Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree

Jon swatted at a fly biting his neck. Sitting here waiting with the horses mostly meant sitting with the flies. He kept his eyes peeled for a bit looking up and down the path, peering into the woods, listening. For a bit. Then he took out his dagger and started drawing in the dirt. About that time he heard a really loud CRUNCH. He looked up and saw Murphy leaning on a horse and feeding it an apple. Then Murphy started eating an apple and carefully picked out the seeds…which he threw at Katrin!

“What in Lyr’s ladel are you doing!” she laugh scolded him.

“Well, as I sees it, if I trow enough seeds around you and we wait for your ma long enough, when she comes out she’ll find you in the middle of my apple grove.” Katrin blushed and his meaning was not lost on her. “We will have to see about that!” she smile harrumphed. “Yes, your country seems so much more lovely than mine. I do think it would do with another apple orchard, though.”

“I’m bored. Can I have an apple?” Jon looked up and heard a massive THUMP and gurgle all at the same time, immediately followed by hellish reptilian screeches. The horses were going wild and breaking away in every direction. Except for the one by Murphy…because it lay dead, its neck broken by the impact of the horse sized winged reptile now sitting on it screeching. Murphy, however, leapt away in time to avoid a similar fate as a second one landed hard where he had just been standing.

“Wyverns!” Murphy yelled as he drew his sword and stood between the two hellish beasts and his two charges. He struck at one and his blow bounced ineffectively off its scaly hide. Each of the screeching lizards then bit one of Murphy’s arms and pulled while simultaneously stabbing him with their sharp tails, driving them completely through him. Katrin screamed and leapt at them with her shillelagh only to be immediately impaled through the chest by one of the monsters.

Jon saw his whole world change in a moment. He drew his sword and advanced on the two raging creatures standing over his dead sister and their guide. They looked at him as he walked towards them, sword raised to strike. They each tilted their heads a bit as he got closer. They seemed…confused.

At this moment, Kymeth and the remaining family came bursting out of the woods. They came out just in time to see Jon hoisted into the air with a wyvern’s tail squarely through his abdomen. It flung the lifeless young body at the new arrivals and screeched at them mockingly. Kymeth screamed in rage on seeing her downed daughter and son. She launched a rock with her sling, striking the creature in the head with it…only to see the rock bounce away without seeming effect.

The other wyvern had just finished off another horse as the first wyvern began its screech. It took to the air and charged the raging women. As it neared, an explosion of electrical energy crackled around its head, wing, and left leg. It shrieked in pain as it fell to the ground. The pixies had engaged it and took it down.

Seeing the fay folk engage caused the Morgan-Slayer to reconsider and it took to the sky to escape. Mae looked on with steely eye while intoning: “And Rhiannon went with joy.” She loosed a single arrow at the fleeing foe. The arrow turned to a jet of flame that struck the fell beast in the chest. Its screech of victory turned into a death rattle as it fell from the sky and struck the earth.

The pixies gathered around the somber women. The dryad had come out from her glen and sadly hung her head. No tears were shed as there was only grim duty now. They gathered the bodies together and began to prepare them. Mae fell to her knees beside Jon as she looked at the gaping hole through his belly. Closing her eyes, she raised her hands up and faced the sky. “And Rhiannon did not forsake Manawydan,” she intoned. Tears now streamed down her cheeks and fell like rain over Jon’s death wound. Twice she repeated the chant and as she intoned Manawydan the second time, the wound began to close. It was closed after the third time. As she started a fourth time, a shaft of sunlight surrounded her and Jon and with Manawydan, Jon took a breath. Mae smiled and sighed, “Thank you.” They all hugged Jon who started crying when he saw Katrin still laying there. And then he stopped. She was breathing!

Katrin sat up with a dreamlike look on her face. “Manawydan took Rhiannon into his grove and there they sat among the apple trees. Manawydan slept. And Rhiannon went forth with joy,” she said quietly. Kymeth, Mae, and Rae all looked at each other. How could she possibly have known this secret? How could she be alive now?

They all looked to the lifeless body of Murphy, who now seemed at peace.