Faery Born (Book One in the War Faery Trilogy)

by Donna Joy Usher

  The day flew by (fencing in the morning, woodcraft in the afternoon) and before I knew it, I was strapping on the armband and climbing back onto the bed.

  ‘Wilfred,’ Aethan said, ‘take Izzy in and wait for me. I’ll be a few minutes behind.’

  Wilfred nodded and climbed onto the bed next to me. Just as it had last night, the melody of the sleep spell touched me, and within moments I was in Trillania.

  ‘I like what you’ve done with your hair.’ Wilfred smirked as he touched a finger to his own moustache.

  I concentrated for a second and could tell by the way his smirk faded that I had managed to remove the stupid thing from my face. No need to wear it here. Then I stared at him, visualising what I wanted, and clapped my hands in delight as all of his facial hair disappeared.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. His eyes narrowed and suddenly I was twice my normal width. My clothes strained with the effort of holding in the rolls of fat.

  ‘That’s not nice.’ I flipped him off and then turned his hands into feet so he couldn’t do the same to me.

  He hooked an arm around me and rubbed one of his new feet into my face. ‘Tell me the truth, do my feet stink?’

  His toe hair went up my nose and I squealed and turned his body into that of an orangutan. I backed away from him, laughing at the puzzled expression on his face. He looked down at his shaggy arms and furry belly and said, ‘I told you she wanted to see me naked.’

  Aethan’s laugh alerted me to his presence. I turned myself back to my normal body size (no need for him to see me looking like Ten-Tonne Tessie) and then turned to face him. ‘What are we doing tonight?’

  ‘How do you feel about a bit of hunting?’ A sword appeared at his waist and a bow and quiver full of arrows over his shoulder. He waved his hand and a black stallion appeared. It stamped its feet and snorted mist into the night.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and pictured a white horse with a mane and tail that touched the ground. Her hooves were a dazzling gold and her eyes the brightest blue. I felt warm breath on my face and then her soft lips nibbled my cheek.

  Wilfred waved his arm and a bronze horse with a dragon’s head appeared. It arched its neck and blew fire into the air. ‘Now that’s what I’m talking about,’ he said as he clambered onto its back.

  ‘Show off,’ I said, mentally adding a saddle to my horse. I climbed onto her back and then turned her around to face Aethan. ‘Why do we need mounts?’

  ‘We don’t. It’s just fun.’ A boyish grin appeared on his face and then he turned his stallion and raced away into the night.

  Wilfred and I leapt after him, my mare running neck-to-neck with his mount.

  ‘Do you like my draghorse?’ he asked.

  ‘Did it take you long to think of that?’

  ‘Nah. I’m naturally brilliant.’

  I laughed at the feel of the wind in my face and kicked my heels into my horse’s sides. She neighed in response and lengthened her pace until it felt like we were flying through the night.

  Finally Aethan slowed his pace to a walk and Wilfred and I fell in beside him. ‘Nightmare Forest.’ Aethan nodded at the tall trees ahead of us. ‘Most of the monsters that stalk dreamers are bred in there.’

  There was wild laughter and an old man, naked as the day he was born, sprinted from the closest bushes. Still cackling, he disappeared into the distance.

  ‘We go on foot from here.’ Aethan’s mount disappeared from between his legs and he dropped lightly to the ground.

  I tried to emulate his move but ended up on my arse on the soft turf. I ignored Wilfred’s outstretched hand and jumped to my feet, dusting myself off.

  ‘It’s all in the timing,’ Aethan said. It wasn’t as large as Wilfred’s, but a smile still tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘So what exactly do Border Guard’s do in Trillania?’ I was still trying to get my head around it.

  ‘There’s a rotational roster. We take turns guarding heads of state and any other important political figures.’ Aethan headed towards the forest as he spoke.

  I started to follow him and tripped over Wilfred’s outstretched foot. It was something I would have seen if he hadn’t elongated his leg to twice its normal length to do it. ‘Game on,’ I hissed, dusting myself off again.

  ‘Then there are the roamers.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘They roam?’

  He chuckled. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Har har. They scour the land for evil.’ Wilfred was wearing a pirate’s hat and eye patch. He slashed at the trees with a cutlass.

