THE BLACKBERRY WITCH: chapter 9

All chapters of The Blackberry Witch

IX. The Raven

Thomas was beyond fascinated by Avery. Cathán seemed only to disdain the bird, busying himself with smoothing down his fur and tending to his bow and quiver, but Thomas couldn’t pull his eyes away from the proud raven.

Avery noticed and preened himself a little, lifting his left wing and using his beak to clean and straighten and polish the features. Freshly settled, he turned his clever eyes, black and sharp like splinters of obsidian, back to Thomas and Cathán.

“A boy and a mouse,” he chirped, cocking his head. Cathán coughed, and Avery whistled and corrected, “A village boy and a Mouse Knight, I meant to say, of course. Anyone would know as much by the characteristic humanness of the young boy and the poise and dignity of the esteemed Mouse Knight. Six great sorries, new friends, one for each year of my life. But what are a village boy and a Mouse Knight doing here at the empty boar’s den seeking a tusk to steal? Come on some gallant quest or wizard’s errand, perhaps?”

“Why so interested in our business, bird?” Cathán said. He jumped lightly from the mouth of the den to the dirty lintel, then to Thomas’s shoulder. His fur had finally lain back against his skin, and he stood now with paws on hips and tail curled up, squarely facing Avery. “And why deceive us with your poor imitation of the boar?”

“Poor imitation?” Avery squawked and hopped from one foot to the other. “Hah! Hardly poor, Mouse Knight, as it had you both scurrying back near thrice over.”

Cathán swished his tail angrily, catching the edge of Thomas’s ear. It tickled, just a little. “Avery,” Thomas said, “why did you trick us with the boar’s voice?”

The raven flapped a wing as if to wave away the question. “That’s your business, as the Mouse Knight has rightly reminded me. Anyway, I’ve little interest in your doings with boars. That’s not my purpose here at all, and I’d rather we not talk about it further.”

“Finally something reasonable,” Cathán muttered. His whiskers brushed the inside of Thomas’s ear. Thomas stifled a laugh, trying to respect the First Captain’s righteous indignation while also learning more about this curious bird.

“So, Avery,” Thomas said, “what is your purpose here?”

Avery ruffled his feathers proudly. “A very engaging and fruitful pastime, as I’m sure you’ll come to know in short time. I’m here in pursuit of imitation and practice. I’m something of a connoisseur of voices, you see. That’s what I’m really interested in. As you know, with regard to two specific attributes birds are the greatest of all the species of the forest and the hills and the long dark waters. These two attributes are the essential faculties of all birds: flight, of course, and the soaring upon and undercutting of breezes strong and mild; and song, the chirping serenade and the ungainly squawk alike. These things all creatures understand.

“Well, I am unusually gifted even for one of my kind. I refer not to the sheen of my coat or the grace of my flight, but to my canny knack for imitation.” Avery’s voice dropped low, booming, even thunderous: “You have heard the great roar of the might boar! You have trembled as this mighty sound struck you with its rage!”

Thomas’s hair prickled on his forearms. Avery’s voice dropped back to its normal tone as he asked, “Would you like to hear other examples?”

Thomas nodded eagerly. Even Cathán, begrudging and stiff, gave a curt nod.

“Wisp of wind and lapping wave aloft the sweep I soar,” said Avery in a high, breathy voice, almost a quaver. “Song of sea-bright and grasses green in which I rest a dainty head.” He looked at them expectantly.

“It’s a lovely voice,” Thomas said after a moment. “But I’m not sure who you’re imitating.”

“A dandelion puff, of course!” Avery said. “Surely the esteemed Mouse Knight recognized the exact pitch and cadence of those flighty things?”

Cathán shook his head. “I’ve never met a dandelion puff that could talk.”

“Bah! Then I suppose”—and now Avery’s voice was a rasp, silken threads snagging on thorns—“you’ve never listened to the crafty wood-gnomes work their sullen sneaking in the dead of winter’s night when all else slumber?”

This voice sent a chill down Thomas’s neck.

Avery squawked his disapproval. “Untraveled and unknowing thieves! Hah! But very well, I suppose—”

“Thomas,” Cathán said, interrupting the raven, “I think it’s best if we leave this bird to his ravings and search for the boar ourselves. He cannot be far—we’ve seen his tracks and heard his snuffling earlier. Come, back through the bramble-wall, and we’ll hunt him down and snatch a bit of his tusk.”

