“If you do not care to fight this one, then perhaps you will accompany me to the city to find the knight, Artegall.”
Una sighed. “No, we have a duty to do.” The last thing she wanted was to be tied up in a quest to kill someone who didn’t deserve to die. Not to mention, the last place she wanted to be was a Saxon city. They would identify the pair of them as non-Saxons within a heartbeat. And though her magic made her a formidable force against such threats, even she was vulnerable to a dagger while she slept.
She continued riding without further complaint, but as the sun beat down on them, she began to sink lower and lower into a feeling of futility. Even if they found this cave that Wrath used as a base, assuming Malecasta had been telling the truth about that, what would they do there? They knew nothing of the place other than the fact that it could be a portal to the Shadow Realm. And what kind of trap could they set that would fool Wrath. Chances were he had all kinds of enchantments to prevent such things, if he was even susceptible to that kind of artifice.
Though she had to admit, Brit had drawn blood from the Sin. He was not invulnerable. If they kept their heads and somehow robbed him of his power, power he gained by simply being in Saxon territory, perhaps they would have a chance. But Una saw no reason why finding the cave was going to help in any way at the moment.
“Look, Una.” Brit’s voice brought Una out of her brooding. “The sand turns to cliffs.”
Una looked to see, sure enough, about two miles ahead the coast had transformed into a series of rocky cliffs. Though from her vantage point she couldn’t tell if they extended very far. They could be a minor anomaly. But it was the best potential location for a cave that they had come across so far, and that was enough to lighten both of their spirits. They were near civilization too, as she could see a small fishing boat out in the distance. If they couldn’t find the cave themselves, maybe they could ask the fisherman if he’d seen anything unusual.
“Let’s go,” said Una, forgetting her earlier thoughts about the futility of searching for a cave. They might as well look now that they were here.
Brit urged her horse forward until they were close enough to the cliffs, and the ground became difficult enough that they had to dismount. Brit tied the horse to a large rock and together the two of them began their search.
They searched for an hour before they decided they had to go back for the horse. They’d had no luck thus far, and these cliffs extended for some miles and they couldn’t afford to scope them all out without a way to continue on.
While Brit untied the horse, Una scanned the way they had come. Something was...off about it. Almost like discovering a foul smell on the wind, except in this case there was no wind, not a single gust. In fact, now that she thought about it, there were no sounds coming from anywhere. No birds, no insects. Even the waves made little more than a soft lapping sound as the tide went out. Something was wrong.
Una reached out with her senses, not her natural senses, but that of her magic. She stretched it out further, trying to discover the source of her unease. There was something there. A dark spot on the horizon, a bottomless pit of evil coming their way. It felt much as the atmosphere around the Sins. Could this be Wrath returning to his home?
But no, as it neared it didn’t feel anything like Wrath. Wrath, though evil and attuned to darkness, was nevertheless intelligent. By some standards he was a civilized person. What came now was something wild, something animalistic. And it was coming fast.
“Britomart,” she said in what she hoped was a warning voice. “We have a problem.”
“What is it?” asked Brit, stopping what she was doing.
In answer, a dark shape crested a hill in the distance from the direction they had come, and Una knew immediately that it was the source of her unease. Whatever it was, it was enormous, larger than a horse. It flew towards them with a speed unparalleled in the natural world.
“We have company,” Una shouted, and brought her magic to bear.
She didn’t look back but heard the scraping of metal as Brit hastily unsheathed her sword. “What in the name of all the gods…”
But Una wasn’t listening. This creature was clearly a spawn of some sort of dark magic, probably from Annwyn itself. It wasn’t the first time they had come across such creatures, though she had never encountered one that made her feel ready to empty her stomach. Perhaps it was simply the fact she was more attuned to magic these days.
The beast neared, and Una was able to make out more of its features. It ran on all fours, and had a large, hunched back, bristling with dark, coarse fur. Its eyes were green, and both its teeth and claws were equally long, shining a bright silver-white.
This had to be a monster of Annwyn, perhaps akin in power to someone like the dragon of Castle Silene, though not quite as large. But it was certainly faster. She would have to act just as quickly if she was to save the both of them from its attack.
Summoning her magic, she raised her hands and guided it forward, taking several steps ahead as she did so. She imagined fire conjured up in the air, forming around the beast. Even as she thought it, great flames erupted around it, engulfing it. Una wore a satisfied smile.
But her smile soon died as the monster’s speed failed to slow. It kept coming, engulfed in fire but still moving fast, like a great ball of flame.
Instantly, Una let her fire drop, and it faded away to reveal that not a single hair on the beast’s back had been touched. It was nearly on them now.
“Una, try something else,” said Brit. She didn’t sound scared exactly, but there was certainly apprehension in her voice.
Una obeyed and immediately created a wall between them and the approaching threat, an invisible wall much like the one she’d created when they first saw Wrath.
The monster barreled right through it, shattering her wall like glass with nothing more than an animal grunt.
And then, it was on them.
