“Portals?”
“How he brought his people in that night. Wizard’s magic, my people have no need for such,” Kyri said. Her wings rustled beneath her shift. “We know of them, though, from old. Moments before the castle was attacked we felt magic. Massive amounts of it. I’ve never felt so much magic in one place. That and the death of the Marshals guarding us was what warned us.”
Her gaze went to Morgan in apology. It was his people who’d died for her and her people that night. If not for them she might very well have lost more.
“You can feel that?” Oryan asked.
Slowly she nodded. “Both. Although only the passing of those I know well unless I’m close. I knew those that guarded me, as you should know those who might give their lives to protect yours. Magic as well, as a feathering or a prickling of the skin. That night, the magic seemed to explode over us.”
Her eyes were more blue than green and shadowed, haunted by the deaths of that night.
All of them were. For a moment they were silent.
Morgan thought of the reports he’d received in the months before Caernarvon fell, his mouth tightening.
Looking at Morgan, seeing his expression, Oryan shook his head. “Hindsight is the clearest sight of all, Morgan, you know that. It’s always easiest to look behind. Neither of us saw it coming. Forward is what we need now.”
Even so, Morgan shook his head. No matter how he looked at it, though, there had been no evidence, only speculation, rumor…nothing that could’ve warranted invading Haerold’s castle.
Finally, he nodded. “He was planning this for some time.”
“Evidently,” Oryan said. “With some help from his wizards, I imagine.”
Oryan looked to Kyri for confirmation.
“From what I know,” she agreed. “It would have taken a wizard to open each portal.”
Morgan said, his alarm growing, “What’s to prevent them from doing it again?”
“They can, of course,” Kyri said, but held up her hand for him to wait, searching her memories, the memories of all the Queens and Kings of the Fair who’d come before her. “But they must know where the portal will open. Exactly. A guess, even a scrying will not do, as one patch of forest might look similar to another. It’s better yet if you have a wizard at each end. Since they don’t know where Oryan will be from one day to the next he should be safe enough.”
“Is there any way to prevent them from opening?” Morgan asked.
Slowly Kyri shook her head. “That I don’t know. It’s not our magic.”
Oryan said, “At least one mystery is solved then, we know how they did it. So, we learn and move on. I’m more concerned now with why Haerold’s forces haven’t moved.”
Nodding, Morgan said, “I’ll see what I can find out.”
Chapter Twelve
Every inch of Fairy lands was known to Kyri, it was bred in her blood and bone – even those they’d ceded to the race of men – as it was to some extent in that of all her people. They lived the land, the forest, they knew its rhythms and cadences and its wounds. They made their homes in it, found sustenance in it, played, lived and loved in it. It had its dangers, the big forest cats were as much a danger to the Fair as they were to the deer and the birds. Even wolves could be a threat to an unwary Fairy on the ground, coming in low, fast and silent as they did. In that the smaller creatures of the forest, the birds, squirrels and such were their friends as well, their early warning signal.
Here those creatures were silent, a sure sign of a predator or predators loose in the forest.
This wasn’t a mountain cat, nor wolves, not as Kyri knew them, for there was something about this silence that was confused, uncertain. Those of the forest didn’t know what these things were. Mountain cats, wolves, even men, these were all known things to the creatures that lived here, these that came were not those.
Kyri tightened her bowstring, gliding through the treetops not quite as silently as the great owls although she could, but quietly even so, the two other members of the patrol flying with her nearly as silently as well. Amid the rustling leaves such a level of silence wasn’t necessary.
Patrols ran now through every Fairy forest as they hadn’t for all the years of Oryan’s reign and the Fair had thought never would again. Now they needed to learn and remember once more the lay of the land so that they should know it as well as the creatures that lived it daily and also to watch for those dangers that they did know.
These were none of those.
A chill went through Kyri as she watched the creatures run through the forest, upright like men, but in a loose pack like wolves and as swiftly. Even from so far away, she caught the faint sharp scent of them. The memory of that single encounter with one of them in Caernarvon was enough.
Hunters.
In Fairy lands.
Her mouth tightened. They couldn’t be allowed to remain. Nor could any be allowed to escape with knowledge of this place. Haerold could never learn there were Fairy here.
The three of them dove as one, closing as they twisted and turned around the trees. At the last minute Kyri’s wings flared and she fired, picking off the Hunter at the end. The wolf-thing she now knew Haerold called a Hunter tumbled and died.
At her left Miiri did the same, but her shot missed as the pack instantly split, diving, leaping or rolling away in search of cover.
Tirol gave a cry and swooped around a tree, narrowly escaping one of the Hunters as it turned and leaped from the cover of the brush.
On a wingtip, Kyri turned and rolled, fired and hit the Hunter as Tirol gained height. It howled in response, wounded, but not dead.
The hum of a bowstring and a yelp to her left told her Miiri had at least wounded another.
Kyri suspected they would only be more dangerous wounded, reverting to their animal instincts, but with human cunning.
Her nerves hummed with tension.
These Hunters were fast….frighteningly fast, and smart enough to seek cover and wait until Tirol had flown within range. As smart as men, as fast as wolves…
Three were left and at least one was wounded, maybe two.
