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Walk the Wild With Me

Page 20

by Rachel Atwood


  A bubble of panic rose to his throat. “Tuck?” he whispered, trying not to waken anyone who needed to sleep longer.

  Nothing changed.

  Where could the old man have gone? The guilt of failed responsibility gnawed at Nick’s gut. Knowing that Tuck was truly Abbot Mæson and needed to return to the abbey as soon as King John lifted his exile made him anxious to ensure his mentor’s well-being.

  A rustle of movement drew his attention to the verge of the clearing. Green on green in that shift of ground cover and low-hanging branches. No help at all. Most of the Woodwose wore cloth dyed with green leaves, nuts, and berries and fixed with iron salts discarded by the blacksmith. Whatever was handy. They blended into their surroundings well. If they stood still, he doubted he could find them until they wanted to be seen. Even Tuck had adopted the trick of fading into the forest and becoming no more visible than any other collection of branches and twigs just like his Huntsman relatives.

  The blob of mixed greens resolved into the bent and gnarled form of Robin Goodfellow. The short being twisted his hose and scratched, then righted his tunic.

  Nick realized the man had completed his morning ritual, and his own needs pressed hard in his abdomen.

  “Back thataway.” Robin cocked his thumb over his shoulder. “Make sure you stay downstream and not directly into the creek. Let Mother Earth absorb your waste and cleanse it before it poisons the fish. Besides, Lady Ardenia don’t like us fouling her stream.” He reared his head back and laughed mightily. “Go ahead. No need for shyness. I’ll wait for ye here. Tuck, who speaks for the Green Man whilst he sleeps, says I’m to guide you two to the road this way.” He pointed in the opposite direction of the makeshift latrine.

  Nick nudged Henry awake with his toe. Henry lifted his tousled fair head and blinked sleepily.

  “Is it dawn already?” he asked petulantly.

  “Aye, and then some,” Robin replied. “Shift yer arse and get moving. You’ll be missed and have a heap of explaining to do when you get home.”

  “Food?” Henry asked as he rolled to his knees and inched his way upward, stretching every joint along the way.

  “Jerked venison and a bit of porridge will have to do you. Now move. The sun awaits no man.”

  Before long, the three of them wove their way through the underbrush toward . . . Nick didn’t know for sure which direction they followed. The thick trees and wandering streams obscured the sun and changed the angle of the light every dozen or so steps. Maybe they wandered in circles.

  Maybe this was yet another trap set by the Wild Folk to keep outsiders so confused they could not tell the sheriff their location.

  Nick’s feet hurt, as if the forest objected to each step he took and stabbed him. His sandals rubbed tightly around his ankles and heels and flopped loosely around his toes. Henry also walked as if his feet hurt, shifting from the outside edge to the inside and not resting either foot on the ground any longer than necessary.

  “On May Day, Sir Philip Marc called you ‘Locksley,’” Nick said when their walk did not look like it would end soon. He needed to occupy his mind so that he didn’t think so hard about his hurts.

  “A long story not worth your time,” Robin grunted.

  For an instant, the form of the tall archer in Lincoln green overrode the short gnomish figure.

  Nick blinked, and blinked again, and the two personalities remained. He had to look away so that the double image didn’t make him dizzy. Not once since he began carrying Elena’s pitcher had he glimpsed both sides of the Wild Folk for so long. He patted his sleeve to make sure the little goddess remained with him. The comforting lump fit neatly into his cupped hand as if she had moved her container to caress his touch.

  “We have time,” Nick reminded Robin. “Please lighten this journey with your tale.”

  The gnome sighed, and his human form sank back into his shorter self. “You’ve a right to know some of it at least since Elena chose you as her companion.”

  “Does your story have something to do with the abandoned castle on the far hill?”

  “Aye. ’Twas my home in my misbegotten youth.”

  “And . . .”

  “And I was the younger son, sent to study with the monks in yon abbey. My role was supposed to be clerk and adviser to my older brother, and maybe even serve the king.”

