“I . . . I would rather you protected Southlands.”
The Faerie beasts watching whispered together, a rumble of growls and caws and hisses. And they and Eanrin all watched Nidawi to see what she would say in response.
Nidawi studied Foxbrush’s face. Thinking did not come easily to her ever-shifting mind. She was much better at spontaneous feeling and overwhelming emotion. But she liked this mortal, for all his faults, and for his sake she made the effort and thought about his request, however briefly. Then she replied:
“If you destroy my enemy, King of Here and There, I will see to it that no Faerie beasts will enter your kingdom unbidden again. All these you see gathered, they and I will build gates such as you have never before seen. Beautiful gates.”
“Can you do that?” Foxbrush asked, his eyes suddenly lit with hope. “I mean to say, have you built such things before?”
“No. Why would I?” She laughed then, a faint echo of the merry, manic laughter in which she had gloried before the death of the white lion. “But I can do anything I set my mind to! You kill the Parasite, little king. Let me handle my side of the bargain!”
She squeezed his hands then, and Foxbrush shuddered. His face was pale and gray in the growing light of day. “I will give you both my hands, Nidawi,” he whispered. “To seal the bargain.”
“What?” She made a face, sticking out her tongue and wrinkling her exquisite little nose. “What would I want with your hands? I’m not one to collect such gruesome trophies! Keep them, mortal. Use them well and kill my enemy!”
“But . . . but the story. I’ve read the story. I’m to give you my hands to save—”
“I don’t want them.” Nidawi dropped her hold on him and stepped away, older and fiercer than she had been a moment before. “I want Cren Cru dead!”
“Dead! Dead! Dead!” said all the Faerie beasts together.
“Lead us, king!” cried Nidawi. “Lead us to our vengeance! Lead us to our victory!”
And all the immortals raised their voices in such a shout that those in the village heard and fled to their homes in terror at the sound. The orchard itself shook with the thunder of it, and even Eanrin, caught up as he was in his anger and disappointment, found his heart beginning to race, thrilling at the power of those eager voices pledging faith and fight to this one humble mortal.
But Foxbrush, when the noise at last subsided, responded quietly, “Um. Can someone please point the way?”
11
FELIX HAD KNOWN a number of interesting experiences in his young life. He had survived more than one dragon attack (a feat few could boast); his body had been taken over by a goblin enchanter while he suffered under the influence of dragon poison; he had lost his mind and many times nearly lost his life, only to be healed at the last. He had held the sword of swords, the mighty Halisa, in his own two hands and with it brought low the Bane of Corrilond herself (though, granted, he hadn’t known it was the Bane of Corrilond at the time . . . or Halisa either, for that matter).
All this to say, Felix was a lad with adventures aplenty under his belt. But that did not make this current adventure any more palatable.
For one thing, it didn’t seem sporting to hide behind a door while the baroness summoned one of her guards inside, then to hit the guard on the back of the head with a decorative urn the moment the door shut behind him.
The guard fell like a toppled oak and lay inert amid shards of urn.
A knock at the door, and the pretty lady-in-waiting called from without, “Is everything all right, my lady?”
The baroness stepped swiftly forward and used her voluminous skirts to hide the fallen guard just as the door opened and the lady peered in. Felix, holding bits of broken pottery in his good hand, his sprained wrist pressed to his chest, ducked out of sight. The baroness said lightly, “Oh, everything is fine, Dovetree, my pet! I dropped an urn, that is all.”
“Over Sergeant Fleet-Arrow’s head?” asked Lady Dovetree, who was no fool. She looked pointedly at the booted feet sticking out from under the baroness’s skirts.
“How clumsy of me, yes?” said the baroness with a laugh. “Now do run along, dear, and let no one disturb us.”
Lady Dovetree raised an eyebrow but curtsied and departed, shutting the door with a firm click. Felix sprang out of hiding and turned the key in the lock. He then remembered how to breathe and stood gasping, pressing a piece of pottery to his heaving chest.
The baroness began undoing the buckles on the unfortunate Fleet-Arrow’s boots. “Come help me, lovey,” she said with a smile at Felix that was simultaneously winsome and commanding, a formidable combination. “You look as though you’ve seen a fright! Have you never hit a man before?”