The War of Odds (12 page)

“So, you’re what…” Nate paused, trying to figure the math in his head. “Ninety-two years old?”

William grinned, “Ninety- three actually, but you know, time is different here.”

They heard a shout and turned to hear the words of Sylvan, the sprite king. The little red-haired man had scrambled up on a stump and addressed his audience. Normally, the sprite’s voice piped like a piccolo, but some sort of magic infused his words this morning with authority and power. His voice rang out like a church bell, and everyone in attendance stood still and listened to what Sylvan said.

“Good morning, my friends. I am pleased to see all of you today and honored, because I know that your journey will be perilous and fearful. It is necessary, however, as all of you know. Timaron has unleashed the beasts of darkness upon our land and the more his power grows and that of his dark hosts, the weaker the rest of us become.” The king paused, staring at Sara and her companions.

“That is why we have recruited the help of these human beings. We are convinced that Sara’s power is mental, rather than magical, and so it cannot be influenced by black magic or the powers of darkness the fairy king has unleashed.” Large, shiny tears began to roll from Sylvan’s eyes.

“Still, there will be many dangers on the way to Timaron’s realm… the powers that compel him will demand it. The Brown Man tells us that evil walks the fae lands and even intrudes into the human realm, so time is of the essence!”

He stopped talking for a moment and stared about the crowded clearing. Then he lifted his arms and cried, “I wish all of you good luck, strength and courage! I wish all of you the best of fortune, and thank you from the bottom of my heart!” With those final words, the little king flew down off his perch and fell to hugging his son Pollo, and his second born son, Peat, who had been chosen to accompany Pollo as a bodyguard.

The army of cats, let out a soul shattering battle cry, and Hissaphat grinned with pride, although most of the people and creatures gathered in the clearing covered their ears, wincing.

Then, without further ado, the small army moved forward into the dawn. Sara barely had time to set her mug down and wave good-bye to her hosts before Muriel seized her arm in one bony hand, and mumbled, “Well, we’re in it now girl. Be brave, be steadfast, and for pity’s sake, remember your lessons. With any luck at all, we’ll get out of this alive.”

With those words of comfort, Sara, Nate, Chloe and a small host of magical creatures marched into the swirling morning mists of fae, in search of Timaron and the Unseelie court.

Chapter 13

The small army walked for many hours. Although Sara could tell the sun was up the fog, if anything, grew thicker. Tendrils of clammy mist wound its way around their feet and legs, coated their coats and cloaks, and dampened their hair. Curtains of cloud swirled through the air, falling in sheets like shrouds, obscuring their vision, isolating them from one another.

At first, it was depressing, then it was annoying, and finally it was so oppressive that Sara grew frightened. Heart pounding, she felt around and found Chloe and Nate’s hands. Clasping them tightly in hers, she felt some comfort even as another plume of mist covered Nate’s body like a cocoon.

“Beware, now,” Muriel murmured. “This has the feel of glamour to me.” The nymph had taken up position behind the teens and walked with Pollo sitting comfortably on her shoulder. Muriel had told the girls about what happened to the young sprite’s wings. Although it seemed to Sara that Pollo normally did just fine without them, a long journey like this one was too far to walk without either becoming crippled with fatigue, or simply left behind.

Hissaphat was usually happy to act as the little man’s steed, but he was busy now leading his own battalion of felines. He was not happy about the fearsome fog, either. All of the cat’s furry coats were sopping wet, and dewdrops dripped from their whiskers. Many of the cat soldiers hissed and spat in alarm, occasionally, as though malignant but invisible threats hid within the gloom.

This, of course, made everyone who marched nervous. The elves strung their bows, and the dwarves glowered, fingering their axes and swords. The giants split up, Fruman in front, and Shura taking up the rear. They kept their distance, both for safety’s sake (neither one of them wanted to step on the creatures they were trying to protect), and because of the noise their mighty feet made even when they tried, for stealth’s sake, to step lightly.

It was unnerving, though, when the giants started to pause more often, their booming footsteps faltering in the dim, as they tried to find their way through the impeding gloom.

Suddenly, the mist was gone. A vista opened before their eyes that was so beautiful it took Sara’s breath away. The teens stopped and stared in open-mouthed wonder. The sun shone in golden streams of glittering crystal light into a small valley filled with green grass, multi-hued flowers and a bubbling, babbling brook. Animals grazed in the fields of tall grass and fish leapt into the air amidst rainbow runnels of water. Tiny pixies rose in clouds of color and a wonderful melody filled the air. It was the sweetest, saddest music Sara had ever heard. She started walking into the valley to see if she could find the source.

She thought she heard Muriel say something, but when she turned around the nymph was lost in the fog, which had returned after giving only a glimpse of the land through which they traveled. Chloe dropped Sara’s hand, turning back into the fog, but Nate followed Sara out into the sunlit valley.

She looked to her left and noticed a beautiful woman sitting on a large boulder. The woman had long black hair and eyes as blue as violets. Her lips were red as blood, as was the cap she wore on her head. She held a harp on her lap and smiled as Sara approached. The girl did not notice when Nate dropped her hand and turned right to investigate something in the river’s glimmering blue and white water.

The river was filled with pretty girls who laughed as they washed each other’s hair, and filled the air with soap bubbles. They gestured for Nate to join them… they urged him with shining eyes and coaxed him into their bath with whispered endearments.
 
His eyes shone with passion as he saw their lithe bodies, naked and slippery with suds. He thought a bath would be nice… honestly- his clothes were soaked through with the fog’s clammy touch, and the feel of his own nervous sweat.

