by Ron C. Nieto
Lily had seen she had teeth like a shark’s when they were fighting underwater. Now, she saw Ayalga also ate like one.
The hound yelped and thrashed again.
The other hound, still growling and trying to bite, hung from Ayalga’s other hand by the scruff of its neck.
Waiting its turn.
Ayalga smiled, and although the hounds didn’t bleed, her shark teeth were dripping red.
Marast shouted a single word and the hound who was still whole dissolved, the glamour returning to him. The other one stayed where it was, fighting more feebly, dying slowly.
Ayalga took another bite, and Marast went white, sweat dripping from his forehead, his jaw clenched, his sword hand shaking.
Ayalga glided forward, and with her, the fog figures came once more.
And Lily burned, she burned with the fear and despair Troy had mentioned before, but also with anger and rage and pain.
Iron. Iron. Iron. The word became a mantra in her head. She had been horrified when she had used iron to fight the redcaps. They had died terrible, agonizing deaths after the briefest touch of iron. She hadn’t enjoyed it, but she had used it to escape. She had also been terrified when she used it to trick and kill the cuelebre, and she had been sorry for destroying something so powerful and so ancient even while it was in its death throes, but she had killed it anyway because she had a bargain to fulfill. Now? Now, she craved iron. She wanted it more than anything. She wanted a sword of iron, a coin looped on a chain, even a simple iron nail. And she would relish using it.
But there is no iron.
Or is there?
The front of fog figures broke over Marast like a wave upon the shore, and he moved slicing left and right, but then Ayalga was in front of him, her needle-sharp claws deflecting his blade like she wielded a handful of knives, and she kept reaching for his arm, his forearm, trying to hold him like she had held his hound.
There is iron. The Wild Horn is in my backpack, and the mouthpiece is made of iron. Small, but enough to keep faeries from touching it.
She slung her knapsack off and yanked it open, pulling the Horn free just as the fog figures converged upon Troy. When the first one rushed him, Lily expected him to vanish, to be nothing more than an illusion woven from glamour to deceive the fog figures and catch them unaware. Instead, the figure rode him down hard, and while he did roll to come out on top, knife plunging, he was still down with fog figures circling him like vultures.
Marast had been correct. Troy was resourceful, but he was no fighter, not like the Hunter himself. Without his glamour and his tricks, he was no match for the fog figures.
A figure leapt and landed on Troy’s back just as he climbed to his feet, sending him tumbling back down. Lily dashed in and shoved the Horn against the figure’s side, pushing hard to make sure the iron sank into the fog. The figure didn’t make a sound, but Ayalga hissed from where she was locked in battle with Marast, and when the fog unraveled in a shower of silver, Lily found those dark, malicious eyes staring at her. It lasted only a moment because Marast took advantage of her distraction to sneak his sword past her claws and that made Ayalga focus on the Unseelie Hunter again, but Lily felt pierced to the core by that look.
And as one, the fog figures who had jumped Troy the moment he had gone down abandoned him and sought tastier prey.
Lily moved sideways to keep all the figures in roughly the same direction instead of surrounding her, and when the closest figure followed her, she stepped into its embrace instead of dodging, the Horn leading. Again, she encountered the alien resistance of the fog, and again she pushed hard to make sure the iron was lethal.
In one, two, three seconds, the figure dissolved into silver.
It’s too slow. There’s too little iron.
Then, Troy pushed her aside, hard.
The fog figures forming a semicircle in front of her had only been acting as distractions as three more approached from behind, and now one bled silver below Troy, but the others held on to his arm.
“Start running now, Herald!” Marast shouted. The front of his armor gleamed scarlet.
Lily hesitated. Beside her, fog covered Troy’s mouth and nose, and the image of the hound being torn asunder flashed in her mind. Her eyes found his, and they were dark, the pupils so murky and dilated the emerald appeared moss. They were the eyes of a wild animal, but still he nodded.
She didn’t move. She couldn’t.
