Branwen's gulp was audible. Not wanting to tarry, the party mounted once more and rode on, if more slowly this time. Finn could still hear the running water as clear as if it was actually there. She wondered if maybe the trick was on those who couldn't hear it, and they were all passing up a good opportunity in listening to the old man. She shook her head again, wondering if all humans had such little control of their thoughts as she.
Within minutes of riding, much of the sun's light was blotted out by the rising trees. The air was chilled and smelled of growing things with the underlying scent of rot. Finn's nose crinkled in affront, though no one else seemed affected. She wondered if they smelled the foul stench as well, but decided to keep her thoughts to herself as they rode on.
Branwen did not enjoy being in Faie lands, not in the least. The only positive aspect of the situation was the smell. Something smelled absolutely delicious, like lavender tea and fresh baked honey bannocks. If she wasn't mistaken, they were nearing the smell as they rode.
Still, she regretted the journey. Perhaps if they had gone back to the Gray City and explained, they would not have been blamed for Liaden's disappearance. Surely they were powerless against the will of the Travelers?
The smell thickened still. Branwen glanced over at Finn, who was cringing like she smelled something foul. The woman was obviously falling prey to Tuatha tricks. It would make sense that the Faie would want to disguise such a wonderful smell, in order to keep travelers from seeking out its source.
Branwen looked down at her horse's hooves. Perhaps it was a plant breaking under their steps making the smell. Her eyes darted around for a source until they settled on a plant unlike any she had ever seen. Its stems were long and thick, deep purple in color, with wide green and purple speckled leaves and pale purple flowers. Her horse had stopped right next to one of the plants. Had she pulled the reins? She couldn't remember. The flowers looked slick with some sort of sap or pollen. She tried to observe the flowers so closely that she nearly fell out of her saddle.
Her brother grabbed onto her burgundy cloak from the opposite side and pulled her back into place. “What are you doing?” he asked breathlessly.
“I was trying to look at the flowers,” she stated, as if it were quite obvious.
The rest of the party looked at her like she had lost her mind, except for Finn, who looked at the flowers in disgust. Branwen wasn't sure why the entire party had come to a standstill, just to stare at her in disapproval.
The old man stared at her harder than the others, and Branwen tried to remember why they had invited him along at all. “Them flowers are as poisonous as deathroot,” he grumbled. “Even smellin' them too close would make ye lose yer breakfast.”
“But, they smell lovely . . . ” Branwen argued.
Finn gave her an appalled look, but still did not speak. The party moved on without another word, though everyone seemed to be riding closer to Finn than to her. Was it her imagination? Surely not, Branwen may have been hoodwinked by the flowers, but she could still judge distance.
With both of the women acting odd, Iseult felt uneasy. He had been in the areas around the Blood Forest before, and so knew a bit of what was in store. Yet, things should not have been happening so soon. His memories told him that they were still many miles from the Blood Forest, but it felt like they were already in it. Could the forest have eaten up that much land in the few years since he'd been in the area? It did not seem possible, yet many things of the Tuatha did not seem possible.
Beyond his worries about the forest, he did not like taking time to search for a woman that was most likely lost. He had heard of the Ceàrdaman kidnapping people, but he had never heard of any of those people returning to their normal lives. Venturing into Faie lands was an unnecessary risk. Branwen had nearly fallen face first into poisonous plants, and they'd only been in the lands for an hour or so. He glanced at Finn as she looked at the ground with distaste. He would not lose her to the Tuatha, not when he'd only just found her.
“We should probably stop and rest soon,” Anders said, almost more to himself than to the party.
“We've still got a ways to go before we make camp, lad,” Àed countered. The old man seemed to be the only one keeping his wits about him, besides Iseult of course. Iseult would be cursed before he would fall prey to Faie trickery ever again. The first time was still too clear in his mind, though he'd been but a child of twelve.
