To the right the soil was arid, loose and dry. But to the left, patches of dead leaves stuck to wet mud. Old tracks of animals crisscrossed everywhere, but all eventually headed linearly. There was drinking water off to the left somewhere.
“Come on, girl,” he whispered in a soft, beguiling tone. “I do not wish to harm you.”
His neck prickled. The heavy sensation of eyes boring into his skull made him whip his head up to gaze at the trees surrounding him like macabre sentinels.
Aeric might not come into these woods often, but he knew them well. It was his business to know Kingdom. To understand the inherent danger in the seemingly benign. The flowers, grass, stones, even the trees themselves could come alive and attack, whether in defense or simply because of hunger.
The key to surviving in a place like this for long was in keeping focused and sharp.
“Chrysalis,” he continued to call her name, knowing she was close. Feeling the ever growing weight of her eyes press in upon him.
Keeping his head on a swivel he followed the trail of rodents toward the water source, while also making certain to constantly acquaint himself with his surroundings.
A few steps later he heard the gurgle of rushing water. The sky that’d been so bright just seconds ago was now turning gray, black clouds threatened on the horizon. Rumbling his way.
Danika had mentioned to follow the bloody trail, but he’d yet to find one. So either the girl was on the opposite side of Wonderland, or she’d cleaned up her mess (as he likely suspected might be the case). It wasn’t as though she were a mindless beast; she was a cursed human, meaning her intellect was probably not as diminished as some might believe.
The problem he was running into now was that apart from the bugs and rodent trails, there were no other tracks to follow.
A break in the line of bushes showed him the brook. The water was crystal clear and running down a bank of smooth river stones. Chucking his pack, he dropped it beside the gnarled stump of a hollowed out leech tree.
Leech trees were demonic creations. They bore a fa?ade that resembled a mighty oak, but the closer you drew to the tree’s side the more the truth of it was revealed. The fa?ade was just a smoke screen that only wavered into reality once you entered into striking range. The tree was actually made up of thousands of thorny vines wrapped around one another, the moment one came into contact a vine shot out, embedding the thorns into your flesh to keep you immobile so that it could feast on you with minimal struggle to its delicate sappy maw.
Thankfully this one had gone dormant a while ago. Kneeling beside the brook, he scooped water into his hands and drank deeply.
A red licorice bush grew along the bank, it’s deep red color made his stomach gurgle. He hadn’t eaten since he’d left the bar last night. But eating anything that grew in Wonderland was probably foolish at best.
This section of Kingdom was infected with madness, even the food that grew from the soil was tainted, and he was afraid that eating any of it could very likely cause the unwary to go slightly insane themselves. Consuming a single licorice stick wasn’t probably going to make him loony, but he suspected that prolonged exposure might do it. The only thing he allowed himself to consume was the water, and his reasoning was that water moved, it didn’t stay put long enough to become polluted. Of course, none of this was scientific fact, more his own theory, but one he’d stuck to in the past.
Just as he was set to scoop the water up, a voice yanked him back to his feet.
“Ahhh, the Hunter is here. Hurray, now we can all rest easy.”
The courtly voice purred with sarcasm.
Letting the water trickle through his fingers, he looked toward his pack where a fat tabby with impossibly large, pointed teeth sat staring back at him.
“Cheshire,” he dipped his head, “have you seen the girl?”
Fat body wavering between orange and purple and black stripped, the cat grinned, causing his sickle shaped teeth to appear even larger. Purring as he rubbed his body back and forth upon the Huntsman’s pack Cheshire laughed.
“Do be more specific, I’ve seen many girls. One with eyes of blue and hair of shadow, another with hair like freshly turned soil and the greenest, jeweled eyes. Oh,” he chuckled heartily, “and there was another with blue hair and black eyes, she was strange indeed. And then there was the furry one, rather pretty in a fowlish sort of way. Oh and—”
Ask a mad cat a question and get a mad answer. “You know to whom I refer. I’m here only for one, Cheshire.”
“You mean the child with the moon’s mark upon her cheek ridge? Who slaughters any woodland creature idiotic enough to come within a foot of her?”
Withholding a long-suffering sigh, he nodded. “The very one.”