If he didn’t know where we were, we were going to have to manage it ourselves. If we could get our asses up to Arianrhod’s castle, she might help us. As to prayer, I hadn’t even given it a thought, but now I found myself wondering if I prayed to Morgana or Cernunnos—or if Raven prayed to Arawn or Cerridwen—shouldn’t they be able to hear us better since we were in their realm? Slipping from beneath the blanket, I crept over to where Raven was watching the fire, keeping it stoked.
“Hey,” I whispered, settling down beside her.
“What are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “I was thinking about the gods. What if we prayed to our gods? They hear us when we’re home, what about here? We’re in Annwn, shouldn’t reception be better since this is their home realm?”
“Hmm,” Raven said. “Maybe you’re right. I usually don’t think about praying for help. I only pray when I’m trying to get in touch with them to ask if there’s anything I should be doing.”
“I don’t pray at all,” I said. “It seems so odd to do so, when I can usually pick up a phone and text Morgana.”
Raven laughed. “It is odd, when you think about it. The concept of prayer. I guess they can hear us because we’re their priestesses. But…the phone? Have you tried texting here?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure how they get our messages, but…” I pulled out my phone and looked at it. “It’s out of juice. I can’t recharge it without electricity. So it’s pretty much a thin paperweight ri—” I paused, straightening. Alarm bells were ringing in my head. “Raven, something’s watching us. I can feel it. The hairs on my—”
“Yeah, I can feel it too,” she said. “I’m trying to pinpoint the direction.” After a moment, she added, “Whatever it is, it’s hiding in the grass behind us.” She kept her voice low and even.
My back rippled with tension. There was something out there that was stalking us. The Autumn’s Bane blood from my father told me that. Born with predator blood, I could sense when another predator was around.
“It’s stalking us,” I whispered. “I have a bad feeling about this. Get your spells ready.” I made sure Serafina was locked and loaded with one of the allentar bolts, then cautiously knelt beside Angel to wake her up.
“Hey, get up,” I said, my words soft as I shook her shoulder.
She woke hard, but after her initial gasp, she sat up, shaking her head. “What’s—”
“Shush,” I said, leaning close. “We’ve got a visitor across the trail, watching us. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s in hunting mode.”
Angel slid out from beneath the blanket and followed me back to the fire. Once there, we waited, back to back, staring into the darkness. While I sensed the menace coming from in the grass across the trail, we didn’t want to leave anything to fate. Better to keep an eye out in all directions rather than get a nasty surprise.
I hated the feeling of being stalked. If an attack was coming, I wanted it out in the open. I had been stalked by an ex-boyfriend by the name of Ray Fontaine for months. Finally, Herne had helped me take care of him but during the time he was stalking me, the knowledge that he was out there watching me had left me wanting to beat the crap out of him.
“Look,” Raven whispered. She was watching across the trail.
I turned, and sure enough, there was something moving in the grass. It was impossible to tell what was there, but an inky spot in the darkness warned that we were, indeed, being observed.
Angel gasped as she turned. “It’s after us,” she said. “I can feel it from here.” She was an empath and I trusted her feelings implicitly.
“Dangerous?”
“Worse. Malevolent. Get ready because it’s on the way—and I think there’s more than one.” Her voice quavered as she pulled out her dagger. Angel was learning to fight, and doing well, but she wasn’t cut out for anything hard core. Not yet.
“Get behind Raven and me,” I said.
She didn’t put up false bravery, but quickly moved behind Raven and me, and picked up a flaming stick from the fire. “This will probably be a better weapon for me than the blade,” she said, sliding the dagger back in its sheath.
I trained Serafina on the figures moving toward us. Every nerve in my body was screaming “Shoot! Shoot!” but I knew better than to send a bolt into the dark. They needed to be close enough so that I couldn’t miss. I was a good shot, but I wasn’t Herne, who never missed his mark.
