by Tara Maya
“What choice did we have? We could not magic them back and forth as easily as you Aelfae.”
Vessia shrugged. What point was there in debating it now? Her people had lost the War. With the Aelfae gone, the humans would ruin the world as they liked.
She gestured, inviting Vio to climb onto one of back of one of the ewes. Bemused, he did so.
“If I had known your plan, I would have kept the riding blankets and hoops,” he said.
“It is not necessary. I will tell the sheep where to go, and they will take us there.”
He shook his head, muttering, “Fae.”
Vessia was not a thought-eater, like Nangi. But the thread of Vio’s thought was so clear, she picked it up easily.
At least she did not try to fly in front of my men, he thought. Too much more strangeness from her, and the people will make me exile her from the tribehold. Or turn against me altogether.
That’s when it struck her: he was ashamed of her.
The taste of his shame was ash in her mouth.
Dindi
As always, when Dindi finished dancing, she equivocated about what she saw. However, Umbral didn’t mind, or possibly didn’t even notice. The break from travel put in him a better mood, even after they resumed their traipse across the Boglands.
She was still his captive, though their truce held. It was not so different traveling with him than it had been traveling with her own clanclatch, a thought which bothered her when it occurred. True, he did not regale her with comical stories and gossip as Tamio had on the journey from the Corn Hills to the Hidden Woods. Nor did he babble endlessly about diseases and animals, as her friend in Yellow Bear, Gwenika, had done when they had traveled together to the Vast of Blue Waters. Mostly, Umbral was grim and silent. Sometimes, for no good reason, he was furious and frightening.
But one morning, when the day painted the sky a particularly stunning blue, Umbral flashed a mischievous smile.
“The sky was not always blue, you know,” he confided in a stage whisper.
Catching his mood, she whispered back. “What color was it? And why are we whispering?”
“It used to be white, like an unpainted pot,” he whispered back. “There’s a secret History that is danced about it.”
“I’ve never seen that History danced.”
“I cannot dance it for you right now, but I can tell you the tale. And I suppose there is no need to whisper, since we are the only ones in earshot.” He stopped whispering; his deep voice rumbled over the grassy field. Umbral walked, while she rode Shadow. Beneath his air of rascality prowled a somber tone.
“When the Aelfae first climbed up from the deep, into Faearth, which then was new born, they found a dark, empty world, a blight. They used their magic to imbue this inert foam with things that bloom and things that creep, with hares and pears, and spruce and moose, and cats and corn.
“In those days, the sky was not blue, but white, and sheep had wings—”
“Sheep? Wings?” Dindi laughed.
“Yes, wings! Both rams and ewes. Alert, alone, Cero Skylord shepherded his winged sheep across the bowl of sky. Their fleeces, when shorn, gave clouds to Day; their horns gave stars to Night. But he often lost them because their wool’s hue, shirts pale as bone, blended with the skull-white roof of their keep. The poor, lost sheep would flit about, forlorn, until Cero found them and set them right. To ease his task, he painted the sky blue.”
“So that’s the secret, then,” said Dindi. “I might have known you’d blame the Aelfae for the sky’s outrageous color.”
Umbral looked up at the firmament, so brilliant blue it looked close enough to reach up and stroke.
“It is outrageous, isn’t it? And how like an Aelfae to simply repaint the world in a brighter hue just because he fancied it! But there is more to Cero Skylord’s tale. For meanwhile, below, from dirt sown—by the Aelfae themselves—with rain and light, a new race arose from the mud like corn: Mortal humans, born to die, born to weep….The one creation the Aelfae would rue, had they but known.”
Dindi shivered, but she did not ask Umbral to stop. When he spoke to her like this, quietly, seriously, about ancient legends from the history dances or strange rumors from distant tribes, it reminded her of someone. She wasn’t sure who, but she enjoyed it.
