by Anthology
La Héron took her place opposite the count and eased herself into a fighting stance. Despite her much greater reach, the elf looked unconcerned, spinning his daggers on his palms and humming along with the drunken soldiers in the keep.
La Héron was prepared to launch an all-out attack when the first strains of new music tickled her ears. This new tune wasn’t coming from the keep but the other direction, out in the fields. She skipped back a step into the shadows, lowering her sword a few inches and expecting the count to do the same. If they were discovered dueling, they would both be thrown out of Caen, and the Bouts.
But the count did not move even as the music grew louder, a chorus of pipes and whistles playing Norman peasant music. La Héron glanced askew, trying to see where the noise was coming from without turning from her opponent, but she could see nothing in the gloom beyond moonlit grass and tangles of heather. La Héron stepped deeper into the shadow of the bridge overhead and did not see the thrust of the knife that flew past her cheek like a mercury dragonfly.
“First blood!” the toadstool announced triumphantly. La Héron shook her head, confused. The count was still ten paces from her, looking at his dagger as if he was surprised to see the blood on it. Alex frowned, indicating she had not seen the count move, either.
“It’s the music in the fields,” La Héron called to her second, shaking her head again to clear her thoughts. “Find the revelers and silence them!”
“What music?” Alex called, but La Héron did not hear her. The count grinned like a cat, waltzing from side to side with his knives bared.
“You don’t like it? Come, La Héron, dance with me. The steps are not so different from the ones you know, I’m sure you will agree. Step-and-two-three, step-and-two—”
“Shut up!” La Héron cried and threw herself at her opponent. Her rapier cut broad strokes across the air in front of her, though she had not yet closed the distance between them. Her sword collided with an unseen blade, tossing aside the dagger nobody had seen the count throw. She bore down hard with a furious rainstorm of thrusts which the count, surprised and one-handed, could not parry completely. One, two shots fell home, blossoms of blue-purple blood unfurling on his fine waistcoat. The third and final blow looked inevitable when La Héron was abruptly pulled back, twirled in an ungainly pirouette, and skipped two steps back again. She cried out in frustration.
“You’re a terrible dancer,” the count reprimanded her, the second dagger now returned to his hand. “I shall give you lessons.”
La Héron jerked to and fro, struggling to maintain a defensive position as the silent music played her like a puppet, the count mirroring her staggered steps with his wicked smile. At the whirring periphery of her vision, she could see Alex darting along the verge of the fields, seeking any trace of the music that had bewitched her companion.
“There!” La Héron cried, directing Alex with her gaze to where Agaric landed a discreet hop then stood absolutely still. Behind him lay a new trail of tiny mushrooms, already half-encircling the dueling pair. He had planted half a fairy ring in a matter of minutes, and if he were allowed to complete it, La Héron would be lost forever.
Alex ran to the circle and kicked over a troop of mushrooms. The music La Héron was powerless to resist erupted into a discordant blast of horns, deafening her to anything else. Alex staggered and clutched her head but continued to trip along the line, kicking and tearing the fungi to pieces as fairy horns exploded in their minds like a fanfare to agony. The count’s face turned green with fury and Agaric closed on Alex at a rushed waddle, but their complaints were obscured by the cacophony. Alex bared her teeth like an animal and continued her destruction of the new colony. When Agaric was within reach, she kicked him as well. The spongy flesh of his cap did not explode under the solid toe of her boot, but he staggered, sagged, then went still. The nun clamped her hands over her ears and finished ripping up the ring.
And then, suddenly, there was silence. La Héron stopped spinning, grimaced, and lunged unsteadily at the count, who now watched her with horror and fear in his goat’s eyes. Though she was dizzy and exhausted, her aim was sure. She slashed at his left arm, skillfully drawing a clear line of blood harmlessly from his biceps.
“Third blood,” Alex said, though La Héron could not hear the words for the ringing in her ears. A burst of wind hit her back, causing her greasy blond hair to whip in all directions, then fall flat just as abruptly. The Count of Hunter’s Fields smiled reluctantly and bowed.
