Summerkin (8 page)

Fer turned back to her patient. That's what Gnar was, she realized. She wasn't going to leave her here to die just to win a race.

She had to get Gnar dry, somehow. Her patch-jacket might help; it had some of Grand-Jane's protective magic in it. She shrugged out of it, shivering as the rain soaked her shirt. With one arm she tried to hold the jacket over Gnar; with her other hand, she clumsily sorted herbs. Phouka edged closer, as if he was trying to help shield them from the wind and rain.

Lich came trotting through the rain on his fish-goat. Seeing Fer and Gnar, he stopped.

Fer looked up, blinking raindrops out of her eyes. “Lich, can you help?” she asked.

He was streaming with rain. He peered ahead, to where Arenthiel and his golden horse were stumbling away. If he went on, Fer knew, he might be able to catch Arenthiel and win the race.

“Her flame is going out,” Fer told him.

With a steamy sigh, Lich slid off his fish-goat's back and squished over the grass to kneel on Gnar's other side. “She looks terrible,” he said calmly.

She really did. “Just hold my jacket over her,” Fer said, passing it to him. “Try to keep her dry.”

Lich got to his feet and held the jacket over both of them.

It was a relief to not have the rain pounding down on her head and shoulders. Lich didn't seem to mind it at all. “Thanks,” Fer called to him. Quickly she dumped dried ginger and anise into her hand. Oh, and she had some black pepper, too. She added all of it, mixing it with a finger. Gnar wouldn't want it in water, Fer guessed. She blew on her other hand to warm it up, then rested it on Gnar's forehead. The girl's eyes flickered open.

Fer bent closer. “Gnar, take this.” She held her hand up to Gnar's mouth. “It'll help dry you out.”

Gnar's mouth opened, and Fer tipped in the ginger, pepper, and anise.

A normal person would choke on such a spicy mixture, but Gnar swallowed, then coughed out a swirl of smoke and sparks. Her eyes popped open. She shoved Fer's hand away and struggled to sit up. “What are you—” She coughed again. “What are you doing?”

Fer shrugged and started stowing the packets of herbs in the knapsack. Phouka, curious as always, came closer and rested his nose on her shoulder. His wet mane dripped onto her neck. Brrr.

Tall Lich bent and peered under the jacket he still held. “You were down to embers and ash, Drylands girl,” he said. “Gwynnefar helped you.”

“She did?” Gnar turned to stare at Fer. “You did? Why?”

Fer blinked. “What do you mean, why?”

Gnar shook her head, as if Fer was being stupid. “You could have won the race. Why did you help me instead?”

“Because I had to,” Fer tried to explain. Lich and Gnar looked at her blankly.

“It must be a human thing,” Lich said.

“Must be,” Gnar said. “Human or not, it was an extremely strange thing to do.”

Twelve

By the time Fer and Lich had found Gnar's dragon and gotten it, and Gnar, safely back to the nathe, the white tents had been taken down from the lawn. The rain had stopped, finally, but the sky was darkening, and a thick layer of mist surrounded the nathe. The High Ones had gone inside. The race was over, and Arenthiel had won.

They stumbled into the stable.

Arenthiel's horse stood shivering in its stall, its head lowered. It still wore its saddle and bridle, and it was soaking wet. Blood oozed from the slashes in its side. Arenthiel himself was not to be seen.

As Lich and Gnar cared for their mounts and then left, Fer led Phouka to his stall and used some wisps of straw to dry him, then gave him water and a bucket full of oats and draped a warm blanket over his back. “Thank you,” she whispered to him. “I'm sorry we didn't win.”

Phouka nickered and chewed his oats, watching with bright eyes as she went to Arenthiel's horse's stall. It twitched as she entered, but stood still as she took off its saddle and bridle, dumping them in the corner. She crouched and examined the slashes on its sides, made by Arenthiel's sharp spurs.

With a sigh, she got out her bags of herbs and bottles of tincture and made up a poultice, which she smeared on the slashes. More proof of Arenthiel's cruelty, that he could treat a horse so badly and then leave it chilled and bleeding, and without any food or water.

When she'd finished looking after the golden horse, she said goodnight to Phouka and headed back to her rooms. Time to look after herself. After such a hard race, she was tired down to her bones. She was soaking wet and had dried mud all over her face, and her braid was half unraveled. Every step up the stairs to the nathe hurt. Dinner. She'd have a dinner, and then a hot bath, and then a nice long sleep so she'd be ready for tomorrow.

At her own rooms, she opened the door; as she stepped inside, Fray and Twig pounced on her.

“Lady Gwynnefar!” Fray panted.

“Lady,” Twig echoed, her eyes wide.

“It was just a short nap,” Fray said. “I only slept for a moment.”