Thomas turned toward the brambles but stopped suddenly, rooted in place, when the unmistakable voice of the Mouse King of Luchamhá resounded in the clearing: “Hold fast, merry travelers, lest you lose the guidance and wisdom you need in your quest!”

Slowly Thomas turned back to Avery, Cathán rigid on his shoulder. The raven grinned.

“Caught you unawares with that one, didn’t I?” he said, still in the voice of the Mouse King. “Just had to pick the right voice. Now you hear my talent, don’t you?”

Cathán’s nod was a little less grudging this time. Thomas, for his part, smiled and approached the bird. “That was amazing,” Thomas said. “How do you do it?”

Avery puffed up his chest. “Lots of hard work and cleverness, of course,” he said, his voice returned to its normal timbre. “And the natural faculty of all winged things I mentioned before. But mostly it’s a talent I’ve honed over six long years of life. It’s become exceedingly useful to me, especially in these parts.” He dusted the grassy mound at his feet in Cathán’s direction. “The Thistledown Kingdom has provided much aid in ridding the woods of pests and worse, but any noble Knight knows the dangers that still roam these parts.”

“Aye,” replied Cathán, and it seemed to Thomas that his tone was less hostile than before. “We’ve faced many a threat, and more lately than before, it seems. I suppose your trick does prove valuable in saving your feathers—when you’re not using it to deceive those with more important affairs, that is.”

“You’re awfully concerned with your affairs,” replied Avery. “I told you I’m not interested. I’ve got my own business here.”

Thomas wasn’t sure he believed that. He started to consider the usefulness of Avery’s imitative voice. For all Cathán’s valor and might, the Mouse Knight was, after all, very small, and Thomas himself rather unlearned in the ways of adventuring and completing quests. An ally might save both time and trouble.

Before Thomas could voice his thoughts, the raven hopped from the mound to the floor of the clearing near the entrance of the boar’s den. With a clack of his beak, he peered inside, cocking his head this way and that. “Drat and confound,” he said after a moment, ruffling his feathers in irritation. “Not here.”

“What’s not there?” Thomas asked.

“Most of the dirt,” Avery replied, flapping back up to the top of the mound. “It’s been removed to make the den,” he added, but it was clear his heart wasn’t in the quip. He preened a little and scratched at the earthen mound. “I’d heard from some hares—perhaps cousins of yours, Mouse Knight—that this boar has been up to something strange lately. The hares called them ‘antics,’ in fact, which says a great deal if you know anything at all about hares.”

That seemed to pique Cathán’s curiosity. He leapt from Thomas’s shoulder, landed lightly before the den, and glanced inside again. “Nothing,” he confirmed. “What antics did these hares claim?”

“It’s a rather amusing tale,” Avery said, a bit of his humor creeping back into his sonorous voice. “I first thought it a fancy—you know harish storytelling customs, don’t you? All laughs and jabs and outlandish sayings when they’re trying to convey some fable or other. But they recounted these antics without the slightest hint of irony or fabrication. They seemed to really believe it. And so I came out here to have a look, and I saw some of it for myself—and let me tell you, ‘antics’ is just the beginning of what this boar’s been up to.”

Livening up even more, Avery hopped to the very peak of the grassy mound of dirt and spread his wings wide. “I was soaring over the treetops, riding the afternoon’s third western wind, trying to spot the boar and see if there was any truth to what the hares claimed. I heard a snuffling and a clamor, the sounds of something big stomping about brutish and senseless. Thinking the boar must’ve cornered some prey, I swooped down to investigate.”

Thomas and Cathán shared a look at that. “We had a bit of a run-in with the boar earlier today—yesterday, I guess,” Thomas said. “Cathán helped me hide from him until he went away.”

“Have you been following us, raven?” Cathán asked.

“What an accusation!” Avery squawked. “You think I have no better pastimes than spying on mice and village boys? Hardly, Mouse Knight. Perhaps the boar was engaged in hunting you then; perhaps not. Whatever the case, I swooped down just as he broke free of a nasty thicket and ran through the trees. He was heading in a southerly direction toward the hills. I followed, and when the trees cleared a bit, I dropped down overhead to get a better look.

“Let me tell you outright that the hares were not lying in the least.” Avery began to laugh, flapping his wings in slow beats for emphasis. “There I find this boar—a massive thing, hairy and pungent, as they are, fur all matted and dirty—prancing from tree to tree like a new wolfhound pup! At each attempt, he’d set himself in the ground, paw it a little”—Avery mimicked the boar, scratching up dirt and fluffing his feathers, wings outstretched—“and then charge forward, growling and wailing, and smack right into the trunk! And then on to the next!”

