Faeswyn [The Maidens of Mocmoran 2]

by Wynette Davis

  She pushed herself through the hole. There was a steep cliff twenty feet in front of her. She could hear the echo from the wind rushing through the cavern. Her hosts were to the right, with dense forest to the left—a forest that didn’t seem to be very friendly looking. It could be filled with vaem wolves, thrihn cats, or even the occasional dialon viper. So, as she debated on the lesser of three evils, her fear of being torn apart and eaten by fairies and witches won out.

  “Just get back home,” she said, and slowly started to crawl through the thick underbrush toward her salvation of the forest.

  * * * *

  Trikyia rode in the back of the car with Draeis and Naihr sitting in the front. The pitch blackness of the night was the only thing she could see outside the windows as it rushed past with lightning speed. Draeis continued to speed toward wherever they were heading. None of them spoke, which would have unnerved her if she hadn’t been concentrating on finding Faeswyn.

  Her gifts, as her nana liked to call them, had scared her at first when she was younger. It was the first time she’d known she was different. Special. The first time was right after she’d turned eight. It was a simple game she was playing with some of her friends—hidden-and-found. She’d been the seeker, wanting to find as many of her friends as possible and take hold of the thromp whistle as proof. Several of her friends had scattered after she’d counted. Most of the time, she’d gone looking in obvious places for them, but that time she’d seen something different than the footprints in the dirt. She’d seen wavy tails in the air and on the ground, as if they were directing her to her friends. To her, they looked like wavy wormholes filled with color. She found each of them. They’d screamed in laughter wondering how she’d found them so quickly. She’d only laughed along with them, and later run breathlessly to her mother to tell her what had happened.

  Her gift. She could find people by merely concentrating on them, and following their trails. Her mother had told her about the women in Calthafahr. About their special abilities. What her nana called gifts, were something most Calthafae had. But her abilities had to be honed. So her mother trained her daily. Soon, they both realized she had other abilities with weapons and defense. She was especially adept with the knife. She could toss an apple into the air and cut it to shreds in the process. Not something her mother wanted anyone, especially her father to know.

  She was practicing with her knife once when she was eleven, mindlessly tossing it end over end in the air before catching it, but she heard her father calling to her, dropped the knife, and it speared through her foot. She didn’t feel any pain. That was the first thing she noticed. The second thing was seeing the deep gash in her foot begin to close and heal on its own. She’d only smiled. Another ability, and a very useful one to have. She thought that ability was limited to herself, but soon found she could heal others. She practiced on small animals at first. Her mother would cut or break one of the chicken’s wings on Nana’s farm when they visited, and she would place her hand over the poor wing and it would just…heal. Just like that. Instantly.

  But what she was doing now was nothing like practicing her abilities with her mother, or shooting targets in the back of Faeswyn’s property. It was real. But rather than feel fear, she felt excitement. She felt as though she were about to do what she’d been born to do.

  “Stop!” Trikyia suddenly said. She saw the wavy trails on the side of the road.

  “I don’t think this is the spot,” Draeis said, driving past the spot.

  “Stop the fucking mover now!” Trikyia said, hitting Draeis repeatedly. “This is the spot. Come on,” she said and got out of the backseat.

  “Are you sure?” Naihr asked, getting out and looking worriedly around at the emptiness of their surroundings.

  “Yes,” she said. She looked at several swirling, colored, worm-hole tails that seemed to beckon to her before disappearing into the dense forest. “I see…I see their trail. I can’t explain it, but this is the spot. Follow me.”

  “No.” Draeis stood looking at her sternly. “I don’t know who you are, but this isn’t some game we’re playing. Faeswyn is out there. I’m not about to follow some girl into who knows what because she has a feeling this is the spot the witches took her.”

  She was getting tired of people treating her like she was some infant. She wasn’t like any of the girls she knew back home or in Drisa for that matter. Faeswyn was her friend and she wasn’t about to let anything happen to her. But first she had to get past the giant wad of male superiority to do so.

