by A. M. Manay
“You want me to kill your baby?” he asked. The words felt foreign in his mouth.
“It’s hexborn. Of course we must kill it. Be done by dawn. We need to begin the next march. If we hurry, we can outflank Redwood’s army before he gets to the Fingers,” she told him.
Silas swallowed. “You intend to continue the fight, then, Your Grace? In spite of the offer of terms they sent with me?” His voice sounded to him like it was coming from deep in a cave.
“I will continue the fight until I’m dead in the ground,” she practically growled. “You tell those cowards to stop discussing terms of surrender behind my back. This war stops when my heart does.”
Silas nodded his understanding. “Yes, Your Grace.”
He took out his wand and gave it a flick. Flames danced along it, acid green, as he prepared his curse. He looked down at the child. It had so much hair, for a baby. A crown of bright pink curls. It sneezed, and its eyes popped open, for just an instant.
“Get on with it, Silas,” the queen ordered, her voice betraying both her regret and her resolve.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Silas murmured. Then he lifted his head slightly, and he threw his death curse at his queen instead of at her baby. Alissa died with just a hint of surprise on her beautiful face, and a living baby in her dead arms.
Silas collapsed onto a bench, unable to look at the body in the bed, unable to pick up the baby. He bent and covered his face with his hands. When he lifted it again, unsure how much time had passed, he found himself looking up at Poll. The giant had put down his ax and now held the baby. Poll gazed down at her in puzzlement and wonder.
“She told me to kill it,” Silas whispered.
The guard looked at him, then to his dead queen, then back down to the baby. Silas expected Poll to pick the ax back up and take his head clean off. Instead, the hardened soldier pronounced his judgment.
“Looks to me like ye killed the right one.”
***
Shiloh knocked on the door of the captain’s cabin. One of Hatch’s men had summoned her. She’d barely had two hours to rest since the end of the battle. She imagined Hatch had enjoyed no rest at all. She’d changed out of her wet clothes, but her hair was still damp, the water darkening it to a nearly purple shade. Consequently, the sea breeze that sped them southward chilled her, and she shivered.
The door opened, and she was ushered to a round table at which the expedition’s leaders conferred. A large map covered the tabletop, marked with tokens and possible routes. Hatch and Mosspeak sat with two men she did not recognize, along with the captain who had been so reluctant to welcome her aboard.
“Really, Hatch?” one of them asked. “You want to consult with a little girl?” The imposing man wore the king’s livery, so Shiloh assumed he was head of the contingent of guards that accompanied them.
“Stow it, Jenkins. She’s powerful and creative, and we’d have lost the battle without her. And she knows a fair bit about killing Feralfolk,” Hatch retorted. “Sit,” he ordered Shiloh. “If they were bold enough to try to take us at sea, we can assume they intend to mount another effort along the road. And Redwood’s resources appear to be greater than we knew, if he could mount such a complex effort on the water.”
“Have we identified the dead? Whom has Redwood lost?” Lord Mosspeak asked. He struck Shiloh as a serious man. Deep into middle age, his hair was more silver than blond, but he still cut a trim figure. From what Shiloh had caught from the corner of her eye during the battle, he was a wizard of some power and knowledge.
“His brother, Kennet, my lord, for starters,” Hatch reported.
“He must have cast the concealment charm,” Mosspeak asserted. “He was always the most gifted one in the family. At least they won’t be invisible on the road with him dead.”
“Aye, my lord,” Hatch agreed. “That was confirmed by one of the survivors. We fished fifteen other bodies out of the drink, including a few of Redwood’s bastards, but no one else of note. There were four survivors in addition to Lord Bren.”
“Anything useful, yet, out of Lord Redwood’s boy?” Jenkins asked.
“Not yet. I’ve made the appropriate threats. I’ll let him stew and go at him again in the morning, at Limestone Castle,” Hatch replied.
Mosspeak nodded. “Better for the screaming,” he concurred casually. Shiloh swallowed her horror. “We can hang the nobodies once we wring them dry, but Bren is more useful alive.”