  ‘Then there are the hunters.’

  ‘Us? Right?’

  Aethan gave me a broad grin. ‘Yep, tonight we are hunters.’ He pulled an arrow out of his quiver and put it into his bow.

  I snaked my arms towards Wilfred, elongating them longer and longer until they were behind him. Then I punched him in the back of his knees, causing his legs to collapse. He fell forwards, landing face first onto the branch-covered ground.

  ‘Agghhh,’ he screamed, agony ripping through his voice. He pushed himself back to his knees and a stick protruded from his empty eye socket. Blood dribbled down his face and his eyeball dangled from a white worm-like structure.

  ‘Oh Great Dark Sky,’ I shrieked. ‘Oh no. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.’

  Wilfred burst out laughing and the grizzly spectacle disappeared. ‘Got ya,’ he said, climbing to his feet. He whistled as he walked off.

  It took a while for my heartbeat to return to normal and my hands to stop shaking. Then I also placed an arrow on the string of my bow.

  The first monster broke from its cover with no warning. Bright-red eyes glowed in its pig-like face, and tusks stabbed from the corners of its mouth, its forehead, and behind its ears.

  It stopped when it saw us and shook its head. Saliva flicked out in an arc, flying into the foliage. I heard sizzling and then leaves and branches dropped to the forest floor.

  I changed my outfit to a fine layer of tiny metal discs that covered me from the neck down. I didn’t know what it was, but I wasn’t taking any chances with that thing’s drool.

  It lowered its head and pawed at the ground with two of its eight legs.

  ‘Spread out.’ Aethan moved to the left.

  I let Wilfred have the middle as I darted to the right. ‘Why aren’t we shooting?’ I asked as it glared at us with those freaky eyes.

  ‘We don’t want to piss off its Mumma,’ Wilfred said.

  ‘Mumma?’

  Mumma let out a shriek of rage and charged from the trees. I had thought bubba monster was scary, but in comparison to its mother, it was a giggling bundle of joy. Mumma was huge. She towered above us, breathing fire out through the nostrils of her snout. Each of her tusks was a couple of feet long and appeared to be covered in dried blood. Her legs ended in talons, tipped with cruel claws, and when she roared I could see row-after-row of razor-sharp teeth.

  ‘Oh boy,’ I said, raising my bow.

  ‘Don’t shoot,’ Aethan said at the same time that Wilfred said, ‘Hold.’

  ‘Let me guess.’ I was ashamed to note a tremble in my voice. ‘We don’t want to piss off Dadda?’

  ‘Give the girl a cigar.’

  ‘Seriously,’ I said in horror, ‘there’s a Dadda?’

  Trees shook and trembled and I heard a large branch crash to the ground.

  ‘Oh whizbang,’ I said as Dadda squeezed out from between two large oaks.

  He stopped and observed his surroundings, intelligence burning bright in his fiery eyes. He stared at the three of us and snorted a trail of fire out of his nostrils. Bubba monster scuttled over to stand under the protection of its father’s body, peering out from behind one of the legs.

  ‘This,’ Aethan said in a low voice as he backed away from the trio, ‘is a family of fire-breathing buffos. Buffos cause a lot of casualties in Trillania. But there are three very good reasons why we don’t try to hunt fire-breathing buffos.’

&nbs
p; ‘And those reasons are?’ I backed as carefully as I could over the rough terrain.

  Dadda pawed at the ground and shook his head, throwing those tusks from side-to-side in a figure of eight pattern.

  ‘They are immune to magic, and their hides are impervious to arrows.’

  ‘That’s two,’ I said. ‘What’s the third reason?’ I had a really bad feeling about reason number three.

  Wilfred slipped his arrow back in his quiver and slung the bow over his back. ‘The third reason,’ he said, drawing his sword from its sheath, ‘is very simple. We don’t hunt fire-breathing buffos, because they hunt us.’

  As if it had been waiting for those words, the father buffo broke from its standing position into a sprint. Fire sprayed from its nostrils as it rocketed towards us.

