Dragon Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 3)

by Cedar Sanderson

  The biggest problem, I quickly discovered once we were in the cool darkness of the woods, was the smallest things. I was swarmed by tiny biting gnats. Swatting didn't bother them, ten more would take the place of the bloody mess I'd left on my skin. I couldn't put up a magical shield, we were minimizing our magical use so we couldn't be tracked if there were watchers at Low Court. Sure, they couldn't see out this far, but...

  The bugs were making my life hellish. I broke off a small bundle of twigs and used them like a horse uses a tail, to keep them away from my mouth and nose, at least. Perhaps because of the distraction, it took me far longer than it ought to have to realize what was going on. I stopped dead in my tracks. Raven stopped, putting a hand on my shoulder to steady himself.

  "What is wrong?" he asked.

  "These flies are attacking us because we're intruders." I said, turning around to face him. Lug loomed over his shoulders, looking vaguely concerned. The bugs wouldn't bother him. "The whole place is against us."

  Raven nodded. "Yes, of course. Very clever, the person who designed this. But not clever enough. Stand still."

  He bent and pulled away some of the loose dead leaves and twigs from the soil beside the trail, and then scooped up a double handful of it. With this, he advanced toward me, and I started to step back, wondering what he was up to.

  "Hold still, I said,” he sounded irritable. I obediently let him pour the stuff over my head closing my eyes as it flew everywhere. He rubbed it in energetically, through my hair and onto the back of my neck.

  "Now, you smell like the forest." He stepped back and surveyed his handiwork with a little smirk. Damn his sense of humor. I could have done that myself had he told me what he was up to. I knew I could, because now he was kneeling and scooping more dirt onto his own head. I rubbed loose earth into my hands and rolled my sleeves up again, making myself filthy and muddy with dirt and sweat. The bugs, on the other hand, were already going away, with only a lone straggler whining in my ear. I swatted it, and looked at Raven, who was as muddy as I.

  "Are you ready now?"

  He nodded, and waved me on. We were not making quick progress, which I had anticipated. I had also planned for the quick, cold lunch, eaten on the go. Building a fire, or even the smell of cooking food, could attract unwanted attention. I was also expecting an ambush, but that hadn't come yet. When you are constantly on alert, it begins to hurt after a while. Your muscles, drawn tightly and ready to sprint into action, ache and your brain wants to wander. Wary as I am, through long training and the experiences I'd had, I couldn't maintain that level forever.

  Adding to that was the travel in darkness. My eyes adjust further than a human’s eyes can, more equivalent to a cat. But this was wearying. I was very glad when the faint light of dawn finally penetrated the thick brush and leaves to put an end to our ‘day’ although I did keep pushing on until we found a small stream Raven’s eyes had located. Here, we could get off the trail and be out of sight while we waited for the return of darkness.

  Lug promptly made like a pile of rocks. I splashed my face with water, then dried it roughly before dirtying again. It seemed counterproductive, but I felt a little better without the sweat mixed in there too. Raven propped himself up against a tree. I had been keeping a wary eye out for massive webs, and hadn’t seen any. Although I suppose even an enchanted forest could only support so many predators. We’d heard the wolf pack a couple more times, without being able to tell if it were closer to us than before.

  Raven pulled a lump of pemmican out of his shirt pocket and munched it.

  “How much further?” I asked him. Without his birds, and the density of the undergrowth, we could walk right into Low Court before we knew we’d arrived.

  “We’re more than halfway. There is a lot of movement in the city.”

  I didn’t know he was scouting that far. “Not surprising, the army at High Court will have gotten their attention by now. Seems like it’s going to plan. I just wish I could be there, too.”

  He chuckled. “Being in two places at once, that would be quite a trick. Let me know if you manage it, I want to learn.”

  I shook my head at him. Ruefully, I gave up on wishes, and turned my mind back to reality. I was soft – we all were – through reliance on magic. This trip in a bubble would have been over almost before it began. The grueling trek through the forest was taking a toll on me already, and I’d gotten far too used to home cooked meals every day. I patted my complaining stomach, and drank more water. Not out of the stream, which had Mother Titania only knew what floating in it. The human microbiome hadn’t translated entirely to our world, but still… I drank the water I’d packed with me.