“Of course, my lord,” Hatch agreed. “I’ll be careful. I am always careful.”
“When do we expect a response from the king?” Mosspeak asked.
“Tomorrow at the earliest,” Hatch replied. “I sent my fastest bird. Let us hope the Castellan is alert. If Redwood expected to take his prize on the water tonight, he may have an arrow aimed at the throne notched and ready to fly.”
“Do we wish to revisit the matter of the route, my lords?” the other stranger asked. He wore Mosspeak’s livery.
“The New King’s Road should be in excellent condition, Fredoh,” Lord Mosspeak replied. “Hasn’t been much rain yet this winter.”
Shiloh looked down at the map. The New King’s Road went from Limestone Village to the hills where Fountain Bluff stood, detouring around a sizable patch of Deadlands.
“What happened to the Old King’s Road?” Shiloh asked.
“It went through the Deadlands, lassie. Built the new one after the war,” Fredoh replied.
“Hmm,” Shiloh hummed thoughtfully. Hatch’s eyes darted in her direction.
“You want to cross the Deadlands?” Silas asked, as though reading her mind.
“It might throw the enemy off their game. Especially if Lord Redwood really is using Feralfolk. Their advantage lies in the woods. The Deadlands are flat, barren. There is nowhere for them to hide,” Shiloh pointed out.
“There are also no villages, no grass for the horses, no clean water,” Jenkins retorted. “The streams are full of black soot. Getting a large train of animals and carts across them would be madness, and that’s without considering superstition. None of our men are going to want to set a foot on that land.”
“Maybe we don’t send the entire expedition,” Hatch mused. “Maybe we keep most everyone to the regular route, draw Redwood’s attention. While his men are occupied there, a handful of us race across the Deadlands and get Lady Esta to Fountain Bluff before Redwood realizes he’s been fooled.”
Everyone pondered in silence until Mosspeak opened his mouth to pronounce his judgment.
“I’ve heard worse ideas.”
***
Hatch pulled a bucket of filthy water from the stream they had just crossed upon a crumbling stone bridge. Muttering a spell, he pointed his wand, and an arc of clean water leapt from the first bucket into a second, clean one, leaving a couple of inches of soot behind. Each member of the party filled his or her waterskin. Then Silas repeated the trick to water each of the horses.
They were nearly a full day into their trek across the Deadlands. So far, they were utterly alone. Guarding Lady Esta were Hatch, Shiloh, Jenkins, Hatch’s man Gil, and a guard of Mosspeak’s named Ladloh. They were making excellent time. By the end of the following day, he expected to be back amongst the living things, a day ahead of their fellows.
Esta was bearing up under the strain better than Hatch would have expected. He supposed some of her mother must have rubbed off on her, after all. I could say the same about Shiloh, he thought.
Hatch hoped two days of rest had done Shiloh some good. She’d looked rather peaked when they had finally docked. She’d been a tremendous help during the battle; he could not deny it. Redwood’s son might have succeeded if she had not been so gifted and thorough.
He was not much looking forward to making camp in this desolate landscape. Though Gil was hauling enough fuel for a small fire, it would be slim rations and cold sleep come dark.
They pressed on, hoping to make a few more miles bef
ore fatigue made it too dangerous to continue. Shiloh rode beside Silas, looking much as she had on their first voyage together, months before. The changes were subtle. Her clothing was in the mountain style, as before, but it was new, the fabric and leather finer. Her pink hair was, once again, tucked away beneath a hood, but her cloak was bound with a gilded clasp that had been a gift from the king’s bastard son, in thanks for her help with his studies. She sat the horse much better, now: her posture perfect, her control confident. Her strange eyes roamed, looking for danger. That was the same.
Esta was also a good rider, which shouldn’t have surprised him, he supposed. But where Shiloh looked alert and prepared, Esta could not hide her fear.
Darkness was falling, but they pressed on, the stars and the light of the moon enough to guide them across a landscape devoid of obstacles. Finally, Shiloh caught his attention, nodding her head toward the king’s daughter, who looked in danger of slipping from her saddle.