  ‘Over here you ugly bastard,’ Wilfred yelled. The buffo altered its course so that it was heading straight for him. Wilfred dropped to the ground and I shrieked as the buffo ran at him. Those talons would tear him to shreds. But Wilfred rolled to the side at the last second, narrowly missing those churning feet. He ripped the tip of his sword down the buffo’s belly, opening up a long wound.

  The buffo bellowed in rage and turned faster than I would have thought possible, pawing at the ground where Wilfred had been. But the big man moved faster, leaping to his feet and out of the way of those tusks. It charged after him, throwing its head around and spraying an acid rain of saliva. A couple of drops landed on my armour, etching into the metal.

  Aethan ran behind the buffo, slashing at its rear with his sword. His strike bounced off its hide. It flicked its tail – a hard, toughened blade – but otherwise paid Aethan no attention. Wilfred ran off, waving his arms and shrieking like a girl.

  I let out a wild laugh and charged the buffo from the other side. Using my sword like a lance, I aimed below its ribcage and thrust as hard as I could. Once the tip had penetrated the hide, the rest of the blade slid in easily.

  The buffo spun, ripping the handle out of my grasp as it trained its sight on me. Now it was my turn to run. Although I didn’t have to try to shriek like a girl, it happened quite naturally.

  Mumma buffo roared her displeasure and charged, racing straight at Aethan. He dived over her, jumping to his feet and spinning to meet her next charge.

  I raced away from him, leading the father in the opposite direction as I ran wildly through the trees. I dodged its flaming breath as I tried to stay ahead.

  ‘Blow it up,’ Wilfred yelled.

  I leapt from one tree to the next, scrambling higher and higher till I balanced on a thick branch. ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ I said from between clenched teeth.

  The Buffo swung its head from side-to-side as it searched the undergrowth for me. It stopped and sniffed the air.

  ‘Well how does it work?’ Wilfred’s voice was getting closer, but he wouldn’t get there before the buffo found me.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I willed a spear into my hands, sent a prayer up to the Great Dark Sky and then, spear point down, I leapt from my branch onto the back of the buffo. I felt the spear tear its way through hide and muscle and then the buffo took off with me hanging wildly to the spear.

  ‘Get out of the way,’ I yelled at Wilfred. I had time to see the astonished look on his face as the buffo ran past. It barged into trees trying to wipe me from its back. I pulled my legs up, relying on the spear embedded through its body to hold me upright.

  As the buffo ran through the clearing I braced my legs up under me and jumped off its back, turning a somersault and landing on my feet.

  Wilfred charged past me, chasing after Dadda. Aethan was leading Mumma in a merry dance. He held up a shield to protect himself from her fire, and dodged her tusks while he stabbed at her side. Her hide was covered with multiple puncture wounds and blood dribbled onto the ground, but she showed no signs of slowing.

  I could try to help him, but I might get in his way and he seemed to be managing her quite well by himself. I was about to follow Wilfred when I felt heat radiating through the metal encasing my back.

  I spun around, a blade already in my hand, and there was Baby buffo. I stared into its eyes and felt wretched. It was only a baby, and we were doing our darndest to destroy its family. I felt its grief, I felt its sorrow, and then, as it swung its head at me, I felt its anger.

  The tip of its tusk screeched along my armour, catching the edge of the discs at my shoulder and tossing me through the air. I slammed into a tree and slid to the ground. Pain flashed in my head as it connected with a rock.

  I crawled to the other side of the tree and huddled there while fire wrapped around the edges. The trees spun in front of me and my head throbbed. Blood dribbled down my forehead into my eye and I brushed it away with the back of my arm.

  I staggered through the undergrowth, looking for a hiding spot. It snuffled where I had crouched behind the tree and then let out a satisfied snort. I was guessing it had found my scent. I pulled myself up and leant back against a trunk, shield in one hand and sword in the other. I was hoping the sight of my being armed might slow it and give me time to recover.

  No such luck. It pawed the ground and shook its head, spraying droplets of saliva over me. A few landed on my face, burning deep into my skin. And then it charged.

  I held up the shield, closed my eyes, and waited for death to find me. But instead of tearing into my flesh the buffo let out a woompha of air. The sound of its hooves beating on the earth changed from rhythmical to comical. I opened my eyes to see it skid along the ground, a score of arrows protruding from its body.

