He followed the aide’s track back to a servants’ entrance at the palace. He pulled open a small door, which moaned softly as swollen wood scraped paving stones, and nearly fainted when he spotted a guard in the dark, with a dying lamp above him. The guard, a fat sot, sat in a chair by the door, snoring lightly. A huge mug of ale rested at his side, empty.
Erstwhyle crept in, closed the door behind him, and stole the guard’s weapon—a strange long kris made of black metal. The kind of thing one might use when making sacrifices.
Erstwhyle crept along a corridor to the Great Hall and peered through a curtain. The fires in the hearths had burned down to smoldering embers, and most of the candles in the skulls had been blown out. There was no sign of Baron Blunder or any of the guests.
A lone waif hummed an old folk tune as she bent over a table, scrubbing it clean:
I love you, and I always will.
Till the mountains fall forever,
And the moon stands still . . .
Upon the podium sat the prince’s dinnerware. The golden goblet gleamed in the ruddy light.
He gave it to me, Erstwhyle thought, and then he stole it back and tried to kill me. A murderous rage built.
He’d have to check the roundabout for Baron Blunder. But first there was a small matter of vengeance.
He crept through the room as silently as possible. His hooves made tiny clattering sounds on the marble floor. The waif didn’t seem to notice.
He reached the podium, climbed the steps, and grabbed the heavy flagon. There was a platter and dinnerware all of gold, too. He took the forks and knives, tucked everything into the belt pouch, and used the platter as a breastplate.
As he slunk down from the podium, he heard the serving girl emit a soft yelp. She gaped at him in surprise.
With a single leap he crossed forty feet and drew his black kris, then swung it and stopped the blade an inch from her heart. “Quiet!” he hissed.
She gasped, chest heaving, and looked as if she might faint. She was young, only sixteen perhaps. She had wheat-colored hair and eyes that were robin’s-egg blue. Her skin was pale as cream, and like all serving girls in castles, she had that “hand-picked” beauty to her, with a doe’s legs and lashes.
“Oh, sir,” she begged too loudly. “Spare me!”
“Quiet!” he demanded again.
“But I know thou art a lowly creature, given to animal pleasures,” she said, trembling. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she came to a hard choice. “Do with me as you will! Satisfy your lusts upon me, but please, please let me live!”
Erstwhyle groaned. The red priests had done their job well on this one—telling tales about the unnatural lusts of satyrs in order to justify their crimes.
“Look, you seem like a sweet girl,” Erstwhyle assured her, “and under better circumstances, I might even hope to court you. But right now, I’m looking for a friend of mine. Big fellow? He came in the Ship of Fools.”
“He left—hours ago,” she said. “All of the bards and fools departed. Soon after you won the goblet . . .”
“My friend would never have gone without me!”
“But it was said that you took your cup and left,” the girl continued, still scared out of her wits. “The guards said they let you out the city gates. You were afraid that someone might steal your prize.”
Of course. The prince had sought to cover his crime. Half the bards and fools in the country would be hunting Erstwhyle now, hoping to purloin his golden cup.
Even Baron Blunder . . .
“Last I saw Baron Blunder,” Erstwhyle said, “he was being held by the guards.”
“They let him go,” she said. “He stormed off in a rage. He was quite wroth with you!”
Was it true? Had Baron Blunder been persuaded that he was so faithless?
It’s the horns. And maybe the tail and hooves. People never trust you if you’ve got horns and hooves.
Erstwhyle must have scowled, for suddenly the wench nearly swooned, and he had to grab her with his free hand to catch her.
She moaned, eyes half closed, and begged, “Please, sir, take me if you must.”
“Perhaps I’ll rip your bodice another time, milady,” Erstwhyle quipped. “But if you could manage to remain quiet for a few minutes, I’d be forever in your debt!”
Conveniently, she let out a sigh and fell limp, so he laid her gently on the floor.
He went to the guests’ cloak room and found his great cloak still hanging on its peg. He donned it, pulled the deep hood up to cover his horns, then crept out the way he had come, past the sleeping guard, and into a chilling fog.
