The border between Varay and Xayber was as unmistakable as the Berlin Wall, despite the talk of fluctuations. There was no fence or any other physical barrier, no signposts saying: "You are now leaving the mortal sector." you couldn't see any difference, not at first, but we all knew precisely when we crossed the border. Even Lesh felt the change and understood it. The air seemed charged, ionized like just after a vicious thunderstorm. The breeze carried a trace of rotten-egg smell like sulfur water. The forest felt sinister. The calls of birds, the rustling of branches and leaves, seemed muted, deadened. The footsteps of our horses seemed to change tone, become hollow. All the scene lacked was the eerie telltale soundtrack music of a killer about to strike to fit right into a mad-slasher movie.
Better get used to it, I told myself. You could have two weeks of this creepy shit.
"You know where we're heading?" I asked Annick after we crossed the border. It was more an attempt to distract myself than a burning curiosity.
"Just that you're invading the realm of the Elflord of Xayber."
"We're going north, staying close to the western edge of the forest and the isthmus."
"Then you must be after sea-silver. There's no other reason for such a journey." She sounded very sure of that, but she sounded very sure of everything she said.
"Do you come into Fairy often?" I asked.
"Only once before. When I was fifteen, I came looking for the beast who raped my mother. I didn't find him, but I slit the throats of three of the elflord's soldiers." She talked of killing with a cool passion, the way I might have described a hot date in college. It was chilling.
Our horses needed no urging to pick up the pace. If we had asked them for a hard gallop, they would have willingly pounded away until they dropped. As it was, we had to check them more often than urge them on, varying the gait to what I hoped was an efficient combination. Our breaks were few and short that first day, taken when we spotted a place where we would be concealed from anyone passing along the road-not that it was much of a road inside Fairy. We had crossed the main coastal route almost as soon as we entered Battle Forest and went on to this track that was obviously little used.
I looked at Annick a lot, when I thought she wouldn't notice. She was attractive, but I wasn't at all attracted. She would fit in a TV commercial easily, maybe playing volleyball in a skimpy swimsuit on a beach full of beautiful people, but she talked like the Count of Monte Cristo justifying his long quest for vengeance. While we rode, Annick braided her hair, then coiled the braid and pinned it so it wouldn't blow in the wind. She rode with the casual assurance of someone who lived in the saddle. I didn't doubt that she could use her weapons with deadly efficiency. Hell, even though she didn't set off my danger signals, she scared the crap out of me. Slender, soft-looking, no more than five-three, she scared me. Not the kind of thing to tell my college chums. Annick seemed to change physically once we crossed into Fairy. It was subtle, like the changes in the air, in the feel of the land. There was something a trifle fuzzy about her outline once we were in the land of her father, something that made it hard to focus on her. Her skin looked whiter, almost ghostly. Undoubtedly, a lot of it was my imagination-that was running amok. But she was quite different. I was there partly to avenge the death of my father. She was along, according to her, mainly to find and murder her father. She was half Fairy and half Varay. I was half Varay and half Kentucky. Maybe the antipathy was unavoidable.
On the map, the Isthmus of Xayber looked like a tornado, a long, narrow funnel touching down on the north coast of Varay. According to the map-and what little anyone back at Basil seemed to know about it-the isthmus was over four hundred miles long, widening as it went north, gradually at first, then more rapidly as it reached what Parthet called the blackheartland of Fairy. Along the stretch that I expected to see, the isthmus varied between thirty and seventy miles wide. Most of it was heavily wooded, and there was a hilly spine to the isthmus, with the hills becoming mountains farther north.
Except for infrequent snatches of conversation, we rode in silence. Lesh rode point. Annick rode beside me, when possible. Harkane stayed close behind. The only alarm of the day came about two hours before sunset. I can't be more precise because my watch stopped when we entered Fairy. I felt danger approaching, a strong signal that I couldn't possibly have missed.
"Off the road," I hissed while I looked southeast. "Dismount. Hold the horses still."
Nobody questioned my orders. Perhaps even Annick believed in the mystique of the Hero of Varay. The feeling of danger grew stronger, but it was several minutes before I found out what had triggered it. I sensed the approaching shadow and was looking in the correct direction when the shadow finally came into sight.
"A dragon," I whispered. I couldn't see the creature, but its shadow was clear. We held our breath while the shadow passed and went on north. I only caught the briefest glance of the flying reptile, a hint of the body eclipsing the sky. When it was gone, I waited for the feeling of danger to fade and disappear.
"Okay, he's gone." I took a deep breath and looked around at my companions. Lesh and Annick looked impressed, Lesh more than Annick. Harkane had his annoying smug look wrapped around his face again. It was almost as if he were a teacher watching me discover what I could do.