“But awhile yet the Aelfae guarded their might,” Umbral continued. “As for Cero, he was far too lovelorn to fear humans, or even eat or sleep. From his house at the top of the sky, he could view the skirt of stone of Faearth’s mountains, and the ocean’s sweep. So it happened that one fair morn, he looked down and saw a fae maiden so bright with beauty she made beauty new. Pert and prone to laugh, was Gaya, to twirl and to leap. She danced and entranced him. He was torn between his shyness and love at first sight.
“Not all were shy. Human men saw her too, with her skirt blown by a breeze that teased them with a peep. They lusted for the faery and were sworn to make her their pet that very night. They caught her, stripped her nude, sure they were alone, not knowing Cero saw them sneak and creep. He gave their mothers cause to mourn when he flew down to save Gaya from her plight. He killed them all.
“Away with her he flew, back to his sky home.
“She told him, ‘As oft as you have looked down to peep at me, I have looked up into the sky and sworn one day I would make a fire ignite in your hearth for me. I have long loved you. Do I flirt alone?’
“’My love for you is wide as the sky and as deep,’ he said. And soon to them a son was born: Ovin Sheepkeep, whose strength was to unite his parent’s powers—far-ranging insight, girt with stone.”
As Umbral said the exact words, “unite his parent’s powers,” Dindi recognized who it all reminded her of, both the story and the telling of it.
Kavio.
A deep sadness spread inside like seeping water.
Without warning, the horse bucked her off and threw her into the mud. The unhorse writhed and flexed, visibly shrinking, before it popped, like a bubble.
“What happened?” she asked in shock.
“The dark energy dissipated,” Umbral said. “It was never a real beast. But you knew that. I constrained the void to that shape, but it could not keep.”
“You might have warned me my mount might disappear out from under me.”
He shrugged, struggling not to smile.
The unhorse had never eaten, so Dindi did not know how the beast had lasted as long as it had. Nonetheless, the incident unnerved her. It was just one more reminder about how unnatural Umbral and everything he touched truly was.
After he helped her to her feet, he tried to recapture the earlier mood, offering another story about Cero and Gaya, but she could not bear to hear him speak anymore, sounding so much like Kavio.
“Maybe later,” she said, meaning: Never.
He met her eyes, his lips tightened, and she knew he heard the unsaid word.
“Maybe later,” he agreed.
If Umbral tried to tell her a tidbit or tale, she turned her head away, and pretended not to listen. He stopped trying.
For days more they trudged in almost complete silence. It was not a companionable quietude but prickly as thorns. Umbral grew surlier and when he spoke to her at all, it was to bark orders, which she obeyed seething with resentment. Her thoughts bent not to escape but to revenge.
She imagined herself killing him. Stabbing him in the kidney with a spear. Shooting him through a lung with an arrow. Decapitating him with an ax. Slitting his jugular with a dagger. Poking an awl through his eyeball. The images made her feel unclean, but she could not stop herself.
Finnadro
So the Deathsworn is taking her across the Boglands. The route surprised Finnadro. By wing, flight straight over the Boglands was the fastest path to either Orange Canyon or Obsidian Mountain, but by foot, or even by horse, it was another matter. It would take twice as long as the southern route, even if conditions were perfect. Nasty fae inhabited the marshes, and some rumormongers even cla
imed that wisps of Aelfae Patterns haunted the empty lands. Both Green Woods and Orange Canyon tribesfolk ventured there to gather peat and medical mosses, but the undertaking was always perilous, and some who went never returned. Nor were the Deathsworn immune to the dangers. There were no Deathsworn marked-paths across the Boglands.
Finnadro had hunted there before, however. Once he had tracked a killer wolfling across the peat hills for two full moons. The wolfling had been wily and ruthless, a killer of more than twenty innocents, but in the end, Finnadro had cut him down.
I will cut you down the same way, Deathsworn, he promised.
The terrain was both blessing and curse to a hunter. Mud made good prints, but water drowned them. He lost the trail on the second day across the marsh, where the water deepened into a true lake. The wolves could not wade the deeper channels and had to separate from him. They agreed they would fan out and scour the marsh for any scent or tracks.