Avery flapped off the mound toward Thomas, a great bellow in his throat. Thomas yelped and ducked, snatching his knit cap before the after-gust pulled it skyward. Avery’s roar turned into a laugh as he circled back around and alighted upon the mound of earth.

“He was charging the trees?” Cathán asked. “Whatever for?”

Avery’s laughter doubled. “The poor fellow was trying to be a dragon!”

“A dragon,” the Mouse Knight repeated dubiously.

Avery only laughed harder. It was infectious, and Thomas laughed a little too, and then laughed some more when he imagined a boar thinking itself a dragon.

“Yes, a dragon indeed,” Avery said in a rare gasp for breath. “Hah! The hares told me that this boar’s been pretending at dragonhood for nigh on a fortnight now. Every day he practices his charging and his roaring and his setting fire to trees and his gold-hoarding. It’s caused their dens no end of frustration, and it’s presented a real concern to a few other woodland kingdoms and clans in these parts. Hah! A boar who thinks he’s a dragon!”

“He sets fire to trees?” Thomas asked, now fully laughing. “How?”

Avery squawked uproariously at that. “He can’t! He can’t, of course, but he tries all the same. I saw it myself. He sucks in a great breath and grinds his teeth and then blasts it out on the grass with a deep roar. No flames, but that doesn’t bother the poor fellow—when I watched him, he looked pleased as ripe plums with the attempt! I had to wing away before he heard my laughter and took offense, for truly I meant none. I’ve never seen such a sight in all my life.”

Cathán’s chittering laughs and Thomas’s boyish chuckles joined Avery’s squawks and trills, and for a time their mirth filled the glade and drowned out whatever else the raven tried to say. The image in Thomas’s mind was funnier with each passing moment; he laughed until his sides hurt, and then he flopped down in the grass next to Cathán and laughed some more.

Avery joined them, stretching out on Thomas’s other side. He pantomimed a few more of the boar’s actions, describing how the beast practiced his slithery voice and roared at the grass and leaves and settled down for an afternoon nap with his tail tucked against his haunches, just like every depiction of dragons Thomas had ever seen in Master Dúnanhneall’s library.

Just when their laughter had calmed down, Avery’s reproduction of the boar’s fright at encountering an actual snake in the shrubs sent Thomas and Cathán into another fit of good humor. Tears ran from Thomas’s eyes and tickled his ears. The laughter’s hurt was cleansing, revitalizing.

At last their laughter subsided, their energy all but spent, and Thomas sat up, pulling his gaze from the pink-gray of the sky above and look at Cathán. “Maybe we should head after the real boar now?” Thomas said. “He might still be sleeping for a little while longer.”

“Aye,” Cathán replied, jumping up and dusting off his fur. “Raven, it has certainly been a novel experience meeting you, and I thank you for your humor—however misplaced—and your information regarding our quarry. We take our leave now: Thomas and I are off to hunt a dragon.”

“Very well,” said Avery, ruffling his feathers. “Luck of the four winds and eight gods and all that. I’ve off to catch a few winks. I’ll make my own pass at the dragon-boar later, once you’re finished up with whatever it is you want to talk to him about. He’s probably got it on him, the fool beast. Farewell!”

Avery flapped hard and reached the height of the mound, took a few quick steps, and soared up toward the trees. Thomas called out after him: “Wait! Avery, wait a moment!”

The raven banked left and circled back toward them. Thomas stood and held out his arm, palm down; Avery landed on Thomas’s wrist with a soft, firm grip. “What is it?” the raven asked. “I don’t give out feathers for wishes. You’re thinking of fairies and fish-scales.”

“It’s not that,” Thomas said. “What were you talking about just now? What does the boar have with him that you want?”

“Oh, that.” Avery swept a wing dismissively. “It’s nothing, just a trinket, really. I’d heard from the hares that the boar picked up a few interesting items during his rampage, and I thought I’d see if I could snatch one of them back. Purely a personal motive.”

“What’s the trinket?” Cathán asked. He scampered back up to his perch on Thomas’s shoulder.

“Well, you see,” said the raven, “the boar has been practicing his dragonry, as we’ve discussed. Part of that is the theft and collection of a jeweled hoard. Can’t be a proper dragon without a bed of gold and emeralds and sapphires and greenwood marble, after all. Now, the boar, according to the hares, hasn’t yet found much success in this area, but not for an absence of effort; he’s been scavenging acorns and thistles and bits of rock and even a few metal scraps from the human villages round the hills. The hares learned all this when they caught the boar rooting through their territory for treasure.

