By the time they reached the edge of the woods, a grey dawn was in the air and the sun was a red promise on the eastern sky. Skirting along the southern scrubs and stands of trees, they spied a thin thread of water in the distance, marked out like a band of beaten silver in the new morning light. This was the only stream running out of the southern fringes of the woods. The land on either side of the rivulet was a boggy stretch of marsh. It matched the description that the boy held dimly and mysteriously in his head.
“This is it,” he said. “We follow this north, into the woods. And we will find a pool where there are carved rocks. Athairdrost will be there.” He furrowed his brow in thought, digging through half-memories. “If not now, then soon.”
“I still wonder how you know this?” said Caewen. “I don’t think you would lead us astray intentionally, but I wonder if some spell or witchcraft is not toying with you? And if it were, how would we even know?”
“Hurm. Well, like you said, why free us from a trap to drop us in a trap?” Dapplegrim twitched one ear. “I’m willing to believe that we might have unknown allies. The Princes of Sorthe are a pack of bastards, truth be told. They have enemies. Hur. Hurm.”
After a moment’s pause, the boy answered too. “I’ve been thinking about it a bit. There’s just so many jumbled bits and fragments of things. But I think there were armed men. And I think they were in a different uniform to the dead men in the inn. Maybe we did get caught up in some in-fighting? Or back-stabbing? Does that make sense?”
“As much sense as anything else,” Caewen said, thoughtful. “Though it is still a mystery. And I do not like mysteries. I’m like a cat with a ball of yarn, I suppose. I have to unravel it.” She showed him a smile, small but warm. “And I do not like being put into a geas-stupor, only to wake up surrounded by dead soldiers and blood. I’d like to find out what happened, eventually.”
“Weird things happen,” said Fleat, with his own little shrug and smile. “Might be we never do know why anything is exactly so, or exactly not so. Sure, it’s an unpleasant way to wake–in the midst of dead men–but maybe it was better than waking up among the same men living, if you catch me thinking. All considered.”
Caewen laughed softly. “That, it may have been. Alright, shall we strike a path? We need to skirt this awful bog, but it looks like there’s a way into the woods.”
They edged along the wetland, and did indeed find something like a path. It was impossible to know if it were worn by human feet, or was rather some animal trail, trampled by deer and pigs. Either way, it soon joined the stream, and ran alongside it, forming into a twisting woodland pathway. The four of them were soon wading deep in the shadows of the forest canopy. Caewen paused. She held a hand up. They all stopped. Her and Dapplegrim gave one another quick looks. “You hear that?” she said, quietly.
He nodded.
Somewhere ahead of them seemed to be a stir and faintness of hollow, tapping, clattering, clunking noises. It sounded like strange wind-chimes. Soon enough, they could all hear it quite clearly. Dapplegrim was the first to find the noise uncomfortable. “I don’t like it,” he said. “The air smells like dead things, and the noises sound dead too. It feels prickly. Like some sort of nasty, tricksy magic.”
After a few more minutes of carefully advancing along the trail, they they came to a closely leafed-in glade. This hollow was the origin of the clattering noises. All though the space hung frayed, hairy old ropes, dangling tightly from the tree branches. Tied to each rope was a horse’s skull. Most of the skulls were close enough to touch when the wind roused through the glen. This is what was causes the clatter and knocking sounds.
“Well, this is unpleasant,” said Dapplegrim. “Hurm.”
The boy felt the same crawling sense of nastiness that Dapplegrim had been describing. The air had a wrongness here. He shifted where he stood, and said, “We should cut them down.”
“And burn this place,” added Fleat.
“I don’t think so,” said Caewen. She looked as if she were fighting hard not to squirm and flinch. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t want to set a big bonfire here, but whoever made these left them for a purpose. They will likely know if the cords are cut and the skulls brought down. That might be the purpose. A warning against the sort of people who would cut down hex-things and witch-ornaments. Best to leave strange magics sleeping.”
The boy wasn’t so sure. “Are they asleep?”
It was Dapplegrim who answered. After a good moment of consideration, he said, “Yes. Whatever is curdling the air in this glen is not awake. And not aware of us, not yet anyway. Caewen is right. It would be better not to draw the attention of these necromancies.”
“I’m still for burning the whole lot down,” said Fleat. “If it were up to me I’d cut all these ropes and burn it all. The very air feels awful. I can’t think this place will come back to do us any good.”
But it was not up to Fleat alone. They discussed it, voted and the decision was made to leave the skulls hanging on their cords and keep going on their way quietly. Fleat grumbled about the choice, but followed the others silently enough as they left the glade.