Fae Nightmare

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  It seemed to take far too long as my arms grew heavier and heavier, but eventually, the ruined wagon came into sight and I slumped to my knees in relief.

  “Are you too tired to go on?” the woman Traveler asked, squatting beside me, her son yawning in her arms. Her eyes were huge by the light of the torch and she glowed slightly silver.

  I could see the wagon shimmering in my spirit sight. It looked magical in the light of the torch.

  “We’re here,” I whispered. “There’s a door in that wagon that will take you to safety – to other Travelers. One of them called herself the Loremistress.”

  “Then we should hurry,” her husband said, nodding but tight in his every movement. I wasn’t the only one feeling anxious.

  I stood, my weary legs protesting every movement, and stumbled across the loose stone to the wagon, every step a struggle.

  Hang in there, Allie.

  We were almost there.

  There was a shout from the hill behind me and I quickened my pace.

  “How could we have been seen?” the Traveler man asked roughly. “It’s the middle of the night!”

  “I don’t know,” his wife said, but her words were muffled as she stepped into the wagon. “There’s nothing in here.”

  “Keep walking,” I whispered. “The door is hidden.”

  Her husband waited for me to go first, so I hurried in after her, stumbling and barely catching myself as my feet hit the ground on the other side of the door and I found myself in a ring of surprised Travelers around the oak tree. Their campfire danced merrily – twice as high as I was – and a fiddle stopped playing only moments after I emerged. People froze, breathless and flushed, hands clasped together as if we had surprised a dance. Which we had.

  “It’s true,” the Traveler man gasped, stumbling into the circle of Travelers from behind me, relief and hope softening his face. “I didn’t dare hope it was.”

  “Arvi? Is that you?” one of the shocked men around the fire called, standing up in surprise.

  The Loremistress strode out from the crowd and took the sleeping child from my arms with authority. “Sister, brother, we have places for you here. Let us settle your children.”

  I sagged in relief.

  “Thank you,” the woman I’d saved said, kissing my cheek before handing her other boy over to a motherly looking Traveler with a warm smile and lined face.

  “I need to go back right away,” I said awkwardly. “Those voices on the hill – I need them to find me, so they don’t find the wagon.”

  The woman I’d saved grabbed my sleeve. “What is the name of the one who saved us?”

  “I’m Allie Hunter,” I said. I felt uncomfortable in the middle of all this attention. They were all so happy. So whole. They didn’t fit in my world of brokenness and desperation.

  “There’s a bow and a blade hidden near your town, Allie. And a stick. This is known to us all and I offer it as a gift of thanks for what you’ve done tonight,” the woman whispered to me. “The stick is a torch that will make you invisible to the Fae.” She glanced at the handle in my hand. “Though perhaps you already know that. The blade will slice through worlds. The bow will pierce only wicked hearts. Find them and you will have all that you need to defend the innocent as darkness flows over the earth.”

  She ducked her head and hurried away before I could thank her, but the Loremistress leaned in, the little boy still in her arms. “You saved those whose names you do not know from a fate you did not guess. We remember those who remember us. I doubt you’ll come to us looking for anything for yourself, but if you bring others who need help here, we will help them for your sake. Remember this.”

  I nodded.

  “And remember that blood is blood.”

  Which sounded like crazy talk, but I was far too tired to argue. I stumbled back through the oak tree, spirit torch held high, and tried to get as much distance between myself and the wagon as I could before whoever was calling in the woods found me. I’d do whatever it took to keep those people safe. Even if it meant breaking my neck in the dark.

  And as I stumbled and fell and hurried through the dark, I kept thinking of the rusty blade I’d hidden in the tree. Could it be the blade that cut through worlds? Could I use it to cut into the Faewald?

  It was time to stop being a trusting girl and start being a hunting woman. I was beginning to hatch a plan to save the children. All the children. And I was going to see it through one way or another. But first, I needed to gather up my things and talk to my mother.

