Chapter Eight - Teresa
I hit the ground hard, rocks beneath the ash digging deep into my arms even with the backpack cushioning me. The paws – each one bigger than my head – held me down, their claws curling up into cages wide enough to encircle my arms. There was an acrid tang wafting from the mouth full of hissing drool, strands dripping down to poke holes into the ashen crust around me.
It shifted and my shoulder crunched under the weight. There was the surge of warmth and dull pain, but it was oddly muted. The sound of its breath was distant and faint, and for a moment I thought I could see the back of my own head and the tangled mess my hair had devolved into. I’d let the wings in again, and they rustled across me with a soothing, familiar warmth that drove away the pain. The emptiness that settled over my mind like a cloak drowned out every ounce of terror with its deep, eternal ache.
Why worry about the teeth longer than my fingers when they could never be as bad as this? It was easier to give in, let go, and let the fuzz drag me under before the wolf thing could. I was just starting to slip when something pulled me away, smothering my senses and leaving my mind alone with the ashen wings for another timeless eternity, under the very faintest brush of its attention.
Light and feeling came back in a sudden jolt. A distant kernel of my companion watched me go through the aching spot in my chest, indifferent to my panic as everything came back in a flood of emotions. All I saw were dark skies and distant trees, but my heart jumped into my throat and I fought back tears as I realized that I’d just…accepted that I was going to die.
That wasn’t right.
“Pitiful showing.”
“It broke itself in two days!”
“The tool doesn’t even know what it’s for!”
The speakers bounced around, the hill I was sprawled upon echoing with more mockery.
“We can’t break our little toy yet, friends. Perhaps it needs a simpler challenge than a cairnhound.”
“It is the runt of its litter.”
“Perhaps a magivore?”
“Are ye’ daft? The poor thing would starve.”
“What of a lazzerak?”
“There’s no fun in watching it coo over their guise, for all the art that comes after.”
“A cerboar, then?”
“Fitting! A beast that feasts on dirt and stone for the golem made of flesh!”
They kept chattering but it faded into the background. None of them were looking at me as they bickered and I realized that, despite the existential panic, I felt…better.
Not good, still, but better. Everything ached, but nothing throbbed or shook. I was still hungry and thirsty, but it wasn’t the gnawing pain that had set in after running for what felt like days. My clothes had tears, but there weren’t any bleeding scratches or gouges under them. Just faint scars that barely stood out from my skin.
They were the ones that made me run from that thing in the first place, why would they undo it?
The spear that landed between my legs left me scrabbling backwards, this time. Not as much as before; even when they drove me back toward the thing they’d called a cairnhound they’d never hit me. I wasn’t sure they could, even with how Tammy had sold me out…
“Step lively, Seedling. You’re far, yet, from earning a respite.” The grin on their face was anything but gentle even as they softly pulled me to my feet. “Now, let’s see if the Grower’s work bred true. Try not to disappoint us. Again.”
Two of the interchangeable Fae that I hadn’t even seen leave crested the ridge just ahead of me, silver chains looped along their wrists. They were pulling what looked like a living rock on too many legs with them. The longer I looked at it, the more it thrashed. Neither of the slim figures even budged, despite the chains shrieking as the metal distorted, hovering just on the verge of tearing.
The way the thing's mouth opened to scream was enough to get me running even through the aches and pains. Nothing that opened in flaps like that was worth getting close to.
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The Fae were never far, and neither was the ‘cerboar’. I couldn’t stop for more than a few minutes. Just long enough to rest my legs, or scoop up some of the brackish, ash-laden water and choke it down. The trees here were thicker and more intact, but I didn’t think that climbing them would help. I’d watched the boar pull rocks into that petaled maw and crunch them on the metal spines it had instead of teeth. Wood would never stand up to that, burnt or otherwise.
It knew when I was watching. It would get antsy, and then scream like a car crash. I had to look away and move – silently – or it would charge. And it was fast, for all that it was either stupid or uninterested in me. It cared more about rooting through the ash than hunting me, so long as the Fae weren’t prodding it. If I closed my eyes and stepped softly, I could walk right by it, and it only got angry if I messed up.
