“Hmm…” mused Feuille. And then she chanted:
For should you take a few with you,
Most Fear would likely slay.
Instead ride with the howling one
To aid you on the way.
Feuille frowned in puzzlement. “What does that mean?”
“I think I’ll not know until I meet the so-called howling one,” said Liaze.
“Well, I propose that I wing ahead and find the next Sprite who watched the flight of the crows, and then that one can fly onward to the next and so on, and altogether, we Sprites can, um…” Feuille cast about for the right word.
“Hand me from Sprite to Sprite along the line,” suggested Liaze. “I believe it is called a relay.”
“Ah, yes,” said Feuille, “a relay. And that is exactly what we’ll do: pass you from wing to wing to keep you on the course of the witch’s messenger.”
“Let us hope such a plan will keep you and the others out of Fear’s way,” said Liaze.
“I am not certain that Fear would do any of us in,” said the Sprite. “Nevertheless, we will not go against Lady Wyrd’s rede.”
Feuille took to wing and hovered a moment in the air and said, “As you ride on, I will go ahead and locate the next Sprite who watched the crows over these past few days. Then we will find you farther along, Princess, and there I’ll hand you off to whoever it is that will fly the next leg.”
“This is Brindille,” said Feuille. “She has sent her mate, Rameau, ahead to find the next guide. But she will keep you on the line until you meet up with him.”
“Merci, Feuille,” said Liaze, humbly.
“May your quest bear sweet nectar, my lady,” said Feuille, and she flew up and darted back in the direction whence she had first come.
“Au revoir, Feuille, tiny guide,” Liaze called after the winging Sprite, but she had disappeared among the foliage from which she had taken her name. Liaze then turned to Brindille, and that female Sprite said, “After me, my lady,” and off she flew.
Throughout the morning a succession of Sprites led the way toward the sunwise border of the Autumnwood, and as Liaze rode, other wee ones followed along in the underbrush or scampered among the branches above.
Liaze stopped several times to let the horses take water at running streams, and she also fed them each a bit of grain from the goods stored in the packs.
And the sun rode up in the sky and across, and Liaze herself paused for a meal as the golden orb reached the zenith, the princess sharing her repast with Arbuste, who only took a few crumbs from one of her biscuits, though he did enjoy a spot of honey from the drop she dripped into the jar lid.
As the sun slid down the sky, onward she fared, now with Buton her guide, and then Pomme, and then others; and she crossed a long stretch of open land with Fleur, a Field Sprite, her escort.
Dusk found her in the forest again, where she made camp and unladed the packhorses and unsaddled Nightshade and Pied Agile and rubbed all six of the animals down, curried away the knots of hair, and fed and watered them. Liaze then took a short meal herself, and a long drink of water. She fell asleep the moment her head touched the bedroll beside the small fire.
The next day, the first escorting Sprite-Cerise-told her that waiting Sprites now went all the way to the twilight border of her realm, and tears welled in Liaze’s eyes and she could not speak for a while. But at last she managed a whispered “ Merci beaucoup, Cerise.”
For two more days did Liaze ride along the line of the Sprites, once faring through a shallow fen, guided by a Marsh Sprite who kept her and the horses to solid land. It was at the edge of a birch thicket on the far shore of the bog that she met a Ghillie Dhu-Breoghan, his name-the small, knobby man dressed all in twigs and leaves such that he seemed part of the copse itself, and who traded mushrooms for a biscuit or two and had lunch with his sovereign. They spoke of a limited number of things, mostly that which the Ghillie Dhu encountered within his section of the woods: newts and beetles and the loam of the forest, and how the moles seemed to improve the soil, loosening it as they did, though at the temporary loss of rootstock as well as a diminishment of earthworms. Breoghan pointed out that even though some folk considered the moles to be miserable pests, these tunneling creatures-with the help of field voles-also ate a terrible kind of predatory flatworm, all to the good of the woodland.
Liaze rode on afterward, a succession of Sprites yet showing the way. And on the fourth morning after she had set out from Autumnwood Manor, the sole remaining guide, a Field Sprite named Petale, finally brought her to the twilight border rearing up into the sky along the sunwise marge of the Autumnwood.
“My lady,” he said, “this is the last we saw of the murdering crows. Their flight went straight on, through the border and toward the mountains beyond.”
Liaze’s eyes flew wide with hope. “Mountains? Is there a black one among them?”
“No, Princess, just-Here, let me show you.”
Petale flew into the crepuscular wall, Liaze riding after. Into shade she fared, the way getting dimmer with every step, and then lighter again, and when she emerged she came unto a wide and barren dark plain, and in the distance a somber gray wall of mountains reared up toward the sky.
A frigid wind blew thwartwise, and Liaze pulled her cloak tightly about and gazed afar at the distant grim chain. “Is there a way through that formidable barrier?” she asked.
“I–I d-don’t know, m-my lady,” said the tiny Sprite, his arms wrapped about himself as he shivered uncontrollably, his wings but a blur as he held his place in the blow. “I have n-never flown y-yon. But this ch-ch-chevalier you spoke of, if he came opposite the l-line of the crows then perhaps he r-rode across the r-range.”
Liaze now looked at the Sprite and said, “Oh, Petale, I am sorry. I didn’t see you were suffering.” She opened her cloak. “Come. Seek warmth out of this gale.”
As Petale took shelter within, he said, “Here a c-cold wind b-blows all the time. We Sprites shun this place. But farther away along your own sunwise border, my lady, there are much better realms.”
“Yet this is the way the crows came?”
“Indeed,” said the Sprite.
“Which way did they fly then?” asked Liaze.
“Well, I did not follow them through the border to see, but if the birds kept to the same line as is likely with such messengers-crows or not-I imagine that double-fanged peak yon was along the course.”
“Then, Petale, I thank you for your guidance.”
“I would go with you, Princess.”
Liaze shook her head. “Non, tiny one. I would not risk your life, for Lady Skuld said I must go alone, but for the howling one.”
“I could howl,” said the Sprite.
Liaze laughed but said, “I think that is not what Lady Wyrd meant.”
Petale gave a tiny sigh and said, “I suppose you are right, Princess. And so, I will not delay you longer, for your mission is urgent.” He slipped out from Liaze’s cloak and took to wing. “Safe journey, my lady, and may you find that which you seek.”
“Au revoir, Petale. And again convey my thanks to the Autumnwood Sprites, for without them I surely would have strayed off course, and even a few paces to the left or right might have put me in another realm altogether, rather than this bleak demesne.”
His teeth chattering, his wings whirring to offset the gusting wind, still Petale managed a laugh and said, “I would n-not have th-thought anyone would have b-been glad to come unto this p-place.” Then, with a salute, he shot away, back into the twilight border, seeking the warmth of the Autumnwood beyond.
Liaze pulled her cloak tightly about against the harsh flow and heeled Pied Agile in the flanks, and, towing five horses after, into the dark plain she rode.
17
Into bleakness fared Liaze, the princess aiming at the twin fangs in the mountain chain to the fore, for it was all she had as a goal, and even that was but a guess. Petale the Sprite had said that if the messenger crows held to the same line of flight as they had in the Autumnwood, then these two jagged crests were along that route.