it looked like nothing more than a bundle of twigs and vines. And don't you say I didn't see such, Tip. You pooh-poohed it when I first saw a mound that moved, and now it's withy and leaves stirring about out there.'
Melli looked where Beau pointed. 'Oh,' she said, 'it's just Prym.'
'Prym?' said Tip, turning to Rynna. 'Say, isn't that who you named as being one of Lark's wards?'
'Yes,' replied Rynna. 'She usually watches over her at night.'
'What is she?' asked Tip, stepping forward for a better view. But Prym backed away in the darkness. 'Oh, I frightened her,' added Tip, disappointed.
Rynna laughed. 'Frightened? Oh no, my love. She's one of the Vred Tres, shy as are they all. Too, she does not trust fire. But frightened of us she is not.'
'Twigs and vines and leaves?' asked Beau, his eyes wide.
'Um, yes, that's what they seem. Some would call her a Woodwer, and savage is she and all her kind when someone endeavors to clear away any part of the woodland in which they dwell, clear it away without their specific permission, that is.' Rynna took up her pennywhistle again and said, 'Come, Tip, Lark needs another song.'
Reluctantly turning away from the perimeter, Tip stepped to his log and set aside his bow. He resumed his seat and picked up his lute, and soon a lively tune rang through the woodland along with Lark's laughter. And among the trees, Prym moved forward again, the better to see and hear.
Nigh the noontide of the next day, they rode through a ring of warders-striplings and maidens and eld buccen for the most part, bearing bows and slings, though a few seemed to have no weapons at all-and into the holding of the Springwater Warrows.
'I think you'll like it here, Beau,' said Melli, smiling, as she watched him swiveling about to look back at the maidens.
Rynna grinned, too, and then looked at Tip and growled, 'You, my bucco, are taken.'
Tip's mouth dropped open. 'But I wouldn't-I mean- I-'
Rynna laughed gaily and rode on ahead. And the four ponies and their passengers trotted past pigpens and coops and fields tilled for planting, past a rope pen where ponies were held. And they fared in among sapling-woven bowers, where a handful of younglings came running alongside, calling out for any news, while other Warrows stepped through their doorways and watched and listened and called out as well.
'This evening,' said Rynna, fending off the queries, 'when we hold a town meeting. No need to tell it twice.'
Town meeting? Tip looked about and estimated altogether there were some thirty or thirty-five huts. More like a hamlet, I would say.
Rynna dismounted before one of the bowers, and said,
'Here is our place, Tip. Beau, you can take one of the empty-'
'Nonsense,' declared Melli. 'Beau, you will stay with-' 'Mum,' cried a feminine voice, 'you're back.' Beau turned to see an amber-eyed brown-haired maiden, verging on her young damman years, come rushing to Melli, and they embraced one another. Then Melli turned to Beau. 'As I was saying, you can stay with Linnet and me. Linnet, this is Beau Darby. Beau, my dammsel Linnet, sister of Nix and cousin of Rynna.' 'Oh my,' breathed Beau, entirely unaware he was speaking aloud, 'but you are beautiful.' And as Linnet blushed and lowered her eyes, Melli turned aside and smiled unto herself.
'… killed a Gargon, you say?'
'Yes, Will,' replied Rynna. 'Crushed it.'
A mutter of voices rose up. 'Good riddance,' called out someone amid the babble.
'And good riddance for the Foul Folk slain by the Vana-durin,' said someone else.
'And those killed by the Stones,' added another.
And someone cheered, others to take it up, for all slain Spawn were from the Horde that had devastated the village of Springwater.
Rynna held up her hands and raised her voice and called for quiet. As the gathering of Warrows settled down, Rynna said, 'The ill news is that many of the Foul Folk managed to escape and they yet range along the eastern eaves of the wood.'
A collective sigh rose up from the Warrows, but Rynna spoke on: 'Yet there is much good news as well.'
'Like what?'
'Well, for one'-she gestured at Beau-'this buccan has found a cure for the plague-'
A cure? For the plague? Can it be? Oh my!
'-and saved the city of Dendor entire.'
Again a babble rose up, but Rynna called out, 'And together with their allies'-quietness fell and Rynna repeated-'and together with their allies-the Dwarves of Kachar and the Men of Dendor-Tip and Beau broke Mo-dru's siege of the city. But here, I'll let those two buccen tell the tale for themselves.' She turned to the twain and gestured for them to take places on the slope beside her, saying, 'Tip, Beau, if you will.'
Reluctantly the two stepped upslope and turned to face the gathering. And Beau shoved Tip to the fore. All through the telling, Beau shuffled uncomfortably, for ten or so dammen looked upon him adoringly, especially the maiden Linnet.
The very next day, Tip, Beau, Rynna, and an older buc-can named Delby prepared to set out for Caer Lindor. Melli stood by with Lark in her arms, for she and Prym would care for the child while the two were gone, though the Woodwer had not been seen since the night they had camped in the forest. Even so, Melli assured them that Prym was nigh at hand. Too, Melli slipped a smoke-cured slab of bacon into Beau's saddlebag among his other provisions, saying, 'It'll be tasty on the trail.'
As they mounted up to ride away, Linnet, who had been hanging back, stepped forward and hesitantly asked, 'Beau, um, would you carry my favor for luck?'
Mutely, Beau nodded, and she unwove a pale brown ribbon from her dark brown hair. Beau leaned over as she tied it 'round his upper arm. And as he was bent down, she quickly kissed him and fled away in the direction of her bower.
Beau looked after her in amazement, and with Melli smiling and wee Lark squealing in joy, away spurred Rynna and Tip and Delby, Tip calling out, 'Come on, Beau, the sun waits for no one.'
Jerking to his senses, Beau heeled the flanks of his pony and followed after, though his thoughts ran elsewhere.
And when he caught up with them, Rynna said, 'I hope you realize, Beau, just what a precious gift you have been given.'
Beau looked down at the ribbon.
'Not the ribbon, Beau,' said Rynna, 'though that is precious as well.'
'The ribbon?' asked Tip.
'Aye. For when we all fled Springwater, there was little time to take away the things we valued. Most was lost to the pillaging Spawn. And Linnet, well, one of the few things she rescued was that cherished ribbon she has just given away.'
'Oh my,' said Beau. 'I'll ride back and return it now.' 'No you don't, bucco,' growled Tip. 'Even I, as dense as I am, even I know better than that.' And on through the Blackwood they fared, Beau ever glancing down at the dear ribbon now tied 'round his arm.