Nate took off the heavy canvas cloak he wore and removed the steel sword the dwarves had given him from its scabbard. He peeled his damp shirt off and sat down in the tall grass to remove his shoes. As each piece of the boy’s clothing fell away, the nixies that lured him to his death crooned, caressing him with whispered promises of love undying and passion unsurpassed.

Fifty feet away from where the young man stood, hesitating by the river’s shoreline, Sara stepped toward the woman with the golden harp, smiling with pleasure. She had never heard music like this before, a haunting tune filled with joy and sorrow, promises and broken vows, keen pleasure and dreadful agony. The harp pulsed with a rhythm of its own and Sara’s feet tapped the ground. Then she started to dance.

The lovely woman threw back her head and laughed as the girl’s feet spun faster and faster. Sara’s hair fell from her braids, and whipped in the breeze as she held her arms out and twirled around in a frenzy of ecstasy. Something deep inside Sara’s heart whispered words of caution as her heart pounded painfully in her chest and her lungs heaved with effort. Still she danced, caught in a web of enchantment.

Then the ground shook as a bellow of rage filled the valley. It sounded like a mountain falling and overrode the nixies croon and the hag’s insidious song. Nate started in alarm, covering his ears, as Sara fell to the ground trembling with dizzy fatigue.

While the two teenagers had crept into the Red Cap’s stronghold, a band of pixie pinchers seized their companions. Although the pinchers were not strong individually, there were many of them. The elves, dwarves, sprites and cats struggled as tiny invisible fingers seized their clothes, pulled their fur, pinched their ears and tripped their feet out from under them. The unicorn whinnied in fear as a number of the pinchers climbed its golden horn and blew into its sensitive ears.

Muriel, Pollo and Chloe grunted and snarled in rage, as the pinchers pinched Pollo’ tiny sword and grabbed Chloe’s eyelids, slamming them shut. Muriel grimaced in frustration as her cloak of leaves was seized and wound tightly around her body.

The only beings that were not afflicted by the pinchers were the giants. As their bodies were made up of stone, they simply shrugged the pests off and ran to where the real dangers lay… the nixies, who by now had coaxed Nate up to his thighs in their watery trap, and Redwyn, queen of the Red Caps.

Red Caps had always been affiliated with the Unseelie court. They loved nothing more than killing humans beings and showed their proclivities by dying their caps and coats scarlet with the blood of man. Redwyn was a hag who had joined forces with the Red Caps and eventually became their queen. She was one of the most hideous hags the Red Caps had ever seen, but conversely, when Redwyn did don the false cloak of physical beauty, there were none more beautiful than she was. When she used her glamour, her long, glossy black hair, periwinkle eyes and sensuous body, lured even the most suspicious human into the “Caps” murderous clutches.

When Fruman and Shura charged the field, the Red Caps fled, knowing a poor bargain when they saw one. Redwyn was not so fortunate, however. The hag was almost as entranced with the beautiful, young blond-haired girl as Sara was with her. She envied the girl’s beauty and purity of spirit, and hated herself for being so ugly. With resentment came rage, and Redwyn vowed to make the young beauty dance herself to death.

She chuckled with malicious glee as she saw Sara’s eyes go wide in fear and confusion, and watched the girl’s chest heave in exhaustion. She giggled in anticipation as Sara’s legs trembled with fatigue and laughed so hard as the young woman fell to the ground that she did not even see the giant stone fist descend out of the sky and squash her flat against the ground.

Shura towered over them and spat on the hag’s withered gray corpse. Then she turned to Sara and poked her still form with a large stony finger. Sara did not move. The female giant worried over what to do for the girl, and she turned to her beloved husband for help. Then she grinned, as she spied ten naked and very angry nixies swarm over Fruman’s body, punching, biting and scratching his rocky hide in rage and frustration. Fruman held Nate up in the air with one huge arm and glared at the nixies, plucking them off, one by one, and pitching them, squealing, into the river.

Suddenly the fog dissipated, and so did the hag’s glamour. The beautiful valley was now a barren wasteland of dead and rotting vegetation, and burnt trees. The blue, babbling creek was nothing more than a dried and stagnant current that wound through a rough crevasse of crumbling shale and the desiccated carcasses of dead animals.

The baleful gaze of the sun bleached the blasted land in a sick yellow haze and Muriel ran to where Sara lie, pale and exhausted on the rocky ground. She cursed herself for being caught off guard and cursed Timaron for letting this blight fall upon faery land. The evil was spreading, and the more power the Unseelie gained, the more the magic of the Seelie faeries diminished.

The nymph wondered, fearfully, if she would possess any magic at all by the time they reached Timaron’s court… if they reached his court at all. Muriel removed Sara’s shoes and saw the bruises and bloody cuts caused by Sara’s frantic dance on what she thought was soft grass and flowers, but was actually sharp stones and prickly thorn bushes. Muriel took her Weirding stick and murmured words of comfort to her student as she healed the cuts and bruises on the girl’s feet, legs, hands and arms.

Nate, meanwhile was being firmly scolded by Fang, and surprisingly, young Pollo. The sprite was humiliated by having his sword plucked out of his hands by the pixie pinchers, and now felt less than useless when it came to helping keep the young human witch safe. He glared up at the wet and humiliated young man and yelled, “You cannot let yourself be entranced by the creatures in this land, Nate! Don’t you want to keep Sara safe from harm?”

The dwarven general, Fang, added his opinion as the other dwarves shuffled their feet and glowered, but no one castigated himself as much as Nate did. He had not told anyone, much less Sara, that he was head over heels in love. He had been watching the girl and yearning over her ever since he first met her. Living close by her and training with Sara and Chloe since they came to Sylvan’s village only made his adoration more profound and his longing for her as keen as a knife blade.