She stopped and glanced around, working her lungs to catch some breath back.
“What are you doing,” hissed Fetch.
“Their hunting beasts will be running this path in moments. Whisper me another spell. There are banks here, with steep sides. Can we set a trap?” The track was somewhat sunken here, with earth cuttings on either side. Ferns and grasses grew over the walls of soil, and small star-shaped flowers dotted the dark rank growth.
“Spiderwebs and shadows,” hissed the Fetch, and he spat more of his strange little sounds: chittering noises and soft scurryings and the sounds of a fly struggling desperately, entangled. But somehow, instead of these spidery sounds, what Caewen heard were spidery words.
She listened, and she understood. Caewen reached out and took hold of some darkness between her thumb and forefinger. It felt cool, and slightly slippery, like good quality velvet. It made so much sense to her now. She even wondered how she had never noticed that it was so easy to just pull at a thread of shadow and loosen the whole patch of darkness. Then she drew out that strand and soon had it fastened across the path. Again and again, she pulled shadow-gossamers and twisted them, and strung them, making a netlike pattern of dark chords. Each of the darkness-threads was as sturdy and hard as a steel cable, but glistened with a tarry stickiness.
“Enough,” said the Fetch. “If that doesn’t snarl a pursuer, no other art or charm will save us. Tsssch.”
Her shoulders slackened. She exhaled a long hard breath out of her chest, pushing hot fog into the cool air. Her ribs twinged at the strain. “Yes. Enough.” The burning in her legs and a quick-growing stitch in her side stopped her from leaping into another sprint, but she pushed herself to move, jogging as quickly as she could manage.
As Caewen moved up onto the next rise in the path, a hunting boggart came snarling along the path behind her. It was moving on all fours, like a wolf. There was a slick reflected light of wetness on its muzzle where hard white teeth shone. It’s eyes gleamed a deep and rotten red. But, even as it spotted her outline against the sky, and flung itself forward, the beast crashed into the spiderweb of shadows. It thrashed about and screamed in outrage. It was caught. A moment later, another of the creatures arrived and sprung straight into the same trap.
Caewen did not linger to evaluate how well her spell held them. She turned and stumbled away, pushing her legs, fighting the pain, crashing through leaves and snapping branches, until she burst out onto a moonlit hillside. Above her, the ground rose ever onward and northward, all thickly carpeted in grey-silver grass. But upon the next ridge stood a jumble of huge boulders. it looked as promising a place to hide as anywhere else. Beyond those leaning stones were the lightless and jagged ridges of mountains. Fetch had brought her even farther north than she’d realised. She cursed him under her breath, and swore she would have the truth of it out of him as soon as there was a chance to stop and question the little shadow-thing.
This was not an accident.
This could not be some chance detour.
He was leading her somewhere.
Her suspicions grew more solid as she passed a line of old standing stones, weathered and tilted at crazed angles. The stones were of a dark charcoal hue, shot here and there with little rivulets of a more silvery vein. She had been running so hard that her whole body was steaming in the cold air now. In any other moment, she’d have stopped and wondered at the meaning of the stones.
But cries and hollers behind her prodded her aching body sharply forward.
Where before, there had been barely a fickle track in the grass, suddenly a wide, evenly bricked path opened up before Caewen’s feet. She had the sudden impression of having arrived–quite unexpectedly–at someone’s house, though there was not a hovel or cottage in sight. The path went boldly uphill, right towards the big pile of stones. A little farther on, several more standing stones marked the earth: these appeared to have been carved of a very dark, very slick stone. Jet, perhaps? Or onyx? Carvings of weirdly fluid creatures twisted all over the surface of the stone faces. Every time Caewen turned her head, she had the distinct impression that she saw the creatures writhe and squirm out of the corner of her eye, but as soon as she looked back again, all was still. She experienced an overwhelming urge to just turn around and walk away.
She looked back downhill, desperately trying to think of some other way out of the situation. No other option presented itself. And the howls and yells were rising up in renewed anger, closer and closer. The pursuers were catching up. They would be upon her soon.
“Fetch,” she snarl-hissed under her breath. “If I survive this night, I will make a hat out of your pelt.”
“Tsssch. Don’t speak too hasty. Run on, Caewen, my blood of my heart’s warmth, my life and my breath. Run on. You will see. And maybe thank me later. Tsk.”
“Somehow, I doubt it.” But she had no choice. She pressed on, dodging around the unpleasant dolmens where she had to, and avoiding them entirely where she could. Looking up, she was startled to see an inviting orange glow coming from what appeared to be a window in the side of one massive expanse of stone. The boulders were leaning in such a way that they created a hollow within themselves. It struck her that they looked like a group of conspirators, crouched together and touching their heads to whisper. A few more steps and now she could see that various gaps between boulders had been walled up with bright red bricks, and more than one of these walls sported a pleasant window. Under the windows and around the feet of the boulders grew gardens full of flowers that were mostly of a velvety black colour, but with small bright yellow centres. Following the path, Caewen came to a door. It was tall, strong and painted a friendly blue.
She was considering knocking when a voice called to her.
“Come in, lass. Come in. No point in getting eaten by boggarts on a fine night like this.”
As the voice spoke, Caewen realised with a start–she recognised the speaker.