Finnadro kept going on his own and was rewarded just past the lake when he once more found prints. Before, the woman’s prints had not always been present, and Finnadro had presumed she was bound and slung over the horse. Now there were no hoof impressions, only the dainty boot marks of the woman next to the man’s. Scuffs indicated that at times, he had to drag her along.
Finnadro howled to alert the others. They would converge on his path when they could.
The prints grew fresher. Without the horse, they were moving more sluggishly. He knew he would intersect them soon.
The edge of the lake was rich without sounds. Frogs were still hibernating, but mallards quacked and splashed nearby. Wrens churred and trilled, chek-chek-chek. Finnadro found a patch of tall reeds near the bank. Here he deepened his camouflage. Already, he wore soft browns and olives that blended with the rushes, but now he smeared oily green mud on his face, everywhere but his eyes. He tied clumps of marsh weeds to his head and arms.
Several birds protested a disturbance ahead. He heard the loud rattle of a belted kingfisher sounding an alarm, the cheep-deep-chidy-deep of an annoyed swallow. Finnadro ducked deep in the grass just as another man, further down the shore, stood up and launched a sling at a duck. Ducks billowed into the sky unscathed and the man cursed.
Finnadro squatted. His motions slowed to the pace of utmost stealth. He positioned his bow and arrow and took aim. Now that his prey was in sight, he could afford patience. His only concern was to know where the captive woman was.
The angry man kicked something hidden in the grass. A yelp of pain ended in a drawn-out whimper.
One question answered. He had to assume she was bound, perhaps injured—though he had seen no blood near the prints, which was a good sign. At this point, he was just grateful she was still alive. For whatever reason, the Deathsworn had not sacrificed her yet.
He kept his bow cocked and waited on his shot. A breeze tickled the straw on his head. His cheek itched. His right thigh muscle cramped. He did not move.
Finally, the man lifted the woman from the ground. Her hands were indeed tied behind her back. He shoved her forward so hard she stumbled. He caught her by her hair and yanked her so she did not fall. She whimpered again.
Finnadro’s fingers tensed, ready to release the taunt string.
The man tilted his face so Finnadro could see it full on. It was not the face of the man that Finnadro had met a year ago.
This was not the man in black.
This man was not Deathsworn at all. He was Orange Canyon, and the woman he dragged along beside him was not Dindi, but a middle aged Green Woods tribeswoman.
Finnadro stood up, still holding the bow ready to spring.
“Release your captive or die, Orange Canyon!” Finnadro commanded.
The Orange Canyon man snarled and pulled her in front of him, as a shield, his stone blade posed on her throat. “Leave me be or she dies!”
“Don’t be a fool,” warned Finnadro. He paced toward the man, slowly, as a man would approach a jackrabbit. “You crossed the river safely, and by our law, we will let you go back to your own people. But not with a captive.”
“I must bring a sacrifice to the Eaglelords when I go home, or they will slay me for cowardice,” wheedled the man. “She’s worth more alive, but I can make do with just her head. Or yours!”
“Do you know who I am?” Finnadro asked. Incrementally, he shifted forward. “I am Finnadro the Wolf Hunter, Henchman of the Green Lady.”
The man blanched.
“You’ve heard of me.” A step forward. “Good.” A step forward. “That makes this easier.” A step forward. “You have two choices. Leave her and live, or harm her and die. If you draw her blood you will never see your home again.” Step, step, step. “I suggest you take me at my word.”
“I have your word you will let me go?” he quavered.
“If she is unharmed.”
“Do not let this beast leave alive!” shouted the woman. “He has fouled me! I would rather die and take him with me than let him live to laugh at my shame!”
She pulled aside the dirty apron over her legwals, revealing blood stains on the inside leather of her thighs.
“Shut your muck hole, you lying bitch!”
The man shook his captive. Grim hate set her features.
“Did you take this woman against her will?” Finnadro asked.
