'Michael. Michael Fay.'
A whisper like the hum of a bee in his ear. He turned to catch the iridescent flash of a dragonfly that was perched on his shoulder. He flinched and was about to bat it away when the thin voice came again.
'It's me, you fool. Mirkady.'
'Mirkady! Bloody hell!'
'Not so loud. These tribesmen have hearing like gnats. And they distrust the Wyrim almost as much as the villagers.'
'What is it? What do you want?'
'To give you some advice. I'm going. You seem to have found yourself some new friends, and they will be more useful to you than one of the Forest-Folk could ever be. Listen to me now. Cat has gone.'
'I know. Where?'
'To fetch your prancing mare. She will meet you in the woods ahead in a little while. But I must tell you this: you are hunted. My people have sensed things shadowing you in the woods. And the Horseman is near. You are being watched, young Michael, and Cat also. And as long as she is in your company she is just another human—in most things. You must be careful. Learn all you can from the Fox-People. They are loyal to the death, and the hardiest of folk in the Wildwood. It comes of what they once were.'
He paused.
'There is magic in this place, Michael. The Wildwood thrums with it. Only in the cross-guarded sanctuaries of the Brothers are you safe. That village you left behind: if its priest is dead, then half its survivors will be carrion by morning.'
'Why?'
If a dragonfly could be said to shrug, this one did. Its eyes glittered like sun-caught prisms.
'Revenge, perhaps. Even the folk of my own Howe will be happy to see one more part of the forest reclaimed, the cross-magic overthrown. The beasts will close in on them tonight.'
'And you?'
'I am sickeningly soft-hearted at times. It comes of loving a halfling like our Catherine.'
'Mirkady, there are things I have to know. There's a reason for me being here, I'm sure.'
'Oh, yes. Nothing happens without a reason.'
'The Horseman. He follows me?'
'Undoubtedly'
'But—'
'I am going now, young Michael. I am not a seer to be consulted on the secrets of the Wildwood. Even the Wyrim do not know everything. Some things you will have to find out yourself. Some of our people 1 will set to watch over you when 1 can and 1 will look in on the pair of you myself. But that sword you carry—you had best learn to use it. Iron is the surest killer in this country, more sure even than that thunderous fire-stick you carry. And remember that holly and wolfsbane are your friends. Kingcup, also. It keeps witches at bay. And yarrow for healing ironmade wounds. Remember these things, Michael.'
The dragonfly buzzed, wings a-blur.
'Mirkady—wait a minute ... '
The insect took off, wagged its wings impishly and then wheeled away into the heights of the towering trees.
AFTER PERHAPS THREE miles they met up with Cat. She was standing between Fancy and the stolen gelding. A shaft of thick, honeyed sunlight was falling on the trio, making her face into a white blaze. The three were a golden triptych from some other time. But the sunlight faded, and he could see the dirt that smudged her cheeks and grimed her tunic. She smiled. 'Now we'll travel in style.'
THIRTEEN
TRAVELLING.
A long way, they had gone, until all his life it seemed he had been under trees, staring into fires in the night, feeling the hard ground under his back and tasting smoke-tainted meat. A long time—enough time to put far behind them the smell of burning and the vengeance of the Knights. Enough time to strip the adolescent roundness from his face, to pump out the' birthing muscles of his gawky frame and proportion it anew. Rein, knife and sword hilt rubbed callouses on his palms and his shoulders were pushed farther apart.
Ringbone taught him things: tracking through the dense woods, recognizing game trails; stalking. Killing. And as more and more of the forest language surfaced in Michael's mind, so he slipped more and more easily into the tapestry of the Wildwood. He picked up the ways of the wood, and found that for the most part they were there already, locked inside him the same way the language was. A hidden bud blossoming. These things he saw and learned; and as he did, he aged.
It was the fast-growing down of hair on his chin that drew his attention to it. Ringbone's people went clean-shaven and crop-headed following some ancient tradition, so there was no shortage of flint razor and goose grease to take it off. But it thickened and bristled, grew harsh and rasping. He let it grow in the end, though Cat disapproved, and became a bearded man before his fourteenth birthday. That frightened him, but Cat refused to talk of it. It was then she told him that parable of time being like a lake. He wondered if it were truly so inexhaustible, if this place were drinking his years away.
They followed Ringbone's tribe as it moved with the hunting and the seasons, He saw the morning frosts give way to snow that made the deep woods into a pristine, monochrome wonderland where white owls hunted in the night, and rime-furred wolves padded the drifts. He killed a bear—a day to be remembered—and the skin made robes for Cat and himself. He dug squirrels out of their dreys, rabbits from their warrens, and scavenged his way through the lean part of the year. Ringbone's people settled for the winter by the banks of a half-frozen river far from any village or chapel or troop of Knights Militant. Here they reared up shelters of brush, hide, turf and anything else which came to hand. The kidnapped women of the burnt village settled into their new way of life with surprisingly little trouble, learning from the women of the tribe—some of whom were captives from past raids themselves. They smoked meat and cured skins and gathered firewood and water uncomplainingly, though the cold grew more intense as the months darkened. The wolves prowled between the huts at night, and once one darted in an open door flap to snatch a sleeping child. The forest things were hungry, too.