He saw the hard expression of her face, the cold angry look in her eyes. She was staring fixedly at Athairdrost, and there was perhaps even a gleam of enjoyment in her eyes. He shifted uncomfortably, without saying anything.
Eventually, it was Dapplegrim who interrupted her. “Caewen.”
She looked at him.
“The knights aren’t going to stand there twiddling their swords all day. You just killed their liege lord. They are obliged to seek justice.”
“You can outrun them. We don’t need a head start. I want to watch–“
“Hurm. Maybe the horses yes, but Sorthelanders ride their winged draig-creatures too. Those are swift and furious. I can’t outrun a thing that flies as quick at that.
He pranced around in a circle, so that he blocked her view and was able to look her in the eyes.
“Caewen,” Dapple said.
“The spell,” she said, tonelessly.
“Call for it then. Hurm.”
She nodded. “Ladies of gossamer and death: if you would bring me that which I asked for?”
One of the White Warths broke away from the mass of ghostly movement and shrieking, and approached them, gliding and eerie. She was carrying something small, yellowed and cracked. As she neared, the boy could see it was a piece of bone, or maybe horn, with tiny incised symbols all over it. The lines were blackened, much as if someone had rubbed charcoal into them long ago.
When the white ghost reached them, she extended her hand and let go of the broken piece of horn. Caewen already had her own hand extended, and caught the fragment just as softly as someone catching a feather. She tucked it into one of her pouches, not even looking at it. She then lifted up the ringlet of twisted hair–blonde and black, brown, auburn and red, all interwoven. “By this you are bound to the living earth, The Clay-o-the-Green, and by this, one who has such arts may command and enthral you. By this, I release you.” She shut her eyes tightly and murmured some words that were hard to catch and difficult to remember afterwards.
When the boy’s head cleared from the dizziness of hearing those words spoken, he saw that the ringlet was on fire. The rank smell of burning hair filled his nostrils and he recoiled from it instinctively.
His eyes stung a little as the smoke curled.
But then, the flame went out. Only the oily smoke was left, drifting away, up to the heavens. The hair was consumed to ash. The ghost gave out a small sad smile, a slight nod, and then turned to return to the others.
They were not yet done with the prince, it seemed.
“A word of advice from the living to the dead,” said Caewen, calling after the spectre. “So long as you walk the line between sunlight and grave, you will be vulnerable to any necromant or sorcerer who has the skill to put bindings on you. Give up this mortal earth. Give up this half-life and shadow-life. Lay yourself down in the soil, and sleep, and dream, down in the unlit earth. Do as the dead ought. Seek repose. Find peace.”
The ghost looked back at her with those chill evening-blue eyes. But if she understood, it was impossible to tell. Her face was so frozen in the grips of painful anguish that she might have heard everything or nothing.
Caewen shook her head.
She turned away from the ghost and climbed up, into the saddle. “Let’s go,” she whispered. “Leave the dead to walk, or to sleep, or do otherwise as they please. They are spectres of their own will now. No one has power over them.” With a last look over her shoulder, at the gathered mass of white ghosts, she added, “Though hopefully we’ve not erred in this. Hopefully we’ve not unleashed something evil upon the world.”
Dapplegrim snorted. “What? No. We’ve never made any mistakes in anything. Impossible to even imagine”
And they were off, a swift as thistleseed on the wind.
Fleat flew beside them, gliding and silent.
And the ice-hard wind of the north chewed at their faces and sunk teeth into their skin.
And they fled south.