Who were now heading towards them, a glorious band of lords and ladies, resplendent in the moonlight. The air was thick with their glamour.
Miss Tick was waiting. A Miss Tick with a board propped up on a few sticks she had handily knotted together to create a trestle. And on the board was written PLN. With a teacher’s determination not to let anything interrupt her in the midst of any kind of lesson, her insistent voice was demanding the younger Feegles’ attention as she tied a strange net, a tangle of intricate, carefully woven knots and loops, to her broomstick.
‘Remember, I want you to keep it in one piece,’ she was saying sternly.
Then, within minutes, it was a mêlée. In fact, a mêlée of mêlées. There was a sting in the air and Tiffany recognized the surge of static electricity. How could the elves be so stupid, she thought, as to attack in the midst of a storm? Did they not remember how she had used thunder and lightning to defeat them before? The sky was crackling. The hairs on her head tingled. She could see signs of a coming downpour happening everywhere, could recognize the build-up to an enormous storm.
As Awf’ly Wee Billy Bigchin’s mousepipes screeched out a battle hymn, pitched perfectly to assault the elven ears, there was a distant scream from a train at Twoshirts. A roar of iron and steel, a bellow that shouted: This is no world for elves!
Feegles and elves were fighting now, with no quarter given on either side. Tiffany could see that the Feegles were dealing with things in their own special way – which included getting into the elves’ clothing and fighting them from within. If there was something that an elf really hated, it was to have their clothing torn, and a black eye didn’t do much for the image either. You can’t be suave with a black eye, Tiffany thought.
She suddenly burst out laughing. It had been a long time since she had set eyes on Horace the Cheese,fn2 but now she saw him rolling heavily over every fallen elf, and when they were flattened the younger Feegles got to work as well, mostly with their heavy boots, but also with their double-the-fun clubs that curled in the air, clonking elves on the head and then coming joyfully back for another go. And yes, there was Maggie in their midst – a Feegle daughter fighting alongside her brothers! And indeed fighting even more furiously than her brothers. Tiffany thought, She’s like a small Ynci. The Feegle maid had been waiting for something like this to prove herself, so woe betide any elf who got in her way. It was one small step for a Feegle lassie – but a giant step for all Feegle womenfolk!
Miss Tick was flying overhead now, the strange rope-net hanging beneath her broomstick filled with young Feegles. As she pulled at one knot after another, the Wee Free Men were tumbling out to fall smack on the heads of the elves below. Crash! Whack! Crump! Followed by Aargh! from the elves.
And the witch had small bottles with her too – concoctions mixed in her caravan that she was now gleefully emptying over the heads of the elves’ horses as she swooped above them. There was a moment’s pause as each horse absorbed the mixture, then its eyes crossed, followed rapidly by its hooves, and it toppled to the ground, losing its footing, hurling its rider onto the earth to be quickly covered by Feegles.
Letitia had arrived now, summoned by Hamish, and was tumbling from her horse, determination in her face, borrowed chainmail over her dress. She somehow flowed through the elves – there was a certain magic to it as if she were some goddess of water, streaming everywhere: no thought to it, but no stopping it either. Suddenly the elvish horses still standing were bogged down in a quagmire, and the Feegles were there on hand to keep them in the mire.
Nevertheless, it looked as if the Feegles, Miss Tick and Letitia were really not getting the better of the elves. Despite the Wee Free Men’s pouring into elvish underwear and tearing it up, Tiffany realized that the Nac Mac Feegles were actually in danger of losing.
Nightshade pointed out Peaseblossom sitting on a black charger, and Tiffany flew down to confront the leader of the elves. His minions scattered as she arrived – they had seen the expression on Tiffany’s face.
Peaseblossom was laughing. ‘Ah, the little country girl. How pleased I am to see you!’
She felt the tug of his glamour but rage was a useful tool, and she hated that grinning face. It was so self-centred. It loved itself beyond any other thing.
‘Peaseblossom is a very stupid name for an elf of your size,’ she said rather childishly.
And then, suddenly, the elf had sprung from his horse to stand before her, a sabre in his hands, and his laughter was gone, only evil in his eyes.
A voice said, ‘Don’t touch her, Peaseblossom.’