“Run,” he mouthed, the word inaudible through the fog clotting his throat, pushing toward his lungs even as he told her to escape.
She shook her head, clenched her fingers on the Horn. Not like this. I can’t leave like this.
“Herald!” Marast’s call was cut short with a grunt, Ayalga finally scoring a good hit that sent the Hunter reeling and took the air from his lungs.
Herald.
Herald. A person employed to make proclamations and carry messages. A courier, an announcer. A bearer of tidings. A harbinger.
Lily clenched her fingers on the Wild Horn.
I am the Herald of the Wild Hunt, am I not?
She didn’t dare stop and consider. She just brought the Horn to her lips and blew, thinking only of how badly she wanted Ayalga dead.
C H A P T E R XXVII
The Wild Hunt rode out on the wings of a gale that dispersed the mist, tiny crystals of ice swirling in the wind with enough force to flay the skin from the bone. They came from nowhere, dark figures wearing rusting armor sitting atop high steeds, the tattered remains of banners and coats of arms dancing in their own breeze, at odds with the windstorm that preceded them. The riders held spears, the wooden hafts rotten and covered in red and purple vines, and the heads bent and dented, misshapen, just as ghastly as the entourage. They galloped into the mass of fog figures, some of them lowering their spears to run their opponents through, the others urging their chargers to overwhelm their prey, but it didn’t matter—in their wake, there was nothing left but silver.
Bursts of silver followed the rusted spears, explosions of silver erupted under the horses’ hooves.
It’s iron! Their weapons and armor rust because they’re iron, and their horses are shod in iron, too. That’s why they alone have the power to break the stalemate between the faerie Courts.
Ayalga screamed then, the power and wrongness of it ringing Lily’s ears again, and she stepped back from Marast, flinging her arms wide. All around them the fog figures melted into the mist, and dispersed with the wind, until nothing but flurries of snow remained.
She had just recalled her glamour, Lily guessed, just like Marast had recalled his hound when he had been about to lose it, and the Hunter took the chance to disengage and rejoin Lily.
She stood over Troy, trying to get him to stand while holding on to the Horn at the same time.
“This is madness!” Marast said, shouting to be heard above the noise of the wind and the thundering of hooves.
“We were out of options!” Lily snapped, her eyes dancing between Troy, the Wild Hunt, and Ayalga.
“Oh, do not be mistaken.” Marast grinned, the gesture reopening a split lip, and grabbed Troy’s other arm, hauling him to his feet. “I approve.”
Lily blinked, taken off guard, but then the Wild Hunt turned toward them. There were no more fog figures, and their little group apparently made for better sport than a single target.
“God,” Lily breathed. “We’re going to die anyway.”
However, at the last moment, they changed directions again, their spears lowered and aimed at Ayalga. She bent low, burying her hands on the snow, and the ice frosting over the loch shattered, a deadly trap to send the horses to watery graves and leave their riders defenseless at best, confined to the depths of the loch at worst. Lily thought she saw a smile in Ayalga’s face when the fragments broke, turning the loch’s surface impassable.
But the horses of the Wild Hunt didn’t slow their charge, didn’t break their stride. Their hooves pounded the broken, flimsy ice without le
aving a single trace on it, their spears lowered and aimed at Ayalga’s heart, and it seemed she understood at that moment just what she faced. With a hiss, all cockiness gone, the faerie crouched low and danced on the broken ice, dodging a spear, coming up along a horse, changing directions too fast for the cursed knights to follow her.
It didn’t matter.
The riders pulled up the reins of their horses, dug their heels and their knees, stopped them, and pushed them forward. It looked very much like a macabre version of a traditional hunt where the valiant courtiers harassed and lanced a fox while the fox tried to scurry between their lines to win freedom.
It lasted for a few interminable seconds that felt like hours, and then one of the knights plunged his spear into Ayalga’s side. She screeched and fell, and the horse ran her over. Even at a distance, the black spots of burning rot caused by the touch of iron were visible, blooming over her ribs, her leg, her head.