“We should rest,” she told him softly. He nodded his agreement and signaled the others to dismount and make camp. Gil quickly unpacked two tents, while Jenkins struggled to dig a hole for the fire. His pick making no headway in the hard, black earth, Hatch pitched in with his wand.
“It’ll be like sleeping on bare rock,” Gil grumbled.
“I might be able to do something about that,” Shiloh offered softly, with a sly smile.
Hatch watched as Shiloh knelt a dozen paces away from the fire pit. She placed the tip of her wand against the ground and began a chant in Estan, one he did not recognize. In the dim light, he couldn’t see anything happening. He wondered what her spell was intended to accomplish, cocking his head skeptically until the ground beneath his feet began to soften, and a whiff of fertile dirt reached his nostrils.
“Holy Mother,” he whispered, kneeling to pick up a handful of earth, crumbling the deep brown soil in front of his disbelieving eyes. Around him, his compatriots reacted with similar surprise. He looked up to see Esta tracing a circle on her forehead, her lips murmuring what he assumed was a prayer. When his eyes returned to Shiloh, she had ceased weaving her magic and simply remained kneeling in the dirt, her wand now back in its holster, her eyes now slightly more tired than they’d been before.
“When were you going to tell me you could do that?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “When I was sure it would work. I’ve been hacking at it with Master Jonn, building on what he did with the samples he’s collected. But this is the first time I’ve ever been in any of the Deadlands proper.”
“Can you imagine? If all the Deadlands were fertile again?” Gil whispered.
Another moment’s stunned silence passed until Hatch ordered, “Back to work. Camp isn’t going to make itself.”
As he turned around, he caught sight of Esta’s face. The eyes of the king’s daughter tracked Shiloh’s every move, her expression unreadable.
***
“My lady, we must make haste and continue our journey,” Shiloh told Esta, urgency in her voice.
Esta sat up in the darkness. “Is it morning?” she asked wearily.
“No, but . . . well, see for yourself, my lady.”
The two young women crawled out of their tent. Shiloh pointed to the north, where bolts of colored light pierced the sky.
“Mosspeak’s folk have been engaged. We cannot know how long we have before Redwood realizes that you are not among them, nor is it clear how many men he will send out looking for us,” Shiloh explained.
As quickly as they could, they packed their gear and set off. Shiloh’s eyes kept darting to the left, to see if the magical battle still raged. She felt reassured by every flash, and then guilty, as she imagined the suffering that might be occurring in the midst of the fight.
The sky grew bright as the sun rose, and that comfort was gone, as the flashes were no longer visible in the morning’s brightness. Hatch pushed them as hard as the horses could bear, and Shiloh concentrated most of her energy on staying in the saddle.
Hours later, the end of the Deadlands was finally in sight. They were now climbing out of the flats. Green hills rose before them, the sight cheering them all, even the grim-faced Esta.
Lulled by fatigue, Shiloh didn’t notice Honey’s approach until the falcon was almost on top of her, cawing urgently and pecking at her hood.
“What is it, Honey?” she cried, raising her hook to shield herself from the frantic bird. “What’s the matter?”
Honey landed on her shoulder and pointed his beak toward the east, calling out again. Shiloh dismounted and tried to calm the creature.
“He’s warning us,” Hatch concluded grimly, “that our enemy lies ahead.”
“What do we do?” Jenkins asked. “Cut back north to the New King’s Road?”
“How many?” Hatch asked the bird.
Honey scratched Shiloh’s cloak six times.
“Then no,” he replied to Jenkins. “Feralfolk will do better in the trees that way. We stand a better chance here, in the open, where the Deadlands are just turning to grass and brush.”
“How far d’ye suppose they are, Master Hatch?” Gil asked warily.
“Probably just over that rise,” Hatch surmised. He pulled something shiny out of his pocket and leapt to the ground. “Honey, may I tie this around your neck?” he asked most politely.
Honey rather regally inclined his head, drawing a smile from Shiloh, and Hatch tied a mirror to the falcon. He pulled a matching magic mirror out of his pocket and gave Shiloh a nod.
