by Dawn Metcalf
“Are you sure she can track the Red Knight?” Joy asked.
“Certainly,” Filly said. “Although you know he can travel through nettles—it’s a trademark of the first Red Knight and why his signatura includes three pine trees, reversed.” Filly exchanged a glance with Joy. “I like to know my enemies,” she said. “But easier to find than to keep, and I’m uncertain whether she can drive him here.”
Joy shook her head. “I’m not worried about getting him here,” she said. “I just want to keep up with him once he does. Can she do that?”
Kestrel burbled a thick clicking noise through her hood. Filly shrugged.
“She says that she can,” Filly said. “But in order to follow, we’ll have to hold on to her lead. Lose your grip, and you could be left anywhere in the world.” Kestrel burbled and burped. Filly added, “Or stuck halfway through a tree.”
Stef hung his head and sighed.
Joy took out her fingerless weightlifting gloves, padded and worn smooth from use. She adjusted the straps and threaded her fingers with practiced ease. Nearly eleven years of gymnastics, half of it on bar, and here she was suiting up with invisible Folk in the woods.
“Don’t let go,” she said. “Got it.” She picked up the leather leash and wound it over her padded palm. Filly took her position at the heavy rope around the post. Stef looked expectantly at Joy, who nodded.
“You won’t show me how to build a ward, but will you make one for me?”
“Of course I’ll keep you safe—”
“No,” she said. “You don’t need to keep me safe—I’m armored against him.” Joy popped her hands together to warm up the pads. “I need you to keep you safe—you and Kestrel and Ink, if he shows.” Joys pressed her need into her words as she tested the leash around her palm. “I don’t want the Red Knight attacking anyone else, hurting anyone else, even by accident.” Filly snorted and Stef moved to say something, but she raised a quiet hand. “Please. I can’t let what happened to Monica happen again, okay? Got it?”
Stef closed his mouth and nodded. “Got it.”
Yanking a thin finger through the knot at her throat, Kestrel threw off the cloak with a shake like ruffled feathers. The fabric fell like a curtain from her bone-thin frame. The tracker had a long wasted body only a bulimic ballerina would envy. Pale filaments trailed from her bare arms and legs, catching the breeze like underwater jellyfish tendrils. A thin, translucent shift barely covered her torso and breasts. The squat leather hood was a horrific contrast to her pale, questing, alien limbs.
Joy squeezed the leather leash; its end was secured to the ring in the collar at Kestrel’s throat. Filly positioned herself behind the tracker, ready to remove the ancient leather hood, shaped like a falcon’s head and topped in braids. Stef looked uncomfortable but steady, his feet planted wide. Joy lifted the rope twined around the post as Filly passed.
“Think this will work?” Joy murmured over her shoulder.
“Mayhaps not,” the warrior agreed. “But, if you succeed, everybody lives, and if you fail, at least you no longer live in a cage!” Filly took inventory of her weapons, testing the slide of her knife. “The wizard said twelve drops. The drug lord, three. Think you can do that?”
Joy almost laughed until she saw the expression on Stef’s face, which was grim. “That’s a good chick flick with Monica on a Saturday night and a jab with a pin,” she said, blinking to clear her eyes. “No problem.” She tapped her pockets and her pouches to make sure she had everything within reach and threaded both her arms through her backpack, buckling the chest clasp hard against her breastbone. She rotated her shoulders and adjusted the Velcro on the backs of both gloves. She slipped the scalpel from the side mesh sleeve into the palm of her right hand.
Filly loosened the straps on the back of the molded hood and grabbed the topknot in one fist.
“Don’t remove it until the Red Knight appears,” Joy said. “I expect it will either charge or run. In either case, I’ll need you right here by me.”
“Indeed!” Filly said with vigor.
Joy hesitated at her obvious enthusiasm. Her insides felt coated with butterflies.
“You remember the plan?” she asked.
“I do.”
“Don’t kill him.”
“I won’t kill him,” Filly said. “Until by your leave.”