  “I love Faeswyn,” she said to Naihr and Draeis. “She’s the closest thing I have to a big sister. Now, you can either stumble around here with your thumbs stuck up your asses because you don’t want to follow me, or you can trust me. Either way, I’m following the trail I see, and I’m helping Faeswyn.”

  Naihr glanced at Draeis, and then gave her a curt nod. “Lead on.”

  “I-I-I have some rules, too,” Trikyia said shyly. “I’m in charge—”

  “Naihr, come on,” said Draeis. “We’re wasting time! Faeswyn is out there with witches, and we’re standing here listening to some adolescent with a power fantasy.”

  Trikyia’s mother always told her to watch her temper. It flared red in front of her eyes, and in the next instant she’d launched herself at Draeis, grappling her body up his tall frame to wrap her legs around his neck, and pull him to the ground. She sat on his chest as he stared up at her with wide eyes.

  “Don’t you ever fuckin’ call me an adolescent again!” Trikyia shouted. “I could have broken your neck, but I didn’t out of respect to Faeswyn. Now, if you think you can do the same as me, and just as fast as I did, to those witches, be my guest.”

  Draeis nodded stiffly as Trikyia stood up from his chest. “Okay,” he said. “We follow you.”

  “And?” Trikyia asked.

  “And…You’re in charge,” Draeis said reluctantly.

  “Good,” she said. “Stay close, and do as I say, when I say.”

  They started to enter the forest and Trikyia couldn’t help the small smile that played on her lips. Given the gravity of the situation, she still couldn’t help but wonder if her mother would have been proud of seeing her in charge of two, muscled, grown men. She was proud of herself.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She was going to make it, Faeswyn thought to herself. The forest was only three feet away and the witch-fairy argument was becoming no more than background noise. Hope welled inside of her at the thought of seeing Draeis and Naihr again. At least, for a few seconds it did.

  A hand grabbed the back of her head, pulling her hair painfully high above her. For a split second she wondered why her hair was always the target. But then awareness hit her, and she noticed that not only was her hair being pulled above her, but the hand that was pulling it was cold, and the nails were long and talon-like.

  “Leaving so soon?” a whispering voice asked. Faeswyn took hold of her pulled hair to stop the fairy from ripping it from her skull as she was dragged into the clearing to the rest of them. The fairy lifted her up by her hair again and Faeswyn yelled out in pain, letting her feet dangle inches off of the ground before throwing her forcefully onto the ground.

  The air in Faeswyn’s lungs left her momentarily, and she coughed forcibly to regain it. “I found a worm trying to scurry into the forest, Shahlmach. Can we eat it?” asked the fairy that had grabbed her.

  Faeswyn was finally able to take a deep breath, looking around at the witches and the fairies she’d heard from the hut. Several torches were ablaze around her, illuminating the clearing. The one that had grabbed her by the hair was tall and thin with light blue eyes that would have been beautiful if it hadn’t been for the soulless evil that permeated from them. She stared down at Faeswyn with hunger, and Faeswyn knew that the fairy did truly want to eat her. The fairy’s blue hair was long and wavy, and her skin an alabaster white so pale it seemed to also be a light shade of blue in the dim light around her.
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br />   “You can’t eat her,” a witch said, that reminded Faeswyn of old Lady of Fridrae in Quith. She was round and grandmotherly looking with grayish hair piled on top of her head in an untidy bun. Her chubby jowls shook when she spoke, but then Faeswyn inwardly cringed when the witch’s appearance changed to that of a decrepit, gray-skinned crone with wild hair moving as if on its own power. Her eyes were small pinpricks of light in black holes. The same eyes she had seen at the car before they’d taken her.

  “Can we eat her, Maelanthia?” asked another witch to the left of Faeswyn.

  The witch that spoke was shorter than Maelanthia, with a hunched back, and arms that seemed to hang a little too long for normalcy. Her gray hair was braided down her back one minute, and loose and moving about her head in the next. Her daddy used to tell her that witches had a hard time keeping their human features when they were hungry or agitated. Once in their huts, they regained their control over their features and over their less than intelligent minds. Their huts were the tether to their control. Which was why being taken to a witches hut usually meant death to those that were captured by them.

