Into the Nightfell Wood

by Kristin Bailey

  He thought he knew what Osmund meant. Zephyr was over four hundred years old, and yet he seemed like any other young boy Elric’s age. He wasn’t changing.

  No matter how Osmund felt about being here, Elric was sure of one thing. “I’m glad you’re back,” he said.

  Osmund gave him a warm smile, then continued down what could barely be called a path. There was a pride in Osmund’s bearing. Elric thought about Osmund’s hut and how comfortable he had seemed in it. He had made himself his own world. “Will you return to the Otherworld when all this is over?” Elric asked.

  Osmund bent to inspect a footprint and didn’t answer. “Let’s find your sister.” He took another step forward and pushed aside some brush with the handle of his ax. “Look at this.”

  Elric ran forward, but when he saw that Osmund had found, he immediately took a step back. Lying on the ground in the small clearing was a large snake-like creature. Its enormous eyes had been clouded over by death. Stiff spines ran the length of the creature’s back. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Osmund admitted. “I don’t know much about the creatures of this wood. I’m only familiar with the elves, and trust me, we don’t want to run into them.”

  Elric knelt, picked up a twig from the ground nearby and poked at the dead snake. “It looks like its head was bashed in.”

  “And the scales are ripped,” Osmund noted. “Claws, perhaps?”

  More bird prints dotted the mud around the carcass; they were the right size and shape for an odd-toed hen. “Wait a minute,” Osmund said, inspecting one of the slashes in the snake’s skin. There was a distinctive wound to the eye as well, as if it had been pecked. “Did Mildred do this?”

  A tiny flame of hope lit in Elric’s heart. He looked around and found a blunted stick sitting on top of a thick thornbush as if it had been hastily thrown there. There was a dark stain of dried blood on one end. “I think she did. I think they both did.” He glanced behind him and saw more prints leading away. Hope and the swell of pride mixed with his worry. Wynn had faced a darkling creature and she defeated it on her own.

  Elric followed the tracks, with Osmund close behind. They came to a dry creek bed. Some branches of a nearby bush were broken. Elric took a closer look, and found a glittering thread caught on one of the thorns. Elric pulled the thread free; it glowed in the dim light. It must have come from Wynn’s dress.

  “What are these prints?” Osmund was bent low near a thick tree trunk. Elric came to his side and saw long, thin rabbit-like prints in the shape of a V. Very different marks had been pressed in the mud where a rabbit’s front legs should be. They looked like miniature hands with long, bony fingers. Elric felt a jolt through his whole body. He knew a creature with rabbit legs and long, bony hands.

  “Hob!” Elric said. He couldn’t contain his excitement. “Hob found her.”

  “Who is Hob?” Osmund asked. “Or should I ask, what is Hob?”

  “I don’t know what he is,” Elric admitted. “He’s a mix of a man, a rabbit, a fox, and a rat, I suppose.”

  Osmund gave him a blank stare. “How does that work?”

  “He’s the strangest creature I’ve ever seen, of that there is no doubt, but he helped us when we first came through the gate. He led us to the palace, even though the guards chased him back into the wood.” If Hob had found Wynn, Elric thought, then she had help. She was with someone who knew what it took to survive in these woods— someone who he trusted would not hurt her but help her find her way back to safety. Sure enough, the tracks turned and led back in the direction of the shield. Elric pointed down the path. “He knows how to lead her home.”

  But Hob couldn’t get her through the shield. Elric didn’t know how old the prints were. At the moment he didn’t care. “We’re going to find her! Hurry.”

  “Elric, wait!” Osmund called as Elric tore ahead. The shadows thickened as he ran forward, leaving Osmund’s light behind. Yet with what little light there was, he could see the tracks. Hob’s strange rabbit-like tracks, Wynn’s muffled shoe print, her bare footprint, and Mildred’s angular prints trotting along beside.

  He could almost picture the happy troop as they marched back home. Mildred would be bobbing her head, her bright comb jiggling and her tail held high. Wynn would be singing, happy to be with Hob as the darkling creature bounced out front with the twitchy energy that reminded Elric of a squirrel.

