“Yes,” said Caewen. She seemed to have recovered enough to get out a few words. “Thanks and many thanks. That was awful. We’ve never met anything quite like those walking shrubs before.”
“You haven’t,” said Dapplegrim. “Honestly, I should have known better. Hur. Hurm.”
The strange-eyed boy blinked, slowly and magnificently. “It was no inconvenience at all. Not at all. Now what are you three doing in these parts? There’re Scarle about in these wilds, and cruel men from the north with sharp swords too, of late. And worse things.”
“Scarle?” said the boy.
Caewen answered. “Another name for Boggart-kind. It’s closer to the name they call themselves, actually. Scarra.” She looked back to the owl-child. “What did you mean by other ‘worse’ things.”
He moved his head all at once, the way a bird does. “The white-deathlies were passing along the road not two nights ago. They are most unkind. Very much most unkind indeed to anyone they catch.”
“The white women?” Caewen frowned. “We’ve met them. What do you know of those ghosts? Have they a purpose? We don’t know anything about them, except that they hunted us without rest for several days.”
“Not much, I’m afraid. Not much. I’m only a boy, and the elders of my people don’t talk much to children about nasties in the night. You need to speak to others, older and wiser. Indeed. Indeed.” He seemed to consider them, carefully. “Still, I ought not be telling you too much. You don’t look like spies or tricksters from the north… and you don’t have that feel about you, neither. But them that are tricksters and spies are tricksy and spyish.” He clucked his tongue for a second or two. “Spies do not look like what they do not look like, if you gather me moss?”
“I think so,” said Caewen. “We are not spies for Sorthe. I swear it.”
“A spy would,” said Fleat, peering at her with his big owl eyes.
The boy found himself a tiny bit offended–but mostly on behalf of Dapplegrim and Caewen. He had seen them risk their necks, all for the purpose of working against the night-folks and the winter-folks. He spoke, angrily, before he had a chance to check himself. “Caewen and Dapple are not any sort of spies. She is a great hero, like from all the good tales about good folk. And Dapplegrim is true and good, no matter what he looks like. They rescued me from being sold to slavery. They have fought off monsters. We went to see the lady-seer in the hills, to find out why soldiers are gathering, and who the Winter-King is and… and… well.. they’re not spies.”
“Sounds like spying,” said Fleat. “Though, though, maybe for the other side?”
Caewen crossed her arms. “We’re not spies for any side,” she said, then darkly, nodding at the owl-child, she added, “But this one might be.”
“Oh.” said the boy, suddenly embarrassed. “I didn’t think of that.”
He looked at the strange, wiry child with his orange eyes. If the skinling-boy were a spy for northern princes, then the little angry outburst just a moment ago would have tipped the whole milk-tin over. The boy, Fleat, shifted from foot-to-foot, slowly blinked again, and seemed to be deeply lost in his own thoughts. After what felt like a stretch of nearly a minute, he said, simply, “Follow me,” and he began to walk north, in and among the boulders that littered the foot of the cliffs above them.
They all exchanged glances. The boy looked at Caewen, and she looked at him, and then she looked at Dapplegrim, and Dapplgrim shot a look back and forth between them. Caewen and Dapplegrim together made shrugging sorts of movements. Altogether they said, “Might as well,” and “I guess if you are?,” and “Nothing to lose, hur.”
In time they came to a place where the cliffs jutted outward and formed an overhang. There was a tiny trickle of water seeping out of the ground here. Above the spring, four huge black pines clung to the rocky soil with their great roots and spreading branches so close that the needles brushed the ground. A carpet of brown, red and gold had collected in the hollows of the rocks and in among the tangle-garbled roots. It was so thick and richly coloured that it looked like some forgotten treasure, gilded by the afternoon light. Fleat made for the trees, then pushed his way past the thick branches. “Well?” he said, looking over his shoulder when the others paused behind him. “This way.” And then he was gone, lost in the pines.
They followed him, Caewen in the lead with a hand gently on her sword hilt, then Dapplegrim and the boy bringing up the rear. He was feeling fear in his throat and chest, as he wondered if they were letting themselves be lead into a trap. There were many evil things in the world, and though this creature seemed pleasant enough–even helpful–who could ever be certain?
The branches of the pines were stiff and difficult to push through. The air was so thickly resinous it almost felt like a liquid to breath: hard-edged and strange-feeling in the throat. The foliage was sufficiently dense, that the boy even experienced difficulty seeing his hands as he pushed at branches. But then, he heard Caewen say, “H’m,” softly, somewhere ahead. She didn’t sound alarmed. Only curious. A moment later, he stumbled out of the thick pines, and saw why. On the other side, perfectly hidden by the trees, stood a door carven into the cliff. It had owls cut from living stone all around the frame–perched on stone branches, and flying, and glowering out of crevices. The door itself was roughly shaped, and probably had been a natural crevice once, before being widened and opened with chisel and adze. Someone had set it with a door of glossy, dark wood. Still, naked, Fleat was waiting for them.
Once they were all present, the little owl-boy whistled three off-key notes at the door, and it quietly cracked open of its own accord. There was no sound of a lock or any sign that someone else was nearby. The door simply opened. Presumably, some ancient uncanny craft or secret magic was at play. Beyond, there was a dusty, sunlit tunnel. It went straight into the cliff, if at a slight angle upward, and was not very long–maybe only a hundred paces. Not far off, a floor of warm afternoon light clearly marked the end of it.
The small boy hurried through the tunnelway and in the sunlit patch he stopped, looked back at them, paused for a moment. He then walked on, passing through the patch of light, and into a jumble of natural, weathered stone, where he was soon lost to sight.