She turned to Stef. “You, too.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
Joy squeezed the scalpel between her forefinger and thumb. “No one kills him until after I seal him to his True Name,” she said steadily. “I have to draw it on his armor. Then there will be only one Red Knight locked to his name. Once that happens, I can ward everyone against him. I can even repel him if Ink or Inq shows me how.” Then Ink won’t need to protect me anymore, her thoughts added. He’ll be free, and I might never see him again. Joy bit the inside of her cheek. But I won’t let him go without a fight. She tested her grip. “If the Red Knight dies or gets away, then this will all be for nothing.”
Filly licked the blue dot tattooed beneath her lip. “To kill the Red Knight would be a glorious thing.”
“Don’t kill him!”
“I won’t kill him!” Filly shook her head like a horse, tossing her blond knot of braids; the tufted ends stuck out at crazy angles. “Yet.” She curled her fingers over the hood’s topknot handle. “But if, as I have heard, the contract’s been changed, then how do you expect the Red Knight will cease pursuing Ink and conveniently stroll into our trap?”
“Simple,” Joy said, trying to keep the tremble from her voice. She lifted the scalpel to her ear. Her Ink-like ear. “We use bait.”
And she slid the blade across her neck, like slitting her own throat.
There was a flare of light as the Red Knight’s sigil broke.
Joy inhaled sharply. She’d nicked her earlobe. The Red Knight’s signatura disappeared from the armor. A cool breeze kissed the tiny drop of blood. Everything stilled. She could almost hear him sniffing, sensing her scent on the wind...
The forest exploded.
SIXTEEN
“AXE! AXE!” FILLY sang. “He’s got an axe!”
The Red Knight emerged from a fir tree and charged, a great wave of heat pushing pebbles and leaves before him as he swung a great, double-headed crimson axe. Joy backed up quickly. Kestrel cawed in her hood. Filly flipped her knife, handle-down. Stef slid his hands over the glyphs on his arms. Joy tried to stand bravely, but she cringed, exposing her back, her ears roaring with fear and noise.
The armor failed to light. There was a split-second wash of panic before a ward materialized, bathing the copse in gold. The fiery blast parted to either side, throwing bits of forest and earth and tickling the ends of her hair.
Stef snarled at her, glasses alight, arms outthrust, invoking the ward.
“You are an idiot,” he said through clenched teeth. “A complete and total idiot!”
Joy coughed and meekly muttered, “Thanks.”
He nodded, hands shaking, holding the beast at bay. “You’re welcome!”
The Red Knight slammed his axe against the wall of magic and light.
Filly laughed. Kestrel shrieked. Joy tugged on the leash. Kestrel tugged back. She had trouble keeping her eyes off the knight or, more specifically, his double-headed axe. The Red Knight pounded at the magical shield like a thing possessed. Stef held the ward, sweating with effort.
“He’s going to bolt,” Filly cried eagerly.
Joy nodded and squeezed the leash in her hand. “Okay. Drop the ward!”
Stef paused, ignoring the sweat pooling on the front of his backward shirt. Joy glared at him. “Stef!”
He shook his head. “No! No way!” he said. “I told you to stay at home, Joy. You were supposed to stay safe!”
“I did! But
I cut the wards to get out,” she shouted. “It was no longer safe. And I can’t keep living in a cage of fear!” The Red Knight began to circle, drawing his axe along the ward, looking for a break, an edge to the spell. Joy watched with a growing panic. Her brother’s eyes turned in his head, nervously tracking the knight as he edged closer.
“You erased his signatura from your armor,” he said. “You’re unprotected.”
Joy nodded. “I had to draw him here.”
“This is your plan?” Stef asked, arms shaking.
“This is my plan.”
Stef grunted, elbows buckling. “I hate this plan!”
“I know,” Joy said. “But I can do this.”
Her brother groaned. Stamped one foot in mute frustration.
“I know you can,” said Stef, exhausted, determined. “All right. Hang on.”
His permission scared her more than anything else. Her skin tingled. Her lungs shrank. She tested the leash and the scalpel in her hands. Filly rocked on her heels, a growl of anticipation crawling up her throat. Stef’s fingers spread wider as the Red Knight swept to the left.
“Dork,” she muttered.
“Dweeb,” he gasped.
Filly held on to Kestrel’s hood as the head twisted, the tracker’s filaments following the Red Knight like compass needles.
