What fools would leave a grove of magic skulls intact? That Athairdrost would likely have known if the ropes were cut was momentarily forgotten in the boy’s mind. He was angry.
He stood, fuming in the unpleasant glade, listening to the hollow slap and clatter of the skulls. He looked at them.
It took him a strange twisting little run of thoughts before he started to wonder why he was so angry. Yes, he was invested in going along with Caewen and the others. And yes, Athairdrost was clearly a miserable piece of work. But the boy still felt irrationally and overpoweringly angry.
A few dim, bobbing reflections in his mind brought him back to his mother.
She probably wouldn’t have been much older than the dead woman in the hard wool blanket.
When she was taken away to Sorthe.
He knew rationally that she probably ended up working on some farm, or in a lord’s house. But his mind had made the jump, and now it was there, worming away in his thoughts.
He started to hate Athairdrost.
Where before, he had merely disliked the Princes of Sorthe, and missed his mother, and blamed his father–now, there was something of a new, curdling sense of blame. Whoever had bought her a slave was just as much responsible as his father ever had been. Maybe more so.
He dropped down on his rump, and sat silently and morosely in the cold, wet grass and leaves. After a short span horse and woman arrived: Caewen riding with her sword flashing in her hand and her eyes full of the flush of magic and rage. “Where is he? Where is he? I’ll murder him and conjure his ghost back so I can murder him again.”
“That way.” The boy waved a hand in the general direction that the prince had ridden. “Fleat has gone to follow, but the prince was riding some manner of charmed beast. He’s long gone.”
“You don’t think we can we catch him?” said Caewen.
“We can try,” suggested the boy, without much hope. “He went off blisteringly quick.”
Dapplegrim narrowed his eyes, sniffing with big, round nostrils. He snorted. “There’s no scent of him nearby. And the smell of Fleat is rapidly diminishing too. Athairdrost has gotten himself too much of a start on us. Whatever he’s riding smells of ghosts and shadows.” His smiled and his ivory teeth shone. “But we can track him easily enough. That ghost-wrought foulness he’s riding is churning the earth badly. There’s upturned earth all the way out of the woods.”
Caewen fumed. She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. Finally, she said “He will be holding court at the Blade Henge soon. We will find him there. Unless he cancels his court? Might he do that?”
Dapplegrim shook his maned head. “No. It would be too much of a dishonour. An admission of weakness that the other princes would seize upon. He cannot show weakness in front of his lords, his court or anyone else. He must hold his court. He must receive all-comers. Challenges must be met. It is simply the way of the Sortheland-folk. Hurm. Unless he wants to invite daggers into his bedroom.”
Caewen slipped down from Dapplegrim’s back. She sheathed her sword and half-fell, half-sat down beside the boy.
He looked at her. “I presume you figured out that he made an illusion for you to fight?”
She nodded.
After a moment of thought, she said “You know, we’ve another problem. Find him at his court, and then do what? He’ll be surrounded by soldiers and knights. What can we do? March up to him in the midst of his soldiers, witch-priests and warlocks and ask nicely that he hand over a broken bit of an Old Great Spell? Or should I issue him a challenge? A duel? Do you think that might work, Dapple?” Her tone was dripping with ill-humour, but the self-mockery trailed off a bit at the end. “Actually, you know–“
Dapplegrim flicked one ear. “He would be holding court with all his kinsmen, and courtly taggers-on, and everyone. It would be difficult for him to decline a challenge and save face. Dangerous, even. Sorthe princes cannot show–“
“Weakness, yes. I know, Dapple.” She meditated on this thought. “You know,” said Caewen, “I think I might see a way this whole mess might yet be salvaged. A challenge: yes. But we’d need some sort of fallback. In case I don’t win. In case–” She cleared her throat. “Well, just in case.”
“What were you thinking?” said Dapplegrim.
Caewen looked over at the boy. She said nothing, but her look communicated well enough that she was thinking of involving him in this somehow. “There’s the remnants of a death-spell here. It looks and feels like some manner of fey-stroke. Did he try to work a spell on you?”
The boy nodded.
“And, clearly, it did not have its intended effect.”
The boy nodded again.
“Good,” said Caewen. “I do believe a plan is formulating in my mind.”