We mounted and rode on.
"For being between two warring armies, this forest seems awfully damn deserted," I commented, wondering mainly what Annick might say.
"The armies are there," she said. "The Elflord of Xayber doesn't need a wall of warriors along his frontier. My uncle's troops never cross it."
"We're riding an established trail. That should be guarded."
"Perhaps the elflord wants intruders to get far enough to let him play with them," Annick said. "He's totally evil. If he finds us, he'll toy with us as a cat toys with a mouse before she kills it." She stared at me, her eyes almost purple in the late-afternoon light.
"How can you live with such hate?" Harkane asked from behind us. I was surprised to hear him say anything like that.
Annick didn't bother to look back at him. "It's the hate that keeps me alive," she said.
"Then you're the loser, no matter what happens," Harkane said.
"Enough!" I said before Annick could fire another salvo. "Let's start looking for a place to camp for the night." Without Parthet along, we couldn't find a place like the thicket that had sheltered us on the way to Castle Thyme-barely a week before-so we would just have to do the best we could.
We left the road a few minutes later, picking our way through the trees to the right, deeper into the forest. When I could no longer make out the line of the road, we dismounted.
"At least nobody will stumble over us by accident here," I said. That was the only good thing about the site. There was no water and scant grazing for our horses. We got the animals unsaddled, tethered to a picket line, and tended. They couldn't wander far.
Supper was salt beef and bread with a few radishes and onions. I made a mental note to stock up on junk food the next time I got to Louisville. A Milky Way would have tasted great right then. We didn't even have coffee to ease the meal, not that I would have dared a fire.
"We'll take turns standing watch," I said at dusk. "I'll start and wake Annick." I looked at her. "You wake Lesh and he'll wake Harkane. If it's still dark when you get tired, Harkane, you wake me."
We made up our bedding. Harkane set his closer to mine than I liked, but I didn't say anything. Lesh set up by a tree a few yards away. Annick separated herself from the rest of us as much as the glade permitted. When she lay down, she unsheathed her sword and slept gripping the weapon. That may have been as much for our benefit as against the possibility of outside attack.
Darkness came quickly. There was no trace of a moon that should have been past the first quarter, and no stars were visible. Stars shone on the seven kingdoms, even if the constellations weren't always the ones I knew from Earth. With the dark came new sounds in the forest. I recognized the call of an owl, but none of the other sounds. None of the noises were particularly close, and nothing stirred my danger sense. That was idling. I felt danger, but nothing imminent. It was just a constant background, something to remind me that everything about the isthmus, about Fairy, was dangerous.
I sat with my back against a tree trunk, facing the road, and checked my pistol to make sure there was a round in the chamber. That was just something to do with my hands. I didn't really expect the gun to work in Fairy. The actions reminded me to ask Harkane what had happened to my father's guns.
Harkane. I wasn't sure how to relate to my father's squire, my squire now. He was part of the life that my parents had hidden from me. I resented him for sharing that life. And I resented the way he seemed to measure me against my father all the time. He had recovered quickly from his shock and fear at Dad's death. Once I accepted him as my squire, he perked up in a hurry. If a Varayan squire had the same functions as in medieval England-and I wasn't completely certain of that yet-he was supposed to be my weapon bearer and apprentice, learning how to become a knight or whatever. The apprenticeship system applied to the military elite-page, squire, knight. Harkane needed to fill out a little to be a top-notch warrior. He looked as if he ought to be a freshman in high school, dishwater-blond hair cut in what I once heard called a Prince Valiant cut, faded blue eyes.
Lesh was easier to understand. I had been comfortable with him from our first meeting. He was a veteran soldier, stoical, willing to take on anything, as long as there was someone to tell him who to fight and when. Without ever seeing him in battle, I trusted him. Maybe his reflexes wouldn't be the fastest, but there are other considerations that are important.
Now there was also Annick. After a day of concentrated thought, I still didn't know what to make of her. The flaming hatred she made no effort to conceal disturbed me as much as it did Harkane. I glanced her way in the dark but couldn't see her. When I first spotted her on the battlements of Castle Arrowroot, I noticed how good-looking she was, but the hatred and anger she wore turned me off faster than an icy shower. God help the man who tries to rape her, I thought.
I got up and stretched after a while, then walked around a little, being careful to avoid getting disoriented in the dark. After the first flurry of sounds, the forest got unnaturally quiet. The animal noises got rare and farther away, except when our horses moved around. When one moved, they all did, since they were tied together on the picket line. There was no way to gauge time. When I figured that two hours had passed, I took a couple of steps toward Annick and whispered her name. She came awake at once, or she was already awake, and answered. She stood and moved close enough for me to make out her silhouette.
