White Hart

by Sarah Dalton

  “Do you hunt?” Casimir asks.

  “Yes,” I lie.

  He nods. “I thought as much. The eminent survivor, Mae of Halts-Walden, who lives and survives with her wits and her wits alone. I tip my hat to you, my dear.” He fakes a pompous salute.

  I glare at him. “Have you quite finished being a twit?”

  “Have you quite finished being mean?”

  “Did you even sleep last night, or did you lie awake crying over what I said? Get over it, Casimir. It won’t be the last time I tell you to shut up until my father’s murderers are dead and Ellen is safe.”

  “It’s ‘your highness’ to you,” he says in a quiet voice.

  I shake my head and lean forward across Anta’s neck. “Have you ever met anyone so annoying?” Anta shakes his head. “Me neither.” I stroke his coat and ears.

  For all my complaining, when Casimir is quiet, my mind wanders, and that isn’t always a good thing. When Father was alive and we lived our quiet life in Halts-Walden, my mind wandered about things like food, whether we had enough to trade in the market and whether Father’s knee was getting worse. Now I worry about our water supply. Did I pack enough? The prince drinks more than I do, accustomed to servants fetching him wine whenever he feels like it, no doubt. I don’t know the woods at all—I’ve never been this far in—I don’t know where the springs and rivers are, or what they are called. The only thing I know is that different parts of the woods are like different seasons. You can travel a matter of feet and find the temperature changes from warm to freezing. The normal rules of the world do not exist in the Waerg-Woods.

  Around midday, we stop and eat. I wipe the sweat from under Anta’s saddle and make sure he’s comfortable. Casimir takes good care of his horse. He never whips or spurs her like some men do. Instead, he brushes her coat and removes burrs from her mane. At least I’m not stuck in the forest with a brute.

  “All right,” he says as we eat a modest lunch. “This is ridiculous now. We can’t travel without talking to each other. If I’ve been annoying, I’m sorry, and I didn’t mean those things that I said. You don’t smell bad, and you’re not an urchin.”

  “Very well,” I reply, biting into a slice of bread. It’s stale.

  “And what about you?” he says. “What do you say?”

  I shrug and avoid his eyes.

  Casimir sighs. “You don’t really have to call me ‘your highness.’ I don’t really feel like a prince anymore, not with these dirtied clothes.”

  “Father always said that it didn’t matter what you looked like or what you wear. It was who you were that mattered.” The bread is stiff and has a bitter aftertaste. Although, with the way my stomach is churning, I wonder if it is all because of the bread.

  “He was a smart man, then,” Casimir says. “You must miss him.”

  My eyelids feel hot and pressure builds up around my nose. I get up and pack the bread away in Anta’s saddle. “It’s time to go.”

  “But, I haven’t finished—”

  “I said it’s time to go.”

  I shouldn’t be talking that way to royalty. He’ll probably have me hung for insolence when he’s back in Cyne with the king. I shake my head. What an idiot I am. Why can’t I ever keep my tongue in check?

  “Fine,” says the prince. “My, you are a surly girl, for sure.”

  Back on our mounts, we head through the low-hanging trees. Now we are deeper into the woods, I do not recognise the trees. They are tall enough to be oak, but the leaves are too small and numerous, with jagged edges. If I can’t recognise the plants it will make it harder to forage for food. We might have to take some risks as our supplies dwindle.

  When Casimir realises I let the rabbits pass us by, he takes my bow and arrow so he can hunt. Even though I don’t say it, I’m grateful. And despite my earlier bravado, he chooses not to tease me about my lack of hunting. Soon we have rabbit to smoke over the fire after we make camp.

  The forest is quiet—almost too quiet for my liking—with a stillness that hangs over us like a storm cloud. Casimir rides ahead, the bow in his hand, waiting for more movement in the forest. It leaves me alone with my thoughts, and soon I miss his inane chatter.

  We follow the tracks, at one point coming across a camp. They covered their fire with dirt and straightened the flattened grass to some extent. Casimir nods to me to say that he sees the remains.

