For a moment, Oliver stared at the nomad woman and her two guards, with their grim eyes and pointed beards.
“Good-bye, Mischief,” the old woman said quietly, staring at Kitsune’s back as the Borderkind strode away from the encampment.
She’d spoken English. Oliver wanted to know what she’d meant and started to ask, even as the woman turned and made her way back to her tent, the guards at her sides. One of them raised his spear in both hands, hardly paying attention to Oliver and yet menacing him with its point at the same time.
Feeling the fool, he glanced back and forth from one retreating woman to the other, and at last hurried to catch up with Kitsune. As she passed the sheep, the creatures bleated and milled away from her. The sight disconcerted Oliver for a moment, until he realized that of course sheep would shy away from a fox wearing the skin of a woman.
His throat felt dry.
Two wizened old shepherds muttered to themselves as they caught up with their charges. Oliver felt he ought to apologize, but what could he say that they would understand? Instead he hurried on and at last caught up with Kitsune at the top of the slope, just as she stepped into the shade of those strange trees, which looked to him like giant bonsais.
“What did she say?” Oliver asked.
His eyes were still adjusting and in that moment Kitsune existed merely as a hooded outline in the shade. Then Oliver blinked, and the rich color of her fur came into focus. From beneath the hood she gazed at him without malice. A sadness lingered in her features, but otherwise she was only Kitsune, his friend and companion, the only one who had stuck with him.
“The Orient Road is near now. My instincts were correct. We’re less than an hour’s walk from it. By nightfall, we should reach the stone circle where there is an entrance to the Winding Way.”
“But you still don’t think I’ll be able to walk the Winding Way.”
Kitsune cocked her head. “We shall see. Though, yes, to my knowledge, only the legendary can travel that way.”
She waited for him to say more, but Oliver feared opening his mouth just then. If he did, he could only say something that would hurt her more. Or, conversely, betray Julianna further than he already had. Neither option appealed to him, so he kept silent.
Kitsune turned and started off through the trees, and soon they found themselves on a narrow trail that led up the hill, across sun-splashed clearings and through copses of trees. On the other side of the hill the land stretched out in a long plain that descended so gradually it could barely be considered a slope.
They walked in silence, so that it seemed to Oliver much more than an hour before they reached the Orient Road. When at last it came into sight, a broad avenue of hard-packed dirt, he saw beyond it a long, rough-hewn post-and-beam fence, and within those confines a handful of tall, proud horses-the largest horses he had ever laid eyes upon.
In the distance, to the east, the road wound toward a mountain range whose snow-capped peaks scraped the heavens. The mountains were far away, but even from here Oliver could make out some kind of long, rambling structure that ran along the edge of a steep cliff. Its isolation and formidable construction made him think it a fortress, but then he thought again, studying its location.
“A monastery?” he asked.
Kitsune glanced at him. “Yes. There are many to the east. It is a quieter life.”
She said nothing more, but Oliver felt a great weight lifted from him as they continued on together. Along the way they passed several dwellings and an aged, rickety wagon, with peeling paint and a broken wheel, abandoned on the roadside.
When they came upon a small shrine on the side of the road-really no more than a rabbit hutch full of candles, painted tiles, and small jade figures-Kitsune paused and bowed her head in a silent moment. Respectfully, Oliver did the same. Though he had no idea to what or whom he appealed, he prayed for his sister’s life, for the Borderkind’s fate, and for his safe return home.
After a moment, Oliver just stood and watched Kitsune.
“The old nomad woman spoke English,” he said when she looked up. “Just after you walked off, she said good-bye, but she called you a different name. I can’t help thinking if she spoke English, it was for my benefit.”
Kitsune gazed at him. “What did she call me?”
“Mischief.”
The fox-woman laughed softly, shaking her head. Oliver swallowed, his chest strangely tight.
“Why did she call you that?” he asked.
Kitsune gave him a sidelong glance. “You know my kin and I are called tricksters, Oliver. Mischief is what we are.”
“See, that’s what I thought, too. But if I think about all of the people I’ve met since crossing through the Veil, the tricksters are the only ones who really seem to be what they appear to be. No bullshit.”
“At the moment, true enough,” Kitsune replied. “With all that the Borderkind are suffering of late, there is little call for mischief.”
CHAPTER 17
K itsune did not try to take Oliver’s hand as they forged ahead along the Orient Road, but she seemed more at ease.
Oliver was grateful. Now that they were on their way again-and with a promise of help from the Dustman-his thoughts were centered on Collette and the monster who had abducted her. His mind worried about the conflict that lay at the end of their travels and its outcome. Finding Collette was only the beginning.
For hours they walked, passing through a small village where the rice harvest was under way and a larger town whose buildings had a distinctly Asian flair. The geography on this side of the Veil might be quite different from that of the other, but clearly this region’s Lost Ones and legends corresponded in some way to Asia.
In time, the fields and hills gave way to a tangled forest, and the Orient Road became narrower and more rutted. Several times it snaked to the left or right without any apparent topographical necessity. As the late afternoon shadows grew longer, they saw through the trees a broad expanse of silver lake, its mirror surface reflecting back the beauty of the forest and the sun where it hung low in the sky.