“Very well,” he conceded. “The match is yours.” He turned to Alex. “Well played, Birdsong.”
LA HÉRON SAT by the fire at the Trois Tours that evening with a long-necked guitar in her lap as Alex and Chuinard watched her tune the six strings. She plucked out intricate études with each twist of the pegs, testing the capabilities of the instrument the Count of Hunter’s Fields had just given her.
“I would never have guessed you could play so well,” Chuinard complimented her as her long fingers flew through another dazzling storm of notes.
“I can’t,” La Héron replied bluntly. “I have never played a note in my life.”
Alex’s jaw dropped. “The elf gave you an enchanted instrument?”
“Probably,” La Héron answered thoughtfully. She turned to the embarrassed tavern musician now sulking in the corner. “You! Monsieur Moustache! Lend me your flute, friend. I won’t be a moment.” She accepted it with a tip of her tall hat and blew into it experimentally. Moments later she was playing as breakneck a reel as any troubadour ever did. She stopped abruptly mid-note and handed the flute back. “No, I fear Monsieur le Comte has given me the ability to play. He has given me music.”
“That’s incredible!” Alex enthused, now recovered from her initial shock. “What a gift!”
“I suppose,” La Héron said, picking up her cup of wine. She studied the other residents of the inn, most of whom were competitors in the Bouts. “Though it looks to me as if Herlechin’s folk have been distributing ‘gifts’ rather liberally, and not with fair intention.”
Indeed, some of the other participants in the Bouts were looking unwell. The big man known locally as L’Ourson wept endlessly at the far end of the bar. The flamboyant Marquis de Jarzé had suddenly gone completely bald. The Bavarian, Lara, was complaining loudly that the wine tasted of turnip greens, and Jean-François de Monauté kept taking his clothes off. Nobody had escaped the attentions of the surgeon, and it showed.
“They all lost their matches, you know,” Chuinard said. “Only you and Saint-Germaine defeated Herlechin’s hunters.” He looked at La Héron. “Saint-Germaine has a new hound. A gorgeous beast.”
“Do you think Herlechin’s folks are gambling without our knowing it?” Alex suggested. “Gifts for the winners, and…losses for the losers?”
“Good God, I hope not,” Chuinard murmured, but looking about the room, it was difficult for any of them to think otherwise.
“Something to consider, Sister Birdsong,” La Héron said, draining her cup, “when you negotiate my next bout.”
“Let us hope for a human opponent,” La Héron muttered, kicking pebbles at a crossroads just outside the city. Alex stomped her feet and rubbed her arms, trying to keep warm.
“What? No, bring another elf-lord! Just think, La Héron, what gifts you might earn! I have heard the fairy folk have living horses of pure gold and swords which, when broken, become two. Or perhaps—”
“Sister Birdsong,” La Héron said, looking stern, “do not ever think you can best a fairy. Even when you win against these creatures, you lose.”
“Pfft,” Alex scoffed, still a little tipsy from their evening at the Trois Tours. “You’ve bested them already. You and I, La Héron, they have not seen a pair like us, not in any world.”
La Héron shook her head but said nothing. The younger woman was all bravado, drunk more on the freedom and excitement of the Bouts than the cheap Burgundy they’d shared. She did not need to ask how a woman of spirit and s
kill at arms found herself bound to a nunnery—it happened to all too many young people. She’d have been born to the wrong person at the wrong time, and with no better prospects, gifted to the Church without further ado. La Héron could not help but think it was a pity. The young woman was an excellent companion and there was much she could teach her. She was wasted as a nun.
The pair who eventually arrived were, to Alex’s great satisfaction, decidedly not human, but were drunk as stoats regardless. La Héron’s opponent was the smaller of the two creatures who wove unsteadily up the street, a gnarled old fellow with unnaturally long limbs attached to a cauldron-like torso, no neck to speak of, and a nose as long as a trout. His golden sash tangled in his legs as he walked, and the barrel-chested brute at his side kept stepping on the tattered end which dangled in the dirt, tripping them both. Alex’s grin glinted with wickedness.