  I could almost see Scouvrel’s dark eyes winking at me as I ran.

  Chapter Fourteen

  My legs were so far past aching that they were just one long unending scream of pain as I stumbled through the darkness with my spirit torch held up.

  I still didn’t know if I’d made the right choice to choose to run through the night with my second sight instead of my normal sight, but I didn’t dare light a real torch, and at least the spirit torch made everything brighter and clearer even if it failed to show me tripping hazards or some of the trees.

  A pair of silvery hinds – Faerie creatures – had leapt up from a nearby thicket when I passed, the spirit light visible enough to them that they scrambled to be free of it. The same had happened with a swarm of those magenta flying creatures – I’d decided to name them Pink Furies until I knew what they were really called – and they’d tumbled all over themselves to get away. Maybe I could single-handedly deal with the ghoul problem with this – if I had time.

  I slipped the mirror out of my pocket. I’d kept telling myself I wasn’t going to do it, but as the journey wore on, I was losing willpower.

  Scouvrel’s surprised eye filled the mirror. It looked the same, spirit vision or real vision. Interesting.

  “Husband,” I whispered.

  His laugh made my spine tingle. “Nightmare. Pleasure at seeing my face?”

  He looked rumpled like he was rising from sleep.

  “Four,” I said. There was no way I’d say anything more. His grin was already too large. “My time is short. Will my sister invade soon?”

  He shrugged. “Who can say? It’s been a week for me since we spoke. How long has it been for you?”

  “Not a full day,” I whispered. I stumbled over a stick and flinched at the sharp sound it made. I couldn’t keep this conversation up for long. “If you can’t tell me that, tell me where the mortal children are hidden. Are they scattered all over the Faewald?”

  His eyebrow rose and he hesitated.

  “Must I bargain with you?” I said through gritted teeth.

  “I still owe you for our last kiss,” he said with a grin. “The mortal children are hidden in the Court of Silk and the Court of Cups. Pursue them at your own peril.”

  “Thank you,” I breathed, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  I jammed the mirror back in my pocket. I needed to hurry.

  I stumbled over a log as if to punctuate my thoughts, biting my tongue on the way down and skinning my knuckles. It was a good reminder that spirit sight was not real sight. I was so close to the Chanters’ house. If I could just make it there and grab that sword, I could carry on my mission.

  My original plan had been to find what Hulanna wanted – humanity. Then find what tools I could to stop her – this trove of Traveler magic items. Then find a way to make her nervous.

  I didn’t care as much about that now, though it would still be useful. What I needed to do now was save those mortal children, while I still could, before that opportunity also slipped between my fingers.

  My pursuers were getting closer, too. And I didn’t recognize any of their voices. I’d led them on a merry chase through the woods, but now it was time to lose them.

  “I heard a crash up there,” one of them said from far, far too close behind me. His voice was raspy.

  “Whoever it is, we’ve almost got him cornered,” another voice said. “Probably just a farmer with a still in the woods, but Sir Ec
kelmeyer likes to know who doesn’t know how to keep curfew in a community.”

  “So do I,” the raspy voice said.

  I could see the house lights flickering up ahead in the strange half-there way that things did with my second sight. I was so close. I eased up and slipped through the shadows, trying to keep myself from running. I’d only attract more notice if I did. I slipped again, hitting a bush, the branches scraping my skin and making a loud rustling sound.

  I could hear feet pounding on the forest floor. They’d be on me in a moment. They were that close.

  I forced my breath to come evenly. Think, Allie, think!

  These men worked for Eckelmeyer. They wanted to capture me. That meant they’d take anything I had on me. I couldn’t afford to lose these things. Carefully, I hid the axe handle and my bow and arrows in the bushes, grabbing the key from my pocket and shoving it in the dead grass beside it. I could find this place again. I could.

  I just needed to be sure they didn’t search it.

