“You say it is nothing because you are used to your magic, but if you only knew how much I wish that I could speak to animals. Just one animal—hounds.” Red shook his head and bit his lip.
Fierce knew she should tell him the truth, but she couldn’t bear to.
They moved on until they found a fox and Red asked Fierce to do the same with it.
She handled it gingerly, because it was larger than the mole and could do more damage. She had killed foxes before, even without her pack, but she had not often bothered with them. They were fast and vicious, and had little meat for the trouble.
She did not think she could remember any words in the language of foxes, but when the moment came, she must have said the right thing, for the fox perked up and bared its teeth at her, hissing and threatening her as foxes always did, with more confidence than they ought to have facing anything larger than themselves. Fierce thought a fox would do the same to a bear. They never gave up to death as other animals did. They fought to the very end. Perhaps she admired them a little, and that was why she had been reluctant to eat them before. It had never occurred to her, as a hound.
The robin she came across next was more difficult. Fierce knew how the robin’s voice sounded, but she could not reproduce it. She whistled, but it sounded very tinny in her ears. Still, the robin responded slowly and eventually took wing again.
The closer they came to the great fissure, the more slowly they went. Fierce had a hollow feeling in her stomach and her legs seemed to become bloodless. It was not the fear of facing death. She had dealt with that many times as a hound. But the Xaon and its way of swallowing up everything it touched, the mindlessness of it, the purposeless devouring. That was different than anything she had faced before.
And yet Fierce continued toward it, slowly but surely. With Red at her side.
They had found very few individual white worms, but there were some white creatures not yet fully formed, a partial rabbit, a three-legged squirrel, a beaver without a head. He struggled with them, but eventually subdued them without killing them and carried them in his shirt. If he had hurt them too badly, they would have lost their form and gone back to worms, dispersing easily. The larger form was easier to carry and keep track of, but Fierce also thought it far more dangerous. What if the white creatures woke and combined into something much larger?
“I could take them for a time,” offered Fierce.
“No,” said Red. “There are other things for you to do. This is the only thing I am good for.”
And to persuade him otherwise, she would have to tell him she was a hound, and face his horror.
She had never thought of herself as a coward as a hound, but she blamed it on the human body. It made her think too much, and fear too much. And want too much, as well. She imagined a future with Red and herself in it, and she could not bear to give that up.
Chapter Nineteen:
“Is it human?” called out Red from several lengths distance.
Fierce felt her heart pound once, and then seem to skip several beats. But she turned to Red, and saw that he was pointing.
“There. Do you see it?”
Fierce saw the foot above the leaves, and the rest of it hidden behind a fallen log. She moved closer, and realized there was more than one of them. Several humans were down, their eyes wide open, but unmoving. They were male, dressed in hunting attire, and they had weapons in hand, untouched. One held a bow that was still taut with an arrow.
“I know this man!” said Red suddenly, as he stood over the second of the three Fierce had found. “He is from Lord Ahran’s household. He is one of his guards.”
“Do you think he came out hunting and was simply caught? Or did he come for the fissures?”
“If we wake them, we can ask,” said Red. He slapped the man’s face he knew and called him by name. “Torick. Torick. Wake up. It’s me, Red.”
The man’s head moved from one side to the other with the force of Red’s blows, but the man’s eyes remained fixed.
“Fierce, come try your magic on him,” Red called to her.
“But—” said Fierce. She had been able to speak to animals, but Red would do better with humans, surely.
“Speak to him,” said Red.
“Torick,” said Fierce. “Wake up.”
“What did you say to the animals?” asked Red.
“Just a word or two.”
“Tell him to listen to you. Tell him to sit up and talk.”
Fierce whispered to the man in the language of hounds. But it had no effect that she could see.
“What about the others?” asked Red, waving to them.
Fierce went to each of the humans and did the same. She tried human words and animal ones, but it made no difference. “You do it,” she said to Red in a low voice.
“I don’t see why I could help. They must be too far gone to waken. They are closer to the edge of the fissure. I think it is just beyond there.” He held a hand to his brow, and it began to shake. His whole body shook.
“Can you feel it?” asked Fierce. “The Xaon in the fissure?”
He answered without seeming to hear her. “It is so large,” said Red. “It wants me. The rest of me.”
Fierce reached for his missing hand and rubbed it between her own. “It can’t have you,” she said. “You’re mine.” The words reminded her immediately of the princess, and she swallowed hard, refusing to say them again.
“Stay here,” she said, pleading this time rather than demanding. “With me.”
“I can’t bear the thought of telling his wife and his son that he died here, and there was nothing I could do for him,” said Red, trying to focus on the guard, though it was clear from his pale face and trembling hands that his thoughts were on the Xaon.
“Did you know his son?”
“He was a terrible bully,” said Red. “But he loved his father. He did everything his father did, times two.”
It did not endear the man to Fierce, but she supposed he was a living thing, at least, and not a white creature. In a battle between the Naon and the Xaon, there was no question where she stood. Any human, no matter how despicable, was better than a white creature with its same shape.