“My ladies.” The old fairy bowed, drawing a long rapier with a flourish which trimmed his second’s long mustache. “Well met. I am the—ah—former Duke of Berrymines. This is my son, Broad Benjamin.”
“This match is already ours,” Alex snickered into La Héron’s ear as she moved to negotiate the bout. La Héron sighed but could not disagree.
“Do not fall into greed,” La Héron could only caution her. Alex shrugged, but was careful in her negotiations. In addition to the same terms as the first match, she got the big second to agree that La Héron would lose “nothing which would be missed” in case of a loss.
The old duke dropped into a low crouch and extended a wobbly blade in La Héron’s direction, listing to the right the longer he stood still. His first limp thrust licked the air to her left a good three feet wide of her hip. Expecting a trick, La Héron held back, tapping her opponent’s blade away with care when he stumbled at her with a second overambitious lunge. Alex rolled her eyes from the tree line.
When the old fellow’s third lunge appeared bound directly toward the dirt at La Héron’s feet, she stepped forward and aimed a steady blade at his unprotected shoulder. With his weight behind the drooping thrust, his tip was likely to become stuck in the earth, and one hit might easily become three. This match which had already come to embarrass her would be at an end. Alex grinned as Broad Benjamin slid down the tree next to her to hunker on his broad bottom.
But the ex-duke’s sword never did sink into the ground. A snail the size of a fist glistened in the moonlight as it passed between them, finding itself exactly at the point in the crossroads where the doomed thrust was bound. Berrymines’s rapier hit the center of the tiny spiral and slid off its shell with a muted tink. With nothing to support his weight, the old fairy fell flat on his stomach as the tip of his blade deflected upward just enough to draw a line along the surface of the road and to pierce the leather of La Héron’s boot.
“God’s blood!” La Héron barked, nearly tripping on the man’s head and stumbling into the space where his shoulder used to be. She hopped on one foot, trying to regain her balance as a telltale stickiness seeped from the cut at her ankle. Broad Benjamin looked up, startled.
“First blood?” he asked cautiously. Alex looked stricken. La Héron swore again and limped angrily away from her fallen opponent.
“Yes, dammit,” she growled. “Get up, you old fool.”
“My deepest apologies, madame, my most sincere apologies.…” Berry¬mines kowtowed as he struggled to his feet. La Héron stomped on the snail and kicked its cracked shell out of her way as she took up her position again.
“En garde!” she snapped.
She did not hold back this time. Berrymines was barely in position when she attacked, cutting with quick, short strokes toward his torso. He scrambled backward, pinwheeling her blade away when he was lucky enough to hit it, trying to prevent her from coming within striking range. When he tripped the second time, she stepped back, assuming a defensive position and a suspicious look.
The ex-duke landed on his rear end with a shout of surprise. His boot was trapped awkwardly under an exposed cedar root that pulled up like a submerged rope the more he tried to shake his foot free. La Héron waited with increasing impatience as he jerked and pulled, packed earth spraying as the very veins of the forest tore toward the surface. The ground around La Héron’s feet shook and shifted as buried roots crested.
“Stop that,” La Héron demanded, taking staggered steps to avoid getting caught in the roots herself.
“My apologies, my apologies,” Berrymines muttered, the forest’s very underpinnings coming loose the more violent his thrashing became. “I’ve just got to get unstuck, you see—”
“Trickery!” Alex yelled, reaching for the sword at her own belt. “Be still, old man, or I will—”
“Arh!” La Héron cried out as a net of roots wound its way around her foot and pulled. She fell backward, dropping her sword. The blade bounced on the churning earth, twisted midair, and caught her on the forearm.
“Second blood,” Broad Benjamin called, looking amused from where he was still sitting under the tree.
“Isn’t!” Alex gasped. “It was her own blade that cut her!”
“Counts, I think.” Broad Benjamin shrugged. “She’s bleeding.”