  Wynn would be hungry and tired. He couldn’t wait to get her home and safe in the castle where nothing could hurt her again. Then he would sleep for a week. He was beginning to feel the effects of staying up worrying about her all night.

  The path suddenly veered in another direction, farther away from the place where Zephyr was waiting to help them back through the shield. It didn’t matter. Once they found Wynn, they could follow the edge of the shield until Zephyr caught sight of them. Then they would be safe. He’d make sure Wynn never set foot outside of the palace again.

  “Elric, wait!” Osmund called again. Elric paused his stride to make sure Osmund could follow down the sudden turn in the path. Osmund jogged up to him, sweat beading on his high forehead. “You can’t just go charging through the wood like that. This forest is dangerous.”

  “All the more reason we should find Wynn, and quickly.” Elric turned to set out again.

  Osmund blocked him with the flat side of the head of his ax. “We’re no good to Wynn dead. There are elves in these wood who will shoot you with one of their mechanized bows as soon as they look at you. They create elaborate traps, and you would never see them until you were caught in one. That’s not to mention the creatures here. There’s a reaper in the woods, and if it finds us, we’re worse than dead.”

  Elric nodded, and tried to contain his restless energy. Osmund was right. They had to be careful. They came to a small clearing where the roots of a tree formed into a twisted cage where the dirt had washed out from underneath them. Leaves littered the ground everywhere. Osmund lifted his stone torch.

  There on the ground was another one of Mildred’s dark feathers, nestled in the roots of the tree.

  “It looks like the rabbit creature went this way, and Wynn ran that way,” Osmund said, pointing with his light.

  “Why would they split apart?” Elric asked with a sinking feeling.

  Osmund lowered the glowing rock to an enormous, deep print at their feet. The pit of the print was the size of Elric’s head, and there was no mistaking it. It looked half man and half beast.

  The reaper had found Wynn.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Wynn

  WYNN SAT IN THE BACK of the elves’ terrible wagon. The pig-foot wheels bumped over the uneven trails and Wynn felt every hard jolt. The rope tied around her wrists hurt. She yanked and tugged on it, but it only got tighter. Her fingers felt tingly.

  She was so angry. One of the elves sat next to her with his arrow shooter across his knees. She kicked him in the elbow.

  He shouted as the arrow shooter fired, nearly hitting the driver of the wagon. The driver pulled on the reins and turned the wagon too quickly. The stumpy, pig-foot wheels tipped, and the whole wagon turned over. Wynn tumbled to the forest floor. She got up and ran away from the boars and the nasty elves. Her skirt twisted and tangled around her legs as the sharp rocks and roots of the forest floor cut into her bare feet. But she was free!

  She had to get away. She had to find a place to hide. She had to find Mildred and go back to Shadow and Flame. Her skirt tangled around her legs again. She tried to hold it up, but it was hard with her hands tied together. The ropes dug into her wrists and made them ache. She pulled at them as she ran. She needed her hands to run right. It was hard to balance.

  Run! It was all she could think about, her only hope. She had to get home.

  Suddenly a net flew over the top of her, and she fell, hopelessly tangled.

  “I got you!” an elf shouted behind her. Her heart flew into her throat. She rolled over and tried to kick at him.

&
nbsp; The elf pulled at the net, when a furious black hen charged out of the shadows. She leaped off a high bank and flapped and scratched at the elf’s face. He let out a terrified cry, and Wynn struggled from under the net.

  A boar wagon charged toward them, and a second net flew from a wooden arm that whipped out from the side of the wagon. It fell over Mildred.

  “Mildred!” Wynn screeched. She struggled from under her net, and ran toward her trapped bird. An elf leaped from the wagon and balled up the net around Mildred. Her feathers stuck out in ruffled tufts between the ropes. One of her white legs poked out, and her clawed toes curled.

  “This creature means something to you?” the elf asked.

  “She’s mine. Give her back!” Wynn lunged for the net, but the elf pulled it away from her with a swing of his long arms.

  “I’m taking it. If you ever want to see it again, you will follow orders. Do you understand?” He held the bundle and Mildred let out a desperate squawk.