Raven was murmuring an incantation, building up her spell. The Wand of Straha was hanging by her side, but that much firepower was better left for more than a roadside skirmish, especially since it was one use only, after which she’d have to recharge it. Flames began to flicker from her fingers, but they looked more powerful than I remembered from before. They crackled green and yellow, rather than the usual orange-red, and the hair on my arms stood up as I averted my gaze. The wisps were mesmerizing, and I needed to concentrate on what was happening, not on watching the dancing flames.
The figures were now on the path and we could see them better. There were two of them, bipedal, tall and muscular, but they were blacker than night, as though they were pieces of the void encapsulated in form, and they reminded me of the figures of the Egyptian gods who were half man, half beast.
“Black dogs, but more than black dogs,” Raven whispered, staring at them.
“Crap. Star Hounds.” I leveled Serafina, aiming at the nearest, and squeezed the trigger. The bolt soared, shimmering in the night. The allentar took on a violet glow as it winged toward its mark. My target paused for a moment, then shook its head and tried to jump to the side. But my bolt hit square center in its chest. If its heart was where a man’s would be, then I managed to hit it.
The Star Hound shrieked and the silhouette of its body began to flicker, like a TV gone staticky. It howled but it continued to lope toward me, as the bolt disintegrated.
The other Star Hound growled, rumbling through the night, and went down on all fours, rushing toward Raven. She thrust her hands forward, launching her spell, and a spray of the green fire jetted out in a long stream, engulfing the Star Hound.
It let out a howl as the flames took hold. Instead of dying away, they clung to its body, their ethereal fire spreading to envelop the beast. The creature dropped to the ground, rolling as it tried to extinguish the flames.
Meanwhile, I nocked another arrow in the crossbow and sent it singing toward the first Star Hound, who was mere yards away. The bolt found its mark again, and this time, the Star Hound went down on its knees, convulsing as the magical metal worked its magic.
Raven quickly called up another spell and this time, she launched herself toward the Star Hound who was almost at my feet, slapping her hands against the void of its body. Her scream mingled with the howl of the creature and I was close enough to see that Raven was hurt. I knocked her away from the Star Hound even as a ball of fire began to glow in its chest.
As I held her, rolling away from the creature, the fist-sized orb of fire exploded, and the Star Hound went limp and collapsed.
Angel shouted, pointing at the other creature. It was back on its feet, but staggering toward us, and I quickly locked another bolt in Serafina and fired. Again, I hit the mark, and the Star Hound staggered. Once again, it collapsed as the arrow vanished. I wasn’t sure if it was dead or just wounded, so I yanked out my dagger and raced over to the Star Hound. I skidded to my knees by it, reaching down to hold it firm against the ground.
That was a big mistake.
“Holy fuck!” I yanked my hand away. My fingers felt like they might freeze and fall off, and I realized why Raven had screamed.
I was about to draw my dagger across its neck when the Star Hound shattered into tiny shards. The other hound did the same, and I scrambled back as the wind swept in and picked up the pieces, carrying them away toward the north.
“What the hell?” Angel said, turning to Raven. “Ember, Raven’s hands are hurt.”
I hurried over.
The sensation that we were being watched was gone. We were safe for the moment.
By the fireside, Raven held out her hands. The skin was blistered and peeling, as though she’d had hypothermia. I examined her fingers closely. She could still bend them, though it hurt her to do so.
“You’re lucky. If you’d held onto the Star Hound much longer, you might have lost a few of your fingers. As it is, the skin’s peeling. This is going to hurt for a while. Why weren’t you wearing gloves?”
“Same reason you weren’t—it’s not easy to fight in them, and I sure as hell can’t cast a spell with them on,” she said, wincing. “What should I do? I don’t want them getting infected.”
“I have some first-aid salve that Ferosyn made for me awhile back. I always carry it with me. Most human antibiotic creams don’t work on the Fae. Question is, will it work on one of the Ante-Fae?” I dug through my pack, looking for the little jar.
