As soon as they had crested the bramble-laden mound, Cal beheld a young Wreather woman, whose braided hair was pinned close to her head and whose basket was brimming with roots, herbs, and mushrooms. She was picking up the large stones about her feet and throwing them with great haste and with great force at the small pack of green-eyed timber wolves that circled hungrily around her.
“Astyræ!” Cal shouted over his shoulder.
Without any other word, she notched an arrow in the mighty bow Arianrhod and loosed its fury upon the encircling beasts. Cal spurred Farran on and charged into the assault before them.
A bolt of the Silver Moon found its mark in the breast of the first wolf just as Cal swung Gwarwyn, carving a swath of flesh and blood into the hide of the second. The next bit at Farran’s legs, growling with agitated fury. The wild-eyed horse kicked at the hulking timber wolf, and Cal swung his blade to defend his mount, but the beast did not relent. A hoof found its mark and sent the wolf reeling in a tumble of fur and fang, but in an instant it sprung again to its paws; mouth foaming with hatred for those that stood in the way of its prize.
Astyræ loosed another arrow, but the wolf leapt towards Cal and evaded the deadly bolt. Teeth barred, he bit into the foreleg of the silver courser as Cal swung his blade with a protective vengeance.
Farran snorted and cried, rearing up on his hind legs. The wolf yelped in pain and lost his bite, falling to ground. Cal jumped from the back of his mount and turned to face the beast himself. The hilt of Gwarwyn glowed violet and silver, beauty and power in juxtaposition to the hungry hatred found in the eyes of the timber wolf.
Another arrow buried its biting point into the matted brown fur as Astyræ halted her chestnut mount beside Cal. The dog growled and whined, and then the green light went out from his menacing eyes.
“Are you alright?” Astyræ asked him breathlessly.
“Yes, my lady,” Cal told her. “But I am not so sure about Farran.”
The horse whinnied, shaking his head in anger and pain as he hobbled towards Cal.
“There now, Farran.” Cal whispered, eyeing the raging red gashes that streaked his wounded foreleg. “There now, my boy. I am here, and Astyræ took care of that wretched beast of a wolf. Shhh, easy now boy, we are safe … safe enough for me to get a look at you.”
Cal walked up to his steed, his hands splayed out, willing the mighty courser to calm himself down. He began to sing, right there in the dark madness of this wild land, with a pack of slain wolves about his feet; his compassion and care for his silver friend overcame his heart. “There now Sigrid’s son, you bright silver prince,” he cooed in a lilting voice. “Lend me your leg, let me see what damage has been done.”
Farran snorted with contempt at his woundedness. His eyes conveyed his fear that perhaps a doom had befallen him, a doom that may come to any noble steed, a doom that may stop him from delivering his rider to whatever destiny called him forth.
“This is not your end, my friend, but a gash and a scrape is all. Come now, let me mend you,” Cal whispered.
“I’m sorry for your horse,” came the voice of the young lady whom they had just rescued. “I’m sorry if it was my fault. I didn’t mean it, you know.”
“We know,” Astyræ assured her. “They weren’t your wolves, were they?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “They weren’t mine.”
“What is your name?” Astyræ asked as she relaxed Arianrhod and extended her hand in friendship. “And how is it that you are out here in this wild, dark wood all by yourself?”
“I am Delilah. My father used to call me Dilly … but that has been quite a long time ago now,” she said shyly. “I was looking for herbs. My little brother Mahlah is ill.”
“Oh, what I wouldn’t do for a bottle of the stable warden’s liniment right now,” Cal said to himself in frustration as he held the wounded leg of his horse.
“May I call you Dilly, too?” Astyræ asked her.
She offered a polite smile, and then, as if the severity of the moment struck her right between her eyes, her brows furrowed, and her smile vanished. “Who are you two? And just what were you doing, riding so freely out here in the Queen’s wood?”
Astyræ looked sharply over to Cal, but he was too worried about Farran to notice her gaze. He grabbed a skin of wine from the satchel tied to his saddle, and he prayed that it could clean the wound well enough.