  Wynn wasn’t sure about all of his words, but she knew she had to behave. She nodded. Quietly she followed the elves, and sat glumly in the back of the wagon.

  They rode a long time. Wynn wasn’t sure how late in the day it was, but her stomach growled and she was very tired and thirsty. As they traveled, the woods seemed less tangled. Wynn noticed certain branches had been cut. The circles left on the trunks from the severed branches shone white where the soft inner wood was exposed. There were a lot of large boulders here too. Some of them had clean edges, as if they had been shaped by a stone cutter. The black fruit hung from several trees along the path. It probably wasn’t sweet at all.

  This part of the woods looked angry. So did the elves. Not one of them had smiled.

  The band of elves stretched out down a narrow path before they came to a large wall of thick tangled vines. One of them put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. It was the same strange whistle she had heard earlier, but she thought it was a bird.

  Wynn heard a great wrenching sound, and the clattering of a chain. Something groaned, the way a tree does when it is about to fall.

  An enormous door opened up in the vines, slowly pushing toward them. The elves whipped their reins over the backs of the large boars. Wynn peered around as she passed through the gate. The vines covered the front of an enormous wooden wall made of sharpened poles. From the outside, the vines covering the face of it made it disappear into the forest. Behind the wall stood a bustling village teeming with more green-faced bald people.

  They all wore long tunics made of woven cloth in drab browns and grays. They were simple and functional clothes that made it difficult to tell the girls from the boys. They reminded Wynn of the clothes she used to wear in the Otherworld. Most of the elves wore hoods over their bare heads, though some of them wore strange contraptions on their faces with glass over their orange eyes.

  “Take her to the Headmind,” one of the wagon drivers said as he slid off the seat of his wagon and handed the reins over to another elf. “And keep this with you.” He shoved the net with Mildred in it into another elf’s arms. Mildred squawked and wriggled.

  “Give her to me,” Wynn said. She reached out for the net. “I will be good.” She wanted Mildred safe in her arms, and not wrapped up in the net.

  The elf looked her up and down. His grim expression didn’t change. “You’ll be good, or else.”

  Wynn didn’t wish to test the elf. He was already very angry. The new elf grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her through a series of strange houses. They were tall, and made from neat mud bricks in interlocking patterns. Large wheels paddled running water to the tops of the houses. It flowed through hollow reed gutters linking the houses together. The wheels also turned heavy rope belts that powered several other machines Wynn didn’t understand.

  The elf led her to a large brick and wood building in the center of the village.

  Inside, stone steps led up to a large room with a throne at the back. Fires burned in stone pits to either side of it, fanned by billows that pumped themselves.

  They warmed the room, but did not make the room feel lighter. An elf sat on a very old-looking stone throne. The back of it was enormous, and had pictures carved into it. The pictures looked a lot like the one in Flame’s house in the ruins. Carved elves stood holding hunting trophies. The arms of the throne were carved to look like the heads of tigereons. The seat was covered with a striped animal skin that looked like the one the Fairy Queen had on her wall.

  Around the room, woven panels showed more elves. Some of the elves in the tapestries looked at the stars through strange devices. They mixed potions, and worked with tools. There was even one picture of an elf posed in a mutual bow with a man with a beard, an Otherworld man.

  The leader rose from the throne. He wore very fancy clothes with fine stitching that seemed very old, but well cared for; they piled on his shoulders in heavy layers that made him look bigger than all the other elves. Shaggy boar hide lined the collar of his dark brown outer robe. It glittered with embroidered threads that looked golden. A tarnished crown sat upon his bald head. It too seemed very old and was set with large pieces of amber.

  He didn’t seem very happy.

  He said several things to her guards. They answered him in words she couldn’t understand. It was very rude to talk in a language she didn’t know. When they stopped talking, he turned his glowing eyes to her.

  “Who are you, and what do you seek in our woods?” he asked. His words were very clear.

  “I am Wynnfrith,” she said. “I want my chicken back.” She tried to tug her hands apart, but couldn’t free them.

