Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children, #6)(35)

14





THROUGH THE WOODS


REGAN WOKE TO THE brush of feathers against her cheek. She opened her eyes and sat up, all too aware that she’d spent the night in a tree and the slightest wrong move could send her toppling to the ground. Then she shrieked.

The young peryton perched on the end of the branch screamed and fumbled backward, wings flailing. At the base of the tree, Gristle snarled, the sound of a large predator whose territory had been threatened. Regan scrambled away on her hands, stopping when her back hit the trunk. She huddled there, panting, as the peryton stopped flailing and stared at her with enormous eyes the color of a cloudless sky.

“What are you doing?” Regan demanded.

“I thought you might be dead!” said the peryton, in high-pitched but perfectly understandable English. “You weren’t moving, and there was a kelpie at the base of the tree. I thought it was scavenging! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t eat me!”

“But you were planning to eat me,” said Regan. Then she blinked. “Perytons can talk?”

“Everything talks, human,” said Gristle. “Even worthless feathered scavengers. Most simply can’t listen. You’d have heard our kind long ago if you hadn’t been with the centaurs.”

“I’m not worthless,” protested the peryton. “I hunt, and I fly, and I feed my parcel!”

“Worthless,” repeated Gristle.

“Don’t fight,” said Regan. Focusing on the peryton, she asked, “Are you still going to eat me?”

“Not while you’re alive! That would be awful!” The peryton flattened her ears, looking distressed. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Regan. “I don’t think I could. You have wings and antlers and very sharp hooves. I only have a bow.”

“And thumbs, and a kelpie,” said the peryton.

To Regan’s surprise, Gristle didn’t protest the idea that Regan had him, just continued to prowl around the base of the tree and occasionally snarl. Moving cautiously, she slipped her pack over her shoulders, grabbed her bow, and began climbing down to where Gristle waited.

To her further surprise, the peryton followed, flapping its great barn owl’s wings and gliding to a dainty landing, keeping a respectful distance from Gristle. She looked at Regan and said, “You’re the human. I’d heard that you existed, but I never thought to see you.”

“We’re off to seek her destiny,” said Gristle. “She’ll save the world, and then I’ll eat her.”

“I don’t like that second part,” said Regan. “I may not like the first part, either. I’m not sure yet. I don’t believe in destiny, and I don’t want to disappear, whether it’s because I’ve been eaten or because my job’s done.”

The peryton looked uncertain, or as uncertain as a creature with a face like a skinless deer could look. She swung her head back and forth between Regan and Gristle, studying them both, before she finally said, “I’m coming with you.”

“No,” said Gristle.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked Regan.

“My name is Zephyr, and I’m coming with you,” said the peryton. “I’m a strong flyer. I can see things neither of you can see, grounded creatures that you are. I can make this easier for you, and I can be part of saving the world. No peryton has ever been a part of saving the world before. I’ll be a legend, and then they’ll have to let me have a parcel of my own, stags and does and fawns and all the forest stretched before us like a gift.” She half-spread her wings, tone blissful.

“Fine,” said Regan, before Gristle could object. She slung her bow back over her shoulder and turned to the kelpie. “Do you know how much farther we need to go?”

“Just to the line of the horizon,” muttered the kelpie. “We’ll be there by sundown.”

“Then we go,” said Regan, with more certainty than she felt. “The three of us.” She walked to Gristle, boosting herself onto the kelpie’s back and digging her hands into his mane. “For the Hooflands.”

“For the Hooflands,” said Gristle, and took off at a gallop, leaving Zephyr to flap frantically as she struggled to keep up.

In moments, it was like they’d never been there at all.





15





IT TAKES SO LONG TO REACH THE INEVITABLE


THE OUTLINE OF THE castle appeared on the horizon as the sun was dipping lower in the sky, casting long shadows across the fields. It was not as crenelated and precise as a castle from a fairy tale, but was rough-hewn and imposing, as if the rocks had simply fallen from the sky and piled themselves into the shape of a castle, without any sapient intervention. Gristle slowed, gallop becoming a canter, becoming a trot, finally becoming a walk. Zephyr landed and walked beside him, although far enough away that he couldn’t easily bite or strike her.

Regan sat up straighter on Gristle’s back, untangling her hands from his mane and wincing at the new lines his hair had cut into her palms. “Is that it?” she asked.

Gristle snorted. “No, we’re going to a different castle. Of course that’s it. The Queen’s castle now. The King’s castle once. Hoof to hoof, hand to hand, back to the beginning of the Hooflands.”