Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(27)

“Ahhh . . .” Foxbrush grimaced and tried to straighten the rags of his shirt. “There will be a clear trail back the way I came,” he told himself. “Broken twigs, bent grass, so forth. It’s always so in the books. Gullfinger himself wrote a section on surviving in the wilds, and I’m sure I can remember most of what he said.”

Even as he spoke, his eyes lifted unwillingly to the tree branches swaying above him as the wind creatures passed through, shushing leaves and breaking twigs, chattering among themselves. Despite himself, Foxbrush heard and understood each word.

“It’s not as fun as the Fiery One.”

“It does not billow as that one did.”

“And it’s not so red.”

At first, the horror of talking breezes was too much for Foxbrush, and he cringed and clutched the hair at his temples. Then he realized what they had said.

“Fiery One?” he muttered. “Red . . . Daylily?”

In a rush, his own fear was forgotten, and he addressed himself to the tossing branches (for he could not see the sylphs themselves). “I say, have you seen my lady Daylily?” He felt the fool indeed and blushed. Did he, after all, expect a breeze to answer?

Lionheart would.

The thought niggled at that corner of his mind he disliked admitting existed; the part of him that measured himself against Lionheart and always, always found himself wanting. Foxbrush scowled and, firmly pushing his wind-blown hair down onto his scalp, demanded in a voice he hoped was heroic:

“Tell me, beings of air and . . . and . . . windiness! Tell me where the Lady Daylily is! Tell me if you have spied her in this dark forest!”

The sylphs convened upon an oak’s stout limb, lined up like so many curious children at a shop window—or so many equally curious vultures at a dry watering hole—and stared down at their new playmate. One of them pointed.

“Is it talking to us?”

“I think it must be.”

“Does that mean it loves us?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It’s a bit boring, don’t you think?”

“Shall I pinch it?”

Foxbrush heard each word as it rang through his ears to his still-protesting brain. Then the oak branch groaned as though under enormous stress. Foxbrush had just time to gasp “No!” before the sylphs descended upon him, pricking, pulling, smacking, plying, and laughing at every squawk he made. Foxbrush fled into the forest, and the sylphs battered him from all sides as he ran. The Wood laughed and pointed, and this pleased the sylphs so that they redoubled their game, squealing like a playful tornado. Foxbrush ran until his feet bled, without any thought for direction, and would have been swallowed up by the Wood entirely.

But where he ran—though he did not see it—a Faerie Path opened up at his feet, always just one step ahead of him. Without his knowledge or will, he pursued this Path in loops and twists, bypassing all manner of terrors he did not know to avoid. And the sylphs whooped and giggled, as unaware as he, fully occupied by the fun of their new toy.

Their laughs turned to screams in an instant, however, when a roar shattered through their midst. Following the roar, a streak of white sent the sylphs tumbling one way and Foxbrush tumbling another. He saw nothing clearly, for the roar had all but blinded him with terror. He fell with a crash, curled up in a ball, chin tucked to his chest and arms over his head. The voices of the sylphs faded swiftly:

“It’s the Everblooming!”

“Fly! Fly! Flee!”

The echoes of that roar pursued them until all dissipated into silence.

Silence fell, as dreadful to Foxbrush as the recent cacophony. He remained where he was forever . . . or possibly for a moment, Time being a fickle friend in the Between. When at length he could bear to uncurl and sit upright, his heart pounding a death march in his throat, he was as pale as a northerner, his eyes wide black circles on his face.

The sylphs were gone.

Another with more woodcraft might have seen the enormous, claw-tipped footprints crushed into the ground and tearing the turf in places, but it was just as well Foxbrush did not; otherwise, he would never have managed to get to his trembling feet.

He stood, swaying and dizzy, and stared around. The Wood, no longer amused, stood in solemn disapproval, and he could almost have believed the trees folded their arms.

He took a few futile steps. He still did not see the Path opening at his feet, and even if he had, it probably would not have comforted him.

“Hu-hullo?” he called tentatively. He could not say to whom he called. In that moment, he was simply anxious to hear something, even his own voice.

He certainly did not expect an answer.

“Go away!”

He froze in place. Here, as in most of the Wood he had seen thus far, the ground was overgrown with tall ferns that acted as an effective canopy for whatever might lurk beneath. The voice had come from low to the ground, but everywhere he looked, he saw only green fronds. Still, whoever it was had not sounded especially threatening. Emboldened, Foxbrush tried again. “Um. Who’s there, please?”

“I said go away!”

“I . . . I don’t mean to hurt you. I’m simply wondering if you might, as it were, tell me where I am?”

The ferns to his left rustled with sudden violence. Foxbrush turned and, of all things, saw a child rise up like a mermaid from the sea, except not so beautiful. The child’s face was wet and a little slimy with weeping, weeping that emphasized rather than softened its vicious expression. It had long hair that was either black or green, hard to tell for the moss grown in it. Its eyes were red, probably from its tears.