And her screams resonated all over the loch.
The knights gathered around her, grim and terrible, obscuring her from view, and after a moment the screams stopped and only the wind could be heard, blowing the snow off the loch, mounding it against the shore, and melting the ice that covered the treacherous waters.
Then, the knights rearranged their mounts and spurred them into a trot, heading toward the only remaining prey in the vicinity.
Them.
Marast dug his elbow into Lily’s ribs and she realized she had begun to rock herself, back and forth, back and forth. “Now would be a good time for dismissing them, Herald.” He emphasized the word enough to break through the panic and the shock.
She had summoned the Wild Hunt. She still clung to the Wild Horn. She was the Herald.
All of a sudden, as the riders drew nearer, she truly understood the power of a name. She had never gotten around to reading that book while in the Unseelie library, and she had thought the obsession faeries had with names originated from, and was limited to, the True Name.
After all, it was logical that they’d be zealous about keeping their names secret, if uttering them could strip away their will and give them a command, a compulsion impossible to resist. It made sense. She had always understood that much, since the moment she foolishly gave her True Name to Troy of her own free will, making it his to use as he pleased. The knowledge had only rooted deeper every time he had actually used it, overriding her desires and forcing her to act against herself.
What she hadn’t understood before was the power of all names, True or not. Her grandmother had tried to tell her, back at the beginning, when she had been helping Mackenna to prepare some potion. But that had happened before she ever believed in faeries, and she had paid it no mind. Then, Troy and Marast had told her again. When they discussed what to call her, Troy had asked her if she would make the name of Herald her own. Again, at the time, it hadn’t seemed important. It had only been a way to refer to her while keeping her True Name a secret. A way to differentiate her.
But that was the key, wasn’t it? A way to differentiate. A way to tell her apart from the rest of the world, and in doing so, of defining her.
She had claimed the name of Herald.
She was the Herald.
And with acceptance, knowledge came.
She left Troy’s side and stood in front of him and Marast, the Horn lightly held in one hand while the Wild Hunt approached them. Her eyes scanned the riders, sliding from knight to man-at-arms, until she found a man with no spear. Instead, he had a sword in his hand, the blade long and straight, rust and blood mixing together in a reddish paste that covered the weapon and stained the tattered remains of the horse’s white caparison.
“King Herla,” she said, acknowledging the Wild King by the name he wore when he was mortal. Then, she swept her hand out and pointed toward the Cairngorms, away from the loch and from the shores where she knew there were settlements.
The King didn’t reply, his features invisible behind his helm, but the knights veered off in the direction Lily pointed. They put their heels to their horses and they rushed forward, the wind picking up again and the hooves resonating as a thunderstorm. Lily didn’t move, not even when they passed by her side close enough to touch, and King Herla held the tableau, immobile as a statue. Only when the last of the riders was gone did he spur his own horse, galloping off after his men.
And only when he was gone too did Lily allow herself to breathe, her shoulders shagging under the tension.
“Impressive,” said Marast.
She turned and saw he had lowered Troy again, a bit further inland, and had knelt by his side. He had packed a handful of snow against a laceration that ran down Troy’s upper arm, from shoulder to elbow, but his eyes were on her, appraising and calculating, and there was tension that had not been there before.
“I couldn’t dismiss them,” she explained. “Once summoned, they’ll hunt until the sun rises again.”
Marast looked to the sky. The clouds kept the sun from view, but it didn’t seem to bother him. “They shall hunt for a long while yet.”
“I sent them away from populated areas, but . . .”
“But they ride fast, and there is only so much land untouched by civilization.”
Lily nodded. “How hurt are you?” she asked, making a point not to look at Troy. Not yet.
“I am well,” he said, shrugging off his wounds. “A cut made by her claws is prone to bleeding more than warranted, but I suffer from only a couple of shallow cuts.”
