“Okay,” I said, because we could use more people on our side, especially people who were familiar with Rubalia. I turned back to Vin. “Did Lensy tell you what special skills her people have?”
“She’s got an elf who’s an expert in camouflage, a psychic brownie who can pick any lock ever made, a teenage harpy who can talk to birds, a giant who can survive in any wilderness and forage like no one else, a tiny gnome who’s an interrogation expert, a fairy and her pixy servant from the fairy court - ostensibly Missella kept them around for their knowledge about the enemy-, a faun who lived in the Non for years and worked as an M and M fighter—”
“MMA, I think you mean,” I said.
Vin shrugged. “Isn’t that what I said? That’s it. None but Reed, the M and M guy, has ever fought for real, but most of them have at least been trained to fight.”
“Which doesn’t mean anything,” Benny said. “If they’re just going to freeze up or run the first time they’re in a real fight.”
“We don’t have any better options,” I said.
“We’ll protect them,” Pippi said. She’d been unusually quiet since we’d spoken to Vervain. “We might need their skills. The dragons, the trolls, and the redcaps will be the first line of defense, and we’ll keep the rebels as safe as we can.”
“And waste more energy and risk more lives to do so?” Benny asked, his anger obvious. “For what? In case we need a lock picked when we get to the castle?”
Pippi looked at him like he was an idiot and I wondered at his denseness, too. “Would you prefer we get all the way to the castle and are stopped by a lock no one can open?”
Benny rubbed a hand down his face and growled. “This whole thing feels like a fool’s mission. It made some sort of sense when we thought we’d have Missella and her original crew at our backs, but this…This is just plain stupid.”
“So you want to go home? You want to let the nightmares have Rubalia, and just sit around and wait until they run out of food or slaves and decide to move on to the Non?”
Benny’s expression twisted with frustration and my heart ached to see that Vin looked equally as unhappy and discouraged. “I’m not saying we give up or quit,” she said. “I’m just saying we wait until we’ve built an actual army, until we have an actual plan and a real understanding of what we’re going up against.”
“And while we do all that,” I said. “More people die. More children die.”
“I know someone,” Chelsea said. “He’s old and he’s lived in Rubalia for almost a full life-time, but he grew up in the nightmare realm. He may be able to tell us more about Ludwiggia.”
“That would help,” I said. “I’m willing to wait a day, maybe two, to learn as much as we can about Ludwiggia and to do some drills with Lensy’s people. There’s no point in wasting any more time than that. There is no good way to test people for battle, other than actual battle, and we’d need months to get all our different groups of people to work as one, cohesive group. I’m not willing to wait months, but if you want to leave, if two days isn’t enough for you, I won’t blame you. I won’t blame either of you for leaving.”
“No,” Frost said. He struggled and managed to sit up, but he swayed and I wrapped an arm around his shoulders to help support him. “It won’t work.”
“You want to leave?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I think we need to change the plan. Stomping across Rubalia with an untrained, ineffective army will only draw attention that we won’t be able to fight off. We need to narrow our group down to only the strongest, the most essential members, so that we can move stealthily across Rubalia. So that we can surprise Ludwiggia.”
“Yes,” Hieronymus said. “Just as I have argued. Surprise is our only hope of defeating the nightmare empress.”
“You want to send my trolls and redcaps back to the Non?” Pippi asked, her voice a low, angry growl of a sound. “You want to face the nightmares, to face the native monsters of Rubalia without an army?”
“He’s right,” Yarborough said. “It is a suicide mission anyway you look at it, but your chance of success increases the smaller your group becomes.” He studied me, his eyes narrowing. “Unless you can unite an army of thousands behind you.”
“You just want an excuse not to go with us,” Vin said. “You would say anything to avoid battle.”