  Untrained eyes would probably have kept moving, but I’ve been roaming far and wide with my father, so I know they were here. There’s nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that screams ‘evil’, which is somewhat of a let-down. I want to get to know these murderers. I want to be proven right, that they do deserve to die, that they sacrifice goats to the devil or carve disgusting effigies on the trees in their camp. Maybe that would make it better. Maybe the thought of ordinary people killing my father is worse than the idea of evil people doing it.

  I feel the spot where their campfire had been built. It’s cold, but I didn’t expect otherwise. I straighten up and open my mouth to speak.

  “Yes, yes, keep moving, I know,” Casimir says before I form the words. He is still atop Gwen. His voice drops. “To think that my Ellen has been here.” For some reason, hearing her name spoken so softly from his lips sends a jolt up my spine. “She could be in chains or a cage. She could have suffered at their hands, and I’ve not been able to do anything about it.”

  “Yes, you can. You can turn Gwen around, and head that way,” I say. I mount Anta and move him in the same direction. The prince quietens.

  A little further through the trees, I notice a distinct rustling in the bushes around us.

  “What was that?” Casimir says.

  “Shh!” I rein Anta in and listen. My heart beats hard and fast, making it difficult to concentrate on the atmosphere around me. In my bones, dread creeps up. What if it’s the fog? I withdraw my dagger and grip the hilt, ready.

  The rustling becomes louder, and I notice that it comes from our right, drawing my eyes to the spot. We’re in a dense part of the forest, with thin, whip-like branches and thorny bushes on all sides. Casimir has been cutting back the undergrowth to get through, leaving an easy trail to follow. I hope we aren’t being hunted.

  I turn my head in the direction of the sound. It stops.

  “Maybe we should turn back, find a clear path through the forest,” Casimir suggests.

  “No,” I reply. “The Wanderers have been through here. You can see where they’ve cut the branches. We have to keep moving.”

  “I have a really bad feeling about this part of the woods, Mae.”

  “We could be close.”

  “And we could be wrong,” he points out. “We could be in danger—”

  “No, this is the way. There are the same prints in the soil. We have to keep moving.” I press my legs against Anta and urge him forward. The stag protests, but I remain firm.

  After a battle of wills, Anta moves forward and even helps to clear our path with his antlers. Casimir chops with his sword, but it’s almost as though branches somehow manage to grow back. They thicken so quickly that it becomes like forcing our way through a hedge.

  “Mae!” Casimir shouts. There’s a clatter as his sword falls to the ground, and his hand is up in the air at a strange angle as though some sort of invisible thread has tied it up above his head. “Dammit. I’m caught.”

  He tries to wrench his arm away. I move Anta closer to see what has hold of Casimir. A thin vine, hanging down from one of the low branches, not much thicker than a flower stem, moves like a snake down his forearm. I reach across and try to prise the vine away with my fingernails. The prince’s tunic is ripped from where the vine grips his wrist, and a thin trickle of blood makes its way down his arm.

  He strains against the vine. “Get it off me!”

  “Don’t panic,” I say, trying not to panic myself. “Keep still. I’ll try to prise it away from you.”

  Every time I lift one part of the vine, there is more to re
place it. Gwen whinnies, and I glance down to see the vines wrapping around her hooves. Anta thrashes his head as they begin to creep over his antlers. One worms its way up my boot. Soon we’ll be covered in them, trapped in the forest. A vine rips my trouser leg, and a sharp stabbing pain ripples through me as it begins to feed on my blood.

  “What are we going to do?” Casimir looks at me with wide, open eyes. Underneath him, Gwen is fighting against the vines travelling up her body. Casimir has both arms trapped.

  Another vine grips hold of my arm. Anta’s shoulder bleeds where they cut into him. The pain is excruciating, like hundreds of tiny splinters dragging across your skin. I struggle against the vines, unable to stop myself, unable to relax my muscles anymore. I want to scream and shout. My pulse thuds in my ears. The more I panic, the more blood they get from me. Soon my pulse will be fading. Soon, I’ll be drained.

