The Kings of the Seven Bells by Marti Talbott

Author:Marti Talbott [Talbott, Marti]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: clean romance, epic fantasy, Romantic Fantasy, Romance
Publisher: MT Creations
Published: 2019-09-28T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

NERRATEL THOUGHT HE was hearing things and at first, he could not discern in which direction the giggling was coming from. It was definitely giggling, women’s giggling to be precise, and decidedly coming from more than one woman. The giggling turned to laughter as he slowly turned around searching the trees for the origin. When he could not find them, he demanded, “Show yourselves!”

While he expected to see women, he did not expect to see women like these. From top to bottom, they could hardly be thought of as beautiful. They were not altogether unsightly, just different. The oldest had black hair, green eyes instead of blue, and thick bushy eyebrows that formed a straight line across her brow with no break in between. The other had the facial features of an adult, but the body of a nine or ten-year-old. Her blonde hair had not yet turned red. On their foreheads, they bore no mark at all, not over their left eye nor over their right. As well, they wore odd frocks made of a strange cloth that did not have the shine of women’s familiar silk garments. Atop their white frocks, they wore blue bib aprons the length of which was the same as their frocks, stopping just above their high-top shoes. More unusual still was their hair. One side was long and straight, but the other side was short and swept back.

Lasun gasped, “Lowlanders!”

“Lowlanders? Not hardly,” the woman-child said in a slightly high-pitched voice. She boldly walked up to Lasun’s horse and began to pat the side of its neck. “This horse is my favorite, but you may ride it.”

Lasun could not hide his discomfort when the woman child came near him and urged his horse to move forward.

She looked a little disappointed when she said, “We have not come to harm you,”

“Who are you?” Nerratel asked.

The fully grown woman with the odd eyebrows answered, “I am Binna and she is my sister, Artilly.”

While Artilly had yet to take her perplexed look off of Lasun, Binna seemed coy and bashful in front of Nerratel. Slowly, Binna stretched out her finger and pointed at him. “I choose you. You have come to marry me, right? We have waited a very long time. Years and years.”

“Marry you?” a shocked Nerratel asked. “No, we have come to find the seven bells.”

“Of course you have,” said Binna. “That’s what they all come for.”

Lasun asked, “How many others have come before us?”

Artilly finally went to stand beside her sister before she answered, “Many, many others. Some find the bells and some do not.”

“Yet, you know where they are hidden?” Nerratel asked.

With her fingers, Artilly began to twist a lock of the long side of her hair. “Of course we know. We are the ones that hide them. But first the wedding and then the bells.”

Nerratel was growing frustrated. “And if I do not marry Binna?”

“But you must, for we know the riddles,” Binna answered.

“Treachery,” Lasun muttered. “We found this bell without a riddle and we shall find the rest on our own as well.

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