  “That tells me nothing,” he said. “You were found near a trap in the Witch’s Wood. And the carcass of a reaper is rotting on our doorstep.”

  Lots of elves came into the room from the doors behind her. They stood around the edges, giving her plenty of clear space. Only the guard who held Mildred in the net stood near her. He looked angry.

  Well, she was angry too. She wanted to cross her arms, but couldn’t with her hands tied.

  “I don’t like this,” she said, holding her wrists up.

  The leader looked down on her. “I am Axis, Headmind of the darkling elves. You have trespassed in our wood. We are not a merciless people. But I will have answers.”

  “I don’t like you.” She dropped to the floor and crossed her legs beneath her. She was tired of standing. She didn’t like the elves. The fairies were right. They were very mean.

  “Wynn!” a familiar voice squealed.

  She turned to look over her shoulder. Hob darted between the feet of those standing in front of the door and barreled toward her. She fell to the side as Hob leaped up onto her shoulder. “You are safe! Hob is so pleased, yes.” He threw his thin arms around her neck, and she noticed the bandages tied around his narrow ribs.

  “Hob!” She was so happy to see him. “You’re back.” She knew that wasn’t the right thing to say, but it was the first thing that came into her mind, and he didn’t seem to care. She was so, so happy!

  He let go of her neck and bounded around her. “I thought the reaper had taken you far away. That Hob would never, ever, ever, ever see you again.”

  “You were hurt.” She looked him over. He seemed well. The Headmind crossed his arms and listened to their conversation with cool interest.

  “The elvsies found me and healed me. They are good with medicine.” His large eyes blinked at her. “Not so good at magic.”

  “I don’t like them.” Wynn crossed her arms.

  “And we don’t like being treated with disdain,” the Headmind growled as he hovered over her. “I should toss you in with the pigs.”

  Wynn let out a cry of fright. She didn’t want to go in a pen with pigs. A horrible memory came back to her, of cruel laughter and mud in her hair. She started to cry. She couldn’t help it.

  “Do not speak to the princess that way,” Hob shouted. His tail lashed the ground like a whip. “She is very kind. I won’t let y
ou hurt her.” He stuck out his bandaged chest.

  “Princess?” The light green swirl above the Headmind’s eye rose as he peered down at Hob. “What do you mean by this?”

  Hob slapped his long fingers over his mouth.

  The Headmind turned to Wynn and peered carefully at her. He knelt down and touched the hem of Wynn’s dress. She scooted back from him. “This is fairy-made,” he said. “But you are not a fairy. You are an Otherworld girl. That can mean only one thing.” Axis rose and looked around the crowd. “It seems the Fairy Queen is stealing human children again.”

  “No!” Wynn shouted. “She did not steal. I found the Silver Gate. Now I am a princess!”

  Hob jumped forward and slapped his hands over Wynn’s mouth this time. “Shhhh.” He shook his head, and his large ears flopped from side to side. “Elvsies are very nice when they want to be, and they are not accusing you of stealing their fruit, as long as you are not a fairy.”

  The elves in the room broke into restless chatter. Hoods leaned together, pressing green-striped faces close in huddled whispers. Several of the elves near the door slipped out into the village. Wynn could hear them shouting. Hands covered mouths, as if they could hide the sound of excited words. It was so noisy that Wynn clapped her hands over her ears.

  Headmind Axis threw his hands up. His embroidered sleeves fell down to his elbows like sweeping waves. “Pax!” he shouted at all of them. They took longer to settle this time. Words escaped them in urgent whispers.

  “Well, this changes things.” He reached down and untied her wrists, then offered her a hand. She crossed her arms and remained sitting on the floor. He scowled at her, then folded his hands back into his fancy sleeves. “Very well,” he said, turning away from her. “If you are the queen’s new Otherworld pet, you may stay here as my guest.”

  He smiled at her, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. It was a not happy smile but a pretending one. It reminded her of her father, and she didn’t trust her father. “Show her to one of the healing house chambers. Keep the bird to ensure her obedience.” He spared a downward glance at Hob. “Toss that one in the pit until we’re sure he’s not the gob who’s been stealing from our fruit cellar.”