The late afternoon had long since got onto dusk, and the evening light was itself settling into shadows.
She stood, uncertainly, whilst holding out a hand to steady herself against the steep hollow where she had been resting. The boy went to her and caught her other hand. Her grip felt weak, almost tenuous.
“Caewen?” he whispered.
“Yes?”
“Could you stop using the charms and magics? Maybe. If you could? I mean–“
She looked at him with a strong, hard glare that seemed to say, not you too. But he persisted.
“–well, I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone be as nice to me as you and Dapplegrim have been, and Fleat too, and you’re already more like family than family I’ve ever known.” He shrugged, apologetic. “I don’t want to see you hurt yourself, is all. With the magic.”
“But if it must be done, it must be done,” she said.
Dapplegrim snorted. “Hurrum. The child is right. Listen to him. Maybe next time you think you must do some spellworking you ought to confer with your more sensible companions first. Hur! Speak to the boy if I’m not around. He has more sense than you about this.”
But she only laughed, and it was a grey, frightening, fey sort of laugh, and it rung loudly against the hills and echoed far and away through the cold night air.
“Hur. Well, we definitely need to be moving now,” said Dapplegrim. “Be quick then. Saddle up and get on. We’ve some hard travel to do before this night is out.”
Caewen stood, but she was clearly still weak, so that the boy did most of the work hauling the overlarge saddle onto Dapplegrim. “Whoever made this, anyway?” he said.
“A rather nervous saddler in a little village near Bernoth,” replied Caewen with a smirk.
Fleat was circling above them still. He gave a sharp barking hoot, once and then again, and the boy began pulling at the straps and buckles much faster–so much so that he pinched his fingers between copper and leather several time, hurting them. If Fleat was making any noise at all then there was at least one boggart nearby. And probably getting nearer. “Let’s see,” he muttered. “Yes, yes. It’s all good now. I think.”
Dapplegrim was starting into the darkness. “It’d best be. There’s no time to fix more buckles. Up in the saddle! We have to leave. Now.”
The boy paused to sniff and caught it too: a strong wet-dog smell, very close now.
Caewen climbed up first and the boy followed. He was still scrambling up and into saddle with his feet kicking in the air–flailing about–when Dapplegrim wheeled and took off. He had a glimpse of three ugly, wolfish faces with straggly hair and tusk-like fangs. They were coming swift out of the shadows, giving out shrieking noises as they did. A spear thudded into the soil near Dapplegrim’s hooves. He paused, changed direction, and took off again: this time, downhill and towards the rising moon. The way ahead of them was lit as if it were a silver road on fire, shimmering across the glossy grass. As they thumped and pounded, clods and dirt flew away behind them. The boy finally managed to pull himself mostly upright. He looked around. The boggarts were giving chase but they were too slow. Luckily, none of them had bows.
As soon as they broke cover and onto open ground Dapplegrim, took off at a full gallop. Wind whipped up and tore at the boy’s hair and clothing. They passed out of the tangled, scrubby wilds in the foothills and onto an expanse of rock-strewn, grassy hills that spread away north west of the Shaelfell Mountains. The silver-limned crests of the rolling hill-country merged in the dim distance with the feet of the Toweradges, far off ahead. Those northerly mountains were nothing more than black and jagged shapes, darker than the night’s sky behind. Far off to the west, the boy could make out the red glow of fires in towered heaps, which he presumed must be the fortress of Thalle. He’d heard Sorthe speak of the place when they visited his village, but knew nothing of it except that it guarded the approach to the Dragon Gates. Beyond the fortress, further north–and only just visible through a gap in the mountains– he could see the dark plain beyond. There was another blotch of red-yellow glow: a town perhaps? He had no idea of the lay of the land so far north, and he had never imagined towns could grow so big as to be so visible by their lamps and hearths at such a distance.
They rode so long and so relentlessly that the boy grew sleepy. He wrapped a leather cord from the saddle tightly around one hand to secure himself so that he wouldn’t fall off if he did slip asleep for a second. He did nod off, several times, and was never sure how long he was asleep before jolting awake. Time seemed to slow into a morass. He lost all track of it. By the time Dapplegrim slowed, the boy could see the sun tinting the eastern skies with that pallid cold grey that suffuses the sky before the pink-gold of dawn.