Far more cautiously, Miiri and Tirol circled, searching for sign, the twitch or tremble of a branch, a smaller animal breaking from cover. Kyri did the same. She spotted a movement in the bushes below and sent a warning to the other two as a Hunter feinted and another burst out of hiding. Miiri’s sharp eyes caught the first and fired. It howled and fell.
Kyri’s own arrow narrowly missed the second.
Then there was a blur in the corner of her eye and she twisted automatically to try to avoid it. It still hit her hard, if not where it intended, its teeth snapped at her arm, its back feet clawed at her. With its weight and the distraction, it was enough to pull her out of her climb. They tumbled and dropped. She released her bow and pulled her belt knife even as they fell. A quick slash of the blade across its belly and the thing released her, but not before doing damage to her wing. Pain seared like fire.
Pulling out of the dive, she tucked, tumbled and rolled to her feet, letting go of her belt knife in favor of drawing her sword.
Here on the ground she would need reach and something against her back if she were going to survive. She couldn’t fly, the injured wing wouldn’t bear her weight.
She raced for a tree that speared up from between the rocks, hearing pursuit as one of the Hunters closed on her through the brush, Miiri and Tirol darting through the trees in pursuit. Their bowstrings hummed as they fired.
The Hunter or Hunters were quick. And closing.
Fairy were quick, though, too.
A leap and Kyri turned in mid-air, planted her feet on another tree, bounced off of it as the Hunter closing on her snarled with fury. It scrambled below her as she flipped in mid-air to land on her feet on the rock with the tree at her back.
Already it was leaping….
Kyri spun on her heels, both hands around the hilt of her sword as she swung, taking its head, duc
king as its momentum shot it over her, drenching her in it’s blood.
Tirol got the last, even as it raced toward her.
For a moment the three of them stood silently, listening to the forest, trying to get their wind back.
The real pain hadn’t hit yet, Kyri knew, but what there was was bad enough. It only burned a little, now. Later she knew it would hurt a great deal more.
She looked to Tirol and nodded at the claw marks on his leg that seeped blood.
“You’ll have to come to me,” she said.
“Kyri,” Tirol protested as he eyed her own wounds.
It was a pity Healers couldn’t heal themselves, she thought with a sigh. Instead she would have to wait until she reached Galan or he reached her. As he was aiding Oryan and Morgan, that would be a time.
She looked at him. “I need you in the sky, on patrol and healthy. We all do.”
For a moment she looked over the carnage they’d strewn through the woods and thought of the carnage that would have been if these had reached the inhabited regions of the forest. She shuddered.
In time the forest would reclaim those that had fallen. The blood would soak into the ground and provide sustenance of a sort for the trees.
Miiri moved behind her, pressed a damp cloth to Kyri’s wounds. It stung. She hissed in a breath, drawing the whistle out to summon a horse.
Even so, even with Miiri’s patching, Tirol had to help her onto the horse’s back.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him, assured them both, seeing their concern. “Up. We need more patrols with such as these loose in the forest. Go, watch, but don’t engage until help arrives.”
It was a long ride back.
Chapter Thirteen
Morgan bent over the map, marking the current positions of the newest cells of the rebellion for Kyri to see so she would be able to tell her people where to find them once she arrived. The map he was using could have been better. It wasn’t helped by the fact that Kyri and her people didn’t visualize things the way men did, nor did they know town and place names, for them their landmarks were rivers and streams, mountains and hills.
The good news was that the rebellion was growing even as Haerold cracked down all the harder on the populace. He was practically driving people to their cause.
Across the tent from Morgan, Oryan read the reports Morgan had gathered and then compared them to the maps they had, poor as they were.
That information only hardened Oryan’s resolve. If Haerold continued as he did, the farmers would starve to pay their taxes, especially once Haerold had conscripted every able body in the village, leaving none behind but the old and the very young to harvest the crops. And what was he doing with those he conscripted?
His army sat in the heartland and added to the strain on the farmers there.
The maps themselves were another thing entirely.
Throwing up his hands in frustration, Oryan snapped, “This is impossible. Morgan, isn’t there any way we can get better maps?”
Morgan said, “Next trip I’ll see what I can find, Oryan.”
He already knew, as did Oryan, that the task was nearly impossible. The best maps of the Kingdom had been in the castle at Caernarvon during the attack and the fires, and were most likely in ashes. Those that weren’t had probably been taken by Haerold himself when he’d abandoned the city. They were likely in Haerold’s fortress. As for mapmakers… Fled or in hiding. Few wished to work for Haerold. The price of a mistake was far too high.
Waving it off and shaking his head, Oryan said, “Never mind, Morgan. We’ll just have to manage.”
They’d lost a great deal when the castle had fallen. Sometimes Oryan worried they’d lost too much. He shook the thought away.
Geoffrey stepped inside and held the door flaps back.
“Lady Kyri, your Highness,” he said.
There was an odd expression on his face, clear distress.
Kyri stepped into the tent with Galan at her heels and Morgan’s heart clenched a little as he looked at her.
She looked like she had tangled with…. a Hunter.
