Bravely(63)

Brionn.

“Brionn,” she hissed.

But of course he didn’t listen.

The wiry dog looked at her with that addlepated, distracted expression, his eyes pointing off in two different directions as usual. Then he turned and bounded into the woods. A few yards in, he paused, looking over his shoulder, waiting to see if she was giving chase.

Merida thought about going to get Harris, but then she also thought about that sound. Hsst.

Two types of people: the sort who seek magic, and the sort that magic seeks.

A hsst outside a tent was a little like a knock on a door.

These woods were different from the snowy forest she’d followed Feradach through at Christmas, the first time they’d met. These were crisp autumn woods, full of clawed branches and dry thorns. Her pursuit disturbed red deer and owls, and the sounds of their flight were loud as they sent dried leaves rustling. Every so often one of these stags let out their terrifying roar, loud as a bear. But like those woods, she was on the hunt. She was pursuing Brionn, who in turn was chasing—what? The Hunt for the Unnamed. What was he pursuing? She didn’t know. But she had to find out.

Brionn’s strides at last began to flag, and Merida realized with a shock that she had entered a dead clearing.

Not dead as in bare. Not dead as in worn down. Not dead as in cleared by man.

Dead as in dead.

Unlike the autumn woods all around it, this clearing seemed to have already proceeded well into winter. The ground was hard and frozen, and every tree had shed its leaves already, letting the moon light the scene.

Stepping farther into the clearing, she realized it was beyond winter dead. It was the dead of a drought, of a harrowing fire, of a disaster. Even the evergreen larches had dropped all their needles, and they should’ve kept them.

Merida shivered, but not with the cold. Tilting her head back, she looked up at the stars, half expecting to see the Nimble Men glowing early among them. But instead the stars seemed dull and far away. The entire night felt muted.

Brionn let out a little yelp as he found his quarry.

It was already downed, lying in a heap in the peculiar dead glen.

Merida recognized those fine gloves with their oxblood stitching, although she had not seen them like this before, the hands limp against the dead bracken.

“What are you doing on the ground?” she demanded.

Feradach made an unsuccessful effort to roll himself onto his back, because he was not just on the ground, he was on the ground on his face. That was quite the worst of it, that he had clearly fallen. No one lay down that way. No one even gently gave up that way. No, to lie like he was, his cheek against the ground, back to the sky, arms stretched down and hands palm up on either side of him—he had fallen on his face, and he hadn’t had the ability to hold his hands out to soften his fall.

“I thought you couldn’t be hurt,” Merida said accusingly. It was quite wrong to see her adversary like this, his mane of hair dusted with leaf litter, body weak.

She began to tug on his cloak to turn him over, to at least get him off his face.

“Don’t—touch—me—” he said. “My hands—”

“Don’t be stupid!” Merida replied. “You didn’t kill the horse you borrowed the day we went to Cennedig. You’ve got your gloves on still; I won’t touch your hands.”

It was a little nerve-racking to touch him, nonetheless, as she turned him over, but she was right, and it didn’t kill her. It took less effort than she had expected. His mane of hair and his big fur-lined cloak had made him seem bigger than he was, but the body he was in was truly just a young man’s, no older or weightier than she was.

She asked, “What happened to you? Were you attacked?”

She couldn’t see any wound. What she could see, though, was that the moss beneath him was dead, too, and so were the little shoots of grass that had been growing around it. Mushrooms were withered to dry straws, too.

“Consequences,” he whispered.

“Consequences of what?” Merida swatted Brionn away.

“Of…not…ruining.” Feradach closed his eyes for a long second, and then opened them again, with obvious effort. His dark eyebrows were drawn close together. “Didn’t…ruin anything…since we last…since I saw…Cennedig.”

“You haven’t ruined anything since you saw me last?”

Feradach shook his head a little. “Wanted to…give…them…a chance…and I…”

He gave up talking and instead clawed his glove over his own heart, breathing with effort.

Merida found herself quite unsure what to do with this information. She felt angry, first of all. How dare he be her enemy and then turn around and do something like this. First the harp. And now this, whatever this was, breaking the rules beyond both of them, trying to do what she had said he ought to do, instead of what he had always done. He was supposed to be a god, and she was supposed to be a girl, and her words weren’t supposed to hurt him.

“This isn’t how I want to win the bargain,” she said.

Feradach’s head fell limply to the side.

“Merida!” Leezie’s voice carried. “Merida, what are you—Merida, that’s not safe!”

Leezie stepped cautiously into the dead clearing. Her hair was mussed and her eyes half-lidded with sleep; she looked, as ever, like she needed a bit of help. But her voice was wide-awake, and Merida, when she looked at Leezie, saw a little flash of the Cailleach’s green starlight in her eyes.