  Chapter Seven – The Long, Dry Walk

  The air freezes in my lungs as I try to breathe. I’m stuck, with both arms being pulled in opposite directions, and vines slithering up past my elbow, towards my shoulder, down my chest... They curl up my thighs, scratching at my skin, pulsing with the glut of blood they take from me. Panic spreads as fast as the vines. My chest tightens, and my throat closes. What am I going to do? How can we survive?

  “Mae, we’re going to die,” Casimir says with his voice devoid of emotion. There is a flat realisation to it, a lack of hope.

  There has to be a way. There has to be. “How did they get out?” I say, half to myself.

  “Who?”

  “The Wanderers. The people who took Ellen. They went this way, so how did they survive?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they burned them off with fire or cut them away. Maybe they didn’t drop their sword like a pathetic prince,” he says bitterly.

  He’s right. There are more of them, and they know the forest better. They were prepared for this and had measures in place to stop the vines. We have nothing.

  But that isn’t true. I have something. I have something within me that I can use.

  Casimir cries out. The vines have begun to wrap around his face, covering his eyes. His chest heaves in panic.

  “Hold on. Don’t give up, not yet.” I have to fight the terror building in my chest as I watch the vines encase the prince. If I don’t do something, that will be me.

  Gwen lets out a low, desperate whinny, and her head drops. Her knees buckle, and the vines pull her down. As she hits the ground, the pack falls and is crushed beneath her weight—it’s the pack with the pouches of water, and I am unable to stop them from popping. A bubble of water sprays out and then seeps into the soil.

  I have to think fast if I’m going to rescue us. My craft-born abilities mean I can communicate with nature. I’ve summoned small creatures before, butterflies, birds. Perhaps I can get help. Or… communicate with nature… That’s it! I can control the vines. Warmth surges into my chest, and my heart soars with hope.

  I try to steady my breathing and clear my mind. It’s easier than you’d think, when your body is crying out in pain. All I have to do is focus on the pain and block everything else away. Then I concentrate on the source of the pain, seeing myself in control. I go deep within myself, imagining I am in my veins, in my blood and in the vines wrapping around my body.

  I fill them up. I course into every part of the vine and then I visualise them retreating, backing up away from my body. I am the vines, and I retract back into the bushes around us, peeling myself from skin. It works. The vines slither back away until the air is cool and raw on my cuts. I can move my arm again, flex my fingers and toes. I open my eyes. My clothes are ripped to shreds and ugly red welts cover me from head to toe. I take my dagger and cut the vines devouring Anta, before moving on to Casimir and Gwen. Casimir slumps from his horse, unconscious from blood loss.

  “Wake up!” I slap his face, but it’s no good. His cuts still dribble with blood. I lift him onto Anta’s back while I check Gwen. Her flank trembles with fear as I touch her sliced skin. She’s in a bad way. They all are, but there is nothing I can do until we reach some sort of safe place.

  I lead Anta and Gwen through the dense trees, chopping at those horrible vines, which are now satiated with our blood. The thought of their touch on my body makes me nauseated. My stomach churns and aches simultaneously. I need food and water to give me strength after losing so much blood, but with our supplies ruined, I have to turn to the woods for sustenance.

  The forest is never-ending. The thin trees stand so close together that they scrape against my already cut skin. I want nothing more than to be able to change my clothes and wash my cuts. Every time the air blows against a wound, the same sensation of sharp pain takes hold of me, and I find myself thrashing my arms around, checking that the vines are not on me again.

  Every few seconds, my eyes drift to the sleeping Casimir. What if he never wakes up? My gut twists as I watch the blood seep from the slashes, and from time to time, I stop to check his pulse. It’s there—slow, but there. If only I knew what he needed to get better. Water? Food? Medicine?

  As night begins to fall and dusk sends us into gloom, my legs weaken, and Anta has to nudge me on. My head spins from the blood loss. The trees begin to thin. I no longer have to cut away at the branches and vines. Instead, I lean against my stag, whose beautiful white coat is marred by red cuts. I force myself onward, no longer able to follow tracks, desperate to find a stream or a brook, anything to sate my thirst.