He slunk through the pre-dawn. Ice crystals entered his open mouth with every breath. The air smelled of fresh bread and firewood, for the bakers were up cooking for the troops. He passed a hovel and heard a baby cry and a mother trying to quiet it. Otherwise, the fog and cold smothered all sound. He wondered how to escape the castle and realized that he’d have to go over the wall.
He reached the base of some stairs leading up to the top of the wall. A young guard stood there, peering through the mist and darkness.
“Is someone there?” the guard asked.
Erstwhyle crept closer, then raced forward. He threw back his hood, showing his horns and golden eyes.
The guard shouted, fumbling for his blade.
Erstwhyle rammed him with his horns and sent the lad flying. By the time he pulled his sword, Erstwhyle was darting up the steps, three at a time. He reached the top, just as the guard began shouting.
Erstwhyle peered down through the fog. Castle Crydon was perched upon a huge crag. No human could have hoped to jump from it safely.
The first drop over the wall was only twenty feet, and he found a nice little outcrop there, with perhaps four inches of ledge. Beyond that, all was fog.
He leapt, landed soundly on the ledge, and slipped on icy stone. He went sliding down a slope, grabbed at a small tree, which slowed his fall until it yanked free. He spotted another perch twelve feet down below and leapt for it.
A boulder came bouncing past his head, pushed from the wall above.
He gave a startled cry, dropped to a tiny ledge, and held his place. Rocks and ice went rolling past.
He waited for a few seconds, then began taking a circuitous route, bouncing from one tiny outcrop to the next—a feat only a mountain goat could have managed.
Another set of boulders came tumbling through the fog. Shouts of “Get him!” rose from the walls. Arrows whizzed past, fired blindly.
He raced west a few paces, and in twelve leaps reached the bottom of the hill. The river that might have swirled around it was covered in ice and snow. The only sign that water lay beneath came from dry cattail rushes that clustered along the banks.
Erstwhyle feared that it might be too thin to hold his weight. Hooves were great for leaping around on rocks, but tended to split ice like a dagger. He sometimes wished he had the monstrous feet of humans, as unnatural as they looked in the animal kingdom.
There was only one way to test the ice. He leapt out as far as he could and landed with a belly flop, sliding.
He was only a dozen feet from the shore when he heard a soft crack and waited to fall. He was painfully aware of the weight of his gold. He swore not to part with it, even if it meant drowning.
On hands and knees he crawled three paces before the ice broke and he slipped under . . .
***
Two hours later, Erstwhyle slogged along a forest road in his wet cloak. A thin film of ice had formed outside it, which created a surprisingly nice layer to hold in the warmth. The interior was lined with rabbit fur, and though he felt sopping wet and miserable, he was warm enough.
At this rate, with my body heat, it should only take a few weeks to dry out!
What made him more miserable was thoughts of Amilee. The hunting horns had gone silent long ago, which meant the huntsmen had found their quarry.
It was not hard to follow Prince Crydon�
��s trail. A dozen hunting horses and thirty dogs will make a mess out of fresh snow. Among their tracks, Erstwhyle found those of Amilee—the bare footprints of a young girl.
With the coming of dawn, shadows were fleeing, and the fog began to lift. Stark pines, almost black beneath their mantle of snow, rose up on each side of the trail.
Erstwhyle had passed through town in the darkness and had spotted the Ship of Fools outside an inn, but Baron Blunder was nowhere to be seen. Erstwhyle hadn’t been able to wait for his old friend. So he’d forged ahead.
Now, as he topped a hill, he heard the jangle of mail and harness, the tired panting of dogs, the clop of hooves. Crydon’s hunting party was returning.
Erstwhyle leapt off the trail, raced a hundred yards, and dove beneath a small pine. The cold needles beneath it carried a musty scent, and he bellied down, tried to see his own tracks. His prints stood out in the snow.