“Well?” Dilly asked, rather petulantly. “Who are you? I mean I am grateful and all … but this land does not lend hospitality to strangers, no matter if they saved you or not.”
“We … um … we are travelers,” Astyræ told her as she looked back and forth from Cal to this sable-haired girl, wary to say too much. “We are looking for our friends, only, we don’t know where they have gone.”
Cal poured the skin of wine over the wound, and though the blood and the dirt washed away clean, the wound showed itself to be roiling with something vile upon the flesh. “Easy now, boy,” he cooed, his worried hand stroking the silver neck of his wounded friend.
“Your friends?” Delilah asked suspiciously. “Out here? This is not a place for travelers.” She eyed the golden-haired woman for a moment. “And tell me … what is that?” She pointed to the glowing, azure-colored Sprite that hovered near Astyræ.
“This is … Deryn,” she said matter-of-factly. “He is … well, um… he is a fairy, and a friend of ours. He is helping us find our other lost friends out here.”
Deryn scowled at the mention of the word fairy, his tiny blue eyes lit with the fire of indignity. “My lady?” he said incredulously.
“I don’t know,” Delilah said as she inspected the flying companion. “I’ve never seen a fairy before … though you do have wings, don’t you?”
“Astyræ?” Cal said, oblivious to the conversation happening around him. “He is wounded badly. It looks … poisoned, almost. I need to clean the wound better.” His worry for Farran had nearly caused him to forget why he was wounded in the first place, but when his eyes met the young lady, hope arose in his worried countenance.
“Friend, do you have some liniment? Or some kind of spirits I might use to clean my horse’s wound? That timber wolf got him pretty bad, and I’m not sure he will be much for the journey if I don’t help him, and soon.”
“I don’t have any of the like, but I was out here looking for herbs, the healing kind,” she told him. “My brother Mahlah has come down with a fever, and we haven’t anything to—”
She stopped mid-sentence, catching herself from saying too much to these strangers.
“Say … what friends are you looking for, huh?” The tone of her voice grew guarded and wary. “And how do I know that you are not spies for her?”
“Spies?” Astyræ said, rather taken back. “Do we look like spies?”
“That might be something that a spy would say,” Dilly argued as she busied herself, filling her basket with the fragrant herbs at her feet. “Besides, I don’t know who you really are, and my brother needs me!”
“Please, my friend needs me too,” Cal said, willing his request to compel her heart. “And besides … the only reason he is wounded in the first place is because we came to rescue you.”
She looked the three of them over and surveyed the angry, red wound on Farran’s leg. “Alright then, I’ll give you some of my herbs. There is a creek up ahead, a short walk from here. You can wash him and bind him there, but you can’t follow me, and I can’t help you after that.”
“Agreed,” Cal said as he tore a piece of his tunic and wrapped the wounded foreleg of his friend. “Lead us, then, and let us both be about mending those that we love.”
“Alright then,” she agreed. “This way.”
And with that, the young lady began to lead them further north and ever slightly to the west. The ground beneath their boots turned from the rich loam of the thickened forest into the sparsely treed, rock-laden ground of the river lands.
“Can’t you just ask y
our fairy to do something about his wound?” she asked, both curious and annoyed at being waylaid from her duties to her own brother. “They are magic, aren’t they?”
“Fairy?” Cal said, the laughter nearly blurting out of his mouth as he walked beside Farran. “He is not—" Astyræ elbowed him in his side before he could protest any further. Cal coughed, his words catching in his throat.
“Well?” Dilly asked earnestly.
“Well, of course he is magic, but he doesn’t have … healing magic, you might say,” Cal said, his eyes apologizing to his offended friend even as he spoke the words.
“Oh?” She asked. “What kind of magic does he have, then?”
“I don’t know all of his magic, but I have seen him make fire before with not much more than a song.”
Delilah didn’t reply. She was deep in thought, pondering what sort of rabble would travel in the company of fairies.
