by Ken Altabef
“Awake, my lords and ladies of the wood. Awake!”
Dresdemona stretched one arm outward, encompassing the spirits of the elder wood, the other arm still raised skyward, cupping the glimmering moon.
“Awake!”
Her stomach lurched. Her knees buckled but she did not fall. She held firm to the Moon in the sky, as if digging her trembling fingers in. The little grove filled with an eerie combination of sounds—the rustling of thousands of leaves as if being whipped in a gale, the snapping of twigs as dead branches fell away, the grinding of bark as it bent and twisted upon itself. The trees pressed closer, crowding the night sky, nearly cutting off the moonlight.
Dresdemona pressed back, calling them by name. “Restless Bristlebane! My dear Og-Sethoth! Crow! Greenier! Hear me!” The dead souls groaned. Bark stretched, branches whipped, spitting dead leaves. In the dim light of the grove, Dresdemona stood surrounded by her legion of arborstrom. Tall and slender but unbelievably powerful, the elder warriors stood over her. She could just barely make out their shaggy faces, wretched lines gouged in the bark, here an owl roost for a mouth, there a pair of dimly glowing eyes. Their thoughts were jumbled, their spirits confused both in death and tree life. They played upon each other, searching, rattling, rising until a dull murmur filled the grove. “Blood. Red, red blood! Blood!”
The murmur flamed to a wild frenzy that left Dresdemona fighting for control. A little midnight exercise was one thing, but this could so easily get out of hand. They wanted blood, any blood, her blood.
“Kill! Kill! Kill! Drink!”
“Patience, slaves!” she shouted. “Your time will come. You will kill and fight when I command as your kind has done for ages past. At my command!”
She struggled to hold them back. These vengeful spirits would give anything for one moment of release, for a taste of satisfaction but she would not let them have it.
“Bide your time! Hold! Wait!”
Dresdemona recalled her first taste of the gladdrun when Oggdon had filled her with desire yet prevented her from acting on it. The tree warriors shrieked into the night, burning with desires so staggering that they could never be sated. The ground began to shake. The torment is too great, she realized. They won’t hold. Time to end this.
“You will strike when I call, and drink deep. But for now, you sleep—”
A sharp rustling sound came from behind and Dresdemona whirled around to see a small blue faery break through the surrounding brush. The faery stepped one way and then the other, terrified of the looming arborstrom. A slender, pointed branch swooped down, nearly taking off the faery’s head but she stooped low, letting out a pathetic little yelp.
“Fool, I should let them drink you!” Dresdemona raged. She circled her arms above her head, breaking the spell, condemning the trees back to their tortured wooden existence.
The little blue faery toddled toward her, taking a knee at a safe distance. “My Queen.”
Anger flared in Dresdemona’s breast. “Bittenbright, you fool! You had better a good reason for coming here, like this.”
“News,” she said in her high-pitched impish voice. She kept her eyes averted to the ground. “Important news. I was told you should know immediately.”
“Speak, then.”
“We’ve received a signal from Weasel. They are in!”
“Good,” said Dresdemona. She stared down at the little creature. She should have known better than to interrupt. She shouldn’t have come here.
Bittenbright tried to stand as still as possible, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground but her legs began to shake and quiver, as her Queen’s silence became maddening. She listened intently for any directive but heard only the rustle and snap as the warrior-trees slowly withdrew, their wooden muscles stiffening again. She had not caught a good look at them, a glimpse only, but she knew what they were. If the Queen would dismiss her she would be on her way back to Deepgrave right away lickety-split and the sooner the better.
Dresdemona said nothing. The little sprite wasn’t even sure the Queen still stood in front of her. Slowly, ever so slowly, she shifted her eyes, running her gaze along the ground until she found the slender copper-plated boots the Queen wore. Why didn’t she say anything? What should she do?
“Look up,” Dresdemona said.