“And then!” Twig put in, pointing at the door.

Fer closed her eyes, just for a second. She was
so
tired. She opened her eyes again. “And then what?”

“The puck!” Fray said. “He's snuck out. He's been gone for hours.”

Fer leaned against the door. Oh no. This was just what she needed. What could Rook be up to now?

 

In his person shape, Rook slipped through the dark tunnels of the nathe. He'd been slinking around for a while, staying out of the nathe-guards' way. Now it was growing late and the lights had been turned low, and nobody was about. Lucky for him. He had a crown to steal. Staying in the shadows, he made his way to the nathewyr, the big meeting hall.

Rook surveyed the room. It seemed bigger at night. Except for one or two crystals turned low, it was dark. The side doors, the ones he'd noticed this morning, were empty and unguarded. He felt a prickle of excitement under his skin. Once he'd gotten the crown, he could get out the doors and run for the forest in his horse form, and nobody would catch him.

He paced across the hall, the sound of his footsteps swallowed by the stuffy silence. He hopped up onto the platform and went over to the pedestal. The pillow was there, but the crown was missing. All he found was a circle inscribed in the velvet, where the crown had rested.

“Curse it,” Rook muttered to himself, and flopped onto one of the High Ones' fancy thrones to think. With a fingernail he picked at the silver inlaid on the throne's arm. Hmm. They must put the crown away at night, for safekeeping. He'd have to try for it another time. But his brother-pucks had planned to meet him. He'd better go tell them he'd failed, so far, to steal the crown. That decided, he got to his feet and headed to one of the side doors, making his way out of the nathe.

The torches in the courtyard had been put out. The nathe-palace loomed behind him, dark except for a few windows watching like cats' eyes. The clouds from the day's rain were pulling away, leaving stars to hang low in the blue-black sky. Plenty of light for a puck. Rook slipped like a shadow down the gnarled steps and then popped his shifter-tooth into his mouth. As soon as his four paws hit the ground, he started to run, an easy lope that took him across the lawn and onto the path leading through the forest.

He ran on, silently, until he reached the outer wall, where he spat out the shifter-tooth and caught his breath.

Now this could get tricky. Shoving the tooth into the pocket of his ragged shorts, he paced to the wall, then tried the thing that Fer had done when they'd first arrived here, laying his hand against the twisted vines. For Fer, it had opened, but she'd been invited to come to the nathe, and she wasn't a puck. For him, the wall stayed closed.

“Nothing else for it, then,” he whispered. Clinging to the woven vines with his fingers and toes, he climbed to the top of the wall. For a moment he paused there, looking back at the forest. No lights showed. He pricked his ears, listening. Nothing, not even a breeze in the treetops. Nobody out there tracking him, then.

Over he went, climbing down, then jumping onto the ground outside the nathe wall.

Off to his right, the Lake of All Ways glimmered in the starlight. Everything was silent and still.

Fer must have gotten back by now from her race to find him gone. He felt a twinge of something uncomfortable in his chest at that. Not
guilt
, was it? He was a puck! Pucks didn't feel guilt. Banishing the feeling, he sat down with his back against the vine-wall, waiting.

The grass was wet from the day's rain and not very comfortable, but after a while, his eyes grew heavy. It'd been a long night already, and he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, either. To stay awake, he started counting stars.

 

He woke up in the dark, flat on his back with somebody sitting on his chest, poking him. Somebody else was tickling his toes.

Nathe-wardens!
was his first thought, and he struggled, and then he heard laughing. A heavy, dark shadow rolled off him, and he scrambled to his feet. “Asher?”

“I'm here, Pup,” one of the shadows answered, and a light flared, a lantern. Its dim glow revealed Asher, and a grinning Tatter, and Rip, whose eyes gleamed red like embers in the darkness.

“Do you have it?” Asher asked. The crown, he meant.

“No,” Rook answered. “Not yet.”

“Huh,” Asher said, and squatted down. “Tell us about it.”

Rook sat on the damp grass, and they made a little circle with the lantern in the middle, Tatter to one side, Rip on the other, and Asher across from him. “It's just as you thought, Ash,” Rook said. “They've got a silver crown for a prize. Whoever wins it is the new Lord or Lady of the Summerlands.”

“All right,” Asher said. He nodded, and the crystals braided into his long hair glinted in the lantern light. “Go on. When can you get it?”

Rook shrugged. “I'm not certain.” He considered the possibilities. “They've got it locked up somewhere now. It depends on when I can get in, and when I can get away again. They've got guards watching us.”

“Watching you and your friend Gwynnefar, you mean,” Rip put in.

“No,” Rook shot back. He didn't want to think about Fer, because this was a betrayal of trust he was plotting, right enough. “They're watching me, I meant.”