“But one of the items the hares mentioned that might have some real value—at least to a collector of shiny things such as myself—is a cup, a gold cup, probably of ancient human make. The hares swore the boar had it on his animal when they chased him off. I thought he might’ve stashed it here in the den, but he’s also been wearing a sack tied round his neck to store his possessions and sundry during his forays through the trees. A wise move, perhaps his first. Anyway, the cup’s likely in the sack. I’ll leave you your business and follow up with him tomorrow or day after to enquire about the cup.”

Avery made to flap away, but Cathán jumped from left shoulder to right arm, quick as ever, and stayed the raven with a paw to his wing. “A golden cup?” the First Captain asked. “Are you sure you don’t mean a chalice of gold with fine silver filigree and rune etchings in the ancient languages of the Sióla Dí?”

Avery stared at him. So did Thomas. Finally the raven cleared his throat and replied, “I suppose it could have been a gold chalice instead of a cup. I’ll admit that for all my cleverness I’m not certain of the difference. But—what’s the chalice mean to you, Mouse Knight?”

Cathán jumped back to Thomas’s left shoulder and leaned up against the boy’s ear. “There are stories,” he began. “Myths and legends, really. Old stories about the ancestors of the mice that first came to these lands and founded the Thistledown Kingdom and established the Royal Seat of Luchamhá. They were called the Sióla Dí, and—well, the specifics aren’t important. But the stories talk about a golden chalice, just as I’ve described it. A great treasure and relic of the mighty mice of old.”

“Were these Sióla Dí heavy drinkers, then?” Avery asked.

“Hardly!” Cathán snapped with a scowl. “Certainly they feasted and toasted and cheered with vigor, but they were great warriors and craftsmice, true artists, and the chalice was of their own make. It was a prized trophy held in the Grand Library of the Whiskered Woods for centuries, until the bloody mage-wars that split the Dome of the Library. After that, the chalice went missing; it hasn’t been spotted since.”

The Mouse Knight began to pace on Thomas’s shoulder. “But if you say this pretending boar has found the gold chalice . . .”

Thomas’s arm had grown tired of supporting Avery. He gave it a little shake. The raven hopped from one foot to the next, then jumped off and floated over to the grassy mound.

“Avery,” said Cathán, seeming to have arrived at a decision. “We could use a companion of your . . . talents and affinities in our quest. Unfortunately, Thomas is no master of creeping around quietly nor of managing the difficulties of woodland warfare, though his courageous heart has no equal. Perhaps you could help us find this boar. We need a bit of his tusk, and we could ascertain together whether he really does possess the gold chalice of yore.”

Avery sighed. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to keep the chalice for yourselves?”

“Of course. It’s royal property of the Thistledown Kingdom, after all. But I promise you’ll be handsomely rewarded by the Mouse King and the Mouse Queen for your efforts in assisting us. And we are engaged in a most noble quest of utmost importance—certainly participation in such an endeavor is reward enough in itself!”

Avery clacked his beak in thought. “But you promise a material reward as well? And I just have to help you get to the boar, maybe use some tricks and talents to get the tusk and the cup? Nothing more?”

“Aye,” said Cathán. He stuck out his paw. “By my word as Captain of the First Legion.”

The raven flapped up into the air. Thomas held out his arm again; Avery found his perch and reached a glossy wing to shake the Mouse Knight’s paw in solemn accord. Then the raven found a place on Thomas’s right shoulder and tucked his wings back against his body.

“I’m tired of flying back and forth all night,” Avery said, poking lightly at the side of Thomas’s head with his beak. “And this way you’ll be balanced out with that great mouse riding on the other side. Just for a bit until I get my bearings and breath back, yes?”

Thomas smiled. “Sure. I don’t mind.”

“Well then,” Cathán said, settling back against Thomas’s neck, “now that that’s decided, let’s be off! We can delay no further. The best time for finding and negotiating with the itinerant boar will be now, before the day has dawned anew. Off southwesterly, Thomas! Avery and I will guide your steps. Onward to new adventure, the slaying of a dragon, and the claiming of great rewards!”

Stifling a yawn, Thomas ducked under the brambles and headed off through the trees after the boar, a noble mouse riding on one shoulder, a sleek black raven perched on the other, and his knit cap tugged down firmly over his ears.