  “So you learned to read and write and add up a few numbers.”

  “That and more. I learned of lands far away and sloe-eyed enchantresses. I longed to feel desert winds on my face and smell exotic spices in the markets. So, when Pope Eugenius called for Crusaders, I took the Cross.”

  He bowed his head, and his right hand twitched as if the old habit of making the sign of the cross reasserted itself.

  “That was a long time ago,” Nick replied, remembering Brother Luke’s tales of his own holy journey.

  “Aye.”

  “And yet you were not among the Wild Folk sixty years ago.”

  “Like Lyndon, your Brother Luke, I got lost on the way home. I hired out as a mercenary for a time. Then I spent too many years studying the people of Greece and Italy. I lingered too long in the high mountains and lost myself in the vineyards of France while I waited for the right time to return home.” His voice trailed off into distant memory. The archer replaced the gnome completely. Robin of Locksley retained the unlined face and clear eye of a man in his prime.

  Henry gawked as he, too, could now see the transformation.

  “And?”

  “And one day I woke up and knew I had to return to England. Only I had been gone so long, nigh on ten years. In that time both my father and older brother had died, leaving no heirs. King Henry that was had declared me dead and the family title and honors forfeit. He decided not to bestow them on a favorite. The castle was abandoned, burned; many of the stones went into new buildings in Nottingham.”

  “How did you end up . . . as one of the Wild Folk?” Henry asked. He edged closer to the archer, fingers twitching against his thigh as he so often did when counting the rhythm of a plainsong.

  Nick wondered if his friend had been inspired by Will Scarlett and now composed a ballad in his head.

  “And how does Sir Philp Marc know you as the long-lost heir?” Nick asked.

  “The sheriff thinks me the grandson of the long-lost heir. As for the rest? A warlock’s curse. He’d taken up residence in the castle ruins and didn’t like my attempts to claim my patrimony.” The archer became the gnome once more, mouth tightly closed, and his long, warty nose touched his chin.

  “What of the warlock now?”

  “Long dead. Look over there, the light is brighter. We approach the road north of Locksley Abbey.” Robin pointed forward and to their right.

  “Hush!” Nick whispered as a new sound reached him. He knew from experience the grunted exclamations as Mammoch rooted in a circle around her prey.

  Twenty-Six

  “How dare he desert me in my time of need?” Queen Mab screeched. Lightning crackled around her fingertips. Her hair was red today, to match her mood. She’d chosen her yellowish white gown to make her look like the fire she conjured.

  The color combinations did not complement each other.

  Jane continued plying her clumsy iron needle, not nearly as fine as the silver one she’d broken, but just as poisonous to the faeries. She cowered on her stool, keeping her head down and her stitches neat. Anything to avoid the queen’s attention and, therefore, the blame for Bracken’s absence.

  One of the courtiers stepped forward uttering soothing words. “He hasn’t abandoned you,” she said quietly, bowing and scraping, keeping her head down and never meeting the queen’s gaze. “We believe he was kidnapped by one of the forest monsters or possibly one of the Wild Folk when he went to check his traps.”

  The lady beckoned a young male forward. Someone new to the qu
een’s favor. He bowed deeply and offered his arm to Mab.

  The queen batted her eyelashes and blushed. She took his arm with a practiced hesitancy, then she led the boy toward her private chamber.

  Jane released her pent-up breath. She had time to put down her needle and close her eyes.

  The vast hall grew quiet. Moments later, or was it hours? Or even days? Jane was startled awake by a susurration of sound. Faery wings had begun fluttering again.

  Mab emerged from her chamber still clinging to the young courtier’s arm. He hid repeated yawns behind his hand. Mab’s hair had calmed to blond and she had changed her gown to a soothing green bit of froth that floated around her when she set her wings to flight. “Music! I must have music for dancing,” she proclaimed.

  Strummed strings sent a sprightly tune wafting into every crevice of the cavern. Couples joined and began flitting through the patterns of a dance.

