I needn’t have been so worried about making a bit of a racket. The bugs were singing and buzzing and chirping. A wind was tossing the heavy limbs around, filling the leaves with endless whispering and the scratching and rubbing of limb against limb. Thunder rumbled in the distance, though a few stars peeked down through brief clearing in the boughs.
I hadn’t lain there very long before I heard voices too.
Voices and clattering and even a snatch of laughter.
I moved very carefully, after that.
I couldn’t see enough sky to get my bearings. I looked at the trees to see which side the moss grew on, but it grew thick and lush everywhere.
But I wasn’t vexed. I just followed the sound of the voices, because I knew they’d lead me back to Werewilk.
And they did. I crawled a hundred yards, peeped over the rotting trunk of a fallen behemoth, and there they were.
I counted twenty-four of them. All armed. Their horses were tied just beyond the light of their fires. They were gathered around a campfire, passing bottles around, foolishly watching the flames and thus rendering themselves blind to sneaky persons such as myself lying a stone’s throw away. They were cooking and drinking and cussing at each other, while two of them sat well away from the fire and peered into the woods at lights I could just barely see.
House Werewilk.
Music rode the winds, from time to time. The band was playing at the foot of the staircase. Holy heavens, I thought. They’re surrounded by an army and the first thing they do is break out the beer and tell the band to play something cheerful.
I don’t think I was ever quite that young.
Marlo had been right. They were just watching. They had enough men to break down Werewilk’s door, if they were so inclined, but apparently they were content for the moment to simply watch and make sure no one got word to Rannit.
I debated getting closer. I could catch snatches of conversation now and again, but not enough to discern who they were or what they hoped to gain.
In the end, I decided on the legendary better part of valor, and stayed where I was. Odds are, I’d have gotten nothing but half-drunk ramblings about their romantic exploits anyway.
So I made a mental map instead. If Werewilk was there, and if that’s the forest road over there, then that means south was that way.
And that’s where I needed to go. South and east, toward the Faery Ring, and the place I hoped I’d find men digging.
I backed away from the fallen log, moving slowly, keeping low. I was glad Toadsticker and I were covered in dark slime and mud. I looked and smelled like another rotting stump.
I paralleled the road. It was tempting to assume they weren’t watching it south of the estate, but I wasn’t willing to risk encountering some clever lad with a crossbow trying to work his way up the ranks. So I stuck to the forest, moving when the wind blew and being still when it was still. I crawled from cover to cover, I waited and listened more often than I moved.
Which is why I’m still alive. Twice I nearly ran across mounted patrols. Twice I had to skirt small groups of two or three men who had the sense to keep their backs to their campfires and their eyes on the dark.
Someone with deep pockets was determined to keep the treasure hunt a secret.
I wondered about the neighbors. I gathered the next of the old Houses still inhabited was a good eight miles east. There was a tiny village of sorts about three miles past that.
I took a deep breath, made myself count ten more. No help was to be had. Fine.
Just like the old days with the Sixth.
I pressed on. Moving through a forest at night is a perilous business. You can’t see briars before they tear through your clothes and into your skin. You can’t see rattlesnakes until you’ve annoyed them and they bite. And Heaven help you if you run into a wild boar sow with piglets nearby, because boars are worse than snakes and briars combined.
I never saw an example of any of those. All I saw were soldiers, some mounted, most on foot. These weren’t all kids, either. Half were my age, which meant they were vets who done this sneaking around business before.
I just hoped none of them were better at it than me.
The stars wheeled by above. The coward Moon never rose. The wind kept blowing, howling now and then, reminding me of Buttercup. I still had a hunk of corn bread for her, mashed flat and wrapped in one of Lady Werewilk’s good cotton napkins.
I topped a tiny little hillock, made my way between the trunks of two mighty oaks, popped my head up long enough to count fires. I saw two.
And something else. A faint blue radiance, bobbing and trailing sparks that lay there glowing but didn’t touch off any fires.
I bit back a curse word. I’d watched five of the black robed bastards be yanked up into the sky and I’d been sure, absolutely sure, that I’d seen the last of sorcerers at least for the night.
But here was at least one more, still on the hunt.
I hoped Buttercup was somewhere safe. I wondered why they were so determined to snatch her.
I eased my way back down the hill on my belly, and then I crawled on, heading for the Faery Ring.
I chided myself a dozen times on that dark journey, about my destination. I was making an awfully long leap of faith, going from two mentions in an old Werewilk family history to being sure something ancient and potent was hidden along a creek that had dried to nothing generations before the War even broke. You’ll feel pretty foolish, I told myself, if you reach the Ring and all you find are oaks and midnight.
You’ll feel even more foolish if someone sees you and puts an arrow through your gut.
I couldn’t argue with either sentiment, but I kept going.
Halfway there, I began to see signs that I might have been right after all.
I found rutted wagon tracks, in the forest. Wagons had left the old road. I counted at least five. Men had cleared the way with axes, oxen and ropes. Some of the cut timber was so fresh it still wept sap.
But there were no men. Not a single sentry had been left in the wagons’ wake.
Although men had accompanied the wagons, in single file on either side of them, in numbers I couldn’t even estimate.
I stayed thirty feet or so off the new-cut road. I moved as quietly as I could, but I no longer crawled. Instinct told me that, at last, I was about to learn just what the fuss was about.
I smelled smoke from the fires before I saw them. A few moments later, I heard the first voices, and the first sounds of hammers and picks and axes. And then I topped another gentle rise, and it all came into view.
A ring of torches. Wagons. Men moving and shouting and working. Most were digging. Others were erecting a scaffold of fresh-cut timbers over the deep wound they’d dug in the soft, wet earth.
As I watched, chains were dragged from a wagon, and a heavy block and tackle, and ladders were propped against the scaffold and men clambered up them, chains and tackle in tow.
I felt a tiny hand slip into my right pocket. I didn’t even smell her over my own enthusiastic stink.
“Hello, Buttercup,” I whispered.
She found and unwrapped the corn bread, frowned at its mashed state, and then shrugged and began to gobble it down, using the napkin to keep the crumbs in place.
She stood pressed to my side, her right hand filled with corn bread and her left wrapped around my waist. The top of her filthy little banshee head failed to even meet the middle of my chest.
She was shaking. I didn’t dare move. I didn’t want to spook her, even though the realization that she was probably being tracked by at least one determined sorcerer was sending shivers up and down my spine.
“Did you lose your blanket?”
She looked up at me again and grinned.
And then she coughed, choking on a mouthful of dry corn bread.
It wasn’t the loudest cough I’d ever heard but it was close. But I dropped to my knees and dared putting an arm around her as I did so.