Sweet Tom Reedling’s rifle cracked. The weapon jumped in his arms, and his horse danced to the side. The bullet thunked into the distant trees, but still the dark shapes slinked toward them. Brandon sucked in a breath, held it, and fired.
One of the wulvers jerked with a yelp. Brandon fired again, and it lay still. Howls sounded from the trees and from the fields lost in darkness around them. The wulvers that had been brave enough to approach snarled and yapped before turning and fleeing.
Brandon and Sweet Tom Reedling levelled their rifles. Sergeant McGrady urged his horse forward a few steps. “Save your bullets, lads, and keep an eye to our flanks,” he said. He waved his pistol from side to side.
The riders of Hawick wheeled their mounts, scouring all around. Effie saw the worry etched on Alan Thornwood’s face. Donald Langthumb had pulled a small woodsman’s axe from his belt. She wondered how he managed to grip the thing as she saw now the meaning of his name. His right thumb ended in a short stump, the top missing above the knuckle.
“Where are they?” asked George Gresham. He yanked at his reins, spinning his head about, wide-eyed. His torch and spear flailed as he moved.
The question was met only by the patter of rain and the sound of their breathing. Some came labored and quick from a few of the men. It drowned out any noise coming from the fields.
“They flee,” Gaelyph finally said. He held his chin high as he studied the tree line. “Their duty is done.”
Effie frowned. She force her breathing to slow and find steady rhythm. As her racing heart calmed, she tried to deduce his meaning. “They only meant to scare and delay us. Their master seeks more time, a chance to gain distance…” She let the words trail off. She met the warden’s gaze.
“No.” She corrected herself. “They had two days at the least to slink into whatever dank hole they chose. She lures us into a trap.” She. Tallia, Effie knew it had to be.
“We should return to the castle and fetch the rest of the lads,” said George Gresham. “We can come back on the morrow in force and flush the things from their warren.”
“If we tuck our tails, they’d only ride us down,” said Brandon.
“Wait over the next rise until I return,” said Gaelyph. Effie studied the warden and shook her head, but he hurried off into the darkness before she could stammer a word. Her mind whirled over what game Tallia might be playing at.
“Should we let him go out there alone?” Alan asked.
“Better him than us,” replied George Gresham.
“Aye,” said Brandon, twisting the man’s meaning. “He is better than the lot of us with that sword of his.”
“Come,” said Effie. “We will trust in the warden.” She made her voice sound steadier than she felt. In truth, she wanted nothing more than to chase after him. Patting Barnaby’s neck, she flicked his reins. The horse plodded forward. Hooves clomped behind her as the other men followed.
The rain lessened to a gentle mist as they crossed over the rise and settled into a shallow dell full of bramble. Effie pulled down the hood of her cloak and felt Alan Thornwood’s eyes on her again. She turned to him, resting her cane across her lap.
“What caused you men of Hawick to abandon your town and fight?” she asked.
“Honor,” said Donald Langthumb. He pulled back his shoulders.
“Abandon?” asked George Gresham. “Nay, lass. These hills and waters are our homes.”
“I wanted to ask the same of you, miss,” said Sweet Tom Reedling. “Was it the adventure tales of your Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson?”
“His aren’t as fanciful,” Brandon answered for her. Torchlight flickered across his face. “Fiendish fey hounds prowling the night. Men and women wandering about like the dead come to life.”
The presumption of his response rankled Effie. She was about to come to her employer’s son’s defense, but stopped and sucked in a breath. The dead hunt the hills. Conall’s translation of Jean-Nicolas Durand returned to her. Had the man been in the Borders before his flight to Aberdeen? It would make sense, given their deduction of the Barrow Witch’s location. In an odd way, the state of his mind, too, resembled that of the men and women they’d faced at the castle.
She pictured Scotland in her mind and wondered over the caches of Aerfenium. Certainly for Durand to have obtained a measure from Edward Waite, he need not be anywhere near the Borders, but it made a kind of sense that one would be hidden here. The area was rife with tales of fey lore. Squeezing her eyes shut, she drew a mental line from the Storr to Edinburgh. The same line, if stretched farther, would run past the city and shoot like a dart for the Eildon Hills near Melrose.
“Are you all right, miss?” asked Sweet Tom Reedling. “I meant no offense.”
“Thomas the Rhymer,” she said. She tried to recall the auld tales. “The tree where he met with the Fey Queen is near to the Eildon Hills, is it not?”
“Aye, on the way from Melrose to Dryburgh,” the lad answered. “I’ve seen it myself.”
She had no time for another thought. The howls of the wulvers started once again. But this time, as the cries tore through the night, the auras of the pack flooded into her awareness. More than a score of the creatures spread in an arc behind them. At their center, a pair of bogills stood like huntsmen eager to flush their prey into a frightened flight.
Effie searched for Gaelyph. But of the warden, she could find no trace.
25
“Too many,” said George Gresham. His mount wheeled in circles, bucking in panic. Effie urged their mounts to calm, but the same thought flashed in her mind. They would not be able to stand against so many, and they could not run. Their only hope lay in her Fey Craft. She had to wrestle the attention of the wulvers away from their Unseily masters and drive them off.
Steeling herself, she let her senses meld with the pack. She felt the hunger that drove them into a frenzy. She tasted the slaver on their tongues. She knew better than to try and quell that desire. Instead, she pulled at it, bringing forth the image of a drove of hares fleeing in panic through the grass-covered fields.
She had done something similar years before, when she had only begun to learn of Fey Craft.
The wulvers howled. Their chorus sang through the night until Effie couldn’t hear the men around her. She saw only the quiver of their mouths as they gestured and peered into the darkness, waving with their spears and rifles.
Effie began to shape her next image of Fey Craft, but as she did she felt the familiar touch of a fetid weed. It snaked around her waist in a damp strand, slimy and oozing, yet firm. She ripped at it, severing the link from its owner, and a dozen new strands took its place.
The bogills sought to entangle her, she recognized, as she tore at the phantom weeds. If they succeeded, they would block her from her fey senses, removing her ability to work Fey Craft. Effie dropped the image of the hares. She couldn’t hope to win the wulvers to her will, not as she struggled to defend against the bogills. The concentration needed was too great. But the wulvers were not the only creatures roaming the night. With a small sliver of thought, she scoured the area around her companions.
Sweet Tom Reedling’s rifle popped in rapid succession. Yet the soldiers were not trained cavalry, nor the horses battle-tested mounts. The lad struggled with his seating, yanking hard at the reins to keep his balance. Effie couldn’t see what he had fired at, but she sensed the wulvers stalking forward as a pack, tightening their arc.