“You do it,” said Fierce. “You know him personally and I do not. Perhaps you will find the right things to say. Or he will hear your voice and remember it.”
Red pursed his lips together, dubious.
“It cannot hurt to try,” Fierce reminded him.
So Red said his name. “Remember your son,” he said. “Remember your wife.”
Fierce was not sure, but she thought she saw the man’s face twitch. “Keep at it,” she encouraged.
Red put his hands on the man’s shoulders and stared straight into his eyes. Then he put his mouth close to Torick’s and breathed with him.
The man’s face turned color, from pale to red. Then he choked, his head bouncing, and he pulled himself to a sitting position.
Red moved to pound his back.
“Where?” he asked, looking around for the others. “Jed!” he cried. “Risto!” He tried to run toward the other two, but dropped to his knees and crawled in the end. He shook him, and called their names, but they seemed as dull as ever.
“Red,” said Fierce. “Go and help him.”
“But I do not know them,” he insisted.
“You woke him. You might do it with others.” Fierce did not know if he had shown some kind of magic or not, but it had worked.
He moved to the man called Jed and spoke to him.
“What happened to them?” Torick asked Fierce. “Did you see something pass us by?”
“Don’t you remember? White creatures of some kind? Worms?” asked Fierce.
The man looked about to deny it, then stopped, and shook his head. “There was a great crack in the earth. And I saw a dormouse. It was white and I thought it very pretty. I was going to take it home, but when I touched it, it burned me. And then I saw other animals. Too many. I—I don�
��t remember after that.”
“Why did you come to the forest? Was it only for hunting?”
“Lord Ahran heard rumors that there were strange animals in the forest. He sent us to look for them, to add to his hall of trophies. He said he did not have any white bucks with full antlers.”
Fierce shook her head. Lord Ahran must not have understood what the white creatures were or he would have kept far away from them.
There was a coughing sound, and Jed woke. Red moved immediately to the third human and soon he, too, was awake.
The three humans thanked Red and Fierce, but did not stay long with them.
“How did I do what I did?” asked Red. “I have no magic.”
He thought she did, but it wasn’t true. “When I spoke to the animals, I tried to think as they would,” said Fierce. “I said words I did not know I remembered, but I think it was because I felt what they were like.”
“Yes,” said Red, nodding. “I think I did the same.”
“And I offered them a small piece of myself, a bit of my life. Not enough to truly make them live again. But a reminder.”
“And you think that I did the same?” asked Red.
“You are very generous. In ways you do not know,” said Fierce. Red seemed about to say more, but she turned away and told him to follow her. With the humans gone, she and Red had no more reason to put off approaching the great fissure.
“The princess,” said Red, his voice changed into a more formal tone.
“The princess has already done what she can do,” said Fierce. She did not know if there was anything left for her to give to this fissure. She did not know if she and Red had anything to give it, either.
From behind her she heard the sudden sound of bickering, and then the thump of a body being thrown on the ground. She looked back and saw three humans. For a moment she thought it was the ones from Lord Ahran, battling each other. Then she recognized Loyal as one of the three. She was eagerly involved in the wrestling with the two males.
Fierce stepped aside as they rolled on the ground around them.
“Stop!” shouted Red.
Fierce could see nothing wrong with them enjoying themselves a little, but Red ran forward. He dragged Unbroken to his feet, and then Hunter and held a fist to their noses.
“I don’t see why . . .” Fierce began. Then she stopped short as she realized she was on the very edge of the great fissure. With all the brush trampled around it, it was easy to see. And no animals moved around it. No insects buzzed in the air. It was too quiet here.
This was where the princess had fought the white buck. It seemed wider than it had been before. She did not think she could leap over this. It was as wide as a river.
“Has it gotten larger?” asked Red.
Fierce did not answer. She dared not say that she thought it had. That meant that it might continue to grow, until the Xaon had swallowed up the forest entire, and all of them. And then every other kingdom in the world.
Indeed, the earth shifted as she spoke, and she threw out her arms for balance. Red held her and together they watched as the fissure grew wider. There were no more white worms coming out of it, but that did not mean they were not coming.
Red’s face went pale and his freckles stood out like burns.
“What is it?” asked Fierce.
“The Xaon. It is calling to all life. It is calling it here, to strip it and make it like itself. That is why they are fighting. To go into it.”
Fierce bent over the fissure and listened carefully. There was a strange sound coming, not at all musical, but it was irresistible. The call of death, of painlessness, of thoughtlessness. The call of giving up, and being free. But not the freedom horses craved.
She looked back at the three humans, Loyal, Unbroken and Hunter.
“Let me go first,” they were arguing now.
Red heard them, too.
“We will have to tie them up to keep them safe.”
“Yes.” Fierce found some vines and offered some to Red. He worked swiftly with her. The hounds were too busy swooning to the sound coming from the fissure to pay attention to much else. They struggled against the bonds one moment, then the next closed their eyes and tried to sing with the fissure.