“I am sorry, my friend,” Cal whispered to Deryn as he flew right beside him. “Don’t be cross with us.”
“It is a good thing I like your horse,” Deryn said in mock offense. “Otherwise, I might be forced to defend the honor of all my Sprite-kind.”
Cal smiled his saddened thanks, and reached up to pat and sooth his limping mount. “Let’s get to the creek, and I’ll wash it for you, and I’ll bind it with herbs, alright?”
Farran snorted his understanding, but the pain of his travels could not be hidden from his face.
“Are there many of them out here?” Astyræ asked. “The timber wolves I mean? Should we be wary?”
“Aye,” the young lady answered. “And her spies are everywhere, all around us. Hunting and seeking and doing her green-eyed bidding.” She spat to the pebble-laden ground for emphasis.
“What are they looking for?” Cal asked. “Who are they hunting?”
Dilly stopped. Her hands balled into fists, her lovely face furrowed and scrunched in anger at so ignorant a question. “Do you not know? Do you truly not know? The Sorceress … she hunts every single one of us who has managed to not succumb to her will!”
“I am sorry,” Cal told her earnestly. “I am not from here – the Wreath, I mean. I am just now learning of all its trappings.”
“Not from the Wreath?” Dilly asked, her voice both curious and suspicious at the same time. “Where then?”
“I came across the Dark Sea, not more than a few months ago, from the city of Haven … my home.” As he told her, a wave of homesickness washed over him. He thought of his cousin, and his Poet friends under the mountain, and he longed to see them again.
Astyræ watched the conversation unfold, and though she had no real reason not to trust this young lady, her heart told her to be cautious.
“What for?” Dilly asked.
“What do you mean?” Cal said absently as he led his limping friend along with a gentle hand upon his neck.
“What did you leave such a city for?” she continued. “Why come all the way out here, into the dark woods of the Sorceress?”
“Well … that is a long story there, Delilah,” Cal said with a hopeful smile. “You see, I am seeking a new light—"
“Cal!” Astyræ blurted out, awkwardly interrupting his story. He looked at her, confused at first, but her eyes explained her caution and he understood her meaning.
“We are here … at the creek, I mean,” Astyræ continued. “Don’t you think you should tend to Farran first? Who knows what kind of evil the fangs of those wolves held!”
“Aye,” Cal agreed. “Come on then,” he whispered to his horse.
Cal and Farran waded out into the stream of water. It was a creek, but it was flowing much too fast and sure to be from some lazy spring nearby. He squatted down to wash the cold, clean water over Farran’s wounded leg, and as he did, he heard something that he had not noticed before. There, off in the distance, he heard the distinct sound of rushing water.
Farran snorted and breathed heavily as Cal did his best to rid the wound of whatever evil lingered in the raw, open flesh of his leg. “Shhh, there now boy. I’ll have you running through these woodlands in no time.”
Delilah stood on the pebble-strewn shoreline of this northern creek, her mind overrun with a stampede of unanswered questions about these three strangers.
“Delilah?” Cal asked her, though she was too lost in thought to notice. “Delilah?” he asked again.
Her eyes blinked away her thoughts, and she shook her head and turned her attention again to him. “I’m sorry,” she said apologetically.
“This creek … where does it lead?” Cal asked her. “It sounds like there is a river nearby, doesn’t it? Does this lead to something bigger?”
“What? Oh, yes. Back that way.” She pointed westward. “All of these little creeks flow into the Argiñe.”
“The Argiñe?” Deryn asked her.
Cal followed her gaze, and as he did the faint glow of the Stag’s marker shone off in the same westward direction. “There it is!” he whispered in exhausted delight.
“You really are not from here, are you?” she said, shaking her head. “It is the hidden river. Well … not so much hidden, rather, no one knows where it flows from.”
“What do you mean, girl?” Deryn said as he flitted up to meet her gaze.
“What does it matter?” she said defensively. “I mean that this creek and a dozen others all flow into the Argiñe, and the Argiñe flows from the white-peaked Itxaro Mountains, but no one knows just where it begins. It’s hidden, don’t you see?”