Coming right towards Una, its jaws opened, with great, green saliva dripping off its fangs. Una hurriedly pushed at it with her magic, though the result was that she didn’t push it back but pushed herself backwards. Yet the outcome had the desired effect as she flew just out of reach of the beast’s jaws.
For a moment, she felt like she was hovering in the air, suspended. In fact she was flying backward into the ocean. With a splash, her body seized up slightly as the frigid water consumed her, covering her face and torso. For an instant, she lost sight of the monster, just as Britomart was advancing on it.
Una pushed against the water with her magic, not bothering to simply rely on her own strength to remove herself from the waves. She needed speed, and she had never been the best swimmer.
What she saw when she emerged was that the monster still hadn’t turned its attention to Brit. Its glowing green eyes were fixed on Una, and it seemed to want to advance, but as its feet met the water, it glanced down, as if undecided. Did the creature have something against water?
In the next moment, Brit let out a battle cry and launched herself at the creature, raising her sword up high to bring it down and slice the beast. But as she attempted to do so, the blade hit the creature’s hide and skipped off as though it was made of stone. Brit temporarily lost her balance as the sword did not embed itself in the beast as she had expected, instead her sword lodged itself in the sand.
Before Brit could extract her weapon, the monster finally took notice of her, reaching one massively clawed fist towards her head. But Brit was prepared. She ducked and used her sword to swing upward and partially redirect the arm so that it missed her completely.
Then, bringing the sword to bear again, Brit jabbed it upward, this time at the creature’s face. The beast easily swatted the weapon away, but Una realized what Brit was doing. If the beast’s hide was seemingly impenetrable, perhaps the eyes would be more vulnerable.
Una propelled herself forward so she was positioned on the other side of the creature. Its dark face turned to watch her fly through the
air. Una almost lost her footing as she landed back on solid ground. She hadn’t had much practice using her magic for such things like flying through the air, or any practice really. She would have to work on that later.
The creature sniffed and moved to attack her with extraordinary speed. With barely a moment to react, Una worked her magic on a nearby stone and convinced it to fly through the air at the monstrous face. It connected with sickening force, but all it did was make the creature even more angry. It bore down on her.
She didn’t have more time to react. Once again, she pushed against the creature, sending herself flying backward as she was the lighter of the two. This time she didn’t land in the water but on the beach, and thankfully she did not lose her balance. She planted both feet and looked around to try and see what to do next.
There was no time. The push against the beast had done nothing to slow its forward momentum. Within seconds it was on her again, and Una briefly spied Brit behind it, trying to keep up but obviously nowhere near fast enough.
Una looked around frantically, but there was nothing she could do. Before she could even think of the next step, the beast barreled into her.
Una expected the creature to tear her to shreds the moment it touched her. But instead, one of its oversized paws curled around her and lifted her off her feet. Una struggled, but the hold was too strong. The beast bared its fangs, that bright green saliva dripping off the tips. Una swallowed. It was going to consume her whole.
There was nothing she could do as the creature snapped at her. A flash of pain in her gut and her vision went temporarily white as a wave of adrenaline almost threatened to overwhelm her. She looked down to see the creature had two of its longest fangs embedded in her side. Just the sight made her dizzy. But even as she watched, the beast let go. It wasn’t eating her, and the wound wasn’t deep. Instead, it simply held her in its grip.
“Hands off!” yelled Brit. The Armorican warrior had finally caught up, and with a yell that echoed across the cliffs, she ducked under the beast’s arms so she was facing it from the front, and launched her sword upward like a great harpoon. It sped with perfect aim, directly at the creature’s right eye.
The beast bellowed as the sword found its mark, and immediately Una fell from its grip. She hit the ground hard, and a piece of her girdle ripped away from her, still in the jaws of the creature. Her vision swam, and not just from the pain. There must have been some kind of poison in the monster’s saliva, for her limbs began to weaken.
Brit let out a scream of triumph, but it was cut short as the beast backhanded her with force that sent her flying some ten feet into the air. When she fell on the ground, her head was bloodied, and she had clearly lost consciousness. There would be no more help from her.
The giant monster turned its one good eye to stare at Brit as she lay sprawled on the ground, and a growl like two millstones grinding against each other emanated from its throat.
Una needed to do something, and she needed to do it quickly. The beast had originally targeted her, right? She was its target, and not Brit. All she had to do was distract it, bring it back to its original goal.
“Hey!” she yelled, waving her arms frantically. The act was rather difficult given the fact that whatever venom had entered her system was making it increasingly difficult to move, not to mention think straight. But she kept waving. “Hey, over here.”
The beast paused and looked up at her, its single green eye seeming to pulse with something like rage. There was an intelligence there too, though Una wasn’t sure to what extent the beast understood her actions. Whatever the case, it was no longer looking at Brit, and that was promising.
“You’re looking for me, right?” said Una, backing away a few steps. “One of the Sins sent you? Wrath probably. What, the Sin can’t do his own dirty work? He has to send the dog?”
Whether or not the creature understood her words, they had been enough. It flew forward. In the same instant, Una pushed against the ground with her magic, convincing the mass of her body to become lighter than air. She flew backward, just out of reach of the creature.