“Now?” the warrior shouted.
Stef nodded. Joy called out, “Now!”
Filly threw off the leather hood, exposing Kestrel’s bald, noseless skull. She whooped and jumped back as the tracker’s feathery antennae unfurled, exposing short, foxlike ears that rotated in spurts. Kestrel blinked at her prey, oval pupils contracting in the sudden light—her impossibly long, glassy eyelashes scraped against each other with an unnatural shing of sharpened knives. Her nostril slits flared. Her full lips parted. She gave an angry raptor’s scream.
The Red Knight swept his axe and bellowed a challenge.
The shield dropped. Stef collapsed, tossing salt in the grass.
Filly leaped with a yell, hungry for a fight. The Red Knight switched hands, raised the axe and charged. Filly lifted a downed birch branch the length of Stef’s car and chucked it like a javelin. The Red Knight stopped and changed the angle of the axe midswing, chopping at the wood and batting it neatly aside with a crack. Bits of papery bark fluttered in the wind like battle flags. It bought Filly time enough to cross the gravel road and slam her buckler into his side.
Tucked neatly inside his weapon range, she jammed her pointed vambrace into the exposed armpit, throwing the momentum of the axe back and wrenching the knight at the shoulder. Filly grabbed the helmet by the eye slit and, yanking it down, delivered a hard knee to the inside of the groin, slipping neatly between plates. The Red Knight buckled, swinging an armored punch that spun Filly sideways, flapping her cape of bones around with a snap. She spat blood over his shoulder but did not let go.
The Red Knight turned, wrenching Filly around, finishing his turn with a violent swing of the axe. The shiny red blade cleaved the air with a hot, heavy hum. Filly twisted her midriff out of the way. Joy saw the edge of the blade trail fire.
“Look out!” Joy cried and pulled back hard on the leash. The tracker strained against her jesses. The axe chopped down, snapping the buckler strapped to Filly’s left arm with a sound like cracking bone. Filly screamed. Her clothes sprouted flame.
“Down!” Joy said and Filly hit the dirt, rolling. Joy stuck the scalpel through the side of the backpack, lifted her left palm and pushed!
Nothing happened.
Joy swore.
She’d forgotten she was wearing gloves.
The Red Knight rushed her and the axe came down. Filly whipped a kick at his ankles, knocking him slightly off balance, and the axe head smacked Joy to one side. Her arm snapped back, jerking Kestrel to the ground. Joy slammed into a stump. The split second of pain wasn’t her rib cage collapsing or her spine breaking; she coughed clean air, stunned. Glyphs glowed on her skin. Fire skittered along the surface of the wood and paved dirt, dying in wisps. How much could her armor protect her? Joy smelled burned hair and plastic.
The tracker screamed and clawed at her collar, making wild, high-pitched sounds.
The knight loomed, moving as if in slow motion, and Joy knew that this was what she wanted—what she had planned for, what Inq had dared her to do—but the moment was too real, too much, too fast! Her brain stalled, mind blank, forgetting what to do.
“Joy!”
Stef shouted and broke through the circle, throwing something toward her feet. Joy pushed back through the weeds on all fours as the Red Knight cleaved the axe almost level with her knees. The tops of grasses sprouted candlewicks of flame. Joy clawed for the scalpel. Stef slid in front of her, yelling something. The knight’s helmet suddenly whipped back with a snap.
Another ward came up around Stef, Kestrel and her.
Filly had the knight by the helm again, this time with a thin cord caught under his jaw. The Red Knight clawed at the garrote. Filly, eyes wild and laughing, pulled, squatting deep. Tightened. Pulled. She popped a fast kick to his kidneys. And another. And a third.
“You waiting for an invitation?” she yelled at Joy.
But Joy didn’t have the scalpel, and Kestrel had wound herself around Joy and Stef, tripping them up in a tangle of leash. Joy flipped onto her side; the backpack caught under her hip. Stef tried to move aside while keeping his hands raised, arms forward and out of Kestrel’s way. Joy’s fingers grabbed the handle, but it was as if the Red Knight smelled what was coming and tucked his hips under, reversing direction and tumbling backward, crashing into Filly as they both hit the ground. Man and metal fell hard. Filly choked as several things cracked.
