“On my mark.” Xelon held up three fingers. Two. One.
At her gesture, the three of them broke into a dead-on sprint, Xelon leading the way. Courtney hurried after her, her bare feet nearly silent in the grass. He brought up the rear, his side feeling like it was tearing open with each step.
Xelon and Courtney started to pull ahead.
His chest heaved.
His vision doubled.
“Hatta?” Courtney called, or was it Xelon? He couldn’t tell over the pounding in his ears.
“Keep … keep going,” he panted, his steps faltering in a stumble before he righted himself.
A howl split the air. The Fiends had caught their scent.
Twenty-Three
NOTHING TO FEAR
Addison willed his body to stay upright and his legs to keep moving. He didn’t know how long they would hold him. Would he make it to the village? Would he make it the next five steps?
He ducked around boulders and trees, trying to keep up with Xelon and Courtney as the distance between them grew wider and wider.
Go, he urged at their backs. Keep running. Don’t look back.
If they did, they might slow down, try to wait for him, maybe try to help him. It was too late for that, for him.
His side hitched. His legs started to give. Regret ate at him, for what he’d been unable to do: stop this imposter, help his friends, tell Alice …
The thought of her name brought the memory of her voice, calling him an asshole, telling him to hold on, to come back to her. He saw her face clear as day.
I’m sorry. He wouldn’t be able to return. Not this time.
His knees hit the ground. He couldn’t help the pained yelp that escaped him. Courtney and Xelon turned.
“N-no.” Sweat poured down his face. The fire in his side spread along his arm now. His heart pounded, his head throbbed.
Another howl rose behind him, the sound muffled by the roar of blood rushing in his ears.
Hands gripped either of his arms as Xelon and Courtney tried to pull him to his feet.
“Go,” he panted.
“We’re not leaving you!” Courtney’s voice was thick with emotion. Even with his vision wavering, he could see the tears streaking her red face.
“Get up,” Xelon urged.
He tried. Heavens above, did he try. He managed to get his feet under him, but the pain in his side robbed him of his strength. He couldn’t stay up.
“Dammit!” Xelon snapped before she let him go and lifted her spear.
Courtney whimpered and tightened her hold where he rested against her.
More howls, closer this time. Hatta twisted around in Courtney’s hold, trying to push her behind him.
Something on all fours came around the boulder.
Xelon jerked into a defensive stance … then snorted. “What in the world?”
A massive dog-looking creature with thick, long legs bounded over to the knight and loped around her in a circle. Its floppy ears slapped at the sides of its face. Hooved feet clapped at the earth. Opalescent fur rippled with light and shifting colors.
A Bandersnatch. The relief that flooded Addison had him sinking against Courtney.
She gave a concerned squeak, followed by a look of confusion as he started laughing.
“Are you what’s been giving us such a fright?” Xelon knelt and ruffled the Bander’s head between its ears. The shifting colors coalesced beneath her fingers, then rippled outward in response.
It barked and lapped at her cheek with a long purple tongue.
“Duma!” someone called from a short distance off.
The Bander barked and bounded about, yapping as Xelon straightened. She shot Addison a look that said she was just as pleasantly surprised as he was.
A young boy raced up, giggling as the Bander leaped up to lap at his dark brown face. “Duma, what are you bothering these people for?” the boy said in Xhosa, clicking at the back of his throat.
“She was no bother.” Xelon responded in kind. “We are actually happy to see her. We thought something else was following us.”
Courtney blinked, her expression still confused, though she seemed to understand that they weren’t in any danger, at least not from this creature. She maintained her hold on him, though, for which he was grateful.
“The Nightmare.” The smile faded from the boy’s face.
“You saw it?” Xelon asked.
He nodded, the golden locks on his head bouncing. “We were on our way home and saw it. We were gonna go around when Grandma noticed it was tracking something.”
“That something would be us,” Addison said. The boy looked to him and Courtney, his eyes widening when they fell on her.
She smiled and waved. “Hi.”
“You’re … human?” the boy asked, looking her up and down. The Bandersnatch hurried over to start sniffing at her.
She took it in stride, even laughed a little, though Addison felt her tense.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” she said.
“You’re human,” the boy repeated, this time in English. “From beyond the Veil.”
“You make it sound fancier than it is.” To her credit, she gave another little, nervous laugh. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I am, unfortunately. How could you tell?”
“You’re dull,” the boy explained.
Courtney blinked rapidly. “Dull?” She didn’t sound too offended.
“I mean your coloring.”
She glanced down at herself, holding her arms out. “Huh.” Turning her hands over, she wiggled her fingers. “I guess, compared to this place, I kinda am.”
“You said your grandmother is with you?” Xelon asked, also in English.
The boy nodded. His eyes lingered on Courtney a moment more before he looked back to the knight. “Her and my elder sisters.” He snapped his fingers, and the Bander went from sniffing at Courtney to lick at the boy’s hand.
A sharp whistle split the air. The boy smiled and returned it, cutting the sound into three parts. “That’s them now.” He and Xelon turned the direction the boy had come from. He lifted a hand to wave.
