Nimue found the debate difficult to follow, given the varying dialects and clan languages and the occasional English speaker.
“We’ll take our chances in the peaks,” groused Jekka, Cliff Walker elder, her sagging arms covered in tattoos.
A tall Storm Crafter who, like his kind, was hairless and unmoved by the cold, snarled in his native tongue, “Awl nos chirac nijan?”
Nimue turned to Kaze, who translated: “What of the rest of us?”
“I’ve lost fifteen of my own blood. A generation wiped away. My people have to come first. We can’t hide you all.” Jekka shrugged, weary of the struggle.
Nuryss of the Snakes spat, “Klik kata ak took!”
Kaze whispered, “He says, ‘Just like a Cliff Walker to look down on the rest of us.’ ”
Jekka bristled. “And what has your kind ever done for any of us, except sow discord? And now you want our help?”
“We agreed to stay together,” Gawain reminded everyone, but he wasn’t heard above the shouting. Fear and rage and sorrow boiled over and found fuel in tribal disputes older than the caves that sheltered them.
A piercing light and a sub-aural hum silenced them all. Every head turned to Nimue, holding the Devil’s Tooth in her fist. She walked forward and set the sword on the boulder. The other Fey Folk brooded on the sword and remained silent.
Nimue’s voice shook and her skin tingled as she felt the presence of her mother beside her. Regal. Forthright. “We’re not running, not hiding, not abandoning our own kind. Shame on the one who turns her back on her brother. Or sister. We’ve all lost mothers and brothers, sons and friends. We are all we have. We are all that stands between our kind and annihilation. Our languages, our rituals, our history, we’re the only thing that keeps Carden’s river of fire from washing them away.”
The caves were quiet but restless. Nimue knew the moment wouldn’t last.
Gawain nodded at this. “And what do you propose?”
“How far is the town of Cinder?” she asked, her voice steady.
“Ten miles south from Cinder’s Gate,” Morgan answered from the back.
Gawain shook his head, anticipating her proposal. “It’s no refuge for us. Red Paladins occupied it a fortnight ago.”
“And what gives them that right?” Nimue asked.
Gawain gave her a quizzical look. “They have no right. They just take.”
With Lenore clear and beautiful in her mind, Nimue spoke. “This is our land. These are our trees. Our shadows. Our caves. Our tunnels. We know these lands and these trails. Why should we leave? Carden is the invader. His paladins are the invaders. Let us treat them like the invaders they are.”
Lenore’s voice was quiet but firm: Then teach them. Help them understand. Because one day you’ll have to help lead them. When I’m gone—
A few of the Fey Kind nodded in accord, but Gawain tempered Nimue’s argument. “Carden has thousands of fighters. We cannot take him head-on.”
She felt the Hidden act as a bellows in her stomach, coaxing the growing fire, a power not lashing out but yielding to her will, awaiting her command. The Sword of Power seemed to glow under her gaze. She spoke with Lenore’s certainty. “I agree, we cannot win a war with Carden. But we can frustrate him, thwart him, put him on the defensive, and in the meantime save as many as we can from his crosses. I say we turn the land against him. Make him fear the cliffs.” Nimue looked at the Cliff Walkers. “And the glades.” She glanced at the Snakes. “Make them fear the shadows. I’ve seen these paladins up close. They aren’t devils. They’re men. Flesh and blood. They scream and bleed like we do. So let’s make them. They’ve taken our land, so let us take it back!”
Wroth of the Tusks pounded his fist upon the boulder again, this time in approval. The Snakes stomped their feet along with the Storm Crafters. Morgan smiled, eyes shining, as gradually all the Fey Kind were slamming their fists or stomping their feet in approval. Gawain turned to Nimue, concern etched on his brow, but she felt a strange serenity. Part of it was the certainty of having the sword, and the vast power of the Hidden beyond it. But the other part was relief. There would be no more running. They would take the fight to the Red Paladins, and come fire, death, or torture, the Wolf-Blood Witch would have her blood.
“WE’RE NOT RUNNING, NOT HIDING, NOT ABANDONING OUR OWN KIND.”
FORTY
CINDER WAS A LARGER TOWN than Hawksbridge, numbering almost five thousand residents, and was tucked in a valley of low mountains at the southern end of the Minotaurs, attracting immigrants and laborers from both the port cities and the northern lands: Aquitania, Francia, and England. It was surrounded by steep and dramatic waterfalls that fed a number of streams meeting at the Boar River, which wended its way through the heart of the small city and fed the moats of the town gates and the smaller moats of the lord’s castle as well as feeding trade to the rest of southern Francia.
The smoke of the farm fires loomed over Cinder like a yellow storm cloud and curled around the merlons of the ramparts. The Red Paladins patrolling those walls held their hoods over their mouths to avoid breathing the acrid air.
It was just past dawn and the gates were already raucous with peasant workers seeking shelter, and farmers and their families begging for food, not to mention the herders with their dozens of bleating sheep and goats, horses, and cows rescued hours before from burning barns. Where normally oxcarts and trade wagons would form a line half a mile long, only a handful of sellers arrived for market day. They were hastily led inside while Red Paladins and the footmen of Lord Ector, Cinder’s chief magistrate, argued with the gathering mob, most of whom were demanding reparations for, and protection from, the spreading fires.
Into this chaos, a single hooded rider emerged from the smoke and the dense green forest about a quarter mile from the road and the gates of Cinder. The Red Paladins atop the wall took notice as the rider paused and flipped back her hood. Nimue stared at the Red Paladins on the wall. Then she threw aside her robes and drew the Sword of Power, raising it above her head, the blade flaring in the sun like a torch. See it, you bastards? Come, then. Come and take it from me.
“The witch!” one of them cried. Another quickly grabbed a longbow and fired an arrow at Nimue, who did not move as it landed in the brush a dozen yards away.
“The Wolf-Blood Witch! The sword! She carries the sword! It’s the witch! It’s her! The Devil’s Tooth!” These calls were now racing up and down the walls, and in a matter of minutes one hundred Red Paladins galloped through the gates, blasted past the bereft farmers and their livestock, and stormed across the road and into the brush. Nimue wheeled around, tempted to charge them. Stay with the plan, fool. And instead she bolted into the forest, luring them into a chase.
Anax was the commander of the Red Paladin company and a seasoned killer, with bony features and a coarse black tonsure to match his beard. He feared no witches and bemoaned the bed-wetters he led, with their superstitions and silly gossip. Anax believed in the god of steel and felt the comfort of his bastard sword banging against his leg as he rode deep into the forest.
“Spread out!” he barked, and red robes fanned out on his right and his left. The smoke and the mists cut down on visibility. The witch appeared to be weaving between the trees some two hundred yards ahead. “Watch the trees!” he ordered, assuming the witch was organizing an ambush. But Anax felt little fear of it. True, some paladins had died at the witch’s hand. But that’s what you get for putting a child in command, Anax thought with disgust. The Ghost Child. The Green Knight had sparked a tiny rebellion in some of the lower hills, a few archers here and there; some had been decent shots, but for the most part the Fey Kind were a cowardly lot that showed little will to fight, from his experience. And he had plenty of experience. Anax had personally seen twenty villages burned and had cut down more than a hundred of the monsters, some with horns coming out of their throats, others with strange, almost see-through skin, others covered in slime who lived under the mud. They died all the same and begged all the same and burned all the same. The witch would be a nice prize, he mused. The sword alone would earn him great credit with the pope, a nice assignment with the Trinity, perhaps, somewhere out of the mud and the cold.