“No! She’s a lying piece of muck!” As he said it, Finnadro caught the green thread of the man’s feelings, conveyed less in words than in vivid images, fast and ugly like slung mud.
I shove moss into her mouth to shut up her screams. Let the bitch cry. She is mine to use as I please. Her anger excites me so much, I fumble to unlace her legwals. I shove in as soon as I see her bare buttocks, and use her hard. It’s over too fast, and I’m disgusted with her and myself. I can’t believe I wasted seed on this old, ugly outtriber who was probably whelped by wolves. I order her to lace her legwals back up. I ignore her bleeding and smack her when she weeps. I swear I won’t touch her again, but by the next night, I am panting to have her under me. I make her serve me every night we camp. I might as well enjoy her before I give her to the Eaglelords at the Paxota.
Finnadro released his arrow.
The Orange Canyon man never had a chance to carry out his threat against his captive. He fell over backwards with an arrow through his eye.
The woman stumbled forward a few steps, then fell to her knees and threw up in the grass. She wiped her mouth.
Finnadro knelt by her side. He radiated soft Green compassion into her aura, willing her to feel comforted and safe, but he did not touch her until she reached out; then he took her hand and helped her to her feet.
“I have another captive to free, auntie, otherwise I would accompany you back to our tribelands,” Finnadro apologized. Hopefully one of the wolflings has found the true trail. Their noses would not be fooled by similar prints, as I was.
“I can find my way. My husband died in the war. My children have only me. Nothing will stop me from returning to them now that my honor is avenged.” She shook herself off and took his hand to kiss it. “Thank you for my freedom, Wolf Hunter. This other captive, is it also a woman?”
“A maiden.”
“It will be even worse for her than for me. You must save her.”
“I intend to.”
But he had a feeling it would take more than one arrow to bring down the Henchman of Lady Death.
Dindi
A light drizzle fell. Water found its way into the cracks of Dindi’s parka in a way that snow had not. She felt miserable and cold. Fog rolled over the bog. In the distance, she could see the faint lights of willawisps but no fae would linger near Umbral, making a gray day grayer.
Upon one of the long stretches of undulating peat, they walked right into a clanhold before either of them realized it was there.
The homes blended perfectly into the hill, dug right into the turf with only a small round opening at ground level. Overhanging slabs of turf, covered with moss, shielded the front
yards from the drizzle. The domiciles were diminutive and so were denizens. At first, Dindi thought they were children, dirty, oddly dressed children. Then she realized that they were hobgoblins.
They had dark orange skin. Their hair looked like brown moss. Mostly they were naked, but hobgoblins, unlike other fae, loved human clothing and gadgets, so almost all of them wore some article of human design—but wrongly. One hobgoblin male wore a boot on his head. He carried a spoon as if it were a spear. Another wore one-half of a set of legwals as a one-sleeved tunic. A plump female wore two pots as shoes. The tallest of the hobgoblins stood only waist-high to Umbral.
“A human! A human!” shouted the nearest hobgoblin. Inexplicably, he’d strapped a waterbowl to his back, which made him look rather like a turtle. He raised a ram’s horn to his lips, as a human sentry might to sound an alarm, save that poor Turtleback blew into the larger end. The sound which resulted was less a clarion than a blubbery squelch.
More hobgoblins rushed out of their dugouts. Dindi expected them to flee or attack. They did neither. They capered around Dindi, full of glee.
“A real human has come to visit our clanhold! A real human!”
“I want her to stay at my house!”
“No, she’ll stay at my house!”
The two arguing hobgoblins began to kick and bite one another. They fell into the mud and rolled around together, still fighting. The rest of the hobgoblins ignored them and continued to cheer and frolic.
“Wait! Wait! How do we know this human has not come to make war on us?” demanded the male with a boot on his head.
The plump, pot-footed woman shouted at all the giddy hobgoblins. “You’re all a lot of fools! The human doesn’t even know we are here! She’s not come to see us! She can’t see us!”