"I'm going to bed," I told her, still whispering. When I got wrapped up in my thermal blanket, sleep was a long time coming.
Sleep. I've always had trouble getting to sleep, even when I was a little kid, but once I do get to sleep, I can be almost as hard to wake as the dead. That's what it was like in my world. In my apartment in Evanston, I used two alarm clocks and a clock-radio to make sure that I wouldn't oversleep and miss classes, and that wasn't always enough. Things had been different in Varay, generally. I still had trouble getting to sleep most nights, but I woke fast-except for the evening after the vigil for my father. I had gone so long without sleep before that that I was just out of it. Slight noises could wake me now, like this night. I woke when Annick called Lesh and when he woke Harkane, and a couple of other times. But it wasn't until sometime after Harkane took the watch that my danger sense started screaming and I woke already jumping to my feet and drawing my sword.
"Up!" I shouted. Annick was on her feet almost as quickly as I was. Lesh wasn't much slower despite his age and size.
"What is it?"Harkane asked, startled by the way I'd sprung up. The night was almost gone. There was the feeblest gray light, enough to let me see my companions and our horses, but not much more.
"Listen." I heard something new, a crashing through leaves and small branches. "In the trees." We all heard a brief crunching noise then, closer, louder. I got my bow, then bent over to pull an arrow from my quiver. Annick had to string her bow first.
The next crashing sounds were almost directly overhead. I barely got my bow up in time before the thing dropped on us. On me. I pulled back the string and let fly. The creature dove right into my arrow. Annick's shaft caught it from the side. The thing veered and pulled up, climbing back through the trees. But it didn't leave. I turned, looking into the dark of the tree foliage, trying to home in on the creature, whatever it was. All I knew then was that it was damn big for a bird.
It came in low for the second attack, bulleting along head-high, weaving around tree trunks. I let go a hurried arrow that missed, then dropped my bow and drew my sword. I scarcely had time to set my feet and get a good grip on my sword. Again, the beast came straight at me. I held my blow as long as I could, then hacked at the beast's neck as I ducked under its wing. Maybe that wasn't the smartest way to do it. My blade bit in. I was holding on too tightly for the sword to be yanked from my grip, so I went over backward. My butt hit the ground and then my head. The creature nosed into the dirt just behind me and I ended up flipping before I finally figured out that I had to let go of the sword. Before the beast came to rest, Annick's blade and two spears pierced it. The lances pinned the creature to the ground despite its continuing struggles. I got to my feet and retrieved my sword.
"Finish cutting off its head," Annick said. I didn't ask questions. I was short on air already. I kept hacking until the head rolled forward and came to rest a foot from the neck.
"What is it?" I asked as soon as I could. The wings were still flapping weakly, the body twisting. I wiped my blade on the moss and grass.
"Some creature of Fairy," Lesh said-as if that were all that mattered. No one rushed to be more specific, so maybe that was all that mattered.
I got out my flashlight. Looking at the creature in light didn't help me identify it. The face was a grotesque parody of a human face. Thick, wiry hair reminded me of a picture of the gorgon Medusa. The wings were leathery and ended in distinct hands-long, six-fingered hands with claws that were four inches long. The chest and shoulders were thick and heavily developed, but the body tapered off quickly behind the wings. Annick spitted the head on her sword and held it up. The jaw fell open to disclose a herd of pointed teeth. Annick studied the face for a moment, then used her sword to flip the head off into the forest.
"Best to get that as far from the body as possible," she said, bending to clean her blade. "Some of these creatures can put themselves back together if they're given the chance." I looked at the still-twitching body and fought back a rush of nausea. I turned off my flashlight and put it away. I had seen enough… too much.
"We'll leave as soon as it's light," I said. I backed away from the body just as its nearer hand made a weak grab for my ankle. I hopped farther away, in a hurry.
"What do we have to do, burn the son of a bitch?" I asked. My voice may have been a little shaky.
"That might help, or it might just rise whole from the ashes," Annick said "There's no way to know for certain."
"Leave it to me, lord," Lesh said. He went back to his stuff and got his battle-axe. He chopped at the creature, and I was glad to leave it to him. I turned away and started getting ready to leave. The sounds of Lesh's butchery kept my stomach on edge. I guess the others felt queasy too. Nobody suggested breakfast before we got back on the road.
It was a day for strangeness. The forest turned weird early on. Crazily deformed trees first showed up as an occasional oddity, then became more common until most of them were bent in strange shapes. Some were knotted like pretzels. Others rose a few feet, then bent parallel to the ground, with most of the greenery on the top half and squat branches below supporting the weight. The leaves and needles became gray-green. A bird with a call like a mocking laugh followed us through much of the day but stayed out of sight. The laugh was perhaps the eeriest sound I've ever heard. The trees and the birds-those weren't the only problems. The streams were far apart and never more than a trickle. Our horses wouldn't drink from the first three we came to. They sniffed at the fourth for minutes before they decided to chance it, and they had to be awfully thirsty by then.
