by Jocelyn Fox
“We make sure they do not,” Kavoryk rumbled, patting the neck of his great beast as he dismounted, the leather of his saddle groaning in protest.
I tried again. “Five against three is better odds than three against three,” I said, striving for a reasonable tone.
“You forget, Tess-mortal, that though we are small we still count as one each,” Farin chided me. Her daggers flashed as she twirled one in each hand. “I shall go.”
“I shall stay,” Forin said. His twin saluted him with one of her daggers.
“And Kavoryk there counts as two, I think, plus Beryk,” said Vell.
“Fine!” I threw up my hands. “Leave me here with a babysitter.”
Merrick looked affronted. I crossed my arms—or crossed one of them, anyway, the other being occupied with a sword—and glared at anyone who met my eyes.
“We’re wasting time,” Finnead said, drawing the Brighbranr. Vell adjusted her arrow, holding the bow pointed at the ground, and gave a nod of assent. The two of them and the giant Northman strode purposefully into the trees, silent as shadows. Farin dimmed her glow and disappeared into the foliage.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
“We wait,” replied Merrick.
“Shouldn’t we grab their reins?” I motioned to the three untethered mounts. Vell’s sleek little mount gazed into the forest attentively, plainly waiting for the return of his rider. Kavoryk’s shaggy beast stood as still as a statue. Finnead’s war-horse pawed at the forest floor with a forefoot.
“They are as much a part of this journey as all of us,” said Merrick. “They will not stray.”
I shifted restlessly on Kaleth’s back. Merrick turned his mount, circling so that he put himself on my right side. He looked at me with luminous gray eyes. “Now you know what it feels like to be kept from the fight,” he said softly, without rancor or sarcasm.
“I don’t like it.” I clenched my jaw, staring hard into the shadowy forest as though I could pierce the darkness and the trees with my gaze, somehow watching Vell and Kavoryk and Finnead as they hunted these creatures.
“Neither do I,” said Merrick. “But…at least I am doing something worthwhile.”
“What?”
“Protecting you,” he replied simply, as if his answer were the most logical one in the world.
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. I realized the natural sounds of the forest had faded to an eerie silence. No birds chirped, no small animals rustled through the underbrush—not even the wind disturbed the leaves on the trees. It was as if the whole forest was holding its breath.
A shriek pierced the silence like a blade slicing through flesh. Kaleth shied slightly, sidestepping to the left before he gathered himself. I raised my sword. Merrick faced his mount toward the sound, his handsome young face calm and resolute. “If more than one comes at us,” he said quietly, “turn and run as fast as you can. Get her away from them, whatever it takes.”
I opened my mouth to protest but then realized that Merrick was talking to Kaleth, not me. Kaleth watched Merrick as if for a signal, his muscles coiled like springs beneath me. I clenched my teeth again in frustration but held my tongue. There would be time enough for talking later.
Another shriek rose through the trees, different than the first.
“They’ve found at least two of them,” I murmured, my heart beating fast.
There were shouts, Vell’s voice rising over the others, and a heavy crashing noise, as if some huge wounded beast was thrashing blindly through the trees. Merrick steadied his mount with a calm Sidhe word. The other three mounts shifted restlessly but remained in their places. The crashing and snapping of branches grew louder. Farin rocketed from the trees above our heads, pirouetting in midair to face the forest. “The Northwitch and her wolf got one, and the giant the other,” she shouted to us, brandishing a gory blade. “The third is headed our way!”
“It’s only one,” I told Kaleth, “so don’t you dare run.” He tossed his head. Whether he was agreeing or disagreeing with me, I couldn’t tell. Forin joined his twin above Merrick’s head, his own small sword flashing in the fading light.
“Here it comes!” shouted Farin with maniacal glee.
The creature burst out of the forest, tearing branches out of its way with frightening strength. Kaleth tensed. I held the reins and raised my sword. It looked like a man but its skin was gray and drowned blue, its eyes mottled white. It roared at Merrick and I caught a glimpse of glistening pointed teeth behind its blackened, cracked lips. Tendon and bone gleamed from its shredded left arm and a green-fletched arrow protruded from its back.