Yarborough’s narrow jaw clenched. His strange, long-fingered hands curled into fists, but his lips curved up. “You say I am a worthless coward, Vin, and yet Missella kept me on, didn’t she? She didn’t do it because of my handsome face. She did it because I was her chief strategist. I can help you, but you must be willing to set aside old grudges and listen.”
Vin crossed her arms over her chest and grunted, but she didn’t argue.
“Ludwiggia has been sending out groups of nightmares and shadows to all corners of Rubalia,” Yarborough said. “They look for denizens of our realm who are not yet under her control or who might cause her trouble. She is exceedingly paranoid and has spies everywhere. I’m telling you, there is no way a group of your size, armed and fierce as you are, will go unnoticed.”
“What do you recommend?” I asked.
“You should leave the trolls and redcaps here to train while you travel. If you get into trouble, send a dragon back here to alert them and guide them to you. They are the back-up plan—”
“And unlikely to be of much use,” Frost muttered. “If we are miles away when we need them.”
Yarborough nodded. “Very true. But the alternative, to take them with you, would be a surer way to die. I suggest you travel as a group of no more than ten. You should have a story ready. Perhaps you are a group of supplicants, ready to offer your service to Ludwiggia. Perhaps you are a group from the Non who’ve heard of Ludwiggia’s greatness and wish to join her. It should be a story that flatters her ego. And you should never stray from that story, no matter what happens. Trust no one. Make your way to Ludwiggia and…” He paused. “What was your plan once you reached her?”
I smiled. “As you said, yourself, we should trust no one.” The truth was that our plan was sketchy at best. We would have to kill Ludwiggia. We assumed her nightmares would give up and go home without their leader.
He nodded, not the least bit put out. “Good girl,” he said in a tone every bit as condescending as his words. “I don’t need to know what you’ll do once you reach her. If you want to get to her, you must travel quickly and silently.”
“This group of ten will need to train together,” Vin said. “We’ll need to act as if we have one purpose.”
“So you’ll go?” I asked.
“I’m willing to give it a few days,” Vin said. “And see how the group dynamic works.”
Benny shook his head. “I expect us to fail and die bloody, gruesome deaths, but I’ve got nothing better to do.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Can someone track down Lensy and let her know about the change in plan?”
One of the redcaps stood and left. I presumed he was doing what I’d asked, but he could have just been looking for a bathroom.
Hieronymus squatted next to me. “They aren’t wrong,” he said in a low voice. “Even if we are careful and manage to surprise Ludwiggia, this is a fool’s mission.”
“Are you backing out on us?” I asked.
“No. I’m thinking that my habit of keeping secrets is as ill-advised as Missella’s choice to do the same. If something were to happen to me, you’d have no way to know how to get into the palace or how to surprise Ludwiggia when she’d most likely be alone. I want to tell you what I know, so that I’m not the only one with the necessary information.”
I looked around at my friends. Some of them, like Pippi and Benny, I was less fond of then others, but I’d come to think of them all as friends, as allies. “Why don’t you tell everyone,” I said. “There may be very few of us who make it as far as the castle.”
“I’d like to hear this as well.” I looked over to see Lensy in
the entryway to the room. I hadn’t heard her return with the redcap. I nodded and gestured for her to sit on the other side of Frost. Once he had everyone’s full attention, Hieronymus shared with us everything he knew, from the layout of the castle, to the meal schedule, to what time Ludwiggia retired for the evening. He told us things about the way the castle was run, and he told me things I’d have been happier never knowing, things like the way my mother and her father had tortured the palace guards to toughen them up and teach them to ignore pain, or the way they held the family members of slaves in the dungeon prison to encourage them to work harder. The situation was grim and the picture he was painting grimmer, yet.
I should have been afraid. I should have been terrified. I should have been considering a return to the Non instead of this suicide mission. But I felt none of those things. I felt grateful for the tough warriors and the knowledgeable people on my side and I felt ready to avenge my mother’s death and reclaim Rubalia for the fae it belonged to.