Twice that day we left the road to hide from approaching soldiers, coming down from the north. The second band had nearly two hundred riders. We were close enough to hear talking but not what they said.
"Baron Resler's in for a rough go," Lesh said as we mounted up again after the second group of riders were out of sight. "A lot of new soldiers heading his way."
"My uncle won't have the rough time," Annick said. "It's the men he'll send out to fight. He hasn't left Arrowroot in years except to attend banquets at Basil, and then somebody always opens a passage for him."
For our second bivouac in Fairy, we found a place near the stream the horses were willing to drink from. A horizontal tree with heavy foliage was between us and the road. There were enough other trees around to shelter us from the eyes of anyone riding by or flying overhead. Sleep was harder to come by that night. Memories of our visitor of the previous night intruded. We kept the same rotation on our watches. Annick was on guard when I finally dozed off, but the last thing I remember thinking was that it must be about time for her to wake Lesh.
When my danger sense flared, I didn't leap straight up. There was nothing so compelling propelling me this time. The extra sense was more discriminating than a burglar alarm. I woke, listened for a moment, then got up on one knee. "Lesh? Harkane? Annick?" Lesh and Harkane answered right away. Annick didn't.
"Annick?" I whispered, a little louder. There was still no answer.
"Who was on watch?" I asked.
"She was, I guess," Lesh said. "She never woke me."
"I didn't hear anything," Harkane added.
I was sure that more than a few minutes had passed since I fell asleep. I had been dreaming, though I didn't recall the substance of my dreams, simply that they had been there, plural, apparently extending over some time. I felt rested, as if it were time to get up for the day.
"Annick?" I called, louder still. I got to my feet with my sword drawn. The feeling of danger was persistent but not immediate.
"Her horse is here," Harkane said.
"We can't look for her in the dark," Lesh grumbled. "Pardon my stubbornness, lord, but I did say you should have sent her back at the start."
I got out my flashlight and used it within the little nook where we had set up our bedrolls. Annick's bedding, saddle, and pack were there, but her weapons were gone.
"Maybe she heard something and went to investigate," I whispered-without any great conviction. "If anything had dragged her from camp, we would have heard the commotion." And, I would have known if anything like that had happened so close… at least, I thought I would have.
Lesh grunted. We waited in silence, for perhaps an hour, before we heard anything. My danger sense picked up a bit, but I had my sword in my hand, so there was nothing to do but wait-until Annick crept back into camp.
"Where the hell have you been?" I asked when I was sure it was her. My flashlight showed blood on her tunic, but there was no hole in the fabric.
"There's a patrol camped nearby," she whispered. "I became aware of it after you fell asleep." She bared her teeth. "They never heard me. I killed two of them and got away without waking the rest."
"The rest? How many others?" I asked.
"Three. I'd have done them too, but one was stirring." She cackled softly. "I wanted to kill all but one, let him wake to find himself the lone survivor. That would have boiled his brains down to molasses."
"We'll have the elflord down on us for sure now," Lesh said. He didn't have to add another "I told you so" for my benefit.
The elflord or somebody. "You pull another stunt like this while you're with me and I'll throttle you myself," I told Annick. I meant it, though I didn't fully realize that until the words were already out. "Lesh, Harkane. We can't leave survivors to spread the news. Annick, you'll have to lead us back."
"They left a fire burning. You only need to go fifty paces north to see it." But she turned and started walking that way.
I snagged up my bow and quiver, and we all followed her. I shoved the flashlight in a pocket and concentrated on staying right behind Annick. She picked out the trail without difficulty. Baron Resler had said that creatures of Fairy wouldn't be hindered by the dark. Apparently his halfelven niece had inherited that eyesight. The rest of us stumbled now and again. Things got easier once we spotted the campfire. As we got closer, we could see the ground more clearly, as much because of the approach of dawn as for the puny fire.
"They're all human, after a fashion," Annick whispered. "Renegades from the seven kingdoms, mostly from Varay, no doubt. Traitors."
It was easy to see which were already dead. The bloodstains looked black in the dim predawn light and fire glow.
"Lesh, Harkane, work as close as you can to the nearest man. I'll take the farthest and Annick the one in the middle. With your bow," I added in an aside to her.
The job was necessary but not pleasant. I had never aimed a weapon at a human before. The bow wavered in my hands for a moment. It wasn't until Annick loosed her arrow that I was able to shoot my man. Then Lesh got the third. It was over in seconds. This time, I did puke.