Fleat returned after about a half-hour.
“What news?” said Caewen getting up and stretching her arms.
As soon as he was done shedding his fathers, he said, “There is a way through the mountains. It’s overgrown, but I think there’s a road under the ivy and tangles. It looks disused. I saw no signs of watch-towers or encampments.”
“A covering of leaves might be to our advantage,” said Dapplegrim. “And leaves on the ground tell a story too. Soldiers trample roads. If the Sorthelanders are walking along tracks, those tracks will be muddy paths. Could be young Fleat has found us a forgotten pass north? If we are lucky we might find nothing by wild beasts.”
“Wild beasts can be dangerous,” said Caewen, “and boggarts can pad about without damaging so much as a frond of moss, when they want to. They can be careful hunters. But yes, wild boggarts, or bears and wolves are still a long way better than a troop of Sorthelander knights.”
While Caewen and Dapplegrim discussed their options, Fleat pulled his clothing back on, and declared himself ready to travel. He led the way, and was soon a good ten or twenty paces ahead of the others. The boy took the opportunity to run and catch up.
“Fleat?”
“Yes?”
“Can I tell you something?”
The owl-child nodded.
The boy considered how to start. It didn’t seem like much, and yet it also seemed important somehow. “I saw the shadow get into a fight in the woods. With another little spirit,” he added. “It was like something… secret? Like I shouldn’t talk about it with the others, but I don’t know.”
“Tell me,” said Fleat, curious.
The boy kept his voice low and casual. He didn’t know how sharp the shadow-thing’s hearing was, and at the same time, he did know that Dapplegrim could hear a twig drop into wet grass at a hundred paces. He related the fight at the edge of the woods as best he could remember. “Do you think I should tell Dapple and Caewen about it?”
“Seems like you should. Why wouldn’t you?”
He kicked at the ground “I think I’m worried about the fetch. Something in me tells me I saw something private. I don’t know.”
“Well, I do think you should be telling the lady Caewen, yes.” A momentary shrug of thin shoulders. “Just speak yourself to her when you’re sure the shadow-demon is elsewhere.”
The boy felt unconvinced, but he nodded all the same.
They continued uphill, over ridges of thick grass, until the standing stones of the meadow were but grey shards below them, stark against the fields of green. There were fewer trees now, and those that grew were miserable and stunted. Soon even these small sapless things vanished, and the ground turned rocky and weedy. Unfortunately, the weed that dominated was the thistle, and it soon seemed as if the largest and most noisome thistles in the world grew on their path. After prickling his hands and ankles again and again, he began kicking the thick stalks over, breaking them so that the fibrous green tissue oozed plant juices.
“Don’t,” said Caewen.
“Why?” The boy was annoyed by the pain on his fingers and flanks, and anywhere else a long, thin spine could stab him.
“Because you’re leaving a trail as bold as day,” said Caewen.
“She’s right,” added Fleat. “Shouldn’t kick them over.”
Dapplegrim said nothing but stared at him, as if slightly bored and slightly disapproving.
“Well, if I shouldn’t kick them over, we shouldn’t be walking a road of thistles. Will it be like thing along the whole of the pass?”
“Maybe,” said Fleat. “I didn’t look very closely at the species of the weeds–I’m sorry–it’s not in my habit. I would usually fly over all this, barely blinking.” He sounded irritated too. He frowned. “The prickles don’t half-hurt, do they?”
“Hmf,” said the boy. He gingerly pressed his way around a spray of leaves, purple flowers and spines. “Stupid thistles.”
The old path wound higher. They passed overgrown pillars and, once, a broken statue. It had a similar cast and look to the stonework in the fane tomb where the enchantress slept her endless sleep. When the boy remarked on it, Fleat said, “Yes. All these there lands were Fane once, even up to the top of the mountains and over into the north, before the old wars of the elder days, when the Children of Night Herself came out of the north and laid all to waste, and then fought among themselves. Folks in my village say there are still some fane up here, hiding in valleys, or tiny stone-carven villages, though I’ve never seen them.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose. The cold had turned it red. “And I’ve been flying myself up and down these mountains all my life. Never seen nothing up here but wild creatures and the odd feral boggarty-beast.”
“Speaking of which,” muttered Dapplegrim. He snuffed through his nostrils, sucking in air until they were round and wide. “Do you smell that?”
The others all shook their heads.
“No,” said Caewen.
“I don’t smell anything but dust and thistles,” said the boy.
“Owls don’t smell so well,” said Fleat.
Dapplegrim snorted. “A definite aroma of boggart. Quite far away, but boggart all the same.”