Gregory Maguire_Wicked Years_02 by Son of a Witch

Grite. “I mean, speak in a language we can understand,” he clarified. But the storm, or Lurline within its might, didn’t oblige, and indeed, moments later the worst of the downpour was done, and the thunder shunted elsewhere.
    The Grite continued. “I have no reason to give comfort to mine enemy, but there you are. You may be villainous, but you are young, some of you, and perhaps might learn to repent. I’m told that Wizardic battalions are encamped on the banks of the Vinkus River. Find the Wizard’s forces and they will protect you. That’s my advice to you.”
    “The Wizard’s armies will protect us?” snapped Liir. “The Wizard of Oz is a menace!”
    “Of course he is. A despot, a suzerain, call it what you will. The boss. And you’ve abetted him in his campaign to wipe out the western resistance. This news will travel fast, my friends.” Every time he said the word friends, it sounded less friendly. “But take protection where you can. When the word of the death of Elphaba Thropp spreads through these hills, you’ll have a very difficult time of it. I won’t answer for what happens next. You’ve heard my advice. Heed it.”
    “I’m not giving myself up to any corps of the Wizard’s army,” said Liir. “If there are forces down the eastern side, we’ll keep to our plan to veer west, and take our chances through Kumbricia’s Pass. It’ll be a longer route but a safer one.”
    “Perhaps we’d better get going,” said Dorothy, nervously.
    “You had better go on,” agreed the Mountain Grite. “I won’t join a posse against you, but nor will I lie to my friends about what I’ve learned here today. The clouds are passing over. If you’ve intended to take the hairpin track down the western slope of Knobblehead Pike, you’ve overshot. You’ll have to back up. You won’t reach the river valley before dark. Shelter under a black willow; you’ll find a stand of them where the track levels out and circles a bit of highland swamp. You’ll be safe there.”
    “Thank you,” said Dorothy earnestly.
    “Don’t be a fool,” said Liir. “Thank him for what?”
    “You,” said the Grite to the Lion, “are a turncoat. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I’d be especially wary if I were you. Animals don’t take lightly to traitors. If you were more of a Lion, you’d know that.”
    “I did nothing!” said the Lion. “I was locked in the kitchen!” His tail twitched eight or ten times.
     
    T HE G RITE KEPT HIS WORD and ratted on them. Before the travelers had finished washing the next morning, a scouting party of Scrow appeared at the edge of the black willow grove. Riding bareback and nearly naked on their purple-white steeds, they looked like wild centaurs in the mist. Without a word but with considerable glower the Scrow contingent circled the grove. There, the travelers were kept loosely penned. Attempts to negotiate were fruitless; they had no language in common.
    The languages of Oz. Liir had never thought about them. The father tongue had always seemed universal; even Dorothy spoke without peculiar inflections or special difficulty. True, the dialect of the mountain clans, the Arjikis, was characterized by the growling of syllables halfway down the throat—but the difference had made little impression on Liir. He could still understand the Arjikis.
    So why would the isolated Mountain Grite speak the common tongue with clarity and effect, while the Scrow clung to a language only they understood?
    Right up to the end, the Witch had kept trying to teach the winged monkeys to speak, as if to be able to testify might save their lives someday. So much bound up in language…The language of spells themselves— spells, of all things! A way to order sounds to make things shift, reveal what is hidden, conceal what isn’t…
    He wished he had a skill for language. He wished he could spell magic as, with effort and increasing control, Elphaba had learned to do. He would bind the Scrow