The lake seemed perfectly still, as though it were a sheet of ice. That reminded Oliver of Frost, but he quickly pushed such ruminations away. Questions about the winter man’s friendship and loyalty-about his motivations-had plagued him since Twillig’s Gorge, but entertaining them now would be a distraction he could ill afford.
The road curved around the lake, and on the far side the giant bonsai forest-as he had begun to think of it-thickened once more. They strode past a knot of thick trees that leaned in over the road, and then came to a clearing.
Since the moment that Kitsune had mentioned the stone circle they were meant to seek, Oliver had held a vague impression of Stonehenge in his mind. But this was no feat of ancient architecture. These stones were as black and smooth as onyx and jutted from the earth as if they had grown there, like the teeth of some giant, burrowing beast attempting to eat its way to the surface.
Each of the black stones had grown tall, but not uniformly so. The largest stood perhaps twenty feet in height, the shortest a dozen. The circle they formed was uneven, yet still undoubtedly a circle, placed that way with some purpose. The gaps between stones were as little as a few inches in some places, and at the widest, no more than two feet.
Flowers grew in clumps amongst the knee-high grass of the clearing, as though the black stones themselves were some sort of shrine or memorial and the flowers had been left by mourners.
Oliver paused at the edge of the road, hesitant to enter the clearing.
“What do you think will happen?” he asked without looking at Kitsune.
“I don’t know,” the fox-woman replied, her voice soft and, he thought, perhaps even a bit fearful. “But now we find out.”
The late afternoon sun still reached fingers of daylight into the clearing, but Oliver shivered as a chill breeze rustled the trees. With a nervous grin he stepped into the clearing, tall grass scritching against the leg
s of his blue jeans as he walked toward the ebony circle.
Oliver tried to peer between the stones, but there was only shadow there, as though night had already fallen within the circle. He could see that the grass grew in the gaps between the stones, and that heartened him a bit, though he did not know why. What would happen, he wondered, if he was unable to pass through, but Kitsune vanished? Would she be able to come back for him? Would she bother?
Thoughts of Collette steeled him.
Kitsune did not reach out for him, but she took a step past him and cocked her head, looking back curiously. Then she reached up and drew back her hood for the first time since they had come back through the Veil. Despite his fear, he caught his breath just to look at her. Her eyes were kind.
“You must try, Oliver. This will save us days.”
He nodded. Collette awaited. The Sandman was also waiting.
Oliver took another step.
As if startled by the motion, a flock of small birds cried out and took off from the tops of several trees at the edge of the clearing, branches waving at the suddenness of their departure.
Something had spooked them.
Oliver glanced at Kitsune and saw that she was sniffing at the air.
“No,” he whispered, jaw set tightly. “Not now.”
A terrible hiss filled the clearing, resounding off of the stones. Oliver turned, trying to find the source of the echoing sounds, but then he saw that Kitsune’s gaze was locked on a spot at the edge of the clearing-at the very same knot of trees that had blocked their view of the stone circle until the last moment.
A creature stood in the shade of those trees, a thing with antlers and green-feathered wings and long, vicious claws. Its features were thin and brutal and its eyes were bright as it stepped into the last of the sunlight and started toward them.
Oliver glanced around. There were others. Of course there were others. Six or seven of the antlered things, each of them terrifying to behold. They carried no weapons, but this troubled Oliver even more than if they had been armed. Their long fingers came to vicious points, and it was clear they needed no other weapon.
Back on the Orient Road, two other figures had appeared from the woods. One was an immense, hunchbacked hag with jaundiced, pustulent skin and a thick mess of gray and black hair. The hag stood at least eight feet high, and she carried a long butcher’s knife in each hand, ready to carve.
But she was far from the worst of them. For beside her came the thing responsible for the hissing in the air. It rose and fell, bobbing in the air, and its upper body swayed back and forth. The head was vaguely serpentine, but beneath that it was simply a mass of tentacles that coiled like snakes, turning in upon themselves. Its body was like a tower of vipers, the tentacles lashing out and then curling inward again. It moved across the dusty road without legs, the tentacles dragging and thrusting and dancing it forward.
“Oliver,” Kitsune whispered.
From the corner of his eye he saw her raise her hood again. Oliver put his hand on the pommel of his sword, holding his breath.
“You’ve gone far enough, I think,” the hag said.
“Black Annis,” Kitsune said, her eyes as cold as her tone. “This is none of your concern. Hunt me another day. We have an errand that will not wait.”
The hag crouched lower, the hump on her back more pronounced than ever, and took a step nearer. “ This errand will not wait.”
The tentacled thing roiled toward them, kicking up dust from the road. Oliver stared at it, hating his fear but unable to rise above it. Twisted as she was, the hag at least had human form. The other was unnatural, a nightmare churning forth from his fevered mind.
With a sound like the flap of a flag in high wind, one of the winged Hunters took flight at the edge of the clearing, throwing a dreadful shadow across the grass. The one that had been directly opposite it took flight as well.