“It should. We’re different, but your race did come from mine,” she said, holding out her hands again. “I’m willing to give it a try.”
I rubbed the salve across her hands, trying to be as gentle as I could.
She sucked in a sharp breath, holding it for a moment before letting it stream from between her teeth. “Your touch hurts, but the salve feels good.”
I stared at her hands. The blistered skin was regaining the color it should have, and already looked better.
“The salve has a numbing quality for pain. It should help, but you probably shouldn’t go conjuring fire like that. At least not for a few days. Though if we need it…”
“If we need my spells, I’ll cast them regardless of the pain,” she said. “So, we know what the Star Hounds are. At least we know what we’re going up against if they show up again.”
“It’s obvious they won’t be shy about attacking, if we come across any others. Even though the first arrow hurt that one pretty bad, it was still coming for us.”
Angel sighed, sitting down by the fire. “I got a glimpse of their natures while they were attacking. I think they’re programmed to attack. From what I could sense, they were totally fixated on killing us. There was no other intent there.”
“I wonder why. I mean, do they do that to all the creatures here, or only those who don’t belong to the land of Caer Arianrhod?” Raven said.
“I’d guess the latter, rather than the former, but I don’t know. Arianrhod’s not a bloodthirsty goddess, but she’s removed from humankind—more so than the other gods.” With the gods, sometimes there was no way of knowing what their natures were. I glanced at the frosty sky. “We should try to get more sleep. I’ll keep watch. Raven, you and Angel get some rest.”
And so I took my place by the fire, tense and feeling like I’d drunk an entire pot of coffee. It was amazing what a good adrenaline rush could do.
Chapter Eight
By morning, I was bleary eyed again, but I pulled out some of the remaining fish—we had enough for about another day and a half—and Angel handed us each two cookies. Breakfast wasn’t filling, but it was a mix of protein and carbs—and the cookies were a treat compared to the fish. Even though they remained fresh in the snow-packed bag, the unseasoned trout were beginning to get monotonous.
The temperatures seemed to be rising to just above freezing during the day, but at night, they plunged into the frosty range. The constant cold was making us tired and I was worried we’d start making stupid mistakes.
We ate breakfast and drank some water. Preventing dehydration was paramount. But since the patches of mounded snow looked clean, I took two of the empty water bottles and packed them full of snow to melt. It wouldn’t be a lot of water, but every bit helped and we could continue to fill them as we went along, because there was still enough snow to do so.
“All right, let’s set off again. I took a gander down the road and it looks like there’s a slight rise in the grassland ahead, where the trail starts to curve. I thought we were seeing flat land, but with the way the grass out here ripples, it’s kind of like being on the shore and watching the ocean and not realizing you’re looking at a tsunami rolling in.” I pointed to the curve in the road where it turned toward the right and then seemed to disappear.
“I wonder how far we are from the mountains,” Angel said. “Didn’t you say the kelpie told you that Caer Sidi was at the top of a mountain?”
I nodded. “She did.” I stared ahead at the misty silhouettes rising from the horizon. My gauge of distance wasn’t always accurate. “I have no clue. It could be several weeks, so we’re going to have to find food along the way. I’m not used to flatlands.”
“Me either,” Raven said. “I guess we’d better get going. We have to make the food hold out as long as possible, and after the fish is gone tomorrow, we’re back on rationed cookies and protein bars. We need to find protein, so I’m thinking watch for birds or deer or any creatures that we might be able to eat. With the snow increasing as we near the mountains, we’ll be able to melt enough to have water.”
We made sure the fire was out and, with Angel dragging the bundle of wood, we set out on the road again, heading toward the mountains. As we plodded along, I found myself thinking of home. Even though we were in Annwn, my hopes of finding our way safely to Cernunnos’s palace, or Brighid’s castle, or at least Arianrhod’s castle, felt like they were flagging. I was trying to be optimistic, but when we were cold and hungry and alone, it was hard to maintain a positive outlook.