Guessing his aim, Shiloh spoke to her familiar. “Be careful,” Shiloh urged her bird. “Get us one good look, then dive before they can curse you.” She murmured a ward over him, then tossed him aloft.
Hatch kept his eyes on his mirror. Honey flew over the hill. Five men and one woman sat on horseback on the other side, wands at the ready. One was Lord Redwood, himself. The others wore Feral clothes, the hodgepodge of hides and stolen scraps that made them always identifiable. Shiloh ground her teeth.
“Why do they wait in the hollow? Why not take the rise so as to hold the advantage?” she asked Hatch.
“Someone has been paying attention in knight training,” Hatch replied, a wisp of a smile on his lips. “They must have set a trap up there, hoping we would seize the opportunity to take the high ground, or they hoped that we would not notice their presence on the other side until it was too late.”
Through the mirror, they saw Redwood notice the bird. The duke raised his wand to knock Honey out of the sky, but Keegan put a hand on his arm just as the falcon dove to the ground, and the nobleman missed his shot.
Hatch put away the mirror, since all they could see now was dead leaves and grass. Honey seemed to have decided to hide in the undergrowth until the confrontation was over.
“What’s the plan, Master Hatch?” Esta asked, voice trembling.
“An excellent question, my lady,” he replied with a sigh. “We can circle around quietly, come at them from the sides since we can’t trust the hilltop. Gil and Ladloh, you stay here and guard Lady Esta. Jenkins and I can draw fire from the south. Shiloh, you come from the north side. Ideally, we take Redwood alive. But dead is better than escaped. Understand?”
“Three against six?” Jenkins asked skeptically. “When they’re probably expecting us?”
“Shiloh and I count for at least two apiece,” Hatch replied with a fierce grin.
“I have an idea for a diversion,” Shiloh offered, “if you’re taking suggestions.”
Hatch turned to her, eyebrows raised. “Well? Spit it out, woman.”
She smiled widely. “Master Hatch, how much do you know about mining magic?”
He eyed her questioningly. “Absolutely nothing.”
Shiloh was filled with a sudden sense of gratitude for her mountain upbringing. Every man, woman, and child owed ten days mining duty per year to the Lord of the Teeth.
“Does Lord Redwood wear any jewelry?” sh
e asked the group.
Hatch’s face was skeptical, but Lady Esta offered a reply. “He always wears a sapphire ring. Always.”
“Thank you, my lady. I take it none of us are wearing any sapphires today?” Shiloh asked. Gil snorted a laugh. “Excellent,” she continued. “I can use Zarek’s Seeker Spell to burrow through the hill in search of sapphire. The spell will burst out of the ground and latch onto the ring, glowing and hissing like mad. While they are distracted by the show, we attack.”
“How long will it take to burrow through?” Hatch asked.
“About a half hour,” Shiloh estimated.
“That should be enough time for us to get into position,” Hatch replied.
“On foot?” Jenkins asked.
Hatch nodded, and Jenkins dismounted. “We’ll be quieter that way. Get to where you can see them, then wait for the distraction. Shiloh, cast some wards over Lady Esta before you go.” Shiloh nodded and obeyed.
As Shiloh made her careful way through the grass, wand at the ready, her stomach churned. She had no desire to face Feralfolk in battle once again. But she had even less desire to see Redwood prevail, or to lose her own life.
She was panting by the time she reached her position. She lay flush to the ground and set her most powerful wards to protect herself. She peered at the six of them, looking tense and impatient, their horses scratching at the ground and pulling on their reins. Even though she knew it was coming, her heart nearly leapt out of her chest when her spell came bursting out of the hillside in a ball of blue light. The sound of the explosion set her ears to ringing.
Several of the horses reared back, dumping their riders to the ground. Redwood clawed at his wand hand, trying to remove the screaming, glowing ring, his wand now held between his teeth. Shiloh aimed carefully and yanked it out of his mouth, then set about disarming the others one by one, pulling wands and bows, knives and swords though the air and flinging them to the top of the hill. When the weapons hit the ground, they set off the traps Redwood had laid there, a glowing dome encasing each one in a cage of magic.