“Now someone is killing us, it seems. And most of the citizens of the Two Kingdoms will care not at all. Some will likely even cheer. The Hunters have likely been employed in secret, but even should word of their actions begin to spread, few will protest. We are only myths, after all,” the winter man said, sneering the hated word.
A night bird cawed in the shadows of the branches above. In the bole of a nearby tree, Oliver was sure he saw the eyes of an owl.
“As to who is responsible, who has set these hounds upon my trail— and now upon yours as well— I fear I haven’t the slightest inkling. We need to find a safe haven where we may rest and where we can see what other news can be discovered about—”
With a gust of frigid wind the winter man spun round and dropped into a crouch, fingers elongating into wicked talons. Something rustled back in amongst the shadows of the trees, far out of the moonlight. Oliver held his breath, wanting to ask what it was that had alarmed him so, but unable to form the words.
Oliver took a step forward and Frost shot him an abrupt look and then gestured for him to go, to run alongside the massive barrow. He snapped his head, indicating the urgency of their situation, and Oliver began to run. In three paces he found the winter man sprinting beside him and the two of them raced to the east with that ridge on their right and something rushing through the woods to the left, brush crashing and swaying.
Low branches seemed to reach for him but Oliver swiped them away. His stomach rumbled— a reminder of the hours since he had last eaten. His throat was raw, his chest constricted and his legs felt as though they were moving of their own accord. He caught sight of a fallen tree just in time to leap over it and glanced back to see it frost over with glistening rime as the winter man passed by. The finger of a branch scratched his forehead and he hissed but did not slow. He glanced over his left shoulder time and again, trying to catch sight of whatever paced them in the brush, but after several long seconds of running, the sounds from the woods ceased and he began to think it had given up the chase.
“What is it?” he gasped as Frost prodded him in the arm with an icy finger, urging him still onward.
“I do not know,” the winter man said, his voice seeming to come from the breeze itself. “Something magical that does not wish to be seen.”
That was enough for Oliver. If Frost thought they ought to run, he was not about to argue. They ran side by side, the legendary creature moving effortlessly even as Oliver got a stitch in his side. Still he forced himself on, feet pounding the soil. They had to put some distance between themselves and their pursuer, or at the very least find a clearing where it could not approach them unseen. All of these thoughts mingled with the fear in his mind and with thoughts of home, of people he was beginning to doubt he would ever see again. It was only physical and emotional momentum that carried him forward. He had nowhere else to go.
The ridge gradually sloped downward and soon he could see the tops of the trees on the far side. Ahead in the yellow light of the moon he could see that the forest floor seemed to flatten out again, and then beyond it there seemed a vast open space with no trees at all.
“There,” he rasped.
“Yes,” Frost agreed. “We can take our bearings.”
In that moment, though, there came a snap of branches behind them. Oliver cursed under his breath and Frost bared his teeth and cut across in front of him. Oliver nearly stumbled before he realized what the winter man intended, but then they were both running up the steep ridge. It had diminished so much by then that the place they climbed up was less than ten feet high, and they scaled it without effort. Oliver glanced back even as they topped the rise and then he turned to catch a quick glimpse of the clearing that stretched out in front of them.
Oliver grunted in astonishment and flinched back as though he’d been struck. He teetered on that narrow ridge and his hands flew to the top of his head, holding the sides of his skull as though he was afraid there simply wasn’t room in his mind for any more of what the world beyond the Veil had to show him.
The being that lay in the clearing ahead could only have been called a giant. He must have been seventy or eighty feet from end to end and his skin was a leathery, wrinkled brown. Yet size was only one of the facets of the thing that left Oliver speechless. Tatters of rough linen that once could have been considered clothes hung on the enormous creature, but the forest itself covered him now. The giant lay on his side, his knees and part of one foot buried in the ground, and saplings grew over them. A thick layer of moss had formed in crevices on the giant’s body, where the sun rarely shone. It grew up in the crook of his neck and behind one ear. Weeds and mushrooms and flowers grew from the moss, and a bush with dark green and red-tinted leaves sprang from his ear.
All around the giant were the fireflies he had seen earlier, hundreds of them flitting from weed to flower.
Oliver narrowed his eyes.
They weren’t fireflies.
“Oh,” he whispered. “They’re beautiful.”
His feet seemed to move of their own accord and he started forward without making any allowance for the hill. He stumbled, tried to keep his footing, but the momentum tipped him over and then he was spilling end over end down the far side of the ridge. His shoulder struck exposed bone and he grunted in pain but could not arrest his tumble until at last he sprawled at the bottom, just at the edge of the clearing, perhaps forty feet from the giant’s knees.
“Fool!” he heard Frost snap, above and behind him.
Oliver stood and brushed off the seat of his pants, which had dried long ago but were still stiff. He stared wide-eyed but found himself not looking at the giant, but the colorful things that fluttered all around. Unable to prevent himself from moving, he walked slowly alongside the enormous man. The giant’s chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm, and Oliver realized he was sleeping. For how long? he thought. For the forest to grow over him like that . . . how long?
He wondered what would happen if somehow the giant was to awaken, if his lost flesh would be restored, or if he would live as this half-decayed creature forever. Already he understood that there were many kinds of magic in this world, some far more sinister than others, but looking at the astonishing tableau before him, he was reminded how very much he had to learn.
A cluster of mushrooms grew from the giant’s navel and more of those things, like fireflies, hovered around them.
Oliver watched as one of them, a pale thing that gave off a golden luminescence, flew toward the giant’s face and into one enormous nostril. In the darkness of the giant’s nose there were multicolored flashes of light. One of them flitted over to him, zipping toward his face, and Oliver gasped in surprise and fright and ducked back.
She tilted her head and studied him curiously, that tiny naked woman with her black eyes and hummingbird wings, a lavender light glowing around her as she danced in the air. The light came from a sparkling phosphorescence given off by her wings. He uttered a small noise of delight and shock when he caught the scent of her— a remarkable perfume that made him feel as though he had just woken from a long sleep. In fact, the air was filled with the mingling of many different scents, all alluring in their way, and he realized he had been smelling them since he had come over the ridge.
“Les Bonnes Dames,” the winter man said softly as he joined Oliver in the clearing of the sleeping giant.
“They’re fairies,” Oliver replied without tearing his gaze away from the tiny women.
Before Frost could reply, another voice came from behind them. “Peries, to be precise. Their ancestors were Persian.”
Oliver turned to see a woman standing on the ridge from which they had just descended. In her way she was as breathtaking as the giant or the flitting Peries, for there was magic in every nuance of her aspect and yet she appeared entirely human. Her soft jade-green eyes seemed alight from within. Ebony hair framed a finely boned face with the distinct flair of the Orient. Her clothes were simple black garments but they were worn beneath a flowing, hooded cloak of copper-red fur. It struck him instantly that the night was too warm for such a cloak, but she seemed not to notice.
The winter man did not turn. “I knew it was useless to try to outrun you.”
His tone made Oliver blink several times and regard this stunning woman anew. “You were the one in the woods. You were . . .” He stared at Frost. “Wait, is she one of them?”
With just a moment’s hesitation, Frost did finally turn to regard her. A smile cracked the edges of his mouth and his jagged hair clinked together again.