So far, I’d kept ahead. They obviously didn’t want me to just run. I was guessing they wanted me to fight it. But honestly – I had no idea how. The thing was practically made of rock. How was I supposed to deal with that? Even if it was stronger here the only magic I had was useless. Blowing dust wasn’t going to help when the ritual knife didn’t even look long enough to get through the rocky skin.
They wanted me to be creative, or at least entertaining. That much was obvious. And so was what would happen if I didn’t live up to it.
This was the second chance. I’d already failed once – at best, I’d have one more shot after this. It might not be a thing, but the rule of three sounded like something the Fae would buy into.
I didn’t need the consequences distracting me. I was chewing the side of my mouth now, shifting further around a tree as the boar trotted by and thinking.
I had the knife. Maybe if it ate my arm while I was holding it that would hurt it, but I didn’t see it doing anything else. Not a good plan.
I had the reference books, but they sure wouldn’t let me sit down long enough to read something useful from them. The parlor tricks I had – and that was really all my magic was now – would accomplish nothing but leaving me dizzy. The pitiful fire and the wind had no chance of getting through that ash-streaked, chalky hide. The shining veins that ran across it might be more fragile – or they might be metal or crystal or something harder, like the tusks I’d watched break rock. All I knew was that they went from divot to divot in its shell of stone.
The divots would be the spot to aim for. But they were too jagged and small for me to hit without getting far, far too close.
No eyes, and nothing but the mouth that looked remotely soft. Between the ripping burrs of teeth and the shining crystal tusks, I wasn’t going to get anything I put near that back. Just because they looked like glass or gemstones didn’t make them fragile, so that was out.
As it ate a pebble, I got another glimpse of the teeth. Row after row of jagged metal set into sickeningly blue flesh.
I crept further out, trying to put some distance between us. Under the charred envelope of a leafless tree, one of the Faeries stood, leaning on its spear and watching me approach.
“Can I use tools?”
My voice was a whisper. Its retort echoed.
“Surely even you aren’t that incapable, Seedling. Or are your hands just showpieces, form bereft of function?”
I was already running as four sets of rocky legs pounded into the ground and the tree between us dissolved into splinters. I had the inklings of a plan – I just needed to find some things.
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Keeping track of time here was nearly impossible. I’d been moving and working long enough that the hunger was back, a gnawing pain that never really went away. It fell back, just a little, each time I knelt down and gulped handfuls of the brackish, ash-clogged water. A small voice in my head told me that I was definitely messing myself up by drinking it, but if it was this or letting myself get dehydrated like last time, I’d take the risk of diarrhea.
Even if I was dreading having to pee here, the water was all that was keeping me moving. I couldn’t let the fog take over again. Not this time. I had to keep my head clear and avoid falling back into the welcoming embrace of distant apathy.
My leg was the biggest problem. Not long after asking my question, I’d made too much noise and been too slow to leap up a tree. One of the tusks had gouged a finger-length chunk out of my calf, and now it didn’t want to hold my weight without a walking stick. Which made more noise, and drew the boar in closer. I couldn’t run at this point, and if it caught me again this would be a repeat of last time. The throbbing was gone into the background of bruises, aches, and pains I’d somehow started getting used to. It had stopped bleeding, but the bloody paste of ash clogging it up made my skin itch just to think about.
Especially since it hadn’t touched the ground and I hadn’t put it there.
There was no space in my head to worry about the implications. I had to focus on the plan – so long as I kept working, the Fae didn’t bring the boar any closer. And I knew, well before I sat everything down here, that it was far enough off to be confident in starting this.
If I could just get over the part of me that suddenly balked at starting a fire in the pile of rejected wood. Something about doing it here felt deeply, deeply wrong and just the thought was enough to trigger a shifting withdrawal from the thing inside me.
