There was a misty gloom outside the tent, though the boy had no idea if the hour were dawn, or dusk, or somewhere in between.
He heard the lady and her horse talking. They seemed distant, as if they had moved away from the turf house where we was curled up under blankets, breathing the drifting woodsmoke.
The fever was gone but he was exhausted, and slipping in and out of sleep.
Caewen spoke in a harsh hush. “They are out there, aren’t they? I can feel the cold prickling my neck.”
“Yes. Hurm.” There was a stir of movement on dirt. He guessed it was probably the horse scuffing hooves or otherwise moving about. “They are circling, and hunting. Looking for us. Hur. Hurm.”
“And you’re sure they’re following us?” she said.
“Since we left he eaves of the Deepwode. Yes.”
“Alright then. I’ve done all I can. I’ve expended every charm and trick of concealment I know. I’m exhausted. Will it be enough do you think?”
There was a span of quiet. The trees rustled in a light wind. Somewhere far off an owl called. At last the horse-thing spoke. “Maybe. Hur, hur, hurum. It may even work in our favour. Only a fool would hunker down and try to hide with those things roaming. The sane would flee, and swiftly. Hurm. It may be that those things will assume we’ve kept moving, hur.”
“Because we’d be insane not to.”
“Foolish assumption. Hurm. As regard you, anyway. I, of course, am a towering pillar of sanity.”
“Then why are you sticking around?”
“Obscene sense of dedication to a friend, obviously.”
“Sure. But you really think they might pass right by?”
“Maybe, yes. If your little hidey-hexes work. If they don’t pick up a sense of us.”
Her voice was not doing a good job of hiding concern. “Here’s hoping then. I just wish we knew who sent them. Any why. What do they know about us? Have our plans have been guessed? Or found out by spies?”
“Who knows? Hurm. It may merely be that we two have drawn attention of things that guard the borders of the darkening lands. A lone woman and a half-a-demon, like me. Hur. Hur. Out wandering together in the wilds. That sort of thing is bound to draw curious eyes. Hurm. Frankly, we look suspicious. And as to who their master might be? Again, who knows? Hurm.”
“Assuming they even have a master.”
“Assuming that, hurm. Hurm. There are rumours about the four princes of Sorthe. Necromantic extravagancies. Servants who continue to serve in death. That sort of thing. So I’ve heard.”
“Or the Winter King?”
“Or him. Although the taste of it feels wrong. The smell is not hard and cold and chiselled… it’s something else? Cold, yes, cold. But also dank… wet… earthy. There’s a smell like leaves rotting in a pond. We shouldn’t assume every earth-haunt we meet is a servant of that one power. There are dozens of other old powers of the cold, dark north. The Winter King is not the only thing that dwells in lands where sunlight does not much fall. Hur.”
“I suppose we’ll find out in time.”
“Hurm. No need to rush, though. If you want my opinion on the matter. Let’s leave off the finding out of things, for a while. Tends to be that when we find things out, they find us out at the same time. Hurm. Perhaps we could try a radically different approach this time?”
“Which is?”
“Leave these little bleak shadows well enough alone, shall we?”
“Well, I can’t promise anything.”
A low snicker, like a laugh. “No, you cannot.”
His mind was foggy as he took this all in. He wasn’t even sure how much of it he would remember. As the boy drifted back towards sleep, he wondered if the truth-telling stone could make mistakes. He wondered if he was safe to trust these two. And then he wondered if trusting them was the least of his problems.
What sort of enemies would cause the sword-woman and her demonic horse sound so wary in their voices? Afraid, even?
Ideas of awful shapeless things slipped around in his mind then. Nightmare things. Dead things that were not yet quite dead.
He slid back into darkness. Into weary, heavy sleep.
And he dreamed troubled dreams.