  Then I tried to sleep.

  Carry Me Along

  I awakened feeling like my sleeping bag had shrunk. Opening my eyes, I discovered that it wasn’t the sleeping bag, I was trussed neatly into it. Raven was bound, as well, and the one visible eye I could see was remarkably calm. He winked at me. Or blinked, hard to tell with the other eye behind an eyepatch.

  I wasn’t as calm about it. If Raven was going to pull one of his moves where he infiltrated from the inside out, I wish he would have at least given me some warning. Waking up like this was bad for the digestion. We were lying on the bank of the stream, and the three people I could see… a fairy man, and two goblins, were obviously Low Court. The fairy walked over and kicked the sleeping troll.

  “Get up!” He shouted. Lug sat up slowly. It was still light enough outside that he was slow-moving and apparently groggy.

  “Whu?” He grunted.

  The rough fairy kicked him again. I doubted that affected Lug at all, but the fairy would have sore toes in the morning.

  “Up, troll.” Lug lumbered to his feet, blinking down at me, then at Raven. I didn’t say anything. I’d be hurt by being kicked with cloddish boots, and I was waiting to see what happened.

  The fairy jabbed at him with his finger. “Listen up, you. I’m in charge now, you understand? I’m the one giving orders. You hear me?”

  At the end he was shouting, and I winced. Trolls are slow, but they aren’t deaf, and Lug isn’t even slow, just… contemplative. He was contemplating the fairy now, with a deadpan face.

  “Ya.” He said slowly.

  I hid a smile. Lug was taking his cue from me. If I wanted to be a prisoner, he was going to play along.

  The fairy pointed at Raven and I. “Pick them up and carry them. Pick them up. Carefully!”

  Lug stooped and gathered up the pair of us, tucking one under each arm. Then he just stood there, looking at the fairy. The goblins, not being stupid, were keeping the fairy between them and the troll. The fairy pointed. “You follow me.”

  He started walking toward the trail. I wiggled into a slightly less painful position and resigned myself to some discomfort. Arrival at Low Court in this way wasn’t dignified, but it did solve a few problems, like how to find Dionaea. I imagined we were about to be presented to her like presents without the proverbial bow on them.

  I could get out of this cocoon at any time I wanted to. Raven could as well, and I was a little surprised he’d consented to be captured at all. However, the trickster stories often had his schemes involving being eaten, so he could attack from the belly of the beast. It suited me just fine. I craned my neck and looked up at Lug. Keeping my voice low, I asked him, “Are you all right?”

  He nodded.

  “Thanks for playing along.” I murmured, hoping he could hear me.

  He smiled, and I relaxed. This was going to be entertaining. They hadn’t even taken Lug’s bow, which was slung across his back. As the darkness gathered, I got to see the troll’s stealth in action. He sort of slid through the forest. I suspected there was a deep magic in action here, as we never seemed to get a branch across the face. It was like they moved out of his way. But when I closed my eyes to See with the second Sight, I couldn’t tell that he was using magic, other than the glow of his life. I expanded the Sight, encompassing our ca
ptors and confirming that one muddy-auraed fairy, and two ghastly green goblins were all there was. She had a sort of ranger service patrolling the forest, which we had theorized, but with the disruption and us not using magic… I opened my eyes.

  “Hey, chump.” I called out to the fairy.

  He turned around and glared at me. Lug didn’t stop walking, so the fairy wound up walking backwards, which struck me as hilarious. I struggled to keep the laughter out of my voice. “How’d you find us, anyway?”

  He stumbled, and gave up walking backwards. “We patrol here.”

  “So what’s your name?” I was going to be bored hanging in Lug’s arm, anyway, might as well make conversation.

  “Tommy. And yours?”

  I was starting to feel my laughter morph into insane giggles. He didn’t know who I was.

