Being the continued record of Applecider Bolingbroke, for debriefing & delineation by the Honorable Bounders at the Hunt’s conclusion … (unless can somehow con Lance into handling the official particulars) ….
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Mister Halros be one o’ those sorts who speaks unnervingly calmly under stress (pretty well the opposite o’ Yours Truly. I should learn to mimic that). He recounted with almost academic detachment his days in the hands o’ them ruffians in the ruined Dwaling Smials.
That they drugged ‘im repeatedly, on increasingly severe doses o’ Gobbo-de-Gook, temporarily paralyzing ‘im, Lance an’ I already knew.
But thar were a purpose to it.
Gobbo-de-Gook intensifies the more it gets boiled down … An’ what they sought to test on ‘im was how stiff a concentration be needed to shift from paralysis to …. well …. straight-up dead-ness.
What be cookin’ up in hollows an’ caverns of the Wildwood, be a means to a frightenin’ ends.
“By my gristly great-uncle Gottfried-” Lance were paler than putty.
“Thar be why the Gobbos an’ Brigands be running around with darts tipped with the stuff, then,” I stutters. “They be plannin’ ter weaponize it.”
“How, though?” Lance be always of a practical turn of mind like any good Bounder. “Poisoned darts are a crafty trick for a raiding party. But hardly a means of distribution on a large scale. If I were them, I’d … well …” he shuddered, “I’d be likelier to contaminate some communal foodstock. … Unless-?”
He trailed off, leavin’ the unwanted thread to dangle in vain hope o’ refutation.
“Unless the toxin were soluble?” The Green-Hood’s dry expression dashed our hopes like a vase by a twitchy cat on a table.
“Then I’d … well … pour it down a well.” Lance looked ill. “Or a cistern.”
“It’s been done,” the Green-Hood grimaced, causin’ me ter choke on the piece of Elf-toast on which I were nibblin’ ter steady me nerves. Lance had to clap me ‘tween the shoulderblades.
“Last week, the market square in the town of Trestlebridge went up in flames. The entire night guard, and many citizens were found to be ill unto a stupor. The local barracks, and most of the dwellings at the heart of town, all draw water from the same well in the plaza. Fox smuggled a sample out. It was one of the last things Morrusc and I accomplished, before he was seized by the Black Star. I dispatched a small phial to the healers at Tinnudir via kestrel, and they examined it. Fox and I were supposed to reconvene and trade information. But he never came. He’d drawn too much attention. Black Star apprehended him.”
He ran a hand over ‘is face.
“We think Trestlebridge was a proving ground. – The water diluted the toxin too weakly to kill. But none could stand against the arson.”
“At a greater concentration, though?” Lance wavered.
Halros nodded, as if recallin’ the taste of it.
“To cripple a larger populace, one would require a higher dose. And on a much farther-reaching means of delivery than a single well.” He glanced west, from whence we’d just come. “What separates the Dwaling operation from those in the Wildwood?”
I were suddenly glad I were already sittin’ down. Multiple caches o’ Gook. On two sides of a river. “You thinks they be plannin’ ter dump it in the Brandy?”
“That’s what we thought.” Mister Halros fished into a pocket betwixt his jacket an’ hauberk. “While I waited for you, though, I did a run of some of our infiltrators’ drop-points in the Wood.”
He handed us a folded scrap. “Amlan always writes in a cipher, and he always signs with his rune-mark. This is his handwriting. But he didn’t wait to code it. There were footprints near the ‘posting’ tree. Deep at the toes, and shallow at the heels.”
“So, he was on the run.” The hunter in Lance latched onto something concrete. He looked at the sliver o’ paper blankly (I occasionally forget Lance still gots ter learn the Elfish alphabet).
“Thel nen uial?” I cocked an eyebrow. “Target water evening?”
“You mean … 'release at dusk?'” Lance blinked. “When everyone draws water for supper?”
Mister Halros looked truly a’feared in the cloudy starlight.
“Beyond the High King’s Crossing, where few save the Dúnedain venture, lies Nenuial. – Our home. – 'Twilight Lake:' the jewel of Evendim.”
I’d rarely heard the Green-Hood speak of ‘is own land before.
“With spring melts from the Frozen Wastes, she slakes the thirst of all the Northlands. – The River Lune, through Ered Luin. – The Brandywine. – From Nan Wathren in the North Downs, joining to Nen Harn in the Breelands, Shirebourn in Green-hill country, Withywindle in the Old Forest, and south to the Sea. – All are fed from her.”
Lance an’ I gaped, tryin’ to absorb the full gut-punch o’ the implication.
The Shire e’nt the target.
The Shire at best be the side o’ pickles between the sandwich-bread o’ Breeland on one side, an’ Miss Sergie’s home o’ the Blue Mountains on the other. The double-roast-beef-an’-chicken serving that make up the meat? Thar be the Dúney-folks’ lands in the middle.
The target were everywhere. Everyone. Every place the water flows.
The Green-Hood gripped the pitiful scrap o' paper, every bit as a'feared for 'is own home as we was fer ours. “The entire North is in danger.”
“An’ we be th’ only ones what knows it!” Apart from this ‘Amlan’ bloke. I hoped ‘e were alright: the fact that he were on the run says ter me he was either over-hasty, or someone were after ‘im.
“But … what’s to be done now? – What’s going to stop all this?”
The foreboding had nae left Mister Halros’s eyes. But thar be a resolve ter these Green-Hood lads. He fixed us with that look he has. I knew what he’d say even as I were inhalin’ ter say it meself.
“We are.”
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