Angel suddenly stopped and pointed at the sky. “Look.”
I followed her direction. There, in the distance to the west, great clouds loomed and they were coming in fast. They didn’t look like the thunderheads of the first day, but I caught the scent of ozone on the wind. These were snow clouds.
“It’s going to snow.” I looked around. We had been walking steadily for what seemed like several hours, and now I realized that, off the path to either side, the snow was becoming fairly uniform. No more piles here and there, but rather, patches. We were headed north, and it was winter.
“We should find a place to take a break,” Raven said. “Though at least walking keeps us warmer.”
We were nearing the bend in the road, and now I could see that the grasslands were swelling up the side of a hill. Small in terms of the mountains at home, the hill was still of significant size. We could make it up the slope, but it wouldn’t be a quick jaunt.
“I think I want to go up on that hill and see what’s on the other side,” I said. “It won’t take me too long. It’s a hike, but not too exerting and it could help cut some miles off our journey.”
“Why don’t we all go?” Angel said. “Then, if the other side is an easy descent, we won’t waste time. I wonder if the path continues to curve to the right.” She paused, then added, “What if it curves east? What if we have to go cross-country if the path doesn’t lead north?”
That hadn’t occurred to me. Traveling cross-country could be dangerous. If there were any villages near, chances are they’d be along the road rather than out in the middle of nowhere.
“I guess we’ll figure out what to do when and if that happens.”
I took over the sledge—I was the strongest—and we started up the hill. The slope wasn’t terribly steep, but after a while, dragging the wood began to prove too heavy for me, so Raven looped one side of the rope over her shoulders and, together, we dragged it behind us. We didn’t dare lose our wood supply. Angel slipped behind the sledge to push and working together, we managed to reach the summit, which provided a flat mesa from which we could look in all directions.
The first thing we saw when we looked below was that the road, indeed, curved to the east from the bend, and didn’t appear to curve north again as far as we could see. But relief spread through me as I saw a village at the base of the hill. Beyond the village, to the north, a copse extended north toward the mountains. Actually, it was more than a copse. I shaded my eyes, realizing that the forest thickened the farther north it went, spreading to
the east as well.
“All right, let’s hope they’re friendly,” I said. “We need help and maybe they’ll be willing to extend a hand. At least we have the coins the kelpie gave us.”
Shouldering the rope of the sledge again, Raven and I cautiously began the descent with Angel guiding the sledge from the back as she kept it from lurching forward to slam into Raven and me. As we picked our way down the hill, the clouds socked in around us, covering the sky, and snow began to fall, at first with a hiss and a sputter, and then in big, fat flakes that froze the moment they hit the ground. By the time we were at the bottom of the hill, a good inch had already accumulated on the ground.
The village was compact, but seemed a decent size. I estimated there were probably five hundred to six hundred people living here given the number of houses in the surrounding area. The village reminded me of Eselwithe—the village near Cernunnos’s palace.
Most of the houses were built of wood, and rather than thatched roofs, they had wooden shingles. Every house had a chimney rising from it, and the smell of woodsmoke rose from the town, making me long to be inside by the fire. There seemed to be a central thoroughfare—the trail ran through it from what we could see—and it was lined with shops and what looked like an inn.
“Oh, thank gods. Let’s get down there. I think that large building to the right might be an inn,” I said, pointing to a large structure that had a stable behind it.
“Let’s move.” Angel’s teeth were chattering and her hair was covered with snow. “I’m freezing.”
We increased our pace and finally reached the main road again. There weren’t many people out and about, and what there were, I recognized as mostly Elves, with a few Fae among them. They stopped to stare at us and I realized that we were wearing clothing that didn’t fit the area. We were obviously outsiders.
When we reached the inn, I wondered if we’d be able to communicate. I didn’t speak Elvish, but I spoke both Turneth and Nuva—the dialects of Dark and Light Fae. Though the dialects were probably different back home, given both languages had their roots in Annwn, someone should be able to understand me.
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