The faery Bittenbright raised her head slowly. Her whole body was trembling. She saw the Queen standing above her in all her dark glory, the trees leering and rustling behind her. Bittenbright craned her neck further still. And she saw a sight no one else had seen in decades. The warrior trees. How glorious they were.
Dresdemona enjoyed the little faery’s reaction. All the glory of the arborstrom reflected in her eyes. Eyes that had already seen too much.
Dresdemona signaled to the tree nearest to the little blue faery. One of its stringy branches stretched and shot forward, spearhead leaves flaring. As Bittenbright opened her mouth to scream the shoot filled it up. Her eyes bulged horribly as the branch kept thrusting, choking the little sprite on rough bark and sharp razor leaves. The little faery struggled but her legs could get no purchase on the ground as she was lifted up into the air, the willowy shoot continuing to push forward, filling her mouth and lungs, choking the life from her. She had no air to scream. She flopped and jerked back and forth and then was still.
Dresdemona signaled again and the willow shoot dove groundward, hitting the loamy soil with such force the little sprite’s body was driven immediately beneath a layer of soil and rotting leaves.
The rest of the trees became agitated and encouraged by the blood and death. Dresdemona settled them down with a word.
“Sleep!” she commanded. “Sleep until I call for you again.”
The arborstrom eased back into their eternal slumber. Dresdemona took a few steps through the quieting wood, back toward Deepgrave.
So Weasel had been convincing enough. He and his two companions had entered Everbright now as refugees from the nasty Dark Queen. Everything was going to plan.
Poor Bittenbright! Dresdemona remembered a time when she herself was the lonely wastrel, the abandoned waif seeking refuge among strangers…
Chapter 15
Many years ago…
Threadneedle thrust forward; Dresdemona stepped back. Without a moment’s hesitation he thrust again. She deflected his attack with a ringing upstroke.
Dresdemona remembered this fight in exacting detail, although the swordplay seemed foreign to her now. She hadn’t wielded a blade in several decades.
Threadneedle snickered at her as he launched a third strike still within the first few seconds, a backhanded side-stroke. Dresdemona turned the blade away again, then sent a slashing cross-stroke from his shoulder to groin. Her blade sliced through his leather jerkin and left a tiny smear of violet blood on his chest.
She drove him back with slash after slash, their swords clanging as metal kissed again and again. Seeing him momentarily off his guard, she suddenly crouched and struck the back of his knee with her open hand. His leg folded and he went down on one knee, turned half away from her. She launched forward with a deadly swing for his neck. His sword arm out of play, Threadneedle’s only chance of escape was a forward roll away from the blade. He executed the roll perfectly, coming up with rapier already raised to block the next strike. Dresdemona slashed down, hitting his sword at its weakest point, the debole, midway along its length. The single-edged blade snapped in two.
She enjoyed the wide-eyed look of terror on his otherwise handsome face and could not resist punching him in the mouth with her free hand. His head snapped back. He dropped the sword’s useless hilt. As he fell backward onto the cool grass, she maintained forward motion, climbing along his body like a monkey. She held her rapier’s tip to the base of his neck.
“I yield!” he said. “I yield.”
She shook her head.
“Not good enough.”
She ran the tip of the blade down the middle of his neck with just enough pressure to sc
ratch slightly. When she reached the buttons fastening the jerkin in front she severed each one. The sleeveless jacket popped open, revealing his muscular green-skinned chest. Dresdemona laughed softly as she bent to flick her tongue at his nipple, then trace the tiny purple line she had etched into his chest with her sword stroke during the duel. Inflamed by the smell of his sweat and the taste of his blood, she flung away her sword and took hold of the bulge that had formed between his legs. She took hold and squeezed. Hard.
“Your sword’s broken…” she said.
“But not my dagger,” he finished for her. “Really, that’s a rather pathetic sort of a pun, Dresdemona.”
She squeezed harder.
“Owww!”
She threw herself on top of him, kissing his neck and then his lips with reckless abandon.