  “I’m, ah, Leroy. So this is your beat, huh. How about them spiders?”

  His shoulders tensed. “They have learned to leave the path alone.”

  Which explained why one or more hadn’t set up an ambush across the game trail. And it implied that the spiders were semi-intelligent, which was enough to knock the silly out of me. Those things scared me like few other things I’d encountered in a long life hunting down monsters.

  “Just you and two goblins, that’s an accomplishment.” I kept the conversational ball rolling. Tommy seemed to be a normal person in that he was answering me when prompted. Most people like to talk, and being encouraged to brag almost always worked. Tommy was no different.

  “We keep the spiders in their place, and the wolves know better than to get too close. My crew keeps this path clear.” I could hear the simple pride in his voice.

  “So this isn’t where the deer pass through the forest?” Never hurt to put a little doubt into our motivations. Sure, sure, we were only poaching.

  “No, this path is…” He broke off and looked over his shoulder suspiciously. “Deer?”

  I tried for goofy grin, but the effect was rather spoiled by bouncing along slung under a troll’s arm. Or possibly the piratical looking Raven, who had been practicing his poker face while I was talking.

  “So where are you taking us?” I wondered just how much I could get out of Tommy.

  “To th’ Castle.” He sounded disgruntled.

  “Your boss there?” I didn’t give him a chance to answer, sliding into his dialect as I went on. “Bosses, a necessary evil. You can allus say you were just followin’ orders when it comes down to it.”

  “Aye. Better’n havin’ to take m’chances alone.” Tommy sighed audibly. “T’forest ain’t so bad, not when…” he bit that off quickly, and I could see his head turn from side to side like he was checking that no one had heard him.

  Very interesting. Not all her people liked and trusted her. Dionaea was about to learn that a rule of fear was ineffective, and sometimes terminal to the ruler, if I had anything to do with it. I lapsed into silence. For one thing, my side where I was draped over Lug’s arm ached abominably. We were making good progress, it felt like. Raven would know for sure, but I couldn’t chat with him about it, and he had his eyes closed, at the moment.

  If he was sleeping, I’d eat my hat. The old bird was up to something. I was willing to keep playing along. Although I was going to be half the man I’d been not too long ago, unless we took a break soon. I was just opening my mouth to call out to Tommy when I saw the light.

  The path ended in an open area, and the light was moon-shine, not sunshine. But after the dark of the forest, I was left blinking my eyes to adjust to the brightness. I craned my neck to see what I could.

  Low Court, in an ironic twist, was mostly above ground, unlike High Court, which was dug into the vast hill as it had been since the Court was established. In that time, warmth, security, and perhaps even the human legend of under-hill origins had dictated the digging of the Great Hall, then the sprawling tunnels that came after. It was only in relatively recent history that the above-ground buildings of High Court had come into being, and they are blocky, warm stone, and to my eye, welcoming. Even on days I hated the Council and the power they held.

  Low Court, on the other hand, was built by powerful magic users who had reason to convince outsiders of that power and influence. It was a mad dreamer’s conception of a fantasy castle, soaring above the small city that had grown up around it. Towers, turrets, and enough spires to keep any number of evil wizards holed up and working without ever interacting with one another. Once built of white stone, it was now marred with streaks of black. From the distance we were at, I couldn’t tell why.

  The moon glowed bright and full overhead, turning the landscape into a chiaroscuro of shadows and reflections. I could see the river, a silver thread in the distance. At least we hadn’t come out on the bank of that. In my current position, that could have been interesting.

  “Hey, Tommy.” I called. Lug was still standing on the verge of the forest. “Can we take a break for a bit? I’m about to break in half, and I gotta piss.”

  Our earlier rapport building paid off, and he hesitated, looking toward the castle, then back at us. “Sure, sure. Only no funny business, and one of you at a time, ok?”

  I waited for him to untie me, noting with interest that he didn’t use magic, as he hadn’t used it in the bindings. I wondered why, but I really did have urgent needs to care for.