His earliest encounter with the Tuatha occurred shortly after the majority of the Faie had disappeared, oddly enough. Fighting with the Cavari, followed by the effects the Faie War had on the countryside had left Iseult's people homeless and poor. The proud men and women of Uí Néid were reduced to lowly sailors, working under various Aldermen and fish merchants far from their ruined home. Most of Iseult's people, including himself and his mother, had migrated south to the great city of Migris to find work.
The brother of Iseult's father had taken it upon himself to teach Iseult to sail the coasts of Migris, as Iseult's own father could not do so from the grave. Iseult learned quickly, and soon went to work on various crews with his uncle. One such job landed them on a small fishing ship, with only a few men in the crew. They had been trawling the coastline when they fell afoul of Sirens. No one had questioned the appearance of the large school of fish, their scales glimmering like silver. The Faie were long gone by that time, or so Iseult had been told. It had been a rude awakening when the crew followed the school of fish into a desolate cove.
Iseult could still picture the calm waters beneath the ship, and he could still hear the singing. The men of the crew had jumped into the water and drowned themselves one by one, all but Iseult. He had wrestled with his uncle, and begged him not to go, but in the end had chosen not to drown along with him.
Eventually the singing subsided and Iseult was left alone on the ship. He could not man it himself, and so jumped into the water. He would either swim to the shore of the cove, or die like the rest, and after the horrors he had witnessed, he didn't really care which way it went.
When he made it, shivering and soaked through, to the home he shared with his mother, she'd sent him away. He could not very well tell the Lady of Migris that the ship had been overtaken by Sirens, leaving him as the only survivor. He would be marked as a liar and a coward, an offense punishable by death. His mother was supposed to meet him on the road, but she never came. Later Iseult discovered that she had died for his alleged crime. Someone had seen him run.
“I don't think I slept enough during the night,” Anders argued, startling Iseult back into the present. “It wouldn't hurt to rest, just for a short while.”
The man did look awful. Deep bags were prominent under his golden brown eyes. He'd taken off his cloak as if he was hot, though the air was cold enough to warrant full winter clothing. Iseult observed the rest of their party for similar signs. None seemed affected in the same way as Anders, though Finn continuously tried to put distance between herself and the other riders. Each time she fell back, either Iseult, Kai, or Àed would discreetly drop behind to usher her on. She never seemed to notice.
Àed looked to Anders. “Did ye touch anything since we entered the forest?”
“Is he under a Faie spell?” Branwen squeaked worriedly.
“I did no such thing!” Anders argued.
Àed spat on the ground. “Calm down, the both of ye. I've never felt the forest like this before. Perhaps we should turn back.”
“We cannot abandon Liaden,” Kai argued before anyone else could jump to agree.
Their horses had come to a standstill once again. Iseult noticed that Kai now held the reins of Finn's horse while the woman looked longingly off toward something he could not see. Taking Finn's reins was a good precaution, as long as Kai did not fall prey to the same Faierie fancy.
“We move on,” Iseult agreed, though he did not like it. The memory of icy water struck him, and he swallowed the lump in his throat, pushing down the fear and hatred that had plagued him
most of his life.
Kai held tightly onto Finn's reins. He had been herding her forward for thirty minutes or so, when he finally just took her reins from her. She did not seem to notice either way. Half of the time her expression was one of great distaste, and the rest of the time it was as if she saw the most beautiful thing in the world and wanted nothing more than to hurry toward it. During the latter times, she would veer her mule-horse away from the group, only to be reined back in by Àed, Iseult, or himself.
The twins were both obviously Tuatha-stricken as well, making for uncertain odds. Anders looked plagued with fever, while Branwen was jumping at every sound, and sometimes when there were no sounds to jump at as well.