This might not even work – everything that wasn’t already charcoal was still, at least a little bit, charred. It was my only chance, though, and I had to get over the way my hands started to shake and just…do it.
There were eight useable pieces of wood, ready and waiting. Each longer than I was tall and thicker around than my thumb. The luckiest find was thicker than my arm and sturdy enough to hopefully do its job. The others were springier – and I wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing for this. I’d already shaved the ragged ends of each into rough points, arrayed where the fire would lick at them. I wasn’t sure how exactly it worked, but I knew that fire-hardening was a thing for wooden tools. I really, really hoped it did what I needed and didn’t ruin the stakes.
They were my best chance to get through its skin. I’d seen it charge, completely ignoring obstacles, and shake pulverized rock off of its skin after. If I could bait it, this might work. If not, I’d die, but maybe the Fae would have pity on me.
…yeah I really hoped it worked.
But first I had to start the fire and even that thought made me flinch back sympathetically.
When the guttering strands of liquid fire finally made it past my skin, the cracked and broken sticks piled in front of me caught.
Instantly, the wind around the little clearing picked up and the ash started to swirl again.
I tried to avoid looking at the crackling flames as I shifted the first stick forward and grabbed the knife. I didn’t know how long this would take, but I was pretty sure I was supposed to char the tip and then scrape it off until I got it sharp. It was my best idea, but even with the spot in my chest feeling actually, well, empty for once – I kept flinching back as I tried to move it into the flame. I was still weighing the knife in my hand and psyching up to it when the tone of the wind shifted with the scrape of wood-on-wood.
“How very daring.”
I jumped backward, my leg collapsing under me as I tried to push up on it. The wood fell into the fire, scattering the flaming branches even as a wave of ash rushed in to smother them. The sparks that exploded out in glowing trails faded, one by one, as the leader of the Fae sat, knees folded, across from me.
Eventually there was only a single ember left, hovering in the air before her. Her eyes were locked on it even as she spoke to me, the fingers of one hand weaving streams of ash around it while the other sat on her lap.
“You would do well to be wary, crude child. There are worse things out there than the Children hounding you, and your touch calls to them just as much as I.”
The ember in her hands shivered. Tendrils of flame so bright they left afterimages in my eyes lashed out, wrapping around her fingers before the ash slashed them away. Her pale, silvery skin was left blackened as they withdrew, but her expression never changed from the small frown.
“It is a dangerous thing, you and your sister stand for. The Flower was a failure, and even the Grower admitted such. Yet its death broke him worse than the loss of his Names.”
Another shiver. The fire lashed out, but this time it never reached her hand.
“And here you are, a seed that he was too far gone to truly see. Are you one that grows from the cinders, or will you simply break?”
She looked me straight in the eyes and everything faded away but her and the speck of fire.
“Hope is such a rare thing in the Court of Ash, and to watch twinned potential smothered in the cradle…imbecilic.”
The word snapped out hard enough to knock me backwards. Ashen blades lined her fingers as her hand curled into a fist around the ember. A high, distant scream rang out and the world shivered, a wavy heat haze distorting everything beyond the ring of dead air surrounding me. Then something popped, and her hand opened.
Five dark, sparkling, sharp gems fell to the ground.
“Until I can see them again…”
“You. Will. Not. Die.”
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I didn’t remember blacking out, but what came after was actual sleep. Complete with unbelievably vast dreams that slipped away as I woke. The aches and pains – even the burning gash in my leg – melted away and didn’t crawl back as I woke up. A grey, shimmering scar was all that was left of the hole.
The fire was gone, as if it had never been there. Ash several inches deep sloughed away as I stood within a ring of eight wooden shafts. Seven were what I’d planned – charred and whittled points so crude I was already doubting my plan. And then one, lain down at my feet, unlike anything I could have done.
The wood of the shaft had withered. It was warm to the touch, warmer than everything else here, and rang like steel as I tapped my fingernails on it. At the head, three gems had fused into a leaf-shaped razor, the other two inset as sharp, dark wings beneath it. The spear – and this, this really was a spear - nestled into my hands as if it was made for them.