A bruise marred one smooth cheek, there were healed cuts on her arm, the skin still bright pink, and her wings weren’t folded neatly beneath her shift as they usually were. One was clearly injured, the crystalline feathers stripped away in places.
His normally serene face watchful, Galan eyed her from behind a little worriedly.
Despite the bruising, her aqua eyes were as clear and lovely as ever, but she moved stiffly.
“Kyri,” Morgan said. Something in his chest tightened at the sight of her wounded as he straightened in alarm. The urge to go to her, to touch her, was nearly too strong to resist. It was an effort just to keep his voice reasonably level. “What happened?”
Something about the concern in Morgan’s eyes warmed Kyri a little, somehow eased some of the residual pain. Galan was a good Healer, but he was still learning to be the great one he would someday be. She suspected sadly that he would learn far faster and under far more trying circumstances than they’d anticipated.
Looking up at the sound of Morgan’s voice, at the concern and tension in it, Oryan dropped the reports on the table and shot hurriedly to his feet. “Kyri?”
With a shake of her head, a wave and a smile of thanks for the worry in both their eyes, she said, “I’m well enough. Healing. I was out on a routine patrol when we ran into some Hunters.”
“Hunters,” Oryan said alarmed. “In Fairy lands?”
“But you’re all right?” Morgan asked.
It pained him to see her hurt.
She nodded and shrugged it off. “The marks will fade in a day or two more. We Fairy don’t scar much.”
Morgan frowned a little, his eyes going to the paler skin that encircled both her wrists.
She followed his gaze. A shadow touched her eyes as her gaze lifted to meet his. She took a small breath.
Ah, that. Kyri’s breath caught. This would hurt. It was a painful reminder of old times.
“Cold iron,” she said, softly.
So that part of the stories of the Fairy was also true. Iron did burn them.
Morgan winced reflexively as Oryan’s mouth, too, went thin.
Shackles, she meant. Morgan closed his eyes for a moment. Iron shackles.
Men had done that, had put those scars on her. His people. The thought of someone putting her in chains made Morgan’s vision go dark with anger.
There was no need for her to explain.
While the Fairy were a lighthearted and mischievous folk by nature, it wasn’t in them to deliberately harm another that anyone could say, save to defend their own.
Unfortunately, neither of the two men could say the same about their own folk.
Fairy raeds aside – nothing more than mischievous children being mischievous, although such raeds had been used as an excuse for violence on the part of men more than once – there had been many times when Fairy and men hadn’t lived together peacefully. There were always the rumors of Fairy gold…and then there were the Fairy women. Like Kyri. Men had gone into the forests many times with fire and cold iron to take what and who they could.
“Save for these, I wasn’t much harmed that day. It was long ago,” Kyri said, holding the memories of fright and pain at bay, keeping her voice light. “You changed that, Oryan, by outlawing it and you, Morgan, by your enforcement of those laws. This is why we fight beside you.”
Those had been only some among the many reasons she fought beside them. No other King in her memory, or the memories of those who had come before her, had done so.
By those two actions alone, they’d changed much about the attitudes of men toward her folk. Attitudes that still held so far as she could tell.
It hadn’t been a hard law to enforce, Morgan thought, even before he had come to know the Fairy as well as he did now. They were essentially a gentle people, although fierce enough to defend their own and the forests they cared for.
Morgan looked to the swords on both their hips.
“Not steel,” Kyri said, seeing his look, “although we can handle that better than iron, if it is wrapped well, but these are made of Fairy silver and sharp as a lion’s tooth.”
“But you’re all right, now?” Oryan insisted.
“I’m fine. I will be flying a little more slowly for some little time…”
“A week,” Galan said, firmly.
Her mouth twitched in amusement. “A week, then.”
Morgan said, “What were you doing out on patrol?”
Casting a quick look at Oryan, she said, “No offense, Oryan, but among the Fair it’s held that there’s nothing the Queen or King doesn’t do that the least of their people do.” She grinned mischievously, with a laugh and a glance to Galan. “Just less of it.”
“No offense taken,” Oryan said, smiling.
There were times when he wished he, too, could be fighting, but as much as he envied her that freedom, this was the reason Morgan wouldn’t allow it. If Gawain had been older, they might have taken the chance, until then though…
“Hunters,” Morgan said, “that deep in the forest?”
There could only be one reason Hunters were in the deeper forest.
His eyes met Kyri’s and he saw a matching worry there in the shadows in them, hidden beneath the lightness.
Oryan hadn’t missed the implication of it either. “Haerold is searching for your people.”
With a flicker of her brows, a small wave and a sigh, Kyri said, “We’ve increased our patrols. It was one of the first things I did after Haerold’s attack on Caernarvon. It’s all we can do. As you do. It was inevitable. Haerold would never tolerate our autonomy as you did, Oryan, any more than some of your predecessors.”
It was disturbing news all the same but Kyri was right. It had been inevitable that Haerold would go looking for the Fairy. That didn’t mean Oryan had to like it.
Still, there was nothing that they could do that Kyri wasn’t already doing, not without more men. Those men were coming but it would take time to get them trained, to get them effective.
Song of the Fairy Queen Page 10