“Help me up, please,” Hatta asked Courtney. With her assistance, he got to his feet, his side still screaming. She curled one arm around him as he tilted against her with murmured thanks. He was able to spot the trio of women heading toward them. From a distance he could see they had the same rich, dark brown skin of the boy, and the same gold hair.
The two young girls were tall and willowy, and the older woman between them was a bit shorter, wider, the muscles in her arms flexing as she shifted her walking stick.
The Bander raced to meet them, barking happily and earning pets.
The woman looked the group over with a curious but knowing light in her brown eyes. She nodded in greeting.
“Hello,” Xelon said.
“Well.” The woman’s brows shot up. “These are two faces I did not expect to happen upon.”
“You know them, Grandma?” one of the girls asked.
“Oh yes.” The woman chuckled and shook her head lightly. “Xelon Min, Knight of Legracia, and Addison Hatta, former Knight of Emes.” Something hardened in her tone as she spoke Addison’s name and previous title. “I don’t know this one, though,” she said, her eyes on Courtney.
“I’m Courtney.” She waved her free hand. “Knight of … Gucci.”
“Where is Gucci?” one of the girls asked.
“Italy, I think?” Courtney said.
“She’s human, Grandma,” the boy offered.
“I can see that, Effe.” The woman continued to eye them carefully. “You’re what that Nightmare was after, mm?”
“Yes,” Addison said. “The three of us. Not her specifically.”
“Did you see anyone else?” Xelon asked. The hopeful note in her voice likely meant she was talking about Anastasia and the princess.
“Not another soul. It’s interesting, we don’t usually see Nightmares this far south.” The woman
patted the Bander as he licked at her hand.
“Took us by surprise as well,” Addison murmured.
“It do that?” The woman gestured to Addison’s bleeding side.
“This happened before.”
“Well.” The woman took a breath, seeming to come to some sort of conclusion. “It wouldn’t do to leave you all out here with that monster roaming around. I’m Naette. These are my granddaughters Offa and Ikebe, and my grandson Effe.”
Each of them nodded as they were introduced.
“We live in Rebmest, a city nearby.”
“That’s where we were going. To get this one some help.” Xelon moved back to Addison’s side. “Is there a healer?”
“You’re looking at her,” Naette said with a chuckle. “We were out gathering herbs for my stores.” She patted a full satchel that hung from her shoulder. The two girls wore similar full satchels, along with swords at their hips. “Lucky you, eh? Come.”
Naette started along again, her grandchildren trailing after her. The Bander rushed ahead, barking and howling, circling back around in play. Effe was the only one to look back as the three of them moved to follow. Addison winced, having to rely on Courtney and Xelon more than he liked, but there was no point in being difficult; it would only slow them down, and the other Nightmares were still out there.
The going was slow with Addison’s injuries setting the pace, but eventually the city walls appeared through the thin smattering of trees. Sandy stone burned light brown in the daylight. The pointed roofs of buildings jutted up here and there.
A road also came into view, gray cobblestones leading toward a high archway. There were no sentries posted, at least none he could see. The sounds and smells of a lively market poured through the gate and over the high stone. Someone played a bit of music, the beat of the drums and call of the flute light and cheerful. A sort of bright sadness settled into Addison. He’d missed his homeland all these years. He thought of his own hometown, the city square, the sweet breads he used to eat as a child, then tried to show the royal chef how to cook when he lived at the palace.
“You okay?” Courtney asked beside him. She watched him with concerned, curious eyes.
He managed a faint smile. “As well as I can be.”
They entered the city to the sight of people moving about their lives, unbothered by the presence of two knights, one injured, and a human. Colorful clothing wrapped around bodies tall and short, thin and round. Nearby, a man with bright orange hair tipped his cap and vanished from sight.
Courtney gave a little jump in surprise.
Naette and her grandchildren didn’t react other than to speak to one another quietly, then greet a few passersby.
The little family led the way along the main road a stretch, then ducked down a side alley. A few twists and turns—thankfully the slow pace made it easy for Addison to stay upright—they stopped just outside of a small stone house.
Naette rapped a quick but distinct pattern against the bright blue door, and it swung open. She bade them follow before slipping inside, her grandchildren after her. Xelon went in first, followed by Addison and Courtney.
Inside, the house was much bigger than it appeared from without. A wide entryway allowed all of them room to stand with a good amount of space between them. Naette and her grandchildren went about setting their belongings aside. The old woman gave the pouches to Effe, who hurried off through the house, the Bandersnatch clopping after him.
“Welcome to our home,” Naette said as she clapped a bit of dust from the front of her tunic. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
There was a gathering of chairs and a large, plush-looking couch at the center of the room, just across from a massive fireplace. Flames crackled in the hearth, and a huge iron cauldron suspended above them hissed gently as its contents boiled.
“Sir Hatta—” Naette started.
“Just Hatta is fine.” He smiled faintly. “Or even Addison.”
Naette arched an eyebrow. “Very well, Addison. I’ll have you come this way.”
Courtney and Xelon helped him through the living space and down a side hallway. Shelves lined the high walls, full of potted plants of various colors and sizes, some bushy, some leafy, some fuzzy, some sharp. There were also jars of differing sizes full of liquids, what looked like marbles, roots, and other odds and ends.