“Kit?” Oliver whispered.
The fox-woman did not reply, only stared at Black Annis, then glanced around quickly at the others. He could practically hear her heart pounding, and he saw in her stance that she wanted nothing more than to bolt into the trees and run for her life.
Oliver knew then that they would die here. They stood no chance at all against so many Hunters. Kitsune could drag them across the Veil again, but could she grab him and step through before they attacked? He did not believe so. And from the look of her, she was so frightened that it had not even occurred to her.
I miss you, he thought, images of his sister, and of Julianna, rising in his mind. And he began slowly to draw his sword from its sheath.
He caught his breath. The Dustman, he thought. If he could summon the Dustman, at least they would not be alone. The numbers might still be too great, but…
And then Oliver realized that there was another alternative.
Leaving his blade sheathed, he reached into his pocket. His fingers pushed aside the feather from the little girl’s pillow and he grasped instead the single large seed that the gods of the Harvest had given him what seemed like so very long ago. Promises had been made that day, of help when he needed it.
He could not imagine ever needing it more.
Oliver dropped the seed to the ground. For good measure, he stepped on it, pressing it into the soil.
The ground began to tremble.
The antlered creatures began to close in, but several of them paused and glanced at one another, confused. The two in the air began to swoop downward.
“What have you done?” shrieked the hag.
The hissing of the other Hunter grew so loud it almost drowned out the rumbling of the earth and it darted across the road, propelled by a hundred thick tentacles.
Cornstalks shot up out of the road and wrapped around it, grabbing tentacles one by one and dragging it down. The thing struggled, at war with the cornstalks as they continued to burst up through the hard-packed soil.
Other things grew. Trees and plants came up amongst the grass, only sprouts and saplings one instant and fully grown the next. The Kornbocke himself was there, antlers raised. A low, snarling shape tore itself from a thick crop of cornstalks, and the Kornwolf bounded free.
The appletree man lumbered toward Oliver, taking up a defensive position beside him. Others quickly joined them; elegant women made of bark and thorns; stout little red-faced men who stank of rotting berries; and the king himself, Ahren Konigen, the corn husk man who had given Oliver the seed to begin with. Corn husks lay over the hollows where his eyes ought to be and formed the crown upon his head.
“As good as our word, Oliver Bascombe. These are dark days, and your fight is ours.”
The Hunters attacked.
The gods of the Harvest were silent but savage, and blood splattered the grass and the circle of black stones. Oliver drew his sword and raced to stand beside Konigen.
“My sister,” Oliver said as one of the antlered things circled above, looking for an angle of attack.
Konigen turned toward him.
“Go, and do what you must,” the harvest king said. “It seems to me our troubles are all connected under the surface, roots intertwined.”
Oliver nodded. With a single glance around at the furious battle, he spotted Kitsune and raced toward her. Though she surely would have been safer as a fox, she had remained in the shape of a woman, standing and fighting side by side with the gods of the Harvest.
He grabbed her wrist and she spun on him, teeth bared, jaws impossibly wide.
“Kit, stop! Konigen said to go. If they lose, we may not have another chance.”
The fox-woman hesitated, jade eyes flashing. Then she shook her wrist loose and ran for the circle of stones. Oliver heard the flap of heavy wings above him, the shadow of a dreadful, antlered thing falling over him, and felt an icy chill grip his heart.
“Fuck that,” he snarled, and ran for the circle of onyx stones that thrust up from the clearing, the entrance to the Winding Way, wondering if he would find himself alone amongst
the stones, or if their magic would work for him.
“Kill them all, myths and Legend-Born alike!” the hag, Black Annis, screamed nearby.
Oliver glanced back and saw her, slashing at the rotting berry-men as they overwhelmed her. She was splashed with putrid fruit and blood, but they began to draw her down.
“Legend-Born?” he asked, calling after Kitsune as she darted between two towering black stones.
The fox-woman did not look back.
Oliver ran after her and twisted sideways, pushing himself through the narrow gap. He had just a moment to wonder how the battle they had left would end, and to regret abandoning those who had come to his aid, then he plunged into a cloud of thick, gray mist that pulsed and twisted and flowed around him, like something alive.
Ahead, through the mist, he could barely make out Kitsune’s presence and, beyond her, a road like a curved ribbon of black glass.
The Winding Way.
Blue Jay’s boots squelched in soft, damp earth and water dripped from the feathers tied in his hair as he stepped from the rain forest. The daylight had turned a golden hue, the promise of evening on the horizon. Below, the city of Palenque sprawled across several miles of Yucatazcan valley. He had never been to Palenque. In his mind’s eye he had pictured a city that was little more than a series of pyramids like the one where they’d been attacked by Hunters.
He had not expected this.
Already many of the buildings and homes in Palenque had lights burning within, and some of the streets were lined with oil lamps. Towers rose above the skyline, three or four times the height of the average structure. He did not know if they existed for industry or for worship, but they were formidable structures. Homes had been built into the side of a hill at the eastern end of town, rising one upon the other in terraces, each connected by steps and ladders.
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