  A male with wings shaped like a bright yellow butterfly’s and clothes to match, approached his queen, a sad smile on his face. “Your Majesty, I fear that Bracken may have fallen into a trap created by one of the lesser gods of the Wild Folk. Something predatory.” He bowed his head as if he mourned a lost friend, but he continued to peer at his queen through slanted eyes that did not engage her gaze. His feet drifted restlessly, as if ready to set into the next dance, or flee her wrath, whichever mood she exhibited next.

  A wary one, Jane thought. Rightfully so.

  Mab did not respond.

  He edged backward, finger-length by finger-length.

  “How dare you speak kindly of the traitor!” Queen Mab slapped the butterfly faery across the cheek with a crack like thunder. Her rings, turned inward, gouged his face, leaving a gaping wound behind—much like the sky when split by lightning—that ran from the corner of the male’s eye to his mouth.

  He clapped a hand to his face, then gasped as yellow blood seeped through his fingers. He withdrew his hand and stared at the seeping mess. His knees wilted. He tried to remain upright and failed, his eyes rolling upward in faint.

  All of the court danced away from him and from their queen, circling and weaving in and out of the pattern.

  Jane had not seen that kind of violence since coming here. She wasn’t even certain that faeries could bleed, let alone bleed the same color as their skin and clothes.

  Slowly, she set aside her mending and rose from her stool.

  You don’t see me, she whispered, hoping that the queen’s attention remained fixed upon her fallen courtier. With slow, even steps she walked to the spring that drizzled down the far wall and gathered into a stone basin. Overturned and upright cups lay scattered around the cool refreshment, as well as soft towels for cleaning sticky fingers or mud-stained clothing that a spell could not banish. She soaked one of the towels and turned to face the sneering queen.

  Mab’s hair turned red again, as did her gown, no longer floaty but heavy and dragging the ground. Her fingers continued to flare with lightning and her face withered into the visage of an ancient crone.

  “Majesty, may I help him?” Jane asked, careful to keep her face lowered and her shoulders hunched in deference.

  “If the sight of a traitor’s blood bothers you so much.” Mab spat at the shoes of her closest lady-in-waiting.

  The handmaiden curled her lip in disgust. She shook her foot to dislodge the gob and failed. Surreptitiously, she kicked off her shoes and melted into the dancing courtiers, staying a foot off the ground and pulling her feet up beneath her hem to hide their naked state.

  “Take him elsewhere. I do not wish to see him for a while. And if Bracken dares return, do not allow him through the portal. He’s been gone long enough to be tainted by humans. He will smell of their mortality.” Mab flicked her hands dismissively.

  Jane forced herself to remain still and show no sign of shock. I am mortal still, aren’t I?

  Otherwise she’d never be able to return home to her John.

  Carefully, she went to the fallen butterfly faery and pressed the cool, wet cloth to his cheek.

  His eyes fluttered open and took in Jane’s placid countenance. His face and lower jaw worked as if he needed to speak.

  Jane held one finger to her lips. She noted the barest flicker of acknowledgment in his eyes.

  Still pressing the towel firmly against his face with one hand, Jane helped him to his feet and led him in the opposite direction from where Queen Mab had exited.

  When they were in a separate chamber barely big enough to contain them both, she asked, “Can I ever be mortal again?”

  The butterfly faery shook his head. “I’m sorry. She will never let you go. Even if she did, I don’t think you will ever be but as you are.”

  * * *

  Hilde’s nose twitched with a rancid odor that made her think of the pigs running wild at home in the village. She tried to roll over and ignore the smell. It was her and Dom’s job to round up the animals before they ran feral and out of reach of the villagers. Once a pig found freedom in the Royal Forest, ordinary serfs could not hunt them.

  Dom had a way with animals. They listened to his soft crooning voice and calmed, recognizing him as safe. None of them ran from Dom.