  I took a deep breath, pulled up my blindfold and sprinted into the night. If I was far enough from the bushes when they caught me, they wouldn’t search them.

  Someone grunted from right behind me and then my legs were knocked out from under me and I fell, sprawling, to the forest floor. A moment later a heavy weight was on my back.

  “Just a girl,” the raspy voice said. “Where were you off to, love? Trysting? You’re young to be up to that kind of trouble. You won’t want whelps until you’ve got a good man to tend you. A soldier, maybe. That’s a steady paycheck.”

  “With so much charm it’s a wonder you’re not already married,” I let my disgust leak into my tone.

  “Who says I’m not, love?”

  “Who says, I’m not?” I countered. “My husband is the most evil and terrifying thing you could ever meet. He could kill you with a sewing pin before you could draw your blade.”

  He laughed. “I don’t believe you.”

  I laughed, too, but my laugh sounded insane in my own ears, even though every word I’d said was true.

  “We’re taking too long,” the other voice said. “They’ll send another scout team to look for us if we don’t meet at the rendezvous. Haul her up and drag her with us.”

  Rough hands pulled the collar of my jacket until I stood. The soldier forced my hands behind my back, binding them with harsh twine that bit hard into my flesh.

  It was too dark to see faces but the smell of garlic and stale wine was strong on raspy-voice. These were the men in the employ of the great Sir Eckelmeyer, were they? This was the company Olen was mixing with? He was going to regret having such allies.

  It was all I could do not to look longingly at the lit window and my mother’s silhouette inside. In a few hours, when dawn lit the sky, she’d be getting worried. And I needed to warn her. It was going to be up to her to get the children out of this town.

  “Walk faster, girl. We don’t have all night.”

  “Seems like you had all night when you spent it bumbling through the woods like two bears just risen from hibernation,” I muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Just ignore her,” the other voice said.

  We marched in silence as I thought through the options I had. Maybe Sir Eckelmeyer would be a reasonable sort – though his men didn’t seem reasonable and people tended to attract others like themselves.

  “This Sir Eckelmeyer, he’s a fair man?” I asked.

  “Your town is under curfew by order of Sir Olen Chanter. That makes you a lawbreaker,” one of the men said.

  A worrying response. No comment on whether he was fair, only that I was already guilty in their minds.

  Maybe, Sir Eckelmeyer would be too busy worrying about the Fae to bother about a girl found wandering in the woods. After all, no one could prove I’d done anything wrong – except Heldra. And somehow, I didn’t think she was going to say anything. She’d be in as much trouble as I was if she did. I’d thrown her key into the woods just like she’d asked. No one could prove she’d taken it – or who had freed those Travelers. As long as we were both quiet about it, we should be safe.

  “I suppose you’ll all be very busy guarding us against the Fae,” I suggested.

  “What do you know about Fae?” the one shoving me forward asked.

  “Enough to know it will take more than a few bullies skulking in the woods to stop them.”

  “We’re the Band of the White Hood,” the other man said. “We don’t skulk. We are not bullies. We are the personal armsmen of Sir Eckelmeyer the Glorious.”

  “That’s his name? ‘The Glorious’?”

  “It’s his title.”

  “That’s very handy. I’d like my name to tell people what to think, too. Maybe I’ll call myself, ‘Allie Hunter the Beautiful and Very Rich.’ Ooof!”

  Something had struck me in the back of the head. I bit my tongue and tasted blood. These fellows didn’t like sarcasm or mocking. I might have been given a long leash by Olen, but it looked like I’d lost that freedom.

  I was cursing in my mind.

  I’d missed my chance to cut my way back into the Faewald, or to find some way to win my people back. But I didn’t regret freeing the Travelers tonight. And I didn’t regret collecting the artifacts – not entirely. Especially now that I knew they could actually help me. I just wished I’d had more time.