CHAPTER SIX
Life is short. It’s better to go out fighting.—Chloe Frangipani
Boredom is a luxury I’ll likely never afford.— Lensy Riverbend
“I’ve had a good life,” Vin said. “Don’t add me to the list of people you feel guilty about after I’m gone.”
I snorted. “Let’s at least get more than two steps from the safety of our underground lair before you start planning your funeral.” It was morning, just after sunrise on the morning of our fifth day in Rubalia, and we were walking into the woods. We were an army of thirteen. Pippi’s trolls and redcaps had stayed behind, along with the field dwarves, who’d felt they were better suited to war than stealth. They, with the help of Benny’s dragons, planned to journey out in search of nightmares, to harry them, and, hopefully, distract Ludwiggia. With us was Frost, Vin, Pippi, Hieronymus, Benny, Chelsea, Lensy, Vervain, Jerome, a giant who was an excellent forager and tracker named Chervil, and two members of the royal court, my cousin, Bluebell, and her servant Clove.
“I want to become a tree,” Vin said.
“What?”
“I saw it on the tube-yoo. After you die, people wrap your naked body in a sheet, put you in a hole in the ground, and plant a tree over your body. Your decomposing body feeds the tree as it grows.”
“Trees don’t eat people,” I said. Vin’s bizarre turn of conversation wasn’t helping my stumbling, bumbling progress through the overgrown forest. We weren’t walking terribly fast, but I couldn’t seem to stop tripping on tree roots. Frost walked by my side and tried to nudge me whenever I was about to mis-step. It was a nice gesture, but only made me trip less gracefully.
“No, but they feed on the…Well, they get nutrients from the dirt…Somehow, right? My decomposing body would increase the amount of nutrients in the dirt and nourish the tree.”
Where was Sapphire when I needed her? She would be able to tell us if Vin’s body would become part of a tree or not. “Fine. But I’m not dragging your body all across Rubalia, so try to die near a portal or you’ll be a tree in fairy land.”
“I’d be all right with that,” Vin said. “Just so I feel that I’m still in the living world in some way.”
“Would you two shut up?” Pippi asked. “You’re upsetting Vervain.”
I glanced back at Vervain, but she didn’t look the least bit upset. She was walking with Jerome and studying the landscape, probably looking for landmarks. “Veer left at the split tree,” Vervain said, her small voice firm and loud enough in the quiet forest to reach everyone. It might have been easier if she and Jerome were in the lead, but Jerome had insisted it would be too dangerous for her to be the first to encounter danger. Benny was at the front and Chelsea was at the back.
Our conversations were in a normal voice. Chervil and Vervain felt it was safer to make enough noise to let the native wildlife know we were coming, but not be so loud we earned the attention of more sentient beings.
Beside me, Frost stared straight ahead, his whole body tense. “Do you sense something?” I asked.
He glanced over at me. “Every forest we pass through smells different, looks different, sounds different. Winifred’s amulet keeps my wolf tamped down tight, but he’s still there, wanting to explore, wanting to seek out and identify everything I’m sensing.”
I sniffed the air and caught a hint of something sweet mixed in with what to me was the pretty typical woodsy, loamy smell of a forest. A bellowing sort of burping sound echoed over the usual chatter of the birds and smaller mammals. I assumed Vervain or Chervil would tell us if we should be worried. “Your wolf has been to Rubalia before,” I said. “And you didn’t run off to sniff out every scent.”
He shrugged. “My senses are greater in my wolf form. My wolf probably feels as though he’s experiencing this strange world with a blindfold over his eyes and cotton balls in his ears and nose.”
I reached over and laced my fingers through his, wanting to give him whatever comfort I could. “Does your wolf like Rubalia?” I wondered why the question hadn’t occurred to me before.
“My wolf likes to be wherever you are, Chloe. In his eyes, you are his warrior alpha mate. Marching off to face a threat to our pack is the right thing to do. He’s at peace, but wary of our new surroundings. He’s happiest in his own territory.”