If the two unaffected men held out with him, they might be able to find the Travelers safely enough, but if one more succumbed to flights of fancy, it might become difficult to keep everyone together. He was beginning to think perhaps they should have left Finn, Anders, and Branwen at the outskirts, yet there had been no way of knowing they would be so strongly affected. They should not have been so strongly affected. From what Àed had previously explained to him, as long as they stayed on the paths and did not eat anything, they would be fine. Yet Kai could already see that things were not as he'd been told. Something must have changed the forest.
He stifled a shiver. The ground underneath their horses' hooves was crunchy with frost. It was far too late in the season for frost, even with the unseasonable weather. He watched uneasily as his breath fogged the air in steady torrents. His breath caught in his throat and he was nearly dismounted as Finn's horse jerked violently to the side, then went crashing off through the trees, taking its rider willingly with it. Kai's hand burned where the reins had slid across his palm. He stared in shock for a moment before galloping off after her, his mind racing with thoughts of the woman becoming lost in the cursed forest forever. There was also the possibility of getting lost himself, but he could not focus on it as he avoided the branches and tall brambles that were attempting to poke his eyes out. Kai felt only slight relief when he heard the hooves of other horses following behind him.
The terrain was uneven and slick, making the quick pace difficult for Kai's mount. He saw the gray rump of Finn's mule horse fleeing ahead of him, moving impossibly fast for the half-lame creature. As he kept his eyes on Finn, he realized he could no longer hear the sound of hoof-beats behind him. He glanced behind for just a moment, then had to come to a sudden halt in order to not run directly into Finn's horse. Finn sat perfectly still in her saddle, staring off into the distance.
“Are you bladdered woman?” he asked as he dismounted and grabbed Finn's reins from where they hung below her horse's foaming mouth.
Finn did not look at him, but instead continued to gaze into the forest. “Don't you see it?” she whispered without looking back. What Kai could see of her face had grown startlingly pale, so that she looked like a ghost, or some sort of icy goddess.
Kai looked in the direction of her gaze, but saw only trees and darkness. “May the horned one take you woman, there is nothing there.”
He pulled Finn's horse around and began to lead her in the direction they'd come from. Hopefully the others would be near where they had left them.
Finn looked back over her shoulder so far that she almost fell out of her saddle. “We're going the wrong way! I saw my family back there!”
Kai stopped and glared up at her. “Your family is not in this forest. We can go looking for them after we get out of this cursed place.”
Finn crossed her arms as a petulant look took over her face. “How would you know? You don't know my family. I haven't seen them in over one-hundred years, and now you would just drag me away from them.”
Kai sighed. “Finn, you have not been alive one-hundred years. You have not even been alive thirty.”
“You don't know!” she shouted. “Just because I was a tree, doesn't mean I wasn't alive!”
The woman had completely lost it, Kai thought. He began to worry that once out of the forest, she might not go right again. Before he could stop her, Finn hopped off her horse and started walking back in the other direction. Kai quickly went after her, pulling both horses behind him.
Holding both sets of reins in one hand, he grabbed her arm with his other and turned her to face him. She had a wild look in her dark eyes, and the effect was only increased by her snarled, pale brown hair whipping about in the breeze. A small bit of color had returned to her lightly-freckled cheeks, but her mouth and the rest of her face remained bloodless. Kai considered undoing his cloak to put around her, but realized with a start that the ground was no longer icy in this area. In fact, it felt as if heat was radiating from the earth itself. That same heat radiated from Finn, despite her pallor.
His hand itched with a feeling of bugs crawling over his skin, but Kai held tight to Finn's arm until she gave him her full attention. “Remember where we are,” he told her shakily. “What you see is not real, it is a Faie trick.”
Some measure of light went out of her eyes with that, and her brow creased in confusion. “But I saw . . . ” she paused as the crazed expression melted from her face. “I'm not really sure what I saw.”
Kai let out a breath of relief. “We need to find the others.”
Finn raised a gloved hand to her mouth in sudden worry. “I can't believe I ran off like that!” she gasped. “Let us be off.”
