The Wee Free Men

woman’s face. The eyes were gray now, but the pupils were like silver mirrors.
    I know what you are, said her Third Thoughts. You’re something that’s never learned anything. You don’t know anything about people. You’re just…a child that’s got old.
    “Want a sweetie?” she whispered.
    There was a shout behind her. She twisted in the Queen’s grip and saw Roland fighting for the hammer. As she watched, he turned desperately and raised the heavy thing over his head, knocking over the elf behind him.
    The Queen pulled her around savagely as the hammer fell. “Sweetie?” she hissed. “I’ll show you swe—”
    “Crivens! It’s the Quin! An’ she’s got oour kelda, the ol’ topher!”
    “Nae Quin! Nae Laird! Wee Free Men!”
    “I could murrrder a kebab!”
    “Get her!”
    Tiffany might have been the only person, in all the worlds that there are, to be happy to hear the sound of the Nac Mac Feegle.
    They poured out of the smashed nut. Some were still wearing bow ties. Some were back in their kilts. But they were all in a fighting mood and, to save time, were fighting with one another to get up to speed.
    The clearing…cleared. Real or dreams, the people could see trouble when it rolled toward them in a roaring, cursing, red-and-blue tide.
    Tiffany ducked out of the Queen’s grasp and hurried into the grasses to watch.
    Big Yan ran past, carrying a struggling full-sized elf over his head. Then he stopped suddenly and tossed it high over the clearing.
    “An’ away he goes, right on his heid! ” he yelled, then turned and ran back into the battle.
    The Nac Mac Feegle couldn’t be trodden on or squeezed. They worked in groups, running up one another’s backs to get high enough to punch an elf or, preferably, bash it with their heads. And once anyone was down, it was all over bar the kicking.
    There was some method in the way the Nac Mac Feegle fought. For example, they always chose the biggest opponent because, as Rob Anybody said later, “It makes them easier to hit, ye ken.” And they simply didn’t stop. It was that which wore people down. It was like being attacked by wasps with fists.
    It took them a little while to realize that they’d run out of people to fight. They went on fighting one another for a bit anyway, since they’d come all this way, and then settled down and began to go through the pockets of the fallen in case there was any loose change.
    Tiffany stood up.
    “Ach, weel, no’ a bad job though I says it mysel’,” said Rob Anybody, looking around. “A very neat fight, an’ we didna e’en ha’ to resort to usin’ poetry.”
    “How did you get into the nut?” said Tiffany. “I mean, it was…a nut!”
    “Only way we could find in,” said Rob Anybody. “It’s got to be a way that fits. ’Tis difficult work, navigatin’ in dreams.”
    “Especially when ye’re a wee bittie sloshed,” said Daft Wullie, grinning broadly.
    “What? You’ve been…drinking?” said Tiffany. “I’ve been facing the Queen and you’ve been in a pub ?”
    “Ach, no!” said Rob Anybody. “Ye ken that dream wi’ the big party? When you had the pretty frock an’ a’? We got stuck in it.”
    “But I killed the drome!”
    Rob looked a little shifty. “Weeeel,” he said, “we didna get oout as easily as you. It took us a wee while.”
    “Until we finished all the drink,” said Daft Wullie helpfully.
    Rob glared at him. “Ye didna ha’ to put it like that!” he snapped.
    “You mean the dream keeps on going?” said Tiffany.
    “If ye’re thirsty enough,” said Daft Wullie. “An’ it wasna just the drink—there was can-a-pays as well.”
    “But I thought if you ate or drank in a dream, you stayed there!” said Tiffany.
    “Aye, for most creatures,” said Rob Anybody. “Not for us, though. Hooses, banks, dreams, ’tis a’ the same to us. There’s nothing we canna get in or oot of.”
    “Except maybe pubs,” said Big Yan.
    “Oh, aye,” said Rob Anybody cheerfully. “Gettin’ oot o’ pubs sometimes causes us a cerrrtain amount o’ difficulty, I’ll grant ye that.”
    “And where did the Queen go?” she said.
    “Ach, she did an offski as soon as we arrived,” said Rob Anybody. “An’ so should we, kelda, afore the dream changes.” He nodded at Wentworth. “Is this the wee bairn? Ach, what a noseful o’ bogeys!”
    “Wanna sweetie!” shouted Wentworth, on automatic candy pilot.
    “Weeel, ye canna ha’ none!” shouted Rob Anybody.