  I went first, and then Raven stalked into the brush when I returned to the small group gathered by Lug. I held out my hands to Tommy. “S’pose I could have em tied in front and walk?” I put a little whine in my tone. He seemed to appreciate that.

  Raven reappeared out of the darkness, and imitated my action without speaking. Tommy tied our wrists, looking back at me while he was working on Raven’s.

  “Does he, y’know, talk? Or is he a deaf n’dumb?”

  This was a brilliant idea. I wished I’d come up with it. “Nah, he c’n hear all right. Just can’t talk none.”

  “Oh.” Tommy grunted, and spoke a bit louder, seeming not to have heard me say Raven could hear. “Follow me. That a-ways.” He pointed toward the castle.

  As he turned away to take the lead again, I rolled my eyes at Raven, who broke into a brief, broad grin, then wiped his face clean of expression again. I could take lessons from him in not showing my thoughts, and I thought I had been pretty good before. We followed, but slowly. It was harder to walk out in the open than it had been in the woods. In the woods your eyes could adjust to the low, diffuse light. Here? It was bright, and the rutted sheep path Tommy led us to was in shadows, and rocky. I nearly fell a couple of times before losing my patience at the situation.

  “Hey. Look…” I stopped dead on the path, and Tommy looked back at me, frowning.

  “We’re coming peaceable.” I pointed out, hoping he would hear the rational tone and not think through the rest of it. “Maybe you could untie us, so we don’t fall and get all busted up? Your boss won’t like blood on his clean floors…”

  “I dunno.” But he was thinking about it, I could see it on his face. “Mebbe. Blood isn’t a problem, see.”

  I did see, and it felt like a chill in the cold moonlight. “Well, is there going to be blood? With us?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno. But guess I could untie you. Or have the troll carry you again.”

  I put as much whine as I could muster in my voice. “Aw, man, that hurts!”

  He walked back to me and pulled out a knife. I chose to play dumb, and thrust my hands toward him. He could easily have cut me… but he didn’t. He cut the cords binding me, and then looked over my shoulder.

  “How about you? Gonna behave?”

  Raven thrust his bound wrists past me and Tommy let him loose. “Now behave, or I’ll turn the troll loose on you.”

  This made me blink. You can’t assume your enemy is stupid. That will get you dead. But Tommy was quite sincere in threatening us with our own troll. As he turned and walked away, I looked over at my shoulder at Lug, who shrugged and smirked. He was in no
danger. I thumbed my nose at him and started in Tommy’s footsteps. The castle was looking very near, now.

  I was feeling it in my gut, that knot of tension building and growing more complex as we got nearer. This wasn’t quite what I had planned, but it would get us in without alarm. What happened after that, we would wait and see. With the armies assembling near High Court, the Low Court ought to be low on personnel. We had a very slim window and I meant to exploit it.

  My theory was not challenged as we walked through Low Town toward the ever-more impressive spires of the unnaturally tall castle. In fact, we weren’t challenged at all. We were passing through empty streets, footsteps echoing off the cobblestones. Lug was silent as ever, but Tommy clattered, the goblins pattered, and Raven was unusually loud behind me. There wasn’t even as much as a curtain twitched in a window. The place was deserted. I walked a little faster and drew up next to Tommy.

  “This place is spooky,” I said, my voice low.

  He glanced around, like he was afraid someone would hear us. “Yuh.” I thought he might say more, but instead he pointed. “Through that gate.”

  We all followed him, Lug with a very low bow, through the gate into a courtyard of nightmares. Tommy seemed not to notice the landscaping. I skipped sideways as an overgrown Venus Flytrap nipped at my ankles. Above us, a Dryad dangled brokenly from her tree, trapped half in and half out of the trunk. The trunk wept blood, but the human half was pale and limp. Dead, perhaps.

  If she was decaying, I couldn’t have smelled her over the cacophony of rank odors that assailed us. Tommy brushed past a thick stand of purplish-black grass, and a wave of sulfur roiled up in his wake, making me cough and my eyes water.