Kai nodded. Thank the creators, the woman was back to her senses. He looked in the direction where they had left the rest of the group . . . at least he thought it was the right direction. Everything looked the same in the eerie, Faie woods. They remounted their horses, but Kai kept hold of Finn's reins, just in case.
Damned fools, the lot of them, Àed thought to himself. He would have thought it out loud, if there had been anyone around to hear. As soon as Finn went riding off, Kai and Iseult went running after her, while the twins went running off in the opposite direction. Àed had tried to keep up with the two men following Finn, but his mount could not match their pace, though he should have been able to pace Finn's horse easily. They were gone before he knew it.
He was alone, but did not worry about himself. He was more worried about those dust-brained fools under Tuatha compulsion. They had succumbed far too easily. He had traveled the Blood Forest safely many times before. The most recent, which wasn't really recent at all, had been with three companions. The trio had hired him to find a missing child, assuming he had been stolen by one of the Faie. One fool had eaten a toadstool and saw visions for a week, but they had all still emerged with their lives. There was something new here now, or something old reawakened. Either way, it was not good. He thought back again to his last venture into the Blood Forest. The child had been found several days later, drowned in the river Cair, not taken by the Faie after all.
Àed plodded along in no direction in particular. He tried with all of his might to sense where Finn had gone, but it was one of the abilities he had lost when his daughter Keiren had crippled him oh so many years before. Where he'd failed at finding Keiren after she left, though he searched for many years, he assured himself that he would not fail at finding Finn.
After a short time he came upon a clearing. In the clearing was a spring, and beside the spring sat the twins. He might have missed them if it wasn't for their dusky red hair standing out in contrast against their green surroundings. As he drew near, the twins raised invisible cups in slàinte, clicking the invisible rims against each other.
Àed hopped down from his horse and ran to them, then swatted the invisible cups out of their hands. The old man did not feel a thing, but the twins looked up at him as if they had been stung.
“What did you go and do that for!” Anders demanded.
“Get up ye fools. Yer Faierie-bladdered all the way,” Àed replied. He could hear laughter that sounded like rasping leaves coming from the trees around the spring. “Merrows,” he mumbled.
“What about Merrows?” Branwen said petulantly. “You
've interrupted our afternoon tea.”
Àed felt an overwhelming urge to haul Branwen and Anders to their feet by their ears, but resisted. “Merrows ye fools. Cursed water sprite tricksters. Likely tryin' to get ye drunk to make drownin' ye nice and easy.”
Branwen paused in contemplation, then looked at her brother. “What were we doing here again?”
Anders appeared quite dumb-stricken, and offered only a shrug in reply.
Àed shook his head in annoyance. “Where are yer horses ye fools?”
The twins stood and brushed themselves off. “I'm not quite sure,” Branwen answered, embarrassed.
Àed tried to contain his wrath. The Blood Forest was not a place to let yourself be overcome by anger or other emotions, especially not under the circumstances.
“Where are the others?” Anders asked suddenly, as if he had just then realized they weren't with Àed.
“Bah.” Àed waved them off. “We'll find them eventually. Hopefully they have a bit more sense than the two of ye.”
Àed began walking with his shaggy horse's reins in hand, giving the twins no choice but to follow him back in the direction he had come, or stay and be drowned by Merrows. At that moment, he did not particularly care which choice they made.
“How will we find them?” Anders asked, catching up to Àed's side.
“Like I said,” Àed replied. “hopefully they have sense. If they have sense, they will backtrack, then they'll get out of this tainted forest the way we came in. The forest may have changed, but there are still paths, if yer not too blind to see 'em.”
The cursed forest had no paths at all, Iseult thought as he slowly walked along. Luckily the ground was at least soft enough to show him hoof-prints in the soil. He had chased after Finn and Kai, only to lose sight of them, and sight of the rest of the party behind him as well. One moment he was gaining on Kai and Finn, and the next they had simply disappeared.
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