“Could it be an encamped army?”
Dapplegrim shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. It smells too lived-in, if that makes sense. There’s something nearer too. Over this way.” Dapplegrim strolled off through the thistles, crushing them down to white fibrous stalks under his hooves and seemingly not noticing the finger-length spikes. The others followed in the path he’d made. “Here,” he said at last.
Caewen looked. “Boggart? Smells like boggart.”
Under the thistles they found a heap of dung that stank as bad as dog turds in the hot sun.
“In the cliffs maybe, or thereabouts?” Dapplegrim looked up and down the slopes that loomed over them. “Fleat, are there caves up here?”
“Aye,” said Fleat said. “The mountains are riddled with caves.”
“Oh, that’s good,” said Dapple. “Riddled. Hur. Hurm. What a wonderful description for a mountain.”
“We’ve not much choice though,” mused Caewen. “We must push on. Let’s just keep our eyes open.”
They edged a twisting path back to the main trail, then onward and upward, following the thistle-grown road. They walked slowly and watchfully. It was broad daylight, which to the boy’s knowledge meant that boggarts were unlikely to be abroad at this moment. After all, everyone knew that boggarts were old and true children of the Night Queen, not recent servants fallen into her sway like the men of Sorthe. And that meant boggarts were sun-shy. Just as a person didn’t much feel comfortable in the tar-black darkness of night, boggarts found the sunlight painful, unpleasant, or blinding. But as the group ascending the slope of the mountains, a darkness on the path ahead of them became visible. It was a green shadow lying deeply in the cleft between the mountains, and although it was not possible at first to see exactly what it was, it was clearly a place of thick shadows.
“Did you ever fly this far up?” said Caewen to Fleat. “What is that ahead of us?”
“I’ve flown over it, but from above it just looked like a mess of weeds and ivy. I’ve never paid much attention. No, no.” He quirked his head, the way an owl does. “Looking up at it from below, the greenery looks too tall and too thick for ground-ivy.”
Soon enough their questions were answered. They found big blocks of stone along the edge of the path. Here and there were tumbled battlements, age-old and weathered. At one time there must have been a fortress occupying the pass. It was long since ruined, and appeared to be, more or less, overgrown from foundation to spire with ivy. Every small gap or entry they passed seemed like a maze-place of green shadows. Soon enough there were green-gloomed and dim-lit tracks tracing off left and right, and straight ahead, splitting and breaking. The leaves hung so low that they would touch Dapplegrim’s ears if he walked into one of the gaps. He twisted his neck around and looked at everyone else. “This place stinks like a boggart-den. We should go around, or find another way.” He nodded. “Up to the right doesn’t smell so bad. Does that way lead anywhere?”
Fleat was uncertain. He thought that there were several ways across the mountains, and there might be another, safer path nearby, but he was unsure. He looked confused and worried as he glanced back and forth, flicking his gaze from the ivy-tunnels ahead, to a relatively open path that crept off eastward.
“We can’t go back, or find a way around unless there is some secret way,” said Caewen. “The cliffs on either side are sheer. Unless Fleat can carry us one-by-one, we cannot fly over it.” She tilted her head. “I don’t hear anything, and it is still daylight. Bogles and boggart-creatures will be asleep for a few hours yet. If we go quickly and silently, we should pass through unnoticed.”
“Should,” snorted Dapplegrim. “Harrumph. Should. It’s dark in there. Dark enough for a boggart or twelve or a hundred to be creeping around.”
“I don’t see anything else for it,” said Fleat. “I’m sorry. I would have taken us another path if I’d realised this a-one lead into such a tangle. But I don’ts see no-a-way in which we can go about. Not in any easy way. We either go straight in, or we try the clearer path to the east. Straight ahead seems more likely to lead to a way through. I could fly about a bit?”
Caewen shook her head. “I don’t think we’ve time. We need to make a decision quickly. The longer we linger in the open, the greater the chance that some spy will notice us.” She turned to the boy. “Child, what do you think?”
“He still wasn’t used to being asked his opinion on things. He stared dumbly for a moment, and blinked a couple times before he said, “Well, I’m terribly afraid to go in there, but we’ve been through a lot of worse places I think. I’m not likely to be much good in a fight, though all of you are, and I reckon any boggart that shows its beady eyes will get more than it bargained for. I vote we go forward, quickly and quietly.”
“No one has asked my thoughts,” piped up another voice. “Tsk, tssach, tsk.”
“That’s because your thoughts aren’t much worth asking after,” answered Dapplegrim, with a roll of his eyes.
The shadow-thing snarled. “That would be your opinion would it, oh great and clever beast that you are?”
“Now, you look here: I’ll have a–“
“No, Dapplegrim.” Caewen put a hand up and laid it gently on his nose, between the big flaring nostrils. “We should hear everyone out. Everyone has a right to speak.”
“Tsch. Tssch. Tsch. You want my advice? Burn it? Wood and leaf burn. Set fire to it and scorch all the lurkling, lurkling things within. Use your magic to conjure great black flames of shadow and send them up the mountains, mistress o’ my mistress. Burn it all to ashes.”
“And the smoke would be visible from Baght to Brae you stupid creature,” snapped Dapplegrim with a huff. “If we wanted the advice of fools, we could ask the rocks and the birds for better.”
“Quiet,” said Caewen. “Both of you. I will not have you bickering. My shadow,” she said, “I appreciate the suggestion, but Dapplegrim is right. We have already come too close to being seen, over and again. We cannot risk huge palls of smoke. And Dapplergrim: don’t you look so proud of yourself. You haven’t made a suggestion other than, go back, or go around, neither of which may be practical.” She considered her thoughts and said, decisively, “We’ll only go into the ivy-tunnels if we have to. We cannot take the time to go back, but we do have time to explore a different path. Perhaps it will lead to an easier pass to take?”
“It certainly smells less of boggart,” said Dapplegrim, as he turned towards the eastward trail.
“Yes,” said Caewen, “and that doesn’t bother you? Why is there no boggart smell on this path? Still, this is our path. For now. If it leads to nothing, then we will come back and try the ivy tangles.”
With that, they embarked on the eastward trail, climbing swiftly and curving back and forth along a flank of cliffside. Very soon it was obvious that this path left the boggart-den behind and went by a quite different route. Where to exactly, they were as yet unsure.