Rip and Asher exchanged a glance at that. Asher drew back from the lantern light, and a shadow fell across his face. “At any rate, Rook, you're guarded,” he went on. “When did that ever stop a puck?”

Rook forced a grin onto his face. “Not this time.”

“Good,” Asher said, and stood. “Stealing the Summerlands crown will be a wonderful trick, maybe the best puck-trick that ever was.”

Rook nodded. It
was
a good trick. But . . . “Ash, there's one thing.”

Asher raised his eyebrows, waiting.

“Fer—Lady Gwynnefar, I mean. To get me into the nathe she took responsibility for me.”

“Ah!” Asher grinned. “Very clever of you, Pup. A perfect plan. That means she'll pay for any trouble you cause.”

That's what it meant. But if it was such a perfectly pucklike plan, why did it make him feel sick and empty inside?

“This Gwynnefar Lady used her binding magic to steal Phouka from us,” Asher reminded him. “It's just what she deserves.” He gave Rook a keen look. “Am I right, Pup?”

He knew that Asher was wrong. Fer hadn't bound anybody, and he didn't think she'd worked some kind of magic on Phouka. But he couldn't argue with his brothers, not now. Rook gave Asher a wooden nod. “You're right, yes.”

Picking up the lantern, Tatter stood too, and so did Rip. They'd head through the Way now, back to the cave in the Foglands where they'd been hiding out with the rest of the pucks. A long way to come.

Rook got to his feet. “Once I've stolen the crown, I can bring it to you, if you like,” he offered. That way he wouldn't have to see Fer's face when the puck-plot was discovered.

“Better not,” Tatter answered.

Beside him, Asher shook his head. “The cave's not safe anymore. The Lord of the Foglands has taken notice of us. We'll have to move on soon.”

Rook nodded. The pucks never got to settle anywhere for long. “So you'll come here again.”

“That we will.” Asher pulled out the bit of horn that he used to turn himself into a tall black goat with curling horns. Then he leaned closer to Rook to whisper in his ear. “Remember what you are, dear Pup. And remember what the High Ones and their Lords and Ladies are and what they do to the likes of us. She is one of them.” Then he popped the shifter-horn into his mouth. Tatter and Rip shifted into dogs, and the three of them set off, racing over the glinting grass to the lake, where they could go through the Way.

Rook checked the sky. Off in the east it was stained with gray. Sunrise would come soon, which meant it was time to get back to the nathe.

Before starting up the vine-wall, he hesitated, rubbing the tiredness out of his eyes. Was he really going to do this? Betray Fer and let her take the blame for this puck-trouble?

He shook his head. The pucks were his brothers. They were his
home
. He had to stay true to them.

He climbed back up the vine-wall, and, as before, he stopped at the top to sniff the air and listen. All was dark and silent, but he had the prickly feeling of being watched. He waited for another moment, about to start down the other side, when he felt something
thunk
into the wall beside him, leaving behind a streak of pain on his leg.

An arrow!

Grasping the vines, he scrambled down the wall. As soon as he hit the ground, he started running. Lights flared on the path ahead, and he heard shouts. Abruptly he veered into the forest, dodging trees, pushing through thorny bushes. He flinched as another arrow sizzled past; he felt its fletchings brush his ear.

The nathe-wardens. They'd warned him before. If they caught him now, they'd kill him for sure.

From behind, he heard bushes thrashing and more shouts as the wardens followed him into the trees. He tripped on a root and went sprawling, and heard an arrow zip past, right where his head would have been. Curse it, they were good shots. He crawled into a bush, then flicked his shifter-tooth into his mouth. Four paws were faster than two feet.

More shouts, this time from behind and away to his left. They were trying to cut him off. Panting, he raced on, splashing through streams, squeezing past trees as the forest grew thicker, taking a route that would send him in a wide loop and then back toward the nathe-palace.

Finally he slowed, spat out the dog-tooth, and as he shifted, swung himself up into the boughs of a tree. Crouching there, he muffled his panting breath in his sleeve and listened for the sound of pursuit.

A rustling in the bushes right below him, and a nathe-warden paused, his head cocked, listening. His long knife glinted in the starlight.

Rook froze. If the warden looked up . . .

The warden listened for another moment; at a distant shout, he raced away through the trees. The shouts of the other wardens faded.

Rook let out his breath. Now what?

The gray of dawn tinted half the sky. He could make his way back to the vine-wall, go through the Way, and tell his brother-pucks that he'd ruined their plan, almost getting caught.

Or he could go back to the nathe and trust that Fer would protect him from the nathe-wardens if they came after him there.

It'd be a risk. But it was worth it.