  Snow began to fall, thick and white as we reached the guard post on the edge of the town. The guards I’d seen last night were nowhere to be seen now. In their place, long lines of snorting horses and men in armor stood, watching their breath cloud the air and their feet churn up the road.

  Their armor glinted in the starlight, and clinked in the breeze as chainmail brushed against plate and scabbards against chain.

  I felt like someone had put a rock in my belly. There were hundreds of men in armor. No women at all. They all wore white hoods, easy to see in the light of their torches. And they wore matching grim expressions. There would be no compassion here. There would be no hope for anyone who stepped in their path.

  More than ever, I wondered if it might not be the worst thing for Hulanna to march through the circle and level them all.

  “Found something in your sweep, Corne?” one of the men on the horses asked. There was a fancy clump of red feathers flowing from the back of his helm. An officer, I supposed.

  “Yes, Master at Arms!” Corne– the one with the garlic breath – said almost crisply. “We found this miscreant wandering in the woods in the middle of the night.”

  “Nice work, Corne. Bring her straight to the guardhouse. By order of Sir Eckelmeyer, all persons found breaking curfew are to be presumed to be spies, detained, and questioned.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sir Eckelmeyer and his men must have arrived shortly after I fled with the Travelers. That was the only explanation I could think of for why he looked so at ease in Olen and Heldra’s house.

  They dragged me up the steps and into the stone house with a lot more energy than required and threw me to the floor.

  At least Heldra kept a clean house. This floor had been scrubbed well and recently. It’s always nice to do your bleeding and dying on a clean floor.

  “What’s this?”

  I heard the voice before I could look up and see the man. Black boots and a white tabard – the edge of it stained by mud and travel dust – filled my vision. I struggled to my knees, my bound hands behind my back making it more difficult than it should have been.

  Olen’s face – green and sickly – was the first thing I saw from behind the looming figure of Sir Eckelmeyer. He must not like seeing me treated this way. Well, wasn’t that nice?

  Heldra’s dining room table had been stripped and laid out with what must be her best tablecloth and stacks of ledgers and scrolls. The chairs had all been arranged on the side farthest from me. That was where Olen was sitting, looking like he’d just swallowed a slug. Behind him, th
e door that must lead to his family’s private rooms was cracked slightly open and I saw one wide eye staring out at me. Heldra.

  And beside the door was a framed silver mirror. I felt a wave of nausea wash over me at the sight of the mirror. If Scouvrel took this moment to look at me, he might be too much of a distraction in this thorny circumstance.

  I tore my eyes away from Heldra’s anxious gaze, avoiding the mirror. At least with the blindfold up, no one could tell where I was looking to give her away.

  “A dirty girl with a blindfold over her eyes?” the voice asked. It was far too quiet of a voice. I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck and arms. I didn’t like that voice.

  When I’d heard the name “Sir Eckelmeyer” I’d envisioned a portly man a little older than my father with wide shoulders and a thick mustache. In my mind, his voice was baritone.

  The real Sir Eckelmeyer was none of those things. For starters, he was barely older than Olen. Maybe he was even a year or two younger. His face was hairless without even the stubble of a beard trying to grow back. His hair – light in color – was cut so short that I wasn’t sure how they got the shears that close to his head. And while his expression was grim and his eyes were flat, his narrow face was not ugly. If he smiled, if he hadn’t been dressed in steel and a white tabard, I might have mistaken him for a new villager. Maybe even that squire Olen was going to offer me to in marriage.

  That squire had better not be Corne. I shuddered at the thought.

  “We found her in the woods after dark when we were scouting,” Corne said. I could hear the pleasure he found in delivering me up as a prisoner. I had a feeling he was the type who would tell lies about his old grandmother and offer her to the executioner if he thought it would improve his reputation with the Knights.

  “Near the circle?” Eckelmeyer said sharply.

  “On the mountains west of here.”

  “And what were you doing there, girl?” Eckelmeyer said quietly. “Standing watch for your Faerie allies?”