He didn’t stumble over his own words and he didn’t wince in pain, so Lily assumed he was telling the truth. It was hard to believe, after seeing him in the center of such a maelstrom, fog figures everywhere, and then Ayalga had managed to send him to his knees.
But he said he was well, so that was that.
“What did she do to your dogs?” Lily asked, kneeling beside Troy again to pack some snow against his wounds, just like Marast was doing.
“Dogs?” Marast gave her an incredulous stare. “They are hounds.”
“Whatever. What did she—” She gasped. “You’re awake.”
Troy blinked slowly in assent but said nothing.
“Awake?” Marast snorted. “He is alive. That is the truly surprising revelation.”
“Is it?” Lily flashed a look from one to the other. Inadvertently, she dug a fistful of snow deeper into the wound she was supposed to be healing and Troy winced. “Will he be all right?”
Marast looked down and shrugged. “Perhaps. Kelpie is healed by water, so the snow should help.”
“It is uncouth to speak of me as if I were not present,” Troy rasped, attempting to shift.
“Deal with our lack of manners,” said Marast. “Living away from Court, I would expect you to be used to it.” He slapped another handful of snow on Troy’s chest, immobilizing him in the process. “Should we dunk you in the frozen pond, then?” he asked.
Troy shook his head, the movement minute and pained.
“Not after Ayalga’s corpse.” He swallowed and tried to sit up again. “The snow shall be sufficient.”
“Really.” Suddenly, Marast’s hand shot out and grabbed Troy’s forearm. Pushing up the sleeve, he revealed fine, faint lines, dark under Troy’s skin. “Care to finish the sentence, Kelpie? Sufficient for what?”
“Maintaining the pain at a bearable level, of course.” Troy grinned, the trickster grin, even though it was tense and forced, and Lily saw no reason for him to smile.
Marast stood, making a sound of disgust. “Of course.” He began to stride away, but stopped and turned back, confusion and frustration plain in his blood-streaked features. “Why?”
“The Herald needed saving, did she not?”
“The obligation was not yours.”
“You were busy engaging Ayalga’s glamour.” Troy coughed and wiped his mouth with a grimace, sinking his hand in the snow when he was done. Still, Lily saw the flecks of red on his lips. “Besides,” he added, “you would have been painfully useless
underwater.”
Marast went to reply, but Lily cut him off. She had no wish to keep listening to their exchange. She had no wish to let their every word twist a knife of guilt in her belly.
“It’s probably wise to check what the Wild Hunt is up to while roaming the mortal realm,” she said. “We should make sure they aren’t coming back our way, and it can’t hurt to know what else they hunt. Might be some Unseelie faeries you need to report about, or some humans whose disappearance might draw attention.”
“Thinking to command me as well, Herald?” Marast changed gears and smirked at her.
“The Queen would probably want to know what happens while the Wild Hunt is unleashed,” she said, shrugging, as if she didn’t care one way or the other but wanted to help him in the everlasting game of Court.
“Predicting the wants of a fay Queen is a dangerous hobby. Even for you.” Despite his words, Marast straightened his clothing and checked his weapons. “But I shall shadow the way of the Wild Hunt, for a while at least. This place is safe enough—Ayalga would have destroyed anything capable of being a threat, and now she herself is destroyed. You shall not be bothered.”
He inclined his head, to her first and then to Troy, and then he left following the cooling trail of the Wild Hunt. Lily watched him disappear, blending in like a ghost, and tried to swallow past the lump in her throat.
Marast hadn’t said because he was faerie and understood the power of words, but she had heard his meaning between the lines.
You can say your good-byes in peace, he had all but said.
C H A P T E R XXVIII
There were a dozen questions swirling around Lily’s mind when she turned back to Troy. Why go so far helping her? What price would he pay? Would he heal? Was the dark web under his skin a sign of poison or something else?
She palmed some snow and smeared it over the four parallel cuts on the side of his neck and shoulder and tried to decide which questions were important, which were ridiculous, and which she would rather not have an answer for.