They sounded very like hounds.
“And what about you?” asked Red. “Shall I tie you up, as well?”
Fierce shook her head. She would fight it, if Red could. She held her feet to the ground stiffly, but she began to sweat. She could feel it running down her back and her legs.
She looked at Red.
He was shaking.
“Your hand?” she asked.
He nodded, licking at his lower lip. “I will be the one to throw in the creatures,” he said, beginning to untie his shirt strings.
When Red lifted his shirt, Fierce could see that he was bleeding from deep gouges on his chest and stomach from the creatures he had held there.
“You did not tell me,” she accused him. “I would have helped you.”
“There was nothing for you to do,” said Red.
But Fierce did help him take off his shirt. And held it away from him until he put out a hand.
“On three,” said Red. And he counted.
Together, they stood at the edge of the fissure and swung his shirt once, twice, three times, before letting it go flying into the great fissure.
There was a sound, like rocks falling.
Fierce leaped away in terror.
The sound became louder, and there was a screeching like a hundred owls, and Fierce could feel the air around her become thick with dust and power. The ground beneath her feet was moving. She burned with pain through her heart and lungs and then she saw sparks of light—and nothing.
She came to herself a few moments later and realized that her legs were circling behind her, as if she were still running. And a hound.
She stilled them and stood again.
“Red?” she called out.
Where was Red? He had not thrown himself in, had he?
She ran toward the fissure. There were new rocks thrown up in her path. The earth was soft and difficult to move through.
She stood over the edge and stared into the fissure.
It was smaller. A little. Perhaps one length of her body less than before. Much more remained.
“Red!” she called out again. Had the Xaon eaten him whole?
She leaned forward, ready to throw herself in with him.
“I’m here.”
She almost fell forward in surprise.
There was Red, trapped in dirt and fallen branches and stones up to his hip on one side. “When the fissure shifted, I was caught,” he said. There was a look of embarrassment on his face.
“You should have called for me,” said Fierce. “To help you.”
“I wanted to get out myself,” said Red.
“But why?”
He shook his head and would not say.
“You do not trust me,” said Fierce, thinking that there was nothing worse than this. He had needed help, but he thought she was incapable. Or that in the end, she would turn tail and run. He thought her a coward.
“No! It is not that,” said Red.
She did not believe him. Humans were always lying when it was convenient to them.
“I understand,” said Fierce. “I have not proven myself to you. You do not trust that I am strong enough to help you.” It had been the same with her pack, after her mother had left. They did not trust her, either. She was used to it.
“I swear to you, it is not that. I was embarrassed. I did not want you to see that I was weak,” said Red.
Fierce shook her head. “But no one is strong all the time. That is why we have others around us.”
Red took a deep breath and let it out with his eyes closed. “Will you help me?” he asked, in a low voice.
“Of course,” said Fierce. She clambered on top of a rock next to him that shifted a little and then forced her to fall directly i
nto Red’s arms.
It hurt.
Fierce felt as though her hips had been twisted the wrong way around and her neck rang with the reverberations of her head striking Red’s chest.
She put a hand down to Red’s shoulder to push herself up off him, but he held it still. If she had struggled, she was sure he would have let her go. But in that moment, she decided she liked where she was, after all. She could see Red’s eyes, blue and green mixed together with flecks of gold and brown. They looked like the forest in full summer, floor, sky, trees, and sunlight—in a new pattern that made everything look new again.
Red breathed next to her ear. His face was softened by a thin smile. Not happiness, but something like it. She had seen it once on her mother’s face, when Fierce had caught her first bird in her teeth. She had forgotten that, and it came back to her in her human shape.
“I am only a kennel boy,” he said.
Which made no sense to Fierce, so she ignored him.
“When this is finished, and we must return to where we began, I will understand if you think me beneath you,” he said.
“What?” Fierce was thinking of herself as a hound and him as a human, walking into her forest. But that could not be. And it was not because he was beneath her.
“It would be better if you do not acknowledge me. Even if Lord Ahran takes me back, I will be no more than a serving boy. No hope for anything more than that. And you deserve so much more.”
Chapter Twenty:
Fierce and Red were interrupted by the sound of many humans approaching. They saw the princess coming from the west, but there were other humans, as well.
“That is Torick’s voice,” said Red. “I know it.”
But with him came a mob of other humans, nearly a hundred, and Lord Ahran was at the head of them all. At last, he had come to help Sanna. Or he had come to be seen helping her, perhaps.
Fierce and Red had no chance to explain to the princess, who only stared at the fissure as if she thought it beautiful. Fierce was tempted to tie her up, as well, but Lord Ahran’s men untied Unbroken, Loyal, and Hunter and encircled them in the crowd, accusing the princess with the wild magic of mistreating humans, as well as creating the fissure in the forest.
The Princess and the Horse (The Princess and the Hound) Page 13