Joy shouted, “No!”
The Red Knight had held on to the axe and was now using it to leverage himself up. Joy strained against Kestrel’s wild lunges. Filly didn’t move in the dirt.
“Stef?”
She needed to keep the Red Knight off guard and off balance; she needed more time. She needed to keep him here. Stef couldn’t produce another ward—he was barely holding this one together, the strain bulging blue in his veins. Joy fumbled inside her pocket, grabbing seeds and scattering them everywhere. Briars exploded, blooming in jagged, thorny patches, ripping up turf and well-packed road; black branches extended like claws. Kestrel yelped and leaped aside, whipping her lead and catching Joy in the face as she struggled to hold on. Stef swore.
Filly snarled a weak curse. The grass was burning. The Red Knight stood up.
Joy looked at the briar patch—she had missed the knight entirely. Her heart faltered. The Red Knight gave his axe an experimental swing—black thorns caught flame and lost their shine, shriveling and curling in acrid smoke. Joy tried to switch pockets. Kestrel puffed up and cawed. Joy felt the heat on her back, on her face, in the air itself. Her fingers clawed in the dirt. A zing of shock ran through her arms. Her head snapped up. The Red Knight lunged. Joy threw dirt in its face as Filly curled forward, driving her knife into the back of his knee.
The Red Knight’s howl echoed inside its helmet. Joy stumbled to her feet, still wrapped in Kestrel’s leash. She tried unwinding her hand, her foot, her calf, stumbling over haphazard knots as the Red Knight writhed. Kestrel barked. Stef fell to his knees. She had to do this. She had to do this now.
Filly let go of the knife handle, aimed carefully and kicked, driving the blade deeper into the joint. The Red Knight’s scream broke off sharply. He reached down, grasped the half-buried handle and yanked the knife out in a gout of bright blood. Filly laughed through a split lip.
“Victory!” Filly seethed.
The Red Knight whipped the dagger at her head. She flinched and caught it in the shoulder. Her legs spasmed.
Joy screamed something wordless. The Red Knight turned on its kne
e, rotating slowly in a puddle of his own blood, and lifted his axe through the haze of heat rising off the grass.
Something pink split their vision. Kestrel’s tongue shot out, a long gooey tube, siphoning a quick lap of blood on the ground. It snapped back into her mouth, smearing her lips. Her yellow eyes dilated. She gave a cry that sounded like “More!” and lunged toward the knight, teeth stained pink.
The Red Knight dropped the axe and retreated, dragging the blade behind him like a plow, tearing a deep furrow that threw fiery sparks through the earth. The long groove filled with oozing fire, like liquid lava, cutting off their escape. The Red Knight slipped smoothly into a pine tree and vanished.
“No!” Joy yelled. Kestrel dived in pursuit. The smoke was thick and black as the brushfire went wild. Filly lay in the grass. Joy clawed at the leash.
“Hold on to her!” Filly snapped. She tried to sit up, choking on blood and smoke. “Go!”
Joy stared back at her brother. He was moving, hands extended, shouting at her.
“I’m trusting you,” he called out. “I’ll stop the fire. Go!”
Joy pulled on her backpack and grabbed the scalpel, tearing it free of the mesh. She took a standing leap, clearing the fire and then some. She landed smoothly, absorbing the weight in her knees.
“Come on,” she said, grabbing Filly’s outstretched hand. The horsewoman clamped on to her wrist and yanked herself forward, coughing up blood.
“I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of this plan,” she said, spitting.
“Then you’ll love this,” Joy said and bent, hauling her under her armpit. After eleven years of Olympic-dreams training, Joy was strong. She squeezed Filly to her as Kestrel dragged them forward. Joy ran, leaving the flames behind, hoping that Inq was right and that this tracker was the best, because otherwise this was going to really hurt...
Kestrel dived like a hawk, tilted with speed, disappearing suddenly between the pine tree and its bark, her leash drawn tight, the tether spooling quickly into nothing. Joy held on. Filly puked blood over her shoulder. The tree was coming up fast. Joy shut her eyes while running.