“You knobbly bastard,” Alex growled, advancing on the seated creature with her sword drawn. Even without rising to his feet, he stared her down eye to eye.
“Sister Birdsong!” La Héron rebuked her, unsnagging her foot and standing. “Help the ex-duke up, now.”
“Very kind, very kind,” Berrymines tittered, lolling about on the ground. The forest had ceased its quaking as he stopped struggling. Alex ground her teeth audibly as she violently sheathed her sword. Her handling of the ex-duke was also less than gentle, but the old fairy was soon on his feet and armed once more. La Héron resumed her position and Alex resumed hers, looking grim.
“Are you ready?” La Héron asked simply.
“I am,” Berrymines replied with a short bow.
La Héron lowered her sword and walked casually up to her wavering opponent, past the tip of his sword, which quivered too late as if it couldn’t decide how to follow her. She stood next to him as if he were unarmed and smiled. Then she poked him in the thigh three times in quick succession.
“Match,” she said to him, bowing a final time and sheathing her sword. Alex’s jaw dropped, though the elf-lords merely shook their heads.
“Why did that work? Why didn’t he spit you like a pig?” Alex demanded, rushing to La Héron’s side and looking her over. “You sure you haven’t stubbed your toe, or—”
“It doesn’t take any luck at all to skewer an opponent who offers themselves to you,” La Héron explained. “Just a straight, simple shot.”
The former Duke of Berrymines bowed, unperturbed, in acknowledgement of her assessment. “Well played, madame, well played. I never have been very good at doing things the easy way, I’m afraid.”
“You’re amazing!” Alex enthused as they escorted the stumbling fairies back to the inn. “How do you feel? Any different? What did you win?”
La Héron shrugged and stretched her arms, inspecting her hands. “I have no idea. I do feel rather alive. Probably the excitement of the match!”
“Oh, no, madame,” Berrymines said, leaning heavily on her arm. “I’ve given you the last twenty years of my life.” He blinked sleepily. “I wasn’t going to do much with them anyway.”
Alex stopped walking and stared at the old fairy in shock. “You’ve given her twenty years of life? ’Sblood!” She started walking again, deep in thought. “You lot give God a run for his money.” La Héron shot her a sharp glance, but Alex looked away.
Their celebrations were short-lived. They received their third summons just before dawn. Chuinard delivered the note, his face as white as a sheet.
“You’re to fight Herlechin himself,” he told La Héron. “He insisted, and they gave it to him. He has never been defeated by a child of God. Not in six hundred years.”
Their match was fixed for midday. Al
ex and La Héron sparred before breakfast, both needing the physical release only the clash of swords could bring, but they were driven inside again by thunder and clouds which rolled in from the sea like Heaven’s host shrouded in black billows. As the church bells started to ring for morning mass, raindrops as fat as mice fell all at once over the city of Caen, flooding the streets. La Héron sat at the water-cloaked windows of the Trois Tours watching the river forming outside.
“I think those are fish falling from the sky,” she said, squinting at the drowned world. “Frogs and leeches. This is an ominous rainfall.”
“Perhaps Herlechin will melt,” Chuinard suggested, trapped inside with them.
“More likely he called the Channel down upon us,” La Héron replied. “Damn him! Is it midday yet?”
Two hours later, the rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun, the clouds parted, and the noonday sun shone down over the sparkling, water-filled streets. Pollywogs slid into the Trois Tours when Alex and La Héron opened the door to depart.
The water was thigh-deep and filled with lakeland life, swarming the two women as they waded, cloaks floating behind them, toward the southern gate. The streets were deserted, miraculously free even of waterlogged cats or chickens washed out of their yards by the storm. The sun twinkled off closed windows all around them. It was as if the strange rain had washed every person of Caen away with it.
Herlechin stood atop the southern wall where soldiers should have been. His leather suit shone as if it had been newly painted with the blood of men and the black mask which was his demon’s face glinted like polished obsidian. They were met at the gate by a beautiful woman robed in a blue indistinguishable from the sky. When she smiled, she showed blackened teeth and a forked, purple tongue.