His heart pounded in terror as the hunting party came riding into view. Hounds sniffed at his trail. One let out a keening cry.
The red priest rode up and peered at Erstwhyle’s tracks. “Milord,” he shouted, “a stag passed this way! A large one. Shall we give chase?”
Erstwhyle suddenly wished he had dropped more deer pellets into the man’s food.
Prince Crydon rode up, resplendent in black: his cape, fish-mail armor, and the long hunting lance he bore tipped with blood.
The hounds sniffed at the ground, peered up at their master, tails wagging, eager to continue the hunt.
Crydon’s dark eyes flashed. “Looks like a trophy,” he said, keenly interested. Then his shoulders sagged. “But that damned girl wore me out . . .”
He turned and rode away, his retainers at his back.
***
Erstwhyle found Amilee in the snow—naked, pale from blood loss, and freezing cold. She had a single wound to the belly. A lance had run her through. She was lying with blood dribbling from her mouth. She had put a bit of snow over the wound, as if to stanch it.
The rising sun lay hidden beneath a lid of gray clouds, and Amilee looked as if on a bed of swan’s down. He blushed to see her pale breasts revealed.
To Erstwhyle’s surprise, she still breathed.
“Amilee!” he cried as he neared, taking off his cloak and laying it over her.
“My love?” she panted. “Is that you?” She peered about blindly, moaning in pain.
“Stay still,” he begged. “Can you move?”
For a moment she struggled to take a breath; then she said, “He caught me . . . after sunrise. Should have . . . let him have me . . . sooner.”
Amilee lifted her head, propped herself up, but a gushing sound alarmed Erstwhyle. He peeked beneath the robe and saw blood ooze from her wound. He wouldn’t be able to move her for fear that she’d bleed out. And he couldn’t let her stay, lest she die of cold.
He took her hand, found it as chill as ice. He searched for words to comfort her, but none would come.
She looked at him, smiled faintly, her blue eyes seeming to bore into him. “Get me to the ship,” she said. “Dress me . . . dress me in my old brown dress.”
He knew the one—a peasant’s dress, the one he’d first seen her in. A dirty and worn thing lying crumpled in a trunk. She hadn’t worn it in weeks.
“I will,” he promised.
She seemed to pass out. He feared she might never speak again. Then she roused enough to say, “Carry me back to Littleford, to me mum. I don’t, don’t . . . want to be buried here.”
“Did he . . . did he ravish you?” Erstwhyle begged. He hated the Dark Prince. Yet somehow he imagined that if he had confirmation of the deed, he could hate the man more.
She began panting and suddenly gripped his hand with ferocious strength. Her back arched. She let out a cry, and then a moan, as if she’d just had some grand notion.
Amilee stopped breathing. Her hand fell. Tears threatened to blind Erstwhyle. Oh, how he fought them.
***
The satyr was still holding Amilee’s hand when the Ship of Fools came rumbling near an hour later. In the frosty air, Erstwhyle was shivering, teeth chattering. But he hadn’t dared remove his robe from the girl.
Instead, he dreamt of vengeance.
We are bards, protected by a brotherhood. This girl was my charge.
But that wasn’t quite right. He was a bard, not Amilee. She’d only come to teach him. The fact that he loved her would change nothing in others’ eyes.
But the prince had stolen Erstwhyle’s reward and tried to have him butchered. For that, the Dark Prince would be ridiculed and scorned, humiliated in every land. Bards would sing of his base desires.
It might not sting much, but who knew? Merchants who might have traveled to the land would now shun it. Lords who might have offered support would turn away. Songs and crude jests had unseated more than one king.
Erstwhyle recognized the pounding hooves of draught horses, the creak of an axletree, and the squeak of oversized wheels as Baron Blunder drove up.
“Whoaaa . . . ,” Baron cried to the horses. He sat for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was rough with emotion. “Poor lass! Think we can bury her in this hard ground?”
Erstwhyle shook his head. “I promised to take her home, to her mother.”
Baron Blunder grunted approvingly.