It probably was. A gift from the Fae – from one that by all accounts seemed Significantly More Important than the others. I didn’t know what the price was, but given the consequences of failure…
I was going to take it.
It took a few minutes to gather everything up and by then I could hear the boar moving closer. This wasn’t a good spot for my plan, though. Too open. I needed to funnel it into the stakes. That meant finding a hill or valley or thicket. Whichever I found first, probably. I didn’t want to keep running and dodging it even if I felt better now than the start of the run.
The stakes rattled behind me. They were slotted through the loops of my backpack so that I could carry them all, so long as I avoided dense trees. The more elaborate one was in my hand, a walking stick and a weapon in one. In the time it took to find a sheltered little ravine where the ground dipped towards a low-lying pool of water, I caught glimpses of the boar. Never enough to let it get enraged and charge me, but enough to know what direction it was in and when I needed to be quiet.
The ravine wasn’t a proper one, to be honest. Maybe an eight foot drop at its deepest, but it was a channel at least a hundred feet long and backing up to a pool that looked deep enough that I didn’t think the boar would cross it. A run like that with an obstacle at the back and lined with enough trees to make jumping down inconvenient was perfect.
The ground gave easily as I jammed the extra stakes in. Three angled across the ten-foot-wide passage around torso height for the boar. Four set as firmly as I could in a chevron that would stab in around its mouth, hopefully, as it charged at me. The one the Fae had left me was planted against the ground, but not wedged in. I needed to be able to actually aim.
Once I was as satisfied as I could be, I took a deep breath. Then, I did something immensely satisfying.
I screamed.
Not like when I was surprised or terrified, no. This was me venting what I felt about Tammy screwing up this badly. About the Faeries thinking they could use me as a toy. About pain and loss and emptiness greater than I could even imagine, as the fluttering thing inside me seemed to whisper along with me in concepts too broad to be considered words. Just that was apparently enough to make the world shake.
The ash around me cracked in fractal patterns as it tried and failed to harden. The ground shook and the staves locked into place. On either side of me, the walls started to writhe. Tree roots twisted and curled, arching up over the top of the ravine to make a tunnel that cast the first shadows I’d seen here in the Roads. From the roots, glowing bulbs and tendrils sprouted, withering into ash as quickly as they formed.
I ran out of breath, first, but the whispers lagged by a heartbeat.
Once the world stopped shaking and the glows had all faded, the trees above were twisted and drooping. It didn’t look like they were going to collapse onto me, thankfully. Most importantly, both the boar and the Fae were standing at the entrance. The boar itself was screaming like it usually did when I looked at it, but in the silence following mine it felt small. One of the Fae let go of the chain they’d materialized.
It charged.
The first stake broke on one of its tusks, splintering and leaving nothing more than a scratch in the ash on its side.
The next one was just a hair too low, tangling into the beast’s legs as it ran and snapping without leaving a mark. It did, however, cause it to stumble into the third. Hard. The point broke off with a crunch but pried off a piece of rocky skin at the edge of one of the depressions. The rest of the shaft sank in as it forced itself further forward.
It stalled, for a second. The main body of the stake refused to break at this angle, but the boar’s skin didn’t. Squirts of blue stained the ash as it yanked forward, a shower of stone falling form its side as a line of its armor was pried off. It was limping, now, but still insistent on running up at me as I watched.
I didn’t have time to think as it smashed into the braced spear in my hands. The gnarled shaft vibrated as hot blood sprayed out onto my hands, the things mass driving it further and further down the shaft even as the other staves drove into its sides or broke against its hide. The tusks inched closer and closer to my fingers as its thrashing threatened to rip the spear from my grasp. The wing of gems went into its mouth, shearing through the metallic spurs of its teeth with a grinding rasp and left it barely a foot from ripping through my wrists. Its screams, now, were more like whimpers of pain.
I closed my eyes and twisted until everything went still.