  Casimir needs something to keep him going. I try putting berries in his mouth, but he lies slack, unable to chew. I mash the berries and push them far into his mouth, but he doesn’t swallow.

  The berries taste dry and bitter. But at least they give me a little more strength to continue. At least I can keep putting one foot in front of the other. If I can get us to a stream, I can wash the cuts before they become infected, and then make a fire to smoke the rabbit meat.

  I stagger on for hours in a dizzy stupor. Anta nuzzles me on.

  “It’s all right, boy. Keep going, we can make it.”

  His deep brown eyes lower. He blinks slowly. My heart twinges. It’s as if he’s giving up.

  Pressure builds behind my eyes. No. I won’t cry. I won’t let Anta give up, and I won’t cry. We need to keep going. I pull him forwards with the reins. He won’t stop. I won’t let him.

  “Come on, boy. Come on.”

  The tears are there, trying so hard to come out. It’s a waste of water to cry.

  I stumble blindly onwards. It’s stupid to keep going in the dark. We could fall down a dirt bank or a steep drop. On more than one occasion, we walk into trees or trip over uneven ground. Casimir slips from Anta’s back, and I have to lift him back up. My arms are like jelly, bending and trembling with the effort. Anta stumbles on. I lean on him and Gwen, letting the two animals carry me on. At one point I close my eyes and sleep begins to come, even as my legs move forward. I want nothing more than to let my body shut down, to fold in on myself like a crumpled piece of linen.

  My mind begins to wander, and in my mind’s eye I see butterflies and moths and torchbugs hover around me. There are dozens of them in bright, luminous colours, landing on my arms and shoulders, flapping their tiny wings. With each flutter of their wings my body seems to lighten. My feet quicken, and the dead weight in my legs finally shifts.

  “It tickles,” I mumble.

  Gwen nickers, and I force my eyes open. It wasn’t a dream. Glowbugs and torchbugs shed a soft yellow light that bounces off the trees around me. I watch them in awe, entranced by their beauty, so much so that for a fleeting moment, I forget the dry burn in my throat.

  “I must have summoned you with my craft,” I mutter, watching the dancing butterflies. “Without even knowing.”

  The glowing bugs fly away from me, their fluorescent little bodies bobbing up and down.

  “Are you taking me somewhere? Where are you going?” My voice croaks. It is now hardly even a whisper.

&
nbsp; I stumble on after the glowbugs. There’s more energy in my legs now; they don’t buckle at the knee anymore. The bugs flit through the trees like tiny flames. Where are they taking me? Is this another trick from the Waerg Woods? Just as I’m beaten down to almost nothing, it comes back at me with a cruel twist?

  The trees begin to thin, and the moon shines down, clear and bright. A sphere of silver in the dark sky. I can finally see where I’m going and hear the soft trickle… the soft trickle of water.

  I let go of Anta’s reins. Strength pours into my arms and legs like molten metal being transferred into a mould. I can run again.

  The stream lies ahead, a few feet wide and bubbling white where the stones create tiny waterfalls. It shimmers in the moonlight. My throat aches for the cool feeling of water. My mouth fills with saliva in anticipation. In seconds I’m kneeling by the bank, face deep in the stream, all caution about poison completely gone. I lift my head from the water and shake my wet hair. With shaking hands I form a cup and gulp down the precious fluids. Nothing has ever felt this good. It is like the most delicious sweet pastry I have ever eaten. I drink until my belly gurgles, before rushing back to Casimir. He’s still unconscious, and his cuts need tending to.

  I lead the two animals to the stream and then pull Casimir from Anta’s back. The boy is heavy, and I struggle to carry his weight. We fall back together amongst the weedy banks of the stream. Mud seeps through my torn clothes and finds the many cuts on my skin. I let out a hiss between my teeth.

  After a bit of rolling in the mud, I manage to prop Casimir up next to a rock. His head lolls to the right, and his mouth opens wide. I rush over to the water and fill our flask to the brim. Then I gently ease the nozzle to Casimir’s lips, urging him to drink. He swallows it down and stirs from his slumbers long enough to mumble incoherently and almost fall forward away from the rock.