Just as the heavens gathered some flesh-dark pink around the sharp peaks of the mountains, just as the birds of the hills began their morning chorus, Dapplegrim slowed and they looked for a place to hide. A few straggly stands of trees dotted the open tussocks nearby, but they were mostly too sparse or too small to be much use for concealment. One larger copse looked promising though. They trotted towards it with Fleat gliding behind them in the form of an owl.
Under the copse of trees they found a bit of shelter, some dry leaves, and also some jutted pieces of old stone. These turned out to be weathered bits of a wall or building. There were carvings all over the grey stone: old whorls and ancient twisting knots. Farther away, there were more stones, some of them still vaguely in the shape of walls. And over these climbed vines with flowers now, a living tangled, mirror of the stone-carved twists and patterns.
The air under the trees was heady, faintly sweet and oddly silent. The songbirds seemed to have given up their voices at the edge of the field of ruins. Dapplegrim paused and sniffed the flowers, but he only whisked his tail and moved on deeper in among the tumbled ruins. “These are old ruins of the Fane. They used to live this far east, but their folk withdrew to the Mossforest and the Deepwode Glaelds long ago: before even the most recent of the wars.”
“And in the hills west of the woods too,” said Caewen, almost teasingly. “Remember?”
“I remember.” He snuffed again, deeply. “Hurm The Fane put spells in all that they build, and these rocks might have a little magic of protection in them still. We might be safe here, for a time.”
“Frankly, it’s as good as anywhere,” said Caewen. She slipped out the saddle, and stretched, then yawned. “And the trees afford some protection in any case. The woodland is larger than it looked.” She glanced around. “From the outside.”
“It is,” agreed Dapple.
Fleat had meantime changed out of his owl-shape and was busily rummaging through the saddle-bags looking for his clothing. A heap of feathers lay at his feet, and drifted around in the faint stirrings of the air.
Near the midst of the ruins they found a very ancient tree of a sort that the boy had never seen before. It sported heavy thick spreading branches, so that it looked something like an oak except that it’s leaves with a deep rich purple. Around the tree was a broken court of stone flags fringe-bordered by tufty weeds.
“This will do,” said Caewen. “I have to sleep. I’m not sure I will be able to go on much longer.”
While the boy set up camp, Fleat flopped onto the hard cold stone and slept. After all, he had been flying all night. As soon as he was unsaddled, Dapplegrim left them for a bit, wandering away into the trees. He did not explain why, though presumably he intended to look for anything that might be dangerous and convince such things that they ought not try their luck. Caewen, despite her exhausted state, seemed to be more curious about the tree. She walked around it. She trailed her fingertips on the bark. She stopped at a place where there was a muddy pool of water grasped between two great and twisted roots that plunged into the shattered courtyard stone.
There she crouched down, and stared into the dark water. Then she groped about and picked up some big nuts from the leaf litter. They must have come from the tree. She studied them carefully. They were something like acorns, but black and shiny.
Not paying attention to her, the boy distantly heard her say something to herself very low, very quiet and then, louder: “These have power in them.”
“What?” said the boy looking up from where he had been shaking out bedrolls.
She threw one of the nuts into the muddy pool. “One for the men of the prince.” The nut made a plop as it vanished into the sediment-thick water. “One for the beasts that are boggarts.” Plop. Another nut went in. Only then did the boy realise she was casting another spell. “One for the warths that are dead.” Plop.
“No!” yelled the boy. She was too weak. Hadn’t Dapplegrim said over and over that another act of charm-working might outright kill her?
She looked straight at him and the expression on her face was distant, pale and very nearly unearthly. “They cannot find us now. Not for a while at least. Don’t worry.” She was trembling. “I mostly was able to use power from the tree. Not my own blood and life. They will be lost in murk. The men of the prince. The boggarts. The dead women.” She waved a hand towards the muddy pool. “Like nuts in murky water.” And then she collapsed.