The Glasidhe twins harried the creature. One of them—I couldn’t tell which in the blur of their sun-bright auras—shredded the skin below the creature’s left eye, and the other sliced off one of its ears. It paid the loss of its ear no mind, its milky white eyes turned toward Merrick…and then beyond him, to me. It bared its sharpened teeth in parody of a smile, and then it sprang at me.
Time seemed to slow. I saw the Skin-wraith’s arms extended, its gory hands grasping for me, nothing but air between the creature and I. I grabbed Kaleth’s mane and pointed my sword, aiming for the thing’s gaping mouth.
Merrick heaved on his mount’s reins. His faehal reared. And suddenly the young Sidhe was between the creature and I. His sword punched through its chest, the sound of splitting bone echoing in my ears. Kaleth leapt forward as the Skin-wraith tore Merrick from his mount, hitting the ground with a resounding thud. I hauled on Kaleth’s reins, turning him in a tight circle. “Merrick!” I shouted. All I could see of him was his dark hair and his sword glinting through the back of the creature. Forin and Farin hammered at the creature furiously, distracting it for a bare moment. It raised its head, snarling at the Glasidhe, keeping Merrick pinned down with one gore-encrusted hand and swiping at the twins with the other. And then Beryk barreled into the Skin-wraith, all gleaming black fur and white teeth. The Skin-wraith shrieked in anger as it was denied its prize.
Before Kaleth moved, I slid down from his back, running to where Merrick lay pale and unmoving. I stood over him and raised my sword. The Caedbranr’s power roared through my veins, flooding my body and speeding my heartbeat as surely as any rush of adrenaline. I watched as Beryk tore savagely at the Skin-wraith’s throat. The creature swiped at him with single-minded ferocity and dealt him a powerful blow with one of its arms. Beryk faltered for a bare second, stunned. The Skin-wraith snarled in triumph. I raised my sword but I couldn’t bring it down on the creature without also wounding Beryk. Then the fading light gleamed from the hilt of Merrick’s blade, still lodged in the creature’s chest.
I touched Gwyneth’s pendant. “Please don’t let me miss,” I murmured, and then I tossed my plain blade aside. In the same movement, I lunged forward. My fingers closed around the hilt of Merrick’s sword at the same time that the Skin-wraith’s fingers closed around my ankle. I drove Merrick’s sword through it and into the ground, pinning the creature in place. Its hand tightened on my ankle, fingers like bands of iron. I fell heavily, a scream bubbling up through my throat as the creature dragged me toward its terrible pointed teeth, my hands scrambling desperately for one of my daggers. The Sword blazed up but I clamped down on its power as I heard Beryk’s snarl. Twisting, I plunged the dagger into the creature’s wrist once, twice, three times, the crunch and pop of severed tendons and broken bone vibrating through the hilt of the weapon. The Skin-wraith’s hand separated from its arm, its vise-like grip loosening as the hand became a limp, dead thing. I kicked it away disgustedly, panting as I scrambled to my feet. My ankle throbbed, phantom fingers gripping it, but it bore my weight.
The Skin-wraith’s last shriek turned into a terrible gargling wheeze as Beryk tore out its throat in a spray of black gore. The wolf leapt agilely aside as another swift figure emerged from the trees. Vell beheaded the Skin-wraith with one swift stroke of her slim blade. She kicked the head vengefully away from the creature, and the
n began separating each of its remaining limbs from its body. “Have to dismember them else they’ll put themselves back together,” she growled, seizing Merrick’s blade with her left hand and heaving it from the creature with a wet crunching sound. Beryk picked up the Skin-wraith’s arm in his teeth like an obscene bone, the fingers flopping. He carried it into the brush and began digging industriously. I swallowed against the bile rising in my throat, turning instead to Merrick.
He had fallen on his left side, managing to drive his sword through the creature with his right arm as it took him down to the ground. He was pale, but I couldn’t see any blood. “Merrick,” I said into his ear. He stirred slightly. Relief washed through me as he opened his gray eyes, blinking hazily. “Are you hurt?”
He rolled onto his back, winced slightly and pushed himself into a sitting position using his right arm. Blue-black blood trickled from a shallow cut above his eye where a rock had gouged his skin as he fell. “Shoulder,” he gritted out. Then he seemed to remember the creature, and his gaze sharpened. “Is it destroyed?” he asked quickly.
