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Harkane. I wasn't sure how to relate to my father's squire, my squire now. He was part of the life that my parents had hidden from me. I resented him for sharing that life. And I resented the way he seemed to measure me against my father all the time. He had recovered quickly from his shock and fear at Dad's death. Once I accepted him as my squire, he perked up in a hurry. If a Varayan squire had the same functions as in medieval England-and I wasn't completely certain of that yet-he was supposed to be my weapon bearer and apprentice, learning how to become a knight or whatever. The apprenticeship system applied to the military elite-page, squire, knight. Harkane needed to fill out a little to be a top-notch warrior. He looked as if he ought to be a freshman in high school, dishwater-blond hair cut in what I once heard called a Prince Valiant cut, faded blue eyes.
Lesh was easier to understand. I had been comfortable with him from our first meeting. He was a veteran soldier, stoical, willing to take on anything, as long as there was someone to tell him who to fight and when. Without ever seeing him in battle, I trusted him. Maybe his reflexes wouldn't be the fastest, but there are other considerations that are important.
Now there was also A
I got up and stretched after a while, then walked around a little, being careful to avoid getting disoriented in the dark. After the first flurry of sounds, the forest got u
"I'm going to bed," I told her, still whispering. When I got wrapped up in my thermal blanket, sleep was a long time coming.
Sleep. I've always had trouble getting to sleep, even when I was a little kid, but once I do get to sleep, I can be almost as hard to wake as the dead. That's what it was like in my world. In my apartment in Evanston, I used two alarm clocks and a clock-radio to make sure that I wouldn't oversleep and miss classes, and that wasn't always enough. Things had been different in Varay, generally. I still had trouble getting to sleep most nights, but I woke fast-except for the evening after the vigil for my father. I had gone so long without sleep before that that I was just out of it. Slight noises could wake me now, like this night. I woke when A
"Up!" I shouted. A
"What is it?"Harkane asked, startled by the way I'd sprung up. The night was almost gone. There was the feeblest gray light, enough to let me see my companions and our horses, but not much more.
"Listen." I heard something new, a crashing through leaves and small branches. "In the trees." We all heard a brief crunching noise then, closer, louder. I got my bow, then bent over to pull an arrow from my quiver. A
The next crashing sounds were almost directly overhead. I barely got my bow up in time before the thing dropped on us. On me. I pulled back the string and let fly. The creature dove right into my arrow. A
It came in low for the second attack, bulleting along head-high, weaving around tree trunks. I let go a hurried arrow that missed, then dropped my bow and drew my sword. I scarcely had time to set my feet and get a good grip on my sword. Again, the beast came straight at me. I held my blow as long as I could, then hacked at the beast's neck as I ducked under its wing. Maybe that wasn't the smartest way to do it. My blade bit in. I was holding on too tightly for the sword to be yanked from my grip, so I went over backward. My butt hit the ground and then my head. The creature nosed into the dirt just behind me and I ended up flipping before I finally figured out that I had to let go of the sword. Before the beast came to rest, A
"Finish cutting off its head," A
"What is it?" I asked as soon as I could. The wings were still flapping weakly, the body twisting. I wiped my blade on the moss and grass.
"Some creature of Fairy," Lesh said-as if that were all that mattered. No one rushed to be more specific, so maybe that was all that mattered.
I got out my flashlight. Looking at the creature in light didn't help me identify it. The face was a grotesque parody of a human face. Thick, wiry hair reminded me of a picture of the gorgon Medusa. The wings were leathery and ended in distinct hands-long, six-fingered hands with claws that were four inches long. The chest and shoulders were thick and heavily developed, but the body tapered off quickly behind the wings. A
"Best to get that as far from the body as possible," she said, bending to clean her blade. "Some of these creatures can put themselves back together if they're given the chance." I looked at the still-twitching body and fought back a rush of nausea. I turned off my flashlight and put it away. I had seen enough… too much.
"We'll leave as soon as it's light," I said. I backed away from the body just as its nearer hand made a weak grab for my ankle. I hopped farther away, in a hurry.
"What do we have to do, burn the son of a bitch?" I asked. My voice may have been a little shaky.
"That might help, or it might just rise whole from the ashes," A
"Leave it to me, lord," Lesh said. He went back to his stuff and got his battle-axe. He chopped at the creature, and I was glad to leave it to him. I turned away and started getting ready to leave. The sounds of Lesh's butchery kept my stomach on edge. I guess the others felt queasy too. Nobody suggested breakfast before we got back on the road.
It was a day for strangeness. The forest turned weird early on. Crazily deformed trees first showed up as an occasional oddity, then became more common until most of them were bent in strange shapes. Some were knotted like pretzels. Others rose a few feet, then bent parallel to the ground, with most of the greenery on the top half and squat branches below supporting the weight. The leaves and needles became gray-green. A bird with a call like a mocking laugh followed us through much of the day but stayed out of sight. The laugh was perhaps the eeriest sound I've ever heard. The trees and the birds-those weren't the only problems. The streams were far apart and never more than a trickle. Our horses wouldn't drink from the first three we came to. They sniffed at the fourth for minutes before they decided to chance it, and they had to be awfully thirsty by then.