“There!” said the boy in a harsh whisper. As he pointed, he could see the tip of his own finger trembling.
“I see it,” snarled Dapplegrim. “You’re eyesight has improved. And your hearing. How’d that happen then?”
“Not sure,” he answered, with a shrug. He kept his eyes focused out into the darkness of the night. On a far ridge, a shape moved slowly, stalking forward. Although it was made into a featureless shadow by the moonlight behind, it was clearly a boggart. It paused and sniffed at the air. Farther off, out of sight, a howl rose, and the creature on the ridge answered with a howl of its own.
“They hunt,” said Dapplegrim.
When the boy and Dapplegrim returned to the campsite they found Fleat shaking off a cloud of feathers and pulling on his trows.
“How many?” asked Dapplegrim.
“Five at least, circling around and closing in. They do not know where we are yet–not exactly–but they can smell us, and the fire too I think. The manfolk-soldiers are alert to us too, now. The boggarts have told them that there’s someone in the woods, somewhere. They know. They are searching too, but they don’t see as well in the dark. We’d see them coming with their torches, I expect.”
“We have to move,” said the boy. “We have to. Those things… they’re…”
“Yes,” said Dapplegrim with a shake of his mane. “Yes.” He hung his head and sniffed at the still-sleeping Caewen. He nudged her. “Wake, lady. Wake.”
She stirred and sat bolt upright, immediately scrambling as if she were groping for her sword. But then she blinked, and looked around. “Dapplegrim? Dapplegrim?”
“Yes.”
“I was dreaming. Dark dreams. I dreamed of a thing of tattered shadows with grey flesh, shrieking. It wore a crown of bone and reached for me…”
“That is an old foe long defeated, friend.”
“I know,” she said in an absent voice. “But there was more. The half-dead goule–it had a shadow with it in my dream–a walking shadow–it tsked and it tsked and it told me that they were not gone. They were coming for us again, seeking us anew. They know we are planning something against their Sorthe masters. How do they know? Whether through sorcery or the scryer’s art?” She shook her head. “They know we are here in the wilds and they are looking for us.”
“The boggarts? We know about them. We’ve seen them. Hurrm.”
“No, not the boggarty-folk,” said Caewen, her eyes unblinking and staring. “The white women. The warths of the dead. They serve a sorcerer-prince. His name is Athairdrost. The shadow-thing in my dream told me. And they are looking for us.”
Dapplegrim looked worried. “You shouldn’t be talking to unfamiliar spirits that wander in dreams. Especially when we suspect those unfamiliar spirits, may be certain familiar spirits.”
“There’s no need to suspect,” said Caewen. “It’s Mannagarm’s fetch. There’s no question.”
“Did he say why he is helping us, now at this juncture? Hurm.”
She shook her head.
“Hur. I see. I wonder why then?” He huffed in his way. “It doesn’t matter. Right now, the hunting-boggarts in the hills are all that matter. They are closing on us. We must lift camp, and away. As soon as we can.”
-oOo-
They packed quickly. Caewen was still tired, and every now and then, shivers passed through her. She needed help just getting into Dapplegrim’s saddle. After the boy had assisted her as best he could, he climbed up also–though he sat behind her now. Despite her being older and a good few heads taller than he was, he could probably still catch her, if she slumped. If it came to that. Fleat said he’d rather patrol from the air, and so he did not join them on Dapplegrim’s back, though there would have been room enough. The horse-thing was at least twice as big as any other horse the boy had ever seen, and he wasn’t entirely sure that old Dapple wasn’t still growing. He did seem a little larger than when they’d first met.
They rode for three hours, holding northward, weaving in and out of moon-spattered glens and along narrow gullies that were barely more than ditches. Despite moving quietly and silently all this time, when they rounded a scrubby hill, the boy looked over his shoulder to see not one, but two of the boggarts silhouetted on a ridge some way behind them. “They’re following,” he whispered. “Faster.”