  ‘Izzy got handed her arse by Baby Buffo.’ Wilfred had a burn down one side of his face.

  ‘You said its hide was impenetrable to arrows.’

  ‘A full grown adult’s is,’ Aethan said, hanging his bow back over his shoulder. ‘But a baby buffo’s hide is as soft as…’

  ‘Baby skin?’ I supplied. I pushed myself away from the tree and immediately fell to my knees.

  ‘You’re hurt.’ Aethan crouched beside me and pushed me down onto the ground.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I mumbled. The feel of his hands examining my face was far too nice. ‘I hit my head.’

  ‘I think we’ve had enough hunting for one night.’ Aethan helped me up and slung an arm around my back and under my armpit.

  ‘Could I have changed the buffo?’ I asked.

  ‘You mean like you and Wilfred were doing to each other?’

  ‘Yes.’ I felt stupid for not thinking of it before.

  ‘You can only do that to things that don’t exist here in reality.’

  ‘Oh. So other dreamers.’

  ‘Other dreamers.’

  Wilfred propped up my other side.

  ‘Time to wake up,’ Aethan said, and then I did.

  11

  Fool Me Once

  I opened my eyes. My head still spun and my face burned where the buffo had sprayed me with its saliva. Scruffy whined and pawed at my leg, and I reached out a hand to him. ‘Why do I still hurt?’

  ‘When an injury occurs during dream-walking, the physical manifestations can appear on the body of the walker.’

  ‘Oh.’ Someone had told me that before, but my head was too fuzzy to remember whom. ‘Why only can?’

  ‘Because you bring the injuries back with you when you come.’

  ‘Oh, so if Baby Buffo had succeeded…?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have come back at all.’

  ‘You fought buffos?’ Rako’s voice held tight anger. ‘What part of ‘keep them safe’ did you not understand?’

  ‘We’re in trouble,’ Wilfred muttered in a sing-song voice.

  I looked over at him. The side of his face was a mess. ‘That must hurt.’

  ‘Daddio gave almost as good as he got.’ His face broke into a grin. ‘I almost wet myself when you jumped on his back.’

  I started to laugh but it made my head throb. Instead I shut my eyes and said, ‘I almost wet myself when you ran off shrieking like a
girl.’

  ‘I did not shriek like a girl.’

  I opened my eyes and peered at him. ‘You did too.’

  ‘It would not be possible for me to shriek like a girl. My voice doesn’t go that high.’

  Headache or not I started to laugh. ‘It was funny when I thought you were doing it on purpose. Now it’s hysterical.’

  I could hear Rako berating Aethan. ‘She jumped on his back? Where the hell were you?’

  ‘I was kind of busy at the time. Uh Sir, do you think I can go for the healer?’

  Sir? We must have been in trouble. I’d never heard Aethan call Rako ‘Sir’ before.

  ‘I have a mind to let them heal naturally. Would teach you all a lesson.’ Rako let out a big huff of air. ‘Oh fine, go get Brinda.’

  A few minutes later I felt a soft hand on my brow. A tingle passed through me and when I opened my eyes a faery woman stared into my face. ‘A head injury and buffo burns,’ she said. ‘Nothing serious. You’ve had a busy night young lady.’ She laid a hand on either side of my head and I felt a trickle of power seep into me. It reached out like cold fingers into my head and neck. ‘Hold steady,’ she said.

  One second the cold soothed my wounds and the next it heated to a temperature approaching boiling. I screeched and clawed at her hands. Strong arms grabbed mine, forcing them to my side.

  ‘Stay still.’ Her voice was firm and merciless as the heat scorched, burning its way out of my body.

  I let out a scream and kicked my legs against the bed.

  Was she trying to kill me?

  As quickly as the heat had come, it flashed and disappeared. Panting, I sagged back against the bed.

  She removed her hands from my head. ‘It is done. You will need to get plenty of rest and food over the next few days to replenish the energy I just used.’

  I felt her weight shift off my bed and then Wilfred said, ‘Oh boy, here we go.’

  When the memory of the pain had faded I opened my eyes. Aethan sat beside me, still pinning my arms to the bed. Concern filled his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I should never have taken you into the forest.’