“It just disappears?” Deryn asked her carefully. “Into the mountains?”
“Well… not just into the mountains,” she said, annoyance coloring her tone of voice. “It goes over the falls.”
“The falls?” Astyræ said. “Would you show us?”
Dilly looked at her basket of herbs, remembering her sick brother. “I really must get back to Malhah, mother will need these to tend to him. Besides, there is nothing to see after the Falls of Ammon.”
“Alright then,” Cal told her. “But could you spare some of those herbs for Farran here before you leave? His wound seems to be getting worse, not better.”
She reached into her basket and handed him a small bunch of flatleaf herbs whose stems crested into tiny white-and violet-colored flowers. “This is called Osane. It grows only in these rocky highlands. My mother will boil them into a tea to help with fever, but maybe they could help here, too.”
Cal reached out and took the herbs, grateful for something, anything, that might aid in his friend’s healing. “Thank you, Delilah. We will ask the THREE who is SEVEN to bring swift healing to your brother.”
She looked at them, grateful for their aid and yet still mistrusting of their intentions. She turned to leave, but curiosity got the better of her. “Have you seen it?”
“Seen what?” Cal asked her.
“The light. I mean … it’s source, you know… where it comes from?” Delilah stumbled over her question.
“Yes, I have,” Cal told her as he rubbed the herbs in his hands, breaking the leaves and releasing a pleasing fragrance.
She thought for a moment before she spoke. “Is it beautiful?”
Cal held the herbs against the wound and tied off a piece of his torn tunic on Farran’s wounded leg. “Aye, it was once … though I think it is gone now.”
“Be wary of spies,” she said, after a brief pause, her voice going flat. “I must go now.” And at that, she dashed off eastward along the fens of the Argiñe towards wherever it was that she called home.
“That was strange,” Cal said once the young woman was out of earshot.
“There are not many left on this Wreath worth trusting, groomsman,” Astyræ scolded him. “She was trying to protect both herself and her family. And we are not much more than strangers to her.”
“Alright, alright,” Cal said, urging Farran to walk alongside him as they continued to follow the creek westward.
“You haven’t tried to survive out here
very long yet, Cal,” she continued. “There is not much hospitality left in this darkened world of ours. There are those who still have refused the offer of the Sorceress, whatever their intentions may be. And though she deems them enemies to her cause, they do not call themselves friend to many others, save themselves.”
“Well, I can’t rightly understand the reason for that,” Cal argued as he held the long, silver head of his four-legged friend in his rough hands. “Why don’t they band together and oppose her? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them all to stand united?”
“Of course it would, groomsman,” she said as she clicked her tongue and urged her chestnut along. “But fear does deeper harm than what can be seen on the surface of things. It clouds the air. It strangles vision and casts a perilous shadow on the paths that might otherwise seem clear.” She looked into his eyes, her expression weighted with an all-too-familiar and burdened gravity. “They are too afraid to oppose her.”
Cal laughed to himself as he listened to the words of this Wreather woman, shaking his head and smiling at a not-so-long-ago memory.
“What?” she said with embarrassment. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, my lady,” he said gently, kindness coming into his clouded eyes.
“Well, what is it then? Huh?” she said with a slight growl in her voice.
“You remind me of an old friend is all,” he said. “He used to speak just like that to me … to anyone who would listen, really. Always poetry and riddles, mostly of the sagely sort.”
“I don’t understand what you are saying to me, groomsman.” She turned her head westward, keeping her eyes on the bank in front of her. “I am not giving you riddles or poetry.”
“Still … you have the heart of a Poet, lady Astyræ. I am trying to pay you a compliment in saying so.” He laughed as he spoke. “You are both beautiful and wise, and I am grateful to have you with me on the journey.”
She thought in silence as they led their horses further west. A smile slowly crept across her soft face as his words found their mark on the center of her heart.
The Coming Dawn: Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 3 Page 10