“It’s dangerous in the dark to run headlong,” replied Dapplegrim. “If not for me, then for the two of you on my back. There will be branches and tangles of ivy.” He sounded more thoughtful as he said, “Though I can see a leeward little hollow in the hillside, not far off.” He considered this. “I’m putting you down there. You will look after Caewen. Do not let her do any of her magics. The effort could kill her. It’s a wonder she’s survived the magic she’s been drawing out of herself.”
“And what will you do?” asked the boy.
Dapplegrim’s ears flattened and his already somewhat skull-like face looked even more deathly as it turned about on its great neck and he fixed the boy with one red and glinting eye from an odd angle. The eye was mostly dark, but it had that old fire aglow deep within. He spoke then, and his sharp, white teeth caught the moonlight. “Boggarts are not the only things that can go hunting in the night.”
Only ten minutes later, the boy was sitting on a fallen log, with Caewen’s knife resting on his trembling knees. Caewen was again curled up in a blanket behind him. She was sheltered from the wind by the curve of the hollow and several great rain-sculpted pieces of limestone. The boy watched as Dapplegrim–without his saddle now–trotted off into the darkness to disappear in the night and the wooded places below them.
He hunched himself over the knife. He felt very alone, and would have felt lost completely if it weren’t for the reassuring shape of a black wings circling silently high above. He had nothing to do but pass time listening to Caewen’s breathing. The noises of the wind. The chirrups of a few late-season but hopeful mountain frogs.
As he sat there, feeling desperately tired himself, but too afraid to come anywhere close to nodding off, he heard a noise, faint and distant, but it made him jump up all the same. He clasp Caewen’s knife tightly. It was a distant scream, like the sound something–a bestial something–might make if it were in a sudden and angry pain.
Around about a minute later there was another scream, some angry wordless yelling, then silence.
Quite some time after the last of the noises, Dapplegrim trotted out of the night. He had dark greyish-red blood congealed all down his mouth. It was all over his front too. It looked as if he had been sprayed with strange inhuman blood–and presumably, this was exactly what had happened. He stopped in front of the boy, lowered his head, and said, “Nasty boggarts.” He smacked his lips. “Leave a bad taste in the mouth, truth be told. “Hurm. Caught three of them, but there’s many more out there. And some big ones too. I can take them one at a time, or perhaps two or three of the smaller ones, but not if they rush me all at once. I’m not even certain I could easily take down one of their big hairy bugbears or bughulks, or whatever they are. They’re bigger than a trolde. Of some ancient northern breed I’ve never dealt with before.”
“But you did just kill three boggarts?” said the boy, feeling a little stupid as soon as he said it. After all, Dapplegrim had said as much, and clearly.
“Aye. Tough as old leather and twice as foul. I swear, nothing in the world is as stringy as a boggart. Hur. I’ll be licking bits of them out of the gaps in my teeth for weeks.”
“Wait. You ate three boggarts?”
“Of course. No point in letting them go to waste. Nasty aftertaste, but that only lingers awhile.”
“But… but… you’re a horse. You eat grass. And dandelions. And clover. And maybe a little hay.”
“And oats and blood, remember?” He grinned and his slightly weird, slightly skull-like horse-face looked much less horse than it did demon. “Look at these teeth.” They were sharp as arrowheads and white as ivory. “You think these teeth are only for chewing hay? No. They’re for flesh tonight, and flesh is for me.” He sniffed. “Though, I don’t mind an apple now and then. Half of me is horse after all. So, um, yes. Bit embarrassed about it, but I don’t mind the odd apple. And carrots. A glob of honey-sugar can be nice too.”
As he was speaking, Caewen stirred and sat up on one elbow, blinking her eyes. “I feel awful. My head hurts and my dreams have been so strange. I think the shadow-fetch keeps running in and out of them.” She eased upwards, then leaned forward, cradling her brow against her hands. “I see you’ve been up to your old tricks, Dap. Should we be moving on promptly then?”
“Yes. The hills are crawling with boggart-kind. Finding the remains of their dead companions might make them a bit more cautious, but only a bit.”