“Almost,” replied Vell.
Finnead strode from the forest, the Brighbranr stained with dark congealing gore. “I’ll finish it,” he told Vell, who moved away from the body wordlessly. She wiped her blade on a patch of grass by the side of the path, leaving black smears through the vibrant green. Tugging a kerchief from one of her belt-pouches, she finished cleaning the blade before sheathing it.
I ran light fingers over Merrick’s shoulder. “It’s out of the socket, I think. I didn’t know Sidhe could dislocate joints.”
“Physiologically speaking,” Merrick said in a tight voice, “we are very similar to you mortals, though it takes much more force to break us.” He smiled at me thinly. “You probably would have had a shattered shoulder and collarbone, maybe some broken ribs.” His smile faltered as Vell pressed firmer fingers to his shoulder. “Or…you would have…if you were mortal.”
“There you go again, telling me I’m not mortal anymore,” I said teasingly. But I turned the thought over in my mind again. It made sense, actually; the Sword was the most powerful weapon in Faeortalam, and one had to be a mortal to be bound to it as its Bearer. But no one had ever really told me what the Bearer became after the binding. I certainly wasn’t Fae, or the Sword’s power would destroy me…but that didn’t mean I was mortal. I certainly wasn’t the same as before I had been bound to the blade.
Merrick’s sharp breathing drew me out of my thoughts. He fought to keep his face expressionless, but I saw the pain in his eyes. I slid to his other side and knelt behind him. “Lean back against me.”
He shook his head. “I’m fine.”
I shrugged. “If you say so.”
Vell’s examination drew a ragged exclamation from Merrick’s lips, laced with what I thought were Sidhe swear-words. He clenched his jaw and stubbornly kept himself upright with his good arm.
Kavoryk emerged from the forest, holding two severed heads by their gory, matted hair. He walked unconcernedly over to the third corpse and collected its head as well. When he saw my horrified gaze, he said, “If we take heads with us, they cannot find them.” He thrust them into a sack. “Ever.”
“If you didn’t do that,” I said, “they would be able to…put themselves back together?”
“Them, or their master,” affirmed Kavoryk.
“If they have a master,” said Vell under her breath. Beryk padded over to stand by her shoulder, muzzle glistening darkly. She glanced at him and said, “Go on, then, if you like.” He whirled, kicking up a plume of leaves behind him as he bounded into the forest. “His blood’s up from the hunt and the kill. He needs to take down a deer or something big to settle himself.”
“Would burning them work?” I asked.
“Smoke would give away our position,” Vell replied. “Though we can try that on our next set of kills.” She grinned, white teeth gleaming in the half-light.
Finnead finished cleaning the gore from the Brighbranr and sheathed the blade. He walked to his mount and checked the straps on his saddle cursorily.
“Does he even care that Merrick’s hurt?” I muttered to Vell. She pulled at Merrick’s shirt, exposing the pale skin of his neck and then his shoulder. I winced at the sight of the harsh blue and black mottling his skin.
“I’m…not that hurt,” protested Merrick, breath catching as Vell delicately probed the vivid bruise.
Kavoryk tied the sack to the back of his saddle. I tried not to notice the dark liquid seeping through the bottom. Forin and Farin hovered over us, their bright auras providing light in the darkening dusk. I squinted up at them. “Thank you for warning us that the third one was coming.”
Farin straightened her shoulders proudly. “It is my duty, Tess-mortal.”
I smiled a little at the nickname. They had picked it up from Wisp, no doubt. “Well, you did your duty very well.”
Farin twirled her dagger with a flourish and Forin gave a slight bow.
“If you would, make sure that we don’t get any other nasty surprises while we deal with this?” I asked.
The twins saluted me, nodded to each other and without a word flew up through the canopy, Forin going left and Farin right, their auras fading from sight in the midst of the darkening shadows.
“It’ll be dark inside an hour,” Vell said. “We’ve got to get this shoulder set and move before full dark falls. Scavengers will smell the kills.”
I wrinkled my nose. “What scavenger would want to feed on Skin-wraiths?”
Vell shook her head. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to meet them.” She sat back on her heels, brushing her hands against her trousers. “It seems to me that there’s no break. It should slide cleanly back in. Kavoryk?”