These were ingredients for potions. For a potions master, actually. Funny, Naette didn’t speak like a particularly powerful Poet.
They followed Naette into a room that had been converted into a healing chamber from the olden days. It matched the descriptions from various members of his family about the ancestral estate before … before. There was a tub of steamy green liquid to the side of the room and a large stone table at the center. A cushion lay on top of it. Shelves similar to those along the hall lined the walls, full of similar ingredients, some of them glowing. They bathed the room in soft green light, which was cut by daylight from small, strategically placed windows here and there in the walls and the ceiling. Purple vines crawled along one wall, and a curtain of magenta moss hung beside it.
“Let me have a closer look at that wound.” Naette approached, and Hatta shifted as best he could so she could get at his side.
She gingerly lifted his blood-soaked shirt and clicked her tongue. “You’re stronger than you look.”
“Ah … thank you?”
She chuckled. “We’ll get you set right. Up onto the table, shirt off.”
With help, Hatta climbed up to settle in, wincing as pain continued to claw through him. It was a bit of a struggle to remove the shirt, leaving the slices in his skin exposed. They continued to bleed sluggishly, a few dirty patches from Xelon’s mud bandage dotting his skin. The rest must have fallen off as they ran.
“Not to sound uncaring,” Xelon started, her eyes on him, then moving to Naette. “How long before he can travel again?”
The concern for the princess poured off of her. Addison more than understood.
“Wound like that? Maybe two days. Want him to be able to get away if you run into any more Nightmares.” Naette went about gathering ingredients. She called out to one of her granddaughters in Xhosa, asking her to bring the big wood bowl from the kitchen.
Xelon’s jaw clenched.
“Go without me,” Addison said. “I’ll only slow you down. Besides, I shouldn’t be here.” And if he went any farther into Wonderland, his wound wouldn’t be his biggest worry. So far, the Verse that exiled him pulled painfully at his chest, but the hurt from his open side all but drowned it out. Once that was seen to, he’d no doubt feel the spell more keenly. Going to Findest would only make it worse.
“I don’t wish to abandon you,” Xelon said.
“You’re not,” he countered. “I’m in good hands with Naette.”
“And I’ll stay, too.” Courtney rubbed at her arms and forced a small smile. “I mean, like, if he shouldn’t be here, I definitely shouldn’t. And, no offense, but I’d really like to stay here and not be out there with any more of those things.”
“No offense taken.” Xelon chuckled, then looked to Naette. “Could I trouble you for supplies for my travels?”
“No trouble.” Naette took the bowl brought in by Offa. “Offa, get some things together for Sir Min—she’ll be traveling to … Where are you going, again?”
“Findest,” Xelon said, as if it were the most natural thing.
Naette blinked in clear surprise. “Royal business, I assume.”
“In a manner.” Xelon’s tone was friendly but reserved.
Naette seemed to take the hint and nodded. “Offa will get you taken care of.”
“Thank you,” Xelon said in Xhosa before bowing slightly. She looked to Addison. “I’ll take the main road, by mount if I’m able to.”
“There is a man who tends a stable toward the eastern end of town,” Naette called as she set a few glowing jars along the table. “Tenant, they call him.”
“Thank you a
gain,” Xelon said. “I’ll send word on whatever I find.”
“Likewise.” Addison flinched as Naette started to clean the wound.
“And, Offa,” Naette said to gain her granddaughter’s attention. “Take Courtney and get her something to eat. Poor thing looks famished.”
Courtney blinked before murmuring a thank-you and blushing as she moved to follow the other two out of the room, the door closing behind them.
“Well,” Naette started. “Like I said, you’re lucky. It’s not good, but it could be much worse.”
“That’s promising,” Addison said with a faint smile pulling at his lips.
“I was wondering what brought a Nightmare around these parts. Then we run into you, of all people.” She spared him a look that he couldn’t quite read clearly. “Think you can do something about it before it causes any real trouble?”
“If there are any available weapons, I could certainly make a go of it.”
“After we get this taken care of.” She turned her attention to the wound, continuing to dab at it with one hand and using the other to pour a purple liquid over the area that left it cold to numbing. “Not smart to go wandering around unarmed.”
“Wasn’t the intention.”
“I suppose not. Into the soak.” She helped him off of the table and over to the large tub. The water steamed, coals burning pink beneath the basin.
“You weren’t expecting me, were you?”
“Of course not. This was for me, to help with some pain in my joints. But I can make another, later.”
A sour touch of guilt moved through him. “You don’t have to—”
“I know full well what I don’t or do have to, thank you very much. Now, stop talking back to your elders.”
He smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”
“About an hour should do. Here. You don’t have to strip down entirely, just take off the shoes.”
Addison did as instructed before he climbed, with Naette’s help, into the tub and settled into the hot liquid. The smell of mint and earth settled over his senses, along with a sort of misty weight. The medicinal properties of the bath likely at work.
“There you are, now. Let the bath do its work. If you need anything, I’ll be about, just holler.”
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