On the third day of Imbolc, the aspirants purified themselves in the Sulphur pit. Imbolc marked the beginning of Spring, held on the first week of February, midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. A time for ritual cleansing and rebirth. Dresdemona and six other candidates lay on the burning sands, drenched in sweat, gasping for breath in the hot, humid cave. During this ritual of spiritual cleansing they were supposed to be thinking peaceful thoughts, settling their minds for the bouts of ritual combat to follow later in the day, duels that would determine which of them were fit to become the next two members of the Wild Hunt. The aspirants had fasted for two days running, denying themselves all the special treats that only the festival of Imbolc could offer.
The coming trials would be difficult, but Dresdemona felt confident she would make the grade. She ran her gaze across the other applicants as they lay on the abrasive sands. She knew she could beat the two other women, Inza and Fauvra, quite easily. As to the men, she had sparred with both Yvira and Humeros multiple times and neither was as quick with the blade as she. That left only Wrock and Redbelly. Wrock was particularly dangerous and his father, Bristlebane, was second in command of the Hunt and had been training his son practically from the day he’d emerged from his incubator mushroom. Dresdemona might give him a good run but couldn’t be certain of victory. That was all right. She needn’t finish in first place. There were two spots available. That meant she must defeat Redbelly.
Redbelly was already a seasoned warrior, come late to aspirations of the Hunt. Old enough to be her father, he was well-built and heavily muscled. Dresdemona was so intimidated by him she had considered using the gladdrun to blunt his effectiveness and assure her victory. Over the past two years she had slowly developed the art Oggdon had taught her, using it on the faeries of the Winter Court sparingly and always in secret. The gladdrun was unknown to them and if they caught her using a Nephilim spell the reaction would be the same as what had happened among the Effranil. Expulsion. Disgrace. Or even worse. And besides, she wanted to win the contest fairly and on her own merits. She had trained long and hard for this. She was ready.
“Dresdemona!”
She opened her eyes. “What? Who?”
Og-Sethoth entered the purification chamber. The other faeries struggled to sit up. They were all too weak and dehydrated from the sauna to move quickly. Dresdemona felt dazed and confused. What was her father doing here? Now?
Og-Sethoth was the leader of the Wild Hunt and the King of the Winter Court. He was several hundred years old, a tower of flesh, with muscles like fire-hardened wood, legs as solid and immovable as tree trunks. He waved off the feeble sycophantic greetings of the other faeries. He was not here for them. He looked down at Dresdemona, a frown cut into his dusky gray-green flesh, dried as leather. His face had coarse features, thick lips, a heavy brow, one eye covered in a milky hue, a nose like a lumpy burr, two small black horns at his forehead. There was more than a little Nephilim in his blood, Dresdemona was sure.
“Dresdemona! What the Devil are you doing here?”
Dresdemona swallowed hard but her mouth was bone dry. “Purifying. The ritual.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
Dresdemona felt suddenly nauseous. The tone in his voice. Was he saying what she thought he was saying?
“I’m getting ready for the combat…”
“No, you’re not. You won’t be in the combat. Go back home now.”
“But why not? Anyone can compete. That is our way.”
And there it was. That look in his eye. Pity.
Og-Sethoth was the cruelest faery among them. Maybe the cruelest faery who had ever lived. He had single-handedly been responsible for the tragic reputation of faeries across northern England. He loved nothing more than to trick and torture men. He ran the Wild Hunt every Samhain, ravaging the countryside, brutalizing, killing, gorging himself on human blood.
When she had first presented here, when Og-Sethoth had first seen her, something new burned in his eyes, something none had ever seen on their leader’s face—the light of compassion. Here was a poor waif, a little faery girl who had tasted ostracism and unkindness, had drunk of the cruelties of both faeries and men. And Og-Sethoth, cruelest of the cruel, pitied her. The Winter Court was suspicious by nature and unfriendly in the extreme. They did not take strangers in. But in Dresdemona’s case, Og-Sethoth made an exception. He cared nothing for Threadneedle’s arguments on her behalf, words which fell on deaf ears and earned him a sharp slap on the side of the head. There was something else. Og-Sethoth took her in as his daughter.