The giant man nodded at Vell, his great beard concealing his expression. “I have mended many limbs.” There was the flash of teeth as he smiled. “Though not nearly as many as I have broken.”
Merrick chuckled a little. “Reassuring.” His smile turned to a wince.
“The longer we wait, the more it’s going to swell,” Vell said warningly. “Do you want him to lay back?”
Kavoryk shook his head. “Fine the way he is. He can stand if he likes.”
“Don’t think I can,” Merrick admitted. “Do it.”
“Hold him,” Kavoryk said, his huge hands surprisingly gentle as he felt Merrick’s shoulder. Vell moved to Merrick’s back and braced him with her shoulder, her arm encircling his chest. The fingers of his good hand gripped a fistful of leaves. I laid my hand over his, and he glanced at me, gray eyes darker than usual in his pale face. His hand relaxed and I laced my fingers through his, bracing his good shoulder with with my other hand. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and then looked at Kavoryk.
“You should not watch,” rumbled Kavoryk.
“Merrick,” I said. He shifted his gaze from the giant to me. “Tell me about Moryn.”
A different kind of pain flashed over his face. “We were…shield-brothers. Raised from childhood by a knight at Court. He was always better with a blade…than me.” His eyes started to wander from me back over to Kavoryk, who was adjusting his grip on Merrick’s arm.
“Well, you must have been better at something than him,” I said quickly, squeezing Merrick’s hand.
“Archery,” he said, panting. “And…navigation. Maps, of course.”
I smiled. “So you did the finding, he did the fighting?”
“Something…like that,” he replied.
Finnead strode in front of us. “Enough coddling,” he said in a cold, tight voice. “Do it and be done. We are wasting time.”
“You’re not the one on the ground with a dislocated shoulder,” I snapped at him. Merrick tensed beside me.
“It is not a grave wound. He should not need to be soothed like a child,” the Vaelanbrigh said cuttingly.
I glared at him. Vell muttered something under her breath in her own tongue, glancing up at Finnead darkly. I
saw Kavoryk give a nod to Vell, and I tightened my grip on Merrick’s shoulder. I couldn’t see exactly what Kavoryk did, but Merrick made a small, strangled noise and there was a sharp crack and pop from his shoulder. His head lolled forward and if it hadn’t been for Vell and I holding him up, he would have slid to the ground. Then he took a huge, shuddering breath and glanced over at Kavoryk.
Kavoryk ran his huge hands over Merrick’s shoulder. “Feels in place. Going to move it, lad, slowly.” Merrick kept taking deep breaths as Kavoryk gently rotated his arm, testing its range of motion. He grunted and nodded. “Good as new.”
“We must be on our way,” Finnead said, already mounting his faehal.
Kavoryk helped Merrick stand. The young Sidhe swayed but then regained his balance.
“We can afford to give him a minute,” I told Finnead, daring him to disagree with me. He met my gaze coolly and then looked away, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other to him.
Vell produced a length of cloth from one of her saddlebags. She fashioned it into a rough sling, fastening the knot behind Merrick’s neck. “Wear it until at least this time tomorrow,” she said, cutting off his protest. She glanced at me, and then gave a black look to Finnead. “There’s no harm in taking care of yourself.”
Finnead said nothing. I caught Kaleth’s reins and slid my toe into the stirrup. Vell mounted her sleek little faehal. Merrick leapt into the saddle with no less grace than he had earlier in the afternoon, though it took him a moment to gain his seat.
“Ready to go, then?” I asked.
Vell gave a sharp little whistle that sounded almost like the cry of a hawk. Forin and Farin appeared from the shadows, and Beryk bounded out from the underbrush, loping down the path ahead of us.
“Now we are,” said Vell, and she nudged her mount into a trot. Kaleth cantered until he drew even with her, and then he settled into his swift trot. Merrick guided his mount up to my other side, his face still a bit pale for my liking, but he caught my concerned gaze and gave me a hint of a smile. Kavoryk rode behind us, the sack fastened to his saddle swinging sickeningly with its gory weight; and then Finnead rode last again, face unreadable, sitting straight and still as a statue in the saddle. I turned back to the path ahead and rubbed a hand over my face. If our first day of travel was an indication, the road to the Seelie Court was going to be a very hard, very long journey.