Erstwhyle picked up the girl, so small and pliant, and staggered to the wagon. Baron Blunder opened the door, and they laid her upon her bed. Erstwhyle found the waif’s dress, still dirty and stained, and pulled it onto her, then laid a blanket over her. He wouldn’t be able to sleep in the ship tonight, maybe not for many nights.
He climbed out and stood in the daylight.
“They said at the castle that you took your gold, then slipped off into the night. I thought I’d never see your tail again,” Baron Blunder said.
Erstwhyle shook his head. “It was a lie. The prince stole my prize and tried to have me killed.”
Baron Blunder said, “There’s a good song in that,” and then fell silent.
Erstwhyle’s thoughts were clouded. “His men will be hunting me. I had to leap down from the castle wall.” He knew that tracking him would not be hard.
***
For long hours Baron Blunder used the lash and sent the horses plodding up little-used roads, into remote mountain villages that wouldn’t see three strangers in a winter. The snow grew deep as they climbed.
Erstwhyle knew that if they could get high into the mountains, the snow might cover their tracks. The skies were heavily laden, gray as slate, and by midday snow did indeed begin to fall. Two hours later a strong gale kicked up, and big flakes began to swirl around them.
The baron chose strange roads, going ever higher into the mountains. There were no signs to guide him, but he seemed to know the way. He had been at this a lifetime.
At last they reached a fork in the road. One trail climbed while the other dropped into a serene valley. There were no cottages or fortresses as far as the eye could see—only dark empty forests and falling snow. Down in the valley, wolves began to howl.
“Which way?” Erstwhyle asked.
Baron Blunder shrugged. “I’ve been lost for hours.”
Erstwhyle studied the trail helplessly. Baron Blunder urged the horses uphill.
“Why this way?” Erstwhyle asked.
“I’d rather die of frostbite than by wolves.”
***
Exhaustion took its toll. As night began to fall, Erstwhyle nodded off and woke to find Baron Blunder carrying him, struggling to open the door to the ship.
“What’s happened?” Erstwhyle asked.
“Get some rest,” Baron Blunder said. “I’ll drive through the night.” He bore Erstwhyle into the ship, which seemed warm and quiet. Outside the wind wailed.
Erstwhyle felt dazed. He listened to the shrieking wind and felt desolate. “Aren’t you going to sleep?” he asked.
“Not tonight,” Baron Blunder said. “I think that we’ve ma
de it safe. No one is chasing us.”
No, we did not make it safe. Amilee did not make it. Erstwhyle’s heart ached.
***
In the dark, a dream came: Erstwhyle was perched upon a snowy crag with the wind swirling around. Below, the valley was filled with the howling of wolves.
As he trembled, he looked up into the storm and saw something flying toward him. Vast were the wings, perhaps a hundred spans, and the creature was dark, like the clouds at the heart of a hurricane.
In seconds it was upon him—a reptilian head with teeth as sharp as shards of ice. As it wheeled past him, he smelled the terrifying odor of putrefaction. It was dead, old, and odious.
A menacingly low voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. “Let the hunt begin . . .”
Erstwhyle woke and knew it was no normal dream. It had been a sending. The Dark Prince was coming!
***
Midnight found the Ship of Fools climbing into the forest, struggling through the snow.
Baron Blunder had taken a lantern, and now he forged ahead of the horses through the storm, lighting the track. Erstwhyle drove. To both the right and left were dangerous ledges, dropping into the forest.
Erstwhyle had no idea where they were going. He only hoped that somewhere higher in the mountains, the trees might be thick enough to provide shelter and Crydon would give up the chase. Snow was falling, enough to cover their trail. With luck the strong winds would blow away any traces.
Suddenly there was a cracking sound, and the whole wagon tilted. Erstwhyle had driven off the road. He imagined the Ship of Fools plunging down the cliff, and his heart pounded. Everything went into slow motion.
He leaned left, tried shifting his weight so that the wagon would stop tilting. If it went over, he’d have to jump for safety.
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