At first Dresdemona was grateful for his pity, she was lost and alone and badly in need of kindness. She had nowhere else to turn. But as time went on, his posture toward her never changed. She grew and developed, becoming competent and able, but he never saw any of it. He never recognized in her the capable young woman she had become. Years went by and he still only saw the lost little waif. She could not stand it. Because it persisted, she came to hate his pity and hate him. The way she saw it, she had only one way to earn his respect—to win a place among the Wild Hunt.
“You can’t join the Hunt,” he said. “You won’t survive the trial. You’re Effranil. Too weak. Too delicate.”
It was the first time she had heard him speak of her heritage. She hadn’t even known that he was aware of the Effranil. Of course she looked a bit different than the other Winter Court faeries—the high forehead, the slender build. Now she understood. Og-Sethoth saw the Effranil as weak and inferior. But that wasn’t true. The Effranil were pure. The weakest among the Effranil was superior to any of these Winter Court mongrels.
“Delicate. Delicate? I’m not delicate.” She struggled to her feet.
“One minute in the ring with any of these, and they’ll kill you.”
“Let me fight and then I’ll prove myself.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt. Go home.”
“I won’t!”
Og-Sethoth stood looking at her for a minute or more, but his expression had not changed. It was pity. It was still pity.
“All right then,” he said. “I think you are cleansed enough. Let’s do your trial right now.”
He unbuckled his sword belt, drew the wicked claymore he carried and tossed it at her. “Do the ritual now. Fight me.”
Chapter 16
“Fight you? That’s not fair!”
“It’s more than fair.” Og-Sethoth spread his arms wide. He indicted the claymore at her feet. “I don’t even have a weapon.”
Og-Sethoth had ruled the Winter Court for over a century. Though several had tried to unseat him in ritual combat none had ever come close to matching his power and ferocity. Even now, at such an advanced age when a faery might be getting old and docile and certainly less formidable in the battle arena, none would dare compete against him. He could not be unseated.
He had several weaknesses and Dresdemona knew them all. His left eye could not see much. His right knee bore an old wound and would not stand up to a good strike. His right arm was slower than his left. But everyone else knew these things as well and still dared not challenge him. Og-Sethoth protected all his weaknesses. Th
ey didn’t seem to matter. What good was knowing his left knee was weak when he would never allow anyone to strike it? What good was knowing his right arm dithered when his left always provided the deadly thrust?
“Do it now,” he said, “Or not at all.”
This wasn’t fair. The other applicants didn’t have to fight Og-Sethoth to win a place in the Hunt, just each other. She could beat any of them; she knew it. But like this—dehydrated and weak, she stood no chance against Og-Sethoth.
She had no choice. She reached for the claymore. A much heavier weapon than she was used to but she was now fueled by rage. She brought the sword up. Og-Sethoth stood before her completely unarmed. His long white hair curled around his wide shoulders and bare barrel-chest. He wore only a chain mail breechclout over black silk breeches.
Dresdemona stepped forward. Struggling with the heavy blade, she swung for his one true weakness—the right knee. Og-Sethoth stepped back with his right leg as she knew he would. Her swing was only a feint. She cut the arc half-way and then put all her strength into a spin around that sent her sword slashing across his chest. As she spun round, the strike would be backhanded. She could not see where it would land or if it would.
The claymore clanged off one of the huge bronze bracelets her father always wore. The shock sent a wave of pain up her entire arm. The sword dropped to the cave floor. And Dresdemona, panting for breath, fell after it.
She reached for the sword again, knowing her cause was completely lost. She drew her legs beneath her and surged forward, still in a deep crouch, and swung for her father’s ankle. His foot twisted slightly and the tip of his sandal knocked the sword from her hand again.
