Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson(11)

I’d expected a short run to the fae, but it turned out to be a fair distance and I revised my estimates of his power—the chances of avoiding doing whatever he asked of us went down with each mile. It didn’t bother me much. What could he ask that we had not already done for my grandmother? Any pretense of goodness that I ever claimed was spent long ago. The only thing that mattered to me was Da.

We topped a rise, and there was a small clearing laid out before our eyes. The fae lord was there, the bandage on his right arm red with his blood. He was less human-seeming out here in his woods. Antlers rose from his head and spread the width of his shoulders and more—and he was huge. He blew on his horn again, and it called songs from our throats.

We half slid, half ran down the backside of the rise and leaped over the creek on the bottom. Once across the water, Dafydd slowed to a cautious dogtrot, and the rest of us followed his lead into the meadow where the forest lord waited.

SEVEN

Haida

“My hand?” the forest lord said, raising the stump of his arm. “This is the price I paid for what you have done to me.” He threw the artifact Haida’s lady had made at a tree. It hit and tore bark from the trunk, leaving a weeping wound. The little silver bird dropped to the ground out of sight.

He waited, but her lady was not such a fool as to say anything with her father in a towering rage. Not that her silence was likely to buy her safety in the long run. Haida understood that the lady had known that, really, since she made the decision to make sure that her little bird would never serve his purposes.

Haida said, her voice stinging with contempt, trying to draw his attention away from her lady, “You went to the crone by the white spring. To a witch. A human.”

The forest lord hissed, his deerlike ears flattening with ire. He flung a hand out toward Haida, and the little hobgoblin stiffened her spine and prepared to accept the poison she’d spun.

But her lady stepped to the side and took the blow of magic herself. Haida wailed and started forward as the pain dropped her lady to her knees. The hobgoblin touched her lady’s shoulder, trying to dilute the effect of the forest lord’s anger.

“Go,” said her lady with power in her voice. “Leave me. Hide.” And such was the strength of the lady, even diminished as she was, that Haida could only follow her orders.

The forest lord, rage forcing a bellow like one of the great deer in rut out of his throat, threw another bolt of pain into his daughter. Hating herself for her inability to defend Ariana, Haida found a place under some bushes, where she could at least bear witness and give what aid she could.

The lord took the horn he wore on a thong around his chest and blew again, summoning his hounds.

The sound did what the pain had not. When Ariana raised her head, it was the beast who looked out of her eyes. The beast’s lips curled back from white teeth, and it started to get to its feet. Haida felt a breathless instant of hope. The beast was more powerful in its way than her lady was. Haida could feel the power of the beast’s magic, full and strong. Proof, if she’d needed it, that the beast and her lady were truly different from each other. Had the beast had more time, even a moment, it might have destroyed the forest lord—but the howls that answered the great horn caused the beast to freeze, and fear robbed it of its power. The beast rolled into a ball on the ground and waited for what would come.

The animals responding to the forest lord didn’t sound like his hounds. Evidently the fae lord felt the same, for he paused, taking his attention off his daughter for a moment. If only her lady hadn’t sent her away, Haida might have managed to make use of the momentary lapse, but she was too far away to do anything but watch.

EIGHT

Samuel

There was a moment when we were free of thrall, after the forest lord blew his horn the second time, after we topped the rise, so he could plainly see that what had come to his call was not his hounds. While he stood in shock, we were free. I had not realized until then that the witch had given up her hold upon us when he summoned us with his horn.

I was of free will for the first time since she’d knocked upon my door and turned my father and me into monsters. We stopped, looking down upon them. Dafydd whined, and the others shuffled around, but my father and I stood frozen.

The forest lord’s face twisted with anger, and he looked at us and closed his single fist. I felt his determination, his magic, roll over me. I snarled in protest, but we were his.

The forest lord turned his attention to the girl curled up on the ground in front of him. “You are of no further use to me.” Next to his bulk, she looked frail and helpless. I could not see her face, only a long fall of pale silver hair touched with lavender that could not have belonged to a human. He looked at us then, smiled savagely, and said, “Direwolves. I had heard the witch had such to serve her. You are not my hounds, but you will suffice for this. Hurt this woman for me. She is meant to die today, but I want her to suffer first.”

Slaved to his purpose, the pack ran to do his bidding. All except my father and I. Tantalized by that breath of freedom, I fought him, fought the magic that tried to hold me. And I failed. All I could do was slow my obedience so that the rest of them were already attacking the defenseless fae woman by the time I reached her, conscious that my father’s pace was just a little slower than mine.

I closed my fangs on the fae woman’s shoulder, biting deep, teeth scraping against bone. I had meant to crush her throat, and so to rebel against the fae lord’s command—and save her from her suffering as my da had saved Adda. But the fae lord’s magic was too strong for me.