“The mountains of West Virginia,” I said.
“Maybe I could help,” Chervil said. He was three people back from us. He was twice as wide as Frost and a good two feet taller. His nose was twisted and crooked like it had been broken three times too many, but he had brilliant, bright green eyes and a warm smile.
Frost looked back at him and nodded. He’d gotten to know the giant better than I had. They’d discussed what to expect from the terrain with Vervain while I had strategy meetings with Lensy and Hieronymus. Bluebell and Clove, who were quiet and kept to themselves, had opted to spend their days with Vin and Pippi, learning how to defend themselves.
Chervil spoke in a calm voice that carried to us all and had the sort of magic good speakers have to draw attention and quiet others. He explained that the bellowing, burping sound was from an enormous frog that was extremely territorial and fed on snakes and other frogs. He pointed out trees, and told us their names and their uses. He showed us plants, edible and non-edible. For a little while, I forgot the danger we were marching toward and enjoyed Chervil’s running narrative. I won’t say I suddenly loved tromping in the heat, through the dense forest, but I certainly learned to appreciate it a bit more.
During our three days underground, we’d trained and everyone, even the most seasoned warriors, had learned something new. I’d learned some cool moves from Reed, the MMA fighter. He was a faun, so it turned out he hadn’t actually fought in the MMA, he’d fought in an underground, fae imitation of the Non sport. Apparently, he’d done very well for himself, but he now walked with a limp and had no sight in his right eye. Not that it slowed him down any, he was an energetic and almost foolishly brave guy. And, he knew how to use his hooves with deadly precision.
We had not, during our three days underground, learned any more about Ludwiggia or the nightmare realm. Chelsea hadn’t been able to reach her dragon friend, though five more dragons had joined the ranks of warriors we’d left behind. None of them knew more about Ludwiggia and the nightmares than we did. They claimed they’d been in hiding until they heard Chelsea’s call.
So, we were marching toward the fairy castle to face an enemy with unknown skills, talents, powers, and abilities; and we were dressed, by Bento, the elfin expert in camouflage, in some rather drab and unattractive clothing. There was nothing glamorous about this journey. Nothing.
I startled when Jerome’s harsher tone interrupted Chervil, to let us know we needed to follow a small stream. I had no idea how Vervain knew where we were. I wouldn’t be able to get myself back to the abandoned troll village, much less find my way for several miles through this mess to the fairy castle.
“What the hell is that?” Frost ask
ed, going rigid and still.
I followed his amber gaze to a deep, dim part of the forest, but I couldn’t see anything.
“It’s just a unicorn,” Vervain said, her small nose raised to the sky.
“That thing looks a hell of a lot deadlier than any unicorn I’ve ever seen,” Frost said.
“They can be quite frightening,” Jerome said. “Especially your first sighting.”
I peered into the dense forest and could just make out the white glow of something about the size of an elephant with red eyes and a golden horn that sparkled even in the dim light. The unicorn took a step forward and I could see that its mane was composed of spikes like those on a porcupine and it had teeth so sharp and large they protruded from its furry jaw. Clearly, not an herbivore.
“Are they dangerous?”
“Some are,” Jerome said. “But Vervain is familiar with them. If she says this one’s harmless, then it is.”
“I didn’t say it’s harmless,” Vervain said, a hint of general teenage annoyance with adults in her tone. “But it will leave us alone as long as we keep moving and don’t threaten it.”
“I thought unicorns were kind and helpful,” I said, remembering a youthful obsession with the mythical creatures. My mother had never said anything to suggest they weren’t as wonderful as I’d supposed them to be, and she usually loved to pop my bubbles of happy.
“To maiden virgins, perhaps,” Jerome said. “But the unicorns have been hunted and tortured for their magic and they are wary of all except those they feel worth the risk.”
Fairy, Neat (Fairy Files Book 6) Page 11