  “I think we know her, Drothahnia,” Maelanthia said, walking closer to where the fairy was slowly walking a circle around Faeswyn. “She looks familiar to me.”

  “Didn’t we capture her, Maelanthia?” said the third witch. The witches red eyes darted between Faeswyn and the one called Maelanthia. She moved quickly when she walked. Scurrying quickly like a spider on a wall as she came closer to look at Faeswyn.

  Maelanthia turned her head to the left, and then to the right as she stared at Faeswyn also. “Yes, Zahnduthia. I think we captured her.” Maelanthia’s head jerk up as if on a string pulled by an invisible puppeteer. “You can’t eat her, Shahlmach! She is ours!”

  Another fairy sauntered close to Faeswyn. Faeswyn didn’t look away. She told herself that if she looked away from their faces, she would continue to be afraid, and she didn’t want to be afraid. Her parents always told her and her sisters to look fear dead in the face. To show fear that it wouldn’t get the best of you. That’s what she was trying to do, but it was becoming hard with some of the fairies reverting to their true forms and showing all of those sharp, dagger-like teeth to her.

  The fairy looked down at her with lavender eyes. Her bright purple hair was full of curls. She looked to be the epitome of every image she’d ever had of what a fairy would look like. Not these fairies, she thought. Not fairies that spoke of eating her, and had teeth straight out of a child’s nightmare. Definitely not.

  “What is your name, beauty?” asked the fairy.

  Faeswyn couldn’t remember what her father had said about telling a fairy your name. She couldn’t think. All she could think about was not letting the fairy get too close to her with all of those teeth in her mouth. She shook her head.

  “I am called Aianaesa,” she said, leaning down a little too close for Faeswyn’s comfort. Aianaesa inhaled deeply with her face close to Faeswyn’s neck. For a moment, she thought the fairy was going to rip her throat out, and was thankful when it didn’t happen. “I know your scent.” Aianaesa inhaled again. “Mmmm, yes. You have his smell. Delicious.” She suddenly stood up. “She knows of the man, Shahlmach! I smell him on her!”

  No, she thought. This couldn’t be happening. It was the fairy that had wounded Draeis. All of those teeth in her mouth had ripped and bitten at his groin. In one moment, she wanted to scream and cower under something to get away from the fairy. In the next moment, she wanted to kill the bitch for what she’d done to Draeis.

  Aianaesa crouched low beside Faeswyn, running her long talon-like fingers through her hair. “I know of your man, my sweet. I’ve tasted of his honey. So delicious. So…tender. And I will have him again. I’ll whisper to him all of the words he wants to hear. Men,” Aianaesa said with a shrill laugh. “They love to have their egos…stroked. And his ego is long and thick. I’m going to suck your man’s cock into my mouth. I’m going to make him believe he is feeling more pleasure than he’s ever felt before. And he will. I’m going to lick his balls, and pull his swollen cock down my throat as his eyes roll into their sockets. He’ll be blissfully entranced by my voice, and by my mouth doing so many wonderful things to him, that he won’t even notice when I rip his cock from his body and swallow it whole!”

  The other fairies began to laugh along with Aianaesa. “Then we all will feast!” Shahlmach yelled out to the others.

  Faeswyn glanced over to where the witches were still debating amongst themselves about who she was, and if they should also find a stone to make a rock to kill her. She thought she could at least try and fight her way out of her situation. But one look from two of the fairies nearest to her, their eyes burning with a light that told her they wanted her to try and escape. Their black tongues licked around their demure lips. Lips that Faeswyn knew could stretch wide to accommodate so many sharp teeth. She had no chance against them, and resignation began to overtake her. She lowered her head in defeat. It was over. It was all over.

  * * * *

  Trikyia, Draeis, and Naihr crawled along the wooded ground to crouch behind several low boulders that sat on a small hill overlooking the witch camp. From what Naihr could see, there were nine that they would have to dispose of. The bad news was that six of them were fairies. He smiled wide when he saw Faeswyn sitting on the ground by a fairy with purple hair. She was alive.

  “She’s alive,” he said in a low whisper.

