More delicate chiming, and to escape my wiggling finger, it floated again into the air. Chuckling to myself, I once more rested my head against my folded up arms, and scooted closer to Albus for warmth of my own. I couldn’t continue my search for the princess tonight. I was too tired, and with those men out there it was too risky to leave the glacial caverns until morning.
I’d been lying there for a minute before the Will-o’-the-wisp decided to wedge itself between the crook of my arm and my neck. What with the ice on every side of me except for where Albus was, I couldn’t complain about the additional warmth of the affectionate blue orb. So I made sure to pull my hood over to the side to cover up its glow, just in case the men went by again, and then I fell asleep.
Chapter 2
I woke the next morning to a cold wetness on my face. It wasn’t the first time Albus had licked me awake. “Stop it,” I mumbled with my eyes closed, raising a hand to push him away, but his head wasn’t there. I started to roll over to investigate, but I rolled onto something warm, and that let out a pained squeak. Then I tried to push myself up off the warm squeaky thing, and ended up bumping my head on the icy ceiling above me. “By the gods,” I groaned, wiggling myself out of the crevice.
Albus scooted out after me, and right after him, that little blue glow. That’s what had made that sound, and after I rubbed out the spot on my head, I bent over to pick up the energy. “I’m sorry, Little Will-o’. Did I hurt you?”
It lifted itself into the air, moving side to side. “Good.” I smiled, dropping my arm to let it hover before me. “Thanks for keeping me warm. You should be safe now, I think the men are gone.”
Pulling my hood back over my head, I started for the entrance of the cavern with Albus at my heels. It wasn’t until I could see daylight clearly that I realized our new friend was following too. “Don’t you have a home to go to?” I asked the blue glow. “Or a treasure to guard?” It answered in the negative. “Well,” I mused, “I’m looking for someone, if you’d like to help.”
When the wisp gave me that up and down nod, I started up the hill. At the top of it, I put my thumb and index finger into my mouth and let out a loud, shrill whistle. I did it again after a few seconds, and I could hear the faint thud of Brande’s hooves in the snow. One more hoot was all it took for the horse to find me.
“Hey, old boy.” I greeted him with a pat on the neck, and checked him over to make sure he’d survived the night just fine. While I did, I heard a happy hum, and when I looked up, my new friend was nuzzled into a perplexed falcon’s breast feathers. “You like birds, Little Will-o’?” I laughed. The wisp must have been embarrassed, because it retreated immediately. “That there’s Maddox,” I told it, so it wouldn’t think I was upset about it disturbing the bird. “She belongs to the princess. That’s who I’m looking for.” Will-o’ made a noise that sounded like shocked curiosity. “Last night Albus and I tracked her to a witch’s cabin. We lost her, but I have it on good authority that she’s heading south.”
The blue glow fell to the snow. It worried me for a moment before it started rolling around, and I realized it was drawing letters. I was impressed that it could write, but disappointed that it wasn’t helpful. “I’m sorry, tiny friend.” I strode over and scooped it off the ground while my cheeks tinted. I don’t know why I was embarrassed to admit this to a ghost. “I can’t read.” Then, thinking it was trying to tell me something informative, I asked, “Have you seen someone that looked like a princess?” Will-o’ shook side to side. “You sure? She’s very beautiful. With brown hair, and sparkly blue eyes.” And I pulled up a sleeve of my tunic and coat, “Darker than me, too.” Again, a negative shake. “That’s all right. We’ll find her.”
Before continuing our search for the princess, it was important we had a proper breakfast. I didn’t have time to set traps, hunting could take hours, and I wanted to save the dried food I’d brought for an emergency. While I considered my options, my eyes wandered to Maddox, and I grinned.
“What would the princess say,” I began to ask the bird while I unwrapped its leash from the saddle horn, “to get you to bring her a rabbit?” At the word ‘rabbit,’ the bird’s head twitched, as though it recognized the sound. “Is that it?” I asked with a chuckle. With the bird in my hand, I threw it into the air, shouting as it took off in flight, “Rabbit!”
I watched Maddox soar beyond the tops of the trees. In the clear blue sky, she circled, round and round for minutes. Soon enough, she tucked her wings into her sides, and with her beak pointed toward the ground, she dove. I watched the sky for a couple minutes more, but the bird didn’t appear.
“You think she’d keep it for herself?” I asked Albus, and began a search for any dry wood.
It took a while before I’d gathered enough and put it in a pile, and then I pulled out my flint rock to start a fire. I had it blazing by the time I looked up again, and Maddox was in the sky, once more soaring in circles. I huddled near the flame, Albus and the wisp at my side. We sat like that for a little while longer before something hit Brande’s saddle, and there was Maddox, a brilliantly fat rabbit clutched in her talons.
“You queen of a bird!” I praised, standing to retrieve the hare. “You see that, Albus?” I asked the dog, and mumbled ‘thank you for your sacrifice, may your spirit rest within me’ before I began to skin my meal. “If you could do that with deer, then we’d be dining fat every night.” I made sure to reward Maddox with some of the meat before I cooked it. “And half for you, you spoiled hound,” I said, tossing half of the rest to Albus. “I imagine you’ve been grazing on plants all night,” I said to Brande while I stuck my portion of meat on a stick to roast in the fire. “With that gut, I reckon you never have problems finding food.”
At my last comment, the blue glow made that chiming laughter sound, and I couldn’t help but giggle at myself. “Do I talk too much, Little Will-o’?” The wisp had been hovering near the flames, and, worried it might be freezing, I motioned it over and then set it in my lap, where it would keep us both warm. “It gets lonely while I’m always out hunting,” I admitted. “Albus and Brande make decent company. They don’t argue with me.” When I said that, Brande huffed, causing me to chuckle. “Well, Brande’s got a bit of an attitude, but between you and me,” and I leaned closer to my new friend like I was relaying a secret, “he’s not the favorite anyway.”
My tiny friend was amused, and after laughing a little myself, I stayed silent to eat my breakfast. Talking as much as I did was normal, but Albus and Brande never completely knew what I was saying. Even though my wisp couldn’t speak, it was nice that it could understand me, and its tolling giggles and melodic hums were enough by way of response.
Once I was done eating, I put out the fire and mounted Brande, ready to begin the next day’s worth of searching. Maddox couldn’t stay perched on the saddle horn while I was riding, so I moved her to my shoulder with the hopes that she wouldn’t take to nipping at my ears. Just in case, I kept my hood up. Little Will-o’ floated along at my side, while Albus did his usual thing trotting along around us.
The princess’s scent had ended at the clothing she’d left behind. It wasn’t normal, and it didn’t make any sense, but it was the way things were. Without being able to track her by scent, I had to try and think. There was no way she could survive in the woods without weapons or Maddox, and she wouldn’t last in the cold without her clothing. The only thing that did make sense was that she’d started toward one of the forest villages in an attempt to find food and shelter. She wouldn’t have a difficult time of keeping her identity hidden. I’d lived nearer the castle than the foresters my entire life, and I’d never known what she looked like until yesterday.