But can we afford to be particular? Vansen wondered. I have no bow, so I can’t even hope to bring down a squirrel, let alone a deer or something really toothsome. In fact, now that he thought of it, other than the Followers and Longskulls Gyir had killed, they’d seen no creature bigger than Skurn during this whole venture into the shadowlands. He pointed this out to Barrick, who only shrugged.
“And what does that fairy eat?” Vansen asked suddenly. “We’ve been traveling together for over a tennight and I’ve never seen him eat. Even if he doesn’t have a mouth, he must take food somehow!”
“When I was young,” the prince said, “the nurse told me that fairies drank flower-nectar and ate stardust.” His smile was mirthless. “Gyir tells me that what he eats is none of our affair, and that we must get riding again.”
They found little more to fill their stomachs that day, only a few handfuls of pale, waxy berries Skurn and Gyir agreed the two sunlanders could probably eat without harm. They were sweeter than Vansen had feared, but still with a strange, smoky flavor unlike anything he had tasted. He also tried, at the raven’s suggestion, a piece of fungus that grew on some of the trees they passed, which Skurn said would take the edge off his hunger. It was one of the most disgusting things Vansen had ever eaten in his life; for a veteran of several field campaigns (and a man who had dined more than once at the Badger’s Boots Inn) that was saying something. The outside of the fungus was slimy with rain, so that putting it in his mouth was like biting into something plucked from a tidal pool, but the inside was dry, powdery, and as tasteless as dust. Still, he choked it down, and found that although it made him feel a little light-headed it did relieve the pain in his stomach. He pulled off a piece for the prince, who after a silent colloquy with Gyir, ate it with evident distaste.
They rode on with only a few short breaks for rest, cheered only by an occasional break in the cold drizzle. The forest continued to thin, and at times Vansen could see what looked like flatter, more open land in the distance. Once he even spotted the lead-colored gleam of what Gyir confirmed was the Whisperfall, although it was still far, far away.
“It looks like it will be easier going ahead,” Vansen said to Skurn.
The bird stirred and flapped its wings. “Them be emptier lands, true, afar of the Whisperfall. Has to watch out, though. Be woodsworms there.”
“Woodsworms? What are those?”
“Perilous big, Master. Dragons, some’d call they, but looks like trees—like fallen...what? Logs. Aye, lay up, they do, and wait for something to move too close. Then down them come, like a spider as has summat in’s web.” The raven peered at Vansen’s expression. “Heard of they, have you? Heard them was fearful?”
“I’ve...oh, gods, I think I’ve seen one.” Collum’s dying scream was in his head, and always would be. That thing...that horrible, sticklike thing... “Is that the only way we can go?”
“Bad, they woodsworms, aye, but them are few. Jack Chain be worse, all say.” And with these uncheering words Skurn fluffed his feathers and lowered himself against the saddle horn again.
Another hour or so went by and they did not see the Whisperfall again. Gyir at last and with evident reluctance allowed them to stop and make camp on a hillside overlooking a shallow canyon. Skurn found more berries the sunlanders could eat, and some dark blue flowers whose petals were sharply tangy but edible; when Vansen curled up under his cloak to sleep he had, if not a light heart, at least no heavier a mood than the night before.
He was shaken awake just as he had been the previous night, but this time by Barrick. “Get up!” the prince whispered. “They’re on the ridge behind us!”
“Who?” But Vansen already knew. He grabbed his sword and rose to his feet. He patted his horse to keep it quiet while he stared up the wooded slope. He could see torches at the top, the flames strangely red against the half-light, and shadows moving down the hill toward them between the trees. “Where is our fairy?” Vansen hissed, half-certain they’d been betrayed, that all the pretense of companionship had been leading to this.
“Here, behind me,” Barrick said. “He says ride straight downhill, then turn downstream when you reach the bottom of the valley. When we come out of the trees we’ll be on a slope heading toward the Whisperfall. If you can get to the river, he says ride out into the middle of it—we should be safe there.”
Something in the heights above them loosed a honking bellow that sounded more like some giant, raw-throated goose than a dog, let alone a person. Vansen’s skin, already prickling with fear, seemed to tighten and bunch all over his body.
“Go!” Barrick hurried toward his own horse. Gyir was already mounted; he helped the prince up. “They’re coming —they know we’re awake now!”
“Are those hounds they have? Wolves?”
Something thrashed down out of the tree and dropped onto him just as he climbed into the saddle. “Don’t forget us, Master!” Skurn croaked, dodging Vansen’s panicky swat. “Take us with!”
“Get behind me, then.” He had to get low in the saddle and didn’t want to be trying to see his way past the raven’s south end.
The honking sounded again as Vansen spurred his mountdownslope after the prince’s horse, which he could already barely see through the trees and the shadowland’s eternal evening. Branches slapped at him as though they were angry.
“Them be not hounds, Master,” Skurn screeched, huddled close against Vansen’s back, talons sunk through the fabric at his belt. “Them be those Sniffers. Need no hounds, them sniff so well.” Another honking call split the night, closer now. “Loud, too,” the little creature added needlessly.
The squawking and gabbling noises seemed to come from at least a half a dozen different places up the slope; when Vansen turned he could see the curious red torches in at least that many different spots, all moving steadily downward.
All we can do is pray that the horses do not stumble in the dark and break a leg, he thought. “Do they run well, these Longskulls?” he called back to Skurn. “Will they be able to catch us on flat ground?”
“Oh, Master, us thinks not, but them can track we forever. Smell a nest in the top of a tall tree, they can.”
“Left!” Barrick shouted from somewhere below.
Vansen had just opened his mouth to ask him what he meant when the huge shadow heaved up directly in front of him—a rock the size of a cabin, a protruding bone of the hill’s heavy stone skeleton. He yanked the reins and veered, alm. ost falling headlong as the angle of the slope pitched more steeply downward.
Within moments they had swept out of the thickest woods and onto a patch of grassy slope. Vansen felt a flicker of hope, if only a tiny one: surely on horseback they could beat these honking monsters down to the river, and if Gyir was right about their dislike of water... The beak-faced things were charging down through the trees on all sides, torches bobbing as the hooting clamor grew louder. He thought about drawing his sword, but instead bent even lower over the horse’s neck and concentrated instead on staying in the saddle as branches whipped at his face. Barrick and Gyir were just a few yards ahead, but the dark fairy-horse was bigger than his and was beginning to pull away despite carrying two full-sized riders. Vansen dug his heels into his mount’s ribs, afraid of falling too far behind in this dark, unfamiliar place.
He crashed out of a small spinney to see a scatter of torches had somehow appeared on the hillside just in front of him. Some of the pursuers had been farther down and had come out of the woods, missing Barrick’s horse but cutting off Vansen’s. He yanked at his sword hilt, praying for a clean pull. Skyfather Perin or someone heard him: the blade slid out in one swift glide and Vansen was swinging it at the nearest flame before he could even see the creature holding the brand.