  “Yes. Thank the goddesses,” Draeis said, grabbing on to his shoulder. “Now, let’s get down there and kill those things before they decide to do anything to Faeswyn.”

  “No,” Trikyia said, looking at the two men with wide eyes. “You two can’t go down there. Those fairies will entrance you. I can’t keep you two from being entranced, and free Faeswyn. Let me get rid of the fairies first, and then you can kill the witches.”

  “You’re going to go down there alone and deal with the fairies and the witches?” said Draeis. “Listen, kid.” Trikyia gave him a warning glare. “Trikyia. I know you want to help, but we can’t let a—you—we can’t let you deal with them alone.”

  Trikyia sighed deeply. “Listen,” she said as she checked her tracer gun and pulled her hair up into a high ponytail, “when I’m done and we’ve safely gotten Faeswyn back to the farm, I’ll be more than happy to let you tell me how a young, innocent girl shouldn’t run into a den of fairies and witches. The whole, it’s-not-something-a-girl-should-do thing? But for right now, I think we’re wasting time sitting here while you two measure your dicks. I’ll call you when I need you.” With that, she jumped over the boulders and silently slid down the side of the embankment without raising the suspicions of the witches and fairies right below her.

  “That girl has balls,” said Draeis.

  Naihr nodded. “She’s right. If we go down there, those fairies will entrance us.”

  “Faeswyn, Naihr,” Draeis said to him. “I don’t care what happens to me. All I care about is Faeswyn.”

  “I hear you, but what good will we be to her if we’re entranced, or…worse?”

  Draeis nodded. “Shit!” he said as they both looked down the embankment to see Trikyia effortlessly snap the necks of two of the fairies. “What the hell is she?” asked Draeis.

  Naihr could only shake his head, watching Trikyia use her knife on two fairies coming at her with mouths wide and teeth bared. She ducked under one fairy as she’d tried to grab Trikyia with her long, talon-like fingers. Trikyia’s knife slid through the fairy, disemboweling her. The other’s mouth opened frighteningly wide as she lunged at Trikyia. Trikyia’s knife was swift and deadly. She ended the life of the fairy with one swift swipe of her knife. Four were left. One was perched high in a tree to Trikyia’s left, waiting to launch herself down on her. Trikyia pulled something from the top of her boot and flung it up at the fairy. The fairy fell from the tree as Trikyia quickly went to the body and plunged her knife into the fairy’s chest.

 
; “Kill her!” yelled the fairy near Faeswyn.

  Fairy laughter could be heard as another fairy held her hands in front of her body, aiming at Trikyia. Crimson sparks shot out of her hand, but Trikyia ducked and ran under a fallen tree stump. Another fairy appeared behind Trikyia, and almost caught her, but Trikyia performed a back flip and dispersed of the fairy with her knife. Naihr couldn’t see where the other fairies had gone, until he saw them. They were near Faeswyn. One held her in front of her body with Faeswyn’s hands behind her back, and the other paced slowly in front of them, eyeing Trikyia as she walked toward them. The witches had quickly gone into the safety of their hut when the scuffle had started as witches did when feeling threatened.

  “We should head down,” Naihr said with a tense and rigid jaw set with determination.

  “Not yet, brother. Let her do what she needs. I’m in no hurry to come face to face with another fairy. I have too many memories of the last time, Naihr. If she needs our help, my charger has some power to it.”

  “That’s what I don’t understand,” Naihr said, looking at Draeis. “Trikyia has a fully loaded tracer. Why didn’t she just shoot the damn fairies and be done with it?”

  “Faeswyn, brother. She didn’t want to chance shooting Faeswyn. We can set our tracers to shoot the fairies, but the fairies have the power to turn the tracers on us,” Draeis said. “Draedon told me that before they left. He said if they ever tried to come to the farm, to not use the tracers.”

  “And the witches, too?”

  Draeis shook his head. “No. Not them. I have something special for them.”

  “We both do.”

  * * * *

  Faeswyn’s eyes were wide and fearful as she watched Trikyia flip and vault over the fairies before plunging her knife into them one after the other. “Trikyia! Get out of here!”