It growled and came for her again, and again she propelled herself just out of its reach.
But she was running out of strength. If the poison of the beast’s fangs wasn’t lethal, it was certainly paralyzing. The second time that she landed back on the ground her legs nearly gave way beneath her. She would not be able to do this for much longer.
She looked around, trying to think through the haze. She had to get away from it, get away somewhere where it couldn’t follow her. Then she would simply have to trust that it wouldn’t turn back and kill Britomart.
Her vision swam as she looked around herself, trying to find such a location. But there was nothing except the cliffs, the ocean, and the small boat out fishing…
The boat! The beast had been unable to enter the water before. Perhaps if she could get herself as far as the boat, she might be able to stay there and hide from the creature until she was well enough to face it properly.
As the beast bore down upon her again, she called on her magic one last time. Right now, she had no other choice. She used the magic to fly, this time straight over the ocean, as far as she could push. She rose and glided through the air in a great arc, the fishing boat growing larger and larger. It wasn’t a huge ship, but it was large enough to carry plenty of fish when fully loaded. With some minor tweaking of her magic she adjusted her descent, even as sparks began to fly in front of her eyes. She was exerting herself too much. A moment more and she would be unconscious.
Mustering every last ounce of strength, she cushioned her landing on the hard wood of the boat. But she still hit hard enough to knock the wind out of her, and she rolled twice before coming to a stop.
A distant, frustrated bellow told her the monster was unable to follow, at least for now.
The last thing she saw was the face of a single, highly surprised Saxon fisherman, clutching at his hat and staring at her as she finally descended into blackness.
17
The first thing Guyon noticed was a pleasant smell wafting over his nose, as if he was back in his dreams, in Faerie Land. The second thing he noticed was that his eyes were still closed for some reason, and there was a sharp pain in his thigh.
In the next moment his eyes shot open and he remembered everything that had happened, how the Faerie Queen had directed him to save a woman from three men, and how those three men had nearly killed him. He’d thought that had been the end of him, that he would die from loss of blood, but somehow he was still alive.
He blinked and tried to make sense of his surroundings. It was still dark, so either he had not been unconscious long, or he’d been out for at least a day. The latter was more likely if he was being honest. His bones ached and while the pain in his thigh was still intense, it was more of a sharp ache than the piercing fire that it had been at first.
The crackle of a fire made him turn his head, and as he did so he discovered the source of the pleasant smell. The woman he had saved was bent over a pot left behind by the three men, using a small wooden spoon to stir its contents.
“Finally, you’re awake,” she said. Her voice was deeper than he expected for one so young. She took out a spoonful of whatever it was she was concocting and tested it. With a satisfied nod she put the spoon back and took the pan off the fire.
“What happened?” he asked, trying to push himself up on his elbows. Every muscle groaned as he did so.
“You lost too much blood,” she said, swirling the pan around a bit to help cool it off. “After I killed the last brother I used some of their liquor to clean and bind up your wound.”
Guyon glanced down to see that his trousers had been removed and his thigh wrapped tightly in a bandage. His face grew slightly red from embarrassment. At least she hadn’t taken off his underclothes. But he had to admit the bandage was expertly applied, though it had obviously been there for some time, because blood had already begun to soak thr
ough.
“Thank you,” he said, facing her again.
She approached with the hot liquid, then set it aside and began to undo his bandage, pulling a fresh one from a nearby pack that either belonged to her or one of the dead brothers. “It is nothing,” she said. “You saved my life and my honor. It is only fair. But do not try anything funny or I will leave you here to die.”
Guyon only nodded. “I mean you no harm. I was sent here to help you by Gloriana, the Faerie Queen.” The woman froze, and Guyon immediately knew his declaration meant something to the woman. “Do you know her?”
“I know of her,” said the woman, continuing her work. Guyon temporarily lost all focus on the conversation as she took out a flask and emptied it on the knife wound in his thigh. He could do nothing but lie back and grit his teeth as she dabbed at it with a cloth dipped in the solution she had created. The water was warm, but as she continued washing the wound, the pain began to fade. In fact, it was becoming less and less painful by the second.
He raised himself back to his elbows and stared at her. “You’re not some kind of envoy of the Faerie Queen, are you? Part of Faerie Land?” He spoke with some amazement, staring down at his thigh. It was now beginning to tingle in a way that was strangely soothing.
“No,” she said, somewhat abruptly. “I am an ordinary mortal like yourself. And the only reason I’m talking to you is because of what you did.”
“Why were those men after you?”
“They were nothing but bandits who saw a pretty face and would not rest until they had her,” she stared off to the side where three bodies lay in a row.
“Is that really all they were?” Guyon followed her gaze and frowned. “There are bandits everywhere. Why would the Faerie Queen send me here? Perhaps I am meant to help you in some endeavor?”
“Is it not enough that you saved my life?” said the woman, her brow furrowed.
“Of course, but there are men and women who die at the hands of armies or bandits every day. The Faerie Queen cannot save all of them. I must assume that if she sent me to you that there must be some other purpose.”
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