She was somewhat less than comforted to interpret the god's response as indicating that he wasn't sure. Of course, Olgun could always refuse to accept a mortal's worship-but the longer he remained Widdershins's god alone, the more he risked dying if something should happen to her.
Widdershins couldn't repress a surge of white-hot jealousy at the idea, and she was ashamed. Was it fair even to ask that of him? Could she-?
“Shins?” Julien called. “Are you, uh, coming down any time soon?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Widdershins relaxed her legs and let herself slide from the branch. She slapped a quick hand against the trunk to slow her fall, as well as to twist her around feetfirst, and landed in a crouch among the bulges of the tree's roots.
“Thank you,” the major said. “My neck was starting to hurt.”
“You didn't have to keep staring at me up there, you know.”
“Actually, I-”
“I remain less than thrilled,” Igraine interjected, her voice marinating in impatience, “that we're supposed to just wait, now.”
The others nodded, though several scowls suggested that the priestess was not the only one unhappy with this stage of the plan.
“Didn't you just have this conversation?” Julien demanded. “If you've got any idea of how to find Iruoch when he could be anywhere in Davillon, I'd be delighted to hear it. Otherwise-”
“No, I don't have any such idea!” Igraine snapped. “But we're risking an awful lot on the idea that the creature not only senses Widdershins and Brother Ferrand, but that he doesn't suspect it's some sort of trap to begin with!”
“It doesn't matter what he suspects,” the Guardsman said. “You heard Widdershins. She's the only real threat Iruoch's faced since he arrived! If he thinks he feels two people with her power, he has to investigate!”
“I heard what Widdershins said, yes. I'm just not convinced that-”
The sudden flutter of songbirds taking flight was lost in the sudden, “Get down!”
It was Julien who shouted, as a shadow blotted the sun from the sky, a grotesque missile plunged into their midst, but there was little else he could do. By the time he'd even begun to move, Renard Lambert had dived forward, spurred on by expertly trained reflexes borrowed from Evrard. He slammed into Widdershins, knocking her from the path of the falling object-for indeed, it had been she, of everyone in the group, at whom the attack had been aimed.
(That she could probably have gotten herself clear-with Olgun's speed if not her own-was not the point. Julien, though clearly relieved that she was unhurt, was just as clearly horrified that, as he'd anticipated, he'd proved all but helpless in the face of their impossible enemy.)
The rest of the band leapt aside as best they could, seeking cover, shielding their faces and heads against the worst of the shrapnel. The body of the poor horse to which Iruoch had been tied-now limbless and headless-crashed to the earth, where it had been hurled with inhuman strength. On impact, a row of twine stitches poorly sewn into its belly burst open, splaying a handful of viscera-soaked rocks and bricks in all directions. Several voices cried out-Widdershins couldn't tell precisely whose-as some of those revolting projectiles drew blood or bruised flesh. The acrid stench struck nearly as hard, making her lungs burn and her chest ache.
Or maybe some of that ache was Renard laying limp across her ribs.
Widdershins squeezed out from beneath him and rolled to her feet, drawing her blade and searching intently for the source of the attack.
It didn't take her long.
He should have been a little less disturbing, a little less fearsome, viewed in the bright sunlight of midday. Instead, if anything, he was worse. He moved across the cemetery with that hideous, spastic, sideways gait, each stride seeming to take him in a different direction yet always ending up one step nearer his destination. But his shadow…Iruoch's shadow, regardless of which direction he moved, regardless of what position the sun might hold at his back or side, always pointed directly behind him, as though he were literally dragging it along by its heels.
And on occasion, it would reach a single trembling hand across the earth toward any who stared at it for too long, as though pleading with them for help….
As he drew nearer, Widdershins and the others began to hear the ubiquitous phantom chorus that surrounded the creature. They were cooing over the tombstones, making ghostly “oooooh…” noises at each other, punctuated with the occasional shrill giggle.
Renard, Julien, Igraine, and Evrard drew their pistols and fired. The thunderous crack was deafening, the wall of smoke opaque, but it was little more than a gesture of defiance, and well they knew it. Iruoch twitched-an inch this way, an inch that-and if any of the balls struck their target at all, they did so without notable effect.
“Oh, but that was a nifty trick with the horse!” his twin voices called out. “Bravo, bravo! Actually, it was kind of fun! Down the street, past hooves and feet…” His grin grew wide, his cheeks bulging. “But of course, horsey couldn't run forever. And so many nice people gathered around me when he stopped, to see if I was hurt. They were all really…sweet.”
Widdershins felt nauseated.
Another step, and another; with each, Iruoch allowed the tips of his fingers to dangle across the top of this tombstone or that, as though casually drawing a line of profanity across the sacred ground. At the fourth, however, he jerked away with a faint hiss, glaring at the offending marker-but Widdershins could not see any reason why, and the creature's course otherwise remained unchanged. He was now less than ten yards distant, and still none of the group had moved to engage.
“But what is it you've done, silly little girl, with your silly little god? What song are you singing, that came to me across the streets and rooftops and…Oh.” For just a moment he halted his forward pace, head tilted, staring first at Widdershins, then Brother Ferrand, then at Evrard and Renard, and finally at the bishop.
“Really?” The creature sounded genuinely disappointed. “That's all, then? Tricks and strands of simple, mortal magic? Mortal magics I've already seen?” He raised a hand, pointed with one long digit as though he were poking each of them in the chest with every word. “That. Is not. Exciting. To me.”
With that devastating pronouncement, Iruoch actually turned his back on them all and began to walk away. And damn it all if, for the briefest instant, they weren't inclined to let him go.
But only briefly.
It was Evrard, of all of them, to free himself of that peculiar lassitude. “Very well, then,” he announced, freeing his rapier with a dramatic flourish. “Then let us endeavor to make things more interesting.” He broke into a charge, feet crushing the emerald grasses, and Iruoch turned once more to meet him.
The aristocrat held the blade lowered like a lance, his attack surprisingly clumsy and straightforward for one of his supposed skill, and the fae creature easily sidestepped, lashing out with two fingers for the back of Evrard's exposed neck…
But Evrard was no longer there. Even as his awkward charge had carried him adjacent to his opponent, he dived, turning his momentum into a sideways roll across the lawn. His shins caught Iruoch at the ankles and yanked his feet out from under him, sending the gaunt figure sprawling.
Or so it should have done-to anyone human. Iruoch landed not on his back, but on his fingertips. For a single blink they held him upright, stiff as a plank, staring up at the sky. Then they flexed, all eight of those spidery digits, launching him upright once again. Evrard, wary and more than a little stunned, had rolled back to his feet and carefully circled, blade at the ready, just beyond reach.