The Spy and the Hound II

Chapter 2 - Forest

The trees hid their fog beneath mighty branches. Vinter mist slithered between the trunks to blanket rotten leaves. Mountains caged the forest.

Briarhaven, the grand orchard of Rhyla’s northwestern region. This land of magic held secrets. Secrets which often protected themselves.

Cero awoke, soaked to the bone with cold mist. Coarse fur huddled against him. The muscled spook felt enormous gratitude suffuse him, almost as much as Lovail’s warmth. Mildew-tainted mist left his lips chapped and his mouth disgustingly wet.

How long did he sleep? His hunger said a week. Folktales told of a man, Old Vinkle, who slept for forty years in Rhyla, only to wake and find his family long dead.

The sun’s angle said it was late afternoon. Maybe the next day, he couldn’t know.

He groaned in dread at the day ahead, whatever was left. A Kingsknight fears nothing, he told himself, Least of all hard work.

It was bad for Biscuit to wear the gear all this time but choice was a luxury. Cero resolved to be gentle with her for the next few days.

The silent forest presented a calm presence for now, but silences are rarely good.

They’d made landfall and the most dangerous part was over. Next, he would find a nearby town or village, someplace small and unknown. Were he an amateur, he might come out of the woods. Instead, he’d scout the roads in and stroll into town along them like a common citizen. And then he’d build a life from dust and sweat.

A mare of Biscuit’s size often sold for a commoner’s yearly wage. It would be odd to immediately sell her; first, he’d do some farm work with her for a month. After that, he’d say he was ‘moving on’ and offer to sell her. He doubted these island bumpkins would prize her as much as he did. He’d make sure to give her cabbage with her oats, and convince the buyer to do the same.

After he’d gone to ground, he’d be impossible to detect. Many lives were contained within his work. A reasonable farmer, an excellent merchant, and frankly a terrible stonemason. The spook would begin again.

This time, a divorced carpenter would seek a new life. After his wife had caught another man’s child, of course. A story sad enough for sympathy. Rhylans were notoriously monogamous and the scandal of it would hopefully guard his false past from too much investigation. He had yet to select a suitable name, however.

Rhylans were all named after tools or trades, something specialized. His real first name wouldn’t do. ‘Trowel’ sounded common enough, but he hated it. The exhausted man mounted the horse and they rode leisurely into the misted woods while he pondered his name.

The rough terrain betrayed no landmarks, save the Wounded Mountain at the center of the isle. Rustwoods clawed the sky far above them.

Intelligence said a town stood beneath a Jade Tower, the residence of the Greenlock. “Locks,” he said aloud. The sound gave form to thought and beat back the sludge in his tired mind.

The Locks of Rhyla, nine wizards descended from Roerdon’s rebel lieutenants. The Dawn King had long gone missing some centuries ago, but they carried on without him. “Lazy wizards can’t even get off their arses to help their own,” he grumbled.

As if a country could survive without a king. The idea was preposterous. Whoever this ‘Greenlock’s’ identity, they were just as to blame as–

“Zulthurda Othuzaula Soothodala!”

Cero’s short sword escaped a hidden scabbard on his back. Lovail’s hair stood on end, a silent snarl on her maw. Biscuit froze in place while her ears searched in all directions.

The spook’s senses worked overtime. Loud drums. Male voice. Distance unknown. Drums louder. Echoes on mountains hid their position. A flock of birds into the sky. Deafening drums.

“Otho! Otho-taka!” a chorus of screams answered.

“Zulthurdaka!” the first voice called out. “Zulth–”

Birds scattered to the sky. A deeper silence strangled the forest.

Flawataka, a language Cero only knew how to curse in. The drums pounded without echo. A trap? Drums that shook the saddle.

Biscuit’s ears swiveled to their left and locked in. Her hooves took a small step away from the sounds.

Lovail’s gaze turned to the deep thicket with her legs splayed. She stood between the spook and the daring challenger, whatever it was. The altova’s low growl drowned out the spook’s heart.

The spook turned his dull human senses to match the animals’. Tired eyes squinted to impotently follow his heart-muffled ears toward a too familiar sound.

Flesh ripped. Bones cracked. Magical or mundane, a monster devoured meat and bone, hidden beneath the cold thicket’s canopy.

Helios damn this island, he thought.

The spook kicked the horse into a slow walk, and careful hooves poked holes in the mist. One hand steered a wide berth with the reins. The other held the sword silently at his side. This unplanned resistance demanded a spear. One he’d left mounted on his wall at home.

Eat as much as you like. So long as you spare Lovail the trouble, the man thought toward the creature.

After a thought, Cero redirected their path just a little closer. Best to know the creature, at least.

Slowly, the trees and mist revealed a creature to his squinted eyes. A column of black scales undulated near a deadfall tree. A long, lumpy serpent stood on fourteen or fifteen legs. A muffled crunch like a candy-sour beat against its lips from the inside. Four feet high at the shoulders, perhaps taller. It was so long that one man couldn’t possibly fill its stomach.

Biscuit silently crept through the mist. Cero held his breath. Lovail’s mane bloomed while she stalked between him and the beast. They left the beast behind. Even a careful crawl could outpace the dead.

The trio maintained that pace until sunset. Then, and only then, did Cero kick the horse into a gallop. He wanted a great distance between him and whatever the ‘Zulthurda’ was. They rode until his white knuckles ached on slick reins.

The spook’s tired bones pulled his butt to the base of a rusty tree. He had a thought to water Lovail or feed Biscuit, just before oblivion claimed him. A circle of bushes watched over them in the dark night.

Lovail’s warm body rested on his lap. Biscuit had laid her head on a fallen log to sleep near him as well.

The spy craned his stiff neck upward and gazed into the dark between the trees. A preview of dawn awoke him. A moon drifted between two…branches? No. Antlers.

A deer-thing stood in the thicket. Moss peppered with pink petals clung to its back, or perhaps that was its skin. A mote of moonlight drifted lazily between two stalky antlers, orbited by sparkles of starlight. Thin legs lifted it to peel bark from a young tinselwood sprout.

The spy gasped at its beauty.

The sound surprised a younger one which nibbled on the mother’s moss. It hid behind her while it voraciously tore sustenance from the vegetated haunches. The young one bore a crown of glitter-dust around its nubby antlers; Perhaps the mote was for adults?

The mother turned her green-refracted glare toward him while it chewed and crushed the poisonous bark. She nuzzled her faun further behind her.

Abruptly, the eldritch creature ripped the sprout from the ground, root and all. The deep growth cracked and cried, then dropped a stone the size of the man’s head from its roots. Satisfied she had warned the bald ape, she continued to munch.

Cero felt tears run down his cheeks. It wasn’t a beast that stood before him, but Helio’s dance at dawn. As if honor and innocence had merged into a strength he could never know. A dark serpent had been wrapped around his heart, and the sight loosened the coiled sin in his chest.

Body and spirit depleted, his willpower alone could not sustain him. Sleep took him away from the dream.