  Hilde could capture the pig as well as her twin could, but she didn’t do it often. Dom just did it better, and without thinking. She had to work at staying calm and extending it to the animal. She preferred catching chickens and rabbits that couldn’t kill her.

  The smell persisted. But the sound of pig hooves on the turf or slamming through the groundcover hadn’t disturbed her.

  With her first movement, she had a sense of falling and immediately righted herself.

  How did she get into this tree?

  Memory slammed into her. Tears stung in her eyes once more. Dom was gone. Never again would she run with him in search of the big sow that would provide many a suckling for meat, enough to feed the whole family for months to come.

  But the stench of pig still irritated her nose.

  Why didn’t she hear the snorting and whuffing noises of a pig rooting through the underbrush for food?

  Cautiously, she looked right and left as far as her neck would turn. Her chin brushed the damp neckline of her robe that she’d drawn up over her head to ward off some of the chill.

  The odor and the sound of a pig rooting around the base of her tree continued.

  With a deep breath for courage, she shifted slightly to her right, keeping as much of her as possible in the crook of the massive oak branch. Her eyes shied away from the massive sow below her. The sharp tusks curled upward, level with her snout. A boar’s teeth would curl upward to his ears. The smaller female teeth were still long enough to rip her in two.

  Her throat closed in panic just as she was about to swallow. That sent her coughing loudly and repeatedly, painfully dragging in new air between each panicky spasm. A knife stabbing her between the shoulder blades couldn’t hurt worse.

  The pig looked up. If a beast that large could smile, this one did, mouth gaping, tusks waggling up and down.

  Hilde’s coughing eased, and she swallowed the last of them, fighting to find some moisture, any moisture, in her mouth. At last she swallowed easily and cleanly, her throat working properly once again.

  Then slowly, amazingly, unbelievably, the sow stretched and thinned, limbs growing longer but retaining their wickedly sharp hooves. And she stood up, half human and half pig.

  Hilde gripped whatever bark her fingers could latch onto.

  “Mine,” the pig woman snarled, her mouth—still with those murderous tusks—mere inches below Hilde’s protective branch.

  “Mammoch, give off!” A man wearing a green tunic brighter than the surrounding groundcover ran out of the trees, a longbow strung, and an arrow nocked. “The Green Man, Lord of the Forest ordered you away from his friends.”

  Miraculo
usly, behind the man ran Dom’s friend Nick and another boy of similar age. They fetched up a bare arm’s length away.

  The pig woman turned awkwardly from her upright position to face the newcomer. “She hides not among the Sacred Stones. She lives not in the Woodwose village. Therefore, she is fair game. Mine!”

  “Not while I can release this arrow with a flint broadhead that will penetrate your tough hide all the way to your shriveled little heart,” the archer replied.

  Hilde dared shift her gaze from to the boys to the pig, Mammoch, the man had named her. The boys looked as pale and frozen in place as she felt.

  Mammoch, she knew that name. Chills coursed through her of the lurid tale to frighten children into staying in bed once the sun set. The nightmare made manifest.

  Mammoch dropped to all fours and shifted from almost human to full wild sow. She turned and charged the archer, tusks gleaming, little eyes eager with anticipation.

  * * *

  Stay! Elena commanded Nick. Face her down. She shies away from a direct challenge.

  Nick gulped and kept his feet in place. He looked toward Hilde where she cowered in the nook of the tree rather than look into the murderous red eyes of Mammoch.

  The instant he looked away, Mammoch changed direction, shifting ever so slightly to pass Robin and rip out Nick’s guts.

  Robin loosed an arrow. The taut bowstring sang. The arrow sped faster than Nick’s eye could follow. The broad head embedded itself into the sow’s spine.

  Nick heard the thunk and scrape as the arrow made contact with bone.

  Mammoch slowed, but still she plunged forward.

  Nick backed up instinctively, not quite running backward. A hand’s breadth and then an arm’s length of distance gaped between him and the Goddess of the Hunted.

 

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